#also its been raining all day & i love rain. its like my wife is here to cheer me up
Note
i clicked on ur blog and for some reason my brain went and said "u already used up ur forfy ask of the day" ...which is silly of me!! anyways im using this moment to remind u to do at least one thing to bring even a little extra joy to ur day today :3
the forfy inbox is always open this thang can fit so many asks in it go absolutely wild
ive been looping aru sekai series songs all day (yamete kudasai, shuuen touhikou, currently oumen mokushiroku which was my only song all day yesterday too) the joy is stored in the obscure song series that rips my heart out every chance it gets <3
i was going to doodle something but my hand & wrist are getting fucked over from work hours so im just going to chill with the isotope plushies & think of scenarios that will never happen 👍
#asks#kuki#also its been raining all day & i love rain. its like my wife is here to cheer me up#wrist be damned im drawing tomorrow if it kills me bc going two whole months without drawing is mentally taxing#i joke about mind poison but a solid 35% of my current lamentations would be cured if i could create something#'i cant even draw i have nothing going for me i could disappear & no one would notice' shut UP#@ self we need to get u time to draw & be gay. that will cure u.#sorry for this note i just feel like im going to esplode soon and not in the fun way#i have like 4 asks i want to answer oopsie i'll get to them when i get there this is the least overwhelming thing rn
1 note
·
View note
Text
The Fisherman's Wife | Oneshot
no-outbreak!AU, no-Ellie!AU (😞), (basically it's pretty much devoid of anything canon, I'm sorry 😭 I just was desperate to see Joel as a fisherman.)(also don't ask what time-period this is set in i have no clue)
pairing: fisherman!Joel, soft!Joel x afab!fem!Reader
content: arranged marriage, angst, fluff, smut.
summary: The free-spirited Reader is arranged to marry a divorced Fisherman named Joel Miller. And although she protested this at first, she soon wonders if maybe she could be happy with her new husband.
word count: 28.2k (yeesh)
warnings: NSFW 18+ - MINORS DO NOT INTERACT. mentions of death, age-gap (reader is 27, Joel is 48), smut - oral (f receiving and m recieving), fingering, unprotected p in v sex, reader is inexperienced (meaning loss of virginity), lovesick Joel, and not beta'd! (if i left anything out please let me know :))
(oh and an obscene use of Y/N bc i write in third person 😩)
Ao3 Link
A/N: Hiii~!!! so usually I write fics for a completely different realm of content. but I haven't been able to continue my most recent fic bc this idea has been stuck in my mind for fricken weeks!!! and it wouldn't get out of my head until i actually wrote it down. TLOU has just been on my brain constantly these days i guess 🙄 (🥰). anyways i thought i'd write it, post it here, and then disappear back into my usual corner of the internet, never to be seen again 😈. i hope you enjoy my story!! ILY <3
Far out from the rainy coast of the Pacific Northwest, sat a small island, always caught in the throes of an aimless sea. It was called the Isle of Ardor. Named after the burning passion of love. It was a peculiar name for the island, as it was always embedded within dark, curling swirls of stormy rain clouds; As well as the sour emotions that came with the storm— provided, of course, by the residents of this Isle. So the island was often left without the feeling of love. Neglected, for lack of any other words. Far from the symbol of love that was known by the world.
Sure, there was the love that was bestowed by marriage, when a man first sets his sight on his arranged lover dressed in white. Or even love passed between a parent and a child, when a mother first hears the first laugh that tumbles out of her sweet childs lips. Or the fumbling platonic love that creates itself in whispered secrets during sleepovers between friends. But none of it was burning. None of it was passionate. It was a simple form of love. A perfect representation of the simple life that was often led on the Isle of Ardor. Despite its exciting name.
A more fitting name would perhaps be something more simple. Unembellished. Basic. Ordinary. Sturdy. Something to match the uniform march of the adults in this town, as they traveled along the cobblestone roads in early morning light. Headed towards their humdrum jobs that kept the economy of this island churning like a slow cog in the machine. Meanwhile, the children were taught about this monotonous life in school. Sat rigid in their seats, the stiff collar of their uniform scratching at their necks. Forced to listen, forced to learn that there was only one path for them to take. All signs pointed, roads led and everything suggested that these children— Just as their parents, and their grandparents— were destined for a life of simplicity.
It was the exact opposite of what Y/N wanted. She abhorred the idea of simple. She wanted excitement. Yearned for passion. Craved the burn of love that left scars on your heart and bruises on your lips.
Her wants and desperate needs were proven in the way she grew up. There wasn’t a day that went by where she wouldn’t step out of line. Her wrists would be sore from the snap of her teacher's ruler. Her ears would grow tired of the constant reprimand from her father. And her knees would bleed freely from the times she would escape the horrid monotony of life, out into the nature beyond. But the island was small, and her feet could only take her so far, so she would always easily be caught. She would return home with her sore wrists, tired ears and bloody knees, and sit by her bedroom window, hoping for something greater to take her away.
It never came.
Eventually, she grew older. She matured, and she learned how to stay in line. For the most part. But as she aged, her tongue grew sharper with wit, and she soon often got in trouble for using words that could rival a sailor’s. By the time she was of marriageable age, no one on the island wanted anything to do with her. This all of course was to the dismay of her father. Who at this point thought that he would never be rid of his rambunctious daughter.
He loved her with all of his beating heart, of course. But on the Isle of Ardor, all fathers wanted the same thing for their daughters. By the age of eighteen, they wanted their girls to find a satisfactory suitor to take care of them so that the fathers didn't have to worry as they faded into their old age.
By now, all of Y/N’s classmates were already married. While at the age of twenty-seven due to her wild nature, no one had brought any offers to their household for her hand in marriage. Her father grew weaker and weaker as worry settled into his bones.
Y/N on the other hand was ecstatic by her lack of prospects. Being a spinster meant she didn’t have to worry about some silly husband, wife or partner she didn’t truly care about. If people thought she was crazy? So be it. It was all worth it for the price of her freedom.
And now as she had no other burden brought on by school or a job, she would oftentimes be found by the raging ocean. Her toes deep in the blackened sand, skin salted by the sea and her hair tangled by the mischievous winds. And this is exactly where she was the minute she found out about the news that would tear her world apart.
Her father had found her a suitor.
The news was brought to her by the young messenger boy who would carry the most recent word of mouth with him on his rusty bicycle. Her father had flagged him down, offering a bill or two to find his daughter and bring her home immediately to meet the man she was destined to marry.
The poor boy. He didn’t deserve to be met with the rage of a mad woman, but that was what he stumbled across when the news of her arranged marriage escaped from between his lips. At the sight, he suddenly understood why she was considered the town spinster. She was angered and chaotic, screaming into the wind when his words finally registered. She looked like a feral animal, the way she gnashed her teeth, yelling about the unfairness of it all.
Him being no older than ten years old, couldn’t really understand why she was so upset about this news. She mumbled a few things— Something about her loss of freedom and self expression. But it was all very strange. He was used to the usual reaction from young women whenever they heard the news of their engagement. They were always… ecstatic. Squealing like pigs as they clutched onto their nearest friend, family member or even just a stranger. Or if they were unhappy with the prospect of marriage— just as Y/N was now— they were always able to hold their tongue until they were alone.
Her reaction was all just very… strange. Very different.
And different, it was. She now sat, stewing in her anger, refusing to even spare a glance towards her future husband.
A celebratory dinner, made carefully and happily by her aunt, sat on the wooden table stretched between them. It was all the distance she needed to ignore the man she was meant to be betrothed to. But even though she could avert her gaze, there was no getting past listening in on the conversation that flitted between this man and her family members.
She had learned that he lived on the other side of the island. So now it made sense that she didn’t recognize his surname when the messenger boy first told it to her. She barely got to know the names of her neighbors, let alone those on the windward side.
He was known as Joel Miller, only learning his first name when her father greeted him at the beginning of the evening, with a sturdy handshake at their front door, the casual name falling from his tongue as they exchanged niceties. As she stood behind her father’s shoulder, she refused to look at him even then, her eyes steady on the toes of her boots.
Now at the table, the topic of his occupation also arose during the conversation. He spoke of his adventures out at sea, and what he encountered in his life as a fisherman.
Typical. A fisherman. The most sought out job on this island as they were mainly considered as gods since they provided the island with prosperous amounts of food and good fortune. The people that held the title of ‘fishermen’ were always the most sought after when it came to marriage. Y/N wondered how her father was able to find a man like that for her.
But as the dinner went on, the secret was soon revealed. Because she soon learned that his wife had left him. Many years ago, late in the night as a stowaway on a cargo ship headed towards the mainland. The only thing worse than a spinster was a man whose wife had left him. And now the puzzle pieces were fitting together.
They were a match made in heaven. The crazy woman and the unwanted man.
Y/N felt nothing but sympathy for his first wife. Surely, she was just the same as she. The only reason a woman would leave her partner was if she yearned for freedom beyond the tassels of marriage. Maybe eventually, Y/N would make the score two for two. Leave him behind just as his first wife did. The thought brought an overwhelming onslaught of anticipation that burned within the girl's core.
But she had to be patient. She couldn’t just leave him when all eyes were narrowed in on their engagement. The whispers on the street all revolved around her, and how she was finally able to snag a man after all these years. Even more speculation was offered when they found out who the man was. Apparently these two were a circus act around the Isle of Ardor. A horrific accident that none of the residents could tear their eyes from.
Maybe that’s why their wedding was so crowded.
A few weeks had past, and she had yet to grant the man with her gaze. All she knew of his looks was the quick glimpse of silver she saw scattered amongst the brown in his hair, and the hard set of his jawline, clenched in an anger that seemed to always be present. So as she walked down the aisle, her fingers clenched around a wilting bouquet of daisies, she kept her eyes pointed towards the horizon that lingered in the distance.
Traditional Ardorian weddings were always held in the same place. On the cliffside, hanging over the tempestuous sea that always danced near the shores of the Isle. The same clergyman, performed the same ceremony, spoke the same gentle words every single time. She has been to countless versions of this very same wedding throughout the duration of her life. Though, she never thought that it would be her who was forced to stand under the wedding arch. Especially in her late-mothers wedding gown, in front of the entirety of the small town that sat on the coast of Ardor.
The most surprising part of it all was when she exchanged her ‘I do’s’ effortlessly and without any complaint.
Maybe that was what also surprised most of the wedding-goers, as they began to whisper to one another. The crowd seemed disappointed, almost as if they expected a spectacle from the woman they deemed a recluse. From the rumors they’ve already heard through the grapevine, maybe they were expecting her to grow reckless with abandon. To stomp her feet and scream out to the gods. So when they were met with this quiet, timid version of the woman, who spoke her vows with no contradiction, they all stood and left the wedding. Completely missing out on the part when the man was told to kiss his bride. Which he didn’t even do.
A very strange wedding indeed.
It all came to a head when the man called Joel finally brought his new wife towards the threshold of their (used) marital home. It was a few hours after the ceremony, and usually this part of the evening was paired with bright, eager smiles as newly-weds were finally allowed to consummate their love. However, as we already know with this couple, the night went very differently than the norm that is usually presented.
As soon as he had unlocked the door for his established home, the woman stormed through the front entrance, her eyes darting around each corner as she took in each aspect of her new home. Trying to find something to dislike. But it was an agreeable home. Comfortable and cluttered with trinkets that must’ve meant a great deal to the man. It was… interesting. So after finding nothing she could truly complain about, and be the disastrous wife she planned to be, she whipped towards him in an unexpected flurry, her arms folding across her chest.
Her eyes finally landed on him for the very first time. And she stilled.
He was older. Much older. But she already knew that from the information she learned from her father. What she didn’t know was how good age looked on the man. He was handsome... And so much larger than she had thought. His shoulders were wide, emphasized as he stood in the doorway. His hands looked strong and calloused, obviously capable of working against the aggression brought forth by an unforgiving sea.
Then there were the features she had only caught glimpses of, but yet she was overly familiar with— due to the flashes of her memory that blared across the dark of her eyelids whenever she tried to sleep. His brown curls were unruly across his forehead, despite his attempt to manage them with gel, most likely trying to look put together for the wedding. They were painted with faint hues of gray, evidence of the twenty-some years he had against her.
Her eyes tugged towards his familiar jawline. Strong— just as she remembered. But it wasn’t clenched in anger, or anything else of the sorts. His features were molded in a form that looked to be like curiosity. Maybe this was the first real look he had of her as well…
That’s when she met the deep brown irises of his eyes. The sight of which was a drastic contrast of anything else she had known of him. They were almost… warm and forgiving, bordered by the faint outline of crows feet, formed over the years. His gaze was soft in the way he considered her features and dragged over the curves of her body. So different from the harsh lines of the rest of his body.
She held her arms tighter against her form. Feeling vulnerable under his stare.
“I don’t know what you’re expecting to happen…” Y/N finally spoke the first words she ever said to the man who was considered to be her husband, “But I can assure you that it’s not what you’re thinking.”
The man simply stared at her, his eyebrows raising at her words. She took a step back as he took a step inside, but felt foolish as he only did so to turn around and shut the front door behind him. The familiar sea breeze now lost to them.
When he turned back around, he spoke the first words he ever said to the woman who was considered to be his wife.
“I wasn’t expectin’ anything.” He replied, his sentence simple and his accent faded.
She had heard his voice before. When he was speaking to her father and reciting his vows. But now that it was directed towards her, it finally dawned on her how deep it was. How it rumbled through his chest in such a way that it settled deep within Y/N’s bones.
She was perturbed by the sensation. So much so that her next argument was lost on her tongue.
“Follow me.” He said, in the absence of her words.
Since there wasn’t much left to do, she did just that. The small house shifted under the weight of their footfalls as they ascended up the creaky stairs. Y/N’s eyes were trained on the sight of his broad back, taking up so much space as he ventured through the hallways of this two-story home.
Her eyes were soon torn away from his form as she took in the decor of the rest of his— their house. It matched what she saw downstairs. Everything was nautical themed, something common within the homes that littered this island. But the way this house was decorated was different. Instead of the manufactured ocean aesthetic that Y/N was used to, everything about this house was… natural. The way she felt in this house felt exactly how she felt on the beaches that ringed around this tiny island. She never thought she’d ever meet anyone who was able to capture the essence of the natural world so effortlessly. She began to soften, similar to what she felt when she saw that look in his brown eyes.
She squared her shoulders against the thought, forcing her resolve back to the forefront of her mind. This was the last place she wanted to be. She had to remind herself of that.
“This is your room.” Joel muttered in that deep voice of his, stopping at a door sat at the end of the hall. His large hand twisting the golden doorknob, it swung open as he pushed against the wood.
“My room?” Y/N questioned, as she stood on her tiptoes, staring into the confines that were now revealed from over Joel’s shoulder. She took in the sight of a wrought-iron bed, a vanity and a wardrobe built out of dark-stained wood. Furniture to call her own for the first time.
“Your’s.” He nodded in confirmation. And then he stepped aside, letting her venture further into the room. She breathed in the fresh air that was granted by the windows that still stood open against either wall, crickets calling through the crevices, seeping in from the dark of the night.
She ran a hand over the handmade quilt that covered the mattress, cool against her palm, unslept in for months— maybe years.
The floorboards squeaked under her feet as she turned quickly towards where Joel was standing. But the doorway was empty. Her words of gratitude fell flat against the air now that there was no one to direct them to.
He must’ve snuck off as she was admiring the room, assuming she wanted to be left alone. Which she did. But no one had ever respected her privacy before. She definitely wasn’t expecting the courtesy from the man she was forced to marry.
A weird feeling wormed its way into Y/N’s heart, one she had never felt before. She chose to ignore it as she plopped onto the mattress, springs squeaking under her weight, staring at the vacant space where Joel once stood.
~
Weeks passed by, and neither one of the newlyweds tried to make any contact with one another as they resided in their separate bedrooms.
Since Y/N was now destined to be a doting housewife, no one had any expectations for her beyond the household she currently lived in. And since Joel was avoiding her just as much as she was him, it was easy to dismiss his heavy footfalls that rang out against the house in the early hours of the morning. All she had to do was wait until they faded off the steps of the front porch, and then she was free to roam the house that was now half hers.
Though after her exploring was finished, most of her days were spent in the garden, overgrown from lack of maintenance, but Y/N happened to like it that way. She was elated to find it, as she stood on the precipice of the backyard that very first morning. And now Y/N could be found curled on the antiquated porch swing that sat among the weeds, a book cradled in her lap, stolen from the office she also discovered on her second day of living with her new husband.
However, as she relaxed in the garden, sun shining over every inch of her exposed skin, guilt would soon riddle her bones. It was another feeling she wasn’t used to. But now that she was married and now that she knew that Joel wasn’t the horrible intrusive husband she thought he would be, she decided he deserved to come home to a warm meal. So eventually— after a few of her days spent basking in the sun, the guilt becoming too much— she would one day venture to the market nearest their marital home and pick up ingredients to make the man some dinner after his long day at the docks.
She would never actually eat with him, of course— only leaving the homemade food in a ceramic pot stationed in the middle of the kitchen table. But she hoped her gesture proved enough that she wasn’t exactly angered by his newfound presence in her life.
Despite the fact that she still planned on her escape.
It was obvious that Joel wasn’t a bad husband. And of course, that brought pause to the woman. She wondered what exactly it was that drove his first wife to leave him when he wasn’t nearly as bad as she thought. But the mystery still couldn’t counter with the fact that Y/N was desperate for her freedom, and desperate for a love that would set her heart on fire. Surely she couldn’t find that sort of thing on this tiny insignificant island. She had to escape. Didn’t she?
The topic stayed constant on her mind as she perused the books in Joel’s tiny library (library being a generous term, it was actually just one shelf tucked in the corner of his office). One day, in the living room, she even stumbled upon a great big atlas that Joel had left behind, turned open on a page that showcased an image of the world. All the little squiggles and lines that made up the map of their great big earth, her soulmate must have resided within one of those faraway places. He couldn’t have been so close, on the tiny dot that represented the Isle of Ardor, it seemed impossible.
Now lost in thought about chances and percentages, the young woman paid no mind to the time that passed as she flipped through the large pages of the atlas. The sun was dipping low beneath the horizon, painting the skies with pinks, and oranges. She had yet to even make dinner when Joel had walked through the front door.
She stood quickly from her spot on the couch. As a habit, her tongue fumbled through the words that would leave her mouth whenever her father would return from work.
“Welcome home.”
Joel paused in the doorway. His brows furrowed in confusion since by this time the woman was usually found locked in her bedroom. And typically, when one welcomes you home, you’re supposed to reply with some form of gratitude, at least this was custom to the Isle of Ardor. But Joel was at a loss for words. To have his new wife, ready and expectant of him was unfamiliar. Especially since she had granted no interest in him for the past few weeks.
“I forgot to make dinner.” She told him, seemingly desperate to fill the silence. Her tone was soft with apprehension, she looked like a timid little rabbit. “I’m sorry.”
Taking in her words, and the sight of her— chest heaving as she stood by the couch, almost as if she were caught in the act of something despicable— Joel soon realized that this was all an accident. He wasn’t meant to find her like this. She had only gotten lost within whatever activity she was currently indulging herself in.
He caught sight of the atlas he left on the couch late last night. It was there since he was currently making plans for his upcoming fishing trip, but it was quickly forgotten once the threat of sleep had forced him to make his way back towards his bedroom. Was that what she was looking at? His lips parted with even more realization, if that was the case. He had a sneaking suspicion why she would be interested in a book like that. But he wasn’t about to ask her any incriminating questions.
“That’s alright.” He breathed, shutting the door behind him and foregoing any accusations he could potentially throw her way. “I can make something.”
“No, please.” She begged, as if guilt forced her back into the role of a doting wife. “You’ve had a long day. Allow me.”
She moved through the small living room of the house in long strides, headed towards the kitchen. She was determined to be the good wife she promised to be when she made her vows. Even if it was a lie at the time. Even if it still was as she planned for her escape.
As she brushed past Joel, her wrist was suddenly encased in a pool of unexpected warmth. His calloused fingers were wrapped firmly against her skin. In the month that they had been married, this was the first time he had ever touched her. Her heart lodged itself in her throat. Her gaze shifted so that she was staring wide-eyed up at her husband.
“Let me help you.” He murmured, his own eyes pleading her for something she was unsure of.
“Okay.” She whispered, nodding her head slightly, since there was nothing else she could do.
Now here they were, standing in their humble kitchen, stove hot and burning as they both stood over the swirling pot of spices, vegetables and fish. This form of intimacy was unfamiliar to them. It was the closest they’ve been in weeks, and it felt far more vulnerable than it did when they stood across the aisle as they spoke their vows. Joel’s hand was gripped harshly against the wooden spoon as he stirred the contents of their stew. Y/N’s fingers were latched onto the salt shaker, her eyes trained on the little grain of bitter crystal that was lodged in one of the holes.
“Here.” Joel practically whispered, holding up the spoon for his wife to taste. She glanced up at him through her lashes, hesitantly, before slowly leaning forward.
Her supple lips formed around the wood as she slurped at its contents. Joel shivered at the sight. He knew that his new wife was pretty, but seeing as she took his requests so willingly, was a sight to behold. Her lips seemed so plush, and the way her eyelashes fluttered against her cheeks as she blew cold air across his offered taste, almost had him down on his knees. His adam's apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed harshly against his dry throat, mind littered with filthy innuendos.
“How’s it taste?” He asked, his voice strained, forcing away the provocative thoughts that forged to the front of his mind.
Her brows furrowed in concentration as she held the flavor on her tongue. But soon a small grin flickered across her features. Joel’s stomach dipped at the sight. A feeling he hadn’t felt in years— maybe decades... maybe ever.
“It’s good.” She replied, wrapping her own smaller fingers around Joel’s hand as she brought the spoon up for a second taste. The touch of her hand was a shock, to say the least. It was only their second instance of skin contact and yet it was so much different than before. Only because it was her that was touching him. Willingly— no, purposefully. Embarrassingly enough, the surprise of it all was somehow too much for the older man. The spoon slipped from his grasp, clattering against the tile, splashing stew across the lower half of the surrounding cabinets, as well as the long hem of Y/N’s skirt. Joel took a large step back, the heat of shame licking up his neck to the tips of his ears.
“Sorry— I— Sorry.” He stammered, finishing his words somewhat lamely. He felt like a shy little school boy, he couldn’t even meet her gaze. It was humiliating.
That was until he heard the sound of her laughter. Soft and tinkling, with no hint of malice. She wasn’t laughing at him, she wasn’t even laughing with him. It was more like she was laughing at the entire situation, or maybe at nothing in particular. He finally braved a glance up at her, to see those supple lips curled into a bright smile. His heart lurched at the sight.
She didn’t say anything. Didn’t acknowledge his fumbling apology, instead she shook her head slightly, rolling up the sleeves of her sweater, a smile still apparent on her face as she got to her knees and began to clean up the mess. She didn’t even worry about the splotches of blooming red that was scattered across the white fabric of her pretty skirt. She let it stain. Lasting proof of the very first dinner they shared as man and wife.
He served it up in heaping spoonfuls. Steam lazily swirling up from the hot meal, confined in ceramic bowls that Joel had pulled from the cabinets. After Y/N’s laughter had faded from the air, the only sound that graced their ears was that of spoons scraping against the stoneware as they savored their last bites.
No words were spoken as they sat at the kitchen table. And the woman couldn’t decide if it was awkward or not. She was never one to be deterred by the presence of silence, but she was curious if the man who now sat across from her was.
Not that he was a man of many words. He was silent in the very way he lived. His actions were always careful and well thought out. Maybe that’s why she hadn’t heard of him before their betrothal. You don’t turn the cogs of the rumor mill if you keep to yourself. Which is what Joel seemed to do.
So maybe he liked the silence. Y/N decided she did as well.
Though it was finally broken when they stood at the kitchen sink, Joel was washing the dishes while Y/N dried— All serenaded by the sound of running water and clanking utensils. That was all it was until his words filtered in through the white noise.
“I’m leavin’ tomorrow.” He told her, eyes trained on the tiny soap bubbles attaching themselves to the skin of his hands. They were iridescent in their color. The distraction of it left the furrow between Y/N’s brows unknown. She wondered where on earth he could possibly be going. But the question was soon answered as he continued.
“It’s the first fishin’ trip of the season. Gonna be gone for a week or two.” He explained. Her mouth formed around a silent ‘ah’ as understanding dawned on her.
Fishing expeditions were always a big spectacle in this little town. Caught in glimpses on her way to school, Y/N always observed the teary-eyed farewells passed between the fishermen and their families. Hands up in the air in enthusiastic waves of goodbye as the ship drew further out to sea, becoming a small insignificant dot and then turning into nothing against the horizon.
She liked the return days far better. They always seemed much happier when loving arms wrapped around trembling shoulders, a warm embrace to signify how grateful the fishermen were to be brought home safe and unharmed. It was one of the few times this island lived up to its name.
And now the woman was left wondering if Joel expected her to become one of the teary-eyed family members waiting down by the docks.
“What time are you leaving?” She asked, carefully setting down the bowl that resided in her hands, it clinked against the wooden countertop.
“Early.” He replied, his large fingers hooking around the faucet lever, shutting off the constant stream of water. In its absence, the silence was louder and the same could be said of that deep voice of his. “Don’t worry. I’ll try not to wake you when I leave.”
So now the question was answered. He didn’t expect anything from her. Just like he said that very first night. It was still a foreign concept for her. She wasn’t sure if she truly believed it.
Though the belief finally found her when she woke up late the next morning, the sun deep in the sky, shining bright over her bed and warming her skin. She laid there for a minute, staring up at the ceiling as she considered the quiet state of the house. It was silent now more than ever. Left without the sound of Joel’s familiar footsteps as well as a final goodbye.
~
The time spent alone in the little house was surprisingly dreary.
At first— once the realization that she had the house to herself settled in, the woman was ecstatic. She had never been left to her own devices before. Usually she would have to cheat her way out of the ever-present company of her family, just for five minutes of precious solitude. Now she had hours of it— days of it. It was exhilarating. It was freeing. It was… lonely.
And maybe just a little bit scary, as she curled under her sheets at night, unable to explain away the creaks that filtered in from under her door now that Joel was gone.
Joel.
The absence of him presented Y/N with the unexpected discovery that he was a form of comfort that surrounded the walls of this house. Almost as if he were the protector of this hearth. And now that he was gone, the little noises she heard at night shifted into dark threatening creatures within the confines of Y/N’s overactive imagination.
She cursed herself for her sudden lack of backbone.
However, the daytime was somehow worse. Because at least during the night, her fear would soon subside once the calming tendrils of sleep coaxed Y/N back into her dreams. But during the day, when she was sitting on that squeaky porch swing, boredom would be the next thing to burden her. And there was nothing she could do to alleviate herself from it.
There were only so many books in Joel’s collection. Only so many rooms that were left to explore (excluding the master bedroom of course). And only so many activities that she could think to do to distract herself. So as she sat there aimlessly, swinging back and forth under a late afternoon sun, it dawned on her that she was most entertained when navigating this new delicate life that she shared with Joel.
Which eventually brought her to the greater realization that it wasn’t fear or boredom that caused the ache that burned low in her stomach. No, it was the fact of the matter that she had simply missed Joel. One might describe that ache as yearning. But Y/N would definitely not be the one to do so. So she ignored the feeling.
She ignored it until it was replaced with the growing buzz of anticipation when the day of Joel’s return finally arrived.
Excited whispers were passed from mouth to ear as everyone spoke about the ship's return. Y/N had caught a conversation while perusing the pitted-fruits at the market, relaying the information that the boat was set to dock later that evening. And as she quickly returned the contents that resided in her basket— replacing it with enough ingredients for a meal made for two rather than one— Y/N wondered if she was perhaps sharing in the excitement that took over the small island.
Which would be very odd, for she never once felt united with her fellow townspeople, and she could hardly believe that she was excited to see the man she was forced to marry. Though the oddest thing was, (and this was still unbeknownst to the young woman herself) was that she hadn’t thought of her underlying desire to escape, whatsoever. Not even once while she was left alone for the past two weeks, which by all means would have been the perfect time to plan her getaway. But the notion was completely lost to her mind as she hurriedly made her way back home so that she could start on dinner.
It was a sight to behold.
Later that evening, as Joel stood in the entranceway, limbs overtired from his harsh venture out to sea, he thought he was hallucinating. The last thing he expected when he walked through that door was to be met with the image of his wife, looking oh-so pretty in a light blue dress, waiting eagerly by a table full of food. The whole scene of it was washed in a golden light from candles set across the room. It was set to look like a dream. Was he dreaming?
He had thought their dinner the night before he left would be the last one. In fact, he had thought that would be the last time he'd ever see her.
Joel wasn’t an oblivious man. He knew how she felt about this whole arrangement. It was obvious in the way she would avoid looking at him when they had first met. And even if he couldn’t see the hatred she harbored for him within her irises, the woman wore her heart on her sleeve. He could see her indignation in the way she huffed around the house and stomped her way into the garden. Which was all made much more confusing when she started leaving him hot meals after his work was finished by the dock. He didn’t anticipate such a kind gesture from her.
She was a mystery. But he supposed she leaned more towards the side of completely hating his guts as she was still bent on avoiding him those first couple of weeks into their marriage.
Not that he could blame the woman. He only said yes to her father’s proposition because the man looked so desperate. He was practically down on his knees. And Joel couldn’t say he wasn’t enticed by the idea of not having to return to an empty home any longer.
But Joel wasn’t attached to the idea of their marriage.
So if she wanted to avoid him, he would grant her the space she needed. If she wanted to huff at him in anger whenever their paths did cross, he would take the onslaught. And if she wanted to escape into the night, never to be heard from again, who was he to try and stop her?
In the meantime, he would enjoy the meals she left for him.
Then came the night when she decided to share it with him. Sure, it was an accident. And the entire encounter was fumbling and awkward. But it sparked a small bout of warmth deep within his chest.
He supposed that feeling was hope. Or at least that was the conclusion he came to as he was rocked to sleep by the ebbing waves underneath his ship. He had felt hope before, it’s been a long time, but he knew what it was. That’s all it could ever be. But what was he hoping for?
Hope that this could be something more than a marriage certificate? Hope that she would stick around, at least for a few more weeks? Hope that he would see her face amongst the crowd as their ship pulled back into the dock?
When he didn’t see her, the warmth was lost to him. And in its absence that’s when he knew that’s exactly what it was. Without that flame of hope, he was now shrouded in darkness just like he knew his house would be when he returned under the setting sun.
So he was not expecting this. Not at all.
“You’re here.” He said, the words tumbling from his lips before he could stop them. A little line appeared between her two brows as confusion riddled her features.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” She asked, head tilting with the question.
“I don’t know. I just… thought that maybe you’d be gone.” He replied, shaking his own head slightly as he admitted his suspicion out loud.
Busted.
Y/N’s shoulders tensed as the words hung in the air between them. She should have known that he’d catch on to her plans, she wasn’t usually the type to be subtle with her grievances. But there was a twinge in her stomach at his admittance. The one thing he expected of her was exactly the one thing she wanted. And he would’ve let it happen. The hidden honesty in his words coerced the same thing from her own lips.
“I thought the same thing.” She confessed, a small bashful smile forming on her lips. The corners of Joel's mouth twitched up into a fleeting smile. It was gone within seconds. But the gleam of it still shone within the depths of his brown irises.
Then he offered her a small understanding nod. And that was all that was needed. The flame of hope flickered on.
They both took their seats and ate the homemade dinner in comfortable silence.
~
The same fragile routine had now taken place every night since then. As soon as Joel would return home from the docks, he would be greeted by the sight of Y/N chopping up the chosen vegetable for that night. If he came home early enough, there would still be certain tasks that needed to be finished, and she never complained when he would step in beside her with freshly washed hands— the sleeves of his flannel rolled further up his forearms— ready to help.
He liked those times the most. There was something serene in the way they moved around the kitchen together, as if they were living proof of perfect harmony. So most days, Joel would finish the menial tasks at work as quickly as he possibly could to return home before she finished cooking. He was greedy for more of these interactions to hold under his belt. And he would always be slightly disappointed whenever he found the table already set. Though that grievance wouldn’t last long as he was soon greeted by Y/N’s smile, that seemed to be getting brighter with each passing day.
Unfortunately for Y/N, she was not granted with the same reassurance.
As it turns out, Joel was a brick wall of a man, which was a fact he was completely unaware of. So his expressions of contentedness were lost on the woman. She wasn’t observant enough to notice how he would return home from work earlier and earlier each day. Or to catch on to the way his eyes would linger on her while they silently ate their dinner.
What she did notice was how he never smiled. It was as if he never learned how to. Maybe he had been a sad little baby from the moment he was born. Or perhaps he did know how to smile, and he just never had a reason to. Not even now. Not even with her.
Which, to be honest, was a punch in the gut for the young woman, since she had been finding so much joy during the times they shared together.
She tried to be rational, because Joel had always been a very unemotional man. But Y/N’s brain always kicked into overdrive whenever she was left alone with her thoughts, and it always boiled down to the conclusion that perhaps Joel just didn’t like her very much.
Oh, how the tables have turned. One minute she detested the man she was betrothed to and in the next she lapped up any attention he had gifted her like a small pathetic puppy. She was desperate to know more about the man. What was it that made him smile? Who was he? What were his interests? What was he like as a child?
And why on earth would his first wife ever leave him?
She had found out the answer to that— as well as caught her first glimpse of the surprising range of his emotions— all in the same night.
There was a storm that evening. Dark and unrelenting as the onslaught of rain pounded against the roof of their quaint little house. Big bolts of lighting hung low in the sky, illuminating the world in small fractions of time. The thunder rolling deep on its heel.
Joel was hours late. The dinner that sat on the table was ice cold. Though that fact was unnoticed by the woman, as she paced the distance of the kitchen, her bones wracked with worry. This was the perfect example of how her mind kicked into overdrive in times of distress. She assumed the worst.
She imagined Joel dead, left unbreathing, body lost under treacherous waves.
Panic quickened the beat of her heart. Any efforts she made to calm herself fell flat. Reason and rationality were lost to her completely. All she could do was to keep moving her feet.
Back and forth. Back and forth.
Until her feet took her further. Soft footsteps rang out against the floor of the living room and then up the stairs. They paced the length of the hallway a few times until the woman found herself stationed in front of the door to the master bedroom.
Her hand had somehow found itself gripped around the cool metal of the doorknob.
When she twisted it, the door swung open with ease.
It was easy for Y/N to dismiss her worries when it was replaced by a burning curiosity. She stood at the precipice of his bedroom, eyes flickering over every surface.
There was a large bed that sat in the middle of the room, left untidy by the man who stumbled out of it early that morning. The image of his large form tangled in the sheets flickered to the front of her mind, before she forced herself to focus on the next part of the room.
There was a bay window, looking out over the back garden. The bench underneath it was adorned with countless throw pillows, a detail that must have been added by his previous wife. Joel didn’t seem to be the type to appreciate that type of decor. A weird surge of jealousy was added to the other emotions she was already riddled with that evening. It burned bright behind her sternum.
But then her gaze roamed over the bookshelf that towered over the rest of the room. It resided next to a door, but what could potentially be hidden behind it wasn’t what had her feet moving deeper into the room. (Since it was most likely a bathroom, anyways.)
It was a picture.
Sat on one of the middle shelves of the bookshelf. It was framed in an intricate engraved pattern of gold-painted wood, a happy memory captured in black and white.
Frozen in time was the image of a young girl— most likely not even reaching double digits in her age. Her smile was bright and somewhat stubborn as she grinned up at her from the frame. She had dark skin and soft eyes that reminded the woman of Joel. Her hair framed her face in disorderly curls, tousled by the seabreeze. Y/N smiled softly at the wild look that sparked in the girl's irises, as if ready for any adventure that would be thrown her way. She ran a finger over the smooth glass, like she could caress the girl's face in her own hands.
“What are you doing?”
It wasn’t the words themselves that caused the woman to drop the picture, but rather the rage that was intertwined within them. Her eyes snapped up to find Joel standing in the door, backlit from the light in the hallway. His brown hair was matted against the skin of his forehead, soaked by the heavy rain. The rest of it dripped off of his clothes as they clung to his skin, creating a puddle around his boot-clad feet.
The glass of the frame shattered once it hit the floor.
“Who told you, you could come in here?” He seethed, reaching her in just a few long strides. She cowered against the bookshelf in his advancement but the collision never came. He bent towards the ground, large hands shifting through the broken glass.
“I-I’m sorry.” Y/N stammered, dropping down to help him. He pushed her hands away.
“Don’t.” He snapped.
“Why would you do this?” He then added, his words were harsh. He looked up at her, his eyes were dark with his wrath. A small pathetic sound squeaked out of her throat, she shook her head, unable to find the words.
And then the next thing she knew, she was running. Was it the anger that caused her to run? Or perhaps her own embarrassment. She didn’t know. But the sudden invasion of his unconventional display of emotion had become all too much. The same feet that carried her towards the master bedroom brought her out into the garden.
Y/N barely realized where she was until she registered the harsh rain that bombarded her skin, her hair and clothes instantly soaked as she ventured out among the overgrown weeds. Her legs didn’t stop until her palms wrapped around the familiar wood of the porch swing she spent so much of her time with. Her shoulders shook with shame, cursing herself inwardly for her intrusiveness.
And then… Somehow, through the howling wind, Y/N had heard her name.
She whipped her head towards the house to see that Joel had followed her. He charged through the storm, through the vegetation that whipped wildly in the wind, until he reached her. She expected more of his anger.
Instead she was met with two large hands cupping her cheeks.
“Are you hurt?” He asked over the raging of the storm, before she could make any questions of her own.
“I— what?” She faltered, her hands instinctively moving up to caress the skin of his wrists.
“Are you alright?” He repeated himself with new words, his brown eyes flickering over each feature of her face, as if he was making sure each part of her was still there.
“It’s only rain. Of course I’m alright.” She answered, a bit impatiently. Did he really think so little of her and her competence?
“You certain?” He asked, and that’s when Y/N took notice of the panic that resided in his brown irises. His breathing was dissonant and in a sense, frightened. This was something else entirely.
“Joel.” She said her tone shifted drastically from annoyance to something much softer. But his movements were still frantic as he searched her for any injuries.
“Joel!” She said again, louder this time, hoping to gain his attention. When she didn’t, Y/N tightened her grip around the wrist of his right hand, and shifted it towards her beating heart. She hoped he could feel the proof of her life that thrummed against the skin of her chest.
The evidence of her heartbeat calmed Joel down, his breathing evened out.
“I’m fine.” She murmured, tilting her chin to kiss the palm of his left hand. She was unsure of what brought her to do it, but it seemed to help as Joel then pulled her into his chest, his strong arms wrapping around her shoulders. He sighed once he felt her weight against him.
“I’m alright.” She reiterated into his soaked flannel. His arms wound tighter around her.
And then they were back inside. To her objection, he had made her take a shower, to extinguish any chill that the rain might have instilled in her bones. She almost got away with not taking one until her chattering teeth proved her otherwise. He had given her such a demanding look that she had no other choice but to do as he said.
So once she was showered and dressed in warm pajamas, (and once he did the same). They were now sitting in the living room. Her knees were curled up to her chest as she sat on the couch, Joel’s feet were solid against the patterned rug that sat beneath them, in an armchair angled directly in front of her. Their usual silence had found them again. Was it comfortable or not? Y/N had yet to find out. Joel broke it before she could.
“I’m sorry.” He told her, his cheeks pink with shame and his eyes averted to the ground. She shook her head in defiance to his apology, even though she knew he couldn’t see her.
“No, it was my—” She tried to counter. But he pursed his lips, causing her to promptly keep her mouth shut.
“I shouldn’t’ve yelled at you like that.” He said after a brief pause.
“It was well deserved.” Y/N admitted, lifting her shoulders in a shrug. “I shouldn’t have entered your room.”
Joel shook his head the same way she did, only slightly, but Y/N caught it.
“It was about time, anyways.” He commented. She resisted the urge to pry for more, cause she knew that eventually he would indulge in her curiosities. And he did.
“She was my daughter.” He murmured, knuckles white from his grip on the arms of the plush leather chair he was sitting upon.
“The girl. In the picture.” Joel clarified when he was met with her silence. But Y/N already knew that. Her silence to his explanation was due to the word he used. Was.
She repeated it out loud, in the form of a question.
A sigh escaped Joel's lips, he leaned forward, his forearms resting on his knees. He still wouldn’t meet Y/N’s gaze.
“Do you remember that storm twelve years ago?” Joel questioned, his palm running over his forehead as he prepared himself to tell this story. Y/N responded with a soft ‘yes.’ It was a horrible, outrageous storm that caused so much damage to their little town. So much loss and heartache that hung over the island, even to this day. She was fifteen years old. The fear of it all was still present in her memories.
“Well, my daughter… Sarah. She…” His voice cracked, he dragged in a shuddering breath. “Somehow she got outside. Debris from the old farmhouse across the street was picked up by the wind. Pierced right through her—”
A sharp sob interrupted his sentence. Y/N wasted no time. She pushed up from her spot on the couch and was on her knees, sitting in front of him in a moment's notice. Her hands were splayed across his own thick thighs, she squeezed her digits around the muscles in reassurance. He didn’t need to say anything more. The picture was painted.
“She was nine years old.” Joel whispered into the hand that was still hiding his features, finding the courage to speak more about it once he felt her touch through the fabric of his pajama pants. “Nine years old, and she lost her life.”
And now everything was clear. It made sense why he was so scared for her life out there in the garden. He had experienced a loss like that before. A cruel twist of fate that took the life of his daughter. Right in his front yard.
“I wish every day that it was me instead of her.” He admitted, more sobs wracking through his body, large shoulders shaking.
It was peculiar to see him like this. Usually he was such a vision of strength, but now that these emotions were presented to Y/N, everything made so much more sense. He was hiding himself. Scared of more loss, if he opened his heart up to anyone else. This was only more confirmed as he continued.
“My wife— My first wife, she couldn't handle the loss of our daughter.” Joel relayed, “I don’t think she was happy with me. Not until Sarah was born. And once she was gone… She didn’t have a reason to stay…”
His words died in the air after that. But yet again there was no need to continue. Y/N understood. And all she could do was shift her hands so that her arms were now wrapped around his neck. She pulled Joel in as close as she could, her waist now fitted between his thighs. He clutched onto her in return, fingers gripping into her nightgown. His head resting in the crook of her neck, mouth pressed against the tendon.
“I won’t leave you.” Y/N whispered into his hair, still damp from the recent shower.
She wasn’t exactly sure what brought her to say those words, but once they were hanging in the air she knew them to be true. And she knew he did too once she felt his lips form into a distinguishable kiss against her skin. It was faint, but the spark of it lingered, and it changed everything.
~
A few months had passed since the night of the storm and a lot had changed for the woman, at least inwardly. But their routine? It was all the same. They would make dinner, share in their comfortable silence (sometimes punctuated with lighthearted conversation) and then they’d return to their separate bedrooms. Every. Single. Night. Nothing more, nothing less.
It was a bit frustrating to say the least.
And then he would leave every few weeks, on a venture out at sea. Where he would be gone for days at a time. And of course, she would miss him terribly. But would Y/N accompany him to the docks whenever he would leave? No. Would she ever be there to greet him home? Also no.
So it was safe to say that the blame was partially on her. Which frustrated the woman even further, because now she couldn’t even rely on the fact that the indifference was all one sided. Her actions apparently proved otherwise.
But what was it that she wanted to change? Maybe she expected their conversations to be much lengthier now that they had crossed the boundaries of hidden grievances. Or maybe she expected him to extend an invitation to sleep in his bedroom, now that they had participated in small instances of physical touch. Whatever it was, Y/N only knew one thing.
It had seemed they were still stuck at square one.
And with every one step forward there were three steps back. Not so long ago they were so close, lips against skin in the quiet of their living room. Safe in each other's arms as the storm raged on. But now? There was nothing.
She resented the fact that she was falling into the wants and desires of the common Ardorian townsman. It all seemed very mundane against the aspirations she held close to her heart before she was married. But as she stewed in these feelings— especially during the times that Joel was away— she wondered if these desires were just part of the human experience. Perhaps they were even the desires that came with the burning passionate love she yearned for…
Now that she knew what it felt like. It all seemed so natural. You meet the one who befuddles your heart and soul and all you want is… more, more, more.
Would she ever get what she was hoping for?
Maybe she could, if she was brave enough.
The opportunity presented itself the eve of Joel’s next expedition.
He had gotten home early that day, so he was around to help finish up dinner. Y/N remembered being unable to look away as his large hands sliced each potato that needed to be added to the pot. He was attentive with his actions, just as he always was. She was jealous of the knife that resided gently in his grasp. Heat burned under her cheeks at her desperation.
Of course every detail of her wants and needs went unnoticed by Joel. Everything about their usual marital customs went off without a hitch, why should he think anything different could happen?
They ate their meal in silence. They cleaned up after themselves, as always. And then they slowly made their way up the stairs, just like they did every night.
Joel stopped on the landing at the top. Y/N followed his actions. This wasn’t unusual, the same thing happened on every eve of his long departures. He stood, towering above her, she looked up at him with hopeful eyes.
“I’ll be gone before you wake up.” He told her, his voice gruff. She nodded, once. Simple and to the point. Just like always.
Joel nodded back in confirmation and then turned to go, like a captain dismissing his subordinate. It was all very formal. Almost passionless, which was such a great contradiction to what the young woman was feeling inside of her chest. She was just about ready to burst. So even though she wasn’t exactly intending on doing so— she wasn’t surprised when her hand shot out to clasp her fingers around his wrist, stopping him before he disappeared into the secret confines of his bedroom.
“You okay?” Joel asked, once he was facing her again. His eyebrows were furrowed in concern, but that wasn’t the way she wanted him to look at her. She shook her head, but it wasn’t an answer to his question. It was more like she was trying to tell him that that was the wrong thing to ask. Or rather, the wrong thing to do.
“What’s wrong?” He inquired.
As it turned out, Joel was not a mind-reader. And since Y/N was too afraid to speak out loud about any of her desires, she did the next thing she could think of.
Her hands moved to grasp firmly against the lapels of his flannel. The floorboards beneath her creaked as she shifted onto her toes. She pulled Joel closer— closer than he’s ever been. She squeezed her eyes shut— almost like she was terrified when really this was all she wanted— and then before either of them knew it, she slotted her mouth against his own in a fervid kiss.
Joel stilled under the soft touch of her lips, surprised by the action, heart thrumming in his chest as he wondered if this was real. But the hesitation only lasted a split second before he reciprocated her kiss, leaning into her. The eagerness of which had caused their bodies to shift so that Y/N’s back was against the wall. She gasped against his lips, the grip on his shirt loosening.
He pulled away, but only slightly. His nose brushed against hers as he searched her eyes for any protests. He only found her pupils blown out with lust, paired with an indiscernible nod, a concession to keep going.
In an instant, his large hands were now cupping her face, calluses rough on her skin but she didn’t mind— in fact she relished in it. Her fingers twisted into his shirt once again as he traced her bottom lip with his tongue, pulling another soft gasp from her. He used that to his advantage, slipping his tongue against hers. She whimpered at the taste of him, earning a groan that rumbled deep in Joel’s chest, each of her sweet sounds causing an involuntary twitch from behind the zipper of his pants.
Joel was becoming more eager, selfish for more of that saccharine sound, his hands started to inch downwards. Smoothing over the curve of her neck, following the path of her shoulders, trailing down her arms, until his hands rested near the small of her back. He pulled her in closer, away from the wall. His fingers clutched onto the fabric of her dress. In a haze, he gathered more and more of the cotton within his hands, unknowingly exposing Y/N’s skin as he did.
She shivered as the back of her thighs met the frigid air, and soon almost the curve of her ass. It brought more attention to the heat that was pooling between her legs— A more intense version of a feeling that she’s only felt a few times before. It was harsh and greedy and it only grew stronger as Joel detached himself from her lips.
A whine spilled over her tongue at the loss, but all was forgiven when he began to press ardent kisses to the skin of her neck. She arched her back into his large frame, bringing notice to her nipples pebbling under the lace of her bra, another moan escaped her lips. He returned the noise with his own grunt of pleasure as his beard scratched against her supple skin. Suddenly she was aware of every single part of him.
His lips sucking softly at the skin just below her jawline. His flannel-clad chest was strong and solid underneath her hands, heartbeat pulsing into her palms. His own larger hands pulled her closer between every groan that vibrated through his throat. And then there was the hard heat of him pressed against her lower stomach.
The sign of his arousal had caused an ache so deep within her core that it shocked her. It was new and exciting, but it was overwhelming and it made her afraid of the strength that her desires possessed. The burn of shame licked white hot against her skin.
Joel— unaware of her inner turmoil as his lips kissed against the tendons in her neck— was given quite a shock when her hands pushed him away with surprising strength. He stumbled backwards, back hitting the other wall of the hallway. His eyes were wide and fearful that he did something wrong. Cheeks splotched a pretty color of pink and his lips swollen from her kiss.
Y/N covered her face with her hands, embarrassment and immense arousal caused her shoulders to tremble.
“I’m sorry.” She squeaked between her fingers, “Um, Thank you for… that, but I should…”
She backed away as she spoke, her sentence unfinished as she quickly escaped through the door to her bedroom. It slammed shut, abrasive in the action itself.
Joel stood with his back flush against the wall and a harsh strain against his zipper as he stared dumbfounded at the wood of her closed door.
~
Her humiliation kept her within the boundaries of her room the entire morning that next day, refusing to step even one foot out into the rest of the house until she knew Joel was gone. The sounds of his footsteps came and went just like they did every time he left for the docks. But Y/N’s dread seemed to have projected itself into the way time moved.
It felt like ages before he was actually gone, almost to the point where it felt like he was dragging his feet, hesitating to go. Like he was waiting for something to happen.
But that couldn’t have been the case, because Joel had his morning routine down to an art. So Y/N was convinced it was her own hallucination that caused time to move at such a snail’s pace.
Once the sound of the front door swinging shut rattled the foundation of their home, Y/N finally allowed herself to breathe. Just his very presence within this house— even separated by walls and other rooms— had such a strong effect on her that she couldn’t let herself recount the events of last night until she was certain she was completely alone.
And once those images returned to the forefront of her mind, she immediately pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes.
Though that only made the memory of it stronger through the stars that burst behind her eyelids from the hard press of her hands. A frustrated whine escaped her lips as she squirmed in her sheets. The movement of it caused her to take notice of the slick pooling in her panties, ever present since the first touch of Joel’s lips.
She rubbed her thighs together, trying to relieve some of the ache (though of course her efforts fell flat).
How was this at all possible? How was Joel able to pull such aggressive lust from just one single heated interaction?
Maybe it was because no one had ever touched her like that before.
The awkward, clumsy kisses she had shared with others in the past couldn’t hold a candle to what Joel had done to her. Forgotten was the memory of her very first kiss, which was frail and timid like a wounded bird. Or those later in life which were nice and gentle, but nothing special. Those moments of her past were now replaced by a roaring beast of want and desire. Joel had made her feel like the world had shifted on its axis, that he shifted it himself with his own two calloused hands. Just for her. And that was only with the touch of his lips. What else was he capable of doing?
The sheets rustled under Y/N’s weight as she quickly sat up in bed, regret stirring deep in her belly. She just realized— what with the way she reacted last night— she may never be able to find out. It was such a monumental milestone for their steady forming relationship and she had ended it by pushing him away and leaving him behind in the dark shadows of the hallway. She hadn’t even spared a glance in his direction, his reaction to her abrupt dismissal will remain forever unknown.
Or at least until he returns home.
But that wouldn’t be for another three days. Sure, luck was on the girls side since it was on the shorter side of his usual expeditions. But seventy-two hours left a lot of room for her overactive imagination to run rampant.
And she was now stewing on the outlandish conclusion that based on her reaction Joel would never want to touch her again. The frustration of that notion followed her throughout her morning.
It prickled at her skin as she stood in the shower, the hot water not doing enough to wash it away. Her skin was practically rubbed raw by the time she stepped out into the steamy bathroom, her hopes to scrub away her humiliation going down the drain, along with the lavender scented soap bubbles.
It caused her hands to shake, as she tugged the soft green fabric of her favorite dress over her head, the skirt of it swirling around her ankles as it fell into place. Y/N had thought if she wore her favorite clothing item that she might feel better about the whole situation.
But it didn’t help.
In fact, none of the aspects of her usual morning routine had helped her calm her beating heart, or her racing mind, or even the arousal between her legs— that, yes, was still there despite her forcing away any reminder of how it felt to have Joel’s lips on her skin.
She now stood at the kitchen counter, her eyes clenched shut as she begged her brain to conjure up any other image. But that just brought up a confusing mixture of childhood memories intertwined with the heavy sound of Joel’s breathing in her ear. Which made her feel shameful as she felt so much more different than the young restless girl she was back then. Was this the loss of her innocence? She supposed it was.
But then again, she was married to Joel. And these feelings were quite expected for a wife to feel towards her husband. There was no reason for her to feel ashamed by these thoughts, especially if they seemed reciprocated— brought forth by the evidence she felt last night pressing against her stomach.
The reminder brought heat up to her cheeks and that very same ache deep in her core when she had first felt it.
Y/N breathed in the air around her, dragging it into her lungs, pushing it out in a heavy wistful sigh. A flash of Joel’s hands flitted across her mind. Goosebumps littered her skin as she recalled the way his fingertips felt on the skin between her neck and shoulder.
Subconsciously she brought her own fingers to that very same spot. Tilting her head, she dragged her fingernails over her skin in slow circles, causing shivers to run up and down the length of her spine. She imagined how Joel’s hand was soon replaced by the soft touch of his lips, and her hand moved to her collarbone, a place she wished he had discovered with his tongue. Another sigh left her lips as her imagination replaced her hand with Joel’s. Her eyes were closed again, softer this time as she conjured up the fantasy.
Lips against skin. Hands wandering. Breathing heavy.
Though the tantalizing image soon vanished into the air like a bubble popping, when the sound of the front door slamming shut rang out through the tiny house. A gasp slipped from between her lips as she whipped around towards the intrusion. Her palm flush against her chest to calm her beating heart.
The sight of Joel standing in the doorway knocked the air out of Y/N’s lungs. It was as if her improper thoughts had manifested him to be standing right there in front of her. The curls of his hair were askew, as if he had been running his fingers through it, over and over. His large chest was heaving with slow heavy breaths, the same way her own chest was moving.
He swallowed, the adam's apple in his throat bobbing. He shook his head slightly, his brows furrowed, and then he looked back towards the door he just walked through. As if he hadn’t realized where he came from or what he was doing.
“Joel?” She questioned, her tone was breathless, desperate for something to fill the silence and tension that was slowly forming between them.
“’m sorry.” He breathed, when he turned back to her, his eyes shining with something that Y/N couldn’t quite place. Was it surprise? Curiosity? “Didn’t mean to scare ya.”
“What are you doing here?” She asked, somehow feeling brave enough to take a step forward. “I thought you were leaving on your trip?”
“I was— or I am.” He stumbled through the words. “It just got delayed for a couple hours. There were some last minute repairs needed on the ship…”
“And you had enough time to come back?” She questioned.
Joel paused, swallowing again. His eyes scaled over Y/N, taking in the look that resided behind her irises, the way she was breathing heavily, and how that green dress caressed her curves. She looked like she had just been caught in the act of something inappropriate, despite her just standing in the kitchen. An endeavor that was innocent in and of itself. But— god— the look of her, standing there in the golden light streaming in from the window above the sink, she looked downright sinful. Or maybe that was his own lust taking control and projecting itself onto her.
A lust that had kept him on edge this entire morning. Throughout the night too, when he was restless in his bed— remembering what happened between them— tossing and turning like the ocean tide. It never relented, so much so that when Tommy told him they had a few extra hours, Joel’s feet were already moving back towards his truck so that he could spend that time with Y/N. In this house. And even though he told himself to behave when he walked through the front door, It persisted. Even now as he stood in front of her, taking in the sight of her blown out pupils, eyes darkened with what he hoped was that very same lust.
“I forgot somethin’” He then said, as he realized she was still expecting an answer. “Had to come back to get it.”
“Oh… alright.” She replied, blinking as if she were just pulled from a trance. “What was it? I can help you look for it.”
Joel shook his head, deliberately this time. He took a step forward, the tension growing thicker as he did. His brown eyes held her stare. “I know where it is.”
His words were soft as they rolled off his tongue, causing an involuntary shiver to forge its way through Y/N’s bones. It was much more forceful than what she had felt under her own touch, only a few minutes prior. Joel must have taken notice of the effect that his voice had over her body, as he dragged in a low shuddering breath.
He took another step forward. And then another. And another, until he joined her in the kitchen, standing right in front of her, their chests only centimeters apart. Y/N had to tilt her head up to be able to look him in the eye. Which she was shocked she was brave enough to do, considering how he looked like he wanted to devour her.
“What are you doing?” She whispered, her eyes flicking down to his mouth as Joel dragged his tongue over his bottom lip. The sight of it was magnetic, pulling her in so that her chest was now brushing against his with every breath.
“Tell me to stop.” He said, his voice in that same hushed tone. “Tell me to stop, and I will.”
Y/N, defiant in her own nature, replied. “What was it that you forgot?”
“I didn’t forget anythin’.” Joel told her, honestly, his fingers moving to pinch at a piece of her flowing skirt. As if the small action would keep her right there in front of him. Where he was desperate to have her. Hoping that it would keep her in place instead of having her running away like last time.
“It’s more like…” He continued, tilting his head down so that his forehead rested against hers. She gasped at the skin contact, relief flooding her form as she quickly realized his touch wasn’t lost to her like she had feared. “Somethin’ I regret not doin’.”
“And what do you regret, Mr. Miller?” She murmured, her eyes averted to the floor beneath their feet. The surname fell out of her mouth unexpectedly, as if garnering his respect would grant her the knowledge of his secret.
“Well, Mrs. Miller…” The reminder that she shared that very surname with him by holy matrimony caused a jolt of surprise to coarse through her veins. But it was replaced with satisfaction soon enough. She marveled at the fact that she wasn’t exactly bothered by the concept, in fact she almost relished in it. And then Joel said his next words.
“I can show you exactly what that is… if you’ll let me.”
She didn’t have it in her to speak. Any reply that she could’ve had was lost in the back of her throat. All she could do was to nod eagerly, any shame she could’ve had at her desperation was tossed out the window.
“I need you to use your words.” Joel said in response to her movements, his voice hoarse as if he were holding himself back and the action of doing so was terribly difficult.
“I— Yes… please, Joel.” She whispered, her breath fanning across his cheeks. “I want you to show me.”
This time, Joel was the first to bring their lips together in a zealous kiss. The green fabric that resided between his forefinger and thumb was soon shifted to be gripped by his hands as he pulled her in. Their bodies were now flushed together. The softness of her breasts pushing into the solid form of his chest. Simultaneous sighs of relief intermingled on their tongues when they finally let themselves melt into one another.
Y/N gasped into his mouth when his teeth nipped at the plush skin of her bottom lip. She had already known how brash he was with his movements from their kiss last night, but now it seemed as if all of his inhibitions were lost to him, his hands now smoothing over the curve of her ass. Joel’s fingers gripped at the supple flesh through her dress, pulling her waist into his own.
She moaned at his touch, as well as the sign of his arousal digging into her hip. Her arms shifted to wrap around his broad shoulders, her fingers digging into the muscles on his back, urging him to move closer, if that were even possible.
And in this instance, she wasn’t disappointed by the loss of his lips, because he was quick to replace them somewhere else on her skin. It was as if he had to kiss every inch of her before he moved on to undiscovered territory. Joel’s lips were kissing at the corners of her lips, and the apples of her cheeks before he moved down to her jawline.
Though this was where he became more selfish in his actions, nipping at the skin so he could hear the sweet little whimpers that would waver from between her lips. Then he would lick over the bruised skin, soothing her of the slight pain he might’ve caused, heart hammering at the soft sighs of satisfaction she gifted him. Joel groaned at the sounds she made, relishing in the glory of every moan, whine and sigh. He could feel as he grew harder against the strain of his pants, the pain of it almost too much to bear. But this wasn’t about him. Instead, it had everything to do with the woman arching into his lips.
Thick fingers curled around the square neckline of Y/N’s lovely dress, knuckles brushing against her sternum as he tugged down at the fabric. A sharp gasp rang out into the air as her sleeves slid down her arms, allowing the exposure of her nipples to cold morning air, already hardened by her arousal to the man committing these actions. The flesh of her breasts bouncing slightly from the momentum in which he moved.
Joel pulled his mouth away from her, eager to get a look.
Y/N could feel herself flush under his stare, suddenly shy as he drank in this new image of her. She wanted to look away and hide in her self-consciousness, but she couldn’t take her eyes off of his dilated pupils and the endearing shade of pink that tinted his cheekbones. A burning need was flashing across his brown irises, the sight of it sparking an odd sense of confidence in the woman. She straightened her shoulders, letting him look at her. Because he would be the only man who would ever get to see her like this.
He groaned again, at the sight of her perked nipples paired with her newfound boldness.
“S’ pretty.” He mumbled, smoothing a large hand up over her breast, he could feel the pebbled skin pricking into his rough palm. She hummed at the compliment as well as his touch. Though a second later it was replaced with a harsh ‘ah’— pulled from her lips when his hand shifted so that he could pinch at her nipple.
It was the most torturous form of pleasure she had ever felt in her life. That was until he guided her body until she could feel the kitchen table digging into her lower back. His free hand gripped at the flesh under her ass, lifting her up and making it so that she was now sat against the surface. With her now stationary on the table, he was able to bend over, lips finding purchase on the nipple that wasn’t trapped between his fingers.
A high pitched moan was ripped from her throat as she subconsciously spread her legs, Joel’s hips fitting perfectly in the space between her thighs. Her hand splayed out on the wood behind her as she arched into his tongue that was now currently swirling lazy circles around the sensitive bud. And though she had never done anything like this before, her hips started to move in the only way that seemed natural. The only way that seemed to relieve the ache that pulsed between her legs.
Y/N rolled her hips up into Joel, the hardness of him firm against her clothed center, soaked from her constant arousal since their first kiss. She wondered if she would make a mess of the pants he was wearing, but the thought was fleeting once Joel pulled away from her skin.
“Fuck.” He stammered, resting his forehead in the valley of her breasts, his brown curls tickling her skin. “D-don’t do that, darlin’.”
Y/N stilled. “Why? Did I hurt you?”
He laughed breathlessly, the air of it fanning over Y/N’s chest. “No, nothing like that… Just feels t’ good.”
“Oh.” She said, a bit bashfully, but a small smile tugged at her kiss-bruised lips. Pride started to swell deep in her stomach at the admission that she made him feel just as good. And that idea was too precious to pass up on. “Then maybe I should keep doing that.”
She grinded her hips against him again, forcing him to remove himself from her chest, sucking in a harsh breath. His hand shot out, gripping onto the supple flesh of her inner thigh, now exposed as the skirt of her dress had shifted during their hectic movements.
“Please, sweetheart.” Joel begged, his nails digging into her leg. “You gotta stop.”
“But I wanna make you feel good.” She pouted, hips stilled by the brace he instilled upon her. Joel released a shaky breath, moving his forehead to rest on Y/N’s once more. His gaze was averted to the green fabric bunched up under her breasts, his brown eyes lost to her.
“You have no idea how much I want that— how long I’ve wanted that.” He murmured. “But I came back here for a reason.”
His voice sounded more determined by the end of his sentence. In doing so, it made the woman’s tone that much smaller, but she was still quite the contrarian to his words.
“I thought this was the reason.” She countered, sliding her hand up behind his neck, fingers toying with the curls at the base of his hairline. This time it was him shivering under her touch.
A soft smile curled upon Joel’s lips, he shook his head against her forehead, in slight laughter. “No. It’s close to what I was picturin’... but not quite.”
“Then what were you picturing?” She asked.
Joel leaned back, finally gracing her with the sight of his eyes, He didn’t answer her question, only holding an excruciating form of eye contact with the woman. And then, the once rough fingers that had tugged at her clothing and groped at her flesh were now trailing soft patterns into the skin of her thigh. Y/N’s breath hitched in her throat as they started to move closer to the spot between her legs. The ache she felt for him was now burning with great white heat.
Her own hands were gripping in their respective areas, meaning one was tugging at Joel's hair, pulling satisfied groans from his lips, while the other was locked around the edge of the table. Her hips jutted forward by their own accord when his fingertips skirted around the edge of her panties.
“Joel.” She whined, frustrated by his featherlight touch, though strangely enough also reveling in his gentle caress.
“I know.” He whispered, dropping his head onto her shoulder. “I know… I’ll give you what you want— just let me…”
He splayed his large hand onto her thigh, pushing against it so that she’d spread out wider for him. There was no resistance from her, only eager relinquishment. There was a harsh twitch of his cock at the thought that she would let him do anything with her, along with the idea that her body was all his for the taking. A covet he never thought would come into fruition.
“Please, Joel.” She urged again, and Joel realized right then that he was just as much hers as she was his. He would do anything for her. His body ached to give her exactly what she wanted.
So he did.
Y/N gasped when his thumb pressed firmly against the darkened spot on her panties, a similar gasp falling from Joel’s lips when he finally learned how wet she truly was. And it was all for him.
He moved his digit at an agonizing pace, moving in slow circles around the most sensitive part of her, not even sparing a fleeting touch to the bud of nerves. The torture of it all was exquisite. Y/N’s head fell backwards as she moaned, the tendons of her neck stretched out in front of Joel, the sight of it too enticing for his own good. He leaned forward, touching his lips against her skin.
Now having to focus on two things at once, his movements against her core became sloppy, and his touch harshened, slipping over Y/N’s clit. An embarrassing squeal forced its way from her throat as she jutted her hips fiercely into Joel’s thumb. He grinned against her skin.
“Oh, you liked that, didn't you?” He chuckled, placing more kisses down her neck, his beard scratching her skin as he moved. Y/N had a response to his teasing tone, perhaps it was even quick-witted, but it was stolen from her lips and replaced with another desperate moan when his tongue swirled around her nipple.
It was all becoming too much with every tiny ministration he committed on her skin. She felt as though she could burst into flames. Little did she know that it would all come to a head when Joel would kiss his way down her body, heavy knees dropping to the floor. There was no patience left within him when he practically ripped Y/N’s panties off of her body, hands roughly pushing her thighs apart.
“J-Joel, what are you doing?” She questioned, forearms braced against the table, being pushed back further up the furniture as Joel started nipping at her inner thigh, goosebumps following in his wake
“‘m doin’ what I came here for.” He mumbled into her skin, teeth grazing the malleable flesh. She was about to ask exactly what that might be, but the question was answered when he licked a long stripe through her slick folds.
Curses tumbled out of Y/N’s lips as he used his mouth on her. Never in a million years would she imagine that he would do something so… obscene. And she never would have anticipated how much she loved it. Her eyes were wide as she marveled at the sight of him. His brown eyes were staring back up at her from over her mound, drinking in every little reaction he spurred from her. His hair was wild, the look of it brought on by Y/N’s fingers as she ran them through the tendrils, forcing him closer and closer. And then there were the noises of him slurping and groaning and relishing in the taste of her.
At the beginning, Joel was slow with his actions, his tongue going up and down the length of her slit. Again he would frustratingly avoid touching her clit, tracing big circles around the bud, building up anticipation deep in Y/N’s stomach. But as he continued, every so often he would flick over it pulling more whimpers from Y/N’s throat. He would moan against her folds in satisfaction, the vocalizations causing slight vibrations to run through her entire form.
Y/N’s head fell with a soft thump against the table, her back arching up into the air, squirming under Joel’s actions. A hand snaked up from Y/N’s thigh, placing itself on her sternum. His palm was rough against the skin between her bare breasts, holding her down and keeping her in place.
Finally, seemingly deciding that the woman had been through enough torture, Joel wrapped his lips around her clit, sucking on it harshly. She all but screamed at this new sensation overcoming her, her right leg slipping over his left shoulder, unknowingly trapping him in place. They were locked in a heated tryst, his hand still braced on her chest, her calf pushing into his back and Joel’s mouth and tongue were still unrelenting.
She couldn’t help but to twist her fingers into his hair, tugging him closer against her cunt, she grinded her hips into his face, any tribulations that she might be hurting him lost in her pleasure. But if only she knew how much Joel adored her desperate nature as she chased after her high on his tongue. In fact he had never been this hard in his life. He could feel himself dripping inside of his pants, making a mess of his boxers as precum spilled from his tip with every twitch of his cock. His hips were thrusting into the air beneath the table in his own desperation. The seam of his zipper was rubbing firmly against the length of him. Joel honestly would not be surprised if he ended up cumming without even having to touch himself.
And as it turned out, eventually he would.
Joel’s name was now falling freely from between Y/N’s lips in broken fragments. The movements of her hips were becoming clumsy, stuttering as Joel continued to lick at her clit, groaning everytime she pulled at his hair. The heat burning low in her stomach began to grow hotter and more incessant. And with one more deliberate move of Joel’s tongue against her clit, it all began to burst.
The sight of Y/N cumming was the prettiest thing Joel had ever seen. Her head was thrust back against the table, supple lips drawn open as more of her moans escaped into the air, along with the sound of his name. Her whole body was tensing and shaking as the waves of her orgasm washed over her body. Joel’s mouth was ruthless on her cunt, drinking anything she had to offer him as the proof of her orgasm splashed over his tongue. The sight of her, as well as the taste of her, was all too much to bear as his own hips involuntarily jutted into nothing, the confines of his pants working against him in a way that had him finishing. He shuddered at the sensation, his shoulders trembling as he could feel his own cum spill into the fabric of his underwear. He whimpered into Y/N’s cunt, breathing sharply out of his nose, still trying to coax her down from her own orgasm as her body became limp and her breathing heavy, until finally everything started to slow down.
Searching hands groped around until they finally found purchase on Joel’s shoulders. She tugged at his shirt, forcing him away from her oversensitive core and out from between her legs.
She was met with eyes blown out with lust and a fading orgasm, red lips parted in amazement and beard shining with her cum. His clothes were askew and his brown curls were all over the place. He looked completely out of it. Though she probably couldn’t say she was much better.
And Joel admired the image of it as he stood above her. She blinked up at him, leaning back on her elbows, a look of pure wonderment painting her features. Her green dress was bunched around her middle, nipples still perked in the cool air of the kitchen, her chest stuttering with every breath. He smiled softly at her, leaning to snake a hand around her waist, pulling her up into a sitting position, her hands instinctively looping around his broad shoulders.
“You alright?” He asked gently as he stood her on shaking legs, the skirt of her dress now falling back in place. She shivered when she felt the touch of his knuckles on her chest once again as he shifted the top of her dress back in its proper position.
“I— um… yeah.” She said breathlessly, words lost to her in her post-orgasmic state. Joel couldn’t help but grin at her flustered demeanor, bringing a hand up to her cheek. She was grateful for his touch, leaning into his hand as he caressed her cheekbone with his thumb. He leaned down, placing a gentle kiss to her lips causing Y/N to taste herself upon his skin.
“Did you… get what you were looking for?” Y/N questioned, once they pulled apart. Earning soft laughter deep from within Joel’s chest. The sound of it quirking up the corners of Y/N’s lips in a shy smile, pride swelling in her belly since she was the one who caused it.
“That I did, sweetheart.” He smiled, running a hand over her hair, his eyes sparking with contentment. Her shy smile morphed into that of a bright grin, pulling him back in towards her to share a deeper kiss. He groaned into her lips, unexpected for the both of them as another surge of lust sparked between them, seemingly unsatisfied by what they had just finished. She whimpered back into his mouth as tongues started probing and teeth nipping once again. At a particularly boisterous moan from Y/N, Joel had to pull away.
“W-wait.” He breathed, “I— We can’t, we don’t have time. I have to go back.”
Y/N deflated at his words, but ultimately nodded her head in understanding. She took a step back from him, needing the distance to quell her need to melt into him once more. Though Joel’s fingers quickly wrapped around her own, stopping her from moving away any further.
“You’ll still be here when I get back, yeah?” He asked, the question causing Y/N’s heart to drop down to her stomach. As she looked at him she found insecurities scrawled across his features. Maybe she hadn’t done enough to convince him that she wasn’t going anywhere. Or perhaps this was leftover from pain he endured in the past. She brought his hand up, brushing her lips across his knuckles in a sweet kiss, and then covered that spot with her free hand.
“I promise.” She whispered, her gaze locked on his searching eyes, flickering over her features, trying to find the truth. When he found nothing but her earnest smile he felt brave enough to go, but not before leaving her with one more breathless kiss.
Y/N had watched silently as he got ready to leave, washing his face with the bar of hand soap left on the side of the kitchen sink. She didn’t say anything as he readjusted his clothes and threw his bag over his shoulder. And she didn’t beg him to stay when he finally placed that final kiss upon her lips. All she did was sink further and further into the throes of missing him, despite the fact that he was right in front of her.
It only grew stronger as he whispered more promises of continuing when he returned three days later. She held onto that promise, close to her chest like a dying flame, watching as the view of his truck disappeared over the horizon.
She prayed to the gods above that time would fly quickly.
Though perhaps she should’ve been praying for something else entirely.
Because later that night and hundreds of miles out from the shoreline, a little ship bobbed at sea. The workers on deck scrambled in preparation. Worry stiffened their brows. Prayers to Poseidon fell from their lips. A soft pattern of rain began to sprinkle over their heads, it was unassuming in its very nature. But that was just the first sign of the oncoming danger as they headed into the eye of the storm.
Three days came and went.
Joel had yet to return home.
Y/N knew that the life of a fisherman was dangerous and unpredictable, she had heard many stories, most of which when she was younger, whispered to her by her classmates as they relayed the most gory details from the sad news of a shipwreck. Some were overheard at the local pub, traumatic events recounted around a bottle of brandy as fishermen tried to top each other's stories.
Frankly, these stories hardly bothered the young woman like it did to others in town. She couldn’t indulge in the disturbance of it all because the way these stories were told, relayed like an unattainable fairytale. It was all folklore in her mind. She was certain that nothing like that could ever affect any aspect of her life.
She was eating her words now.
It was on the sixth day that Joel was gone when she heard that it was a storm that delayed their ship, knocking it off its course.
The information was brought to her front doorstep by her very own father, who in his old age made the trek across the island to do so. This left Y/N’s stomach unsettled, for he would never go to such great lengths unless something truly terrible had occurred.
She was reminded of the day her mother died. He adorned the same face that painted his features now. Eyes downcasted, lower lip trembling, hands twisting around his patched cap. He was sitting on one of the wooden chairs strewn around the kitchen table. Y/N was leaned up against the counter, her arms wrapped tightly around herself.
“We didn’t get the message until early this morning. Radio was down, they barely got it workin’ when they reached us...” He said quietly, to the toes of his boots.
“And?” Y/N urged, knowing her father had more to say.
“They lost a few men.” He said quickly, as if he couldn’t stand to have the words left on his tongue. Y/N sucked in a breath. She turned around, facing the window over the sink. She braced her palms on the counter, vision blurring as tears pricked the corner of her eyes.
“Did they say who?” She asked, words choked between her tightening vocal cords, constricting from her tears.
“No, couldn’t keep the signal for long enough.” He murmured, she could hear him stand, the legs of the chair squeaking against the tile. “But they did say they’ll be returning by this evening.”
Y/N whipped around at that, her features twisted in vexation. The lead buried so much deeper than it needed to be. She would have to keep her annoyance left unsaid, however, as now there was no time to waste.
She brushed past her father hastily, ignoring the way her name was called after her as she staggered around the living room, clumsy in the way she tugged her boots over her feet. Her jacket was long forgotten on the hook by the door as she hurried outside, the thought of it only coming once the cool winds whipped at her exposed arms and cheeks. But she wouldn’t turn back for it. Her adrenaline kept her warm, anyways.
It was a two hour walk to get to the docks. Beads of sweat ran down her spine, blisters pinched at the heels of her feet, her breathing was labored as she pushed her anxiety out of her lungs. Though none of that mattered. All she knew was that she had to get to the docks. She had to get to him. If he was even there…
She swiped angrily at the tears that now carved pathways down the skin of her cheeks. Never in her life had she ever been able to keep her emotions at bay, she was always willing to scream at the sky and cry til her throat was raw. That fact was unchanging even as she grew older. So she let her tears fall. They didn’t distract from her current mission, anyhow. Her eyes were set on the small town that appeared over the horizon.
The whole town congregated at the docks. Passersby stood on the cobblestone streets, their inherent nosiness ill-concealed by their feigned looks of concern. Whispers flitted between them as if this were all just a dramatized show to keep them entertained. Y/N let no apologies slip through her lips as she pushed her way through them, knocking into their shoulders and earning glares as she did.
When her footsteps rang out on the wood of the dock that's when she was surrounded by the people like her. Family members worried for their loved ones lost at sea. They all stood silently as their eyes were set towards the ocean, hands clutched in prayer, whispering hopes that it wasn’t their spouse, parent or child who lost their life to an unrelenting sea. Y/N was too impatient to do the same. She just stood and waited for any kind of sign that Joel would be home soon.
It came only thirty minutes later. When a small boy at the front of the dock screeched in anticipation, pointing out a small dot wavering in the distance. Y/N’s stomach swooped down in a mixture of hope and apprehension. She was terrified to learn the truth of what happened.
But twenty minutes after that, the truth had arrived as the ship pulled in with the tide. Everyone advanced closer to where the fisherman would eventually unboard. Y/N stayed behind, her feet frozen to where she stood. Maybe she was trying to delay the inevitable.
Relieved cries and overjoyed calling of names soon swirled into the evening air as loved ones were reunited. Warm embraces and fervent kisses were exchanged between them. But it was all backtracked by the ones who received news of a death, heartbreaking wails mixing in with the sound of reunion.
It was an unsettling cacophony of sounds. The way love and loss intertwined within one another. Two sides of the same coin. And Y/N still had yet to know which one she was on.
Her hands were shaking. Her sight was restricted by the many heads that stood in front of her. She scanned each face, none of them holding the warm brown eyes she’s grown accustomed to. Her stomach sank deeper and deeper, her throat started to constrict again, a sob threatened to burst out from between her trembling lips.
She couldn’t hold it back once she registered a mess of brown and gray curls making its way through the crowd. The sob released itself, though not in anguish as she had thought, it was instead paired with the most intense form of relief she had ever known. Her feet started to move by their own accord.
His name fell desperately from her lips.
Joel stilled once he heard the sound of it. Brown eyes wild as he searched frantically for where it was coming from. When they found her through a split in the crowd, Y/N was met with the same look of relief she knew was apparent within her own irises.
His stride lengthened as he worked fast to cut the distance between them. As she drew nearer, he registered the tear stains on her supple skin, fresh ones following the same path. His heart lurched at the sight, the overwhelming need to hold her burning his skin. Burning hotter as she drew nearer. Setting him ablaze when she was right in front of him.
He tossed his bag to the side in favor of wrapping his arms around her. He relished in the way she sank into his arms, curling into his chest. He felt how her heartbeat pounded against her ribs, beating in the same pattern as his own. Joel held onto her even tighter.
“You scared the hell out of me.” She cried, tone muffled by his cable knit sweater as she hid her face in his warmth. A large hand smoothed over the back of her head, bringing her in even closer if that was even possible. His nose dropped down into her hair, the scent of her invading his senses, comforting him. He was back home. Safe. And she was here waiting for him.
“I know, baby, I’m sorry.” He murmured, the nickname falling freely in his solace.
She didn’t seem to mind.
They returned home just as the sun dipped below the horizon, losing the orange hues of the sunset to a dark velvet sky littered with stars. The journey was much easier on the way back now that they had Joel’s old truck that was waiting for him down by the docks. As well as the fact that the reassurance of Joel’s return replaced the heavy feeling of fear that had haunted Y/N for the past three days.
They were greeted by a homemade meal, left behind by Y/N’s father. A gift either of consolation or celebration. She was grateful it was the latter.
And once their bellies were full and the pain of the day was washed away in soothing streams of hot water, the two of them stood in the hallway once again. Y/N was unsure of what to do. Less than a week ago they had crossed a boundary she hadn’t even dreamed of. Now they were standing at the precipice of something even greater. And since Joel was safe at home once again, the anticipation to act on it was dripping from the walls.
Was she ready for such a feat? Was Joel expecting something like this to happen? Nerves brought a tremor to her hands.
Meanwhile, Joel could feel the tips of his ears burning at the memory of what happened the last time they were alone together. Her moans had him weak in the knees, her skin was soft to the touch, things he only knew since Y/N had made the first move in this very hallway. A bolder woman than what stood in front of him now, as her eyes stayed glued to the floor, her breathing fragmented from timidity.
His gaze softened as he took in the sight of her.
“I don’t know what you’re expectin’ to happen...” He breathed, a soft smile turning up the corners of his mouth, “But I can assure you it’s not what you’re thinkin’...”
Y/N’s eyes flickered up at the teasing lilt to his words. She was met with a mischievous gleam in those brown eyes as he repeated the very first thing she ever said to him. She couldn’t help her own grin that bloomed across her lips.
At her smile, he felt brave enough to bring a hand up to her cheek.
“You have nothing to worry about, darlin’” He then murmured, stroking his thumb over the soft skin. She leaned in his touch, peering up at him through her lashes. “We don’t have to do anythin’.”
“I want to.” She whispered back, her words causing his breath to hitch in his throat. “Eventually… but tonight…”
He nodded, removing his touch from her face. “I understand.”
The floorboards creaked as he took a step back. But surprise shot up his spine when she moved to clutch his fallen hand with both of her own.
“But tonight could you just lay with me?” She quickly added.
She looked up at him expectantly, the plush of her bottom lip dragged between her teeth. He let out a low labored breath.
“Y-yeah.” He nodded, the word weak on his tongue. He was afraid that if he spoke any louder he might scare her off. Though the grip of her fingers locked around his palm proved to him that she was there to stay. A reassurance he was always grateful for.
Y/N tugged at his hand, urging him to follow as she guided their way into her bedroom. It was an odd choice, considering the master bedroom was just right there and the bed was bigger. But to be invited into her private sanctuary was an opportunity he would never pass on. So his feet followed eagerly.
It was dark in the room when they entered and it stayed that way as no one made a move to turn on the light. Unfortunately, what she had done to make the bedroom her own was lost to his eyes, but that regret was soon forgotten as he heard the squeak of mattress springs and the shuffling of blankets.
As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he found Y/N’s form on the bed in front of him, he stood on the side, basking in the glory of this moment.
“Come here.” Her whisper found him through the dark. His stomach swooped at the sultry sound of her voice. But he ignored any provocative thoughts that wormed its way into his brain. Instead, he obeyed her command, the mattress dipping as he slid under the covers beside her.
In an instant, his senses were invaded by her scent as well as her warmth. There was only an inch or two of distance between them. Both lying on their backs, staring up at the ceiling, afraid to move, afraid to breathe.
A sharp intake of breath rang out from Joel when the touch of her fingertips smoothed over his open palm in the space between them. Naturally, his own digits curled around hers. He heard as she sighed happily from his reciprocation.
And somehow— despite how fast his heartbeat was when he had her writhing under his tongue only a few days prior, it was nothing compared to the small gentle act of holding her hand.
~
Joel was up before the sun.
As was the case every morning, since his body's internal clock was intune with the demanding schedule his occupation thrusted upon him. So he was used to opening his eyes to a darkened world, not yet warmed by rays of sunlight.
Though today was slightly different. He wasn’t woken by the natural fluttering of his eyelids as his dreams from that night slipped away; Instead it was the press of another person’s form against his body, an arm draped over his torso, legs intertwined between his own, head resting on his chest.
He stiffened once he remembered where he was and who it was.
Y/N.
She was warm through the fabric of their pajamas. So much so that Joel didn’t even miss the warmth of the sun like he usually did during these dark and frigid mornings. A deep contented sigh pushed through the structure of his chest, Y/N’s head moving in time with his breathing. The movement elicited a small whine from her lips.
The sound had his heart racing yet again, reminding him of the other noises she was capable of making.
Those noises had been replaying over and over in Joel’s mind ever since he was blessed to hear them— even better, to create them with the touch of his own hands and lips. He brought the memory with him when he was on that small boat, miles out at sea, restless in his cot as he ached to return home to her.
When they were caught in the throes of that storm all he could think about was her. The drive of it kept him alive throughout the chaos.
Now here he was, sharing in her warmth, despite the awkward navigation of their newfound forms of intimacy. Anticipation surged through his muscles, pulling away the last dregs of sleep that had plagued his limbs.
Joel cursed under his breath as something else began to stir to life.
This was a young man's game. He was in over his head with the feelings she evoked from him. Never in his life had he experienced anything quite like this. The way every part of his body begged for every part of hers. Everything he’d felt for those before her was just a crude imitation of what he felt for her at this very moment. It was almost an insult to compare. Nothing could ever compare..
And he had no idea what he was supposed to do.
Which was funny. Because this woman was his wife. She was the one person he should feel this for. But with the way they had started Joel wasn’t sure what he was allowed to take what he wanted. Was he allowed to be selfish the way he wanted to? Everything surrounding the two of them was delicate. And Joel was terrified of breaking it with his large and clumsy hands.
For now he would just have to hold himself back. Be gentle in the way that he navigated this unknown territory. Which meant he had to do the hardest thing in the world.
He had to get out of this bed.
Slowly and cautiously he detangled his limbs from the woman beside him. He trained his eyes on her face, searching for any sign that his movements were waking her up. The line between her eyebrows showed itself when her cheek lost the firm foundation of his chest, but that— and a few incoherent mumbles— was all that occurred as he slipped himself out of her bed. Luckily, she seemed to be a sound sleeper as she curled up into herself without Joel’s warmth.
Joel stood above her, almost caught in a trance from how disgruntled she looked now that he was gone, proof of the effect he had on her as well. A small smile danced on his lips. And then he allowed himself one indulgence as he leaned over to brush a faint kiss over her forehead. He felt her features smooth under his lips, seemingly content with his departing gift.
~
To wake up alone in a cold empty bed was not what Y/N had expected that morning. There were a few instances during the night, when her dreams took a pause that she would wake up, eyes blinking in the dark. And she quickly grew accustomed to the strong presence that Joel was. The soft steady sound of his snores was a comfort to the girl’s ears as they rumbled through his chest. At some point in the night his strong arms had encircled around her waist, pulling her into his warmth.
That very same warmth, having been taken away from her, was now sorely missed. She stretched an arm out over the expanse of her bed, fingers groping at where Joel once lay.
She supposed she should’ve expected to wake up like this, considering how early he left every morning. But she would have thought she would’ve woken up when the time came. At least long enough to spare a goodbye before he headed off to work.
Disappointment sat heavy over her form like a stormy rain cloud. Y/N tried not to dwell on it, but as always her feelings were too strong to contain, so throughout the whole rest of the day she moved about the house wistful in demeanor. Yearning for Joel despite the fact he would be home in a few hours time.
Was this usually how it happened when you start to feel this way towards someone? Like your whole world stops turning when they aren’t near? Whatever the case, she knew that these feelings were not to be taken lightly. There was a rarity to them that made her heart much more precious to the woman. She felt like she needed to keep it safe, deep in her pocket where no harm would find it, and no one would be able to see the extremities of her feelings.
And that’s where she kept it as her restless feet wandered into town.
But as she walked, something funny happened. Everywhere she looked, everything seemed so much brighter. The people who passed her by greeted her with warm ‘hello’s’ and ‘how are you’s’. Kids were laughing as they played in the street, laughing. There were lovers in front of shops holding hands and exchanging stolen kisses. Birds were singing. The sun was… shining? Everything that used to be dreary about the island, everything that Y/N hated, had somehow flipped to be the exact opposite of what it used to be. Or perhaps… it had always been like this and she just hadn’t noticed, too caught up in her own pretension and desperate need to escape.
Perhaps this island really did live up to its name.
Why was it that she had just noticed this now? What had changed?
She thought of her beating heart, hidden in her deepest pocket. And then froze in her tracks.
She was reminded of something. Something she had only heard in the old sea-shanties her father used to sing while he cooked. In the stories her mother used to whisper to her at bedtime. And that used to worm her way into her dreams late at night, planting the idea that she had to escape in the first place. She had to go find it.
It was love.
And it hit her like a ton of bricks.
Well, not the love part, that made sense to her as the loose ends were finally tied together. What surprised her the most was that she didn’t have to travel to the furthest reaches of the earth to find it. It had been on this very island the whole entire time. And it was fated to be shared with the man she was hell-bent against marrying.
Incredulous laughter began to bubble out of her throat. So much so that she had to brace herself on her knees as she gasped for air. She was definitely living up to her reputation as the crazy woman, earning strange glances from passersby. But she didn’t care. She never cared. All she really cared about was burning passionate love, that’s what she had been yearning for all her life. And she was almost too stupid to realize that it was right under her nose.
Gong! Gong! Gong! Gong! Gong!
The clocktower in town was chiming at the start of the new hour. Five o’clock… It pulled Y/N out of her unexpected fit of laughter. Joel would be on his way home right at this very moment. And without thinking twice, the woman began to run.
~
Joel returned to an empty house. This wasn’t entirely unusual, as there were some days Y/N would be out in the garden, lounging on the porch swing she loved oh-so much, having lost track of time. He would always find her, caught in the middle of a fascinating passage, one she couldn’t tear her eyes from. The idea of dinner would not have crossed her mind, as it was often lost in the clouds.
He never minded that, though. In fact, he quite liked finding her like that because then it meant that he would get the chance to be by her side while they made their meal together. And he also couldn’t lie about the fact that he enjoyed seeing the image of her, so carefree, with her knees tucked beneath her, skin glowing underneath the evening sun. He would always take a moment to stop and watch her, drinking in the sight of her peace before having to force her out of it.
A small smile spread across his lips at the thought he’d catch her like that now. His heavy footfalls rang out into the quiet household as he crossed the floor towards the back door. His anticipation flickered deep in his stomach once more, excited to see her.
But he was left in disappointment and slight worry when he was greeted with the sight of an empty porch swing. It looked so much sadder without her presence, the loss of her making obvious the peeling white paint and rusted chains that made the furniture what it was. Lackluster without her. A feeling now all too familiar to Joel as he searched the rest of the house, finding empty room after empty room.
He had seen this before. Lived through it. Deja vu in the form of his ex wife whittled its way into his brain. He recalled the day he found her missing. How he felt when he realized she wasn’t coming back. This was so much worse. Because now it was Y/N.
The woman he had unexpectedly fallen for, head over heels. The woman who promised him she wouldn’t do the same and that she would stay right here with him in this house.
It must’ve been too much to ask for. Joel must have wanted too much. Taken too much. She must have come to her senses and realized the potential she was wasting in a marriage with an old man like him. Dread was quick to overtake him, he knew that much. But he had never been a lucky man. Everything he ever loved was always lost to him. Why would anything change now?
Joel found himself sitting on the front step of his porch, head clutched in his hands. He wasn’t exactly sure what it was that brought him out there. Maybe he needed the fresh air to rid the panic in his lungs. Or maybe it was that flicker of hope that still burned within his heart. Maybe she would return home to him. If his hopes weren’t for nothing.
“Joel?”
His head snapped up to find Y/N standing in front of him. She was out of breath, a sheen of sweat covering her skin, causing her to glow brighter than she usually did. Her irises sparked with worry as she took in the sight of his hunched form on the porch. Though once he registered that she was really there, standing in front of him, he shot to his feet.
“Y/N.” He replied, his voice riddled with a confusing tone of surprised awe, eyes thick with relief. The girl’s brows furrowed. He took the remaining two steps down to where she stood, his hands bracing themselves on her shoulders.
“Where were you?” He questioned, somewhat angrily, though through that she could see a form of desperation hiding behind it all.
“I’m sorry I was— I just came from town.” She answered, having not yet fully caught her breath, the words were hushed between her overworked lungs.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” He practically begged out the question. “I could’ve brought you home.”
“I’m sorry.” She said earnestly, wrapping her fingers around his wrists. “I didn’t think of it. I was in a hurry to get back.”
“Why?”
She looked down at the ground between their feet, the distance between them small, soon to become even smaller, she was sure. A bashful smile crept up onto her lips.
“I wanted to see you.” She murmured, eyes still averted as a slight heat pinched at her cheeks. Somehow it was much harder to face him, now that she had put a name to what she had been feeling.
Surprise stiffened her shoulders when Joel let out a harsh breath of relief, his head dropping into the crook of her neck, arms looping around her waist. She soon softened under his embrace, her fingers tangling within his sea-breeze tangled hair.
“I thought you left.” He mumbled into her skin. Y/N’s stomach dropped at the hidden fear behind his words. She now understood completely where this strange new demeanor was coming from. She quickly shook her head, knowing Joel felt as she did when her cheekbone brushed against his ear in time with the movement.
“No.” She whispered. “No, I would never.”
His hold on her tightened with the words spoken. Y/N smoothed her hand over the back of his head, hoping it brought some form of comfort to the man. As his shoulders began to relax, she knew that it did. She continued her reassurance.
“I’m sorry.” Y/N tilted her head towards him, pressing a soft kiss to his temple. “I wasn’t thinking clearly. I should’ve come down to the docks.”
“Why didn’t you?” He asked, pulling back from his hiding spot, eyes searching for the answer.
Y/N drew in a deep breath, the heat in her cheeks burning fiercer than before. She averted her gaze towards the gravel pathway, taking a step back so that possibly she could find her words within the created distance. Nerves, fairly quickly, took over her form.
“Well… to start, I think— pretty early on in our marriage you must have realized that I wasn’t exactly ecstatic about the whole ordeal.” She rambled as she began to pace, wild with her movements the way she was erratic with her words.
Joel opened his mouth to confirm, but she was speaking so fast that he never had the chance. So he watched on, almost incredulously, eyes following her as she paced back and forth in front of him, avoiding his gaze.
“I mean… I don’t think you were totally happy with it either, considering how we were at the beginning… —Anyways, none of that matters now.” Y/N waved her arms, trying to get rid of any more unnecessary words.
“The reason I was so unhappy— at first— was because I was so desperate to fall in love.” She continued, the last word ringing familiar in Joels ear. A smile perked up the corners of his mouth as realization dawned on him, patiently waiting for the girl to finish her rant.
“And I didn’t think an arranged marriage could have any possibility of that.” Y/N glanced quickly over at Joel, finding him nodding along in exaggerated understanding, strong arms crossed over his chest.
“But then a funny thing happened, when I was walking into town and I suddenly realized…” She stopped moving, facing the man head on as she said her peace. “I think I may be in love with you— No… I know that I’m in love with you.”
As he considered her— standing in front of him, with begging eyes and shaking hands— he bit back a brighter grin. With this onslaught of information he wasn’t exactly sure how he should say what he wanted to say. If the girl would even give him the chance to do so.
“And that’s why I didn’t meet you at the docks.” Y/N finished, quite lamely, hands raised out from her sides as if offering him the floor. Though, her arms flopped back down to their original position quickly after.
“So…” Joel started slowly, killing the woman with every second his pause dragged out. “You didn’t come to the docks… because you’re in love with me?”
“It would seem so.” She confirmed, her voice small with apprehension. “Do you have anything to say on the matter?”
“Just one thing.” He breathed, before taking a step forward, he looped an arm around her waist pulling her against him. A gasp fell from her lips at the eagerness in this action, her hands impulsively landing on his chest. Joel's other hand moved to rest on the side of her face, guiding her lips to slot against his in a deep-seated kiss.
It was as if the entirety of her being were in her lips, like there was nothing else in the world as he pressed soft kisses to the plush skin. Kisses that somehow conveyed the entire range of how he felt towards her. The passion showed itself as he nipped at her bottom lip with his teeth. The tenderness shown in the gentle caress of his tongue. The love being presented as he pulled back, resting his forehead against hers, it shining in the deep brown of his eyes.
“I love you too.” He confirmed what she saw within his irises, her heart swelling that she wasn’t on her own in feeling this way.
“I didn’t realize that’s what it was until I thought you were gone.” He told her, “I think I might’ve…”
His words trailed off, replaced with a deep breath as he pulled her in closer, as if making sure she was really there in his arms.
“I think I might’ve felt this way for a really long time.” He ended. Y/N smiled warmly up at him, tilting her head to brush her nose against his own.
“Me too.”
And neither one of them really knew exactly when that could have been. Perhaps it was the very first time they laid eyes on each other. Or during one of their many shared meals as they sat across from one another in comfortable silence. Or the distance that kept them apart by raging seas. Maybe it shifted with the constant storms that would rain down over their house. Or maybe it was written in the stars, destined to happen. Whatever the case, it didn’t really matter to them now as they melted back into each other, lips crashing in a great crescendo portraying exactly the burning passion this island was supposed to be known for.
Their next movements were like a white blinding light as they forged through the front door of their home, shoes left behind,— the excitement that should’ve been present on their wedding night was now following them through the living room and up the creaky stairs. Y/N’s grip on Joel’s hand was strong as she pulled him down the hallway towards the master bedroom, but she still wasn’t strong enough to keep him moving when he stopped abruptly. She turned to face him.
“Wh—?” Her question was interrupted when he pressed her against the wall, his lips finding hers once more. A small squeak of surprise from the young woman was muffled by Joel’s kiss, swallowing it down. His hands were firm on her waist, fingers slipping under the hem of her shirt. Her skin was hot to the touch.
“Joel.” She moaned against his lips, the touch of his thumb rubbing slow circles into her skin sending bolts of electricity straight to her toes.
His name sounding like that coming from her was enough to have Joel’s entire being on fire. He could feel himself harden with every moan she gifted him, as well as his resolve weakening, patience wearing thin.
Shifting his grip, his hands were now clutching at the back of Y/N’s bare thighs (since she had miraculously had the good sense to wear shorts today). On instinct, using the leverage of Joel’s grasp, she jumped into his arms, legs wrapping around his waist. The momentum of their bodies coming together had Joel stumbling backwards, back hitting the other wall. The artwork hanging on aging nails rattled in their frames, threatening to crash to the floor as they shook from the collision. Neither husband or wife paid this any mind as they clutched onto each other, lips still vehemently attached, moans and grunts being traded within their kiss.
Soon, Joel’s feet were moving once again, carrying Y/N over the threshold of his bedroom. Like a man was supposed to do with his bride, finally given the chance to do so. Though his grip almost slackened when she pulled her lips away from his, replacing them on the skin below his ear. He cursed under his breath as she began to suckle against a sweet spot he never even knew existed.
Against all odds, he made it to the bed, falling backwards against the plush surface, springs squeaking under their combined weight. Y/N was not at all deterred by this new position, her forearms bracing themselves on either side of Joel's head as she kissed her way down his neck, hoping she was even half as good as Joel was at this sort of thing.
She supposed she wasn’t half bad as his breathing was soon labored under the touch of her lips, thick fingers twisting into the fabric of her shirt. She smiled against his skin, especially so when she finally lowered her hips down over his own, the sign of his enjoyment pressing harshly into her inner thigh. Y/N rolled her hips into him, hoping for that very same reaction she had gotten the first time she did this. With no surprise at all, she prevailed.
“Shit—.” He hissed, hands darting to grip at her hips. “Wait.”
Somehow he was strong enough to still her movements. Or maybe Y/N couldn’t help but obey the words said by this man. In either case, time began to slow down, their frantic movements ceasing. Y/N pushed up on her hands, sitting back on her heels so that she could meet his gaze. Joel’s hands found their home on the skin of her thighs, thumbs instinctively rubbing those soothing circles once again.
He drew in a breath, staring up at her with soft brown eyes. “Have you ever done this before?”
A shy look flitted across the woman's pretty features, her bashful smile weakened as her bottom lip was tugged between her lips. She shook her head, eyes trained to the top button of Joel’s shirt.
He swallowed against a newly dry throat as he realized she was willing to give him everything. Pink swelling up into his cheeks when his cock convulsed at the thought. Surely she had to have felt that, the gasp slipping from her lips proving that she did.
“I… I don’t wanna rush you into doing anything you’re not ready for.” Joel murmured, “We can take it as slow as you need.”
Y/N offered him a sweet smile at his words, her fingers toying with that button she had her eye on. They were trembling slightly, not out of fear but instead a steady form of anticipation.
“We’ve been married for almost a year now.” She responded, her tone soft. “I think we’ve taken it slow enough.”
“Alright then.” Joel responded in that same tone, a small smile matching her own, his heart lurching at what was to come next.
And he could have easily slipped back into the pace they had set when they had crashed into the room. His desires were certainly begging him to do so. But this was their first time indulging in this act as a married couple— her first time at all. So despite the protests of his aching body, Joel would take his time, offer every part of himself to her and hope she would offer the same.
He smoothed his hand up her thigh, carving his way up to rest his fingers behind her ear, thumb against her cheek. Without much force at all, he guided her gently until their lips were touching once again, this time in a slower kiss. She relaxed against him, chest resting on his. A small whimper escaped the back of her throat at the tenderness of it all.
The small noise spurred Joel into rolling Y/N onto her back, flipping the preexisting roles, covering her with the shadow of his form. His hands were braced on the plush surface beside her head, holding his weight above her. His knee was positioned between her thighs. She was a whimpering mess, grinding up into him, desperate to relieve the ache between her legs. Joel couldn’t help the smirk that appeared over his lips. The bold woman who was kissing down his neck just a mere few minutes ago was long gone. A dark part of him took pleasure at the sight of her like this, desperate for him. It didn’t help how pretty she was splayed underneath him, eyes darkened with lust, bottom lip trembling, hips rutting towards the thigh that was too far away from where she wanted him.
He wouldn’t give it to her. Not yet at least. He was going to take his time. He set his hand against her hip, forcing her to stop her movements, holding her in place.
Lowering himself towards her, he brushed his lips across Y/N’s in a quick kiss. He placed another on the apple of her cheek. Another on her temple. And again at the corner of her mouth. He was moving so slow that she could feel the flutter of his eyelashes tickling her skin. She sighed at each kiss, relishing in his attentiveness.
She was cold when he removed himself from her, standing up at the side of the bed. Even more so when his hands lifted the hem of her shirt, pulling it up over her head. Her nipples were pebbled against the white lace of her bra, made more obvious as she leaned up on her elbows. His darkened eyes roamed over her body, no inch left undiscovered. His fingers continued to do their work of revealing more, when he popped open the button of her shorts. The garment soon discarded on the floor with her shirt.
All that she was left in was her undergarments, grateful she had put on a matching set that morning. Joel stood fully clothed in front of her, on unequal ground but somehow the thought excited her. She could feel herself flush behind the skin of her cheeks, turning her head so she could hide behind the back of her hand.
“Don’t hide from me, darlin’” He whispered, catching her in the act, fingers clasping around her wrist. She complied letting the limb fall back to its original position. She dared herself to meet his strong gaze as he continued, another gasp swirling into the air when he spread her thighs, the wetness between her legs more obvious once the cold air contrasted with the heat of her arousal.
“Look at you…” Joel groaned, toying with the hem of her panties where her thigh met her center, the fleeting touch of his fingers causing her hips to twitch up towards him. He watched her restlessness with slight amusement, though he granted her some form of relief as he dipped his pointer finger into her soaked panties. Though he only did so to pull the fabric away from her burning heat, and a second later he let it snap back down, the sound louder than expected as it smacked against her folds.
“Don’t do that.” Y/N whined, squirming under his teasing.
“What? You don’t like it?” He did it again, causing the girl to jolt up further on the bed. She whined once, but she didn’t exactly have any words to argue with him. She sort of did like his teasing. But impatience was taking over her.
“I— I think I’m ready.” She breathed heavily through her nose as his fingers continued to play around with the fabric of her panties.
“Ready?” He questioned, brows furrowed.
“Ready for you to— for your…” She stammered, embarrassment flooding her senses as she couldn’t find how to put it.
“For my cock?” He finished for her. She squeaked at the unexpected harshness of his words, but was pleased by the sharp ache that probed at her core.
“Mhm.” She nodded, shutting her eyes, almost as if bracing herself.
They shot back open at the sound of Joel’s soft laughter filling the room, she was greeted with the sight of his bright smile, his head shaking.
“What?” Y/N asked, slightly perturbed at the fact he was laughing at her. He only shook his head, bending to loop an arm around her waist, shifting her body with ease so that she now lay properly on the bed, head sinking into the plush material of his pillows. She huffed in annoyance, lifting herself up back on her elbows so that he could feel the full force of her glare.
“You’re not even close to ready for me, sweetheart.” He told her, a strong knee propped on the bed. His fingers were working on the buttons of his dark green shirt, revealing a smattering of hair that was once hidden by its confines. Y/N paused as she hungrily drank in the reveal of his skin, but was soon disappointed when he stopped at the third button down. Any complaints she had were lost on her tongue when he swung his other leg onto the bed, trapping the woman between his knees as he sat above her.
He looked like a god in this position. Skin shining under the sunlight that slid into the room in its golden hour, the shadows of his strong features accentuated. She wasn’t sure if she should cower under his might, she was more grateful to be bestowed with this sight of him. Ready to sacrifice anything to him.
“I feel ready.” She murmured up to him, “Want you inside of me, Joel.”
An unanticipated shiver shot up the length of Joel's spine at her admission, his erection growing harsher within the limits of his underwear. He sucked in a deep breath, shaking his head as if he had to deliberately make the move to hold himself back.
“I want that too, baby.” He mumbled, shifting to smooth his hands down the expanse of her stomach, needing his hands on her in some shape or form. “But ‘m too big for you.”
“Too big?” Y/N parroted her eyes widening. He nodded.
“Have t’ get you ready for me.” He relayed, “Especially since you’ve never had anythin' up there before.”
“Yes I have.” She countered, her tone becoming more defiant. Joel stilled at her words, knowing that could only mean one thing.
“Your fingers?” He swallowed against the words. Y/N’s shy demeanor returned, she looked away.
“Yes.” She said, her voice small.
Joel held back a groan threatening at the back of his throat, the image of her playing with herself, cumming around her fingers, forcing its way to the forefront of his mind. He could feel as more precum leaked out of his tip, slicking against his skin. His heartbeat was ringing in his ears.
“It’s not gonna be the same.” He strained, shaking his head.
“Will it hurt?”
“A little… at first.” He told her honestly, “That’s why I need you to be ready for me. It’ll hurt you less and I… just wanna make you feel good.”
Y/N softened at the earnest look in Joel’s eyes as he spoke, her heartbeat hammering in her chest with how much care he was providing for her.
“Okay.” She relented, her hands moving up to grasp at the bottom of his shirt, tugging him towards her. He followed her movements with no resistance, leaning down to kiss her, deep and steady.
“Make me feel good then.” She whispered into his lips.
“As you wish.” He replied, in the same hushed tone.
Joel sat back on his heels, admiring her in the golden light for just a second longer before he started. They held each other’s stare, the love they confessed blooming in the air between them, warming their bones, making their hearts beat in time.
His touch was light as he slid her panties down her legs, losing the piece of fabric somewhere on the bed behind him. He placed a featherlight kiss across her collarbone as he unclasped her bra, her back arching into him so he had the room to remove it. He tossed it in the same aimless direction. And when he sat back, she was bare to him.
“Beautiful.” He mumbled, tracing his knuckles down her sternum to her belly button, she shivered under his touch, or maybe from the compliment.
Then he placed himself gently on the pillow beside her. He brought a large hand to her chin, tilting her head to the side so that she’d meet his gaze. Kissing her lips gently, he slid that same hand down the length of her stomach until his fingers were pressing into her pubic mound. He pulled away from her lips, so he could see every little reaction that she had for him.
Her pretty lips fell open when he dipped his fingers lower, collecting the wetness that was pooling at her entrance. He hummed at how wet she was, the slick covering his two fingers when he brought them back up to rub circles into her clit. A moan was instantly pulled from her, her body jolting at the sensation, breasts bouncing as she did. Joel drank in every minute of it.
And once he knew she was completely ready, he finally slipped a finger inside of her.
Y/N sucked in a harsh breath, she wasn’t expecting his finger to feel so large inside of her. But it was nothing to what she had felt before when she tried something like this on her own. She felt so full with just the use of his finger, stretching her out so resolutely, that she wondered how it would feel once it was the real thing. She was whimpering once again due to Joel’s actions, her hands shot up to grasp at Joel’s bicep, his shirt taut over the flexing muscle.
“You want another finger?” He asked into her temple.
“Y-yes.” She breathed, already wanting more from him. And he wasn’t going to deny her of what she wanted. So he added the second finger, the obscene sound of it squelching into the air. He changed the position of his hand, as well, his thumb now prodding at her clit whenever he thrust his hand back into her.
Y/N’s hips moved in time with each of Joel’s movements, even as he sped up, the sound of his palm smacking against her wetness growing louder and louder. Her moans were now tumbling over her tongue at a constant rate, her head thrown back against the pillow.
Joel’s eyes were still watchful over her, he gaped at how beautiful she looked, coming undone with only the use of his fingers. He couldn’t stop from grinding himself into her hip, moving at the same pace as his fingers, too turned on by her to try and hold back.
His own moans were muffled when he started kissing at her neck, and then down the soft flesh of her breasts, until he flicked his tongue over her sensitive nipple.
That was the beginning of Y/N’s breaking point. Him curling his fingers inside of her, probing at a small spongy spot hidden deep inside of her, was the end.
Her orgasm ripped through her like a freight train, her cum splashing itself onto Joel’s palm. Her legs couldn’t stop shaking, even when he pulled his digits out of her. He chuckled softly as he wrapped an arm around her, pulling her into his chest. On instinct she curled into him, fingers clutching at the lapels of his shirt, her body still trembling as she floated back down from the sky.
“How was that?” He questioned, holding her tighter against him. She could feel her own slick on his fingers as they pressed into her lower back.
“Good.” She said into the crook of his neck, voice shaky, earning another laugh from the man.
“We can stop now, if you want.” He told her, lips pressed into her hair.
Y/N pushed against his chest, freeing herself from her previous hiding spot. She looked at him with furrowed brows and found nothing but honesty and adoration flickering across his irises. God, he really would stop for her, if she asked him too. In fact, the look he was giving her told her that he would do anything for her. She let out a frustrated breath, surely he wasn’t so stupid to think that she wouldn’t do the same for him.
“I don’t want to stop.” She said, genuine with her words. Maybe a bit too forceful as she sat up.
“O-okay.” Joel relinquished, eyes wide at her eagerness, following her in the action of sitting up, his back now straightened.
“It’s slightly unfair, you know.” Y/N then said, placing a hand to the center of his chest, pushing lightly so that he would rest against the headboard. There was no resistance, he did as she said.
“What is?” Joel inquired, his breathing quickening as Y/N sat on her knees beside his hip. His eyes were trained to the crease between her thigh and waist, relishing in her every curve. It was a cruel reminder of his hardened cock trapped in his pants, twitching at the sight. He didn’t even notice as her hands started to unbutton his shirt. That was until she started kissing at each newly revealed piece of skin. He sucked in a harsh breath at the touch of her lips.
“You always get to see me like that.” She said between kisses. And he could’ve argued that it had only ever been twice, but he didn’t want to know what would happen if he interrupted her wrath. “And yet you always hide from me.”
“I don’t hide from you.” Joel countered, his knuckles white from his grip on the sheets beneath him. “You’re just not the opportunist like I am.”
A surge of pride spread out under Joel’s skin as Y/N’s sweet laughter bubbled into the air. The sound of it doing as much to him as her moans did. He loved hearing her laugh. Like it was proof that she was actually happy with him. Though he supposed the proof was right in front of him, as she continued to leave loving kisses across his chest.
Joel’s shirt was finally discarded, granting Y/N the sight she had been desperate to see for so long. A beauty to behold. He wasn’t exactly all hard lines and jagged edges. But he was strong and large, and soft in the places he needed to be. His skin was tanned and taut over muscles that could only be carved by the waves of a raging sea. But there were scars left behind, probably a result of tragedies endured on his countless journeys. Y/N left a soft kiss over each one.
And then her hands were soon preoccupied by a new task, the metal parts of his belt clanking against each other as she removed the constriction.
Joel waited with bated breath. He had to force himself not to ask if she was really sure about this. Because if she wasn’t, she definitely would not be slowly sliding open the zipper to his pants. Or then tugging them down his thick thighs, revealing the black fabric of his boxer briefs. And she definitely would not now be palming at the bulge between his legs. Which she was.
A groan fell from his lips once she had her hand squeezing at his erection. His hips jutted forward into her palm, his need for her touch too obvious for his own good. His eyes flickered up to find a look of pure wonder on the woman’s features, maybe she was surprised she could elicit such reactions from him.
“Feel’s s’ good, baby.” He reassured, the words falling from his lips between soft grunts of pleasure. Y/N’s eyes snapped up to meet his. He stared back, lids hooded over darkened eyes overblown with lust. His hips were now rolling up into her hand, over and over, unable to stop.
“Really?” She squeaked.
“Yeah.” He grunted out, any coherent sentences lost to him as lust overtook him. Especially when her fingers hooked around the hem of his underpants, pushing them down to follow the path of his pants.
He gasped when the cold air hit his burning erection.
She gasped at the sight of it.
His cock sprang up once it was finally free from its confines, the tip hitting his lower belly, leaving behind a splotch of precum against his skin. And Joel was right… he was big. It was thick, just like the rest of him, with protruding veins running up the side. The head of it was red and angry, shining with the proof of his arousal.
And surprisingly, despite the aggressive look of his erection, the woman wasn’t scared like she thought she’d be. Instead she was drawn to it. Drawn to him. Because she was drawn to every part of him. So there was no time wasted when her smaller hand wrapped around his length.
Joel cursed under his breath, head falling back against the headboard with a dull thud. Just the touch of her hand already had him weak, ready to unravel. He wasn’t sure if he’d be able to last once he finally felt the tight confines of her cunt fluttering around him. So for now he enjoyed the soft touch of her hand, closing his eyes as her thumb spread his precum over the tip with gentle touches.
She was slow with her movements, which was alright by Joel. It granted him time to breathe, as well as the fact that this was the first time she’s ever done anything like this. He didn't need to move any faster than this if she didn't want to. His arousal sat low in his belly, happily waiting in the anticipation.
Though, his blood spiked when he felt the wet touch of her tongue against the head of his cock.
“W-what are you doin’?” He asked, head snapping up to find her crouched down at his waist, hands splayed out on his thighs. She looked up at him through her lashes, tongue still unyielding against him. It was a sight he had dreamt about and longed for, but he never expected her to do anything like this tonight.
“You did this for me, right?” Y/N said between the tiny kitten licks she administered, “‘m only returning the favor.”
“You don’t have to do that.” He replied, shaking his head slightly. He brought a hand to her jawline, ready to pull her away from his erection, “You don’t owe me anythin’.”
“Okay… Well then it’s because I want to.” She countered, ignoring the presence of his hand and dipping her head downwards again. This time she wrapped her moistened lips over the entire tip.
“Fuck.” He hissed into the air, his hand moving from her cheek to her hair. He tried to be gentle with his grip, knowing she was new to all of this, but it was increasingly difficult to do so. Especially when she hummed in pleasure around his cock, seemingly relishing in the slight pain of having her hair pulled. She swirled her tongue around him, pulling a stuttering whimper from his lips.
She looked up at him at the sound. His head was thrown back once again, a thin layer of sweat coating his skin, he was breathing harshly through his nose, his handsome features twisted with euphoria. And it was all because of her.
Y/N felt as more wetness pooled between her legs and dripped down her inner thighs, she squirmed slightly as her arousal increased once again. As it turned out, she seemed to like having Joel like this, writhing under her in immense pleasure, whimpering from the touch of her tongue. She wondered if this is how he felt when he did the same thing to her. If he was this hard in her mouth because he gained pleasure from her pleasure. The thought spurred her on, moving her mouth further down his length.
Another deep groan rumbled out from his chest, eliciting a sound of affirmation from the woman, the vibration of her vocal chords shooting electricity through his body. He glanced back down at her, watching as she took him in as deep as she could.
“God, you look s’ pretty like that.”
And she did. Her mouth around his rigid cock, tears filling her eyes as he pushed deeper down her throat, her pupils blown out with need for him. He could cum to that sight. No— he was going to cum at the sight. He could feel the coil deep in his core about to snap as she continued. But he wasn’t going to let it end here.
“W-wait. Please, darlin’, you have to stop.” Joel said softly, as he gently pulled her off of him, Y/N’s features held a look of confusion and disappointment.
“Did I do something wrong?” She asked as he pulled her into his lap, his burning shaft now pressing nicely against the curve of her backside. He could feel how wet she was as she pressed her center into his lower abdomen, soaking the coarse hair spattered across the skin there.
“No.” He shook his head, “No, you were absolutely perfect, sweetheart. I just… I want to be inside you before I finish.”
“Oh.” Y/N smiled shyly, her head dipping down in slight embarrassment. “Okay.”
“Do you think you’re ready for me?” He asked tenderly, placing kisses onto her cheeks. She closed her eyes against his kiss, wrapping her arms around his neck and nodding her head.
Soon she was on her back, head surrounded by Joel’s fluffy pillows. The sun had slowly dipped further down towards the horizon, only leaving a little bit of light left in the room. It was soft and gentle, caressing the two of them in dimming shades of blue. Joel braced himself over her, bicep flexing when he lowered himself to leave a kiss against her lips.
“I’ll start slow.” He whispered to her afterwards, leaning his forehead onto hers, a large hand smoothing over her outer thigh. The pressure of his fingertips were somehow soft within his guiding grasp, positioning her leg over his hip. A shock of pleasure erupted in Y/N’s core as she felt the length of Joel’s cock nestle in between her folds at this new position. Joel’s shoulders trembled, breathing growing heavy, his reaction to the same thing.
Y/N’s own breath hitched in her throat as Joel’s hands snaked between them. He wrapped his calloused fingers around his shaft, guiding the tip through Y/N’s slit and brushing it lightly against her clit. Simultaneous gasps intermingled in the air between their lips as they relished in the sensation.
“Joel.” Y/N whimpered, the unsaid words begging for more. He only nodded in return, his attention locked on the space between their hips, slowly growing smaller as he finally pushed the head of his cock inside of her.
Y/N could immediately tell the difference between this and his fingers. Before was barely anything compared to this. Now she was finally full, finally complete. And it was only the beginning as Joel slowly pushed himself deeper.
She whined at the stretch of him, fingernails scratching over his back. Joel wasn’t any better, hiding his face in the crook of her neck, releasing the most sinful of moans as he was slowly sucked in by her tight, wet warmth. The feel of her around him was more incredible than he imagined. So much so that he pushed in faster than intended, earning a sharp gasp from the woman beneath him. He stilled, immediately.
“Are you okay?” He asked, pulling away from her neck to gauge her true reaction. Her eyes were shut, bottom lip tucked between her teeth.
“‘m alright.” She replied, her heavy breathing causing her sensitive nipples to brush against Joel's chest, another spark of arousal surged through her bones. Another harsh moan was released from the man above her.
“Shit— baby, don’t do that.” He gritted his teeth.
Unknown to Y/N, when that bout of pleasure had traveled the length of her body, she had clenched around him at the sensation. The instance of which made Joel feel as though he might burst into flames. His cock jerked inside of her, the coil returning, slowly starting to unravel.
“Think you can take any more?” Joel questioned, once he could calm his beating heart as much as he could have.
“There’s more?” She stammered, confused since she already felt so full.
“Y-yeah there’s more.” Joel told her, trying his hardest not to move an inch, the task becoming increasingly difficult. Y/N released a shuddering breath.
“Yeah.” She nodded, “I can take it.”
“That’s my girl.” Joel chuckled airily, the affirmation causing a nice pool of warmth to settle in Y/N’s belly. But the feeling was soon replaced by the head of Joel’s cock as it moved deeper inside of her, the length of him making her believe he was truly proding into her stomach.
Slowly but surely the rest of him was sheathed inside of her, proven by the soft tickle of his pubic hair against her inner thighs. Joel let himself rest inside of her, allowing her to adjust to his size, his breathing deep and heavy as her walls squeezed around his cock.
She started squirming beneath him, desperate for him to do more.
“Please Joel.” She whimpered, “Move.”
“You want me to move, sweetheart?” He murmured, nipping at her earlobe with his teeth, her desperation causing something wicked within him to start teasing.
“Y-yes please, Joel. I need you.” She breathed, squeezing around him again. “Want you to fuck me.”
Joel’s entire body lurched at the words that slipped from her tongue. His heart hammering against his ribcage as it was completely unexpected. It caught him off guard, but he regained his bearings quickly, shaking free from the surprise as he took enjoyment from her dirty language.
“You do, huh?” He mumbled back, feeling her nod into his shoulder. “Is that what you want? For me t’ fuck you?”
“Yes.” She whined, a bit impatiently, more soft chuckles tumbled out of his lips.
“Okay, sweetheart.” He answered, “Anythin’ for you.”
And then he started moving. Slowly, so torturously slowly, sliding out until it was just his head that was left inside of her. Then, just as slowly he would sink all the way back in. He did that over and over again, causing an onslaught of pleasure to rip through the girl as the grooves of his cock carved into her walls so deliciously. She was a mess beneath him, shuddering and gasping with each slow movement he made.
Y/N arched into him, hands grasping at his back as he dipped his head, placing a kiss to her shoulder, moaning softly into her skin. Pleasure radiated throughout her body at every point of contact his skin had with hers, burning the brightest where the two of them connected. Even more so as Joel started to gradually speed up, still making long deep thrusts, but a little faster each time.
The bed started creaking beneath them, mixing in with the sound of their sensual moans as well as their skin slapping together in time with Joel’s thrusts. A cacophony of pleasure swirling around the room and serenading this moment as they finally connected in the way they always wanted to.
The sting of Joel’s size was now long forgotten as Y/N savored in the pleasure of him. Her arms were wound tightly around his neck, holding his head into her shoulder. She could feel his lips pressing into her skin, leaving deliberate kisses after each thrust. Her legs soon followed the same pattern as her arms, looping around his waist, pulling his body in close. Now there was no part of them left untouching.
His own arm soon snaked around her waist, drawing her in even closer if that was possible, her clit now firmly pressed against his pelvic bone. Y/N threw her head back with a deep moan, Joel’s lips attaching to her neck in record time. The heat low in her stomach returned from before, signifying that everything soon would come crashing down in a crescendo.
Joel’s cock twitched inside of her as he felt her walls fluttering around him. His own impending orgasm weighing heavy in his chest. He pulled his lips away from her skin.
“Look at me.” He said softly, despite the fact that his thrusts became sloppier by the second, his pace staggering as he involuntarily thrusted harder inside of her.
Y/N— despite struggling under the onslaught of her own oncoming orgasm, opened her eyes for him, meeting his soft brown gaze as they chased their highs. It was strange to see that gaze in this context, especially since the first time she saw it she would have never guessed this is where it would bring her. But now that she was here she couldn’t ask for anything she wanted more.
Except for one thing.
“Kiss me.” She said in return, and since Joel couldn’t deny her of anything, he did just that, bringing their lips together in a tender kiss. The touch of it sending Y/N over the edge.
Joel felt as she came around his cock, squeezing onto him like a velvet vice, her cum gushing out around the base of him, soaking his skin. He moaned deep and heavy at the sensation, his own orgasm on the precipice. He placed his thumb on Y/N’s clit— hoping that will be enough to help her down from her high— as he pulled himself out of her.
He grunted with each spurt of cum splattering itself onto Y/N’s stomach, his free hand tight around his shaft, the length of it jerking in his hand. His thighs tensed as his orgasm shot out from his hips, shoulders trembling from the pleasure of it all, his heart racing.
Then, as the euphoria began to fade, his legs were weak as he sat back on his knees, chest heaving as he looked down at the mess he made on his beautiful wife.
His cum was shining white against her skin, the gleam of it reflecting in the moonlight as her stomach moved up and down with each passing of her shallow breaths. Her limbs were limp against the mattress, eyes hooded as exhaustion took over her form. He smiled softly at the sight of her, sliding a hand underneath her to bring her up to his level. He pulled her into his lap, holding her flush against his chest— not caring that his cum was now smeared across his own stomach.
“You did so well, sweetheart.” He whispered to her, stroking his knuckles across her cheekbone, she leaned into his touch, humming in content. Joel leaned forward, placing a kiss on her forehead.
They sat like that for a minute, savoring the silence between them and the embrace of their lover. But it didn't last too long as Joel spoke once more.
“Come on.” He abruptly said, swinging his legs over the side of the bed, taking Y/N with him as he did. She whined when she realized she was being pulled away from the comfort of a warm bed.
“What? Why? I wanna sleep.” She argued when her feet hit the wooden floor beside his own, moving to dive back under the covers. He caught hold of her before she could.
“We gotta wash up.” Joel countered, pulling her towards the door that sat in the corner of the room, the mystery (that was not so mysterious) soon to be revealed.
“And then we can go to bed?” She questioned, as her shaking legs became more willing to follow him
“Not quite.” Joel grinned, guiding her into the shower. When she offered him a look of confusion at his words, he answered the question written on her face.
“We still have to make dinner.”
And soon, after all the proof of their passion was washed clean from their skin, underneath swirling puffs of cedar-scented steam and occasionally interrupted by stolen kisses, the two of them made their way down to their kitchen. And an hour later, as they sat across the table from one another, under the golden glow of their kitchen light. They divulged in their carefully prepared meal, sharing shy smiles and fleeting glances between each bite. The sight of them alone contradicting any statement that the island they resided on didn’t live up to its name.
~~~
A/N: honestly this fic was born because of the smut scene in the kitchen, i can't lie 😩 and then i rewatched the music video for adore you by harry styles so i wanted this oneshot to be something romantic and whimsical in it's nature, so i hope that came across. Is it corny? yes! but I had so much fun writing this so i hope you had fun too!!! thank you so much for taking the time to read my work !! and now i'll be leaving, goodbye forever!! <33
#joel miller#joel tlou#joel x reader#joel miller x reader#joel miller smut#joel x reader smut#joel tlou smut#joel miller x y/n#joel miller x you#joel miller x you smut#joel miller x y/n smut#joel miller x f!reader#joel miller x fem!reader#The Last of Us x reader#tlou x reader#the last of us x you#tlou x you#the last of us x y/n#tlou x y/n#the last of us smut#the last of us x reader smut#the last of us x y/n smut#the last of us x you smut#tlou x you smut#tlou x reader smut#tlou x y/n smut
2K notes
·
View notes
Text
Hello my little grieving friends (aka my CREW!)
I just want to talk about how much our flag means death has given me. I have not had internet friends since i were a teenager. They all kind of disapeared over time in the same way as high school classmates went away. I have been on this blog on tumblr since 2010 and i have never experienced what ofmd has given me. Not even in my very derranged ca 5 year long sherlock-era did i get to befriend and know this many amazing people who live in my phone. Some of you have come and gone and that is life, but some of you are still here and I hope I get to keep you here for a very long time. Max can not stop us and I want to be here with you until tumblr is put down like the beloved rabid pet it is.
I think we are all taking the news very hard and I think it's important to remember what it is all about really. It's about love and family and above all else the crew so i just want to show some love for my beloved mutuals. And i hope maybe some of you will be inspired to do the same because its what we need in these dark times. We need to be a lighthouse guiding each other to shore.
First of all @gentlebeard - Ella💕 my beloved honey 🍯 I can not explain properly or even believe how lucky I am that I found you and that I get a little good morning from you every day. We have been talking every single day since the first message over a year ago and I don't remember or want to remember how i survived before that. I will treasure the time i spent drinking pina coladas on your balcony in the sun forever and i hope i will get some more time on that balcony this summer. I have found a pirate bar in Sweden so we can continue our expensive pirate drinks theme that we started in Berlin. There is no one else i want to spend 6-8 hours talking to over the phone.💕My partner in crime, lasagna partner and floor person or whatever nicknames we have come up with during this time. You are not just the perfect friend to have, you are also funny, sweet, smart and a expert at making fanvideos that make me cry my heart out and laugh my lungs up - sometimes at the same time 💕💕
@blakbonnet - Meow my darling💕 you were the first one i really started to talk to in the fandom and i am so glad i did. You brighten my days and i love talking to you you brilliant humanbeing (i often find myself thinking i have listened to much to cabin pressure because i struggle to use any other word than brilliant to explain things.. the Arthur runs deep in me) also thank you for being my personal skincare guide in life!! Your fics, your art, your edits, your gifs, your meta the whole you make my dash a better place and we are all happy to have you! There is nothing you are not good at and i am both a bit jealus and impressed by you. Its Meows fandom we all just live in it 💕💕
@youshouldseemeinadeerstalker - Nes my dear💕 We may not be talking very often but I know I always have you there. I loved our vacation together and we had so much to talk about that we didn't even realize that the same song kept playing in my car so long that it messed up my spotify wrapped. It was amazing taking naps with you outside ruins of castles and in botanical gardens and living together in the worlds smallest hotel room. I hope we can get lost together in more cities than Hamburg and Copenhagen. (preferably without rain and sickness and maybe with a map) 💕💕
@darkinerry - Marlena 💕 its a pleasure getting weather and work updates from you and i am always interested in knowing what you have been up to and what you have to say. It brightens my day, please never stop!! Your videos and gifsets can make any day better and you are always kind and funny which are two things i appreciate hugely in my friends!! 💕💕 + You have the coolest haircut out of all my mutuals 😌
@aha-my-villainous-thoughts - Ash my wife💕 my love💕Nothing can make me scream, blush and giggle as much as your fanart. You have this style of everything you make from fanart to dolls to interior design that is so special and breathtaking. One day we will drink so many lattes in a cosy cafe and then sniff lush products for the rest of the day. 💕 You are always there for me - as a online shoulder to cry on or to motivate me with the smuttiest wips ever. I am happy to be mutual married to you 💕💕
@bizarrelittlemew - Ida 💕- my thirsting for rhys brother in arms. I can not imagine tumblr without your gifs or your posts. I love screaming with you over a picture of rhys darbys bicep. I am so happy i got to meet you this summer and i really hope it will happen again. We are not that far from each other, just some miles and a stupid bridge; we can make it. You are always a sweetheart and an incredible friend who write the hottest fanfiction ever💕💕
@dickfuckk - josh 💕 (who I also thought for a long time was called tyler) I dont know where the fandom would be without your bts blog! its a international treasure and a service to humanity. i don't know how you do it. 💕You always have everything i have ever been looking for and as a bonus you are witty and funny like no one else. I am so happy i got to meet you and spend a whole day in your company! 💕
@izzy-b-hands - Holden my absolute darling!💕 I am so glad I got the chance to get to know you! You are smart, funny and kind and my izzy mutual tm. You are always there for me with kind words and I am still forever shipping izzy and the third badminton brother which I think is the best headcanon I have ever helped coming up with. 💕
@funforahermit - Kristina 💕 Your love for Rhys and your gifs are a staple on tumblr and my dash. I know where to go when i need someone to understand how hot Steve is (even if we have agreed that he is yours and Murray is mine which i still think is a fine deal). I very often make or see a picture of Rhys and my first thought is "I NEED TO SHOW KRISTINA THIS" so you live rentfree in my brain 💕
@rainbowcrowley - Addi 💕If i ever start playing wow again you bet i am gonna be talking your ear off about my little frost mages progress but in the meantime i am happy to have you on my dash and even if we don't talk that much are you a beloved part of my dash and brighten it daily.💕💕
@fandomsmeantheworldtome - Maria💕 You were one of the very first people i found in this fandom and your gifs might have helped my rhys obession taking form. You might be into many things I have never heard of but its a pleasure seeing your excitement over everything. You are always a ray of sunshine and i love that so much💕💕
@tabbystardust - Tabby dear💕 You are the kindest person I know who I always get the strongest need to hug and hold close. Your fanart is beyond this world and i adore it like nothing else. Its always both hot and soft in the best way ever💕 I am always excited to get kitty updates and to hear about your ramen receipts. I hope we can still meet at the con next year! I am game if you are!! 💕💕
@hummingbee-o0o - Humming 💕 (i dont know your name sorry) I am always excited to hear your thoughts and metas about everything ofmd related as well as your beautiful art. 💕 it was a pleasure to scream about season 2 after every watched episode!💕
@xoxoemynn - Emy 💕💕 i am so happy to be mutual with you! 💕You always bring joy to the people who get to be around you and fill my dash with the same. We might not talk often but i know you got my back! That is the kind of person you are!💕
@saltpepperbeard - Jodi💕 No one write tags on tumblr dot com like you. There is nothing that can cheer me up more than see that one of my posts has gotten a whole ass novel written in the tags and then i instinctively know that its you who have left your wonderful mark. You are always excited and such a lovely human to be mutual with. 💕 And on top of that you make incredible gifs that make my heart stop!!! 💕💕
@autumnbois - Kai 💕💕 I hope you are doing okay. We might not talk much right now but you were there for me when i needed it most and you are a good friend to have living in my phone.💕💕 I will think of you whenever i see something related to scream and your love for piccrew always make me smile💕
@edsbacktattoo - Jams, jams jams! 💕 We are never online at the same time because of the damn time differences *shakes fist* but you are a staple in this fandom. Your art is incredible and you are the sweetest cookie in the jar. You are funny and always spread good energy to everyone around you and I love that with my whole heart💕💕
@kiwistede - Sam 💕 Your love for stede and rhys is unmet and i love you for that. You are always a good source for some rhys darby insanity and we all know that is what i treausure most here in life! 💕💕
@stedesearring - Kaitlin💕 You are the sweetest and kindest soul out here always spreading joy and love like the sun of my dash. 💕 I always love seeing you and i am happy to have the pleasure to have you as a friend in my phone! 💕💕
@stedebonnets - Ara 💕 Where would we be without your gifs?? without your joy?? without your blog?? without you?? No one knows! I am so happy to call you a mutual and friend and you always bring a smile to my face. Always!!💕💕
@appleteeth - Liz 💕 No one is quite as normal about rhys darby as you and it a pleasure to watch! Speaking of pleasure.. your fic the slightest touch is an all time favorite of mine and i would be embarrassed to tell you how many times i have read it... you are one of my mutuals that i am baffled that they want to follow me. Its a privilege! 💕
@as-a-creww - Caroline dear 💕 You are a beloved mutual and your blog are a permanent part of my dash and i want to keep it like that! you are the friendliest of the friendliest and what is more important than that?? 💕💕
@nandorisms - Ed dear💕 Your shameless reblogs makes the world go around. You are always sweet and a much needed wwdits addition to my life. I count you as a dear friend living in my heart!💕
@londonlock - Londie! 💕💕 The only sherlock mutual i have left and i am very happy to have kept you! 💕 I might have left those days behind me but you know as well as i that sherlock lives in my soul and seeing some sherlock and john love on a daily basis keep me grounded and on top of that are you such a romantic and beautiful human being! 💕💕
@follovver - Tanya 💕 My fellow Swedish ofmd fan! I am very happy to have found you! its nice to be able do discuss it in my mother tongue and i hope we one day can do it live! its to bad we never met when we went to the same uni (or maybe we did but didn't know) Du är fantastisk!! 💕
@wastingyourgum - Al💕(which i always read in my head as artificial intelligence and giggle because it make me feel like you are a robot) My fellow rhys friend. You bring me doses of darby when its most needed and your blog is always on fleek 💕💕
@xray-vex - Xray 💕 100 % one of my funniest mutuals!💕💕 You make hilarious posts that no one else could even dream of coming up with! Always top tier blog content and what more can a girl ask for??💕
@jellybeanium124 - Nina💕 I can not imagine my blog without you! Your posts are always a delight and you are so nice and sweet and funny and incredible (even when you make math mistakes kisses kisses) You bring a honest joy into the fandom that we could not live without! 💕💕
@thunderwingdoomslayer - Nellie 💕 My official rhys darby gif provider who I come to as if i needed a new hit of an illegal substance. I salute you and thank you for your service!💕💕
@forestofsprites - Green my dear 💕You might have gone from ofmd to be the supernatural provider of my dash but that does not stop you from being the kindest forest spirit i know. Your presence is calming in a way i can not explain and i am glad to have you and your love for meg here.💕💕
@cheersmequeers - Kate💕💕 A big puzzle piece to bring my dash together. Always filling it with my favorite gay pirates and i love having you here. Always friendly and full of love.💕💕
@sugashook - Sugaaa💕💕 You know i am in love with your art! Your art is always on top and it bring me back to life every time. I keep the dress i bought from you on the outside of my closet so every morning its the first thing i see and it sets the day right!💕💕 I wear your art on my tshirt to the gym as often as i can hoping to lure in a ofmd fan between the weights but that has not happened yet sadly!! Never stop making your art!! The world would be at loss if that happened 💕💕
@lacefuneral - Jay 💕(should be called YAY because that is what i say when i see a new selfie or fashion post from you) You are a fantastic friend and i love your love for stede and you are always kind and patient in a way that makes me comfortable to ask you questions about something i might not be familiar with. You are forever my moth mutual in my mind 💕💕
@meanmisscharles - Charles 💕 In my head i call you charles but i don't think that is your name but i hope its okay with you! Always friendly and sweet but ready to fight the bullshit the other spread! and such a source for good music recommendations!! 💕💕
@forpiratereasons - Darcy 💕literary no one does it like Darcy! Aways bringing the best ofmd posts to my dash and ensuring i don't miss anything! You are incredible! 💕💕
@blackbeardskneebrace - Miles my dear 💕 You make incredible art both the cute and amazing ofmd art but also the gorgeous historical art you post. Its a pleasure to see you talk about history but also about our beloved gay pirates. Your snoopy ofmd art will live in my heart forever and i think it might be healing me a bit. Maybe even watering my crops and clearing my skin! And those valentine ofmd arts from last year. I am 100 % gonna bring them back this February like beloved decorations you store in the attic. 💕💕💕
@awkward-fallen-angel - Heather 💕 You are one of the sweetest people i have had the pleasure to come across. You bring a big excitement and attention to the things you like and it moves along to everyone near. I mean i have watched long critical role videos just because you spoke so warmly about them and i wanted to know what it meant. I love having you here. 💕💕
@mxmollusca - Mx 💕 (dont know your name so i am just calling you that) I mean you are an incredible writer. I have only managed to read ifwts once because i cried so much that i am scared to open it again because i might just never stop crying. You are creative and funny and absolutely totally normal about rhys darby which in my book is a very good thing to be. And besides that you are a very friendly and nice mutual who is always a pleasure to interact with. 💕💕
@poisonintopositivity - Lilias💕 We have not talked much but we have been mutuals for a very long time and i hope you know that i appreciate you greatly as a mutual and you always but the best posts on my dash!💕💕
@glam-hutchence - Birb 💕💕my dear bird lover! You are a sweet potatoe and i love reading about your love for music and the concerts you go to.💕 Its so nice to take a little part of your life. You are always there for me and i always get happy when i talk to you. You are like a little happy pill! 💕💕
@turtles-on-turts - Turts 💕 Whenever i see a turtle i think about you. Its your brand! You make amazing art! and the ones on canvas always blow me away. 💕💕 Its incredible. You are also so very pretty and i have that picture of you in your depression robe with all the pigeons imprinted in my mind because it such a cute one. You are always very friendly and i love reading your personal posts as well. 💕💕
@vonlipwig - Franky 💕 You bring me lots of normality about rhys darby but these days also a huge bunch of normality about david tennant which i appreciate a lot. You are very nice and i stand by my assesment that you have a very cool aura!💕💕
@haeva - Mar my beloved💕 You bring me my wifes emily and valkyrie and a bunch of amazing posts about everything i can imagine. You are loving and sweet and good at maths which i am always very impressed by. I love being your mutual and doing ask games with you is a pleasure!💕💕
@mykonossalome - Myko💕 When i see moomin i think of you because i know how much you love it. We dont talk as much as i would like but the interactions we have had has meant a lot to me and i love seeing you posting about the things you love! 💕💕
@cottoncandiescupcakes - Cupcake 💕 I love that you are always so excited over our boy the swede and its a pleasure to compare language with you. We can continue fighting if the swede belong to the dutch or the swedes but that is a pleasure!💕💕
@mister-brightside - Andrea my dear💕. Your art is always perfect and whenever i see a picture of izzy giving the middle finger i think about you! Its your brand and its your picture now and no one can change that. You are sweet and caring and a lovely mutual to have. thank you!💕💕
@merryfinches - Kylie 💕 What can i say more than that i ADORE your fanart. The colours the style the softness of it all is exactly what we all need in these times. Every single time it shows up on my dash it makes my heart grows softer and my love grow stronger! I love it so so much. 💕
@ofmd-ann - Ann 💕 You glorious glorious gifmaker! Your gifs are always beautiful and these last days you have saved me with your wrecked edits. As a supplier of rhys darby gifs i love you forever. You are a hero love. 💕💕
@usersukuna - Bia 💕You are a gif magician. Your gifs are perfect and you are also very kind and sweet and i am so glad i can call you a mutual! You light up tumblr like no one else and i am always happy to see you on my dash.💕💕
If you are not in this list it does not mean that i dont love you or have forgotten about you it means that tumblr has put a limit to how many people you can tag which sucks. But if i follow you then it means i love and appreciate you. 💕💕💕 And you know what? We will make it through this hard and trying times of greedy streaming services putting an end to our gay pirates show. I love you all and you know what??
We will make it through as A CREW!
#i might have spent half my work day on this because i am sad and can not concentrate so please dont tell my boss#personal#my beloved mutuals#renew as a crew#i am just very filled with love for you all#for this fandom#💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕
210 notes
·
View notes
Note
hi!! could we maybe pretty please get a drabble of aemond and female!reader taking a bath together and her taking care of his beautiful hair? just aemond being so in love and letting himself be vulnerable around his lover 🥹 (ive just envisioned him letting out his iconic 'mhm' as he's having his scalp massaged and squealed out loud he's too much for meee) thank you have a nice day!!!
HAHA just a day in the life ya know! ;) Thank you for all the wonderful prompts, my lovely Anons. I hope you like what I have concocted here.
Word Count: 1919
Masterlist here
Aemond x f!reader | soft smut | fluff | comforting him after a long day
Rain pattered on the stone walkway as you strode down the outdoor corridor, the sound of clashing swords evidence your husband still trained in the courtyard below. You drew your long woolen cloak tighter about your shivering shoulders, descending the steps already sprinkled with large raindrops. Aemond had been out here sparring with one of the poor beleaguered soldiers, the dark-haired man looking like he was about to fall on his face from exhaustion.
Looking over Aemond’s shoulder at your hurried approach, he left his guard open wide and grunted as the Targaryen prince took full advantage, his sword colliding heavily against the man’s torso.
Aemond turned to see what had drawn his opponent’s attention, his hair slipping on the leather tunic he wore. “Classic mistake, Adian, allowing a beautiful woman to distract you.”
“She is quite a lovely sight indeed.” Adian’s brown eyes roved your form, causing your lip to curl with distaste.
Aemond smacked the flat of his blade against Adian’s cheek, not gently, causing the boy to yelp and stumble back. “Furthermore, she is my wife; I will warn you just this once to avert your attentions elsewhere.”
Adian bowed to Aemond, and to you, not making eye contact as he retreated to the weapon’s table. Aemond discarded his own blunted sword before approaching you, swiftly taking you in his strong arms and placing a possessive kiss to your mouth. You tasted the sweet rainwater on his lips, pulling away to tug at his hand so that he followed you to the shelter of the Keep.
You led him all the way up to your shared bedroom, the spacious area lit from the warm glow of the large fireplace.
“I had the fire stoked, and a hot bath drawn for you. Oh!” You crossed to the nearby table as Aemond began removing his wet clothes. “I also had some hot mead and venison pie brought up from the kitchens.”
The large clawed wooden bathtub sat in the center of the room, steam emitting tantalizingly from its still water.
Aemond was fully unclothed now, his sapphire eye glittering from the light of the fire. He wrapped his arms around you, kissing your head before reaching behind you to grab a meat pie. He had draped his sodden shirt and pants, along with his leather eyepatch, to dry by the fire. He walked over to dip a finger into the water of the bath, humming in appreciation. Your eyes trailed along the taut muscles of his back, admiring his backside while biting your lip.
Aemond took the last bite of the venison pastry, licking the crumbs from his fingers. “You are the sole reason I do not catch cold after these endless days of training, my love.”
He slipped into the bathtub, groaning as the hot water enveloped his cold skin. You carried a goblet of hot drink to him. “It’s absolutely freezing outside; I don’t know why you insist on sparring so long.”
“It helps take my mind off affairs of court, which you know vex me greatly.” Aemond sipped the mead gratefully, raising a hand to squeeze your wrist with his now-warm fingers.
You unclasped your cloak, laying it to dry next to Aemond’s clothes. He watched you from the tub with interest. You returned his gaze, your eyes drinking in how regal he looked reclining against the wood at his back, the ends of his silver hair swirling with the movement of the water, his hand holding the pewter goblet over the side of the bathtub. The firelight played against his skin, accentuating the lines of his muscles, his sharp jawline, the way his curved mouth smirked as he watched you examine him.
“Take off your clothes.”
The violet of his one eye was overtaken by the dilation of his pupil as he looked you over. “Join me.”
Under his lustful scrutiny, you began pulling at the laces of your dress, until it fell in a pool at your feet. Stepping out of the heavy fabric, you undid the buttons of your shift slowly, teasing the man before you. Aemond raised his goblet to his lips again, not once taking his eye off you.
You raised the thin underdress over your head, pulling off your undergarment and stockings as well until you stood bare before him.
“Hmm.” Aemond made an admiring noise in the back of his throat, his eye roving your body.
The cool night air prickled at your skin, causing gooseflesh to erupt along your legs and arms, your nipples pebbling as you made haste to enter the warm water with your husband. The tub was big enough for you to sit across from him, your legs entangling with his own as you sank with a relieved sigh into the hot bath. Little waves lapped at your collarbone as you scooted a little toward Aemond, taking his long hair in your hands and pulling it over his shoulders so you could begin disentangling it with deft fingers.
You felt his hands roam along your waist, up to your breasts where he palmed and squeezed, rolling your pert nipples in between thumb and forefinger. “Gods you feel so good, so warm and soft.” He placed a sweet kiss to your forehead as you continued your work on his thick hair, once satisfied moving to caress his scalp.
Aemond, despite himself, yawned, his eyelids growing heavy from your administrations. Your hands flitted down to his shoulders where you massaged the tense muscles there with gentle pressure.
“Come closer, Y/N.” You felt Aemond’s arms wrap around you, pulling you onto his lap, the water splashing over the lip of the tub from your sudden movements.
Your legs curled around his torso, straddling him you felt his obvious arousal nudging against you. “Hmm.” Aemond brushed his lips against yours, his hand cupping the nape of your neck. “I want to fuck you, right here in this bath.”
“Aemond…” You voice trailed off as you felt him line himself against your entrance, slowly sinking the tip of his cock into your heated core. You let out a gasp of pleasure, arching your head back as you sunk your weight onto him, until he was fully inside. Aemond took full advantage, sucking bruising kisses to your exposed throat, guiding your hips up and down upon his cock.
The waves you were creating spilled over the edge of the tub, the sound of splashing water accompanying your increasing moans.
“You should know by now,” Aemond leaned further into you, nuzzling into your chest, “I always get what I want.”
Your hands caught in his hair as he took your nipple into his mouth, swirling his warm tongue around it, paying the same attention to the other side. You kept rocking against him, feeling your walls tighten as your pleasure mounted.
As Aemond continued to suckle at your breast, you placed sloppy kisses to his forehead, leaning your head against him, your lips parted as you felt your orgasm approaching. “Aemond I…I’m going to-” He bucked up into you suddenly, the contact causing your vision to go white.
Crying out his name, your pussy clenched around him, the intensity of your climax eliciting a groan of ecstasy from your husband as he followed you over the edge, spilling his seed deep within you. Aemond pumped his cock into you a few more times, wanting to savor the heat of your wetness a little longer as the both of you rode out the high of your love making.
He raised his head, kissing your lips gently, carding his fingers through your hair. “I will put a child in you, my wife. The idea of your belly growing round, carrying our little dragon…” He trailed off, unable to find the right words, instead conveying his emotion in the way his lips suddenly moved against yours, his tongue dipping into your mouth to taste you.
You remained tangled together like this until the water had cooled significantly. Using clean water in the buckets beside the tub, you washed each other off, lathering goatmilk soap that smelt of lavender against your pruned skin and disheveled hair.
The logs in the fireplace popped and sparked, as the two of you, now clothed in woolen nightclothes, lay facing each other on the soft mattress. You had pulled a heavy comforter over the top of you both, laying on your back as Aemond propped himself up on an elbow to look into your face. Words were of little use in moments such as these, the tender loving looks speaking more than you could convey aloud.
You rubbed your hand absentmindedly low on your abdomen, the words he’d spoken earlier echoing in your mind. Aemond, noticing your movements, leaned to press a kiss to your forehead. His eye had taken on a distant look, as though his mind was far afield in contemplation.
“In my own desires to become a father, I’ve been thinking about my own of late.” Aemond broke the comfortable silence, his voice low and soft. “I do not wish to be the kind of father he is to me.”
Your hand stilled upon your belly as your eyes flicked up to meet his own. “What kind of father will you be?”
His hand came to rest upon your body, stroking long fingers upon where your womb lay. “Not like Viserys. He has never paid me, or my siblings, any attention save to berate or threaten us. I will not make my child to feel like they are a burden, or unwanted. Because I do…I do want a child, son or daughter it matters not.”
“No words I can say will right the way you’ve been treated by your kin, Aemond.” You raised your other hand to trace along his jawline. “My heart aches for your pain, my love. You deserve so much more than what you’ve been given.”
Aemond turned his face into your light touch, kissing the tips of your fingers. “He has affection for Rhaenyra only, the daughter he named heir instead of his firstborn son. Even though Aegon has no place wearing the crown of his namesake.”
“It should be you.”
Aemond sucked in a sharp breath at your words, his hand gripping yours. “I will not lie; it has been on my mind. Tis I, after all, the only son who performs the duties expected of the firstborn.”
“You are learned in the history of your family, you care, Aemond. That is what sets you apart.”
“And yet I do not exist in the eyes of my own father, I never have. My half-sister receives all his protection, wisdom and praise. Even when she sires illegitimate children and puts them forth as heirs to the Targaryen throne…” Aemond stopped himself from continuing, trying to reign in his heating temper.
You soothed him with a kiss to his neck. “You love your family; you take pride in who you are. It is natural for you to feel this way…but perhaps with our own small family you can find some measure of comfort, my dragon.”
Aemond kissed you then, molding his lips to yours in a loving embrace, taking his time to drink you in, his breath mingling with yours as you sighed into him.
He leaned back, pulling you into his arms, running his fingers through your drying hair as you rested your head upon his chest. The crackling of the flaming logs, the beating of his heart, the rise and fall of his chest, all combined together in their own intimate lullaby. Your eyes grew heavy, feeling his touch still upon your hair as you lost yourself to a dreamless sleep.
#aemond smut#aemond x reader#aemond x y/n#aemond fanfic#aemond x you#aemond targaryen x reader#prince aemond x reader#aemond targaryen smut#aemond fluff#aemond oneshot#aemond targaryen fanfiction#aemond targaryen imagine#prince aemond x you#aemond one eye#house of the dragon smut#aemond drabble#aemond imagine#aemond stannies#aemond targaryen#prince aemond targaryen
2K notes
·
View notes
Text
This one is for my wife Mhairi @auspicioustidings <33
Fuck the rain. Fuck this whole day. And while we are at it, fuck the rain again for good measure.
You were shivering like a wet kitten right before the door, having rung the bell twice on accident from how hard you were shaking. When the door finally swung open after seconds which felt like minutes, you were greeted by the beautiful face of Laswell. She looked younger than she does at work, bundled in soft and expensive looking pajamas with her hair loose around her shoulders.
She barely looked at you for a second before she yelled behind her, "John, get the kettle on!" Turning back to you, her voice as warm and sweet as honey, "What happened to you sweetheart?"
Ushering you inside, she didn't listen to a tiny bit of your protests as she locked the door behind you and started pulling your meager layers off. Your thin jacket, your pathetic excuse of a scarf, even your top shirt as it had absolutely soaked through were tugged off and tossed to the side to dry. Next it was as if she had miracled up a towel just for you, wrapping it around your shoulders and taking the excess length of towel to shake your hair out. Her hands were gentle but sure, familiar with your every curve.
"I got your peppermint Kate, assuming that- oh, love, when did you get in? You look a mess."
Laswell turned her head to Price and shot him a glare, the look alone righting the captain's posture.
"Sorry, not what I meant to say my love! What's going on then?"
Price took up one side of you, the two working together using the towel to dab the last of the rain water soaking you away. You tried to find words, but the first few times you tried you choked on your own pitiful sadness, the emotion fighting its way up and out of you.
"Shh, you don't have to tell us now sweetheart. Let's focus on getting you warm okay? John, you have extra sweats, don't you? Run and get them."
"Yours would fit her better, Kate."
With an eyeroll, Kate gave you one last squeeze on your shoulder before she made her way upstairs. You all but fell directly into Price's arms, and he cooed at you gently as your sobs finally broke out, shaking your whole body with the force of them.
"There we go love, just let it all out. You are doing a great job." If he could feel any lingering wetness soaking into his shirt, he made no move to point it out. Only rubbed his large hands soothingly up and down your back. Price was just so big and strong, you felt yourself flagging against him.
"Kate and I are going to take care of you, okay love? You came to the absolutely right place. You don't have to tell us anything, just let us take care of our precious girl."
You jerked for a moment in surprise at feeling the warmth of Laswell at your back, her arms wrapping around to squeeze you tighter between herself and Price.
"He's right sweetheart. We are here for you." You could feel her press a kiss into your hair.
Then the tickle of Price's moustache against your forehead as he also gave you a kiss. They only let you go long enough to meekly change into the sweats Laswell gave you, and then pulled you back into a similarly warm hug. The two of them shuffled you into their living room and plopped down alongside you onto the giant couch. Price reached behind him to drape a blanket over the three of you as you threw your legs over his lap. Laswell let you rest your head back against her shoulder, her cheek soft and warm against your forehead. Everything was becoming warmer, and you felt your muscles relaxing one by one as your brain caught up with how much nicer this was than your entire day- actually, your whole week- had been.
The last little cries were slowing down and dying out in your chest, Price's strong hands giving a soft squeezing massage to your calves while Laswell ran her fingernails gently through your scalp. The repetitive, soothing massages were careening you straight from your mental breakdown to falling asleep quickly.
You tried to protest, work yourself back up to a fully seated position and head home, but neither of them would hear it and instead encouraged you to sink lower. As the world, and your shitty night, faded away from your mind you could hear Laswell and Price talking softly around you.
#i dont picture Laswell and Price as together in this#more like they are both dating you and love knowing that together they can meet your every need <3#laswell x reader#price x reader#anyways follow mhairi for being an angel and an amazing author soooo#noel.txt
129 notes
·
View notes
Text
So, I saw Damsel today...
**Spoilers and complete plot for the movie Damsel will be all over this post, so don't read if you care about spoilers. Also, this is based on one watch only, so if some timeline details are very slightly wrong, that is why, though the important parts I'll be discussing are not contingent on these details.**
I'm not usually one to closely review a movie, but this one left me with a lot of thoughts that kind of sum up a lot of my feelings about big budget movies in the past decade, so here I go.
First off, I did like Damsel. I enjoyed watching it. It was gorgeous to look at, and Millie Bobby Brown did a fantastic job with the role and script she was given. However, I was left feeling like there was something very important about the whole experience missing, and it took me a few moments to really put my finger on it afterwards. The plot was fine, if a bit predictable, and I did appreciate the focus on Elodie as a protagonist. I loved that the dragon was given a plausable reason to want to devour/kill princesses, and that the dragon wasn't slain at the end, even though the opportunity was presented. And oh my goodness, the costuming department did a phenomenal job.
What I want to do here is give a rundown of the plot, and to then give my thoughts, so if you've seen the movie and don't care for a rehash you can skip to the next set of dashes.
--------
So, basic plot: The film opens on a scene of a king and his entourage of knights are entering a sinister cave, where there dwells a fearsome dragon. The king declares that they will defeat the dragon, and his knights charge, but are immediately melted by the dragon's fire, leaving only the king. The king drives his sword into the ground, and falls to his knees, and the scene cuts away before we see what happens next.
Centuries later, Princess Elodie and her little sister Floria live in a kingdom that is beset with hardship. They are low on money and food, and their people are facing a hard winter. So when the king is contacted by the royal family of the kingdom of Aurea--a kingdom they had never heard of, but that seems to be very wealthy--with the proposal that Elodie marry the Aurean prince, the family immediately travels to Aurea to finalize agreements. Amongst the traveling party are Elodie, Floria, their queen stepmother, and the king.
Upon arrival in Aurea, Elodie is introduced to prince Henry, while the kings meet alone. However, when the king emerges from the negotiation chamber, his wife immediately notices that he seems upset and deeply disturbed, though he assures her that everything is in good order, the deal has been made, and their kingdom will soon have more gold than he ever dreamed of as compensation for their daughter's marriage to the prince.
The stepmother queen, sensing something is wrong, goes to Elodie and tells her not to marry the prince, but she has resigned herself to helping her people, even if it means marriage to a man she does not know. That night, she steps out ont her balcony and sees another tower, with another young woman doing the same, before the young woman's maid calls her back inside.
The next day, Elodie is married to prince Henry, and is told of a ritual that is performed after weddings up on a nearby mountain, that honors the trials of their ancestors. They travel up to the mountain, where Elodie is told of the story we witnessed at the opening of the film. When the ancestors of the Aurean people arrived on their island, it was inhabited already by a dragon, who set upon them, raining destruction for the insult of invading its land. Though the king was unable to slay the beast, he was able to broker an agreement. His people would be left alone if he were willing to sacrifice his three daughters to the dragon. So now, whenever a new royal heir is married, they make the trip up to the dragon's mountain, over the chasm that leads to its lair, to commemorate the sacrifice of that original king.
The queen motions to Henry, who then slices his palm, and once Elodie has done the same, they mingle their blood, symbolizing that their people have now become of one blood and line. The prince tells Elodie that, at this point, he is to carry her back across the chasm, and that she should close her eyes. But halfway across, he whispers that he is sorry, and then he throws her over the edge, down into the depths of the dragon's caves.
Elodie survives relatively unharmed, her fall having been broken by many roots and branches along the drop, but there seems to be no way out. Very shortly thereafter, she has her first encounter with the dragon itself, who epresses delight at the thought of getting to kill her, and Elodie is forced to run from the dragon's fire. She hits a dead end, and there she finds the body of the young woman she had seen the night before, half burned, and realizes that they were always ment to be sacrifices to the dragon. The dragon continues to taunt her, breathing more fire down the passage where she is trapped, but she notices a narrow hole in the cave wall that she manages to wedge herself through it, barely escaping and sustaining a severe burn on one leg. She rips part of her dress off, wrapping it around her wound, and continues.
From here, we get a lengthy series of scenes of Elodie navigating her way through the trecherous cave system, hounded at every turn by the dragon. She finds an area inhabited by bioluminescent slugs, which she gathers in another part of the dress that she tears off, to use as a lanter, and finally reaches a small cave where a princess before her has written on the wall that this place is safe, and that the dragon cannot reach there. Written on the walls are the names of dozens of other princesses that, over the centuries, have reached this cave before inevitably being caught and killed by the dragon. Next to the names is a rough map of the cave system, showing Elodie a passage marked with a sun, which she assumes is the way out. She takes time to rest here, falling asleep, but when she wakes up she finds her burned leg covered in the bioluminescent slugs. She tears them away in disgust, but notices that anywhere a slug has been, her wound has been healed. Her determination renewed, she continues.
Elodie follows the directions of the map, making her way to the presumed exit, but finds that there is no way down the sheer rock face. As some riders go by she screames to them for help, but the dragon appears and nearly kills her, forcing her to retreat back into the caves. In short order, she ends up in the cave we saw in the opening sequence, and Elodie finds a three broken dragon eggs, with the desicated corpses of the baby dragons that once inhabited them still in the debris. The scene cuts back to that opening sequence, showing us that before encountering the dragon herself, the king and his knights murdered the dragonlings as they hatched.
Elodie realizes that it was the king who had originally attacked the dragon, killing her only children, not that the dragon had been a tyrant. The only reason she had demanded three daughters was in recompense for the wrong that had been done to her. The deal that had actually been struck was that the humans could only be allowed to survive if, every generation, they continued to pay the same price so as to never stop feeling the pain of losing their children. The kingdom, however, has figured out a loophole. By taking princesses from other countries, they could simply mingle blood, fooling the dragon into thinking that the princesses were actual descendents of their line instead of girls that they only knew long enough to technically become part of their family before being sacrificed.
However, at this point, Elodie's father, having been overwhelmed guilt for selling his daughter, arrives at the caves to save her. Before he finds Elodie, the dragon shows up, killing the king's men and mortally wounding the king himself. The dragon resumes her search, and Elodie is given the time to bid farewell to her father as he dies, and he is given the opportunity to ask her for forgiveness, and to tell her to use the rope that they had used to enter the cave to escape. He tells her that Floria and her stepmother have a ship and are waiting for her. So Elodie forgives her father, and follows his direction, barely escaping as the dragon persues.
When the dragon realizes that Elodie has escaped, she begins to raze the mountainside, creating an inferno that is visible from the Aurean castle. The queen of Aurea sees the destruction, and takes action, going to the ship where Floria and the stepmother are waiting. She has her men kidnap Floria, cutting her son's hand and throwing her into the chasm in Elodie's place. When Elodie finally meets up with her stepmother and learns of Floria's capture, she immediately resolves to retrieve her sister, and she follows the same footsteps that she had taken before, returning to the dragon's main chamber.
The dragon, still set on getting Elodie herself and able to smell that Floria is of the same family as Elodie, sets Floria up as bait for Elodie, but Elodie sets up a distraction, drawing the dragon away. She goes to Floria, who has been injured by her fall into the chasm, and before they can get away, the dragon returns. Elodie takes up the sword her father had dropped before, and manages to position herself directly by the dragon's eye, determined to tell the dragon of how they have both been lied to. The dragon, however, does not believe her, and tey have a battle, where Elodie uses her ingenuity to trick the dragon into severely injuring herself with her own fire. As the dragon lay wounded on the ground, Elodie shows her the cut on her hand, and tells her that the dragon has only been perpetuating the violence that had so hurt her before, killing innocent daughters instead of exacting the revenge she had sought. The dragon tells her to end it, then, but Elodie refuses, instead retrieving some of the bioluminescent slugs and placing them on the dragon's wounds to heal her.
The scene shifts to another wedding, where the third and final princess is marrying the prince, unknowingly destined to become the last sacrifice. As the ceremony nears its end, Elodie, still in the rags of her own wedding dress, walks in. She gives a speech to those present, and tells the last princess to take her family and go. The queen declares that they are not afraid of Elodie, and she says that it isn't her they should be afraid of, right before the dragon arrives, killing the royal family and razing the castle to the ground.
In the aftermath, Elodie's stepmother is given rule of their kingdom, which now has all of the resources that Aurea once owned, and Elodie sails off on a ship, with the dragon flying beside her.
The End.
--------
So, what was wrong with this film? Plot-wise, nothing that would ruin it for me. It was a good story, and, like I said before, lots of fun to watch. But I was left feeling extremely empty. See, at its heart, this story was about the love and loss of children. The dragon was the last of its kind, left alone because of the unthinking cruelty of a king who viewed her as a beast, and cared not at all about the lives of her young. The dragon, though not innocent for all the dozens of lives she took over the centuries, was acting out of pain and loneliness, wishing only that that pain and loneliness be shared by those that inflicted it upon her. She was the one wronged, and the royal line of Aurea callously shunted their punishment off on the innocent and desperate. They did not deserve their prosperity, so the storyline had to lead to the breaking of that cycle, but the problem is that the film focused more on the retribution and that Elodie herself was badass than it did on any emotion.
And that's the big big thing. This movie left me empty because it was empty. Elodie was awesome, and she ended cycle of death, but we didn't know anything else about her. We get told she is clever, so that we don't question how her plans always end up working. We are told that she is capable, so that we don't question how she always manages to pull through. We are told that the prince is somewhat reluctant, but only barely, so that he doesn't seem too cartoonishly evil. We're not given enough to know the extent of his guilt, or enough to really know how complicit he is, or if it's really that his mother (who honestly is kinda cartoonishly evil) forcing the issue. It seems like we're supposed to kind of like him and feel bad that he doesn't want to kill these women, but it feels like it's only halfway suggesting the idea instead of developing aything. Elodie's stepmother is kind, but we are barely shown any of that, instead glossing over any real emotional connection in favor of action. She basically exists to give very heavyhanded foreshadowing, to tell Elodie when Floria is taken, and so they can say that Elodie doesn't have to be bound to royal duty after the death of her father, because there's someone else who can do it. And we're just told that Floria and Elodie are close. Floria seemingly exists solely as a plot device to make Elodie choose to face the dragon after her escape.
The glow slugs are a deus ex, somehow capable of healing life-threatening wounds on both humans and dragons in seconds, which seems to be just so they can pretend for a second that Elodie could really get hurt, but then have her in good enough shape to escape before her family leaves or the next princess is sacrificed. And also so that she can prove how badass she is by mortally wounding the dragon and having it at her mercy, but still have it up in moments, ready to come toast the real bad guys.
And Elodie's character is, unfortunately, also stuck with this same shallowness. She's intended to subvert the "damsel in distress" trope, and she kinda does...except that there are numerous times she is saved by pure luck, and the plotline of her having to go save Floria is just straight up doing the trope, just with a princess saving the damsel instead of a prince. I didn't even catch the names of the queen or king of Aurea, the prince's name (which is as bland as he is) is only spoken a couple of times, and the stepmother, who is arguably one of the more major characters aside from Elodie and the dragon, gets about 3 minutes of screentime and doesn't have a name that I can recall. Neither does the dragon, for that matter, though at least we get to see her more than the stepmother.
This is a story stripped down to its bare bones, and it's only as much of a huge shame as it is because there was real potential. I can't help but imagine how much better it could have been if given even another 45 minutes to help us understand and connect to our characters. I would have loved a real conversation with the dragon, getting to really feel her pain and experience the true cathartic acceptance and regret for what was done to her and what she did in response, instead of cutting away to the last wedding. I would have loved to see the dragon show any dimension of character other than anger and cruelty. I would have loved to see the prince wrestle with himself, or try to push back at all, or see the true struggle that Elodie's father experienced before he reached the conclusion that he'd made a mistake and needed to go save his daughter. Why did the ancestor king of Aurea choose to kill the dragon in the first place? It's implied by the end that the dragon was attacked unprovoked, but we don't really know. Was the dragon actually a hostile force that made them want to kill her, or was she simply there and the king wanted to eliminate a potential threat? Did no other princess ever try to talk to the dragon, espcially when they had a safe cave they could shout from, and the dragon conveniently seems to know when to immediately murder someone or let them speak for the plot? Why would the dragon continue to harbor such strong feelings for so long, and think she was truly achieving justice and exacting revenge when the humans were obviously thriving so?
And what do they plan to do from here? We know Elodie wants to travel and see the world, because she (once again) told us so, but is she doing that? And what of the dragon? We're told that she is the last of her kind, but how do we know there aren't any more elsewhere in the world? Is every gleeful murder of an innocent girl at her whim just forgiven and forgotten because she wasn't killing who she thought she was, and now centuries of hatred and bias has evaporated entirely, making her a friend of humankind? The ending could have been made better in seconds, should we have been given any kind of closure for either Elodie or the dragon in any way at all. Perhaps they're going off together to explore the world, to find out for sure if the dragon is truly alone or if there are more of her kind out there. Perhaps the dragon really does know, definitively, that she's the last, and so has decided to accompany the princess that ended the tragic cycle that defined her for so long, to keep her safe as she lives life the way she always wanted. Maybe the dragon has vowed to atone for her cruelty towards humans by going with Elodie, assisting the different peoples they encounter in their travels. Hell, even if a single narrated line was given that told us "and so they went on many adventures, and lived their lives to their fullest" it would be unsatisfying, but not as unsatisfying as the actual ending.
It just...it could have easily been vastly improved in almost every emotional sense. Caring about our characters, their motivations, their struggles, and the emotional heart of grief and loss could have made this a deeply moving film, but the focus was instead placed on the princess saving herself. And I get the desire to do so, the desire to subvert that trope, but a story can't be a full, satisfying arc with just that. It's the same problem we keep seeing with big budget companies and their attempts to cash in on social issues. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad for any progress, even if it is largely a soulless cash grab, because any progress, however small it may be, is still heading towards an eventual shift in social consciousness, and thus permanent change. But this film wanted to get the brownie points for having a badass princess who doesn't need a prince to save her, and so they ONLY cared about that. It wanted to show off its budget and CGI, and "subvert" the trope, but it missed everything about why women might want a capable subversion of these longstanding, sexist tropes.
A capable woman isn't solely defined by the fact that she is capable. The point isn't to say "I can do anything a man can," but that's what this film makes it out to be. Elodie, and the entire story itself, is stripped of literally anything but what it needs to be to keep the plot moving. The story keeps saying it's about Elodie, and how she overcomes the obstacles in her way, but at the exact same time, it doesn't care about her at all. It cares about appearing to care about her story, and it's so frustrating to see all that potential wasted on such soullessness. It's like having every piece of a puzzle, but the filmmakers only bothered to put together the edge pieces, threw the rest in the garbage, and called that good enough. So instead of a beautiful, satisfying picture, we're left knowing that the rest of the pieces exist, but that they'll never be put in their rightful places, and that the beauty it could have communicated has been wasted.
So yeah, I liked this movie, at least in that I enjoyed the concept and the actual watching of it to a certain extent, but I wanted to love this movie. I hate how good it could have been, and that if it were given the love and care it needed, it could have been made into so much more.
At the end of everything, a story isn't just a spectacle. It's sharing and exploring our lives, ideas, and humanity through imagination and creativity. The beauty of fantasy is imagining what people would do when put into extraordinary situations, or at least imagining the extent of ourselves we wish we could be. A story like this one can be fun once in a while, but a truly good story, one that you remember and carry with you, usually remains because it resonates with you. And it just really sucks that Damsel denies its characters of their emotional cores, because when you eliminate the emotion of a story, the viewers are denied a connection to the humanity that makes that story worth telling.
#damsel netflix#damsel#this was entirely unplanned and unedited#and basically just stream of thought to sort out why i feel the way i do about this movie#so feel free to ignore it#not kpop#review-y brigid
36 notes
·
View notes
Text
So This Is Love
anthony bridgerton x reader
she/her pronouns
TW: none
bridgerton masterlist | part one | part two
a/n: thank you for all the love on this mini series! this is the last part, enjoy my lovelies! :)
taglist: @ambitionspassionscoffee @ifilwtmfc @shelbycillian @venomsvl @jessyballet @wotcherboo @m-rae23
It was no use; no matter how hard Anthony tried, Y/n could not, or maybe would not, be found. For weeks Anthony did everything within his power to find his best friend, but to no avail. Finally, after another unsuccessful trip to London, the viscount returned to his family’s home in the country, heartbroken and angry with himself.
Day and night Anthony was plagued by the thought that if only he had allowed himself to be honest sooner, he and Y/n could’ve been on their honeymoon right now. Instead, they couldn’t be farther apart, both lost and aching for the other.
As Anthony began to walk up to the door, he thought of his family. As much as he loved them, the intermittent looks of pity and then concern as they tried to cover up the scandal with the Sharma sisters were overall too much, and he did not feel ready to fight for his composure. Calling for a horse, Anthony decided he would ride around the property for a while to clear his head.
That soon became a poor decision as a sudden change in weather left Anthony soaked as rain poured from the sky. Stopping by a large oak tree, Anthony took cover underneath its large and leafy branches. It was a gorgeous tree, far out on the borders of the property. Anthony smiled as he ran his hand over the wood, noticing two initials carved into the bark. Looking up, the sight confirmed his realization. Faded strips of cloth were still tied to some branches, and there was a flat portion where a tiny little shelter had been erected, full of nut shells, blankets, and books which were probably weathered and beaten by now. It had been some time since Anthony had been out here, and Y/n had been his co-owner of the charming property. They used to spend every day of their summers in that treehouse, spending every moment talking of their hopes and dreams for the future. Anthony had wanted Y/n by his side forever then, and he wanted her by his side now; if only it hadn’t taken almost getting married to the wrong woman for him to realize it.
The sound of footsteps squelching across the wet grass made Anthony turn around, and he felt his heart stop. Standing there in front of him was Y/n; she was soaked through, her dress clinging to her body. Her hair was down, wild and a mess, with some strands sticking to her wet face. Water drops ran down her face, dripping off her nose and chin. The lead of her horse was clutched in her hand, obviously she had had the same idea as Anthony and had also been caught in the storm. Her lips parted, as if she wanted to say something, but all she could do was just stare. Yet all Anthony could focus on was that she was there, that Y/n was standing in front of him, and that she looked like the most gorgeous thing he had ever seen.
“Y/n…” Anthony barely breathed out, his voice hushed. He felt like if he moved to quickly or spoke loudly, Y/n would disappear. Yet she didn’t leave, just stood there, waiting for Anthony to speak. “You came back.”
“Yes my Lord.”
She was being cautious, understandably, but Anthony was desperate to right the wrong he had done to her. He walked forward, kneeling down, not caring about anything that having Y/n know how much Anthony cared about her.
“Forgive me, Y/n. You were right, and I was too stubborn to listen.”
“I don’t understand, Anthony. Why didn’t you marry Edwina?” Y/n put her hand on the man’s shoulder, and he dared to look up.
“She did not want to marry someone who didn’t love her, and after some reflection I realized I did not want to marry anyone who wasn’t you.”
“But your list, I do not fit into it, I could not be the perfect wife for you. And besides, I also don’t want to marry for anything else but love.”
Tears started to well up in Anthony’s eyes, his heart feeling simultaneously full and in pain. “I love you Y/n, I always have and I always will. It’s just…” Anthony swallowed hard, trying not to get choked up. “When my father died, you saw it destroy my mother. I didn’t want to ever feel that pain, and I never wanted to cause that for another. So I’ve run Y/n, I ran to the brothels, I ran to Sienna, I ran to Miss Edwina, all because I was too scared to let myself love you. But I can’t stop loving you, and you’re all I think about. And I realize now I would rather spend every minute loving you and then feeling the intense pain of losing you than go my whole life feeling numb without you. I love you Y/n.”
Tears were now freely falling from both Anthony’s and Y/n’s eyes, mingling with the raindrops. Anthony waited for the latter’s response, looking up and searching her face for any signs. Then slowly Y/n placed her hands on both sides of Anthony’s face, holding him as she leaned down and pressed her lips against his.
Warmth surged through Anthony, his body feeling like it was on fire from the contact. He had kissed multiple women before, but never had he felt as he did kissing Y/n right then and there. He stood up, and leaning into the contact, Anthony grabbed Y/n’s hips, pulling her closer. Y/n’s hands moved upwards, tangling her fingers into Anthony’s damp hair. The rain mixed with their lips as they touched again and again, a cold contrast to the warmth of their bodies.
When the two separated, chests rising rapidly in tandem, Anthony looked at the woman in front of him with a smile on his lips. Leaning his forehead against her’s, Anthony gently bumped their noses together. From that day forward, he knew that Y/n would be the woman he worshiped forever and ever more.
———————————————————————
The next time Anthony was standing at the alter, it was not anxiety and thoughts of another he battled with. Enjoying the warm, summer day in the beautifully decorated back yard of his home, Anthony grappled with the impatience he felt as he waited for his soon-to-be wife to walk down the aisle. Family and friends looked on adoringly, and Benedict offered a wink and a smile of encouragement, patting his pocket to let Anthony know he had the rings.
Then finally, a hush fell over the group, and the quartet starting playing. Looking down the aisle, everything melted away as Anthony looked at Y/n. Arrayed in her wedding clothes, bouquet in hand, she looked perfect in every possible way. Anthony blinked away tears, hardly believing that he was lucky enough to spend the rest of his life with his best friend. He took Y/n’s hand as she walked up to him, handing off her bouquet to Eloise. Hand in hand, the pair turned to the bishop, ready to tie their lives together.
And so they did; taking their vows, there was no hesitation as Anthony and Y/n dedicated their hearts and souls to the other. Nothing but smiles adorned their faces as they joined their friends and family in the garden, eating the delicious food and cake prepared for them. Anthony continued to hold Y/n’s hand for the rest of the day, loving the feeling of having her near and knowing she was there to stay. Whenever he held her left hand, Anthony loved to run his thumb over Y/n’s rings, even bringing her hand up to his lips so he could kiss them.
All day Y/n the focus of his attention, with nothing else mattering except for his new wife. As the party winded down, Anthony led Y/n inside to her new home. Sweeping her up into his arms, Y/n laughed as she was carried by her husband up the stairs and into their bedroom.
“Anthony, I dare say we shall cause a scandal with this behavior!”
“I do not care, after all, can’t a man enjoy his new wife?”
Setting Y/n down in the middle of the room, he stepped back as she took it all in. Anthony smiled as he saw Y/n walk around and touch various objects, and he realized it was like she was meant to be here all along. Suddenly she stopped, looking back at Anthony, and then looking back again.
Y/n walked forward and sat at the vanity she had seen, looking at her husband in the mirror. “I did not realize you had an affinity for this kind of furniture my dear Viscount.”
Laughing, Anthony came over to Y/n, resting his head on her’s as they looked at their reflections. “Mmm unfortunately for you, I had this placed here purely for your benefit darling. I figured it would be a nice start to you making this home yours.”
Y/n turned in her chair to look at Anthony, and the smile on her face made him feel as if he would buy every vanity in the world if it would make her this happy. “It is perfect, thank you.” Turning back, Y/n started to pull pins out of her hair. “Anthony, please do help your wife prepare for the night.”
“Gladly Vicountess Bridgerton.”
As Y/n worked on her hair, Anthony worked on navigating her out of the dress she had on. A long row of buttons in the back proved to be difficult, and Anthony felt thrilled as he got one done. As he started to work his way down, Y/n’s dress slipped off her shoulder, exposing the skin. Unable to resist temptation, Anthony pressed a kiss to her shoulder.
Pushing off the other shoulder, he placed another kiss on that one. The buttons forgotten, Anthony slowly pressed his lips along Y/n’s neck, reaching up to her jaw. She turned in her chair to him, and he moved his lips down to her collarbone. Over and over his kissed her, fully allowing himself to appreciate the woman he had married.
Regretfully, however, Y/n did pull Anthony off. Standing up, she slipped off the wedding dress, leaving her in her undergarments. Anthony felt his heart pick up as he watched Y/n, only able to see beauty in every part of her body. Y/n slipped a nightdress on, even though it was doubtful she would even need it later. Turning back to Anthony with a coy smile on her face, she grabbed his lapels and pulled him in. “Now your turn my dear.”
Anthony let Y/n deftly slip his suit jacket off and watched as she started to undo the buttons of his shirt. She seemed to be purposefully taking her time, leaving Anthony in desperate agony. Finally as the last button came undone, Anthony wrapped his arms around Y/n and picked her up, placing her down on the bed. Climbing in after her, Anthony placed kiss after kiss on any skin that was showing. Y/n wrapped her hands around his neck, pulling him up and pressing her lips against his. Passionate and hot, Anthony and Y/n kissed again and again, enjoying the way their mouths fit together.
For just a moment Anthony pulled back, taking in his wife underneath him.
“I love you Y/n.”
“And I love you Anthony.”
#Spotify#bridgerton#netflix bridgerton#anthony#anthony bridgerton#anthony x reader#anthony bridgerton x reader
351 notes
·
View notes
Text
twst character playlists pt. 2 🎧☆
⚠️ warnings: not a warning but i just wanted to say that i have 2-3 asks in my drafts rn!!! i have not been ignoring you ive been procrastinating studying for finals and sleeping ^_^!!! they should be answered soon i prommy, ty for ur patience <3
last updated: december 17, 2023
🌹 🎼
Riddle: Red Velvet - Day 1 , Lee Hi - Only , Laufey - Promise , Beabadoobe - Glue Song , Men I Trust - Show Me How , Humming Urban Stereo - Banana Shake
cutie patootie basically
also music thats easy to study to!!! i just swiped this from my study playlist.
Ace: VANO 3000 - Running Away [adult swim] , Gorillaz Ft. Kali Uchis - She's My Collar , Worthikids - Friends In Low Places , Joey Valence & Brae - GUMDROP
music i listen to in roller skating rinks and drinking slurpees and crying
only ace uses a skateboard and probably wouldn't be crying and would drink the cola icee instead of the blue raspberry one
Deuce: AC/DC - Highway to Hell , Dominic Fike - Mama's Boy , The Offspring - Pretty Fly (For A White Guy) , Army Of Lovers - Crucified ,
Joan Jett and the Blackhearts - Bad Reputation
"ACDC stands for acedeuce" -someone from the twsthc server
ummm not really much to add to this. deucepel canon. join my server
Cater: Aliyah's Interlude - IT GIRL , Girls Generation - Gee , IVE 아이브 - After LIKE , NewJeans - Super Shy , LE SSERAFIM - Eve, Psyche & The Bluebeard's wife
BITCH, YOU KNOW IM SEXY. UGH! DONT CALL, JUST TEXT ME XP
cater is a kpop stan and knows all the lyrics and dances and hums them randomly whilst walking down the hallway i saw her
Trey: Fuji Kaze - Shinunoga E-Wa , CAFUNÉ - Tek It , monsune - OUTTA MY MIND , piri & tommy - soft spot , Essosa - Waste My Time , Tatsuro Yamashita - Fragile
chill as fuck. in his zone. moisturized. at peace.
he plays this on low levels as he bakes and while hes studying
🥩🎶
Leona: SZA - Broken Clocks , Childish Gambino - Redbone , Kendrick Lamar , Money Trees , Tyler, The Creator - See You Again , willowsmith - Wait a Minute! , Tyla - Water
leona is a part of the sassy male apocalypse
listens to Broken Clocks while its raining like he just went thru a breakup (he didnt)
Ruggie: Chief Keef - I Don't Like , jnhygs - JERK! , babyxsosa - EVERYWHERE I GO , Flo Milli - Conceited , Ice Spice - Princess Diana , Brent Faiyaz - Been Away (Jersey Club Remix)
n i just fell n luv w a gangster, so he put my name n a tatt
but i dont let em come 2 the crib, so we get it on where we at
Jack: Outkast - Ms. Jackson , Destiny's Child - Bills, Bills, Bills , The Notorious B.I.G - Big Poppa , MF DOOM - Rapp Snitch Knishes , 2Pac - California Love
lalalalalaaa
my favorite african american
🫧🎵
Azul: Queen - Killer Queen , Joan Sebastion - Secreto de Amor , Caravan Palace - Rock It For Me , Lady Gaga - Americano , Chicago - We Both Reached For the Gun
once again older jazzy sounding songs
also electroswing. the octatrio are electroswing, and the Chicago musical
Jade: The Buttress - Brutus , Elita Harkov - Sour Switchblade , Elita Harkov - Mentally Not Here , KikuoHana - 不幸屋の娘 , NASTYONA - 09 요단강
in part one i put their cute girly girl hiking mushroom collecting playlist but here is their fucked up evil plotting and biting playlist
also useful for studying and lounge shifts! three in one!
Floyd: DIGITAL CIRCUS - Pilot Official Soundtrack , Kikuo - 天国へ行こう , Rufus Wainwright - Another Believer , Chuu - Heart Attack (sped up) , SB Soundtrack - Clownfish Capers
what can i say
silly goofy music for a silly goofy guy
🌞🎼
Kalim: Heavenly - P.U.N.K Girl , No Doubt - Just A Girl , TWINKLE ♡ HEART/jun 音源 , Cascada - Everytime We Touch (Nightcore) , Dolly Style - Cherry Gum (Nightcore) , S3RL - All That I Need
hime gyaru kalim lives
i snuck in nightcore and S3RL im really not sorry
Jamil: Marie Madeleine - Swimming Pool , X-RAY SPEX - I Am a Poseur , Vundabar - Alien Blues , Memo Boy - Insomniac
just a girl
👑🎶
Vil: Lady Gaga - Beautiful, Dirty, Rich , Barry Manilow - At the Copa , NewJeans - ETA , Judy Singh - Up and Down , Amy Winehouse - Stronger Than Me
Epel: MF DOOM - Doomsday , Primus - The Devil Went Down To Georgia , The Crane Wives - The Moon Will Sing , October Country - My Girlfriend Is a Witch ,
The Devil Went Down To Georgia is the type of shit epel would listen to while performing the most back breaking nail chipping farm chores
Rook: I Monster - Lust for a Vampyr , Kali Uchis - I Wish you Roses , peace - stolen dance , Lamp - From The Window ,
☠🎵
Idia: TOPHAMHAT-KYO -Princess♂ , LamazeP - 難聴系男子が倒せない , Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan OP , BLEND-A - Bon Appetit S , Bakudan Poppy - Oha-Yo-del , Dancing Samurai
🐉🎼
Malleus: Soap&Skin - Me and the Devil , Yoko Kanno - Green Bird
Silver: Korn - All in the Family , batta - chase , Lil Boodang - Jesus Don't Like That I'm Gay but Satans Cool With It , My Chemical Romance - Teenagers ,
yes thats the name of that song
emo teen music, not cos theyre an emo teen but cos lilia introduced the genre
Sebek: deaf, doesn't listen to music
Lilia: BABYMETAL - Headbangeeeeerrrrr!!!!! , Graveyardguy (feat. Slayyyter) - Final Girl , NANAOAKARI - One Room Sugar Life
#i got lazy at the end im sorry#this has been sitting in my drafts for months i gave up#twisted wonderland#twst headcanons#twsthc
17 notes
·
View notes
Text
𝐌𝐈𝐘𝐀𝐌𝐎𝐓𝐎 𝐔𝐒𝐀𝐆𝐈 𝐀𝐍𝐃: 𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐍𝐈𝐂𝐈𝐓𝐘.
changed the whole layout of my day just to get on and make this post. anyway below the cut i'm going to outline all of the things i'm stealing from usagi's source material, usagi: yo.jimbo, to add to his 2003 characterization. i AM going to be pretty picky because i think it's fair to say that the character in 2003 is not exactly the character from the yojimbo comics - this is just to help flesh him out a little. bear in mind that usagi is canonically around 16 when we're introduced to him at the battle nexus tournament, so things will have to be adjusted from his canon proper in order for his age in the show to make sense. tws for death/death of a parent, murder, other various gritty samurai things.
usagi was raised as the only son of a village headman, though he did not spend much time at home. he loved and respected his father, and, later, was granted leave from his training to travel back to his home village and pay his respects at his father's grave.
at age 3, typical for most young boys being trained to be samurai, he was given his first wooden katana to train with. he learned to fence very quickly.
eventually he was sent, along with childhood friend/rival kenichi, to train at the dogora school of bushido. while travelling there, a group of dishonourable students set about attacking an old man (he's literally a lion) in the street. the old man held his own and beat the students despite being vastly outnumbered. usagi, enamoured with his technique and style, set about trying to convince this man to become his sensei instead.
the man (lion), katsuichi, initially refused to train usagi - until usagi convinced him by standing outside of his house, morning and night, for days on end, through rain and sun, displaying his tenacity and determination. he is so annoying i love him
usagi was katsuichi's only student, but he was mischievous and sneaky enough to make this poor guy feel like he had a whole class. stole a sword from a dead soldier once. nearly got his hand cut off trying to return it. just usagi things
around here is usagi's first foray into the battle nexus; he's 13, still training, and about to beef a fully grown dragon
when usagi 'graduated' at age 15 he was brought to a fencing tournament hosted by the dogora school and won the fuckin thing because of course he did. the last bout of the tournament was up against kenichi, who did in fact attend dogora school and became its top student. upon winning this tournament, usagi was gifted the daisho he uses still today; the katana, yagi no eda (willow branch) and the wakizashi, aoyagi (young willow).
the guy that intervened and stopped usagi getting his hand cut off for the thieving thing up there turned out to be the daimyo, mifune. he was in attendance at the tournament and was like. i gotta get this kid on payroll
so he did
im not giving this child a son. i just don't think that would be fair to anyone involved. jotaro i love you though good luck out there kid
it's just hit me now that they call usagi a 'ronin' during his introductory episode which means all of the trauma must have happened before he turned 16. this is the most miserable i've ever been
i won't even sugar coat it man ninjas were hired to assassinate mifune and killed his wife and son. this sparked a big war in which mifune was killed by a barrage of arrows on the battlefield. usagi had to perform his final duty, i.e cutting off this guy's head and burying it somewhere secret to save it from desecration
oh also one of usagi's closest friends goes turncoat that battle and runs away. dw though usagi murders him for it later!
happy 16th birthday usagi. do you want to go to the battle nexus tournament and get a boyfriend. cool
now we're all caught up. he's going to kill gunichi soon-ish. at around 17/18 i figure. after the events of samurai tourist.
#theres sooooo much more im taking for myself but this was already so long and nobody is going to read it anyway#𝗨𝗦𝗔𝗚𝗜 𝟮𝟬𝟬𝟯 : one alone is not enough.
2 notes
·
View notes
Note
zeno anon once again, most likely for the last time (my apologies for bothering you so much haha!) thanks for the rec! I was planning to play that but I wasnt aware of that part, so thank u for the heads up so I could prepare ahead of time. if you have any other game recs in general id love to hear them
i promise youre not bothering me at all, no worries :D! i love talking abt games and stuff so i promise im having fun dsalkjakjdslkjds
Here is a list of game recommendations, with a summary and the major TWs that i can remember! I'll edit in links after i post this ask too! and ill put them under the cut bc this is gonna be long lkjdsalkjdskjads. All games listed are free!
Cell Of Empireo - Sharktale Factory:
Major TWs: Cults, Human Experimentation, Body Horror, Character Death, Suicide, a single implied mention of cannibalism (very brief), Overall Dark themes, Two (2) jumpscares.
My personal favorite right now! Haruki Atou is a 28 year old detective. When his friend and coworker, Eiji Shinano, goes missing, he follows him to his last known location... the mysterious cult known as the Empyrean Heaven Research Institute.
LOTS of lore. Like genuinely every single detail feels so fleshed out, it's insane! Foreshadowing EVERYWHERE. this one has a similar vibe to ZENO to me? Also i love the character writing in this game, everyone has their own motivations and plans and its SO DETAILED. Theres a gay mad scientist! a headless rat! a puppy!!! No official playable translation, but there is a translator who has uploaded the entirety of the base game on youtube! The DLC is currently being translated. 7 endings, + bonus scenes based on whether a specific flag is triggered.
Witch's Heart - IZ (Blue Star Entertainment):
Major TWs: Body Horror, Suicide, Murder, Dark themes.
While playing up in the mountains, Claire Elford finds herself taking shelter from the rain in a mansion. Soon, she finds four other people, some bizarre monsters - and no way back out. In the company of demons, the five must figure out how to escape... and solve the mystery of the legendary wish-granting treasure, the Witch's Heart.
This one is split into multiple scenarios. There is the base game, Witch's Heart Bonus Stage as the direct sequel, and Sirius' Conclusion. There are more to come (more character conclusions). This one is fun! Wonderful Character writing, fun gameplay, and charming interactions between the whole cast. Five endings.
SHTDN - Umami Mazu (Marutoku Kichi):
Major TWs: nothing major iirc. brief mention of sex, some discussion of death.
The desktop is peaceful as usual.
In order to delete the computer virus called "Agape", the anti-virus program, Virus Buster "Goyou", must cooperate with it while searching through the computer's files.
This one is short and genuine, with GORGEOUS backgrounds. It's STUNNING. It’s so so so cute and the conversations between Goyou and Agape are genuinely sweet <3!! Same creator as ZENO, different translator! Three endings.
Eloquent Countenance - RachelDrawsThis:
Major TWs: religion, horror imagery, blood
You have been told that the pastor of your church had suddenly passed away last night. As you helped with his wife's funeral not so long ago, you were assigned to assist the pastor's funeral service today as well. But as soon as you were about to start the service, you hear a strange voice in your head…
This is short but compelling! Made for a game jam where the entire game takes place in a single room. I had a lot of fun with this one :D WONDERFUL character writing! Two endings.
Cold Front - RachelDrawsThis:
Major TWs: Blood, gore, disturbing imagery.
Augustine and Winnie have always been together their whole childhood. Ever since elementary school up until now, when they have graduated high school. They were inseparable.
But now that Winnie got accepted to his university, he is soon leaving town. The two decide to spend their last day together before his move. Not long after they hopped into Winnie's car, they suddenly find themselves trapped in a freezing blizzard... It's currently July.
also short with 2 endings! FANTASTIC character writing, both Winnie and Augustine feel SO fleshed out <3
Your Turn to Die - A Death Game By Majority - Nankidai:
Major TWs: Death, graphic depictions of violence, Hallucinations, Trauma, overall dark themes.
Sara Chidouin returns home from school late one night to discover that something's gone terribly wrong. When she comes to, she finds herself, her friend Joe, and 9 other people trapped in a mysterious place. Placed in life-and-death situations, they must come to an agreement about what they should do - and who should die.
YTTD <3 this one is released up through chapter 3-1B, with part 3-2 to be the final part when it is released. Multiple routes! this is what got me into playing these kinds of games in the first place :D very fleshed out characters, details matter! your choices determine who lives or dies!
Therapy With Dr. Albert Krueger - Dino999z
Major TWs: jumpscares, cartoon gore, blood, flashing images, loud noises
The genius of Dr. Krueger shines again with his newest revolutionary breakthrough therapeutic sessions. Allow Krueger’s new treatment to tackle the toughest cases of mental disorder (peer-review pending) and fears in our ever changing day to day world. The genius lies not only within Krueger's stunning techniques as a therapist, but also with what he calls “Dream Therapy”, combining breakthrough neuron technology with his closely held therapy principals. So what are you waiting for? Sign up for your therapy today!
HELLOOOOO MR KRUEGER! Same creator and world as VTSOM, with some connections between the two (though the order in which you play them doesnt matter)! three endings! I love this silly goofy marine biologist turned therapist! the protagonist is NB :D
#rpgmaker games#cell of empireo#cold front#eloquent countenance#SHTDN#therapy with dr albert krueger#your turn to die#witch's heart#rpgmaker horror#indie games#zeno anon#aria rambles#anon#aria answers#game recs
65 notes
·
View notes
Note
"Can I fall asleep on your shoulder?" + World of the Coinless; Sentry Adam~
Connecting Touches
In some ways, Adam was glad his family wasn’t here to see how gray and solemn this world had become. More importantly, they weren’t exposed to the life he’d been forced into, a life of cruelty and violence, one without mercy or compassion or even the vestiges of happiness.
Only one person’s joy mattered in this new reality and you’d be wise to keep that forefront in your mind.
Skull often commented about how even nature itself seemed to change suit with the ascension of its new ruler. The more experienced Sentry was a firm believer that Lord Drakkon’s reign altered something that was fundamental and normally fixed in the universe.
“You ever notice how all the color seems to have fled from the world, rookie?” Eugene had asked the newcomer once when the pair were weapons training.
Pausing in their mock combat, the dark-haired man pointed up at the sky, a dark ominous color and covered with thick, heavy clouds. The wind carried the scent of rain and a rumble of thunder growled somewhere off over the horizon.
Adam had frowned, forehead wrinkled.
No, he hadn’t paid much mind to anything else beyond keeping his head down and following orders.
“Huh…” he responded, also gazing into the approaching storm.
From he’d gathered about the Red Sentry, the younger man was sure he had ideas as to why this was so.
“Yeah,” Eugene continued. “I know its not the most important thing in our lives, it shouldn’t matter. But I feel like we are foolish not to be concerned.”
He chuckled.
“Though, honestly, I’m not sure there’s fuck-all we could do about it anyway.”
Nestling his weapon back in the rack, Skull favored Adam with a thoughtful look.
“Tell me I’m not the only one who’s noticed this? Everyone else thinks I’m crazy.”
The Black Sentry also relinquished his training staff as he considered the observation. Now that he actually thought about it, Adam realized that most of the vegetation, at least around the palace, were an odd growing shade of brown, though the farmers were still able to raise crops and livestock. Besides the bright reds and yellows of two Sentry regiments, it had been a long time since he’d seen any bright, cheerful colors.
“You’re not crazy,” the Black Sentry murmured. “They either don’t notice or don’t care. Maybe both.”
Skull shook his head, a mirthful grin curling his lips.
“I didn’t think so.”
Walking from the training grounds situated on the far side of the courtyard, the pair could feel the static in the air, a building electrical current of threatened lightning.
“I miss how things used to be,” Adam commented. “I remember rainy days, before…all ‘this’… when I’d curl up with a good book and a mug of tea, thinking how nice it was to be inside where it was warm and cozy. Now, we’re back to candlelight, wood burning cooking appliances, and looms.”
Skull stopped, placing a hand on the younger man’s shoulder.
“That’s another thing, rook. How long ago would you say all that was? What year do you think we’re in now? ‘Cause for a while even I thought I was nuts.”
He looked around for any eavesdroppers. If you dared to question things, it was best not to be too loud about it.
“This whole… world… or whatever the hell you want to call it, feels ‘off’. Like sometimes I’d swear I had seen or done something just yesterday, or maybe even a long time ago, and I’m off base. At first, I chalked it up to no real markers of time, calendars and all that shit. But man, the seasons are messed up too. I’m pretty sure of it.”
This was another thing that Adam had not been cognizant of. How long had it been since he’d seen his parents, his teachers, his friends? What about his wife and child? Why do those two distinct time periods seem ‘mis-mashed’, like a knotted ball of yarn?
“What do you think it all means, Skull? You’ve clearly given this some thought.”
Again, the Red Sentry gave a quick scan of the area.
“My love, Billy, was a genius. Literally. Super smart could invent the coolest gadgets and fix basically everything. He’d have this all figured out like that,” he sighed, snapping his fingers, voice tinged with grief.
“He…died. A long time ago now. I’m no where near that intelligent so I’m not sure what he saw in me. But from everything I’ve observed over that last twenty so-called ‘years’ is that our world, our reality, our time is jacked the fuck up and it has something to do with ol’ Fuck Face and his nutty powers,” Skull continued.
“I mean besides what I’ve already pointed out, our lifestyle and ways of getting on in the world went ass-fucking-backward like it’s the early 1800’s or some shit. But then peppered in the mix like ground glass, we’ve got spaceships, teleporters, energy blasters… well, that fucking dick does. We’ve practically got covered wagons and horse drawn plows. And NO ONE bats a goddamn eye!”
Eugene was starting to get worked up, outraged that everyone had decided to be complacent and ‘forget’ how their world used to be. He struggled to lower his tone, lest his voice carry and Drakkon find out his observations.
Adam stared silently into the swollen, angry clouds. Nature, the planet, time… all were displeased. Or sick. Or as cuckoo as Lord Drakkon.
What could possibly go wrong with that?
“I think its partly from the Grid’s influence, not just poor Mother Earth losing her marbles,” Skull admitted.
He’d NEVER told another soul about the Grid besides Bulk. Definitely not anyone in this backstabbing clusterfuck of a hellhole. But he sensed he could trust this soft spoken, gentle looking man. Seeing Adam’s confusion, Skull delved into what he recalled the Blue Ranger telling him of this mysterious ‘Grid’ where the Rangers drew their powers, the colors and their possibly associated attributes, and the various creatures that attached themselves with each.
“I may not have the smarts that Billy did, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to believe that a demonically evil Green Dragon mashed up with the light of goodness White Tiger is the most stable thing to ever exist. And they’re probably both pretty pissed about pressed up against each other. Perhaps they’re rebelling?”
The Red Sentry shrugged.
“That’s my two cents for what it’s worth.”
Adam sighed and his shoulders slumped.
“Sounds like it doesn’t bode well for any of us, Skull. Not that I believe in happy endings anymore.”
They walked on quietly for a moment, headed towards the shelter of the barracks. A scattering of icy raindrops sprinkled upon their bare heads, winding a chilly path to their scalps before gliding down the backs of their necks.
The sky growled again with thunderous warning, a blinding arc of lightning crackling through the clouds.
“We’d better get a move on, newbie, or we’re going to be a couple drowned rats before we even reach the door,” Eugene called over a sudden gust of wind.
Skull’s words echoed in Adam’s mind, about nature and time and a primal clash within a ‘Grid’…
The weather right now seemed like an accurate barometer of what must be going on under the surface of things. It made him shiver more so than the chilly rain, an unseen, unpredictable, unstable presence…
Just as they reached the threshold of the Red Sentry’s dwelling, the clouds verily split and a torrent of water gushed from the sky. Adam was reminded of hysterical tears and open, bleeding wounds as he stared out the window while Skull nimbly flitted through his cupboards, pulling together a small meal of soup and crusty bread.
He whistled while he cooked, lifting an amused brow in self-deprecating humor.
“Not exactly like a five-star restaurant or the meal of champions, but we won’t have empty bellies to keep us up. At least we can mark that off the list of sleep-killers. I’ve got enough on mine already and I’m sure you’ve got your own.”
Skull noticed the tense set of the Black Sentry’s back as he continued to gaze out at the powerful deluge, the wind picking up dramatically, and accompanied by a clap of thunder so deep it rattled the delicate pane of glass.
“I don’t think I’ve managed a full night’s sleep since my wife and child…” he stopped his quiet confession, always unable to say aloud the words that hung suspended from the tip of his tongue.
“When I close my eyes, no matter how exhausted I am, I still see their faces, their terrified tears…hear their begging, my begging and crying that I’ll do whatever he says as long as…”
Skull paused in settling the chipped bowls on the makeshift table, his thoughts turning to Billy’s face just before he’d made the ultimate sacrifice to save Trini. While he’d understood the Blue Ranger’s actions and been proud of his bravery, in his heart he felt the raw anguish of loss. The time they’d had together, while beautiful and special, just wasn’t enough and it certainly was NOT FAIR!
“There’s no winning with that motherfucker,” he responded, his voice rough and throat burning painfully with holding back his own grief. “I can’t believe that no one and nothing has ever gotten one over on that smug, arrogant sack of elephant shit! I don’t see how it’s even a possibility!”
He walked to where his companion stood and stared out into the pouring rain. It was coming down so hard that even if it were earlier in the day, they would have been unable to see anything with clarity.
“I want to believe,” Adam whispered brokenly, “that one day that will change and he’ll get knocked on his pompous ass, be made to feel the terror, grief, and pain that we all feel, to lose EVERYTHING he…”
The Black Sentry laughed.
“I was going to say ‘everything he loves’, but he only loves himself…”
Skull remembered the power coins and how Billy had explained their abilities in tapping into the Grid and what they meant to the Ranger who possessed them, not just in terms of power, weapons, or any of that stuff… But what the coins meant to their heart…
“There’s something else he loves, I’m pretty certain. His coins. They are what give him his power, which he enjoys as well. Without those coins, Drakkon is nothing but a mortal man. A batshit crazy, psychopathic homicidal asshat… but you can kill those. And he knows that.”
Adam growled, a usual noise coming from such a meek, reserved, mild mannered individual.
“No powers mean he’s nothing special and I think that’s something else he’s aware of. He would just be a garden variety asshole and those are a dime a dozen in a world overrun with people who aspire to his fuckery. What a lovely punishment that would be! One of many of course.”
“Preach,” Skull muttered, his hand going back to the Sentry’s shoulder. “But considering we have a snowball’s chance in hell of ever getting close to those fucking coins, I say we get some food in us and get a little rest while we can. You never know what’s shits going to get unleashed and when around here.”
The muscles under his grip softened and Adam allowed Eugene to guide him to the table where their food waited. The broth was on the watery side, but it did contain a rather generous helping of vegetable scraps along with a smattering of shredded chicken.
“Don’t worry… I’ve got connections. That chicken’s fresh from this morning when they were prepping the dinner ingredients. My man on the inside passed this off to me while the others were finishing drills.”
Adam wasn’t sure he’d care if it wasn’t fresh. What’s the worst that could happen? Food poisoning?
Ehhh… if it killed him, it killed him. He’d be reunited with his beloved family and be free from this wretched urine-soaked hellhole. He had never been able to bring himself to take the actions needed to end his life, but the Black Sentry wasn’t cautious, becoming at times reckless, which ran contrary to his normal temperament. His fellow comrades in the regiment couldn’t claim to understand it, but Adam’s business was Adam’s business.
And around here, you were wise to mind your own…
As they ate, the rest of the light faded into oblivion, prompting Skull to light some lanterns, the rain pummeling the roof in concert with the cavernous thunder and streaks of lightning.
Consuming such a filling meal compared to what he usually ate at any given time, Adam felt the weight of his eyelids grow exponentially. He was bone tired, physically and mentally, though he was hesitant to close his eyes, knowing what he’d see on the other side. His head dipped slightly to his chest, first in fits and starts, then progressing down… down…
“Hey,” Skull’s voice murmured near his ear. “You’re about to take a header into my fine china.”
He pointed at the threadbare mattress on a rickety wooden frame and draped with a faded orange and blue checked blanket. It was one of his most cherished possessions.
“I don’t think this is letting up any time soon so why don’t you catch some winks while you wait. Not much else to do around here. No cards or books or games, board or console, to amuse us. My buddy and I used to be quite skilled at figuring out the newest video games without even knowing the instructions. And Billy…”
He smiled sadly.
“Billy would read to me from a book while I laid with my head in his lap,” he breathed. “I didn’t care what type of book it was. It might be a textbook, an autobiography, a novel, a comic… Just cuddling up against him, listening to his voice and feeling the warmth of his body.”
He gathered the dirty bowls as Adam pushed back from the table, grateful to have someone who was willing to share their own tale of sorry. Most around here would clam up tighter than a sausage casing and deny or deflect or repel with heated anger.
“I used to lay in bed with him and the feel of his skin against mine, his chest rising and falling… I always felt safe and loved. Like we were the only two people in the whole wide world…. Like we never had to get up and face the day. We didn’t get as much time together as I hoped we would, but we always made sure to live in the moment and make the days count,” he whispered, staring absently into the empty, mismatched vessels.
“I’m so glad we did.”
Working his boots off without bothering to undo the laces, the Black Sentry settled into Eugene’s offered bed. He pulled the soft material around himself to his chin.
“Billy sounds like was a great guy,” he sighed. “I appreciate you trusting me enough to tell me about him. I’ve heard the others guessing about each other’s private lives, but no one seems to know anything when it comes to you.”
Skull chuckled.
“Billy was an AMAZING guy. You don’t know the half of it. That’s a big part of why I don’t bring him up. And it’s a piece of my life that I’ll always treasure so I don’t want to share him with most of these hateful creatures. They wouldn’t get it. They’re too much like Dictator Dickhead.”
Adam yawned, his eyes struggling to remain open, still fearful about the terrors and memories that awaited.
A visceral need came to him, one that he felt embarrassed to verbalize aloud. Yet, Skull had never once passed judgement. In point of fact, he’d taken the newest recruit under his wing where the others had been nothing but vile assholes, some attempting to ‘haze’ the rookie and some seeking ‘favors’ for their time and attention.
Not Eugene.
“This might sound silly. Or gross. But I don’t mean this like another Sentry might…” he started.
Skull waited patiently, already knowing this man was nothing like his regiment.
“Can I fall asleep on your shoulder?”
He twisted the hem of the blanket in anxious fingers, his cheeks flushing hotly, and he felt every inch a child terrified of storms.
“I mean… I miss feeling…”
“I get it,” Eugene whispered, already walking toward where Adam huddled shamefully. “You miss the feeling of falling asleep laying next to someone, that physical touch we are all starved for here. Most of us anyways.”
After kicking off his own footwear, the Red Sentry clambered onto the bed and situated himself under his beloved quilt. Reclining back, he grinned and patted his shoulder.
“Bring it on in here.”
The weight of Adam’s head as it slowly and carefully (and awkwardly) nestled into position unexpectedly wrought a contented sigh from Skull’s lips. He’d missed this too. The soft black hair brushed his cheek and jaw and the feel of another living breathing body curled alongside his body brought a soothing calmness he’d not felt in decades.
It was a basic, essential need, this craving for human contact, body to body in the vulnerability of sleep. It didn’t always link arm in arm with the desire for sex, though it often did at times. That was simply biology and hormones.
Having Adam in his bed, flush against him, was definitely not of that variety. He could see why the younger man would be concerned that he might think that though. The Sentry barracks were at one time rife with ‘grab ass’ games, favors for favors, blackmail and extortion, ass kissing… That didn’t include the destructive things they got up to outside the palace walls.
Essentially, they were like a roving band of yowling tomcats and the tyrant had grown extremely annoyed with their antics. There were enough rug rats running about underfoot as it was, and he was not risking anyone ‘catching feelings’ and wanting to create a family in his palace. Babies and children made one vulnerable as he’d obviously taken advantage of that fact.
Hell no he wasn’t about to be bothered with the incessant whining and wailing of snot nosed brats. He himself had taken care of his own procreation ability long ago and he wasn’t shy about sharing. His abusive old man had given him one piece of advice when he was but a surly teen.
Despite his assertion that ‘Tommy’ was a fairy princess beneath his denials and protestations, Mr. Oliver warned his adopted son about ‘semen demons’, shrewd harpies out to snare a man with the promise of soft, cuddly, powder scented brats… or as a means to use the courts to take the cash they were truly after.
“Those bitches will poke holes in condoms, Thomas,” he’d drunkenly slurred, feeling as if he were imparting the wisdom of the ages. “They’ll dig them out of the trash when you aren’t looking even! ‘Forget’ their pills. Get you baked or drunk and rub one out when you don’t know what way is up! Don’t trust none of ‘em! Look at what I got to deal with!”
He snorted, a slimy booger bubbling from one nostril and contracting and expanding with his respirations.
Tommy had stared at it in disgust, an expression that his ‘pa’ took to mean he understood and was in agreement.
“You get any type of cash, power, fame, and those cunts will swarm you like ants in a sugar hill! A man can’t be too careful. But you want to make sure you can still have your fun when you want it then gallop off into the sunset when the rodeo is over.”
Though Lord Drakkon had taken measures with his ‘castration’ protocol, it only helped to stim pregnancies, but not all the wild, distracting debauchery, much to his dismay. Many men were still able to desire and participate in sexual activity, not all the guards but enough of them to make things dangerous for an innocent new recruit.
Skull listened to the tyrant recount his own sterilization with curiosity as the guards assembled those first few weeks once the weaklings had been eliminated. They knew they weren’t going to like what was about to go down, but it was that or a painful death…
Later on, he found it ironic that the asshole even bothered with his nuts. During his first few years working his way up the Sentry ladder, Eugene, like everyone else watched as Drakkon trotted his precious ‘pet’ about the palace, though at the time, it wore a knock-off Ranger helmet in addition to a form-fitting black silk uniform and golden collar.
And that muscular build and narrow hips clearly belonged to a male.
Rumors swirled about Red’s other job besides guarding Drakkon, the very stories that got many scathing punishments. But it was hard to believe otherwise when the asshole’s hands lingered about the pet’s hips, thighs, and ass, his fingertips gliding along defined curves in a way that was obviously full of possessive lust.
Why Drakkon gave a goddamn about anyone wondering about their relationship was unknown.
Skull’s reminiscing was interrupted by Adam’s soft voice. He was surprised as he’d thought the weary man had fallen asleep already.
“Tell me more about your Billy, Eugene. Just what you’re comfortable sharing,” he whispered.
“Well,” the other man chuckled sadly. “Where should I start?”
#boom! comics power rangers#power rangers#ao3 author#ao3 fanfic#lord drakkon#red sentry skull#world of the coinless eugene skullovitch#world of the coinless adam park#friendship#sharing tragedy#human connection#touch starved#fluff#writing prompt#prompt asks
2 notes
·
View notes
Note
hiya miss rain!!!!! it’s been a hot minute, i missed you🥹 i just applied for my first ever job!!! i had the interview two days ago and it went really well; the interviewer was really kind to me because i was the youngest in the group of applicants. i think it’s also because i was the only undergraduate there, but i’m not complaining lol. (also i got in!! my orientation is tomorrow, so i’m really anxious about it but at the same time i feel like i’m ready to take the next step y’know?) soon i’ll be working from home as an english tutor🫶
i don’t think i’ve ever mentioned that i’m actually a creative writing major!! so yeah, i am now a workshop veteran🤣 my cnf prof had us workshop every essay we made, so i really bonded with my group. nothing brings people together like opening up abt trauma, that’s for sure💀 it’s def my fave genre so far though, since i’ve already taken realist and non-realist fiction hehe. i’ve heard of the crane wife, but i haven’t read it yet! i’ll give it a shot one of these days, since it’s already vacation for me🫶 def not taking summer classes this time around, lord knows i am Drained💀💀
i’m so glad to hear you did well though!! you’re a Certified Girlboss, and i love to see you thrive🫡 how is law school? any fun anecdotes?👀 are you on vacation as well? if so, i hope you’re resting lots!! you deserve it hehe🫶 that’s all from me hehe i hope ur well!!
-🌿
babie!!!! huge congrats on the new job. how has it been going so far? <3 <3 <3 i hope its everything you dreamed of 💗
how many years do you have left?? omg i can't believe its been so long,,, i feel like you just told me you were in first year LOL 😭 time is passing by so fast and im on such a rollercoaster. but i hope youre enjoying your major <3 i miss my crwr classes so fucking much omg.... yes LMFAO cnf was rly "ive never met you but here is my deepest scar i guess" such a wild time
not many fun anecdotes from law school unfortunately but the trauma bonding is real...... oh i do have a really handsome professor that's my supervisor for a thesis-like project this term. every time we have a meeting im like 😍😍😍 LOL. hes so kind and smart and im rly lucky to be working w him!!!! i cannot wait for this entire term to be over though ugh.
i hope youve been well 🥺🥺 im rly sorry i havent been replying or on here as much as i'd like. im trying to plan so many things that my brain is just jumbled aljdsfkj
5 notes
·
View notes
Note
WHAT IS 8:11 PLEASE EXPLAIN TO WHAT THAT GAME IS GO FULL LORE IM BORED..
OH MY GOD my autsim has been triggered ofc ill explain
8:11 is a rpgmaker horror game by dubuk :3 you play as ryker dublin a french priest who gets caught in the rain with their friend Leon and has to take shelter in an abandoned church cuz of the hard rain BUT..... smth bad happens
SPOILER FOR THE FULL GAME FROM HERE ON!!!!
While theyre exploring the abandoned church Leon is killed by a guy name Dante, and is mangled... kinda bad from it, but anywaud. Ryker finds Leon injured as he is abt to get killed and Leon intrusts his very special Bible to them that only Leon is able to read as anyone else who reads it dies (or is injured in some way, depends on how much they read), and tells ryker not to open the Bible no matter what until Leon tells them to. So Leon dies and ryker finds out that he has ties to a place called Rosso Cadare, specifically the basilica there, a few years later ryker travels to the Rosso Cadare and meets two fellows named Juliek and Accardi (theyre more important later, forget abt them rn), and then heads to the basilica (which is abandoned by now btw) then meeting Vittorino, who is a priest who lives there and is not very happy abt ryker being the the basilica and tells them to get out (vittorino is a bit... off his rocker), ryker then leaves and gets hit by accardi who was drunk driving, ryker can not go the hospital however bc their too broke and have no health-care (due to the fact they don't live rosso cadare) so accardi just takes him home. I'm not gonna explain ALL of the lore in detail bc its a little complicated and there's a bunch of other lore with certain characters SO I'm gonna tell u abt some of the characeters!!!
Accardi is cannonically implied to be a cannibal as he's had dreams where ate his father before and also says he gets "hungry" when looking at a corpse. Him and ryker are cannonical love interests, they go on a little bar date and accardi asked bascially if he can kiss ryker, he sews up rykers mouth for them, ryker also gives him an orange (in rosso oranges represent love and giving an orange to someone is basically saying "I love you" to them), accardi also used to date juliek but they are no longer dating. Accardi also has an interest and surgerical procedures and even performs an illegal surgery on someone (him sewing up rykers mouth as I mentioned), he also likes antique furniture :3
Juliek speaks atleast several(?) Languages fluently I'm pretty sure and used to work as a translator for people in rosso, juliek also has a daughter whose around 7 I think?? And An ex wife named Susan.
Vittorino hates rabbits as the basilica in its earlier days was very crowded and people would call them "rabbits" due to how they were packed in. After finding ryker in the basilica for either the second or third time he rips out 3 of their wisdom teeth while laying on their ribs (as to hurt them as ryker was already injured before this), he only pulls out three of rykers wisdom teeth as "3 is a very unlucky number"/quote
gabriel is seen at the beginning of the game but then dies due to reading Leon's bible, je appears later in the game seemingly reborn as before he was a business man and now he is an detective, he has terrible memory problems and gets rykers name wrong about twice i believe, he also only shaves half his face, wears his tie backwards, and wears two watches (by mistake)
BUT YEAH!!! that's a bit abt 8:11, I would recommend u go check it out if ur interested it's such a silly game!!!! :3
5 notes
·
View notes
Note
For the WIP ask, how about (a:tla) twenty years, The Stars are Different Here, Wait. Us?, and justice and scars, please?
(a:tla) twenty years
This is the one i told you about, with Dai Li brainwashing, OCs based on Austen characters, and focused on Zuko and Katara's oldest daughter Kanna. The placeholder title is due to it taking place twenty years post-canon.
Excerpt:
From how negatively her mother spoke of Ba Sing Se, and how her father never spoke of it at all, Kanna knew they wouldn't have wanted to revisit their old neighborhood even if they had been able to make the trip.
But Kanna did. The colony where her father had been born had been split into two separate cities after the end of the Hundred Years War, and from the sound of it most of what had been Lan Shi had been demolished to make way for new buildings. There was even less of the village where her mother had grown up, as it had been burned to the ground, its people scattered throughout the Earth Kingdom and further beyond. And while her parents talked sometimes about visiting the Fire Nation or the Northern Water Tribe, between their duties to the estate and the demands of raising five kids, it didn't seem likely they would ever do more than talk about it.
She had grown up surrounded by the Earth Kingdom, raised on it as much as any true Earth Kingdom child, but though there were pieces of her that were unquestionably, unchangeably Earth Kingdom, they could never replace the parts of her that weren't. Her hair and complexion were Water Tribe, and her eyes and chin were Fire Nation. She loved the spicy dishes her father made, and looked for her mother's stories in the constellations of the night sky.
The people of the estate -- Colonel Baome and his wife, their children, her mother and sisters, his staff -- had always been kind to her and her family, but she didn't fit. Not like Shara and her brothers and cousins did. Kanna loved the estate, she really did, but she wanted to know what it felt like to belong somewhere. She didn't think she'd find it in Ba Sing Se, not even if her parents had lived there for years instead of weeks, but who knew.
The Stars are Different Here
This is a branch of the Allwinter 'verse. To steal my earlier description of it, it’s about a boy who, recently resurrected after having been dead for four years, finds himself in a city that has been anomalously cut off from the rest of the world. He embarks on a road trip with some people from that city to reunite with his dad, who lives in a different city that has also been anomalously cut off from the rest of the world, just in an alternate universe, and approximately 30 years in the future.
Excerpt:
“Maybe not. Maybe we’re needed for something else. Maybe we won’t know till we get there,” Greg says, and takes a sip from his glass. She ‘hmms’ in acknowledgement. He looks up at her, eyes sparkling with the genuine, boyish excitement that never fails to charm her. “It’ll be an adventure!”
Sara smiles wryly. “Like everything else since the Storm.” Like the insects, she thinks, and the heat flares and the ghosts. The eclipses and the floods they cause. The storms in summer that rain strange, often dangerous materials. The way that nothing is truly predictable anymore, making every day a series of educated guesses (at best) on how to stay alive.
“Like everything else,” Greg agrees. There’s something blue to his words, and she knows he means Warrick coming back. The colors she’s still getting used to that give warning, or a gentle nudge in the right direction, or a reminder. The voices he hears from a future that’s become more reassuring than it is alarming. The building where the dead come back.
He finds the blue in everything; finds it, even where there’s barely a hint of it, and shows it to her.
Wait. Us?
This is easily the oldest story on the list, seeing as it's been six and a half years since i worked on it! It takes place after Knights of the Old Republic II: canonically, the Jedi Exile takes off into unknown space, leaving the various people she trained as Jedi behind to rebuild the Jedi Order. They're a motley bunch including a Mandalorian bounty hunter, an ex Sith assassin/torturer, a scholar raised in the Jedi Order but left untrained due to a lack of masters, a sheltered Echani warrior who basically left a cult made up mostly of her own family members, an engineer profoundly affected by the recent war (most pointedly, barely contained contempt for the Mandalorians, and PTSD and guilt over his role in ending the war), and the sole survivor of a planetary massacre who until recently had a Force bond with a Sith who was basically a walking black hole. The mental image of these different people, some of whom can barely stand each other, trying to rebuild the Jedi Order of all things is ... a colorful one, to say the least.
Excerpt:
"Confusing you isn't hard, Rand. I'm not here to stop you, but to give your brain a chance to catch up to your ego, or whatever it is that got you out here."
"And what's that supposed to mean?"
Mira rolled her eyes. "Check your belt."
"Wha - ? Oh, come on, Mira - "
Quicker than thought, she stepped forward and detached the silver cylinder affixed to his belt, hidden under his vest and held it up in one hand. "Well, look what we have here."
"Congratulations. You found my lightsaber. Jedi points for you."
She waved it at him. "If you're really so committed to leaving all this behind, what are you still doing with this?"
Atton had a perfectly logical, totally explanatory reason for doing so. He just couldn't think of it at the moment.
justice and scars
Another A:TLA story. While i believe there's a lot of symbolic and narrative significance to Zuko's scar never being healed, considering both the likely long-term effects of it (vision problems, hearing problems, constant pain, etc.) and the traumatic way he got it, i also like stories where it gets healed, undone, or averted. In this story, while at the Western Air Temple, Zuko ends up making a small offering at a shrine of a spirit. Said spirit, having been neglected for a hundred years or so, takes a liking to Zuko on this basis and decides to do something nice for him. That something is ... well, see the excerpt. :-)
Excerpt:
Like an old sour scent, the memory of his son confronting him -- him -- came back to him, sharpening Ozai’s frown. All the satisfaction of shooting lightning at him had been lost when the boy somehow redirected it, blasting it back in Ozai’s face. If he hadn’t been such a weakling, Zuko would have killed him.
It was incredible, really, how many ways the boy could find to disappoint him.
Suddenly he was aware of a presence to his left side, sharp and sizzling. For a split second, he could almost see it on the edge of his vision, something powerfully present and yet not fully there, either. But it was only for a split second, because in the next moment there was something on his face --
Fire.
Ozai screamed as his face was lit aflame. He screamed as the fire burned through his skin into the nerves and down every inch of him. He screamed as the heat consumed everything before it. He screamed as the smell of burning flesh overwhelmed him. He screamed until all he could hear was the sound of his own voice.
----
Thanks for asking!
#valiantarcher#ask#answer#a:tla#zutara#wip ask#allwinter#knights of the old republic ii: the sith lords#fanfic#my writing#like i know how to tag this#video games are awesome
6 notes
·
View notes
Note
Hey love, hope you can get some sunshine in today! Was wondering if u'd seen the lovecraft batman animated movie and if u had any thoughts for how a similar (but better lmao) au narrative would be crafted for a gotham-based dracula retelling? Also I think we got a Battinson sequel confirmed--ignoring the obligatory postcredits joker, what would you want to see from the next film?
Hi dear!!! There was some sun (albeit humidity + quickly turned to rain), but I did have a nice walk today, thank you. <3 I haven't had the chance to see the Lovecraft animated Batman flick (I'm quite behind on the animated movies, on the basis of having a love/hate relationship with DC Animation...Mask of the Phantasm and Return of the Joker absolutely rock but between the animated Killing Joke, Batman: Year One and Gott im Himmel, that horrendous 2009 Wonder Woman flick, I have my reservations about a lot of them.) I do know of a Batman vs Dracula story that happened but had?? Carmilla Karnstein??? Of all people??? As Drac's lost love/wife??? And I couldn't overlook it lol.
I actually have, in my shit billion Batfic WIPs, a Gothic thriller retelling of The Batman 2022 set in the late 19th century and based very heavily around the style/structure of Dracula since Battinson even has the diary entries that lend themselves well to the epistolary style! It's still very WIP, but it's there! Likewise, for a proper crossover, I think the best way to craft the narrative would be to have Bruce more in detective mode investigating the newcomer to Gotham City. The docks feature quite prominently as a location, so perhaps some iteration of the Demeter would wash up there, and Bruce could make use of both being Bruce Wayne and Batman to help solve the mystery of some of Gotham's socialites being drained. I'd love to involve Andrea Beaumont somehow, and some of Gotham's lawyer characters, but there have been some neat discussions on here otherwise on how Jack Seward's subplot could map neatly onto Arkham Asylum and its various suspect staff members (fun could be had with Crane, Strange, or any of the Arkham heirs alternating in this role!). I feel as though more than one Renfield might be found in the ranks of Gotham's rogues and civilians alike, which could make for some tragic intrigue. And of course, lots of fun could be had with the obvious bat imagery/vampiric parallels to Bruce's lifestyle and manner of dress. And I'd actually like to see Leslie Thompkins or Dr. Leland in the Van Helsing role! Do forgive me if this isn't quite so fleshed out as I'm kind of worn out today, but there are a lot of opportunities!
And yes, I'm very aware and glad the Reevesverse is (for now) safe! I recall Matt Reeves outright said he probably won't focus on the Joker as the primary villain for the mainverse sequels, which led to some amusing speculation that he'll just show up to befriend every other Rogue and not do much else. I believe Clayface is announced, but I would absolutely love to see another tragic Harvey Dent take, and my fingers are forever crossed for the Scarecrow spinoff we've been promised. There's also rumours of Poison Ivy getting a Rappacini's Daughter-inspired entry into this universe which. Good gravy. Yes please, and let's have her be as canonically and openly queer as possible while we're at it.
Thanks so much for sending this along! <3 I hope you had a great day/evening.
4 notes
·
View notes
Text
man theres so many CHESTS just laying around in the zora area
also it is AAALLWAYS raining girl let me CLIMB
these underwater/underground ruins are SO COOL i wish i'd seen these the first time i was here
YOOOOOOO MY FUCKING CLIMBING BOOTS. FOUND THEM!!!!!!!!!
shrine puzzle here where i gotta take the crystal and follow the beam. i am quite clearly supposed to build a raft, but there are materials for a bike. decided against this bc i love rafting in this game and also bc of the low ceiling, even though with the crystal as a counterweight the low ceiling ought to be no problem
actually, i should have done the bike. rafting is more fun when you're going with the current and not against it and also i'm dying to see how my new battery holds up <3
BIKE GOOD...i can't wait to get a chance to properly put it thru its paces
oh man i did a really long korok trip that with my old battery i wouldn't have been able to do!!!
there's a BED? up here at the reservoir. i slept in it expecting my bike to despawn but it was still there when i woke up
and a sidequest for helping this zora get stones for mipha's court...good i could use a break lol
NIIIICE zora fabric!!
god the music in mipha court still fucking kills me. it's crazy bc i didn't even LIKE mipha that much in the first game!! like ofc i cared about her, but she wasn't eating holes in my brain. but man...........
CLIMBERS BANDANAAAAAAAAAA AT FUCKING LAST
back in the ancoent zora waterworks for 1. zora greaves quest and 2. Frog. it's still really cool in here...
oh shit the water is gone!!! crazy..............
GOT MY GREAVES!!!
holy shit i just fused a weapon with 104 atk lol i can NEVER use this i have to save it for ganondorf. and a club with 72 atk wtf
well, i broke them immediately. i equipped one for a sneakstrike and i guess i forgot to unequip it so i must've broken them in this fight cuz they're both gone :(
uh...no...their attack got halved...? maybe i had some kind of effect going for me in the waterworks? water attack up or something? but i hadn't had any special food or armor...
OH i see! the zora swords i used for fusion have atk up when wet. it was raining and now it stopped lol. i almost panicked
:| i saved blood moon guy again and he said OH I KNEW YOU'D COME...like.........adn now he is like well i can do my research w/o fear. u always rescue me. buddy one day theyre gonna roast you over their little campfire before my ass gets here. then what. freak
oh damn he gave me a diamond??? ok fine ig
found another high/low tide cave. i like it better than the last one, probably bc this time i'm not trying to steer a shivery purse dog npc thru it on a raft
my rubber tights!!!!!!! FINALLY i can ride and farm farosh like she deserves. mwah
ANOTHER block puzzle i can't get...am i just stupid???
got my lightscale trident! unfortunately i am definitely gonna break it bc i do not have room for it in my house lol
lol sidon's wife says he talks about link constantly. "link is the best" "no task is insurmountable when i am with link" is he like. ok. like man are you happy are you like good? crackpot theory sidon like zelda canonically has a crush but it's up to us the decide if it's requited lol. i seriously tinfoil hat think he's gay. like is this all accidental writing sure but also. good lord
i am not against sidon getting hitched or whatever but this whole thing is so WEIRD...................
THE MAN HAS A STATUE OF THEM. LIKE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE whatever look it's fine. i'm normal. this is so normal. i think this is why i left in a hurry last time actually. weird vibes i get around here. i can't be doing this shit during pride month
happily this is all i have time for today. tomorrow i wanna try doing more story lol the right side of my map is so close to being clear but i need a break!!!
2 notes
·
View notes
Last Seen Blogs
sub380
Sans titre
ohimtherebabey
another cock in the murder machine
tepoteblog
Tepote
emalieandjessica-blog
Emalie and Jessica