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#he was helping her with planks
getoslittlemonkey · 2 years
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"come on baby, i know you can take it, you always do"
iwaizumi's praises fall on deaf ears as you collapse and gasp for air.
"that's it, now give me one more. yeah?"
you want to say no because of how tired you are but you nod and get in position.
"that's it, that's my girl. i'm so proud of you baby"
your arms feel like jelly and your core aches because of the burn. you're sprawled on the floor when hajime takes you in his arms, hugging you closely.
he pushes away the hair and sweat from your forehead and kisses it lightly.
"you did so good my love"
"you're a meanie haji, so brutal, even on your girlfriend. you know how much I hate planks"
"i know. but i also know that doing those final set of planks will help you achieve your goals, right?"
"mhm, and you know what? I'm so grateful to have you as my personal trainer 'cause I can save up on that expensive gym fees", you say.
"mhm", he says mocking you, "and you're doing an extra set tomorrow"
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dawningfairytale · 1 year
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OCEAN MY GIRL SHE'S SO CUTE HERE I LOVE HER
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worldsover · 2 months
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In Motion
~3.4k words, massage, gym sex, your personal training client!Jisoo
(for @sooyadelicacies, a quick bfh)
Jisoo flows through various yoga poses with grace and strength, her toned body clad in form-fitting pants. Despite the late hour, you made an exception for Jisoo tonight; she's worth it. As she holds a challenging lunge, her thighs quivering from the effort, you admire her determination—one of the reasons why you cleared your schedule for this session. Besides, it's technically Saturday now, so staying up to watch her is justifiable since you'd be working at home anyway. It definitely has nothing to do with wanting to appreciate the curve of her hips, or the arch of her back, or the way her ponytail sways as she moves into different positions, revealing the elegant line of her neck. Definitely not. Who would stay up this late just to watch someone sweat? Or to admire the sight of them in a sports bra, revealing their cleavage? Certainly not you.
"I saw that you landed that yoga sponsorship. It suits you perfectly," you comment, catching a whiff of her jasmine-scented shampoo as she walks by for weighted squats. Your eyes linger on her backside before you correct her form.
A thin layer of sweat glistens on Jisoo's forehead after finishing a set. "Thank you!" she pants, her chest rising and falling with exertion. "I never thought I'd be working out this late." Her laughter fills the room and warms your heart.
The distant rumble of a sports car breaks your focus. Living just steps away from Elysium Fitness, these interruptions are common in such an expensive neighborhood. "Don't worry about him. Just showing off," you reassure Jisoo with a smile, and she chuckles in response.
As the night wears on, the bright white lights are replaced with warmer, softer lamps that are easier on the eyes. But the harsh lights of the city at night still seep through, casting a neon glow over everything. Your breathing matches the thuds of feet and weights hitting the floor as you both lie on mats for core work. You guide Jisoo through planks and leg raises until you're both exhausted. With each movement, her top rides up and exposes more of her toned abs, testing your self-control. You've worked with plenty of beautiful actresses and models with stunning bodies, but there's something about Jisoo that sets her apart.
During a break to sip water, Jisoo offers you a taste of her strawberry-flavored drink. The sweetness catches you off guard and elicits another giggle from her. Her laughter quickens your pulse in a way no workout ever could.
"Rough day on set?" you ask.
She lets out a sigh. Sitting on the floor, she leans back and supports herself with her arms behind her. Her chest rises and falls, covered in sweat. "Not just work," she responds. "I broke up with him."
Your eyes widen in surprise. "Really? Isn't he still your co-star?"
"Yep." She pops her lips, and you nod sympathetically at the awkwardness of the situation.
As you help her up after a strenuous set, your hands brush against her stomach and back. At that moment, your eyes meet hers in an intense gaze as she leans into you for support. Company policy strictly forbids personal involvement with clients, but denying Jisoo is impossible. The city lights seem to dance across her glistening skin, mixing with the scent of her perfume.
"I'm here whenever you want to talk," you offer, gently massaging the tension from her shoulders as she relaxes into your touch. "You know I'm ready to help with whatever I can."
She takes a deep breath before responding. "I know. That's why I like you." Your heart skips a beat at her words, and time seems to stand still as the sounds of your exertion fade away.
You try not to gulp. "You know, I actually have my massage license. So if you need me to work out anything else... promise I won't charge extra."
Jisoo stays still for a moment, then nods. "I think I like the sound of that."
Together, the two of you walk towards the massage rooms. The gym is quiet and empty at this late hour, a stark contrast to its usual bustling energy during peak hours. As you enter, the sounds of grunting and heavy breathing are replaced by soft jazz music playing from the speakers. You close and lock the door behind you for privacy, even though it's unlikely that anyone will disturb you in this peaceful haven.
But then you remember and go back to lock the door. "Hey, if you want to change in the locker room—"
"Keep it locked."
The air is thick with tension as you wait for her to undress, every part of your body buzzing with anticipation. She begins by removing her shoes, then slowly pulls down her pants, revealing long and toned legs. It feels like she's putting on a show for you, yet she still blushes and you look away out of respect. Her sports bra is the last thing to come off; you bite your cheek to avoid staring as she hands it over without meeting your gaze. Now wearing only a pair of panties, Jisoo lays face down on the table with a heavy sigh.
You start massaging her shoulders, feeling the gentle give of the springs beneath her weight. Your hands continue to move lower until they reach the small of her back where you pause for a moment, taking in a deep breath. You catch a whiff of sweat mixed with jasmine from her shampoo and a hint of strawberries from her flavored water. Her skin glistens with perspiration and you quickly grab some massage oil from the cupboard, generously pouring it onto your hands before returning to her. The shine of her fair skin, now glimmering with oil and muscle definition, has your breath catching in your throat. You continue kneading, now using oil to glide your hands all over her back, shoulders, neck—and you think you can hear her moaning softly, like a contented purr.
She turns over onto her back, exposing even more of herself to you. At first, she covers her breasts with one arm and avoids your gaze. But then she relaxes and lets her arms rest by her sides. Her breasts are small but perky and enticing. Her nipples are firm. You squirt out some more oil, slowly gliding it up and down her arms and legs until they shine in the warm dim light.
Jisoo lets out a soft moan as your skilled hands work their way deeper, releasing any tension or stress she may have had. It's almost like a mockery to her, the way you only touch her limbs. Your gaze wanders over her body, tracing curves that you've only ever imagined caressing before. She tilts her back slightly, seemingly inviting you to explore her chest. But you resist, choosing instead to focus on her shoulders, collarbones, and sides—purposely teasing her with your careful touches. You maintain the facade of a professional masseur, suppressing your desires for now.
She turns back onto her stomach and you can't help but notice how her beautiful butt jiggles slightly as she settles in again.
Once more, you start from her shoulders and work your way down her back. This time, she shudders as you continue massaging downwards, stopping just above the top of her thighs. You lean forward to whisper in her ear, "Would it be okay if I moved a little lower?" Your voice is husky with nervousness and desire as your fingertips brush against the smooth skin above where her panties sit.
She nods slowly, biting her lip nervously as she exhales heavily through clenched teeth. As your hands knead at her thighs, she moans louder this time. "C-can you take off my panties? They're...starting to feel uncomfortable," she whispers. Like she's too embarrassed to admit it aloud.
"Of course," you say, and your finger hooks into the waistband. Lowering, carefully, you peel her panties down her legs, and watch in awe: her pussy is soaked. "Are you sure you're okay with this?"
"Mhm," she moans, whiny. "Just help me relax, please."
Without fabric in the way, you can really sink your digits into her backside properly. You can feel every ridge of her spine, every indent of muscle. You start to massage her glutes, circling and kneading them until you find that perfect spot. Her hips buck up involuntarily into your hands, begging for more as you bring relief to her tense body. You can't deny yourself anymore; your hands slowly creep towards her butt cheeks and then lower still. As you work on her legs, your fingers somehow find their way between them, teasing her inner thighs, earning another moan. The scent of her arousal fills the room, and it's almost too much for you. But you keep going, kneading, caressing, rubbing away all that pent-up tension. Your heart pounds in your chest as your thumb brushes against her clit, earning a tiny gasp from her lips. She's wet and hot to the touch.
"How's that?" you ask quietly.
"Good," she breathes out between ragged breaths. "So good... keep going."
That single brush becomes more purposeful, strokes of your fingers along her folds. She grips the edge of the table tightly, trembling under your touch like it's somewhere between pain and pleasure, but listen to her whimpering—it's all pleasure, and any pain is at your restraint.
"Please. More."
You nod, feeling your heart race in your chest. Your fingers find their way to her core and gently part her folds as Jisoo sighs heavily. Her labia is swollen and wet, begging for attention, but you take your time, teasing them with the tip of your index finger before plunging inside her. She cries out softly, arching her back into the table. Your middle finger joins the first one inside her, stretching her tightness with a gentle pressure that she welcomes eagerly. Her mouth falls open in a silent 'O' shape and she grinds against your hand, seeking more. You smile against her back as you watch your fingers disappear into her hot, tight heat and begin to move them in and out in slow, steady strokes. Her pussy clenches around them, milking your fingers as you continue massaging her thighs and glutes. You can't help but taste a droplet of sweat on her skin and lick it clean, savoring the mix of saltiness and jasmine on your tongue.
Jisoo's moans grow louder now as you work your fingers deeper inside her while still massaging her outer thighs; she trembles under your touch as you apply just enough pressure to hit all the right spots at once. Your other hand reaches up to cup one of her breasts through the oil-covered skin, squeezing and rolling the nipple between your fingers while you pleasure her from below. She gasps at the mix of sensations before coming apart underneath you; warmth seeps through your fingertips as she climaxes hard behind you. Every muscle in her body tenses before relaxing with deep sighs that fill the room. Even then, you don't stop; instead of slowing down, you continue to stimulate her, not wanting this moment to end. Minutes pass before she starts to calm down, and when she does, she pants heavily with an afterglow that fills the room. Finally, you sit back on the table, looking down at your sexy client as she lies there completely naked before you. She catches her breath raggedly, her chest rising and falling rapidly. You wipe away the remaining oil with a towel, then grab some fresh ones for both of you.
"Thank you, oh, fuck, that was incredible." She makes eye contact with you. "Can you pass my clothes?"
You hand them over, your hands shaking a little as you watch her dress herself.
Suddenly, Jisoo grabs your hand. "I need to reward you for that."
"What? No, it's fine, that was plenty reward—"
But then she pulls you away, and you find yourself whisked through the empty gym once again—as an employee, you know this place like the back of your hand, but you have no idea where she's taking you.
Whatever you were expecting, it wasn't Jisoo on your lap while you were sitting on a gym bench in a squat rack. This position isn't in any of your training programs.
"Wh-why here? If there's anywhere someone could show up... I mean, there's always crazy busy bodybuilders..."
"Shh." Jisoo has a wicked grin. "Just relax."
If you had to wager a guess, it would be the mirrors—no room has more mirrors than the weight room. And you're thankful because you get to watch Jisoo work in her tight leggings and her sports bra. Though you're certain that watching is only secondary to the sensation of it all. Of Jisoo clawing at your sweatpants, rubbing over your bulge. It is a close second, however, seeing the sweat on her tits again, or the curves of her back or her butt.
Jisoo's kisses are gentle yet demanding, exploring every inch of your neck and chest as she leads the way. Her sweet panting against your skin adds to the forbidden feeling of being in a deserted gym at this hour. You slip your hands into her hair, running your fingers through the soft strands as she takes you deeper into her world with each slow, desperate lick along your muscles. You feel like you're being worshiped by her tongue, and you wonder how a goddess can worship. Her body presses against yours, grinding against your hardness through the fabric of your sweatpants while she teases you mercilessly. The warmth between her legs beckons you closer as she moans into your neck, inviting you to take what she so clearly wants to give.
Finally, she pulls back and looks up at you with a mix of desire and vulnerability in her eyes. "Please," she whispers, her voice raw with need. And before you can question it further, she pulls down your sweats and underwear together, freeing your erection from its confines. Her hands wrap around you, stroking slowly to test the waters as they glide up and down your length. You gasp at the sensation of her soft palms on your skin, feeling the calluses from hours of training mixed with her tender touch. Then she kneels down between your legs, pulling you to the edge of the bench with little effort. "You know how long I've been wanting to taste this?" Her rhetorical question has you imagining all the times in the past you've wanted to fuck her, all the times you've wanted to keep her bent over in her yoga pose and slid your cock inside.
You close your eyes as she takes you into her mouth, feeling a rush of pleasure as her warm breath tickles your skin. You grip the bar above her head tightly as she starts to move, her lips sliding up and down your length. You can't resist leaning back into her touch, enjoying the sensation of her tongue swirling around your head before taking more of you in.
Her hand gently squeezes your balls while the other plays with your perineum, sending waves of pleasure through you. The sounds of her sucking and slurping fill the room, making it difficult to keep quiet. As she gazes up at you with a smirk on her lips every few moments, you feel like the luckiest man alive.
You watch as she admires herself in the mirror while bobbing on your cock. Her eyes never leave yours as she starts to stroke herself through her leggings, the leather creaking beneath you both. "Fuck," she whispers before looking back up at you with determination. "I want you inside me."
She stands up and quickly removes her shoes, pants, and underwear. There's no teasing this time, just raw need and desire in her eyes. You wonder if this gym bench can handle the intensity she's about to bring. Gripping onto the bars of the squat rack next to you, Jisoo positions herself above you with ease. She spreads saliva over your erection with her small hands, but there is already ample wetness from her own arousal. Slowly inch by inch, she takes all of you inside until she's completely impaled on your cock. Her arms wrap around your neck and her eyes never leave yours as she moves her hips back and forth in a slow rhythm. The sound of the leather bench creaking only adds to the taboo excitement of the moment.
Her breasts sway with each thrust, brushing against your chest with each movement. You grab one firmly, feeling her nipple harden under your touch as she grinds down on you. Her breath hitches as she looks into your eyes again, both of you consumed by desire. It's exhilarating to see her like this: uninhibited and craving more.
A glance in the mirror confirms how wild this situation is—the two of you making love in an empty gym late at night—but it only adds to the intensity for both of you. You watch her body move above you with a mix of arousal and pride as her trainer. You know just how much effort she's put into maintaining her incredible figure, all the hard work and dedication despite her busy schedule and strict diet. And now, that same body is moving around your cock, her labia gripping onto you tightly. You thrust upwards to meet her movements, feeling her tight walls clenching and releasing around your length. Her eyes close as she leans forward, and you and Jisoo kiss passionately.
As you break the kiss, you say, "Show me how well you've learned your squats."
Jisoo smiles. "Of course." She slides up your cock, which slaps against your abs with a wet noise, covered in her slick. She turns around and gives you a full view of her backside. While you got a decent glimpse of it in the reflections, seeing it in full is like seeing a painting in person. Her neck, her shoulders, the muscles in her back. The hourglass shape along her waist and hips to her toned thighs. They're enough to end a man with sight alone—and then she lowers herself on your cock once again, riding you reverse cowgirl as you lean back, your hands behind your head, in the sexiest core workout of your life.
She grinds down on you, making you beg for release as her act of worship continues.
Your fingers find their way to her hips, guiding her rhythm as you watch the most beautiful woman you've ever seen grind on your lap. The sight of her ass cheeks bouncing, the sounds of wet flesh slapping against your cock, it's all too much. Her eyes flutter shut in pleasure and she tosses her head back, moaning your name loudly in the empty gym. Her movements become faster, and harder against your grasp as she slides up and down your length with ease.
"Fuck," she gasps between breaths, "you feel so good." You bite down on your bottom lip hard enough to stifle a groan of approval as she rides you like a champion athlete. "I'm gonna... Fuck!" she shouts, as her legs tremble.
You sit up and wrap your arms around her torso as her body begins to shake, and here, you fuck her through her orgasm. You can see her eyes rolling in the mirror, and by the time your lips are on her neck, you only see the whites. You fondle her breasts, thrust upward into her, and feel her melt into you. "That's it, cum on my cock."
Jisoo's moans get louder and louder. Slick warmth surrounds you as she cums, tightening around your cock. She feels so good that you can't help but lose control too, though you manage to pull out before you start to pulsate. Regaining some of her awareness, she clasps her thighs together around your shaft, and you pump into the delectable pressure and friction. Fucking her thighs, you spurting and spraying all over her legs, her midriff, and her tits. You can feel her soft pussy lips still throbbing in sympathy, and the two of you ride out your climaxes together for what feels like forever.
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idyllcy · 3 months
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and i wouldn't marry me either
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word count: 20.1k
warnings: ANGST. hurt/comfort, over the seasons/winning you back
summary: You come to a slow realization in one spring, and a revelation in another.
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To be plucked, nurtured, raised, and presented on a platter all for the sake of securing someone's position for the throne. To be placed beside said person and never used. To be nothing more than a tool perfected only to be abandoned before use.
Your lashes flutter as you wander around the palace, pausing to stare at the lotus in the pond, and you ponder the whereabouts of your betrothed. The wind flutters behind you as you stare pitifully at the lilypads, stepping down from the path and onto the grass to touch the water. The dress around your body is tucked behind you by a maid as your fingers brush the water, and you pause, heart rippling in your chest. Something. Anything. You have fulfilled your duty as the most ideal woman in the palace, and now you were to be wed and desired. Yet, one whom you were prepared for did not desire you.
You stay crouched by the pond, and the maids to the other palaces bustle behind you as you stare into nothing.
A quiet woman is to be desired. A gentle woman is to be adored. An obedient wife is every man's dream.
You get up after a while, and you stare at the robes on your body. Pink for the lotus flowers. You wonder how many times you have worn the dresses prepared by the late empress for her ideal daughter in law only to never have been seen by the man you were nurtured for. You hear word of your betrothed and his new maid, and you hear tales about how he desired her and approached her with all these thoughts in mind. You cannot help but wonder what you were created for prior to being picked by the empress.
The wind rustles the leaves above you as you get up, and someone bangs a pot in the background.
Somewhere, there is a rope fraying.
You step back onto the pathing, and you head off to continue wandering. You know the path, each stone and slot of wood stained with a memory that you could never erase from the back of your mind. In your palace that you are to share with your betrothed, there is something staining your fingertips and heart. In the palace of your future and past, there is a drop of your sweat on each tile and piece, each plank and pillar, every color and china. In the palace of the present, you embody everything you can touch and feel. Your skin and body lives in the palace, a shell for your hollow heart.
You wonder if your courses on decorating a house according to what is best for fengshui were helpful. What was the point of decorating a residence if your betrothed never visited you? You wonder and think, fingers swiping to check the maids' cleaning, and you leave the room to return to your tea room, enjoying a cup of tea. You plant so many flowers only to never be visited. You decorate each room to perfectly only to be never seen. You fan yourself with your hand, almost as though you were fanning such pointless thoughts away. A house is to represent its owner. It is not a shell for your hollow heart, it is an abode that will be filled with love one day.
It is an abode that will be filled with love one day, an abode that is currently hollow.
You retire for the night, and the maids leave you to rest as Jinshi enters his corner of the palace, lashes fluttering and his heart souring as he looks at you with something akin to pity. He brushes your hair to the side as he looks down at you, closing his eyes to listen to the summer breeze whisper secrets of his into his ear. The flowers blossom outside, and his shoulder sink, his head heavy as you breathe quietly without a care in the world.
His bride to be.
His wife to be.
A girl picked carefully out of a field and nurtured to be the greatest empress one day. he pities you. You will never be chosen, and it hurts him that you were promised something you could not have nor be loved by. He glances around the room at the decorations, and he hums, lips curled into a sweet smile. It's homey. It's clear you had put thorough thought into where you were told you were to spend your future with him in, but it hurts him that he would not be here with you in the future. Too selfish to throw you away, yet too selfish to fall in love with you.
His heart belongs to someone else.
So, as he slides the door shut behind him to head back to his room, he can't help but wonder what is to become of you when he finally marries someone else. Perhaps you will find yourself, or maybe you will become a shell of what you were made to be, hollow from the inside out and unsure of what to do with the rest of your life. To be a doll and to be grown all for his sake only to be never touched... Jinshi wonders if you know what you want to do if you were to have had a choice in the matter. You did not pick to be as delicate as a flower, after all.
The moon is gorgeous, just a shame that he could not make you the center of his affections.
So Jinshi leaves, wind rustling the tree you planted in your sixth year of life's branches, the lotus flowers planted recently bobbing in the water as the pond rustles from the goose lands on the water, and he closes his eyes, listening to the crickets and noticing the lights in the hallway. A maid nods at him as he passes, and the wood of the residence creaks under his feet, almost as if to warn him to stay away if he would only hurt you.
It was neither of you's choice to end up where you are.
So his only choice made will be to pick his wife.
In summer, you swap the warmer blankets to silk, and you change the coloring to something brighter. It did not matter if Jinshi did not visit you. It only mattered that the residence were still run like a residence. So, the maids swap everything out as you are left to your own again, and you wear lighter clothes, drinking tea alone in your tearoom as you watch the ducks kick in the pond. The residence lacks life. You have no child as you are unmarried, and you are stuck in some sort of crossroad of destiny as you wait for your betrothed to do something.
He does not want you. You know that at the very least.
So, you spend your days drawing, brush wet against the paper as you draw, and you spend your days singing, hoping that somewhere along the lines, you would find something that made you shine in a glass cage. You are nothing if Jinshi does not treasure you. Yet, you do not speak or dare to make more of a sound whenever the maids from the other palaces drop by to request of your presence for their consorts. You are something. You are worth something. You are only worth something because you are still Jinshi's most anticipated betrothed. Yet, all the consorts know that you are not the ideal choice.
You glance at Maomao, lips spreading into a smile as you greet the consort Gyokuyou.
You have tea with her, updating her about the latest news that her maids cannot reach, and you blink at the flower in the tea, smiling apologetically as you ask if you could share another drink. Your eyes trail to her developing baby bump, and you switch topics to how her health has been lately. She tells you it has been fine. A green tea is brought in, and you press the drink to your lips as she continues talking to you.
"Ah, did you hear? Your betrothed has recently taken in a new maid."
"I know." You smile, eyes landing on Maomao. "I heard he had been making unwelcome moves on her as well."
Maomao nods.
"Well, the man's want needs to be placed somewhere." She smiles. "I do hope you take no offense in that."
You laugh. "None taken. He does not want me. I am aware of that much."
Maomao looks at you almost with pity. You do not mind, much used to the look already. Neither of you chose to end up where you currently are. You suppose the difference between her and you is that she is knowledgeable in something specifically while you are knowledgeable in everything generally. It is who you are, and it is who you were raised to be. There is no you without the title of betrothed attached to it. You will be forced to live how you were raised unless you had a reaction and changed. What is there to change in an unchanging environment? Even if you were to change, there would be no difference around you. You are born and raised to be Jinshi's wife. That is all you ever will amount to.
"Then, what do you suppose will happen?"
"The betrothal is simply a formality." You smile bitterly. "I shall simply wait for him to break it."
"He is far too selfish to let go of you."
Your gaze averts to the teapot on the table. "I know."
"Do you truly wish to stay here forever?"
There is no amount of improvement you could pour into yourself to possibly be set free from the palace. You are Jinshi's betrothed. You have been his betrothed, and you will continue to be his betrothed. You have never belonged to yourself as one would have belonged to themselves. You were simply created to be a person that was never your person. You are everything to be desired by the noble worth nothing to the people. You were groomed, grown, nurtured, and ruined for the sake of someone who would never touch you. You are a porcelain doll trapped in a wooden cage with the key around your neck.
You are worth nothing without your title of betrothed.
You have been taught to never escape even when given the chance. You are not to touch the key around your neck. For if you don't, you will be rewarded with riches beyond the comprehension of the common man. For if you don't, the boy you were coerced to crush on will look back at you for once. For if you don't, the world will be a better place all thanks to your small sacrifice. You are to hold the earth up to the sky and die in order for everyone else to live. Then, you will be remembered for the rest of your life.
You are an obedient doll on display for the dignity of the royal dynasty.
"So?"
You laugh dryly. "Where else do I have to go?"
A nameless bride from a nameless family. A dressed up doll on display.
The consort's face weakens in pity.
You can only smile bitterly at her.
There is nothing else you can do. There is no one else you can rely on. You have the key around your neck but you do not know how to use it.
That night, you return to your room, resting on your bed under the summer warmth, silk cool against your skin as the moon shimmers, stars twinkling as you grimace, heart heavy in your chest. You are not loved. You are not loved, nor chosen, nor cherished. You were picked from an empty field and nurtured to become someone you were not simply because there is never a person you were. You are put into the skin of another because you do not have your own. You will never be yourself is there was never a you to begin with. You will never know the warmth nor happiness of being your own person. All you know is to devote yourself to Jinshi.
All you know is that in a field of flowers, you will never be picked by the one you were grown for.
Colored leaves detach from the branches during the season of fall. You change back to warmer blankets, clothing a little more warm, and you arrange for the incense scents to be changed to something else. The bedding becomes thicker, the colors become redder, and you watch the flowers around the residence lose life with each day. The winter is getting colder, and your heart is only further breaking, cracking ever so slightly with each creak of the wood when you step around the place. You are not loved— not by the maids, nor by your soulmate. You are not loved.
You do not have a soulmate.
It is painfully evident when you visit the noble consorts, lips curled into a sweet smile when you drink tea with them. It is painfully obvious when the emperor refuses to let you leave Jinshi when you bring it up as a joke. You are not allowed to do anything in the palace. You are handed a key as a necklace but you do not leave. You are the display at the center of a traveling performance crew. You are a doll that will never be purchased because of your value. A doll that will never be touched because you are too prideful to offer yourself to anyone who is not Jinshi.
The sun may rise and set and the stars may twinkle and sparkle, but you will never be worth anything in the eyes of Jinshi. You are worth nothing. In the eyes of the emperor, you are worth nothing. In the eyes of the other consorts, you are a pitiful child that will be inevitably thrown away. In the eyes of Maomao, you are Jinshi's unfortunate betrothed whom she wishes he would pay more attention to. In the eyes of your maids, one day Maomao will take over as the owner of the residence and you will be left behind. You do not matter in the eyes of anyone.
Somewhere in the distance, a rope frays further.
Somewhere in the distance, in another universe, in every universe, you are cursed to love and never be loved. You are forced to hold the hand of a man who does not want you. IN this universe and every other one, you are stuck wallowing in self-hate, pitied for the way you are treated, despised for being the one who stands next to your husband. You are not a person. You exist only as a shell to embody other people. You will never be yourself. In every other universe and yours, you will be the shell that a hermit moves into only to be abandoned when they outgrow you. You will never be someone of value.
You call the maids to remove the tea, and you wander out into the streets of the capital.
Warm colors of red yellow and orange litter the streets with each step you take, and you purchase a quick snack, chewing on the sugar as you consider how you would need to starve yourself in order to lose the weight gained from the sugar. It makes you sick. You do all these things because you were conditioned for no outcome. You love Jinshi with your whole heart only for him to be in love with someone else. You cannot compare to her. She cannot compare to you. You are too different from her. You wonder if Jinshi simply desired a woman who could not be attained. You were too easy. Too simple. You were created and made in order to be perfect for him.
You purchase peanut treats, chewing on the treat as you watch the sun start to set.
A maid tells you it's time to go home.
You only nod.
You stare at the courtesans in the brothels, and then at your own skin. Perhaps that would be a way out. Perhaps if it were ever to come to it, you would pick that. It is not undignified. You would be sold for a good price, and you would have a rich husband. Perhaps the only downturn would be that the man would sleep with you day and night, but you wonder if that would be better than the bitter loneliness that your years of solitude have left you with. Perhaps you would be worth something in the eyes of another man if you just let go of your pride. Perhaps you would be of worth.
You are just an empty shell, after all.
You find yourself stuck in place as you blink quickly, realizing there are tears on your cheeks and splattering onto your chest. Your maid hands you a handkerchief, and you wipe them away, wiping again and again and again until the fabric is drenched and you no longer can wipe your tears. You stay like that, an anomaly in a bustling street of happy people, your emotions tucked behind your mind as your eyes form a mind of their own as you cry. You are not sad. You do not know how to feel sad. You only know how to cry. You are a doll. You should not know how to cry. You were erased of that ability years ago.
Yet, the tears do not stop, and you cry until the sun is no longer visibly, tears splattering still even when they wash you up for the day. It makes you unwell. It makes you feel sick. You should not know anything so unbecoming of a lady like this. You should not know how to cry. You should only know how to smile and wait for your betrothed to come home. You should not know how to be human. You should not know anything in this wretched world other than the happiness that being married could bring you.
So, as the maids clean you up and let you rest for the night, you dream of a happy marriage with Jinshi.
It is the only thing you know, after all.
Winter comes and you dress warm. The fur rests on your shoulders as you sit down for tea with Consort Ah-Duo, wine pressed to your lips as she lets out a heavy sigh.
"It is a pleasure to receive your visit." You smile.
"Jinshi, that child, he's quite the handful, isn't he?" She gets straight to the point, mumbling. "Had I been more upfront about it, perhaps I could have stopped your demise."
You laugh, lips curled into a bashful smile as you try to hide it with your sleeve, but Ah-Duo sees right through you.
"You are hurt."
"It is hard not to be." You hum, letting your sleeve down as you stare at the drink. "But I have grown used to it."
"The residence must be empty without a master."
You shake your head. "I have grown used to it."
"I could ask the emperor to give you to me." She offers, hand held out to you.
You turn her down. Your role in this world is not to be a servant to the late consort. Your role in the world was already predestinated. It is fate for you to end up with Jinshi in every universe. "I would become a servant. That is not my role in the palace."
Ah-Duo grimaces. "Is your role to wait until Jinshi is forced to throw you away?"
You laugh, lips curled into a gentle smile this time. You do not bother hiding this one. She shakes her head in disagreement, but she does not speak up. You are stuck in your role just as she is stuck in hers. She has retired from the main palace now. You will retire from being Jinshi's betrothed when he deems it fit. You will not be the decider of your fate.
"Let us drink. I missed this."
You are her daughter just as Jinshi is her son. You are the child she watched grow up in another consort's palace, your pinky linked with Jinshi's when the two of you were scared of official events, your shoulders straightening through the years as your education furthered, until you were an undeniable presence in the royal court, your words like law, just and righteous as you argued against the old men who would stop at nothing to prove a woman like you wrong. You are her daughter the same way Jinshi is her son. You are her daughter simply because you grew up with her son.
"I did too." You press the wine to your lips, bitterness sliding down your throat as you swallow, that faux happiness dropping almost instantly. You are not a lightweight. You are trained to drink well in order to talk to guests well. You despise it. You have learned that. You have learned to despise things.
You despise yourself.
You despise the people who pity you.
You despise the maids who whisper behind your back about how you would be replaced one day.
"I do not expect you to forgive Jinshi." Ah-Duo speaks. "I would not forgive him either."
"There is no forgiving to be done. He is simply making his own choices." You nod as the maid refills your drink. "I am not a woman to be desired by him. He is the type to pick a chicken leg over an abalone. He is the type to pick a stick rather than a flower. I am simply what the late empress thought of as desirable to him but ended up not to be. I am not something that Jinshi believes is desirable in his eyes. It is that simple."
"You are desirable." The consort refutes you. "You are educated in everything there is to educate someone in. You are smarter than the majority of eunuchs and workers in the palace. You are someone who is the most desirable person there is to be. Your worth does not lie on Jinshi alone."
"That is what I have been conditioned to believe."
"It is not the truth. Ah-Duo presses the liquor to her lips. "You are just as much of a person as Jinshi is. Perhaps, because of your upbringing, you are more noble than him in antics."
"He is more noble than I." You shake your head. "He is more noble simply because his position allows for him to make his own decisions regardless of who he hurts in the process."
"You may make your own as well." She hums. "Regardless of who you hurt in the process."
"I do not know how to do that." You close your eyes, exhaling. "I am not someone with that capability. I must carry the weight of being unwanted for the dignity of the royal family. I am the doll created to keep the royal family desirable. I am an exotic flower planted in a field of domestic ones, dying to be picked, only to never be touched."
"That is a lie." Ah-Duo frowns. "You are not a doll. You are just a girl."
You laugh. "I am not just a girl."
"You are just a girl." She repeats herself, staring into your eyes. "You are a just a girl. You are a girl who does not deserve anything that is happening to her. You are a girl who was picked out of the hundreds of thousands of girls abandoned on the streets because your family could not afford to raise a girl. You are not a flower curated for the betterment of a boy who would never pick you. You are a girl, not a flower. not a doll."
Your eyes do not waver, and you break the silence with another dry laugh.
"I am a doll on display with the key around her neck." You smile. "But I thank you."
You miss the way her features soften with the pity you despise.
When spring comes back, you watch the merchants bring in new silk and the streets fill in with the season's specials. You pick out the fruit and ingredients for the newer dishes, testing them out after they are made, and nodding in approval for them to be tasted by the rest of the consorts. Maomao helps you compile a list of ingredients that are not healthy or safe, and you look through them. Then, you send the ingredients out to the rest of the palace alongside the supplier.
Some days, you forget that you are an existence. Some days, you forget you have influence in the palace.
"Madam, what about this one?"
You turn to Maomao, and she shakes her head.
"No." You reject right away.
You wonder what made you change your mind about Maomao. You suppose it is pity that you do not have to give. You pity her for having to put up with Jinshi. Yet, it is not something you worry about for the time being. You squat down as you take your feet out of your shoes, grimacing at the sores on your feet from the shoe size that is too small.
Maomao takes note of it, shaking her head.
"You do not bind your feet, but you force them to stop growing."
"It is no different." You smile. "Your feet remain unbound, do they?"
"They do. I have no need to bind them. Granny did not request of it either."
"That checks out." You smile. "I do not bind them but keep my shoe size small out of my own volition.
"You should stop doing that." She pauses. "Not to sound presumptuous, but shoe size does not matter to Jinshi."
You blink, eyes going wide in amusement as you laugh. "You are as straightforward as the maids warn me."
Maomao bows her head in apology.
"Don't worry about it." You smile. "You are to be the lady of this residence soon, after all."
"I do not wish to." She shudders. "Ever since he... I do hope he regains interest in you."
"There is no way he was interested in me in the beginning." You hum. "It is really that simple."
"You have stopped deluding yourself—" Maomao slaps a hand over her mouth. "Apologies."
You laugh more, lips pulled into a wide laugh. "I quite like you."
She blinks at you cattily. "Please do not."
You shrug. "I understand why Jinshi would find you entertaining. I heard he proposed to you. One of the maids overheard it."
"I do not want him, if that soothes you. It is an honest statement as well." Maomao nods.
"I know that much." You hum. "Unfortunately, men in power tend to coerce women for their gain. If you do not wish for it, you may always let me know. I hold little power over Jinshi, but I hold heavy power over the words heard by these walls."
"You are powerful." She points out. "Yet you are so empty."
"So I've been told." You hum. "Those go over there. Keep that one away from the pure consort. She is unable to have those."
"Yes madam."
"Is there a reason you lack?"
"I do not know how to be anything but empty." You shake your head. "It is one of the many reasons Jinshi does not desire me."
"I believe he seems parts of you in me."
"No." You reject the idea near immediately. "We are not similar to that degree. Jinshi does not have the brain to think of us in that way. He is better than his father."
"The late emperor."
"The dead one."
Maomao shudders. "Children."
"Those poor children." You snort. "I was almost one of them."
"You are not that old."
"The late emperor saw me in the same way he saw the late empress. He was on his last years when the late empress took me in and raise me beside Jinshi." You shake your head. "Had I been born just a little earlier, I would have been sent in as a poor girl to be defiled by the emperor."
Maomao grimaces. "Did you fall in love with Jinshi at first sight?"
"No. I had just been taught that the only man I should look at is Jinshi." You hum. "Halt. What is that?"
The merchant shows you the signed form and hands you a sample, and you frown at the taste, handing the other half to Maomao.
"No."
"You heard her. No." You wave the merchant off, and he gasps, frown on his face.
"It is incredible." Maomao looks at the guards drag the man away. "A single word from you is the equivalent of a royal decree."
"The late empress had this power bestowed on me, after all." You mumble. "I am not someone who has ever had power that belonged to me."
"Can you eat poison?"
"The vast majority of them." You hum. "I was fed them while growing up."
"You seem to be everything at once. You are constituted with all the knowledge there is to offer, yet you are empty inside."
"I am composed of materialistic things." You hum. "I am composed of knowledge. I am the closest thing to perfection, I suppose. Whatever that means."
"A subjective perfection of the late empress regnant."
"Yes." You laugh. "I am a shell created to hold things. I am not constituted of anything that makes a person a person."
"Other than the physical features, I suppose." Maomao mumbles. "Yet, you are quite the enigma. You have a personality and something. You are like a dam that is waiting to explode. You are a pot of medicine simmering, waiting to boil over and become what you need to be. Ah. My apologies. I must have come off as rude."
You shake your head, lips in a smile. "So? Did you understand what to do?"
"I did." She nods. "My greatest appreciations for you for showing me. I hope I never have to take over this position."
You only laugh.
That is inevitable. The pin had already been passed on to her, after all.
But as your eyes trail to her and then to yourself, you wonder. Perhaps the two of you are just parallels of each other.
Maybe you are.
Who knows.
In summer, you see Maomao again, going for tea with consort Gyokuyou.
"I missed you." She smiles. "Sit."
"How is the baby?"
"Good." She nods. "Ah. Your shoes have changed."
You smile. "You can thank your maid for that."
"They must be much more comfortable."
"Yes." You nod. "I will never be desired by Jinshi, yet he will never throw me away, so I may as well give myself a little more leeway."
"That is good. "She smiles. "The new dish you approved for eating was delicious, for your reference."
"I'm glad." You smile. "Maomao helped make that one."
"Oh, really? I am so lucky to have such a capable maid next to me." She giggles.
"Yeah." You hum, lips curled into a smile. "She's great. I'm sure she'd make for a great lady of the house."
"Are you to leave?"
"You heard of the proposal, yes?"
She doesn't react, but that itself is an answer.
"It is only a matter of time." You hum.
"I speak for all the consorts, but we will miss you."
"Thank you." You smile pitifully. "I am grateful for your care over the years."
"We are grateful for your management." She smiles. "So? Have you planned for where to go?"
"The streets." You wink at her, laughing.
She does not reciprocate, and you stop your laughter, eyes closed and lips pulled into a smile as you hum. "It's a secret. Though, I will be around."
"Will you?"
"You will see me in the trees, the breeze, and the wheat." You hum. "I will be in the wind, the sky, the clouds. You will see traces of me everywhere, simply because my blood and sweat has been poured into the imperial palace."
"Perhaps it is time for you to be freed." She hums, lips pulled into a smile. "A journey for the self."
"Rather than that." You hum. "Perhaps it is simply time to let go of Jinshi."
"Does the empress still haunt you?"
"No." You hum. "I am slowly unlearning the need for a husband."
"Then you will become a courtesan?"
"Perhaps I shall simply be employed as a maid instead." You mumble. "I would not be against such."
"Dress as a man and become an assistant." She laughs.
You smile. "Perhaps that is my new role in this narrative."
"Or, perhaps it is simply time for you to be freed from the grasps of the palace." She smiles. "Please take care of yourself."
"I will. After all, I am still a doll for the royal family."
"Darling. You are just a girl."
You do not answer to it this time.
In fall, you have tea with Maomao.
The two of you sit in your tearoom with snacks, and she looks around anxiously, almost as if she were worried about something pouncing on her.
"There have been more assassination attempts on Jinshi lately." She mumbles.
"And you?"
"and I." She mumbles. "I do not understand why."
"Perhaps the emperor is making a move." You hum. "Or perhaps it is one of the consorts."
"I do not know." Maomao mumbles. "It is almost as if it were the calm before the storm."
You hum. "There is a storm brewing, alright."
An arrow pierces through the window as you knock the tea to the ground to hide Maomao with your body. Another one misses you narrowly, and you reach for the blanket on the bed, thick with cotton and warmth as it stops the arrow. Maomao stares up at you, heart racing in her chest, expression unchanging. This is what she meant. You are a force to be reckoned with. You possess the knowledge far beyond the abilities of the average consort, yet you are not acknowledged simply because the one to acknowledge you does not do so. You reach behind her for the sword under the bed, unsheathing it with ease as you slide out of the blanket, jumping out the window to chase after the assassin.
You are everything at once.
Your footsteps are light with each jump, and you swing from the branches as you knock him onto the ground, sword pressed to his neck, slicing through clean as you land with a thud in the pond. The ducks fly away as you land, water all over your robes, the blood from the decapitation bleeding into the water. The water stains your dress red from the blood, and you pant above him, pulling the sword away as you stand up to run a hand through your hair. The sun burns against your back as you throw your head back to breathe, eyes closed as Maomao's footsteps catch up to you.
"Are you injured?"
"No." You shake your head, showing her your hands. "though, these are roughed up."
"I will prepare ointment." She nods.
"Madam!" The maids yell. "Are you alright?!"
"Fine." You nod. "Fetch a change of clothes."
"We shall prepare it. Do you need to be bathed?"
"No." You shake your head. "No need. Perhaps just wash my feet."
They nod, and you hold your hand out for Maomao to apply ointment.
"Maomao!" Jinshi calls. "There you are! What are you doing here?"
You glance at him, nodding, head held down as he excuses you.
"Your sleeves are bloodied!" He reaches for her wrists, and she pulls away with a harsh tug.
"An assassin was after me." Maomao continues sliding the balm against your palm. "Your betrothed saved me."
"...thank you." Jinshi nods at you.
"You owe me one now." You nudge Maomao with a raise of your brows. "Better find a way to pay me back."
"I'll let you marry Jinshi." She deadpans, shuddering.
"Maomao!" Jinshi's jaw drops in hurt.
You laugh. "He won't let me marry him."
"Tsk. Worth a try." Maomao grumbles.
"Madam! The clothes!"
You nod in response, smiling as Maomao is taken away once the maids pull you to rid you of the blood.
You do not despise Maomao, but you do not deserve that lack of attention that Jinshi gives you either.
You are just a girl. You do not deserve this.
Jinshi talks to you this time.
He comes to the residence after being ordered to by the emperor, and he stares at you with your sleeves rolled up in the winter snow arranging the flowers. He does not know what to feel for you. You are his betrothed whom he does not visit, but he is your betrothed whom you do not talk to first. Perhaps it is simply excuses on his end. You do not know what he would think, after all. He was clearly in love with Maomao.
"You could have a gardener tend to such flowers." Jinshi speaks up, and you jump in your skin, visibly surprised to see him in the residence.
"J-Jinshi." You mumble, eyes wide.
"You are dirtying your clothes." He mumbles.
"Is it despicable?" You look up at him, eyes tired.
"It is foreign." He whispers back. "Though, it is not unwelcome."
"I see." You go back to the plants, tending to the roses.
"The emperor... is requesting the two of us for tea."
"I figured you have come for something and not for me." You stand up, dusting off your dress as Jinshi offers his hand to help you back onto the pathing.
You do not take it.
"What have you been up to?"
Jinshi tries to make small talk. You chuckle.
"Not much. I have only been tending to the plants in the garden."
"What about the rooms?"
"They have been filled with warm blankets for the winter." You hum. "The lanterns are all lit since it would be darker earlier in the day, and the walls have been repainted for the season."
"I see." He pauses. "And the salaries of the maids?"
"I have already taught Maomao. Fear not." You glance at the passing maids whisper to one another about you. "When will you be announcing it?"
"I will not be announcing it." He shakes his head. "Once my position is stable, then I will announce it."
"I see." You hear something rustle in the distance, choosing to ignore it as the two of you stop before the emperor's tearoom.
"Announcing the arrival of the second prince and his betrothed!"
"Enter." The emperor speaks from the inside.
The two of you step into the room, bowing to the emperor as he orders for you both to rise.
"Princess." he nods at you. "You have grown yet again."
You nod back. "I have."
"It is great to see." He nods. "Take a seat."
The both of you sit as the doors are shut, and you wait for the emperor to drink his tea.
"Did Jinshi tell you what we are discussing?"
"No." You shake your head.
"Jinshi wishes to marry Maomao." The emperor addresses the problem immediately, and you are reminded of Lady Ah-Duo.
"I am aware." You hum.
"Yet, he does not wish to break off your engagement."
"I am not as open minded to accept a second wife despite the allowance of a harem for the royal family." You chuckle dryly. "Besides. Jinshi only wishes for Maomao to be his wife."
"Yes. I only wish to be wed to Maomao."
"Well, Jinshi." The emperor sighs. "It's a shame, but we cannot break off your engagement to..."
"I am aware."
You hear something rustle again, and a flurry of footsteps rush outside of the door.
The servant yells.
"Maomao has been kidnapped!"
Somewhere in the distance, a rope snaps.
You are a girl You are just a girl You are just... a girl.
You get up and apologize for Jinshi's behavior as he runs out of the room to grab the servant to ask for details, and the emperor shakes his head. You hand Jinshi the seal of his army to him from your pocket, and you watch as he rushes off without a thank you. You stare at him bitterly and miss the way he turns back to look at you. Instead, you turn back to see the emperor staring at you pitifully, and you nod as you call for a maid to bring you into the bathhouse. You need a massage and a break. You need a moment to yourself. You need to relax. Your blood pressure was rising and you were struggling to gauge your importance.
You can say you know Jinshi does not care all you want, but living it is still a different experience.
So, as the maids leave you alone in the bathhouse, you cry, hurricane of tears breaking past your eyes as you cry into the bathwater, years of pain and anguish ricocheting off the walls as the birds outside the bathhouse fly away from your heartbreak. You are just a girl. Why does it have to be you? You are just a girl. You are a girl with no background or home or past but you are just a girl and you should not have to let the world be carried on your back just because you are a girl. You should not be defined by the feelings of a man who does not care about you. You are a girl. You are a simple girl who does not deserve anything that is happening to you.
You are a girl who was stolen from her family because the royal family desired a perfect empress. You are a girl who should not have to carry the weight of the world on her shoulders just because she was unfortunate enough to be picked for a job that did not suit her. Why did you have to be the one who has to fall in love with a man who does not love you back and be stuck being in love with him? He does not want you. He has made that clear enough. It does not matter if he would turn around to look at you one day. You would never be picked first.
You are just a girl.
You do not deserve any of this.
So, you stand up in the bathwater as it splashes with your movement, and you rearrange your robes into something moveable before you break past the doors of the bathhouse, footsteps heavy and undignified as you run through the pathing that you've stained with your sweat and love, past the gates that had welcomed you since birth, and you run, wind in your hair icing your scalp in the summer breeze, panting and gasping for air as you run through the streets and cry, losing a shoe on the way, tears still spilling past your eyes, mouth open to breathe, ignoring all the weird looks from the people on the streets as you run into the pathing in the forest and leave. You are free.
Free from the cage you had been locked in since birth, key left behind on the door as you end up somewhere you know will be better.
It does not matter to you anymore.
You are free.
Jinshi does not know what prompts him to visit you when he returns with Maomao. Perhaps it was because of the pain on your face when he had run away from you in order to go save Maomao. Perhaps it had been the realization while saving Maomao that you had given him one of the only powers you held over him without hesitation. Perhaps you had just handed it to him because you wanted him to see you once he returned. Regardless of your mission, he visits you.
When Jinshi steps foot into your residence after saving Maomao, your maids are rushing around the palace yelling at one another.
"Jinshi-sama!" A maid catches him, grabbing onto his armor in a panicked state as he blinks down at her in surprise.
"What?"
"Do you know where the young madam went?!" She cries, genuine fear and worry leaking all over her face as her cheeks are read from the cold and running around. "We've been searching all over for her since she disappeared from the bathhouse while we weren't looking! She's been missing since your leaving, and we assumed that she would return since she had been visiting the streets more and more often and perhaps had gone to visit her parents' graves, but it has been long and she still has not returned! Do you know where she could be?!"
Jinshi furrows his brows.
Missing. You're missing. You are missing.
You, who did not step foot outside of the residence unless it was to have tea with the consorts, was missing.
"I do not know." Jinshi shakes his head. "Where does she frequent in the streets?"
"We sent maids, but they—"
"We finally found the madam's shoe!" A maid yells from the entrance, holding up something in her hand. "Come!"
The maids all crowd around her as she reveals your shoe, and Jinshi grimaces.
It is your shoe. Your shoe, muddied, bloodied, wet with water. Your shoe, that was typically a size too small.
The maids all grimace at the sight, staring up at Jinshi for confirmation.
"Keep searching. She must be there somewhere." He turns away, brows furrowed. "She could not have gotten very far. She has been nurtured by the palace, so surely she is somewhere within reach."
The maids scramble to look, the sun turning it morning, Jinshi searching with them, quietly praying that you would return once the sun did. The sun returns once, twice, and then too many to count with his hands. The sun returns time and time again, and you do not.
You do not, and the maids sent to the streets also come back with no avail.
Even with Maomao asking the lower-ranked maids, you do not return.
You are gone.
Whether it is you have passed or you are missing, it makes no difference.
You are gone.
"I shall prepare for her ceremony." He closes his eyes, brows furrowing.
That is all they need to hear.
You haunt every corner of Jinshi's life.
He moves into the residence you left behind shortly after your burial ceremony, and he brings everything with him. He touches nothing you arranged, only bringing his personal items and work, and he sits in your tearoom each afternoon to work on the papers handed to him by the emperor. He drinks your favorite tea because he finds himself slowly losing his sanity with each passing moment that you do not manage the residence.
He is fully capable, but he is just not as well-versed in it as you are.
It drains him more than he'd like. Maomao is still a maid despite the purchase of her as a consort, and he does not wish to overwhelm her. He still very much loves her, he believes, but he supposes losing a huge part of his childhood is even worse in some way. He had chosen to neglect you, but it did not mean he did not cherish you. He could not count the times when you had linked pinkies with him at formal events with the emperor and empress while the two of you stood tall all because you were to be a certain way at a certain place.
Eventually, the two of you had outgrown the need to hold hands or pinkies in official events.
Though, that wasn't the only thing he had to thank you for. He was not a gifted child. He watched you speed through the materials and still have time to play with him, and it made him bitter. He was bitter. You had always been groomed to be perfect and desirable, and it only made him despise you more. Perhaps he had avoided you because you were too put together and perfect. He did not despise you. He does not despise you. In fact, dare he say it, he might have even loved you and forced himself to bury it away.
He could not love you the way you deserved to be loved. You deserved the position of empress, not the position of a eunuch's wife. You did not deserve to be warped into the madness of the royal family in the way that you did. He had made the mistake with you, so he would not make the mistake with Maomao. His heart sours in his chest. Perhaps he had been a liar. He had only avoided you to avoid the pain in his heart. He had been a coward afraid of hurting you only to hurt you more. He is a coward.
He groans, head buried in his papers as Maomao comes in with his dinner.
"You look awful."
Jinshi shifts his head to the side to look at Maomao, closing his eyes again afterward. Her filter around him had disappeared ever since you had left. He does not know if he is thankful or not.
Things have changed since your disappearance.
The maids have all stopped referring to anyone as the madam of the house, only waiting for Maomao to officially give Jinshi an answer to his proposal, and Jinshi has become the master of the house, much different to when they referred to him as Jinshi-sama. He is no longer someone underneath you in the residence that he was to live in with you. He is now the only person who was given a proper status in a palace of such. He groans when he remembers that he has more paperwork. Perhaps you should have been given less to do in the residence.
"Still no news?" He grumbles.
"No." Maomao hums. "She would hate you if you starved yourself like this."
"She did not even know I skipped meals occasionally."
"She did." Maomao refutes. "All of your meals were looked over by her. Your meals had the highest nutrition out of all the meals."
"She did not do that." Jinshi sighs, getting out of your desk to sit at the table. "She did not do that for me."
"She did." Maomao sets the food before him. "It could have only been her. She was the one who let things in and out of the kitchen. She had your allergies memorized like the back of her hand."
"I was such an asshole to her." Jinshi groans.
"You were."
"You're supposed to comfort me as my betrothed!" Jinshi cries.
"I am not your betrothed." Maomao shrugs. "Please get back to work once you finish eating. Gaoshun is asking when this month's report will be ready."
"Please tell him his master is going to kill himself." Jinshi groans. "I can't even bring in an aide because this residence is so secretive."
"I may introduce someone to you." Maomao offers.
"You know people other than me? It cannot be a woman."
"It will not be." Maomao affirms.
Jinshi contemplates it. You had been bred and raised for the purpose of being an ideal wife, so you managed all the numbers and reports of your shared residence despite Jinshi being in charge of a handful of matters. They seemed trivial to him back then, but now that he has to wait for those numbers to reach him, he finds that perhaps you were going through much more than you letting him know about. Not even the maids would tell him how often you were holed up in your office.
Though, according to your maids, you had barely struggled with it, your estimations always on point, even when Jinshi handed you bills late.
For you to be so much better than Jinshi.
How infuriating of you.
"Jinshi." Maomao speaks from the door. "I have brought a eunuch as your new assistant."
"I do not need one." He grumbles. "I am fine on my own."
"No. He is to help manage the estate." Maomao doesn't let him argue, opening the door to reveal his new aide.
The man nods at him, bowing his head. "I greet my new master. My name is Diu."
"There is no need for that." He shakes his head. "Are you well versed in the matters of the house?"
"There is no person who is better versed than I am." He nods. "I assure you."
Jinshi sighs. "Training shall start tomorrow."
"Yes, master."
Jinshi finds that his new aide is just as quick with numbers and things of the residence as you were, fingers fast and calculations smooth, speeding up the process for Jinshi. When he asks how he knew, he smiles at him, telling him that he had helped his wife with her household matters in order to alleviate the stress of being pregnant. Jinshi doesn't pry, but his aide looks too young to be a man capable of such wise thought. He looks too delicate, jaw too smooth and lashes too long. Had Jinshi been any more manic, he might have accused his aide of actually being a woman.
He tilts his head as he watches his aide look over the papers and speak up.
"Master Jinshi, do you have the scroll for the reimbursement report?"
Jinshi nods, handing him the scroll as Diu scribbles down the numbers, handing it to Maomao with a nod as she wanders off to hand it off to another official.
"Please call for me when the next report is due." Diu nods, about to follow her out.
"Are you not a personal aide?"
"I was told by Sister Maomao that I am only to help with the matters of the mansion."
"You... should arrange the guest rooms." Jinshi grumbles. "Please. Are you well versed in the other matters of the house?"
"I am." Diu nods. "Leave the matters of the estate to me."
"Maomao." Jinshi calls for her as she appears at the door. "Diu will be helping you with the affairs of decorating."
She nods. "Shall we go?"
"We shall." Diu smiles, and Jinshi's stomach churns uncomfortably.
He smiles the same way you do.
How nauseating.
How long had it been since you had smiled at him? You had only smiled at Maomao, lips curled into a teasing one, never staring at Jinshi when you had. Perhaps that was his flaw. He was cursed to see parts of you in other people until he could own up to his own emotions. Perhaps he was much too similar to you. Perhaps he is just a boy. Perhaps he just misses what you could have been had he spoken to you. Perhaps he should have reminded you that you were not alone.
You left him, but he forced you to the door, giving you the key you had been taught to never use.
Perhaps he had been the push to force you to leave.
How sickening.
Jinshi finds that Maomao gets along with Diu much more than makes him comfortable.
Maomao discusses and lingers around Diu often, fingers brushing his skin as he leans down to let her wipe the fallen lash from his cheek, a flirty smile on his lips when she pulls away. Maomao does not react. She never does. Yet, it makes Jinshi uncomfortable. He no longer knows if it's how eerily similar Diu is to you or how Diu keeps making a move on Maomao, but it makes his skin crawl uncomfortably each time he comes to Maomao's aide, reprimanding you and reminding you to keep your hands off of her as she was his only love.
"My apologies."
It is the same thing over and over again.
Jinshi finds that the more Diu flirts with Maomao, the less he wants Maomao, his jealous streak overtaken by habituation, and eventually he finds himself just staring until the two are uncomfortable. Maomao seems far too comfortable with Diu's movements, and Jinshi finds it infuriating. So, Jinshi steps in one day, pulling on Diu's wrist as he cages Maomao into the wall.
"Perhaps the master would prefer for me to romance him instead?" Diu pins Jinshi to the wall instead, tilting his head with his fingers, lips curled into a teasing smile. Jinshi flushes red, a shudder rippling down his back at the sight of the shorter pining him to the wall. Maomao watches from the side in amusement, lips curled upward with a cheeky grin as Jinshi eyes her for help.
"My eyes are here, young master," Diu tilts his head again, lips curled into a sweet smile. "Cheating on me already? I'm your servant before I am hers, you know?"
Jinshi shudders, cheeks red as Diu turn to Maomao, a victorious smile on his face.
"Master, it is time for..." Gaoshun trails off, pulling Diu off of Jinshi. "What are you doing?!"
"The master got jealous I was hitting on Maomao." Diu smiles.
Jinshi leaves, glancing behind him at Diu, heart racing in his chest as he tries to calm his cheeks. He is breathtaking, that eunuch. His aide has a beauty that could rival his. He would stop interfering. If he were to get hit on again... heavens knows what kind of atrocities he would commit. Diu is too strong. No wonder the maids in the palace had been flocking to get a look at his face. Maybe that was why he was dethroned as one of the most attractive men in the court. Diu was simply too attractive for his own good.
God, maybe he is a homosexual.
The thought rips through his body as his lips pull down in concern, blinking slowly at the revelation. Damn. Has he stooped this low? Was he willing to go so low as to fall for a man who reminded him of you? Maybe Jinshi was losing his mind. Perhaps this is what the matchmaker meant by he would suffer greatly if he were to lose his yin. He had tried not to touch you, but he had only hurt you instead. He was losing his mind to the point that he was getting flustered over men.
Diu really does things to him. You do things to him.
The man's fingers remind Jinshi of yours as well, reminders of years that are lost in his memory, years when the two of you would hold hands under tables and before the empress, years when he would watch you practice dances with your teachers, hair fluttering in the wind as you moved like a princess. It reminds him of years when you would be able to fit in your shoe size and walk without pain, when you were still young and a child, crying about not wanting to bind your feet.
You got your wish, but your shoe size had still been shrunk one size down to try and prevent your feet from growing.
Sooner than later, you lost your ability to dance.
Jinshi wonders if Diu would be able to do it. His body is slim enough for the dance, and had he been there when the foreign envoys were visiting, perhaps he could have taken Jinshi's place. Swimming in the dress was a nightmare. Perhaps Diu could have worked the same. He has the face for it. Oh, how convenient. Jinshi would no longer need to dress up as a woman with Diu around.
"The next time we have to do female imitation... we are calling Diu." Jinshi shudders.
Gaoshun raises a brow.
Jinshi shakes his head.
Perhaps if Jinshi were desperate enough, he could doll Diu up to resemble you and hold him for the night. As long as the words did not get out, he would be alright. If he were desperate enough, he would sleep in your room, covered by your blanket, engulfed by your faded scent. The scent of summer flowers and a young love. If Jinshi were desperate enough, he could send more soldiers to find you. But Jinshi is not desperate enough.
Not yet. He is not desperate enough yet.
He may be sick to his head thinking about you, but he is not desperate.
There is a crowd of consorts outside of Jinshi's window.
No. Not for him, surprisingly. For Diu.
"Diu-sama!! Look our way!!" The women yell, and Diu looks up from his desk, a smile on his face, waving gently. Both Jinshi and Maomao grimace, frown on their faces at his friendliness. Jinshi finds that Diu has an effect worse than he does. Perhaps this is his karma for playing along with the consorts every now and then. No wonder Maomao found him infuriating when he did so.
"Diu." Maomao hisses.
The man nods, leaning out the window to smile at the women, sighing. "Do you mind giving us some space? We need to finish the report for this month and my master is having quite the moment, you know?"
A girl faints, but the rest of them ultimately scatter off, and you hum, shutting the window.
"The total has been written down."
Maomao hands Jinshi a scroll, and Jinshi nods.
"Diu, is there a reason you never write the reports?"
"Whatever do you mean? I wrote them during summer, no?" You tilt your head. "Master Jinshi, you told me to stop writing them because my writing was not legible."
Jinshi does not remember that, but doesn't argue.
"Let's go for a break today." You pull Maomao out of her seat, smiling at Jinshi. "Master, will you be joining us?"
Jinshi groans. "please."
Diu offer him a hand, and he takes it, his hand strangely familiar in his grasp. It makes him feel nostalgic, almost. It feels like when he used to hold your hand during ceremonies with the royal court. Yet, he is not you. Diu is not you. So, Jinshi pushes the feelings back as he is led through the streets, lights vibrant as he stops at stalls for snacks and food.
Maomao runs out of coins at one point, and Diu offers him more, but she shakes head. She has some things she could trade for coins. She does so, pulling a pin out of her pocket and exchanging it for a bag of coins, a grin on his face. "let's get going."
"What do you even need so many coins for?" Diu raises a brow, picking one up.
"Master doesn't have copper coins."
"Excuse you! I do!" Jinshi tries to argue.
"It's why he has not yet bought anything."
Diu purses his lips in amusement, laughing.
Jinshi thinks he sounds like bells ringing.
How nostalgic.
Almost as if you were there standing there before him. He misses you, perhaps. He misses what the two of you were, and what you could have been had he picked you first. The guilt eats at him more and more, and it seems as though he could open his mouth and confess that he had a burning desire for you. It was almost as if he could have picked you from the start and none of this would have occurred.
"Diu." Jinshi calls. "Are you married?"
"Why? In love with me already, master?" Diu winks, blowing him a kiss.
Jinshi shudders, cheeks red, head ringing. Flirt.
"No. You have the same mannerisms as someone, and many say that a husband resembles his wife." Jinshi shakes his head. "You remind me of someone."
"The one that got away? I will be." Diu laughs as Maomao grabs him and runs off as Jinshi chases them. "Perhaps that is simply my role in this narrative!"
You.
Diu reminds him of you. So Jinshi finds it ironic that he chases after a man who resembles you in the streets of the city outside of the palace walls. Perhaps the two of you would have done something similar in another universe. He would have chased you in the streets, and the two of you would have been free to do whatever without the weight of the palace. Perhaps you would have been worth more in your own eyes, and he would have cared more for you during the time you would have been with him.
Perhaps you would have chosen to stay with him in that universe.
Perhaps he would be less bitter then, too.
In spring, the silkworms produce new silk, and the products from the merchants come in. Jinshi observes them, ultimately unable to tell the difference between certain ones because of his lack of practice, and Maomao can only stand and blink, unused to picking them herself. Instead, she steps back for Diu to look at them, the man's fingers feeling at the fabric as he raises a brow.
"These seem to be cheap quality. Are you trying to rip off the palace?" The man raises a brow.
"N-no way!"
"The threading is different one from the one currently present." Diu clicks his tongue. "This is the one commonly used for the middle class."
"A-are you not middle class? The funds mentioned to me a-are less than before." The merchant cowers slightly as Maomao hands Diu the invoice.
"No. The funding has not changed this season."
"Ah, well, surely the inflation has—"
"Nope. The economic state of the capital has not changed either. If you want a couple extra coins just say it." Diu groans. "We can always change suppliers. My family has quite the good one, you know?"
The merchant rolls his eyes. "These are the same blankets as the rest of the palace. If you don't want them—"
Maomao steps up. "The empress uses different ones from a different supplier. Had we needed low-quality textiles as this, we would have talked to the maids."
The merchant scoffs in offense. "What do you know—"
"I know that the palace uses a different supplier because you started cheating the main palace years ago." Diu speaks up, stepping close to the merchant. "Would you like us to switch too? We could formally decree you to be banned from the palace."
"Y-you're a mere servant. You wouldn't dare!"
Diu gives the man a closed-eye smile, and he grumbles, handing over the better blankets buried under the bad ones. The servants bring them in as Diu handles the money, and Jinshi blinks in surprise. He did not know the rest of the palace started using a new supplier. He had only known that Gyokuyou had changed merchants. Diu must have done very thorough research prior to picking up blankets.
"How could you tell?" Jinshi raises a brow.
"It wasn't imperfectly perfect." Diu shrugs. "Also, hand woven silk by the skilled is bound to have flaws, but this one had too many. They may have flaws, but their edges do not fray to this extent."
"Wow." Jinshi hums. "That is impressive."
"In order to be a husband deserving of my wife's noble title, I have to make up in other ways."
"Does your wife not have brothers?"
"No, she simply fell for my charm." Diu winks.
Maomao gags from the side. Though... not surprising.
"A shame you are a eunuch..." Jinshi trails off, eyes wandering. "You seem to be the type to have many sons."
Diu holds a hand over his mouth and his crotch, pretending to be scandalized. "Master! Are you... into me?"
"Nope." Jinshi turns on his heel. "Let us go."
"Where to?" Maomao follows anyway, shrugging when Jinshi doesn't answer Diu's question.
"Who did you hear palace affairs from?"
"I was wandering." Diu shrugs.
It's suspicious, but Jinshi doesn't pry further. After all, Maomao brought him in.
No matter how much Diu is suspicious, Jinshi could never bring you back anyway.
So even if Jinshi begged and sobbed and cried to the moon to return his lover, he could not have it. You had left him. You were gone. No matter how hard he looked, your body could be out in the cold and abandoned, eaten by the wolves or some other sort. It is awful. He could search all he wanted, sending all the guards he wanted, but he would not have you back. He could not live in such a way. You were gone, only your shoe left.
Perhaps Diu was sent by the heavens to remind him of you for the rest of his days.
It is his fault, after all.
There are reports of your ghost haunting the walls.
First, one of the younger ranking maids hear a girl crying in your old room, then an older maid sees a woman rush through the halls at night. Eventually Gaoshun spots a woman clothed in white dancing on the outer walls with Maomao. It is truly a terrifying sight. Jinshi tries his best to ignore it, but ultimate he sees you dancing on the outer walls of the palace as well. It is same position of the moon when Gaoshun and Maomao saw it, but you are dressed in red this time, wedding gown fluttering from your figure, phoenix crown pinned in your hair.
Jinshi stands and stares.
You dance, footsteps light as they used to be when you were but a child and Jinshi watched you in your classes, and your dress flutters in the wind, silk probably cool against your skin, and Jinshi stops to stare, some wretched form of longing on his face. It is nostalgic. It is everything he had once seen in you, your art, your beauty, your existence, all tucked into the back of his mind, threatening to spill over and ruin him. He watches you as you make the same steps you had so many years ago, your memory burning into his mind through his eyes as his conscious forces him to engrain every detail of your ghost into his mind.
The paleness of your skin to the sunken eyelids, to the bloody red that was on your lips with the red on your body. The makeup is fitting of a bride, yet the moon shining behind your body makes you look a mixture of grief and regret in Jinshi's eyes. You do not look down at him, almost as though lost in your own dance, too enthralled with the moon and its secrets as you kick your leg to spin and flutter through the air. Jinshi can do nothing as he look sup at you, exhaustion creeping up his body slowly, almost as though you were the moon herself despite the red on your body.
Your ghost is haunting him as a reminder that you are his wife. Your ghost is dancing to remind him of the day the two of you had been told to bed, but had not. Your ghost is driving him into a corner the same way he had driven you out the entrance. His mind is stuck staring and engraving it into his mind to forever regret you. His mind is stuck holding his chin up to stare at you as the metal in your hair jingles in the wind. His mind is stuck, and he refuses to fight against it.
Instead of stopping you, he stares, fingers stuck to his side as you spin and fall off the wall, and he climbs up, lashes fluttering as he stares down at where you would have fallen, only your dress remaining. He stares down, legs hanging from the wall, something pulling him to fall down with you, something urging him to leave with you. Your ghost tilts its head to run your fingers through his hair, lips brushing his as it urges him to fall down with it— fall down with you. Maybe that would be a way to right his wrongs and wash away his sins. He leans forward into your touch, fingers loosening on the wall.
"Master." Diu's voice breaks him from your trance, the man climbing up the wall after him. "Is something wrong?"
Jinshi blinks at where your ghost was, your fingers no longer on his cheek and your lips no longer brushing his. Ghosts do not exist. He was simply falling to an evil spirit's intentions. Diu had simply freed him. You would not have wanted him to pass away as easily as this. You would have wanted him to suffer through what you did. "I saw the madam."
"The previous owner of the residence?"
"Something like that." Jinshi mumbles. "Do you miss your wife?"
"More often than not." Diu sits next to the man, pulling out a bottle. "Wine?"
Jinshi accepts it, pressing the wine to his lips, legs hanging over the railing as he stares down, blinking slowly at the fabric. Your ghost is gone, yet the fabric still reaches for him. He could see you wearing it. Perhaps it was just a heavy memory of seeing you in all red, gold embroidery on your gown, lips pulled into a sweet smile despite the ever crumbling relationship that was threatening to snap between the two of you. Perhaps Jinshi had a rope somewhere as well.
"How do you cope with missing your wife?"
"She writes me letters." Diu smiles. "I simply reread them when I get lonely. Or, I send a bird for her."
Jinshi grumbles. "Must be nice to have a loving wife."
"A happy marriage goes both ways, master." Diu offers him more. "You must take care of your wife before she takes care of herself and leaves you."
"Do you think someone is doing this to mess with me?" Jinshi rests his cheek on his legs, pulling them closer to his chest as he holds his cup to the man. "I grieve for her loss. Is that not enough?"
"Perhaps they simply miss their madam." Diu hums. "Did the madam teach the servants?"
"There is no servant in the house who could dance the same way she did." Jinshi closes his eyes, wind rustling the branches behind him. The summer breeze is warm but not too warm. In the distance, in the residence, he can still hear the sound of your laughter as a child. You did not laugh enough as an adult around him. He does not know what you are. What does your laughter sound like now? Maybe you stopped laughing because of him.
He misses you.
"Master?"
"Diu." Jinshi mumbles, eyes closed. "If she comes, please wake me."
"Will do, master."
You never return after that, and Jinshi feels sick.
In fall, foreign envoys bring new mirrors. Diu accepts them and lead them to Jinshi, lips curled into a sweet smile as the mirrors are placed within the residences. The old mirrors had been ruined by a maid on accident, but it was not something worth fretting or worrying over. Jinshi stands in front of the mirror, looking at himself, raising a brow when Maomao and Diu peer from behind him at the reflection.
"I have not seen one in a solid minute." Maomao mumbles. "Diu, how about you?"
"My wife has one at home, but this small mirror would be helpful." Diu hums. "She will like it if we have a covering made for her as well."
Jinshi huffs dramatically loud at the word wife.
"What is not too light?" Maomao raises a brow.
"Perhaps a hollow metal." Diu hums. "I shall check the items she owns."
Jinshi huffs again.
"Sorry, master." Diu smiles, eyes closed, teeth out. "I forgot the madam is gone."
Jinshi is going to have an aneurysm because of Diu.
"I am convinced you are mentioning your wife to drive me insane."
"Perhaps." Diu hums. "I miss her very much, after all."
"Then why did you work here?"
"Master." Diu deadpans. "The pay here is incredible. My wife now has the ability to spend my wealth rather than her family's. Is every husband's dream not to spoil their wife rotten?"
"No." Jinshi grumbles. "Perhaps I should do that for the madam."
"The madam is gone." Maomao deadpans. "Perhaps focus on repainting the walls of the residence first."
"Was the report sent?"
"Not yet." Diu shakes his head. "We are missing a fund as the money has grown to be less."
"Perhaps it is for the repainting of the walls."
"I would assume that the repainting must be done during spring." Jinshi frowns. "Was it during fall?"
"I am not sure." Diu shakes his head. "Did the madam ever mention such?"
"It was fall." Maomao hums. "She complained that it should have been spring once, but she never changed it since it rains more in spring than in fall."
"How do the foreigners put it? April showers do bring May's flowers." Diu hums. "Perhaps the Madam had a reason."
"We can repaint it some other time."
"She would kill you." Maomao deadpans.
"She is not here."
"Does not change that she would kill you." Maomao deadpans. "Perhaps her ghost will return and ruin your life again."
Jinshi pauses. "Well, I do miss her."
Maomao blinks at him in concern.
"I shall put it on the report." Diu nods. "Anything else?"
"I believe that is it."
"Then, may I be released after? I would like to drop by somewhere."
Maomao raises a brow, but Jinshi does not question it.
"Of course. You are free for the rest of the day."
Maomao springs up in her seat. "May I follow?"
Diu nods.
"Going without me?"
"You will stand out too much." Diu deadpans. "We are visiting a teahouse."
"You have a wife!?" Jinshi shrieks, confusion all over his face.
"Not that kind." Diu deadpans.
"What will you be trying?"
"I heard they have a new treat." Maomao hums. "We have been saving for it."
"If you let me go I will pay."
"Hard pass." The two of them grimace.
"We don't lack the funds."
"We can pay."
Jinshi gasps, frowning as he watches the two leave the room when Diu finishes the report.
A plate of the new pastries rests on his desk the next day, but he still pouts and frowns.
He later realizes it's because you had once made the treat for him as kids. That was why he was so upset. Your memories with him haunted him each step he took in the mansion. Perhaps he should have reached for your ghost that day and fallen. Perhaps that would have sped up his fraying string, holding onto nothing as he had lost you.
Perhaps then, he would feel less awful.
In winter, Diu and Maomao help set up the new blankets. The wool is warm, and Maomao sighs, cheeks red from the cold. Diu takes off his coat, wrapping it around Maomao as she blows into her hands and sighs.
"Thank you." She mumbles. "It is cold."
"It is." Diu stares at the floor, pulling out a stone from his pocket to hand to Maomao. "A heated stone, perhaps?"
"Thank you." She mumbles, pulling her clothes open to pop the stone in with the rest. "It is cold. I do not remember the palace being this cold."
Diu goes quiet, glancing around.
"There used to be heated bricks underneath the wood here."
Maomao's eyes widen, neck snapping to look at her coworker.
"That was what I heard from the maids, though. I do not believe the maids told the master either." He shrugs. "How's the master?"
"It is report week." Maomao grimaces.
Diu shudders. "I am surprised he has not called for me yet."
"You remind him too much of the late madam." She shares a look with the man, only turning away when Jinshi yells from inside his office. "He prefers to not—"
"Someone call Diu!" He sobs, and Diu snorts.
"Late madam or not, perhaps desperate situations call for desperate measures." Diu nods, knocking on the door. "Master, I am outside."
The door opens, and Jinshi groans. "Diu! Why is this season's reimbursement report so much lower compared to the previous ones?!"
Jinshi's hair is disheveled, the poor man looking as though he hadn't slept in days. It is a new look to Diu, and it makes Maomao laugh. Diu steps next to him, observing the differences, pointing at the cost in insulation. "I heard from the maids the late madam heated bricks for winter underneath the wood."
"She did?"
"The maids mentioned it." Diu shrugs. "So?"
"Is that the only cost? Who is in charge of the bricks?"
"I am not aware." Diu shakes his head.
"The head maid refuses to tell me. Diu, please." Jinshi cries. "I am not well versed in this."
"In my residence, my wife would hire one of the servants to do so. Perhaps it could be found in their salaries."
Jinshi flips through the book as Diu checks everything over, and he cheers when he finds the maid. Jinshi misses you. You did this much better than he did, and though he had neglected you and the whole situation was his fault, it did not stop him from missing you. Your presence in the residence had simply been enough to him. Now, he had to live without you or your presence in a residence that was meant for two.
"Thank you, Diu." Jinshi grumbles, writing down the note on heating bricks, head slamming into the wood of your desk as Diu takes the report. "God, I miss her."
Diu smiles back, eyes closed, almost as though he were insincere.
In the shadow of Diu, Jinshi sees you.
That smile with his eyes closed reminded him of all the times you had smiled at the officials insincerely, abusing your power as the empress' favorite in order to get them rid of. Perhaps Jinshi is simply going insane because you are gone. The ghost of you haunts him everywhere, including in the body of the new aide. Perhaps it is simply divine punishment from the heavens above.
In the closed-eyed, tight-lipped smile of his new aide, he sees the ghost of you whose smile had changed from a sweet smile with your eyes on him, cheeks flushed, to a smile in which you had not even bothered to look at him, eyes closed and lips pulled upward, lacking the flush that he had grown up seeing. His fault. It is always his fault. There had not been a single moment in which he was right when it had come to you. He is to be despised. You had been right to run away. He will never deserve the love you had given him in the past.
Even if he were to cut his own string and tie it to yours, you could always cut him off of you, simply running away as you had previously. Perhaps it was simply his curse to be this way. He could never love you now that you were gone, and he was the only one to blame. He is the culprit of his own demise.
How loathsome of him.
In spring, Jinshi attends the royal court's meeting, lashes thick and full, blinking quickly to blink away his exhaustion. Waking up before the sun was never something worth it. He eats the dishes prepared, listening to the ministers and eunuchs talk about everything. Had you been next to him, he would have had a better time, at least focused for the sake of you, but you are not. Instead, he has Diu who has been testing his dishes, pretty face charming even the married men of the court. Had Diu been born a woman, perhaps he would have been stolen away instantly. Tis a great day for his personal aide to be a man.
Now that Jinshi thinks about it, it was the same with you.
You would be busy reading the material and participating, and the rest of the men would be busy ogling at you. You, who had been raised to be the palace flower, a woman in power worthy of standing next to the second prince. You had been worth far more than what those men could have paid to own you for. Perhaps the late empress was right to make you unattainable to the men of the court. It was disgusting— the way their eyes raked Diu's figure the same way they raked yours at the time. In his eyes, the men are no better than rabid animals. At least rabid animals were put down.
"Master?" Diu's voice snaps Jinshi out of his thoughts. "Is the dish not to your liking?"
"It is." Jinshi shakes his head. "I have not much an appetite."
"I see." Diu hums. "Shall I request something else?"
"No need." Jinshi finishes the rest of the dish, sighing as he puts his chopsticks down. "What is the next dish?"
"I believe it is pheasant."
Jinshi frowns staring at Diu's lips.
"Did Maomao put lipstick on you?"
"Hm? Is it strange?" Diu smiles, holding his cheek. "She said I should doll up a little as your personal attendant. Though, this isn't lipstick. I believe Maomao simply put something on my face."
Jinshi blinks slowly, mentally swatting away all his thoughts as the next dish arrives and Diu presses it to his lips, biting and chewing slowly. Jinshi stares at his lips, pale and pink, and he swallows unconsciously as Diu licks his lips, lips curled into a smile similar to Maomao's. The men of the court pay attention too, a strange charm emitting off of the servant's body. Enthralling. He looked enthralling, lips curled into that sinful grin. Next thing Jinshi knows, Diu is probably going to tell him it's poisonous like Maomao did years ago.
"You can't have this, master." He hums.
"Why not?" Jinshi swallows, throat dry all of a sudden.
"It is poisonous."
Called it.
The royal court goes into chaos as all the men spit it out, fooled by the way Diu had looked so elated at the flavor, and a handful of servants rush to their aid. Jinshi lunges at Diu as he bites the rest of the meat, punching him in the gut as Diu spits the meat out into Jinshi's hand.
"Are you crazy?!"
"Master, poisons do not affect me." Diu tilts his head, eyes wide. "Rest assured. The one who has tried to harm you will not get off free either."
Jinshi stares at him incredulously, lips pulled into a frown as he calls for a doctor to check the man. He taps his table impatiently as he waits for Diu to return, a new poison tester confirming that the pheasant was indeed poisonous. Jinshi watches as the new guy passes out and white foams from his mouth. How did... how did Diu almost swallow the pheasant without issue? Jinshi tries his best not to think about it, closing his eyes. Perhaps Maomao is just accustomed to people who taste poison without any effects.
Diu returns a little before the final dish is served, giving Jinshi a closed-eyed smile before he tastes the new dish. It is a palate cleanser this time. Jinshi watches in worry as Diu presses the spoon to his lips, eyes opening as he raises a brow. Jinshi cannot tell if it is a good raised brow or a bad one.
"Servant, is it poison?"
"No." Diu smiles. "It is simply delicious. You may have it, master."
Jinshi only has half, cheeks flushed as he hands the rest back to Diu, covering his mouth with his sleeve as he mouthes words at the man.
'Finish the rest.'
Diu does not complain, drinking straight from the bowl as he licks his lips, eyes bright and happy as he hands it to another servant.
"Thank you, master." He beams, smiling.
Jinshi's heart skips a beat.
How dangerous.
The rest of the court proceeds as normal, the report given by the workers, and the emperor nodding at the report. Nothing out of the ordinary. though, he notes the new numbers in spending. When you were there, they were lower. Perhaps a handful of officials are using the chance to steal money from the royal family now that you no longer look over the ledger before each payment. Jinshi should start investigating. Surely the crushing of the Shi clan should have served as a fair warning. Perhaps not.
Jinshi looks back to glance at Diu, the servant's eyes oddly sharp. Usually servants would have gotten bored at this point. Instead, Diu looks almost intrigued. He wonders what kind of an upbringing would have created a man who cared so much about monetary affairs of a palace. Though, it should have been clear since Diu had been the one hired to help with monetary affairs. His mathematical ability was incredible. Had Jinshi a child, he would have hired the man to teach his young his ways.
But in the same, Jinshi knows he would have not needed an outside teacher when you were right there. Should he had kids with you, you could cover the vast majority of teaching have you the time. You know the palace better than him at times. He wonders how you are, lips pulled into a frown as he focuses back on the minister. Perhaps Maomao had given Diu the same makeup you used to wear to mess with him. How mean of her. It pains him in the heart that he had been the one to cut your rope and now was burning his own.
He misses you.
Summer is great.
Jinshi has less work during summer as a result, and Diu and Maomao cover the affairs of rearranging the residence. The two are still close. It makes Jinshi bitter, but not bitter in the way he would have been seasons ago, he is bitter that Diu is spending less and less time with him. Perhaps he is bitter that Diu, a man who reminded him of you, spends more time with Maomao than he. It is a reflection of himself, yes, but it does not stop the childish jealously that bubbles in his chest.
"Diu!" Jinshi whines, calling for the servant as he throws open the man's room.
The room is empty, but a familiar scent flutters through the air, knocking the nostalgia right into his lungs. The incense sticks burning are the ones you used to put in the residence. During the few times Jinshi would visit, this scent would always be present in your room, your hair, and your being. This scent was you to him. He finds it strange that Diu would have it in his room, but he does not question it. Perhaps it reminds him of his wife.
"Master? What are you doing in my room?"
Jinshi freezes, caught red-handed. "...I was looking for you." He coughs. "Where were you?"
"I went to run errands with Maomao." Diu bows. "Is something wrong? You were looking at the incense sticks."
"They remind me... anyway." Jinshi tries to stroll out casually. "Is that your favorite scent?"
"My wife." Diu smiles. "It reminds me of my wife."
"I see..." Jinshi trails off. "Whatever! Be sure to tell Maomao to bring me dinner."
Diu calls an affirmative after Jinshi as he rushes out of the room. Too much like you. The scent smelled too much like you. You, who had used perfume oils because you liked it. It reminded Jinshi of your scent for as long as he had known you, the signature smell that brushed his nose apparent for as long as his memories with you would run. Perhaps he would forget about you at night.
Night strikes slowly.
The grief of losing you hits Jinshi slowly.
First, he looks around the room you had prepared for the two of you, the room you had stayed in alone, fingers brushing on the paint on the wall, a reminder that he needed to call for the painters to repaint the residence. Then, he sits down in bed, robes warm on his skin, eyes tired as he lays down. His fingers brush the silk the same way you would have while inspecting the quality, the same way he had seen Diu do so to the blankets, and he holds it to his forehead, heart stuttering and stumbling, pain in his chest too much to bear. It was simply too much.
Then, he cries.
Jinshi cries, tears slow as he lays in your bed, holding the blankets to his chest as he whimpers, missing you. You. You who had lived in the residence for years without a visit from him. He is undeserving of you. Perhaps he would be cursed to live the rest of his days crying in the same bed you had to cry in. He would be dammed for all of eternity to never see you again. Perhaps that is his curse. He is simply too weak to admit his love, too prideful to bend down first, too lost to find his way again. He wanted nothing to do with you when you traded the whole world for him. His curse would be to never hold you again, even when he needed you the most.
He sniffles, brows pulled together as he clings harder onto the blanket.
He does not notice the footsteps outside the door nor the knocking from Diu.
"Master Jinshi? Are you alright? I hear crying." Diu's voice rings from the door. "I may bring tea if you would allow it. That helps me when I am hurt."
"It is fine." He speaks, voice oddly even.
"I shall bring you a cup of tea and towel to help freshen up. We could not afford to let the master of the house's beauty be wounded." Diu speaks, stepping and walking off.
Jinshi wipes his tears with his fingers, heaving. When Diu returns, he opens the door after a quick knock, setting the tea on the table as he sits by his bed, helping Jinshi up, eyes gentle, hands wiping at his tears with the cloth, and Jinshi sniffs. Diu's eyes remind him of yours, even. The same gentle shade he had grown up seeing, the same shade that sparkled under the sun's light or the moon's reflection. It is a haunting memory of you. Perhaps the two of you are from the same lineage. Or perhaps Jinshi was simply losing it.
"Diu."
"Yes, master?"
"Are you this gentle with your wife?"
"But of course."
Jinshi sighs dramatically. "Maybe in another life I was born your wife."
Diu snorts. "That would be quite hard, master."
"Why?"
"What if I were born a woman as well?"
"Then I would be born your husband." He pouts, eyes red as he stares at the man. "What tea did you bring?"
"Green tea." Diu hums. "Will you drink it?"
"Please." Jinshi frowns. "Could I meet your wife one day?"
"That would be quite hard." Diu frowns, carrying the tray over and setting it down by the bed.
"Why so?"
Diu does not speak, handing the cup to Jinshi instead, smiling.
"Is she gone?"
"It is hard to explain." Diu hums. "Master, let me know if you require anything else."
"No." Jinshi shakes his head, drinking the tea. It's slightly sweet and brewed to perfection.
It tastes like the tea you used to brew.
It brings tears to his eyes unconsciously, a frown on his face. You had learned to brew tea to perfection. The temperature had been right, you had served them in their little cups, lips pressed to the edge of the cup as you tested it for heat, and then set it before Jinshi, offering him a drink. You had brewed green tea without the bitterness that other consorts had, and you had served tea to even the emperor when it was permitted. Jinshi might just be losing it. No, he has not been in a regular state since your disappearance. He is simply reaping the seeds of his actions.Shi
"Is something wrong?"
"You brew tea like someone I used to know." Jinshi shakes his head. "It is a shame she is gone."
"Maomao is not gone, though?"
"My wife." Jinshi purses his lips. He had mentioned it perhaps once or twice, but it had never been more than that. It is not the madam of the house this time, it is his wife. He misses his wife. You, his beloved who had been betrothed to him. He misses you. You were his wife, not his betrothed. He had seen you in red twice now, that was surely confirmation. Even if you were to forget, he fears that he could not. You are his wife, that much is clear. "That is enough for the night. Thank you."
Diu nods, taking the tray out and closing the door with his foot, leaving Jinshi alone with his thoughts.
It is scary— how much Diu resembles you.
Perhaps your ghost is really haunting him through his aide.
"Maomao." Jinshi hisses.
"Yes, Master Jinshi?" The girl turns to look at him.
"Where did you find Diu? He seems as though he yields from an elite family, yet there are no records of him anywhere." Jinshi raises a brow. "He is far too trained in arithmetic to be from a middle-class family as well."
"Oh, his family records were burned." Maomao shrugs. "He helped me once when I was about to be scammed by a merchant, so I decided to pay him back by employing him. He is good, is he not?"
"He is, but it is highly suspicious." Jinshi grumbles. "Who is his wife?"
"I have never met her."
Jinshi blinks. "You know nothing about him other than that he is good at math and has a wife, and you hired him?"
"Master Jinshi, he is not good at just math." Maomao argues. "She—"
"She?"
"I mean," Maomao sighs. "He is good at arranging the interior of the residence, is he not? He is highly trained in both what the women wield and what the men do. I hired him because he was capable in such areas. Are you doubting my loyalty? I value my head, you know? Diu is a great servant."
"That cannot be refuted, but—"
"I heard my name." Diu flicks Maomao's forehead. "And heard myself get misgendered. I am a man, Maomao. Must you hurt my pride further? I am already a eunuch. My poor wife will never get to experience penetrative pleasure from me because of the profession I have taken."
"Do you have children?" Jinshi raises a brow.
"No, master." Diu shakes his head. "My wife and I are perfectly content with no children. After all, I married into my wife's family."
"Oh, so you yield from nothing?" Jinshi interrogates, leaning onto his palm as he stares the man down.
"Yes." Diu nods. "I yield from nothing. Apart from my wife, I am nothing."
"Suspicious."
"Master." Maomao sighs.
Jinshi holds a hand up to signal for her to stop speaking. "Are you sure you do not yield from money?"
"I do not." Diu nods.
"Then why did Maomao call you a she?"
"Perhaps because I am pretty as one?" Diu winks at Jinshi, blowing a kiss.
Maomao hunches over in laughter as Jinshi fans his face.
"Fair point."
"You are gorgeous too, master." Diu hums. "Pretty like the lilies in the pond... dazzling like the stars in the sky. Surely, if you were a woman, the men would flock to your like bees to a flower."
Jinshi takes a moment to recover, holding his hand up. "The same would go to you, Diu."
"They already do." Diu hums. "I have submitted the report for the season."
"That is good." Jinshi sighs. "Maomao, do not hire random people from the street next time. I am starting to believe you only hired Diu because he is attractive."
"Attractive people need an attractive servants." Maomao shrugs.
Jinshi can't argue with that one.
"Or, perhaps similar people tend to flock to one another." Diu hums, picking up the flower pot with ease.
"Or haunt each other." Maomao mumbles, nodding as the two of them leave the room with the flowers.
It does not take two people to arrange flowers.
Yet, Jinshi pays attention to Maomao's words.
Haunt. Similar people haunt each other.
Maybe that is why he sees you in Diu.
Jinshi finishes the affairs for the day, groaning and rolling his shoulders back as he returns to your office, expecting the rest of his papers to still be there. Instead, he finds Maomao knocked out on the tea table, a finished stack of paper next to her, completed and only left behind for him to sign and seal. He takes the papers, reading through the contents, writing eerily similar. You are not here, yet the writing mirrors yours perfectly. It is your writing down to the bone. It is the same writing that he had read in your reports and invoices for the residence's monthly fees. Furthermore, it was not Maomao's handwriting.
Something is wrong.
The writing is yours. You are present in the mansion. You had danced on the walls, haunted his life, brewed him tea, and done so many things to him. It was not your ghost. You were there to haunt him. Tt infuriates him to no end, but you had to have a hand in the residence to be able to do so. You may not be there physically, but surely someone would have been sent to do the dirty work for you. There seems to be someone new doing the dirty work for him, and who else than his new aide? Perhaps this was some twisted divine punishment in the worst way. Perhaps he would not see the end of the world as he knows it, and you would crawl out of your grave to wrap your fingers around his ankle and drag him to hell with you.
Or perhaps Diu was out for revenge on your behalf.
"Hm?" Maomao wakes up first, jumping in her skin when he stares into her eyes harshly.
There are three people in the residence allowed to write reports.
"Who is Diu."
It is not a question. A command. It is a command.
Maomao stares into Jinshi's eyes, sighing, clicking her tongue in disdain.
"I shall rid of him."
"No. Who is he. Answer." Jinshi curses out. "You brought him in. Who is he."
"I owed him a debt so I hired him." Maomao speaks. "It is that simple."
"Who is he."
"Someone you lost."
"Master!" A maid calls. "Come out to the entrance! There is a maid claiming she knows the madam's whereabouts!"
Jinshi glares at Maomao, pointing down to make sure she stays put.
Maomao watches Jinshi rush out, and she sighs, taking the ointment from her pocket. Now to find you. No way in hell she was listening to him in this situation.
Jinshi meets the maid, and he sees through her immediately. A ploy. This is a ploy. This is some cruel set up by fate who wishes for him to be miserable, and the maid did not know where you were at all. Maomao did. Maomao probably knew exactly where you were, and she had probably known for a while now. He was foolish not to realize it, but he knows it now. He is no longer mad, simply exhausted. He misses you. How he wishes you would just appear out of nowhere. That would fix him.
Jinshi looks up when he hears something above.
Something snaps.
Your lips quirk up from the roof, humming as your voice returns to normal and Maomao wipes the makeup off your face. Your brows are less bushy and your lips turn more delicate. Your lashes remain the same, and you thread your fingers through your hair, smiling as Maomao stares down at the random woman. Talk about timing.
You're sure Jinshi is somewhat aware by now.
You stand up, the tiles clattering under your feet, and you laugh as you stretch your arms above your head, catching the way the woman at the gate pales in horror at the sight of you on the roof. Maomao sits behind you, same wind in her hair, leaning on her palm as you look down at Jinshi with a brow raised, Diu's clothes still on your body. Jinshi's eyes widen as he yells for you, leaving the other woman.
"With that, your debt is paid." You smile at Maomao. "I'll see you around, Maomao."
Maomao watches as you jump over the wall to the residence and Jinshi chase after you.
You sprint through the streets, Jinshi hot on your tail as you weave through the crowds swiftly, leaving Jinshi no chance to catch up to you. You really did think dressing as a man was fun, however much of a shame it was that Jinshi found out that you were the same eunuch hitting on everyone in the residence. You wonder if he'll catch you. At some point, you manage to ditch the outer coat to your shirt, only pants left and the wrap around your chest, throwing the coat at Jinshi to stop him as you rush into the forest.
It does not stop him, and when you dive into the water to get to the cave, a hand wraps around your ankle, pulling you to the surface with it as you kick to be freed. The hand lets go, but not before grabbing your face with a second hand, lips pressed to yours, the two of you float out of the water as Jinshi holds onto your face, legs kicking to keep himself afloat. His grip on your face is solid, no strength spared as he keeps you in place.
"Are you stupid?"
"Me? Stupid?!" You scoff, hands gripping his wrist to try to pull him off. "You're the one who said you would marry no one but Maomao! I simply left because you left me behind!"
"I went back for you!"
"How the hell was I supposed to know that?!" You scream, thrashing against his grip as it tightens, your nails digging into his wrist as he remains unbothered. "You've left me behind so many times! You left me during tea with the fucking emperor so you could save Maomao you nitwit!"
"I needed to save her! You would have done the same! You gave me the army seal!"
"But I would not have neglected you in the outer walls of the palace!" You shriek, finally breaking from his grasp as you dive underwater to swim away.
Jinshi follows after you, hand wrapping around your ankle to pull you to him, hands finding your waist as he pulls you with him to the cave, holding you down on the ground as water drips from his hair onto your face, his vision blurry from something he doesn't know anymore. You make him feel things. The dam holding back all of his emotions for you shatter as he pants, mouth open and chest heaving as he cries, hot tears splattering onto your face, his head hung as you resort to your fate, annoyance all over your face as you wait for him to cry it out.
"Jinshi. You love Maomao. We both know—"
"I don't." He whimpers. "I don't. I don't love her."
"Jinshi—"
somewhere in his subconscious, a rope snags.
"I love you." Jinshi whimpers, tears hot and warm on your cheeks now, dark eyes murky and cloudy, desperation bleeding past his fingers onto your skin as his grip on your tightens, a sob breaking past his lips, almost as if he had been in the same boat as you, the two of you both needing to break in order to be fixed. You had jumped off first, leaving Jinshi on his own as he had to figure out what he needed to do to get you back. You had floated off, lips curled into a peaceful smile and your eyes full of light, only to leave him behind. "I love you." Jinshi repeats again, voice cracking. Deep down, he is still that same child that held hands with you. Both of you were born and bred in order to grow quickly, not spared by the rapids of the palace as you both grew and grew and grew until you were perfect on the outside and hollow on the inside. "I love you." He sobs. "I have loved you for longer than I have been conscious. I did not pick to love Maomao because she had been perfect for me. I had picked her because she had been so full of life and full compared to the both of us. I can't love the same way everyone else does. I have given up my right as emperor, do you not know?! Do you know why you had to treat my wound when Maomao was gone?! I gave up the title! I cannot offer you what you were born and raised for. You deserve—"
You slap him, breathing heavy as the sound echoes through the cave.
"I deserve far more than you can give me." You speak, voice oddly even. "I deserve the world, but there is no point taking someone else's world when all I have ever been raised to know as my world is you. You should have spoken up and done something to communicate. I deserve the title of empress only because I was raised to become one. Beneath the title, all I deserved was for my childhood friend and the anchor of my life to stare at me just once outside of the royal court."
Jinshi whimpers, head still hung, cheek stinging from your slap.
"I was scared. We both cannot afford to have such weaknesses in the royal palace." Jinshi's voice goes quiet. "If I had revealed that I had an attachment to you, then the assassinations would have targeted you. I do not wish for you to drink more poison than you can take. I already know the previous empress made you swallow and swallow until there was nothing left. You are not a doll to me. You are something precious."
"Well you didn't choose me." You sigh. "We are getting nowhere—"
"I love you." Jinshi says it again.
"You do not—"
"I love you." Jinshi stares you in the eye, breathing slowing down and his eyes clear. "Until I stop chasing you under the sun and until the world ends, I love you. Until the heavens themselves strike me down, I will be in love with you. I do not deserve to love you right now, but it does not stop me. I will keep loving you until we return to the dirt of the ground. You may hate me for the rest of your life, despising everything that the royal name I own has put you through, but I will love you. Until I am bleeding my heart out and I become a star in the sky, I will love you. The moon is only gorgeous because it reflects the light from the sun. I am only the moon prince because the sun stands next to me in every event. Without you, I am worth nothing."
"That is a lie and you know it!"
"It is not!" Jinshi yells, lips pressing to yours to shut you up, even when you thrash against him, he holds you down, want and passion rippling through his lips to yours, and even when you accept his kiss, he does not stop, teeth gnashing against yours in something akin to a burning passion. He loves you. You are the sun to his moon, the light that he reflects in his day to day. He may have despised you, but the want that bled through his body at the sight of you was not something he could have ignored either. He loves you. He loves you until he returns to the dust of the world and both of you are lost to history. He loves you until the world caves in on itself and the royal family collapses.
When he finally pulls away, he notices the tears in your eyes and rolling down your cheeks.
"I love you." He whispers.
"Your mother was right." You whimper, voice frail and broken as you cry. "I am just a girl. I did not deserve the fate of the universe to rest on my back. I did not deserve for you to neglect me only to cry to me about loving me all alone. I do not deserve this, Jinshi."
"You are just a girl. I am just a boy." He whispers. "Neither of us deserved what we went through. I have never been in the right when it came to treating you. I will spend eternity trying to win you back after losing you. It will be my divine punishment, and the two of us may enter the afterlife, but I will continue to follow you. I have never been right when it has come to you, and I will spend my life regretting that."
And you cry, chest hurt from the years of pain, heart free from the years of hiding.
You are just a girl, and he is just a boy.
Neither of you deserved what you have been put through in the name of a better nation.
And as he ties his burnt rope to your frayed one to fix the gap, neither did he.
You are just a girl, and he is just a boy.
Alone in a royal palace with no real family.
You did not deserve it.
Jinshi brought you home.
His hand on your lower back as the two of you were drenched from head to toe, he brought you back. Maomao wiped your hair down as you thanked her, same dignified smile on your face as always, thanking Maomao for bringing you back. She helped you clean up, and you were returned to your room, the papers of the residence now split between you and Jinshi. Jinshi helps with what he is capable of, papers on his desk split with yours as you help him sort through the affairs of the residence. You are much more well-versed in it than he is.
"Beloved." Jinshi groans. "I need a drink."
You snort, sliding a paper to the side. "Ask Maomao for a drink. I need to make a round in the residence. The new blankets are coming today."
"When will we be wed? We must celebrate your return."
"I find no reason to if I never left." You hum. "You are still yet to propose to me. Not to mention how Maomao still has the hairpin you have given her."
"She does not." Jinshi raises a brow. "She traded it for wen at the pawn store when we went to the streets to get coins."
You raise a brow incredulously.
"You can ask her." Jinshi goes back to whining, Gaoshun sighing.
"Madam." Maomao knocks at the door. "Do you have time?"
You nod, closing the door behind you, and one of the maids hands you something with a bow and runs off when you accept it. It is a treat. Your lips quirk up as you unwrap it, handing Maomao one as you press the other one to your lips. The two of you chew quietly, and you stare at the pond. The red is all gone. You're not sure how Jinshi did it, but he had gotten rid of the blood you stained in it three winters prior. It had been gone for a while now. Yet, you do not say much, chewing on the peanut treat, tossing some at the ducks in the garden as you squat down.
"When is your wedding?"
"There is no need for one." You mumble. "Jinshi may not remember it, but we had been wed already."
Maomao blinks. "You were?"
"It was a simple ceremony. I had no family, so the empress had the two of us wed in secret before her death." You hum. "They dressed me up in red and proceeded with customs, but we continued to refer to each other as betrothed simply because it would be been troublesome for us to be married with no children."
"I see." Maomao mumbles. "Does he remember?"
"I do not believe so—"
You jump in your skin when Jinshi brushes his fingers over the nape of your neck.
"How could I not?" He pouts. "Though, you deserve a bigger wedding. It is the least I should do after putting you through so much."
You grimace at him. "Perhaps we should start from the beginning. Best of luck sending a proposal letter to my nonexistent family, Jinshi."
"No, we should pick up from the wedding." He frowns. "The bed. We never shared a bed."
"Because the empress passed away that same night so no one was there to watch us to rest together." You roll your eyes. "Treat?"
He takes one, humming. "I would prefer to host the wedding again."
You shrug. "The one to plan shall be you, despite the traditional way to go about it. It is not like I can bed you, anyway."
Maomao blinks slowly, cogs turning in her head. You watch, lips curled into a smile when it clicks for her.
"He's a eunuch." She pauses. "Which is why they did not make him bed you."
"Bingo!" You grin. "The second prince officially has one spouse. Master Jinshi has none."
"...then why do the maids here refer to him as master?"
"We force them to be tight-lipped." Jinshi hums. "Anyone who lets a word slip is executed. You live longer when you are tight lipped in this residence."
"I kill at least three maids a year." You hum. "You should watch. I line them up and shoot arrows at them."
Maomao blinks at you in concern. She supposes it is adequate since revealing Jinshi's true name would be like selling him out, but the idea of you wielding a bow... She pauses. No. You've cut a man's head off clean before. It is not out of character. It is simply out of character for the persona you display in front of the royal palace. Huh. Amusing. The contradiction of your quiet personality and the reality of your abilities. Perhaps you had been groomed in such a way to prevent your turning on the late empress.
"You are strange."
"Yes." You smile. "Very strange."
"You know what is strange? The fact that you are not my wife yet." Jinshi sighs dramatically.
You snort.
"Shall we get married in fall? When the harvest is most bountiful?"
"Perhaps." You yawn. "Though, you are to prepare everything."
"Except the dress?" Jinshi pauses. "No. It would be best if I pick the dress. I would simply—"
You smack him in the back of his head. "Bad. Leave the dress and decorations to me. You will simply plan the day and time."
"Yes, beloved." He pouts.
In the distance, a maid waves her hand, and you nod at Jinshi heading off.
Maomao's gaze lingers on you, only speaking up when you are out of earshot.
"Perhaps a new hairpin for her would be good as well."
"Well obviously." He pouts. "Perhaps you know what gem she would prefer?"
"Perhaps out of jade." She turns to look at Jinshi. "And hand carved."
Jinshi spits out blood.
Alright. For you.
Jinshi finishes the hairpin surprisingly fast, going home with ash on his face more often than he liked, but the hairpin is finished, jade shiny under the sun, pearls fastened with red silk, perfect for you to wear. It weighs light in his hand, but the metal is precious. So, he waits for a nice spring day, the sky clear and blue, sun in the sky, and he calls you out for tea.
This time, it would be his turn to chase after you, and he was determined to get you back.
After all, by the stars and the moon, by your birthdays and luck, you were destined.
And even if you were just a girl and he was just a boy, at least he was your boy.
If you would let him, of course.
After all, his rope is fastened to yours forever now.
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casualhedonists · 4 months
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✩ it don’t need your loving, it just needs attention ✩ (chapter two)
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pairing: Coriolanus Snow x reader
chapter: 2/?
MASTERLIST
warnings: NSFW (18+), snow being snow, themes of sex work (not the reader), cuckolding, eventual smut, fake relationship, unprotected sex, themes of voyeurism & mild exhibitionism, murder mention (but no actual murder) (not yet at least?), MAJOR manipulation/gross power dynamics + generally darkish themes, some power play, oral sex, thigh riding, eventual piv, i’m new to full on smut bear with me here (and pls tell me if i forgot anything!)
i do not give permission for my work to be reposted/translated anywhere, under any circumstances.
a/n: first off, THANK YOU for the love on chapter 1. wasn’t sure how I’d fare since I’ve done a lot of writing in my life but little to no smut. with that said! longer chapter incoming. also I just know he’d give insane head okay i just do,the guy looks like he fucks and he definitely does
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You weren't sure exactly how you slipped away from Snow’s room that night, but you could somewhat piece it together in flashes. First a head rush, then the fire in the pit of your stomach practically having gasoline thrown on it.
You remembered a quiet gasp escaping your lips, then panic, a flash of white, and suddenly you were stumbling away, head spinning as you tried to catch your breath, pacing unevenly down the hallway, any chance of a stealthy escape long thrown out the window.
Back in your room, once the door was bolted and your back was against it, making sure nobody could get in if they tried, you had your first shot at clear-headedness since you’d heard heels scuffing the hardwood.
You’d soaked your panties through and were dripping down your thighs, but you’d be damned if you could get into the headspace to take care of it. Panic flooded your veins, ice-hot as you tried to catch your breath. you slid down the door and sat there, legs numb against the cold wooden planks.
Who was she? A million questions filled your head all at once. Was she from the Capitol? Could she be one of Snow’s friends, one of your friends? The thought made you sick. What if you’d dined with her before? Talked to her? How long had this been happening? Who knew about it? Were you being played?
Had he seen you watching him?
Unable to help yourself, your one-track mind took you back to the way he’d groaned your name, though you were half sure that had been a fever dream of some kind. Still, you kept replaying it. Over and over, like a broken record.
It didn’t make any sense, you were so fucking confused. All this time you’d been hoping he would make a move, you’d practically begged him to. Why hadn’t he? When you were clearly on his mind, and yet he made you believe he didn’t think of you that way at all. Was he just respecting your agreement?
You fiddled with the lace on the hem of your slip as you mulled it over. You stayed sat like this for almost an hour, trying unsuccessfully to wrap your head around it. When you ended up right back where you started, and you were sure enough time had passed that if someone was coming to get you, they would’ve already, you finally stood up. Your caution led you to drag a chair from across the room, propping it up by the door to jam the handle. That left you with the sliver of peace of mind you required to shower off this cold sweat you’d formed.
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The next morning, you dreaded breakfast. But you knew you had to face him, as well as the fact that this could very well be your last meal. You should at least try to eat well.
You made your way downstairs, a few minutes later than usual, enough for Coriolanus to already be sipping coffee, a few pages through his newspaper. You’d not got fully dressed yet, not wanting the contrast to be too obvious, but you’d wrapped a silk dressing gown around you so you were a little more covered up. You knew one thing for certain, you wouldn’t be trying any more of your tricks until you knew just what you were dealing with.
He didn’t look over at you, which you took as a good sign. The urge to hide from him, from what you’d seen and what you now knew, overwhelmed you. You didn’t say a word, and picked silently at your breakfast, but despite your best efforts, not managing to keep more than a few bites down.
“You’re quiet today.” He muttered, and you started.
“Um.”
He lowered his paper.
“Something wrong?”
How about everything?
“Oh, no, I’m okay. Just uh…” you glanced up at him, and met his sharp gaze. Fuck. You’d hoped you’d go unnoticed. You felt like a deer in headlights, like he could read your mind.
“Well?” He prompted, gaze unwavering. You blinked.
“Headache.” You managed to breathe, faking a small, pitiful smile.
He brought his paper back up in front of him, crisply turning the page. You both thanked the new barrier between you for cutting off his stare, and resented it as you looked at the tiny printed words you couldn’t make out from where you were sitting.
“I’ll have Lucille bring you up something.”
“Thank you.” you said quickly, almost too quickly, and you feared he might lower his paper again to watch you as you stumbled over another excuse. But you fell lucky this time.
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The week seemed to pass in a blur, Monday’s gala being one of the only times you really left your room when Snow was around, other than meal times, which you spent in a similar state as that first breakfast. You cursed yourself for throwing out your longer dresses, and settled for the least suggestive of them, the white one you’d been thinking of pitching to Snow as a backup plan in your panicked state outside his bedroom. That all felt worlds away now. What you’d seen had shifted the tides, marking a solid, definitive line in your head between the before and after.
The gala went as well as it could given the circumstances. You danced, Snow was charming to you in front of the guests, but held your gaze no longer than usual. It was simultaneously terrifying and thrilling to feel his hands on your waist, knowing what you knew. It felt like you’d been tapped with a cattle prod and had to hide it every time his hand brushed yours on top of the dinner table, as unsuspecting guests smiled at you, the happy couple.
If only they knew that in the same breath, you were scanning the crowd, wondering who the blonde could’ve been, how close she was to Snow, if at all, and hating the way every touch he placed on your hands and waist served as a reminder that he’d been touching her instead of you.
Your stupid brain had formed a highlight reel of what you’d witnessed behind Snow’s door, and it tortured you with every passing moment. To know he was thinking of you. To think that maybe, he wanted you there instead. It put a strange sense of possessive pride into you, that weaved between your jealousy. Because yes, you’d seen another girl on her knees with her mouth around him, but you hadn’t heard any name other than your own while it happened.
You carried this strange hope, dwindling to start off, and then building each day that you were left un-hanged and very much alive, slowly chipping away at your fear of the worst. And yet, you knew the game, unbeknownst to Snow, had been fundamentally changed. You’d stopped your antics altogether, now barely meeting his eye as you passed each other in the hallway, covering up more at breakfast, and only talking just enough to avoid another interrogation. Avoiding touch, and conversation, and all-around keeping yourself away from him.
You were quieter still at night in your room. After a few days, you’d finally felt safe enough to move the chair away and sleep with the door locked as you normally would. But while your games had stopped, your want for him had only been amplified. Fuelled by jealousy and frustration, you had to bite down on your hand so that not even the slightest noise made its way out as you pictured him, not as you used to in your fantasies, but as you’d seen him that night, undone with your name on his lips. It was much easier, in your head, to picture yourself as the one on your knees. Any other fantasy just failed to make the cut now you’d seen the real thing.
Thursday rolled around and you’d made a new habit of pacing the downstairs library when Coriolanus was out of the house. That way, if he got home and stepped inside, you could pretend to be lost in a book. But the hours seemed to stretch out and you became bored, and with no Snow in sight, you decided to head down to the servants’ quarters.
This wasn’t a common occurrence, but it wasn’t unheard of. You were known for your gentleness among the house staff, less harsh than Snow, but firm nonetheless. It had led you to a respectful friendliness with the maids and servants, and once every so often you’d check in on them.
Today’s objectives, however, were purely self-motivated. You found Lucille, who dressed you, at the kitchen table, chopping vegetables.
She stood upon seeing you, and curtseyed (Snow was rather old fashioned that way). You nodded, then took a seat at the foot of the table.
“Do you need any help with that?” You glanced at the cutting board.
Lucille’s eyes widened. “I wouldn’t dream of it, Ma’am.”
You laughed. Lucille chopped and diced, and you asked questions. At first, they were after her family, her brother was sick and despite your offers, she wouldn’t accept help. So instead you listened, and slowly but surely, your questions got a little more directed toward the object of your interest.
You were good at playing the long game, so you started by asking about the company he kept. What she thought of them, with the promise that it would stay between the two of you, cross your heart.
She wouldn’t say much but she knew a little more than you; Snow kept very similar company as you did, and rarely went out for social visits. Any trips were strictly work-related, and when you eased into the topic of his past, Lucille mentioned, in very polite terms, that he had left a small trail of women heartbroken after a short period of time. That not all of them had been pleasant, and that she was pleased you seemed to have a positive effect on him.
She knew about your arrangement, practically the whole staff did, but they were kept on a very tight leash and were thoroughly reminded to not say a word acknowledging it, not even to you. It was with a knowing glance that Lucille told you she was happy you’d stayed around.
You smiled. Knowing that was likely all you were going to get for now, you let her be. By then, it was late enough to have gone dark, and you headed up to bed.
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You awoke to creaking outside your door, and the shadow of footsteps from underneath it. You’d been tossing and turning for the last - you checked your watch - two hours. Excellent. You rolled onto your back wondering who it was, and then you heard it again. At first you wondered if it was just a sleep-deprived hallucination, or a sense of deja-vu, but then you focused, and there it was. The sound of heels. Again.
You sat up in bed, pushing your hair out of your face. You were enraged the first time, but if this was becoming a Thursday night tradition, it would be a serious problem. You were tired, you reasoned, you could just try to go back to sleep. Ignore it. Not let him have this power over you, a power that he didn’t even know he had. All the more reason to ignore it, and make it tomorrow’s problem.
But you just couldn’t let sleeping dogs lie, no matter how hard you tried. Your mother used to say it was a problem, always sticking your nose in places it didn’t belong. But it had got you this far, hadn't it?
You knew you were going to follow her to Snow’s room again, it was just a matter of time. You had to at least pretend you had an ounce of self-control, whereas really your head was thrumming and you knew it would take getting hit by a high-speed train to send you back to sleep now.
So you held off. Five minutes passed. Then ten. You had to know, at least, what they were doing. Maybe you could get a look at her face, see who it was, and answer some of the questions you had.
So you went. With a purpose this time, knowing full well what and who you’d end up seeing, trying to take steady breaths and focus on your plan. Check who it was, then leave.
You’d never been that great at execution. Call it hedonism, call it a morbid fascination, or living vicariously, but when you walked up to the door - which was ajar again, strangely even more than last time, by at least an inch or two - you looked inside, and your feet planted. The last shred of your self-control allowed you to take in the room first, the desk and chair that was right within your sight, and as you tucked yourself into the room, half hidden behind the door, you finally looked back at the bed where you’d seen Snow with his blonde girl last time.
Neither of them were sitting now.
Thirty seconds ago, you would’ve believed the hottest thing you’d ever seen was what played out in this room last week. But that was before you saw Snow turned away from you, still fully dressed with his sleeves rolled up, stomach on the bed and face between the blonde’s thighs, eating her out like he was on death row and she was his last meal.
You’d gotten head before. You knew it felt good, but the boys you’d slept with before your arrangement with Snow were selfish and inattentive. They would try, but they were far more interested in getting their dicks wet than showing you a good time. But Snow - you’d never seen anything like it. You didn’t know it could feel that good, or at least, not as good as the blonde girl - who you noted in the back of your mind, wasn’t anyone you recognised - was making it look. Her hips were bucking so hard he was having to pin her down with both hands around her waist.
She was just moving so much, wriggling and crying out and gasping and - you didn’t think you’d ever truly known jealousy until that moment. You couldn’t look away, knees weak and hands shaking, letting yourself get sucked into this headspace again, losing all trace of rationality. You’d think she was playing it up for him, but you knew what that sounded like. You’d faked enough orgasms to know if she was, but this? This was real. As she got close, grinding into him, writhing, running a shaky hand through his hair then getting louder, you managed to snap out of your trance.
In a flash, you ran back down the hallway.
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If you thought you were avoiding Snow before, this week was about to give you a run for your money. You took breakfast in your room, and kept only to the parts of the house you knew he never entered. You only touched yourself in the shower, silent cries washed away by the water and steam, paranoia backing you into a corner.
You feigned illness the one time Snow sent a maid to inquire after you. Nothing too major, but enough to put him off. When he left the house, you snuck into the library to smuggle books back to your room, a pile forming as you tried ceaselessly to distract yourself.
You wrote home, you studied art and history. You attempted a few terrible sketches. You tore apart your room, then put it back together.
Before you knew it, Thursday rolled around again. On longer days like this, when Snow had been away working for hours at a time, you’d doubled down on your efforts to get information, and after chipping away for just long enough, you finally managed to squeeze some tidbits out of Lucille. Namely that there was a certain gentleman’s club in the city that he used to frequent before his election as President. Snow’s old driver might know its name, she said.
“But that was long before he met you, ma’am, rest assured.” She added hurriedly.
“Of course. Thank you, Lucille. I think I’ve kept you for long enough. Goodnight.”
Snow had been gone for the whole day, and you weren’t sure if he’d come home yet, so as you headed up to your room, you quietly wandered a little further down the hallway, to check if there was any light beneath his door. There wasn’t. Good. You were glad he wouldn’t be continuing this routine of his. Maybe this Thursday night, you could sleep peacefully.
With a sigh, and mulling over what you’d learned today, you returned to your room, poured a drink, then collapsed into bed.
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This night was as sleepless as the rest, and you’d been drifting - not uncomfortably - in and out. A storm was brewing outside, and the sounds of howling wind began to keep you alert. You rolled onto your back and stared at the ceiling, then glanced towards your door. Snow must’ve come home at some point, and very late at that, because dim lights had been turned on in the hallway. Paranoia crept into your mind, slowly poisoning your thoughts and turning you inside out.
It didn’t take long before the feeling pushed you to roll out of bed, slide on a dressing gown, and crack open your door. This time, you couldn’t hear footsteps, or anything that might arise suspicion. You closed the door again. Waited. Then looked around your room, at the messy sheets and the half finished glass of liquor on the nightstand. You rarely drank alone, but these past few weeks had been getting to you, fucking with your head. Coriolanus Snow had driven you to this.
The wind got louder, and you knew you were too wired to sleep, so you stood by your window and finished the glass.
You’d never been good with mysteries. You wanted to know everything, all the time. Know who had power over you, know precisely how to take it away. Know exactly what was happening around you at any given moment. But most of all, you didn’t like being played for a fool.
And sure, the ethics of it had never been discussed between the two of you. Your business was strictly professional, but when you weren’t allowed to sleep around, why could he?
In fact, how dare he?
You poured another glass, straight whiskey. Downed it, pacing your room, back and forth between the door and the window, running your fingers along the ridges of the crystal glass. You thought about him, comfortably in his room, not a care in the world.
How dare he.
You weren’t sure if it was the drink or the buildup of your situation that had your blood boiling, but it didn’t matter. You were incensed. His behaviour was an insult to your name, to your family’s name. Sure, this relationship was a sham, but all the more reason for him to act with basic fucking respect. Sleeping with - and very obviously, at that - a whore, who had a bad habit of leaving the door cracked open, was unacceptable.
You were running hot, and if you knew one thing for certain, it was that when Snow met with fire, he was going to melt. You’d make sure of it.
Your feet took you into the hallway, with the decidedness that this would be the last time.
You rushed down the corridor with a tightly bottled rage that was about to burst, words hot on your tongue and demanding to be spoken, until you turned the corner and saw Snow’s door half open. You stopped in your tracks. Reassessed, then stepped closer, slowly, steadily. Remembering what you were there for.
Then, as you got close enough to see inside - right there, without you even having to step past the threshold, were the two of them, lit by a table lamp, Snow sat on the desk chair as the girl rode him to high heaven, obscene noises getting louder. As you approached you saw Snow’s face again, eyes shut, breath laboured, and you couldn’t believe that anyone just walking by would be able to see this. They were fucking like animals, out in the open. You didn’t know how or why you drew closer still, closing in on them. The girl’s head was dropped down to his shoulder, back facing you, and couldn’t see you unless she turned, but Snow? He was practically facing the door, almost as if he’d been…
No. It couldn’t be. Could it?
But you didn’t have time to think it through, because Snow’s eyes blinked open, and you knew. He was looking right at you, blue eyes piercing into yours, sharp and dangerous like he was going in for the kill. You stood there, jaw dropped, unable to look away. In what world could you walk in on someone like this, and feel like they held all the cards, and you none? That was how he looked at you; like you’d been there watching the whole time, and this was all a show, playing out exactly as he’d planned it. Like somehow, despite all your best efforts, he’d landed on top.
It was like he read your mind, because he wet his lips, unblinking as the blonde writhed on his lap, and fucking smirked.
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a/n: can’t wait for them to hate fuck after this (oh sorry forgot i’m the author for a sec) thanks for reading <3
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taglist: @superchatnoir07 @itsrainingreid @nycweb-slinger @lookclosernow @etfrin @resibunn @serving-targaryen-realness @harmfulb1tch @demonsnangels @superb-icarus @julesandro @gracieroxzy @slyhersophia @shadowsepiphany @ben-has-arrived @unclecrunkle @zerotwo-sciencequeen @itsleniiilosers @thesiriusmap @ooooglymoooogly @darkqweenn @going-through-shit @loverw1tch @stinkii-boii
if you’d like to be tagged, please leave a comment on the masterlist!! 💌
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fuckyeahdindjarin · 1 year
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Joel Miller x F!Reader
{ Series Masterlist | Main Masterlist | Part II: Threads }
Rating: M
Summary: Joel has a problem. Having settled into some semblance of a 'normal' life in Jackson that no longer involves running for his life and living off scraps, his clothes are getting a little… tight. Self-conscious, he deals with it the way he does most things - he ignores it.
That is until one day, the zipper on his jeans finally gives up after one too many desperate tugs, leaving him stuck. With neither Tommy nor Ellie anywhere to be found to get him out of the tight spot, Joel begrudgingly heads to the clothing store he’s seen in town for help - and a new pair of jeans.
There, he meets you.
Warnings: Spicy thoughts, sexual tension, sexual innuendos, body insecurity, some language, Joel being unkind to himself, shy!reader, reader has a nickname related to her job, soft!Joel, no use of Y/N
Word count: 6k
Notes: I haven't written anything this fast for a hot minute. It's both exciting and terrifying, especially as Joel is so new to the fandom. So this is a one-shot as it stands, but I'll be lying if I say I haven't thought about where this story can go. Please be gentle with me, Joel is easily the most intimidating Pedro boy I've written for so far. I hope this doesn't disappoint 🥺
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‘TommmMMMMMYYYY!’
His voice echoes in the empty street, gruff with irritation. He can feel eyes on him - he always does, wherever he goes in this damn place - covert stares from behind curtains, peeking out of windows from the neighbouring houses.
The polished wood thumps hollowly under his fist. Head bowed in surrender, his forehead makes contact with the surface of the door with a dull thud.
‘Fuck,’ he mutters under his breath.
Trudging back to the house that’s been allocated to him - he still struggles to think of it as his - he slams the door shut behind him so hard that the sound rings in his ears. Well, more in his left than his right.
Tossing the keys onto a chest of drawers in the hallway, he yells in a last-ditch attempt, ‘Ellieeee!’
The house is silent.
The one time he needs either of them, neither can be found anywhere. Even Maria has made herself scarce - not that he’d ask her for help for this.
This being these stupid fucking jeans. 
His trusty jeans that he’s worn for years, other than on laundry days, which were few and far in between. They’ve literally seen him through thick and thin - the knees are so worn he can almost see the web of white thread beneath the denim.
Tess had gotten him these jeans. Stole them, if he remembers correctly. Once upon a time, he needed a belt to hold them up, or they’d hang down to his ass crack. By the time Ellie came into the picture, they fit well enough to render the belt redundant. He could still easily fit things into his pockets though, like a map or a switchblade.
But now - 
Now he’s stuck, and he can’t get them off.
If he’s being honest with himself, the jeans haven’t fit for months. The jobs in Jackson don’t come anywhere close to the backbreaking work in the QZ or being on the road with Ellie. The food is plentiful even during the harsh winter, and as much as he looks down his ideological nose at it, Maria deserves credit for the thriving commune.
He had a late start this morning. Ellie had already vacated the house by the time he came to. He was on autopilot, distracted by his thoughts about the porch steps that have rotted and need to be replaced. 
He was making plans in his head to nip down to the workshop to get the wooden planks when he started getting dressed. Stepping into the legs of the jeans, he pulled them up, hopping to stretch them over his thighs. Out of habit, he sucked in his belly to button them up, the waistband seemingly even tighter than usual. 
He relegated that to the back of his mind, the same way he’s ignored the fact that the jeans have been uncomfortably tight for months - to the point of hindering his movement when he lays bricks, or cuts off his breathing when he sits down. But he’s gotten used to it, like he does everything else. He’s Joel Miller with the stiff upper lip, after all.
The zipper was next. As usual, he met resistance about halfway up. Baring his teeth, he gripped the tongue of the zipper and yanked upwards. 
Except this time, it didn’t budge. Grumbling, he pulled harder, feeling the burn in his biceps -
It happened so quickly that he wasn’t even aware until he was wheeling backwards from the force, his arm flying up in an arc - and a metallic clink behind him registered faintly in his good ear. 
Disoriented, he glanced down at the zipper. The slider had come clean off.
‘Fuck,’ he swore and turned to the full-length mirror on the wall to inspect the damage. Running an experimental finger along the seam, it was clear that the zipper had somehow snagged on the denim. It was stuck. Dead stuck.
Turning the house inside out, he couldn’t find a single pair of scissors, and there isn’t enough space to fit a knife in without slicing himself open, at which point he left on his ultimately fruitless search for reinforcement.
Joel scrubs a tired hand down his face. He’s never been a vain guy - Tommy is that sibling. But he’s never needed to stress about his looks either, with contracting keeping him in shape before the outbreak, and the fight for survival after - until now.
Grabbing his jacket, he shrugs it on, hyper-conscious of whether it’s a tighter squeeze than usual (fortunately not) - and heads into town.
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Main Street Outfitters, the only clothing store in Jackson, sits in the middle of the high street, sandwiched between the pub on one side and the welder’s on the other. For the most part, residents come in to trade in old clothes for new ones, but there’s also a nicer selection for the occasional party that one can barter for.
You’re in the workshop at the back, the afternoon sun filling the room through the skylight. 
With your skill in thread and needle, you were the obvious candidate for the job when you arrived in Jackson. Over the years, it has become your sanctuary. The walls are lined with wooden shelves, where neat - though mismatched - boxes of buttons, trimmings, thread and trinkets slot perfectly into place.
You spend the days checking over incoming clothes after they come back from the laundry, making sure they are in reasonable condition and mending those that are not. The shop also charges for adjustments and repairs, and the tasks easily fill your working hours.
It’s a Tuesday, and it’s usually quiet this time of the afternoon. If you’re lucky, you can be undisturbed until you clock off at five - which is why you’re surprised when you hear the tinkle of the doorbell.
The footfall is heavy, it sounds like a strong work boot. You hold your breath and your fingers hover mid-air as the door shuts with a slam. You hear the customer clear his throat - definitely a man - as you wait in vain for the front of house to greet him.
But of course Lucy has sneaked out again. She’s a sweet girl, but manning the counter has always been too dull for her.
‘Hello?’
The voice is deep and gravelly, and despite your reluctance, it doesn’t sit well with your work ethic to keep a customer waiting. Sticking the needle into a pin cushion, you noiselessly rise from your seat and make your way to the front of the shop.
Your first glimpse of him is his back. Standing in front of a rack of jeans, the grays in his hair catch the light streaming through the shop front windows. You study him for a minute, curious eyes running over the width of broad shoulders under a beat-up, khaki jacket. Lower, his jeans are… well-worn, to put it kindly. And from sight, a sitting a bit tight on his hips -
You must have shifted your feet without you noticing. At the minutest creak of wood, the man whips around, one hand reaching behind him in search of the butt of a loaded gun or the hilt of a knife. It’s your good fortune that you see neither on him. The intensity of his gaze is just as effective as a blade on your neck to pin you to your spot.
There’s no question that he’s a newcomer. You’ve seen the same kind of intensity in everyone who’s braved what’s out there to get here.
But even if that didn’t give him away, you already know who he is. He’s Tommy’s brother. Joel, if you remember correctly. Maria approached you for some clothes a few months back when he arrived with his kid for the second time. They’ve been the talk of town since - not that you listen. In fact, you try not to, but you can’t help it if someone talks loudly enough at the next table in the canteen to interrupt your lunchtime reading.
‘Sorry,’ he mumbles as the tension in his body recedes. ‘You’re very quiet.’
You duck your head. ‘Sorry.’
‘You work here?’
Wringing your fingers nervously, you nod and take two timid steps towards him, hoping he doesn’t hear the tremour in your voice. ‘How can I help?’
You’ve heard things about Joel Miller. The words most frequently whispered as he ambles by in town include ruthless, cold-blooded and steer clear.
You can’t exactly reconcile the man in front of you with those particular words right now.
There’s nothing that speaks to ruthlessness in the way he averts his eyes and shuffles his feet, the blunt tip of his shoes catching the wooden floor. You also find it hard to believe that a truly cold-blooded person would willingly cross the country and all its horrors in search of his brother, or take a teenager under his wing.
You might not think much of yourself, but you know that your judgement of character has kept you alive so far. And your instinct isn’t telling you to steer clear of this man - quite the opposite, in fact.
But that’s neither here nor there.
He rubs the back of his neck, uncomfortable with your scrutiny. ‘Just lookin’ for some new jeans.’
‘Alright,’ you reply, taking the remaining five steps to the other end of the jeans rack, a safe distance away from him. ‘What’s your size?’
To your surprise, he huffs a sardonic laugh. ‘At least one up from whatever I have on right now.’
Sucking in a breath, you gesture vaguely at him. ‘Um, do you mind if I take a look at uh - you? So I can guess what size will fit you?’
You’re used to being the most awkward person in the room wherever you go, but this man is  giving you a pretty good run for your money right now. While you divert your gaze as he unbuttons the front of his jacket, he fixes his somewhere over your shoulder to the right, grinding his teeth, as if he wishes he was anywhere but here.
Dragging your eyes back to him, you take stock of your customer as he sweeps the lapels of the jacket to the side. Underneath, the green flannel cuts off at the top of the jeans, and you see the soft pouch of his abdomen beneath the fabric. While the shirt is well-fitted, the jeans are obviously too small. The waistband bites into his sides, you can see the subtle overhang of his love handles. Even by the way he’s standing you can tell he’s uncomfortable, packed in way too tight in the denim.
And then… you really shouldn’t, but you stare at the front of the jeans. Now, you know for a fact that the fit will be just as snug there even if he goes a size up…
‘Sorry, not much to look at,’ he grunts, breaking the silence.
Taken aback by the self-derision in his voice, the words leave your mouth before they register, sharper than you mean them to be. ‘Don’t say that.’
He blinks at you. ‘What?’
You gape at him. Does he really not see? His tall, solid frame? The strong columns of his thighs? Is this man blind on top of being frustratingly attractive -?
But of course you can never say that. Instead, you pull out three different pairs of jeans in quick succession and all but throw them at him, heat prickling the tips of your ears as the disbelief that you spoke to a customer like that sinks in.
‘The dressing room is there,’ you squeak, pointing at the far corner. ‘I’ll be at the back if you need any help -’
You turn on your heels, in a hurry to get back to your workshop, but you only get halfway through the spin. It takes you three seconds to realise why - his calloused palm is on your wrist, holding you in place.
‘Actually, I do need help - I broke the zipper, and I’m stuck in these damn jeans.’
You ignore the clench of your stomach at the way he spits out the word damn. You’re not big on swearing, but the cuss word sounds good rolling off his tongue in his Southern twang.
To your horror, a giggle bubbles up your throat before you can slap a palm over your mouth.
‘I’m so, so sorry,’ you apologise profusely, heat flooding your cheeks. 
You stare in consternation when those broad shoulders of his quake, a half-smile on his lips as they part in a scratchy chuckle. ‘Trust me, I’m glad I found you first. My brother or my kid would have given me a much harder time. Probably would’ve pissed their pants laughin’.’
Despite yourself, you smile back with a weak attempt at a joke. ‘I mean, I’ll try not to -’
He smirks, the corners of his eyes crinkling. ‘That’s all I can ask for.’
You lead the way to the back of the shop and Joel follows three polite steps behind, pausing by the doorway. Running practised eyes over the space, the contractor in him appreciates the well-built skylight and the sturdy furniture in the room, pieces that were clearly built to last. He places the jeans you picked out for him on the big work table, made of strong timber and aged with time. 
He picked up a change in your demeanour the moment you crossed the threshold into the workshop. There’s a quiet confidence in your measured steps, the way you move speaking volumes - this is clearly your place, and you’re so much more comfortable in your skin here.
You point at the spot marked by a round, cosy rug directly beneath the skylight. ‘Could you stand there for me?’
Doing as he’s told, he startles when you march straight up to him, sliding your palms under the shoulders of his jacket to push it off. Your front brushes his chest briefly when you reach around to catch it, but not brief enough for him to ignore the soft swell of your breasts pressed up against him.
Joel is all too aware of his pulse going from zero to a hundred at the fleeting touch, the collar of his shirt suddenly a bit too tight. For fuck’s sake, Miller. It’s been an embarrassingly long time since his head has gone anywhere near there, but of course it has to happen at the most inconvenient moment.
At least you don’t seem to notice, draping his jacket over the back of a chair before retrieving a pair of tailor’s scissors from one meticulously organised drawer.
Just when he thinks he’s gotten a handle on himself, you hit him with a non-sequitur. ‘Are you wearing underwear?’
Only when Joel splutters wordlessly does the full weight of the question seem to hit you. You stutter, ‘Oh god, I didn’t - I mean - I only asked because if push comes to shove, and I have to cut through the jeans, I don’t want to ruin any underwear you’re wearing -’
You trail off, and it’s his turn to stammer, scratching an invisible itch on his elbow as he struggles to remember what he usually does with his hands.
‘No, no, I get it. I’m ahem -,’ he pauses with a cough. ‘I’m not actually wearin’ any underwear right now. Not out of habit, it’s just that I’ve been barely squeezin’ into the stupid jeans even without it.’
His honest answer seems to put you at ease, and you purse your lips. ‘Sounds uncomfortable.’
He shrugs. ‘Have been for months.’
‘I’m sorry.’
He arches an eyebrow. ‘What for?’
‘That you’ve been uncomfortable. That’s one thing clothes shouldn’t be.’
Not quite knowing how to answer you, he watches you grab a velvet cushioned footstool from under the work table and place it squarely at his feet. Then, without further preamble, you sink onto your knees in front of him, knocking the air clean out of his lungs.
As he stares down at the crown of your head, your nose at the level of his waistband, he muses that he hasn’t seen this view for a long time, a very long time. His fingers twitch at his sides, and he closes his eyes, fighting the base instinct to cup the back of your head in his palm and to pull you close -
He breathes out hard through his nostrils and clenches his jaw, casting his gaze heavenwards through the skylight as he actually prays for the first time in years.
Don’t you fucking dare get hard, Miller.
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You chew on the inside of your mouth as you consider what’s before you. It’s tricky. The jeans are unbuttoned and zipped up most of the way, but the denim has been caught tight in the metallic teeth, and the handle of the zipper yanked clean off.
Cocking your head to one side, you think out loud. ‘I think we should at least try and unsnag the zipper before cutting. But we’re going to need some lubrication, and we’ll need to give it a really good, firm tug -’
The man chokes on nothing above you, and you frown up at him in a question.
Clearing his throat loudly, he asks through gritted teeth, ‘Do we have to?’
‘I mean, I can just cut open the jeans, but then you’ll definitely have to trade in something extra to cover the costs of the repairs -’
He interrupts, ‘That. Let’s do that.’
‘Alright, your call,’ you say with a nod. ‘Can you hold up your shirt?’
You try not to gawk when he draws up the tails of his flannel, revealing his soft stomach underneath. The mid-rise jeans cut off beneath his belly button, and you eye the trail that sneaks full and dark under the waistband. He’s obviously sucking his tummy in, and you catch yourself wishing he doesn’t feel like he has to.
You bite your bottom lip. ‘Do you think you can fit a couple of fingers into the waistband so I can slide the scissors in? They’re sharp, I don’t want to cut you.’
You watch as he tries, first his index finger, then his middle, but he can barely squeeze in beyond the nail, which turns completely colourless from the pressure. He sighs in surrender. ‘Mfraid you’ll have to, sweetheart.’
You have to close your eyes for a moment, your head swimming. You’re not sure whether it’s from the sweetheart, or the fact that he wants you to stick your hand down the front of his pants. 
Well, not exactly that he wants you to. And not your hand. But still.
You squeak. ‘Do I have to?’
He pins you a sarcastic arch of his eyebrows. ‘Well, if you’re sure that you won’t cut my dick off -’
Your face heats up at his blunt words, falling back onto your haunches. ‘Great, now you’ve got me worried -’
Palms up in apology, he shrugs. ‘Sorry -’
‘No, no, you’re right. I don’t want to accidentally castrate you,’ you sigh. ‘Are you - um - well adjusted in there?’
‘I’d go down the right side of the zipper,’ he answers diplomatically.
Taking a deep breath, you ask, ‘Ready?’
‘Whenever you are, sweetheart.’
The first contact is the brush of your knuckles against his stomach, the skin warm and soft on the back of your fingers. You don’t dare look up, but you can feel his eyes on you as you burrow your index finger under the waistband. Though it’s a squeeze, you manage to wriggle in nail side down, creating a small gap - still not quite enough to get the scissors in without nicking him.
Talking more to yourself, you mumble, ‘Better safe than sorry. Let me just get one more finger in -’
Joel chokes so hard that you almost jump back in fright, frowning at him as he catches his breath. ‘Are you okay? Do you need some water?’
His voice tight, he shakes his head. ‘No, I’m fine.’
You wait a beat to make sure he doesn’t go into another coughing fit. When the coast is clear, you gesture at his jeans. ‘Can I just -’ 
‘Get one more finger in?’ he finishes your sentence in his raspy baritone. 
You finally hear it when he says it like that. And oh god, your ears burn as you stare up at him, lips parted, torn between outrage and a very disorienting arousal. ‘You - you -’
A wicked smirk tugs unexpectedly at the corner of his mouth. ‘I already tried, sweetheart. My fingers are too big to fit inside.’
The touch of playful condescension in his tone has your jaw going slack, and your brain practically short-circuits at the thoughts of where else they are too big to fit inside of -
So as it turns out, you’re brave, or just downright stupid, when you’re turned on. Next thing you know, you hear yourself telling him off. ‘I could just leave you in those jeans you know.’
Joel smiles wider, and retorts, ‘I don’t think you would.’
‘Just because I’m shy doesn’t mean I don’t have a mean streak,’ you shoot back.
He seems pleased to have lured you out of your shell, grinning down at you. ‘Believe me, I’m shakin’ in my boots, sweetheart.’
It’s really unfair that he looks this good from where you are on your knees. His eyes are hooded, curls flecked with grays sweeping his forehead. Even though the apocalypse has left its marks on him in wrinkles, frown lines, and smudged bags under his eyes, it has clearly not taken away from that proud nose or plush lips -
Steadying yourself with a deep inhale, you shake yourself out of it. With an in, it’s slightly easier to push in your middle finger into the waistband to widen the gap. Happy with the quarter inch of space, you hold up the scissors. ‘I’m ready to cut if you are.’
He nods his acquiesce. ‘Do your worst.’
Opening up the scissors and carefully fitting the blade beneath the denim, you carefully begin snipping away. They are sharp, but the fabric is tough and you’re conscious of the very tight fit, so you take it slow.
You pause when you’re a couple of inches in, when Joel lets out a groan of relief. Absent-mindedly, you run a soothing thumb over the angry, red indents the waistband dug into the soft pouch of his tummy, sending a shudder through him. 
‘Sorry,’ you squeak, snatching back your hand as if he burns you. 
Too preoccupied with the relief of being able to breathe, Joel shakes his head. ‘Don’t be. Just keep going. Please.’ 
Why is that one word - six letters - making your breath hitch?
Gripping the top of the now open fly and pinning it against his body so you don’t accidentally see anything you’re not meant to see - whether you want to deliberately is a completely different matter - you hunker down and keep cutting along the zipper. 
Each snip gets easier as the jeans release their death grip on him. The right side of the fly falls away as you cut, the denim peeling back slowly to expose the skin underneath. Your eyes drift to the curve of the pubic bone that’s now completely in view, and it’s taking everything you have to not lean over and run the broad of your tongue along it -
How long has it been since you’ve been with a man? When was the last time you had someone stand before you, pants unzipped and hanging open -
With tremendous fortitude, you tear your eyes away to check on him, ‘All good?’
The grunt of respite that he lets out is almost guttural, going straight between your legs. ‘Feels so fuckin’ good to breathe.’
‘Before I keep going, do you want to - uh - rearrange yourself?’
You expect him to turn around, or at least give you a second to turn around to give him some privacy, but he’s obviously been too deprived of oxygen to think straight. One big palm snakes down his front, right in your face, and he cups himself through the denim.
You stop breathing, eyes wide as he adjusts himself. 
Holy fuck.
When he’s done, he gives you a thumbs up. ‘All good.’
This is it. You’re not making it out of this alive.
You can barely get the words out, your throat suddenly drier than sandpaper. ‘Can you, um, hold up the other side of the fly?’
When he does, you stare at his hand next to yours. How is it so big? The veins are prominent on the back, leading down to thick fingers, the nails neatly trimmed and clean - but you bet there’s residue gunpowder underneath.
There’s still a slither of skin peeking through the V of the fly as the scissors slice through the denim, following his happy trail. The lower you go, the thicker and darker the curls, and goddamnit - what is wrong with you - all you can think about is burying your nose right in there, nudging through the hair, lower and lower and lower still -
A sharp pain on your left finger makes you yelp, the scissors falling from your other hand to the floor with a loud clang. A small bead of blood wells up on the tip where the sharp blade nicked it, and in a panic, you let go of his jeans.
‘Shit,’ Joel curses and covers himself up quickly, his brow furrowed in concern. ‘You okay?’
You nod in embarrassment while you get on your feet. ‘I - my hand just slipped. It’s nothing, the smallest cut, I’m fine -’
Well, to be fair, you were fine - until he grabs your left wrist, brings your hand up to his face and sucks your bleeding fingertip into his mouth. 
As if it’s the logical thing to do.
Your knees buckle, and you collapse into his front, but he doesn’t even budge, as if you weigh nothing. Taking a deep breath - wood smoke, simple soap and man fill your lungs. Peering up at him through your lashes, you spot the silver flanking the hinge of his jaw, leading down to a peculiar bare patch on the left side of his beard.
He watches you back as he releases your finger with a wet pop. Tracing his bottom lip with his tongue, he pronounces, ‘Just a small cut. You’ll live.’
Will you though? Because it feels like you’re on the verge of expiring from breathlessness. 
He glances down at his front, which he’s still holding up. ‘I guess I can get out of these now.’
It takes you three seconds to catch up before you stumble backwards. ‘Yes, of course. Sorry.’
‘Thank you for freeing me,’ he says with a lopsided smile.
You duck your head, unable to meet his gaze all of a sudden - hypocrite, you had no problem perving on him a minute ago - and nod at the jeans on the table. ‘Why don’t you try those on?’
He clears his throat. ‘I, uh, should probably put on some underwear first.’
You barely manage to hold back from smacking yourself on the forehead. ‘Of course. We do have some in stock. Boxers or briefs?’
He looks amused. ‘What do you think, sweetheart?’
You hesitate, but you force yourself to be brave and venture a guess. ‘Boxers.’
He winks, and you grin back.
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Joel hovers uncertainly in front of the mirror in the fitting room, having exhausted all the angles he can see twice, and wonders if he’s been dithering for too long. He’s not even sure what he’s looking at anymore, so he bites the bullet and draws back the curtain.
‘How do they feel?’ you ask.
He was counting on some hint from you, but you give nothing away. So he shrugs, hands on hips. ‘I honestly can’t tell you.’
‘May I?’
At his nod, you step into his space, and he watches as you hook your fingers into the belt loops on either side of the jeans and pull them up, as if gauging the size. He holds his breath as your hair grazes the front of his chest.
‘They’re a bit loose, to be honest,’ you tell him.
He scoffs self-decrepatingly. ‘Probably not for long at the rate I’m going.’
You take a step back and level him with a glare. ‘Stop it.’
He frowns, hackles rising. ‘What?’
‘Stop putting yourself down.’
That he didn’t expect. He protests, ‘I’m not putting myself down -’
‘Yes, yes, you are,’ you interrupt him with a boldness that has his eyebrows reaching for his hairline. With fire in your eyes, you go toe to toe with him, poking him in the chest with a firm finger. ‘You’re alive, you’re safe here, and you’re fit as hell. If you’re going to make fun of yourself for putting on a bit of healthy weight, you can go ahead and get out of my shop.’
Warmth blooms in his chest as Joel stares down at you, breathing heavily after your little speech but showing no intention of backing down. You don’t know him, but for some reason, you’re fighting his corner.
That shouldn’t feel as good as it does.
Pursing his lips, he towers over you as he teases, ‘You think I’m fit as hell, sweetheart?’
With a roll of your eyes, you walk backwards to the shelves, rummaging through the sizes before returning with a pair of dark wash jeans. You quip, ‘Don’t fish for compliments, it’s unbecoming.’
You snap the curtain shut in his face with a flick of your wrist before he can answer, and he chuckles to himself as pulls on the jeans you picked out for him.
When he pushes open the curtain again, Joel doesn’t miss the way you pause as you stare.
The waistband sits on his hips without cutting into his stomach, and he’s pleased that he can comfortably slide his hands into the pockets. The denim wraps firmly, but not tightly, against his backside, holding his thighs comfortably and falling straight down to the ankles. The wash is dark and flattering, smarter than his old ones.
When the silence has stretched on long enough, Joel shifts on his feet and asks, ‘Well?’
You turn the question back at him. ‘What do you think?’
He shrugs. ‘They’re alright, I guess.’
With a tilt of your head, you prompt, ‘You can say it, you know.’
‘Say what?’
‘You can say that you look good.’
Joel huffs, shaking his head and catching his reflection in the mirror as he does. At your look of insistence, he reluctantly parrots back, ‘Alright. I look good. Happy, sweetheart?’
Then you smile, really smile, and he feels himself soften - his eyes, his face, his mouth, his fucking old, rickety knees -
Suddenly, the bell over the door rings and a woman bustles in. ‘I’m so sorry, Pin! I know I’ve been gone a long time, but I got your favourite tea to make it up to you -’
She stops abruptly when she spots him. ‘Hey! You’re Joel Miller, aren’t you?’
Before he can answer, she crosses the shop in a bundle of energy, sticking her hand out. ‘I’m Lucy, I’m a friend of Tommy and Maria’s. It’s so nice to finally meet you.’
He lets her shake his hand, then she continues without skipping a beat. ‘How are you settling in? You got that house in the street near the stables right? It’s great, it’s quiet but not too far from everything -’
Since she doesn’t seem interested in his participation in this conversation, he doesn’t. But he notices, with regret, the way you start to retreat, the shyness making a return in the shadow of her clearly more outgoing friend - like a bad habit.
He’s suddenly aware of a lull, and that Lucy is looking at him expectantly, like she’s just asked a question that he didn’t hear.
‘Yeah sure,’ he replies dismissively, stopping you with a hand on your wrist just as you try to slink away unnoticed. ‘Hey, wait a second -’
To Lucy’s credit, she picks up on the snub and the energy between the two of you at the same time. Instead of taking offence, she gives you a knowing look and points towards the back diplomatically. ‘You know what Pin, I just bumped into Maria and she asked me something about our fabric inventory, so I better go check it out. I’ll see you around, Joel.’
With a wink in your direction, Lucy makes herself scarce, leaving the tea on the counter for you.
Joel’s quiet for a beat when you’re left alone again. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to run off your friend, but I just wanted to uh - thank you. For all this.’ He pauses, then adds, ‘Like she said, I’m Joel. Probably should’ve introduced myself before I asked you to cut me out of my jeans.’
You quip, ‘There’s always next time.’
He chuckles, and asks, ‘Did your friend just call you - Pin?’
‘It’s just a silly nickname,’ you explain. ‘As in pins and needles, for obvious reasons.’
Then you give him your real name and your hand, his palm warm and calloused against yours as he shakes it firmly. When he lets you go, you notice the watch on his wrist, the veins of broken glass on the face catching the light. 
Nodding at it, you ask, ‘Do you need that fixed? There’s a repair guy down the road who can fix anything.’
Confused for a moment about what you’re referring to, Joel pauses before realisation dawns on him. His answer is suddenly polite, a stark contrast to the light-hearted conversation just now. ‘No, I - I like it this way. But thanks.’
You don’t miss the emotional weight behind his words, and the air thickens with unspoken meaning, but you know better than to ask. 
‘I understand,’ you say simply.
Everyone has something like the watch is to him. God knows you do. A moment of quiet understanding passes between you, one that needs no words.
Breaking the silence, he says, ‘So, you mentioned I’ll need to trade in something else for these jeans -’
You dismiss that notion with a wave of your hand. ‘Oh no, it’s ok. I got it.’
‘You don’t have to -’
You shut him down. ‘It’s not a big deal, it will take me two minutes to replace the zipper.’
He hesitates. ‘And the boxers -’
Passing him his jacket, you insist, ‘Seriously, Joel, don’t worry about it.’
His fingers brush yours when he takes it from you and shrugs it on. You try not to look too conspicuously when the bottom of his shirt draws up, flashing a bit of tummy, but it’s gone too quickly. With a nod, he concedes reluctantly, ‘You really shouldn’t, but thank you. I owe you one.’
You roll your eyes with no real exasperation as you walk him towards the exit. ‘I know you haven’t been here for long - that’s just how things work around these parts. We do things for each other, you don’t owe me anything.’ Pulling the door open, you give him one last grin. ‘Welcome to Jackson, Joel.’
‘Thanks, Pin,’ he says as he crosses the threshold. He pauses on the porch and looks around the high street slowly, as if he’s taking it in for the first time. He then turns to you with a parting wink that is charged with easy confidence. ‘I think I’ll like it here.’
You linger by the door, leaning against the frame as he jogs down the front steps with a swagger, watching in appreciation at the way his new jeans frame his backside. You smile when he slides his hands into his pockets as he walks away, the afternoon breeze ruffling his curls and the sun warming his broad shoulders.
You think you’ll like him here as well.
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Notes: As I was writing this, I couldn't help thinking that it reminded me of Grays 🙈 What can I say? I want to give middle-aged men in need of self-love all the reassurance that they need. I hope you enjoyed Pin and Joel's meet-cute, I'm honestly so nervous about this fic I had to stop myself from compulsively over-editing.
Thank you so much for reading! Comments and reblogs are appreciated as always 🥰
P.S. Apparently, there is a Main Street Outfitter in the game, so I ran with it.
Dividers by @firefly-graphics
5K notes · View notes
anundyingfidelity · 6 months
Text
THE MERMAID AND THE COOK — Sanji x mermaid reader
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Summary: once the Straw Hats begin their journey, Sanji notices a figure floating in the waves of the ocean after a storm. Nothing will be the same for him.
Pairing: Sanji x female reader, who is also a mermaid.
Word count: 2.03k.
Warnings: reader mermaid suffered, some angst and fluff, language, nudity, suggestive stuff. Written in third person, female pronouns. No use of Y/n this time. As all my works, no skin color, hair color, or any kind of specific physicial description is mentioned.
Notes: This is situated after the first season. I just saw the netflix live action and barely starting watching the anime, so I am sorry for any discrepancies with the One Piece universe. And forgive my English. Thanks lol.
I had to write something for Sanji. This man is consuming me. Thanks to this show because I am on a writers block and it was a miracle I finished this. ;-;
GEN MASTERLIST!
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The morning was sunny, the sky looked clear, and the crew barely finished washing and cleaning the deck. Thanks to the storm last night, they woke up to a whole mess of fishes, wood, seaweed and a lot of shit Sanji didn't want to remember by now.
Finally, the deck of the Going Merry was how it was supposed to be. The last storm they encountered was so strong that the blonde man thought they would not make it this time. But they survived a lot of shit now, didn't they.
Once Luffy and Usopp set everything, they ordered the crew to come to the kitchen and have a proper breakfast after all the hard work, even if it was noon already. Sanji followed last, tired and all sweaty because of the sunlight. However, something caught up his attention as he walked near the rail before he could get inside. A wood plank floating in the ocean, and on top of it a figure lying face down. He couldn't see clearly, but he was sure it was a woman.
Nami stopped his steps once he did not follow. "Are you not coming?"
Her voice disappeared in the air as Sanji got closer to the rail to observe the woman floating in the middle of the ocean. The waves were still a little big even after hours passed since the storm completely stopped, and they guided the plank with the figure closer to the ship. He knew he had to do something.
"Oi! There's someone in the ocean!"
Nami quickly came by his side to see what he was seeing and left, calling the crew to help. Sanji took some ropes, Usopp appeared to assist with them. Nami arrived with Zoro and Luffy, and they helped the guys to bring the plank to the ship. Once the plank was up, they settled it on the deck carefully. Everyone looked in awe at what they caught.
"It's a mermaid," Nami whispered.
The crew went silent.
The brilliant tail gave it all away. Sanji was the first to get closer, kneeling by her side, making sure she was still breathing. The long hair and the soft scales adorning her body enamoured his blue eyes in seconds. He still had yet to see her face, but he felt attracted to the mermaid after seconds of saving her from a fatal fate.
Softly he pulled some locks of wet hair, with some seaweed tangled in them, to look at her face. Or at least try to.
"Is she okay?" Luffy sounded worried. "We have to help her."
"She is wounded," Usopp said, pointing at a tiny trail of blood coming from her tail.
"Let's take her to my room," Nami said.
Sanji nodded, calling Zoro for help. Both of them took the plank with the mermaid, still in deep sleep, to Nami's quaters. There, Sanji used some of Zeff's old teachings to treat wounds with bandages and fish skin. Nami assisted in turning the mermaid around and cleaning her skin and hair. The rest of the crew silently watched them assisting the mermaid.
Finally they were able to see her face. Sanji thought she was as beautiful as the sunrise. Two shells covered her breasts, which Nami made sure to fix along with the pearl necklace hanging on her neck. It was precious. Everything about her was to the cook's eyes.
Suddenly her tail sparkled softly and two legs started to form little by little, the human skin making its appearance starting from her feet.
"You guys have to leave," Nami announced, turning to Luffy, Usopp and Zoro.
"Why only us?" Usopp questioned. "Why doesn't he leaves too?"
"Sanji's knowledge is essencial right now," Nami explained. "And we don't want her flustered with all these eyes."
Zoro sighed, forcing the so called captains out of the room between protests. "She's right, let's go."
Nami murmured a silent 'thank you'.
"If you need anything I'll be outside," that was the last thing Zoro said before closing the door.
Sanji started to remove quickly a small bandage around her waist, which was still covered with her tail, however, it converted in skin before he could finish. So now here she was, with to legs and half naked before the eyes of two pirates.
The mermaid let out a breath and her eyes opened wide, encountering herself on a ship. A new ship.
"Is okay, you're safe," Nami whispered in a motherly way. "We just want to help you."
The mermaid was visibly scared. She looked first at the woman with the orange hair before taking a sight of the blonde man. His hands were still in the bandage around her waist. Sanji could swear she gasped once they looked directly into each others eyes. Yes, she was absolutely stunning.
She smiled softly.
"I'm not with them anymore..."
Nami and Sanji finished treating her wounds and cleaning her skin as much as they could. Nami gave her some clothes and they let her rest and sleep before asking more about what she went through.
During the next few hours, Sanji couldn't stop thinking about the mermaid. On the way her eyes were shining and the delicacy of the scales on her skin and tail. Even with legs she was beautiful. And the picture of the bare woman waking up will not be forgotten in a long time. Once he heard her name when Nami asked, Sanji knew he will keep it in his mind forever.
The crew reunited for dinner that night and Sanji made sure to have a plate for the mermaid. While his mates played some card games, after making a lot of questions about the mermaid, he walked to the room Nami was sharing with her. Hopefuly she would like to eat something by now, he thought. Sanji knocked twice before entering and found the mermaid sitting on the bed with a book.
"I believe you'd like to have something to eat," Sanji smiled and made his way to her.
"This is so nice from you, thank you," she said, placing the book aside and taking in the plate in her soft hands.
Sanji served a cup of water on the little wood nightstand for her and he took a seat on a wood bench near the bed, watching her eat the meal he prepared for the crew with joy.
"It's delicious," she beamed. "I don't recall having something like this in a long time."
"I feel pleased knowing you like it."
They embarked in a kind conversation soon after and it felt like they knew each other for years. Sanji was his normal flirty self again, speaking about the Straw Hats and his life as a chef, and now, as a pirate, to seek the All Blue. He soon found out he loved hearing her talk about the sea and everything she encountered on her numerous journeys with mystical creatures and cities built deep in the ocean.
Sadly, her last adventure was not a happy one. She had been kidnaped by some pirates who looked for fantastic and rare creatures, mermaids being one of them. They wanted to trade her for gold and berries, but then the storm came and destroyed the ship, drowning the pirates with the savage ocean waves.
"Thankfuly I am here now," she finished her story.
"I am so glad I saw you," Sanji whispered. With a lot of care, his fingers caressed a lock of hair, placing it behind her ear. They were so close that the blonde man could hear her heart beating on her chest.
He observed her eyes and lips, the pretty features of her face and he wanted nothing more but to finally kiss her.
Sanji slowly leaned, feeling like a spell was casted on him to absolutely fall head over heels for her, yearning to have a taste of her lips–
"Can we go outside?" she mumbled before their lips could touch. "I would like to have some air."
Sanji's eyes traveled between her eyes and her biting her lower lip.
"Of course, my lady. Anything you want."
So he took her to the deck, giving her his coat before they went out. And this repeated for days. The strolls on the deck became her favorite thing as time passed.
The mermaid was welcome by the crew as she healed little by little. The Straw Hats eventually knew what happened to her, mostly from Sanji's words, and they treated her like one of them already. And though nothing was really clarified, Luffy and Usopp made her laugh through the day, Nami slowly became a good friend, Zoro was a cold but interesting guy and Sanji made her feel at home.
She would spend most of her time with him on the kitchen and helping the blonde man around the ship to pass the time and most important, to say thanks to all of them.
On the seventh night after her arrival, Sanji took her to the deck after dinner. He gave her his coat, as usual, just in case it was too cold for her. But in reality, he loved her essence on his clothes.
They walked to the rail and she wrapped her arms around his right one, feeling the air of the night as the Going Merry sailed to their next adventure. It was good that the weather was a lot better and the waves seemed quieter than before.
In silence, Sanji felt the warmth of the mermaid, wrapped around his coat and wearing one of Nami's dresses. And still, with that few fabric over her figure, Sanji thought she looked like a princess. They stayed like that for a long time. No words were needed as they enjoyed the cold air of the ocean and the sight of the clear sky above them.
"I would love to see the All Blue," she said after a while, leaning more on him.
His lips curved in a smile. "Why don't you come with us?"
A soft chuckle left her lips.
"Don't you need to ask your captain?"
"I have the feeling we can have some help from a mermaid," Sanji said. "Luffy will say yes with no hesitation."
"Well, I have some abilities that might be useful," she left his arm and turned until she was face to face with the cook. She studied his features. As much as she was trying hard not to admit it, he was handsome and kind. A gentleman. The exact definition of a gentleman. After all she went through it was such heaven to have him. "Do you flirt with every mermaid you encounter?" she asked in a playful way.
It was Sanji's turn to laugh softly.
"Only the ones that like my food."
"I like you," she smiled. "As much as I liked your food."
Sanji came closer to her, trapping her body softly between his own and the rail on her back.
"Please tell me I can kiss you now," he whispered against her lips. "I've been holding all these time..."
She nodded. "You may kiss me now."
No further words were needed as his lips finally got a taste from her. His hands grabbed her sides in a delicate manner and her arms wrapped around his neck, pulling him closer. Her lips were soft, as much as he imagined they would be.
Sanji loved the heat of her body against his, how she played with his hair and the way her fingers tangled with his blonde locks as they pressed their chests together, not wanting to let go forever. The kiss soon grew heated and a soft moan left her lips. A moan he swallowed through the kiss, and he wished it would never end. He knew it would not be the last kiss they share, though.
Once they fell out of breath, they pulled away slowly ans Sanji rested his forehead against hers.
"Stay," he said.
"You know I will," she smiled. Sanji pecked her lips until an annoying voice was heard.
"Finally the lovebirds!" Luffy shouted some meters away from both of them, announcing the crew that the mermaid and the cook were together.
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sunflowergirl522 · 7 months
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M'Lady, M'Lord
Pairing: Eddie Munson x Reader
Summary: Eddie’s smitten from the moment he sees you playing pirates with your brother.
Word Count: 5176
Eddie Masterlist
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The first time Eddie laid eyes on you it was basically game over for him. You were dressed as pirates with your younger brother sword fighting in the park where Mike tricked Eddie into having a Hellfire meeting purely because he had to help Nancy watch Holly. Each time they had to pause so he could take his turn playing with her or pushing her on a swing Eddie’s attention went straight to you. Once you had your brother on a fake plank, sword pointed at him looking triumphant and the next time he looked over your wooden sword was knocked out of your hands that were being held up in surrender.
Your family was new to town and after days of your brother begging you about going out instead of unpacking you agreed. Which led him to immediately ask if the two of you could play pirates when you got to the park not far from your house. You weren’t expecting there to be a group of boys playing a game at one of the picnic tables when you got there or to become so intrigued with the story the boy with curly hair was weaving that Henry actually got the upper hand on you instead of you letting him get it like you normally do.
“Come on Y/n, you weren’t even trying that time!” Your hands go up in surrender and in an apology.
“Sorry little man, just got a little distracted is all. Won’t happen again scouts honor!” And you lose yourself in the game once more, not even glancing back over at the group of boys knowing you’ll get sucked in again.
Eddie doesn’t know it’s game over for him till the second time he sees you. He was stuck cleaning up by himself after Hellfire having yet another meeting at the park because his friends liked having it outside with how nice the summers been this year. He was just leaving the table when he spotted you sitting in a fucking tree headphones on book in hand and not a care in the world. Your bandana matched your brown flowy skirt and your black cami hugged your body like a second skin. He couldn’t help himself from approaching you. Luckily you spot him approaching and rest the headphones around your neck in case he was going to try to talk to you.
“What’s a pretty girl like you doing up in a tree?” You shrug marking your place in your book and resting it on your raised knee.
“What’s a pretty boy like you doing at a park in the middle of the afternoon?” Eddie freezes not expecting you to flirt back with him so quickly. “It’s just peaceful up here. I really gotta get home though so thanks for saying something.” You add in after realizing how long you’ve been here. When you jump down Eddie near has a heart attack worrying you’ll hurt yourself and surges forward to catch you. A fact that you notice and can’t help but smile and feel warm inside at the thought of someone caring about your safety that much.
Time seems to freeze as you look up at him and your eyes meet his widened chocolate brown ones. His mouth stays slightly parted as he takes you in soft curves and all now that you’re standing in front of him. While his eyes roam up and down your body you just can’t stop staring into them wondering how you’ve never seen such pretty eyes before.
“Hi.”
“Hi, I’m Y/n.”
“Hi.” His voice is breathless and it doesn’t seem like he was paying much attention to what you said. Your giggles at the fact are what seem to wake him from the daze you put him in. “Sorry you’re just, you’re so much prettier up close.” Heat crawls up your neck and you become bashful quicker than you ever have in your life.
“Thanks.” You start walking and he’s quick to follow you swinging his bag of DnD stuff back over his shoulder.
“I saw you here the other week with your brother?”
“Yeah, I saw you too, playing that game with your friends. That was Dungeons and Dragons right?” He’s almost left speechless at how you know about his favorite pastime.
“Dungeons and Dragons, yeah. You know about it?”
“A little, I had friends who played it before we moved here but I just didn’t have the attention span for it. Most of the time I’d bring a book and watch them play.”
“Are you walking?” Eddie asks when you keep walking past the parking lot getting completely distracted from what he originally wanted to ask.
“Yeah, I’m not too far.”
“Do you want a ride?” He points over his shoulder with his thumb to his van.
“If I say yes, are you going to serial kill me?”
“Guess you’ll have to say yes to find out Princess.” He winks but also then doubts his words almost immediately because the two of you are strangers,
“Hm, alright.” You take the journey of a couple  of feet to stop in front of him. “I like to live on the edge anyway so lead the way.”
“M’lady.” Eddie bows as he opens the passenger side door and holds it open for you.
“M’lord.” You’re quick to play along, adding a curtsy before hopping in and stunning Eddie once more. He mouths ‘wow’ before shutting the door and rushing around to his side. 
When he starts the van he’s so unbelievably relieved that he turned the radio off because otherwise his music would’ve been blasting. You let him know your street and he starts to back out of the parking spot. He almost stops the whole car when he spots the book you rest in your lap as you unwrap your headphones from your body and unclip your walkman. It’s silent in the van as Eddie untwists his tongue to comment on it.
“You’re reading Lord of The Rings?” He clears his throat before he speaks, only glancing at you out of the corner of his eye while he drives.
“Yeah, it’s one of my absolute favorite series. Have you read it?”
“Only a million times!” Despite his excited words it’s at this moment that Eddie knows he’s absolutely screwed. Especially with how you light up and start talking about your favorite characters and parts of the story.
The next time you see Eddie is at Family Video just a handful of days later. You brought Henry to pick out a couple movies for sibling bonding movie night, a night you created for the days your mom worked late to distract him from the fact of not seeing her. It was invented when he was younger and unsure as to why she was gone, you found him crying in her room thinking she left the two of you like his dad did, and it’s just become a norm now neither one of you would miss it for the world.
“Eddie?” You’re moving around the store looking for him when you spot Eddie stocking movies with the green vest on. He nearly drops all the tapes in his hands at the sound of your voice.
“Hey Princess! What’re you doing here?” 
“Movie night.” You hold up The Muppet Movie to show the reason even though he still hasn’t looked away from his task. “You work here?”
“Sadly I do.”
“Good thing you do, otherwise who knows when we would’ve seen each other again.” He looks at you then and you look like an angel standing there in front of the window, the sunset making it seem like you’re absolutely glowing and he’s speechless for a moment. You’re in another flowy skirt, green this time with yet another matching bandana, but this time you’re in a white long sleeved shirt that flares at the end of the sleeves. You’re beautiful.
“You haven’t seen my brother around have you? He’s about ye high, looks a little bit like me, cowboy hat on.” 
“Yeah, I reckon he’s over yonder in horror.” Eddie cringes at his stupid decision to do a silly cowboy impersonation but when you start laughing at it he knows he’d do it again in a heartbeat.
“Thanks!” You leave then and Eddie hurries up with stocking the shelf to rush to the counter so he can be the one to ring you out.
“Move Harrington!”  He all but shoves Steve away from the counter he was leaning on bored.
“Woah, what has you suddenly wanting to do your job Munson?”
“If you stop pouting about it we can go to the arcade tomorrow.” Your voice greets both boys behind the counter as you round the corner of aisles.
“You mean it?” Your brother rushes to your side and follows close to you up to the counter. Steve watches you get closer and then how his friend seems to get more and more jittery with each step you take. He holds back the chuckle that wants to escape as he takes it in and instead just shakes his head choosing to lean against the other counter arms crossed over his chest.
“Course I do. I haven’t been able to get the Burgertime high score yet.” You place the movies on the counter before turning your attention and soft smile over to Eddie. “Hello again.”
“Hi. You find everything okay?” 
“Easy peasy lemon squeezy.” You beam at him and even Steve is stunned by it for a second.
“So The Muppets and The Thing huh? That’s an interesting combo.”
“What can I say? We have a wide berth of interests.” You shrug and then motion to your brother. “He was stuck between Thing and Poltergeist but last time we watched it he had to sleep either in my room or with all the lights on for a week.”
“You can’t just tell people that!”
“It’s alright cowboy, I’ll keep your secret.” Eddie tips an imaginary hat to him while you dig around your saggy brown tote bag for your wallet.
“Oh, Eddie this is my brother Henry, Hens this is my new friend Eddie.” 
“Howdy partner.” Eddie's mock cowboy voice comes out again and it earns him another wonderful laugh from you, a beaming smile from Henry, and a ‘I can’t believe you just did that’ laugh from Steve. He goes pink at hearing Steve’s laugh having forgotten he was there while your eyes dart over to the other boy behind the counter.
“Oh hello.” You greet him a shy smile on your face and a small wave after handing Eddie the cash for the movies.
“Steve Harrington.” He holds his hand out for you to shake which you do once getting your change back.
“Y/n Y/l/n.” 
“That’s a pretty name.” Steve throws on his best flirty smile and Eddie resists the urge to roll his eyes.
“Thanks.” Eddie wants to stick his tongue out at his friend at how uninterested you seem in him. “Oh Eddie, do you have a pen I could use?” He nods and hands you one of the loose ones behind the counter that’s missing a cap. You grab his wrist before he can pull it away and shove his long sleeve up writing your number along the inside of his arm. “Should’ve done this the other day but now we don’t have to just happen upon each other.”
“Thanks Princess, I’ll be sure to use it.”
“You better.” You look up at him and wink before stepping back. “Alright Hens, let's go get some snacks.” You shove the VHS tapes into your bag and push on the back of his shoulders to get him to lead the way out of the store.
“What the hell just happened?” Steve asks once you’re gone and turns to his friend who’s busy smiling at the writing on his arm.
“That my dear friend was my turn getting the girl.” He beams as he proudly shows off that you added a heart after your number.
Eddie doesn’t call you the days after giving him your number. And he wasn’t working the day you went to return the movies so you were beginning to think maybe you came off too strong or you read the vibes wrong. You were trying not to let it get to you but it was hard because you at least wanted to have Eddie as a friend.
“Woah, hey there Princess.” His voice graces your ears and his warm hands consume your shoulders as he stops you where you are. You look up from where you were digging around in your bag trying to find your keys and find that your nose is probably an inch away from his chest. “You should probably watch where you’re going before you trip or walk into something.” You’re quick to figure out that you were about to walk into him on your way out of  the shop.
“Sorry Eddie, got lost in thought. How’re you?”
“Good, good. Hey I’ve been meaning to call ya.” He brings his hand up to rub the back of his neck and you fight with yourself to not look when his shirt rides up revealing the smallest sliver of tummy.
“Oh?” You genuinely don’t know what to say with how genuine he sounds. 
“My friends and I do this movie night thing once a week, was wonderin if maybe you wanted to come?” You open your mouth to respond but he keeps talking. “I was gonna grow some balls and finally call you after I picked up the movie since it’s tonight. I just haven’t called you yet because everytime I go to pick up the phone I chicken out. You’re just so pretty and you’re really cool and you love Lord of The Rings which is like the biggest deal to me.” Your giggles interrupt Eddie and he freezes eyes wide as he stares at you.
“I’d love to come to movie night with you and your friends.” You reach out to hold onto his arm to help get him to stop talking.
“Really?”
“Really. What’s the movie?” You retract your hand and go back to digging to the bottom of your bag and Eddie immediately misses your touch.
“The Fly, we went to see it when it was in theaters but the kids weren’t able to come with us and finally convinced Steve to watch it again.”
“That has Jeff Goldblum in it right?”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure at least.”
“Oh I’m definitely in then!” Your fingers hook through your key ring and pull them out a triumphant smile on your face. “When and where?”
“I’ll pick you up around seven?”
“Sounds great!” You start to move around him and he turns to get the door for you.
“M’lady.”
“M’lord.” You beam at him as you leave the store and Eddie swears his world gets dimmer when you turn away from him.
Eddie shows up at your door at exactly seven o'clock on the dot. He hesitates for a minute before knocking on the door nervous for if he might meet your parents or not. When he does he can hear a muffled yell before someone runs to the door. Henry’s the one who opens it.
“Y/n’s in the kitchen.” Is all he says before leaving the door open and disappearing into the living room. 
Eddie stays in the doorway for a minute unsure if he should just walk into your home before deciding to go in if only to shut the door. Ultimately he decides to find you so he doesn’t feel awkward in the entranceway. He finds you washing dishes in a kitchen that smells like freshly baked cookies.
“Hi Eddie.” You greet him as you place the big plastic bowl you were washing on the drying rack and grabbing the dish towel on the counter to dry your hands. 
“Hey Princess, not to rush you or anything but you ready to go?” 
“Yeah, I just gotta say bye to Henry first. Can you hold this for me real quick?” You hand him your tote on your way into the living room where you know your shoes are.
“What are you packing in here Sweetheart? It’s way heavier than I thought it’d be?” He could just peek in and see but he doesn't want to be rude or invade your privacy.
“Oh! I baked cookies so I hope all your friends like chocolate chip.” You fall onto the couch next to Henry, who’s snacking on some of said cookies and watching Transformers, to pull your sneakers on.
“You really didn’t have to do that. Now they’ll never want you to leave.”
“That’s the point.” You smile at him standing up and taking your bag back before turning to Henry. “Are you sure you’re good if I leave?” You lean down to speak softly to him, voice low enough that Eddie barely hears it. As much as you want to go tonight if he were to say he wanted to hang with you, you’d stay. 
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Be good, if you need anything call me. Eddie, can you write down the number for whatever house we’ll be at?”
“Yeah, course.” He immediately searches for paper and a pen.
“Mom will probably be asleep for the rest of the night so I need you to be responsible, go to bed at a decent time, don’t stay up till I get home because I don’t know when that’ll be.” It’s something he often did when you went out with friends worrying about if you would come back. 
“Number’s right here.” Eddie places the piece of paper he found on the coffee table in front of Henry.
“Alright, bye Henners, love you.” You duck down to hug him and place a kiss on his head.
“Love you too.” 
“See ya cowboy.” Eddie says waving as he follows you out of the room and the house. Once outside he beats you to the van holding your door open for you.
“So you two seem to have a good relationship.” Eddie says about halfway to Steve’s house about you and your brother.
“Yeah.” You’re silent for a beat before turning to look at Eddie. “Sorry if he seems a little standoffish towards you, he has issues getting close to people when he doesn’t know if they’ll stick around.”
“It’s fine, really. I’m not always the quickest to accept people into my life either.” 
“Hmm I’d say you were with how quick you brought me into it.” You’re teasing but you can sense the truth in his words and he gives off the vibe of someone who just has one small group of people he’s close with.
“Ah you were a special case though. A pretty girl who plays pirates and reads Lord of The Rings? I had to scoop you up before anyone else could.” 
“I play cowboys and cops and robbers too.” You speak just as Eddie parks and he’s able to turn his whole body to face you.
“Careful Princess before you steal even more of my heart.”
“Just wait till you hear about my ren faire costumes.” You wink before opening your door. “Now c’mon so you can introduce me to everyone.” Eddie’s frozen there for a couple seconds, mouth partly open. Everytime he thinks you can’t possibly get any better you go and prove him wrong. He can just imagine you dressed up as an elf or an actual princess.
Once he breaks out of it he’s quick to follow you out of the van and lead you to Steve’s front door. He goes straight in grabbing your hand as he does so to steer you through the big house to the basement where they always have movie nights. The sound of his friends' voices greet the two of you as soon as he opens the basement door.
“Eddie’s here!” Robin announces as she peers up the stairs in passing. “And it looks like he brought someone.” There’s a chorus of ‘ooo’s and Eddie rolls his eyes, shaking the urge to sweep you away and keep you to himself. 
“Did Eddie finally get a girlfriend?” He can barely hear El’s quiet question but it makes him go red all the same wondering if you heard it too.
“Hey guys, this is Y/n.” He introduces you once you’re both at the bottom of the stairs motioning to you with the hand that isn’t holding onto your own. 
“Hello.” You wave with your free hand and hold onto Eddie’s a little tighter with your other at seeing all the eyes on you.
“Y/n this is Robin, Dustin, Mike, Lucas, Will, El, Max, and you’ve met Steve before.” He leans down to whisper in your ear then. “Careful around the kids they might imprint on you like baby ducks the way they did Steve and I.” You smile and shove him away at the joke taking your hand back.
“I brought cookies. Think of it as a peace offering of sorts.” You reach into your tote and pull out a big tupperware that Eddie can’t help but wonder how it fit inside.
“I’ll take that.” Robin comes over and takes it out of your hand before grabbing your wrist to pull you over to the couch. “Come join the party we were just about to start the movie.” You sit next to Robin at the end of the couch. As soon as she opens the container Dustin’s reaching up and over laps to get some from his spot on the floor next to Steve who’s at Robin's feet. He groans in delight as soon as he takes a bite and you can’t stop the smile from forming on your face.
“These are the best cookies I’ve ever had!” Eddie whistles as he takes his seat on the floor beneath you.
“That’s really saying something with how good your moms cooking and baking is.” He reaches up and grabs his own before Mike steals the container to take over to the couch he’s sharing with Lucas and the girls. “Oh my God.” Eddie says with his mouth full throwing his head back as the taste of what seems to be the perfect cookie completely envelopes his mouth.
“Is that a good oh my god?” You ask in a timid soft voice leaning over so your head was positioned right above where Eddie threw his on the couch between your legs.
“Princess, this is the best thing I think I’ve ever eaten.” You visibly light up at his praise. A wide smile overtakes your face and your eyes shine and it makes Eddie do the same. There’s a chorus of agreement to Eddie’s words but the two of you are so lost in eachothers eyes that you don’t pay them any attention. 
“Eddie, you better bring your girlfriend around all the time if she’s gonna be bringing more of this stuff.” Lucas says reaching into the container as Steve starts the movie. 
“Shut up and stop hogging them, pass em over.” Mike hands them to Eddie while he’s up to turn the lights off and neither of you correct Lucas.
It’s a little after eleven when Eddie pulls into your driveway. After the movie ended Robin immediately started to ask you questions about yourself, Max joining soon after making Steve move so she can take his spot. You happily answered, asking questions right back almost giddy with the thought of making friends so soon after moving here. 
Eddie had chimed in here and there like when Mike asked when the two of you met. “You assholes abandoned me after the last Hellfire meeting and I found her in a tree.” Or when you answered a question about your music taste, saying you liked Blondie and the Bee Gees. “What about Motorhead or Judas Priest?” And when you shrugged and told him you’d never heard of them he mocked injury, falling over and pulling the imaginary sword from his heart.
“That was fun.” You say to Eddie as you round his van to head to your front door. “I like your friends.”
“They liked you too. I don’t think I’ve ever seen El get so comfortable around someone so fast.” She had come over to join the group around you soon after the conversations started and while she didn’t say much Eddie could tell she was taking to you. “Stick around and they’ll be your friends in no time.” You smile at the thought of having a group to hang out with again.
When you open the door the soft sound of the tv still on drifts to your ears and you let out a small sigh before moving silently and quickly into the living room. You leave your keys in the door which Eddie is quick to take out before shutting it and following your path. He finds you knelt next to the couch and brushing some of Henry’s hair off of his forehead.
“You gonna wake him up?”
“I should, let him know I’m home and get him to bed. But he looks so peaceful that I don’t want to.” You whisper back not taking your eyes off of your brother that you’ve basically raised yourself.
“Want me to carry him while you lead the way to his room?” You didn’t hear Eddie get closer so when he crouches next to you it makes you jump a little.
“You’d do that?”
“Course.” He ignores how shocked your wide eyes reveal you to be and instead takes your hand to help you up before scooping Henry up. “Lead the way.”
Eddie’s careful not to move the boy in his arms too much as he follows you up the steps and then down the hallway. You leave his door open and move his blankets out of the way to make room for Eddie to place him down. Once he does, you cover him and place a soft small kiss on his forehead before leading the way out of the room, closing the door once you’re both in the hallway.
“Do you want a drink or something before you go?”
“I could use a smoke, you want one? If not, I can just wait till I get home.” He follows you back down the stairs as he speaks.
“I don’t smoke but I don’t mind hanging out with you while you do it. We could go sit on the swing on the back porch?”
“Sounds perfect.” You lead the way through the house and Eddie holds the back door open for you. “M’lady.”
“M’lord.” There’s a comfortable silence between the two of you as you sit slightly moving the porch swing back and forth with your feet while Eddie pulls out a cigarette and lights it up. “My dad died when I was young.” You say suddenly after another beat of silence.
“Oh, I’m so-”
“You don’t have to be sorry or anything. It happened so long ago and I’ve had a long time to grieve so it doesn’t really hurt to think or talk about anymore.”
“Okay.” It’s all Eddie can think to say sensing you had more words coming his way.
“Mom started working more after he died but not too much so she could still y'know be a mom. And then she met this guy, Doug, and she became pregnant with Henry. They didn’t get married or anything but he took care of us. Mom was able to stop working so much and when Henry was born she was able to take time off even. But then one day when Henry was four, probably closer to being five, Doug just up and left. Just completely disappeared.” Eddie takes another drag of the cig and places a hand on your knee as you take in a shaky breath. 
“It absolutely broke mom but Henry? He didn’t even know what was happening, he’d ask me when dad would be home and why mom was crying all the time. We had to move out of the house and into a small apartment and mom had to work all the time, constantly pulling doubles to make sure we’d have rent and food money. Henry hasn’t been the same since he figured out his dad wasn’t coming back, so he has a hard time bringing people into his life and worrying that one day me or mom are going to do the same thing. That's why he tried to stay up till I got home tonight, to make sure I was actually coming back.”
“You don’t have to tell me all this darlin’.”
“No, I do, because I like you Eddie. And I think you like me.”
“I do, like so much.” You smile and let a small laugh leave your mouth at his eagerness to say the words.
“So if we’re gonna do this I need you to know I’ve got baggage but also that Henry is my whole world. When mom started working all the time I slipped into that role the best I could for him and I’m still in it. So I can’t always go out and do things because I spend most of my free time watching him.”
“That’s fine.” Eddie stomps out his cig and grabs your hand. “I’ll hang out here or we can take him to the movies or I don’t know whatever he’d wanna do. He seems like a fun kid and I’d love to get to know him.” Your eyes tear up at that and you launch yourself into his chest holding him in a tight hug. No one’s ever been so kind and understanding about how much you want to take care of your brother before. “Besides everyones got baggage, my dads been in and out of jail my whole life and I live with my uncle in a small trailer. The whole rest of the crew has their own thing too so don’t feel like anyone would judge you or anything alright?” 
”Okay.”
“So, be my girlfriend? Because I’ve been dying to ask from the moment I found you in that tree.” He doesn’t say how he decided you were probably his soulmate when he found out you were reading Lord of The Rings.
“I’d love to. I’ve been dying for you to ask since you did that awful cowboy impression in Family Video.” You don’t say how you can see yourself falling for him hard and fast.
“Then it’s settled. What do you say to pizza and a movie? I’ll bring the pizza, you and Henry pick the movie.”
“I’d say it’s a date.”
“Tomorrow night? I’ll come over after my shift at Family Video?”
“Sounds perfect.”
This time when you’re holding the door open for him to leave you bow holding your arm out to show him the way.
“M’lord.” Eddie smiles at how you beat him to it and grabs your hand landing a kiss on the back of it before he speaks himself.
“M’lady.”
Eddie Taglist (25/40): @sadbitchfangirl @notbeforelong​​​​ @navs-bhat​ @emotionaldreamer​ ​​​​​ @fangirling-4-ever  @gaysludge​​​ ​@eddiethesexy @mazerunnerrose​ @midnightsgetawaycar  @goldylions  @mushroomelephant @saramelaniemoon @nojamsonmytoast @vintagehellfire @esoltis280 @spikedhe4rt @siriuslysmoking @toobsessedsstuff @alana4610 @gretavanfleas @sparkletash @aactuaaltraash @spookyemorockbabe @jesssssmaybankk @tlclick73
Everything Taglist: @matchamunson​ @bubsonnobx​ @practicalghost @katsukis1wife @crustyowos @yourfavdummy @protecteddiemunson4vr @kennedy-brooke @m00nkn1ghts @rory-cakes
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vienssunshine · 5 months
Note
The dialogues you write for maki are so goddamn heavenly, please, what is it like when her girl squirts on her glasses (bonus if in the next morning, everyone in the dormitory heard them)? 😣🙏
Just Can't Focus
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pairing: Maki Zenin x fem!reader nsfw: semi-public sex, cunnilingus, squirting word count: 1.8k author’s note: thank you so much for the request! you're so sweet!! i had a lot of fun adapting your request into a fic, hope you enjoy! also, maki looked so good in the latest episode. i need her... description: something about watching you train gets maki so riled up.
The day has been long. 
Nothing slows down time quite like having to hold a plank, and Gojo, who’s in charge of training you and your peers today, has been making the hours crawl by with countless strength training exercises. Your core is aching and your legs feel like they’re about to give out, which is why it feels a blessing when your teacher gets a phone call that pulls him away into a meeting with the higher-ups.
“Pair up and find a place around campus to practice sparring while I’m gone,” Gojo instructs, “We’ll meet back up in 30. Don’t forget to have fun!” He waves as he heads towards the school, leaving you and the other exhausted students alone in the field.
Nobara turns her head to you, about to speak, when an arm interlocks with yours. You look to your side to see that Maki has claimed you as her partner.
“Maki!” Nobara huffs, “I wanted to spar with her.”
Maki shrugs. “Be quicker then.” 
Nobara’s face darkens with a scowl and you hurry to resolve the conflict. “I’ll spar with you next time,” you tell Nobara, “Promise.”
“You better.” She crosses her arms and walks towards the other sorcerers, annoyed she’ll have to partner up with either idiot #1 or idiot #2 (Yuuji or Megumi). 
“Let’s go find a spot,” Maki says, though she begins pulling you off towards a forest nearby, seemingly already having a place in mind. 
Soon you’re past the tree line, and before you can get a word out about the sparring drill, your back is pressed up against a tree and Maki’s lips are on yours. 
It catches you by surprise—Maki tends to be unpredictable, a reason why it’s hard for you to beat her in a match—but it’s instinctive how you fall into the rhythm of her lips, melting into her touch as you kiss her back. Her leg nestles between yours and her strong hands land on your sides, brushing along the curve of your waist as she leans into you. 
“Need you…now,” she mumbles in between kisses, the rasp of her voice confessing desperation. Even though you and Maki have been a thing for a while now, she knows how to mask her true feelings, so until she had you pinned against a tree, you didn’t have a clue that such a need was building up in her all afternoon. 
“Yeah?” you say, resting your arms atop her built shoulders, pulling her closer. “Can’t wait until after training?”
Maki tugs off her uniform jacket, leaving her in the white long sleeve she wears under her uniform, and lays it on the grass by your feet. “No, so come sit down.”
Her mouth is inseparable from yours as she helps lower your body down onto her jacket, and the moment you’re sitting down, she’s kneeled between your thighs, reaching up past your skirt to dip her fingers into the waistband of your black tights. 
“Lift up your hips for me, pretty,” she murmurs against your lips. You listen, and she pulls your tights off, and then your underwear. It’s a little strange, how you’re half-naked in one of the school’s forests, but you have a hard time caring when Maki hooks her arms underneath your thighs and brings her mouth to your cunt.
“Already so wet for me,” she laughs, pressing a kiss to your pelvis, “Have you been thinking about me too?”
“Maybe,” you say, though the evidence speaks for itself. How could you not? For the entirety of the strength training session, all you could notice was Maki. With the way her defined muscles flexed as she worked through Gojo’s ceaseless exercises, it was impossible not to. You had to look over and take in how the effort contorted her elegant features, had to hear how it sharpened her breath. And every single time you glanced over to her, without fail, she was already looking at you.
“You were just as distracted,” you say, trying to keep still despite the sensation of her hot breath fanning against your cunt. “You really should be paying attention during training.”
She smirks. “I think it’ll be easier to focus after I have you cum on my tongue.”
Her warm mouth connects with your folds, forcing a choked gasp from your throat. You rock your hips back and away, caught off guard at how quickly sharp pleasure cuts through your insides, but Maki’s strong arms keep you locked in place. Her eyes flutter shut at the contact and she deeply inhales, finally gratified after wanting to be with you like this all afternoon.
Your head lolls to the side when she begins to move, licking long stripes up from your hole to your clit with a flat tongue. Pulling up the fabric of your skirt gives you an unobstructed view and you watch, eyes lidded, as she pushes her mouth further into your cunt, just unable to get enough. Then she pushes her palms gently against your thighs, opening yourself up further to her. You allow it, legs falling open, and lean back against the tree behind you.
“There we go,” she says, “Relax for me, okay?” 
You realize why when a finger circles the outside of your hole. Maki’s tongue continues to bathe your clit with wet swipes of her tongue, only increasing the amount of slick coating your opening. She uses this lubrication to shallowly slip the tip of her finger in and out of you, stimulating the tight ring of muscle circling your entrance. Then, she lengthens her movements, pushing in deeper with every thrust of her fingers. Your breath comes out shaky. “Fuck…Maki…”
She begins to move her finger inside of you, pushing it up against your walls in a way that has heat rushing to your lower stomach. Your eyes flutter shut and each pump of her finger pushes a soft moan from your lips.
“If you wanted to make it up to me for being such a distraction all afternoon, those pretty noises of yours are doing the job,” Maki says.
She adds another finger, which only makes you call out her name once more in that breathy voice of yours she adores. The pressure is immense, especially with her fingers being so strong and precise. 
“It’s…so much-” you say, pressing your eyebrows together. You don’t think you’ve had Maki eat you out and finger you at the same time before; the sensation is overwhelming. Every harsh thrust of her fingers is complemented by a sweet lick on your clit, a two-front war that makes you feel like you’re losing your mind. Any attempt at escaping the pleasure is nonexistent with Maki’s hold on you, and soon your stomach is twisting, like a violent undercurrent is ripping through your lower half. It’s new, and more intense than you’ve experienced before. 
“Maki I…I feel weird…” you say, squirming. 
“You’re doing great, pretty girl,” Maki responds before diving her tongue into your folds once more.
“I’m serious…Maki…I don’t know…” Your fingers tighten in the grass around you.
“Does it feel good?” Maki asks.
“Feels…s’good,” you respond.
“Then relax, enjoy it.” 
You want to listen to her, you really do, but there’s a hesitant voice in your head, one telling you that if you give in to the pleasure, you’ll be giving in completely. You’re just so full; there’s so much pent-up energy in your body that’s begging to be released. But the more she touches you, the more encouragement and praise leaving her mouth, the less power you have over the force building up inside your core. 
“I feel like I’m gonna…” 
She curls her fingers inside you, pressing against your sweet spot with a force that has your body shaking and seconds away from release.
“Fuck—Maki—m’gonna—“
You’re unprepared when your orgasm hits you, and because it hits you hard, you’re helpless when fluid rushes out of you at the intense sensation. You throw your head back, pleasure rolling through your lower half and being expelled from your body. Unaffected, Maki continues to finger fuck you, only prolonging the ruthless orgasm she’s sending through your body.
“Attagirl,” Maki says, grinning. 
You’re swearing, or moaning, maybe a mixture of both, as the climax pummels your poor body, and you hold onto Maki’s arms for dear life, fingers digging into the fabric of her white long sleeve.
When her movements slow, coaxing you back into reality, the haze washes off and you realize that you’ve squirted for the first time–all over Maki’s face.
You sit up. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to—fuck, your glasses.”
She cuts you off. “It’s hot, pretty. Don’t apologize for something you don’t have to, mkay?” She takes her glasses from her face and rubs the liquid coating them off on her jacket beneath you. 
“I’ve just…that’s never happened before,” you say, still reeling from the sensation.
“Makin’ me feel special,” she says, pressing a kiss to your forehead. Then, she stands, offering you her hand. “Are you okay to walk? Everyone should be regrouping by now. I think if we stay any longer, I’ll want to try to make that happen again.”
“Uh…yeah, let’s go,” you say, grabbing onto it and letting her help you up. You’re still grappling with what just happened; you didn’t even know that could happen. 
Dazed, you find your underwear on the sleeve of Maki’s jacket, uncrumple it, and pull it back up on you.
“Thanks for that,” Maki says, threading her hand into yours for the rest of the walk out of the forest.
You and Maki are the last to join the group. Aside from Gojo, who’s meeting must’ve run long. Guess training ends early today.  
As you walk up to the rest of the sorcerers, Yuuji tilts his head and then points at Maki, “Did you lose your jacket?” 
Your eyes widen as you realize that Maki isn’t wearing it, she’s still in her button-up. Though, it’s not like she could put it back on, your fluids had soaked the material. “I took it off when we were sparring. Guess I forgot it,” she responds.
“Is that why you took off your tights too?” Panda asks, pointing to your bare legs. Heat rushes to your face.
Maki scowls. “Last chance to mind your own or I’ll be your sparring partner next time.” 
“Alright! Okay!” The rest of them hurry off but fail to do a good job pretending they aren’t whispering about the two of you.
“I’ll go grab our clothes and put them in the wash, so you go take a break okay?” She grins. “I hope I didn’t work you too hard.”
“How considerate,” you tease, “But I would prefer it if you came back to my room after doing the laundry. Maybe then you’ll be able to tire me out.” 
“Alright, I’ll see you soon.”
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earthtooz · 1 year
Text
one big brain dump tbh but a lot of fluff and swearing !
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you fall for bakugou katsuki first.
he's unstoppable, a force to be reckoned with in the hero world. many have had their eyes on bakugou ever since he was a mere hero course student. safe to say he did not disappoint.
now climbing to one of the top hero spots, dynamight is widely adored by japan. despite crowning one of the most 'undesirable' personalities a hero can have, his fans equated him to a pomeranian and moved on to the latest papparazi photo taken at the time.
before the public, you adored bakugou katsuki first.
as a classmate, he pushed you to your limit without even knowing, invigorating you with a spirit to keep fighting. as a friend (you got there in the end), he entertained you with his grumbling, liked to carry your bag for you despite your reluctance, and kept you company throughout rigorous study periods.
somewhere along the way, you realised you adored bakugou katsuki, a lot more than friends should.
now as a coworker in his agency, he keeps you company during late hours, sends you off on missions with a 'come back alive, idiot', and delivers you gifts when things are going rough.
fate plays her cards and bakugou katsuki now finds himself falling even harder for you. five years after your revelation.
when he looks you in the eye there is something akin to determination in them and it alights pure admiration in his veins. despite your kindness, you are strengthened by ambition and purpose alone, and he finds himself caught in your magnetic field.
but these newfound feelings come to him as effortlessly as water flows down a stream after a downpour; destined to feel this way for you, helpless against the currents of life. after a long drought, he feels refreshed and rejuvenated by the energy you bring to his life.
he loves the little notes you stick on his desk, often paired with smiley faces, stupid jokes, or reminders that range from 'drink water!' or 'see you at the meeting at 1! :p'. he loves the daily lunch runs you have together, sometimes it's easier to get to work when he knows you're there with him. he loves that you're workout buddies, always giving him extra 'fun' challenges during his session by sitting atop him during push-ups or planks, or clinging to him like a koala as he does pull-ups.
bakugou katsuki loves you so naturally that you've been embedded in the little cracks of the hectic lives you both lead.
you're his homescreen and lockscreen, there's a plushie you gave him in third year sitting in his large-ass bedroom, there's a photo of you and him on his office desk, even more polaroids at home, and there's a designated mug for you in his cabinet for when you come over. it's used approximately twice a week.
bakugou doesn't want to show it, really, he doesn't, but he finds himself staring at you too often, too softly. there's a multitude of paparazzi photos of you two, the cameras catching the obvious shift in his eyes when it's you he's next to, looking at you with a grin as you ramble excitedly to him.
mina's never fails to send one whenever she sees them.
she even sent him a photo that was taken whilst he was walking through the street, too engaged with his phone to realise cameras pointed at him. the wild part is that there is a gentle, heartfelt smile etched on his face.
‘texting y/n? down bad.’
the acid user was blocked that day. she was right though.
the sad part is that he can recall exactly which text you sent that had him that giddy; it was a selfie of you and a pomeranian from patrol, paired with some joke that you found bakugou whilst out. whilst he would've blown anyone up who made the comparison to his face, he found himself zooming in on your bright smile, heart aching with a familiar longing.
he hates you. he hates you so bad that it hurts not to have you.
every reminder that you weren't his pains him even more. at his core, bakugou is nothing more than a bitter, jealous son of a bitch, but he can't help it. he's sacrificed too much to get to the top, but he doesn't want to lose you.
not when you look so beautiful- so ethereal laughing with that extra ‘hero’, monoma. under the gala lights, in your outfit, you were truly beautiful, and bakugou finds himself stunned by your allure, stomping over to you in a vulnerable moment of bewitchment.
he doesn't know how many people he pushed aside in the crowd, ignoring their grunts and gasps to reach you.
you, sweet, radiant, undeniable you find him first, meeting him in the middle with an even brighter smile.
despite being in the middle of a stuffy, packed floor, filled to the brim with heroes, sidekicks, reporters and managers alike, it is only you and bakugou. the intimacy causes him to feel overwhelmed by your glow; the tie he's donning suddenly tightening around his neck, causing him to choke on his words.
there's a sudden urge to get to his knees and start praising the ground you stand on.
"hi," you murmur.
"hey,” he responds, briefly scanning you up and down. “you look nice.”
you laugh at his compliment, masking the violent heartbeat of your chest. "thank you, katsuki. i think you look dashing."
the blond offers you his arm. you take it without much thought. "of course i do. if i wanna stand next to you i have to look worthy of it."
you fall first for bakugou katsuki.
but he's waiting at the bottom to catch you in his arms.
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Prince Steve who loses a battle and his hearing gets send to the sea by his father as a punishment. He's a disgrace, to never return to the kingdom. Steve doesn't need to hear to know that his father told the crew to drown him, or let pirates kill him, or just wait for a storm to take him.
Steve tries to his best to be of use on the ship, but he has no illusions. He knows his father pays well and that the crew hates his guts, thinking he is nothing but a spoiled brat. And even if her were to prove them wrong and prove himself, they are too scared of his father to obey his orders. Steve knows when he boards the ship that his days are numbered.
He spends most of his days under deck after it becomes evident that the crew doesn't want his help. His nights he spends standing at the ship's bow staring at the ocean and staring at the moon. Thinks about how waves and sky melt into one in the dark of the night. How the moon will call out and the waves will sing back and the ocean will follow. Worlds apart and yet one in the dim reflection of light on the restless surface. Steve has made his peace with dying.
His life has not been fulfilled, but it has been longer than expected. Steve has lived with bated breath, just waiting for his father's temper to finally snap and one of the knights' lances to slip during training, or the cooks' food to grow rotten and poisonous.
Just like the moon to the ocean, death has always been looming above Steve, calling out to him, just waiting. And Steve is fine with it. Mostly. He just really wishes he had been in love at least once. He can't hear the song moon and ocean sing to each other anymore, but he kicks off his shoes bare feet on wooden planks and feels the love ocean and moon have for each other in the waves crashing against the hull.
His mother used to sing him to sleep, an old song. A caged bird singing out to his lover, waiting patiently, asking to be freed and whisked away. His mother has died waiting. Steve doesn't remember the lyrics, would probably not pronounce the words correctly anymore anyways. But he still knows the melody. He hums along with the ocean and yearns together with the moon.
The crew always ignores him so Steve doesn't notice when one day their eyes become distant and milky. When the ship stirs towards cliffs he doesn't question it. Just thinks that this might be it, this is where he will be thrown overboard and die. The ship crashes, planks splintering apart and Steve does tumble, falls overboard while the crew jumps. Bodies hit the water, but his head is the only one that breaks back through the surface.
He spots motion in the water, thinks sharks, doesn't know why he bothers but he tries to make it to the nearest cliff and climbs onto the coarse rock. A dark figure follows him. It's not a shark though that emerges once Steve has made it onto the cliff, even though it has just as sharp teeth. Sharp teeth and gills and claws and beautiful brown eyes and an almost human face matching the almost human upper body.
Sirens aren't meant to be pretty, they only lure with the promise of heated desire and quick release, no need to actually look the part. They are half monster anyways. Still, the siren in front of Steve looks beautiful, flashes his fangs in a grin as he lifts himself up on Steve's cliff.
Steve is tired the siren won't have to
sing to lure him to his death, the siren can just take him. He doesn't though, just stares at Steve, moves his lips and Steve, sick of it all, just snarks back, "I'm deaf you dimwit. So if you wanna eat me just get on with it."
The siren's smile falls. He's probably not used to his food talking back let alone be rude. His clawed hand reaches out for Steve and Steve presses his eyes shut, expecting pain. Instead, the siren cups his face gently, claw brushing over his cheek. Steve doesn't remember the last time someone had touched him with tenderness.
When Steve opens his eyes again confused the siren removes his hand and begins to sign. Steve's jaw drops a little, he knew sirens could speak whatever language to lure whoever they needed to lure. He hadn't expected them to know sign too.
"I'm not going to eat you, little prince," the siren signs. "I heard you call out for me so I came. You sing so lovely."
Steve still gapes, "What?"
"It's an old song," the siren signs. "The moon and the waves were not the only ones who listened."
Steve stares at the siren. The siren who heard him hum, who had heard him wait, heard him ask to be whisked away. The siren has come for him but not to eat him.
"What's your name?"
"Eddie."
"And what now Eddie?" Steve asks.
Eddie reaches into the water where there is another dark figure. When he takes his hand back out he hands Steve dark algae he has never seen before.
"You can take these and join me and my swarm, they'll allow you to breathe underwater," Eddie explains. "Or you'll say the word and I'll return you to the nearest land. Your choice."
It's the easiest choice Steve has ever made. Return to a place that was never home, live alone and in fear. Or follow the siren who heard his call and came for him. Steve swallows the algae.
"I choose you."
Eddie smiles again, holds his hand out for Steve to take before he pulls Steve underwater and for the first time Steve actually feels like he can breathe freely.
Growing a tail, gills, fangs and claws isn't pleasant. But Eddie holds him through it, hand brushing through Steve's hair. Steve can't hear Eddie, but he can feel the vibrations in Eddie's chest as Eddie hums soothingly.
He has no expectations after Steve joins his swarm. Seems to be happy to just be around Steve. But Steve called for Eddie the same way the moon calls for the ocean and just like the waves Eddie had come. Falling had been inevitable from the beginning.
They'll drift, bodies and limbs entangled, Steve's hand gently resting on Eddie's throat as Eddie returns the favor and sings for Steve. It's another old song. A love song. Steve can feel Eddie's love under his fingertips vibrating in Eddie's throat and beating in his chest. The song is not going to lure anyone else, one that belongs to Steve alone. Though Eddie never had to lure Steve, Steve lured him first. But even without his song, Eddie would have come for his little prince. The same way the ocean will always come for the moon, sky and water one during the star-lit night.
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badgerbl00d · 1 year
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what makes one piece boys consider fatherhood
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☆ characters: sanji, law, shanks
☆ up next: one piece boys experiencing love at first sight
☆ summary: things you do around these characters that make them think of starting families with you..
☆ a/n: this was so fun to write! i hope you all find this as cute as i did :)
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sanji
1k words
“But the prince insisted on it, and they had to call Cinderella. She first washed her hands and face clean, and then went and bowed down before the prince, who gave her the golden shoe..” you looked down at the now sleeping lump on your lap, and gently closed the book. 
“Looks like he’s out.”
Further out on the deck of the Sunny, you could hear the others playing. You identified Usopp’s voice and Luffy's laughter. 
Chopper had fallen asleep to his bedtime story and was out cold on your lap. His tiny breaths were slow and even. 
“He’s been sleeping for at least ten minutes. You know, if you read to him every night he’d probably have an actual bedtime,” Sanji said, his chin resting in his hand. 
He was sitting next to you, having brought you a drink to offset the evening temperature drop that had sent everyone running for sweaters. 
“I know. But he’s a pirate, Sanji,” you defended Chopper’s sleeping schedule, “And he’s old enough now to not need a bedtime.”
“Ah, maybe. But not too old, it seems, for a bedtime story.”
You rolled your eyes, absent-mindedly rubbing Chopper’s back as he slept.
“You know Luffy scraped his knee, playing around with Usopp all day.”
“You don’t say.”
“I swear I’ve seen him come out of battle with less injury,” you laughed, “I patched it up for him and he said he didn’t know I was a doctor.”
“I’m guessing all you did was clean it and put on a band-aid.”
“No idea how he’s made it this long.”
Sanji smiled as he took in a long drag of his cigarette. 
“Don’t smoke around Chopper while he sleeps,” you said, scolding Sanji yet again for the same thing.
He blew out the smoke, before begrudgingly putting it out on the ground.
“Wouldn’t wanna wake the baby,” he said. 
“He looks so peaceful,” you giggled, “I’m glad he feels safe enough to be resting thoroughly.”
You and the cook shared a long look at how his chest rose and fell. 
He would soon be snoring.
Sanji laughed, “My god! Are you sure you didn’t slip melatonin into his hot chocolate?”
You shot him a look.
“He spent all day running around with those two over there,” you gestured towards Luffy and Usopp, “And Robin had him helping her out in the library earlier. Between all that reading and running I’m sure he tired himself out. Does he look comfortable?”
Sanji nodded, smiling at you. 
You softly removed his hat from his head, setting it down next to him. 
“Should we take him to bed?” you asked Sanji.
“Yes. Eventually. But it’s nice out. Let’s go in ten minutes.” “All right, my love.”
You leaned back, letting your arms support your body weight, palms against the wooden planks of the ship. 
Sanji scooted closer to you, allowing you to rest your head on his shoulder.
You closed your eyes, not to sleep but to enjoy the cool air on your face and neck. 
Listening to the sounds of laughter and footsteps come to an end for the day as sleep started to spread throughout the crew.
Sanji silently watched you, unaware of your own dozing off with Chopper on your lap.
He thought about how readily you read him a story from his favorite book. How concern for his well-being had become your number one priority while he was with you. 
He felt his chest swell with a mixture of pride and love as he thought of all the other ways you cared for the crew.
Sewing Nami’s torn clothes, helping Robin with the laundry, reminding Usopp and Luffy to be mindful of their manners, and even making sure the swordsman was getting rest. 
He brought a hand to your back to lightly rub it, pressing a kiss to the top of your head before gazing out at the open ocean. 
Thoughts of painting a room with soft hues of blue and building a crib started to form in the back of his mind. 
He imagined you carrying a baby, softly singing it to sleep. 
Some unfamiliar feeling tugged at his chest, it almost felt like anticipation. 
He took a deep breath and tried, to no avail, to direct his thoughts elsewhere.
A baby was- a lot. And you seemed perfectly content now. 
And anyways, a pirate ship was no place for a baby.
He sighed and pulled his eyes away from you, settling them back on the sea. 
Yet, he could imagine it.
With astounding clarity.
He could imagine buying diapers and binkies. Buying tiny clothes and matching outfits. 
Waking you up in the morning with breakfast and coffee in a house of your own. 
Coming home to you every night, staying in one place.
Your parents visiting and your lives being somewhat normal.
No bounties or navy or treaties or bars or women or swordsmen. 
But not now.
The soft swaying of the ship on choppy waters lulled him back to where he was.
The sounds of life at sea slowly came back to him. 
It was late and he had an early morning, full of cooking for the Pirate King ahead of him. 
“Sweetheart,” he softly spoke in your ear, ever so gently nudging you awake, “Let’s get to bed, hm?”
You yawned, nodding.
Slowly you picked up Chopper, still dead asleep, and carried him down the stairs toward his room.
Sanji followed right behind, the reindeer’s hat in hand. 
He opened the door for you and you walked in laying him down in his bed, pressing a quick kiss to his forehead.
You stood next to Sanji, bringing your arms around his waist.
He kissed the top of your head, and then your forehead, and then your lips. 
“Tired, princess?”
You nodded, resting your head on his chest. 
Sanji knew what he wanted. 
What you, so fondly looking down at the sleeping reindeer, wanted as well.
But you both had so much time and so many things to do first.
One day, he’d give you everything you wanted.
But for now, he’d carry you to bed.
law
0.7k words
“Okay, what about this one? Or is it too much?”
You turned towards Law, trying to smooth out the leftover wrinkles in your dress.
“You look beautiful in all of them,” Law said, writing something down, only halfway paying attention. 
You groaned, already starting to try on a different dress.
“You’re not paying attention.”
“I am.”
“Law, you haven’t looked up from your notes once. And you can’t just tell me I’m beautiful in everything to make up for it!”
“Well, you are.”
“Ugh!”
A smile spread on his face at your irritation with him, as he continued to go through the loose papers on his desk. 
“Look, here’s a dress that proves you wrong.”
You slowly spun around in a hideously fringed orange dress.
You flashed him a sarcastically large smile.
Law, to your surprise, did look up this time.
“Gorgeous.”
He spun around in his chair, burying his head back in his notebook. 
“Ugh, asshole.”
You sighed and continued to fish through the pile of dresses. 
You spotted a black lace one with a gorgeous neckline. 
Much better. 
“Ok, fine! I look beautiful in everything, especially this dress,” you pulled it down over your head, adjusting the sleeves, “Please confirm.”
You watched Law slide on his glasses and turn the chair back around slowly.
You laughed, “You’re so immature.”
You enjoyed the rare moments when he allowed himself to completely relax and goof off. 
“Just making sure I can give you an honest score, Miss Y/n.”
Oh.. this, he very much did like. 
“Orange dress better,” he lied, amused at how this provoked you.
He kept his eyes glued on you, admiring how snug the dress was on your curves.
You were going to kill him. 
“You know, it’s a good thing we don’t have a kid. Or I’d have to deal with two children.”
Law was just as intently eating up the sight of you. 
He’d meant every bit of it. You were always beautiful in everything, and in nothing. 
But that had caught his attention.
The idea of having a kid. 
You and him with a baby.
You kept sorting through what remained of the pile as your captain's thoughts trailed. He could imagine it clearly.
He’d always made sure you had everything you needed, never hesitating to spend stolen gold on you. 
But he’d give you everything. 
After all, who better to give you a baby than a doctor who loved you more than anyone had ever been loved before?
You, waking him up in the middle of the night to check on the baby. The crew teaching them how to speak and read. Bepo would probably have to be monitored around the baby- but only because he was stronger than he knew. 
Shachi and Penguin would make proper uncles, Law thought, and he was sure that, even if he didn’t, a baby could find amusement in the Straw Hats. 
He imagined the two of you cuddled at night during your hypothetical pregnancy. His cheeks warmed at the thought.
He’d do daily checkups on you, and no better care would be available. 
He was already months ahead of himself and decided that while he finished watching you get ready, he’d let himself imagine it. 
“Okay!” you applied a final lipstick touch-up, and softly adjusted your hair in the mirror, “Will you help me with this necklace? I’ll be back around 10.”
Law stood up, stretching his back before silently making his way over to you. 
“You mentioned us having a baby?”
You rolled your eyes and took hold of the hand he extended toward you. “If you’d like.”
He rested a hand on the small of your back and pulled you into his chest, your giggles flooding his ears.
“C’mere,” he beckoned you to follow him back towards the chair he just got out of. 
He pulled you down into his lap on top of him, locking his arms around your waist.
“Law,” you whined, “I’m gonna be late.”
“Of that,” he started, “I have no doubt.”
You squirmed in his grip trying to free yourself to no avail.
“Relax, sweetheart. 
You aren’t going anywhere tonight. 
We have a baby to make.”
shanks
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“You look delicious, baby,” Shanks lightly slapped your ass and you swatted his hands away, picking up your pace to try and keep up with the running monkey ahead of you.
Luffy had wanted to go to the lake and Makino asked if you’d take him.
You had a certain fondness for him, he reminded you of your siblings when they were his age, restless and wild, so you readily agreed. 
“Luffy!” you called, “Luffy, slow down!”
Shanks laughed and wrapped his arm around your waist, pulling you in for a kiss.
You pushed your hands against his chest- he was so damn touchy! 
“Shanks, please not now, we’re going to lose Luffy if we don’t catch up with him,” you said, starting to run after him. 
“Alright, alright,” he relented and the two of you ran together, laughing, after him. 
He was already setting up camp when you caught up with him- those stretchy limbs set you at a disadvantage- and was asking for his swim trunks. 
You set down a towel and placed the picnic basket on top of it, throwing Luffy his trunks.
Shanks sat down and pulled you on top of his lap, grabbing a beer in the process.
“What’s that?”
 The boy stood in front of you, one hand on his hips, the other up his nose, and pointed at the drink.
“Beer! Try it!”
“Shanks.”
Luffy reached for the can and you turned him around before he could grab it.
“Why don’t we go in the lake?”
“But Shanks told me if I try to swim all my hair will fall out and I’ll forget how to read.”
You turned to your boyfriend and shot him a disapproving look as he erupted into a fit of childish laughter.
“Well, you don’t know how to read anyway, so let’s go!”
You secured a pair of floaties onto his arms and ran with him to the water, followed by Shanks after he set down some rocks onto the towel so it wouldn’t fly away.
He picked you both up and geared up to throw you into the cold, clear waves. 
Both you and Luffy tightened your grip on the man after realizing what he was intending to do and created a tangle of arms and hands.
He still made the effort, though, and ended up getting thrown in along with both of you. 
You all came up laughing and gasping for air, and Shanks held Luffy as you swam, not wanting to risk anything by leaving him on his own in the water. 
After an hour or so of swimming and splashing and throwing water at each other, Luffy started to get tired and let go of Shanks, paddling towards you as best he could.
You grabbed him and he held on to you, wrapping his little arms around your neck.
Within a few minutes, he was asleep.
Shanks, who also seemed to have calmed down, smiled at you and made his way over. He kissed your cheek.
“I’m gonna go put him down for a nap. He’s so cute,” you said. 
Shanks nodded, not able to resist slapping your ass as you got out of the water. 
You set Luffy down on the blanket, laying down next to him. He was out cold. The warm heat of the sun covered your body and lulled you to sleep right next to Luffy. 
After another hour or so of swimming in the lake and looking for pretty rocks to give you, Shanks made his way towards the both of you, unable to control his smile as he saw you and Luffy asleep bundled up together, your arms wrapped around him.
He thought, for a moment, that he might just steal Luffy away and bring him on board the Red Force. But part of him wanted a baby that was truly yours and his, Luffy was wild and untamed, and Luffy had plenty of his own adventures and stories to live on his own. 
But he could see it so clearly, with how you worried about the kid and cared for him. You were protective and he knew that if anyone threatened or endangered Luffy with you around, they’d meet a grisly end. 
It warmed his heart in a way he’d never experienced. 
He wanted, not just to be a dad, but to make you a mother. 
He sat next to you both and watched, his heart full of contentment. 
“Mmm.. Shanks,” Luffy slowly started to wake up, “‘m hungry.”
“Want a sandwich buddy?”
He sat up, looking groggy, and nodded, rubbing his eyes.
Shanks handed him a sandwich from the picnic basket and rustled his hair. 
Luffy ate, asking Shanks about his maritime adventures, laughing at his stories. 
“Did Y/n bring juice?”
“She sure did! But you should try beer!”
Luffy eagerly nodded and Shanks stifled his laughter as best he could, you were going to kill him. 
You heard coughing and laughing and slowly blinked your eyes open, your brain muddled with sleep. 
Sitting up, you stretched out your limbs and turned toward all the noise.
Luffy had a beer in hand and was chugging it, you saw several other crushed cans littering the ground.
They were both laughing and Shanks looked like he had tears in his eyes. 
Shanks heard you stirring awake and shared a split second of panicked eye contact with you before grabbing Luffy and running before you could start yelling at him. 
You took a deep breath. 
“SHANKS!”
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41-kiraraaa · 9 months
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ᥫ᭡. 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐫, 𝐭𝐨 𝐞𝐱𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐫
⤷ 𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠.: yandere dragon!dan heng x reader
⤷ 𝐭𝐰.: yandere behavior, possessiveness, obsessiveness, isolation/imprisonment, slight blood/gore
⤷ 𝐬𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬.: dan heng has his draconian transformation aboard the express with you to watch over him. his desire for you had finally made him snap, and, now, there was no escape from your mate.
‧˚₊꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒦꒷‧₊˚⊹‧˚₊꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒦꒷‧₊
whenever trailblazing wore you out, you could count on dan heng to make sure nothing strayed too much out of order.
his constant watchfulness over you, march, and the trailblazer was nothing if not helpful and convenient should anything ever go awry, which it has, too many times in the past, but in your downtime on the express, you just wanted to be away from his scrutinizing, assessing gaze. you also didn’t want to be a burden on anyone, another person to worry for, and the thought of spending some time by yourself, without the presence of the other crew members, drew a sigh of relief from you.
you had promised yourself moments of rest after the stellaron mission in belobog, no matter how fleeting. with kafka and the stellaron hunters getting involved and sending the express crew to the xianzhou, you wanted to savor every moment you could in solidarity before you had to aid welt, march, and the trailblazer in their mission to seal the destructive core.
what you hadn’t expected, however, were the muffled sounds of pain coming from past march’s room and straight from the archives, where dan heng’s voice had echoed out in agony.
it hadn’t been long after the express was docked, and you rushed out of your room to make sure that your companion was unharmed.
after skidding to a halt at the doorway of dan heng’s makeshift room, you hurried past the open door, where himeko was bent over dan heng’s silently whimpering form, looking concerned.
when she noticed your entrance, her eyes flitted to you and she nodded, motioning for you to come over. you obliged, suspense and adrenaline racking in your system as you hunched over dan heng.
you’d thought that your eyes had deceived you when you had run through the door, but it seemed that the flash of green was indeed an extension of dan heng.
what you had glimpsed before when you were rushing in was a tail, whose fluffy tip was now pattering against the floor in obvious distress. what you hadn’t seen before, however, were his horns.
also a green hue, they extended upwards proudly, akin to branches of coral. they still seemed to be growing, as noted by his light breaths and whimpers of pain as you thought you imagined them coming up to be a little higher every time you blinked.
immediately you took charge, knowing that he would need a more comfortable place to be situated in, and you didn’t think that intruding on himeko’s space would please her all that much.
“i’ll take him back to my room,” you informed her, not realizing that you were too shaken by this whole ordeal until you heard your voice waver.
she gave you a nod of affirmation and, before you knew it, dan heng was on the edge of your bed and you were out of breath from helping himeko carry his deadweight. you tried pushing him to the middle of the bed for maximum comfort, and to minimize the risk of him falling off, but gave up when he didn’t budge and, instead, made the bedsheet wrinkle.
sighing, you turned back to him for a moment to check that everything in your room was orderly and that the door was closed after lugging him inside, which it was, but then a sudden weight came crashing down on you and you collapsed with a choked shout of surprise.
on top of you was the body of human, yet devoid of warmth, like a reptile. the pants and low growls resonating in your ear were most definitely human—the voice of an irreplaceable person in your life.
“d-dan heng!?” you exclaimed, trying to push yourself up, already in a plank and ready shake him off and book it for the door, but his weight and power pressed you down until you were flat against the ground, panting for air.
“you’re mine,” dan heng whispered, his voice husky and low and his breath hit against your ear. your breath caught in your throat at his proximity, and your struggles renewed as you pushed your back upward to try and shove him off.
a swift, unexpected bite to your throat ceased your struggling, and you lay limp on the floor at the pain that blossomed. the weight on your back was lifted off of you for a moment, but you couldn’t escape with your senses hyper-focused on the wound on the most sensitive part of your body.
dan heng was staring intently at your back, his objective dark, and, you couldn’t see it, but you could feel the desire emanating from his possessive, lustful gaze. your skin crawled with gooseflesh, and you gulped slightly, as unnoticeably as you could manage.
he dipped downward sharply soon after though, absentmindedly lapping at the blood streaming down your neck before it could reach the ground. it was too precious to waste, you were too delectable to pass up.
dan heng had thought that his feelings would be hidden from you forever, the desire to lock you away from the universe and have you safe from harm’s way. unfortunately, the life of a trailblazer was seldom easy, and you met life’s challenges with courage, even when your qualms and fears had a grip on your heart.
he always went out of his way to make that your life wasn’t being threatened, even when it seemed impossible. he was your shield, his cold, unyielding personality your preservation.
he needed to make sure that you had placed your trust in him fully, first and foremost and no one else.
if he was immovable, then what was there to threaten you? what was there to deny him from what he had kept himself from for so long? he craved you, ached for you, longed for you, but never showed an ounce of it through his words or actions, for fear of your rejection, of society’s caution around his amplified desire for you, strong enough to harbor hatred and murderous intent for anybody who so looked at you the wrong way. looked at you at all, even.
now though, he was finally discarding those frivolous thoughts of his concealment of desire for you, his draconian side emerging. after all, it was only normal to want your lover in every way, right?
his present, human, morally ambiguous but restrained side was miles away, the tsunamis of desire crashing into oceans of want and possessiveness making him realize that he wanted this so badly that he would die if he was without you for another moment. even blinking was made scarce, absorbing your ethereal, once ephemeral, form in to fully appreciate you in ways he couldn’t before.
his stone-cold, deadpan exterior had finally given way to his true self, more open to expressing his love and devotion for you, as the dragon in him coiled with the need to make sure that you were his forever.
so why were you struggling? couldn’t you tell that you were his mate? his to love and cherish forever? even if you didn’t think you loved him now, there was no way that he’d let you go, not when the both of you were finally alone, together, and safe.
carefully, gently, absurdly for the situation he had just subjected you to, he lifted you up in a bridal carry and you couldn’t tell if you wanted to curl into his strong embrace, or shimmy away from your captor.
once he settled on your bed, he bunched the covers up around you and him until you were both insulated and he could retain the warmth that you gave him. he had made sure you were comfortable, drawing the blankets up around you first and foremost and leaning over your form quite inquisitively, drinking in the most vulnerable side of you he had never gotten to appreciate properly and feeling a strange welling of wholesomeness in his heart at your figure, dwarfed by him and his twisted love for you.
after getting settled down, you couldn’t help but close your eyes sleepily, unsure as to why you were feeling so exhausted that your body would let your guard down around the beast that had possessed your friend. you would contemplate why you were allowing him such proximity, but your mind was too scrambled to discern if he was a threat or not, and it seemed as though your body had decided for you as you were his mate.
a hand from out of the blue descended upon your head and sharp nails massaged your scalp deeply, comfortingly, lovingly. they were careful not to draw blood or scratch you too hard, and your eyelids grew heavier still, and your ears gradually rose a barrier between you and the outside world, content in the embrace of someone you knew.
the wound in your neck hadn’t bothered you for a moment now, and you had half a mind to wonder why when a low croon came from above you. it seemed as though he was still watching you, with another hand descending to rub your cheek soothingly. the solace of his presence was unbearable for your rationality, and you let go all train of thought to give into him.
dan heng watched with satisfaction as you drifted off into slumber, pride welling in his chest at the level of trust you still had for him, even after his slightly unorthodox display of dominance.
after making sure that you were truly sleeping, deep inside the crevices of your mind and dreaming of him, no doubt, he lowered himself down into a space next to you, where he was able to hold you with your back to him and his arms wrapped tightly, possessively around your waist and pulled you as close to him as he possibly could.
a few seconds later though, he opted to drag his arms up higher until he was just right below your chest so that he could make way for his tail, which dipped under you and then coiled upwards to wrap around you, doubly secure and safely tucked in by his side.
although your blood had supplemented him some energy to get by for a little after his grueling transformation into a dragon, he was more than content with the prospect of regaining his full strength by resting by your side, knowing that nothing could ever take you away from him.
and afterwards, when his power was at its full glory, he’d prove to you that you’d never need to leave his side. ever.
and even if you insisted, tried clawing your way out of his embrace, tried to escape into a world with dangers lurking around every corner, ready to take you away from him, there was no way he would ever lose you, no way you would ever lose him.
your mate.
‧˚₊꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒦꒷‧₊˚⊹‧˚₊꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒦꒷‧₊
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chronically-ghosted · 2 months
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go west, to the southern plains, go west to breathe (lover, share your road - part i) series masterlist | AO3 Link | prologue | part ii
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chapter rating: T
word count: ~21K
chapter summary: at the end of the line, you make a business proposition to Joel Miller. He brings you and Ellie home to the last sanctuary left in this world in exchange for your skills. What you find there and what you find out about Joel Miller is not what you expect.
chapter warnings/tags: depictions of going hungry and poverty, sexual harassment, period accurate sexism, depictions of a sick child, reader depicted as skinny but due to lack of food not her natural body type (and this will change), allusions to domestic abuse, hurt/comfort, pining, the beginnings of a praise kink, let the idiots in love begin
a/n: shout out to the ever incredible @jennaispun for beta-ing the prologue and this first part!
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“After a long walk in hell, I found you. You made hell feel like home, you made the flames feel warm. It’s true, you haven’t saved me but you were the closest thing to heaven.” — Maram Rimawi
part i:
Beneath the soot-gray fingertips of your gloves, the dust of the high plains sits coarse and heavy on the tattered, yellowing strip of paper. You hold it down flat as a brutish wind snakes up the empty dirt road through the center of Dalhart, grabbing hold of the brown dust that clings to everything — and tugs. Underneath your pale blue dress, with the hemline torn and the collar in need of stitching, your heart pounds as you read the small, almost guilty, advert:
Help wanted. Can pay.
Contact Joel Miller.
The promise of actual money should have had every able-bodied American scrambling to answer the advert, but by its place near the bottom of the announcement board outside of the country store, buried beneath slashed prices for milk and eggs and headlines out of Washington – it seems certain to be relegated into obscurity. 
For all you know, this could be months, even years, old. Miller, whoever he was, could be long dead, or gone with the rest of the exodus to California. Or he could have gone the way of your “Uncle” Robert – a huckster, discovered too late; one of many who prey upon the desperation that sticks to the country like the acrid smell of smoke. Your hand shakes as you pluck the yellow card from the wooden plank. There is no contact number, no address. Another trick? Dust stings the corners of your eyes when you pinch them close, your breathing quickening, your pulse sharp in the sleeve of your ratty glove. 
Oh, God, what are you going to do? What if this is nothing, just like Robert’s promise? What if there’s nothing here for you? What if –
A small hand on your forearm centers your spiraling thoughts. From beneath a faded blue baseball cap, two brown eyes peer up at you, firm and reassuring. 
“You okay?” She keeps her voice low, just like you asked.
“Yeah, El–Ellie, I’m fine.” You squeeze her too-thin hand, your stomach toiling with guilt and its own emptiness. “Just figuring out what to do next.” 
“Is finding and murdering this asshole Robert still off the table?”
You frown, your niece’s quick temper more from your dead sister than you. “It is. Now, I’m going inside to ask about this advert. Maybe this Miller still has a job or two open.”
Ellie’s eyes fall to the slip of paper in your hand, her aggressive scowl tightening into something that too closely resembles fear. She knows what’s at stake just as much as you do and you hate that that knowledge ages her youthful face. 
“You stay close and don’t let anyone get a good look at you, okay?” 
Ellie nods, already familiar with the routine, and scoops up your luggage case, her tattered satchel hanging off her other shoulder. She had been wearing pants long before reaching Dalhart, but it soothed you to think the eyes of cruel men passed right over her, their interest rarely in young boys. 
A bell above the door tinkles when you open it, but by the dull, muted sound, it most likely has a few dents. Behind you, the afternoon heat follows you in, the sunlight illuminating the floating dust mites in the air. The door whines as it closes, brightening the inside of the store, where the mites settle back into the silver layer that sits over cans of tomatoes and peaches, linens, boxes of gum and cigarettes. Nearly everything sits untouched and unmoved, old dust settling between cracks and grooves, patrons not having enough money to buy something and the owner not having enough to change out stock. Struck still, frozen in a single, long exhale. The slow, creaking death of the economic system has reached Dalhart too. You shudder, suddenly cold as if in a mausoleum. 
The further away from Boston the train took you, the further back in time you felt. Here, you are reminded of the old general stores of cowboys and pioneers. But maybe, that is exactly where you are: out of time.
A man in long white sleeves, coiffed hair, and perfectly round glasses, looks up from the wilted newspaper spread out over the counter. 
“Can I help you?” His accent hails from the east, North Carolina most likely. However, his manners are not reflective of that famous southern hospitality. He looks at you like you’re a bad dream and it unsteadies you.
“Y-yes. I, uh, I’m hoping that you know a-a Miller. Joel Miller? I have his advert and I’m, um, I’m looking for work.” 
The man’s thin eyebrow jumps mockingly. Aren’t we all, sister? But eventually, he shakes his head.
“Look, I don’t know what you’re doing all the way out here, but this ain’t no place for a young lady out on her own, job or no job. Where’s your husband?”
“Dead.” Your voice doesn’t waver, but then again, why would it? 
The clerk’s eyes soften, if only slightly. “I see. But I’m sorry to say, there is no job here for you.”
Your mouth instantly dries out. “What do you mean? Where’s Mr. Miller?”
“He’s a mean ol’ sunuvbitch, livin' God knows where. Comes in twice a month for supplies and he’s back out into the prairie.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t see why that’s a problem –,”
“He ain’t fit for civilized life, ma’am.” The clerk drops his nose, eying you seriously over the rim of his black glasses. “Whatever he’s offering, you don’t want no part of it.” 
“I think we’ll be the judges of that.” Beside you, Ellie drops your suitcase and it loudly clatters to the ground. “Thanks for the tip though.” 
The clerk’s eyes widen – this is terrible behavior even for a boy – his mouth unfurling to give a nasty tongue-lashing, when you interject, your voice thick with pleading.
“I would just like to meet the man. Please, sir.” The clerk, like most men without scruples, can barely resist the sound of a woman begging. Those uncanny blue eyes find you again. “Has he come in recently?”
You can feel Ellie’s wicked sneer behind you, the clerk’s gaze switching between the unlikely pair in his shop. Finally, he shrugs. Who gives a fuck if one more woman goes missing?
“He’s due for a resupply.”
“How soon?” Your palm sweats under your gloves.
He narrows his eyes, evidently annoyed that a woman would reject his warnings. “Soon. We have a parlor in the back if you’d like to wait for him. But you have to buy something,” he adds vehemently. 
You nod, unsteady on shaking knees as you walk towards the door in the back of the store. 
“Thank you, sir. You have been so kind. We very much appreciate it.” 
Any chance that the clerk finds you sincere is lost when Ellie wraps her knuckles on the counter as she passes.
“Buh-bye, dude.” 
The parlor is small, dark, damp, and smells faintly of kerosene and leather. A woman, most likely the wife of the clerk you just annoyed, glares from behind a counter as you and Ellie walk in. 
“Lunch.” Not a question.
Ellie looks up at you, eyes wide, fearful. You hadn’t let her see what is left in your purse, but she knows it’s low.
With your stomach in knots, you wouldn’t be able to eat anyway. You pluck out a dollar, bringing your total down to three dollars, and giving it to your niece.
“Order whatever you want.”
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The beating heart of the blazing Texas sun edges downward across the open sky, falling, until it drops completely behind the harrowingly flat horizon. Purple erupts in its wake, the last pump of blood of a dying muscle, and nearly instantly, the temperature drops. You watch the explosive coronary of the sky from a table at the back of the parlor, your own pulse doubling the later it gets. You squeeze your hand between your thighs to keep your fingers from drumming uneasily on the table. But for once, Ellie doesn’t pick up on your nerves. 
A dollar went farther out here and, as a result, Ellie is allowed her first big meal in months. Twice now, she’s nearly forgone the silverware to shove food directly into her mouth with her fingers, had it not been for your glares to remind her to slow down.
“This is slow,” she grumbles as she licks her bowl of mashed potatoes clean. Of course, half of what she ordered sits waiting for you, but you know she needs this meal more than you do – even if your rumbling stomach disagrees. You’d already had lunch at the train station; one more missed meal won’t kill you and less for you means more for Ellie.
Suddenly becoming a parent to a very opinionated fourteen-year-old girl was not something you had anticipated, and most times you figured you were doing it all wrong. The least you could do is give her everything you could.
“You think he’ll show?” 
You tear your eyes away from the parlor door, blinking back into your body out of your cloud of thoughts. Ellie’s little hands grip the bowl, a white smear sitting on her bottom lip, her eyes dark as they watch you. 
You grin as her pink tongue swipes up to lick her mouth clean. How easy you forget she’s only fourteen, with her loud mouth and provoking eyes. “Eat your food, Ellie.” 
The words have barely left your mouth when the door to the parlor bursts open. Two men, clearly drunk and smelling of it, stumble in. This is the part where you wish you too could believably dress up like a man. Your pulse thrums in your neck like a heightened prey animal. 
One pushes the other’s shoulder, smirking, and grunting something. His friend, also in a cowboy hat but half his size, nods and makes an unsteady line for one of the tables, while the other does his best to get to the bar. 
The man at the table has light green eyes, overly thick eyebrows, and a flat mouth, loose with drink. He flops into a wooden chair and you watch as the Texas Rangers badge on his chest flashes in the firelight behind him. Your stomach tightens. 
He stretches out, feet crossed over his ankles, limp hands crossed over his denim jacket, hollering at his friend and the woman working, who looks equally displeased to see them as she did you and Ellie. 
Smirking, his eyes slide from the wooden bar top, over the back wall, and right onto you.
You watch as his gaze blurs for a moment, a film of beastial hunger smothering the color of his eyes. You can feel your pulse in your ankles now.
“Well, now, what do we have here?” The lilt in his voice calls out two unspoken words: fresh meat. Distressingly steady, he climbs to his feet, his hat tilted obnoxiously on his forehead. “Where did you come from, you pretty little thing?” 
He saunters over, his thumbs stuck in his belt, the gun at his side snug in its holster. The grin on his face is hideous. You’d smack it off if you weren’t suddenly overcome by a debilitating fear. A look like that on a man is never, ever a good thing.
“Whatcha got there, Lee?” his buddy calls out from the bar, beard drenched in beer foam. 
“I dunno quite yet, Knapp,” he says over his shoulder, his livid green eyes never leaving your face. He nearly folds in half to press his spider-like hands on the surface of your table, coming inches from your face. His breath smells like corn whiskey and cheap tobacco. “Guess I’ll have to find out. What’s your name, pretty thing?” 
“Or she could not tell you her name and instead, you could fuck off.” Ellie’s scowl wrenches her mouth open, her knuckles white around her spoon. There’s a part of you that fully acknowledges and accepts that if given the signal, she’d scoop the fucker’s eyes out with the silverware right here. “We’re eating here, or are you too busy smelling like a fucking whiskey barrel to notice?”
As with most adults when Ellie decides to show her teeth, Lee stares stunned before the self-righteous anger sets in. Your heart stops for a moment when you think he’s going for his holster, but instead, he uses the flat of his hand to swat her hat off her head.
“Shut up, you little fucker, where’d you learn your fucking ma–,”
Ellie’s long hair tumbles down her shoulders, the baseball cap on the floor behind her. 
Lee is stunned into silence once again. The parlor goes deathly silent.
It’s Knapp who sets off the explosive spark again. “Holy fuck, you’re a little girl.”
Ellie snatches up her hat, cheeks flaming red, but Lee’s hand grabs her wrist. 
“A kinda cute one at that,” Lee sneers. He twists her arm and she yelps. Knapp at the bar laughs, his paunch shaking as beer sloshes over the side of his glass. The woman is cleaning something with a rag, turned away from the scene, her shoulders hunched to her ears. You’re on your feet, your hand on her purse. “What are you thinking, hm? Dressing this sweet little girl up like a boy?”
The trigger clicks and Lee and everyone else in the parlor freezes. The edge of your lash line is wet, fear rolling through you like fog on the bay. Your hand is steady, miraculously, but your voice isn’t.
“L-l-let–,” your voice cracks and you try again. You only have one gun drawn on Lee and you pray to whatever god is listening that Knapp doesn’t remember his. “Let her go.” 
This small pistol is your last line of defense against those who would take everything from you. You couldn’t keep your sister safe, your husband didn’t want to be saved, but you’d die before you’d let anyone come within an inch of Ellie. You pawned off your wedding ring long before you ever considered selling this weight in your hand. You couldn’t physically win a fight but you’d be damned if you weren’t going to take someone out with you.
There’s more than one reason you never let Ellie look into your purse. You won’t make eye contact with her now.
Lee’s eyes harden into black flints in his head. “Yeah? You’re shaking like a leaf. You ain’t gonna do shit about it.”
He twists harder, forcing Ellie to her knees, his mouth smearing into a sickening sneer, Ellie’s cries loud – “get off me, you fucker!”
All you have to do is miss. Once. 
Your arm shifts right and you fire. You meant to hit the floor, but instead the leg of a chair at a nearby table shatters, wood and smoke sparking into the air. Lee and Ellie jump, their struggle broken, but Ellie’s quicker, smarter. Hunched to avoid debris, they are nearly eye to eye and Ellie doesn’t hesitate; she jerks her head back and then launches her forehead forward – square into his flat nose.
The crunch is sickening and it turns your already empty stomach. Lee shrieks, releasing Ellie, his hands flying to his misshapen nose to staunch the river of blood pouring from his nostrils. 
“You bitch!” he whines, voice wet and gummy as blood trickles down his throat, eyes watering. You hear a roar of anger as Knapp stands, no longer finding any of this funny.
“Get behind me, Ellie.” You snap, eyes on Knapp as he lumbers forward. She hesitates, looking like she’d like nothing more than to kick Lee up the balls, but obeys the closer Knapp comes. She slots behind you, eyes sharp on the squealing man on the floor. 
“She broke my fucking nose, man,” he cries, face already purpling. 
“Yeah, and don’t you forget it, you fucker!” She snarls over your shoulder. One hand holds your elbow, and the other brandishes her mother’s knife that had been at the bottom of her satchel seconds ago. Fuck. 
Ellie Williams is not, and never has been, nor will be, one to deescalate a situation. Knapp responds in kind. His drunk fingers fumble with his holster, his face contorted with rage.
“Shootin’ at an officer of the law – you’re gonna hang for this, you thieving little c–,”
“Knapp.”
A fifth voice – low, deep, a mammalian bark that grinds the chaos of the room to a halt. The large man stalls, his engine snagged by the rough grain of that voice. On the floor, Lee lets out one quiet whimper as he cracks open a pulsating black eye.
In the glow of the firelight, you watch as beads of sweat swell on Knapp’s big forehead beneath his wide-brimmed hat. His wide eyes flash between you and the man who just walked in.
“M-Miller, the fuck you want?” 
Your heart seizes in your chest. Miller. 
Joel Miller. 
You never thought your saving grace would come in the shape of a hulking, dark-eyed man. 
A well-worn handkerchief around his neck, crusted over with dust, his broad shoulders stretch a denim work shirt, the unbuttoned collar loose and just as dirty. Worked-over hands, dry and brown as the earth, curl into fists at his side. Tight jaw, flared nose, eyes black, his presence expands in the cramped room, a leviathan cresting dark waves to command the roaring void. 
“Back off, both of you.” 
Knapp sneers, desperately tugging at some misguided sense of bravery, with sweat running hot and fast and smelly down the sides of his rubbery face. “Y-yeah, or what?” 
“You fuckin’ know what.”
Knapp visibly swallows and lowers his pistol, hands trembling. Lee whines from the floor, his eyes open as wide as the swelling will allow, abject terror on his face as he stares up at Miller. Neither of them move.
A guard dog satisfied by the corralled sheep, Joel’s heavy gaze roves from the two men, across the room, to you.
His expression doesn’t change. 
The weight shifts across the stiff planes of his shoulders, and he turns, leaving as quickly as he appeared. Beneath his thick boots, the wooden floor creaks and it rouses you. Your mouth is so dry you can feel the skin of your lips split apart. 
“Mr. Miller, w-wait.”
He doesn’t. 
With a single glance to the men still frozen in terror, you follow him through the now-dark and empty store. The cold desert air cracks hard against your overheated cheeks when you burst through the door, into the black night. The moonlight illuminates the threads of silver hair in his beard that the dark parlor hid. His fingers work slowly, unhurriedly, as he tightens the leather buckle beneath the wide girth of his off-white horse. It lifts its head as you stumble out onto the dusty road, its round eyes watching you with more interest than its rider. White ears twitch forward, a snort from the long snout, and Joel rubs the soft place between two giant nostrils without looking up. 
“J-Joel – Mr. Miller, please, I need your help.” 
“Already got it.” His shoulders flex and roll as he loads up another loose sack onto the rump of the horse, then tightens the securing belt. It snorts again and shifts on its hooves, its long tail flicking back and forth. 
You shake your head, swallowing the hot rush of embarrassment. The wind licks at your ankles and you fight back a shiver, bringing a hand to your shoulder to warm the goosebumps. “No, sorry, I mean – I’m here to help you. I saw your advertisement and I was wondering if the position was still open.”
The buckle quiets. The dirt at his feet crunches as he faces you. 
There are no trees in Dalhart, Texas. There are barely any clouds, no coverage. Overhead, the few buildings not yet folded up in the wake of the financial collapse throw shadows over his angular face, but you can still feel the trace of his gaze over you. A curious search, the investigation of scent. 
Then he shakes his head.
“No.” 
Your entire chest tightens. “Has the position been filled?”
“No.”
“Then why–,”
“I don’t need you.” He lifts up the third and final sack and you feel your hope being carried away with it. “Need a farm hand. You’re not the type.”
“N-n-no, I’ve worked on a farm. I-I’ve only planted seeds but I’m a quick learner and I–,”
“No.” 
“Sir – please, I’ll do anything–,”
“Then go home.” He unties the reins from the wooden post and clicks to the horse. Its big eyes watch you as he turns them for the road. “There’s nothing here for you.” 
You absolutely will not cry in front of this gruff stranger. Panic icing down your spine, you follow him on weak knees. In the wake leftover from the wheat boom, Dalhart is quiet as soon as the sun goes down. Empty of people, of light, of any sort of guiding hand, you try to appeal to the last human you’ve found at the end of the world.
“Mr. Miller, there must be something you need. I’m a hard worker, smart, you won’t have to train me at all. Please. I’ve been a housekeeper, a seamstress – a nurse. I —,”
The horse huffs when Joel pulls tight on the reins. 
In the moonlight, all of his hair looks gray. Your heart plunges in your throat. You can feel your stomach trying to digest your spine.
“Done any work with kids?” He asks, after a moment. 
His brisk question is not what you expected. You can barely hear him over the pounding in your heart. 
“Y-yes. I’ve treated children before. A-and I was a teacher, briefly. I’m very good with children, actually.”
The scarred hand at his side tightens, flexes open and closed, the tips of his thumb and forefinger twitching over the other. Over his shoulder, you think his head tilts a centimeter towards you.
“You know what? Fuck this.” 
Out of the shadows of the county store, Ellie tears down the steps, her face pink and her hair stuffed back up her ball cap. She loops her small hands around your forearm and tugs, her eyes like chips of bark, glaring hatefully at the man in the middle of the street. Faint dust churns beneath her faded sneakers. 
“She’s fucking begging you and you don’t give a fuck, you old shithead!” She tugs again. In the flash of the moonlight, a glassy film has settled over her eyes. “C’mon, we don’t need him. We – don’t need – him.” 
“Ellie, please!” You grab her by the shoulders, a soft hand in a swirling tempest, and she settles, her mouth twisted up in anger and embarrassment. She hates that you have to beg anyone. “Please.” Shielding her from him, you squeeze her shoulders. “I know, Ellie. I know. But I have to keep you safe.”
Ellie finally turns that hot glare at you, eyes damp. Petulant when terrified, your sister was the exact same way. 
Fuck, Anna, it should have been me.
“She yours?”
Joel rests his weight on his left knee, fingers loose around the reins. He’s lowered the mask around his mouth. You snap your head up, your voice thankfully steady. “She’s my niece. She . . . I’m responsible for her.” 
Below your palms, Ellie stiffens. 
Fifteen feet from you, Joel nods, the muscle in his jaw tight. The horse huffs and he glares at it like it just yelled at him too.  
“I’m not in the habit of pickin’ up strays,” he says as if that means a lot. 
Hope springs in your chest and it snags the air in your lungs. “We’re not. I-I mean, we’ll work hard. Please, give us just one chance.”
“And you expect me to take on the both of you.” It isn’t a question, but his eyebrow arcs all the same. “That’s two mouths I gotta feed, ‘steada one.” 
“She can have mine.” In the silence, you think you can hear the faint choir of crickets. You remember the tarantulas and centipedes that lived inside the walls of your husband’s prairie dugout, and your stomach twists. “Ellie can have whatever you give us.” 
She makes a brief cry of protest, but you squeeze her shoulders. The sharp flair of his nostrils smooths and the corners of his eyes pinches, tilting his eyebrows up. He’s still glowering, but somehow, his expression has suddenly opened, just a crack. 
And then he nods. 
“Stay here a night. I’ll be back in the morning with the wagon.” 
And that’s it. You have a job. 
You’re so elated it takes a minute for his words to sink in. He turns back down the road, the horse's hooves clipping on the dry ground. You follow after him, hand outstretched.
“Oh, no, w-we can walk, it’s no trouble. Let me just get our things and–,”
“Too far to walk. And there’s things out in the dark more dangerous than those fuckin’ rangers.” He nods to the country store, eerily quiet. It sits, ugly, like a brown old frog. “There’s a hotel just up the road. It’s not much, but it’ll do for one night.”
“But, sir, we really can’t stay. I don’t – there’s no –,”
You stumble to a stop when those merciless dark eyes root you to the ground. The leather reins squeak when he tightens his fist around them. Again, you are under the impression of a dog sniffing out your scent for any deception, any treason. He takes you in, all of you in – your ratty gloves, your torn hemline, your tattered collar – and by some miracle, he doesn’t say anything. Instead, the groove above his nose softens. 
Wordlessly, he reaches into his back pocket and takes out five dollars from a brown leather wallet. He offers it to you between two fingers. 
Take it, his eyes command. 
You do, with a shaking hand. You hate charity, you hate that you’re at his mercy –
But Ellie has a bed for the night. Inside, warm. Where, hours ago, she didn’t. You smother your pride and nod, gaze at the scar on his cheek that you only now notice at an arm’s length away. 
“One night,” he says. “For you and the kid.”
You nod again because that’s all you really can do, his pity clutched in your fist and held against your heart. 
Ellie scowls as he swings up onto the horse and readjusts his mask. 
“What a guy,” she murmurs to you, her eyes still narrowed. Joel clicks his teeth, and the horse trots off into the dark, a lone man riding out into the featureless night.
Evidently still feeling slighted, Ellie sticks her tongue out at the denim back.
“Better keep that tongue in your mouth, kid,” he hollers before digging his heels into the horse’s flanks. “Liable to be chopped off like a copperhead.”
Ellie’s mouth snaps shut.
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The money Joel gave you is more than enough to cover a room and another plate of food. You even spurge your own money on some small candy for Ellie, determined to give Joel back every cent left over and then some, once you’ve proven you can earn your keep.
For you and the kid.
You shake your head, lost in your own thoughts, the gnawing hunger in your belly satiated, as you pull back the covers to the twin bed. The metal frame squeaks as you climb in, your night dress thin and ragged as the rest of your clothes. 
“C’mon, Ellie, time for bed.” When she doesn’t move, you stop rearranging the pillows and look at her. In her own white nightie (because she’d outgrown all her other pajamas), she sits in front of the roaring fire, her chin on her knees, and her arms wrapped around her shins. 
She’s quiet - either a good sign, or a terrible one. 
“Ellie, sweetie, we’ve gotta get some sleep. It’s gonna be a long day tomorrow.” 
You watch as her narrow back expands and falls in one slow breath, her skin bright in the firelight.
She nods mutely and climbs into the space beside you. She rolls onto her side, away from you, her hands tucked up under her head, her knees curled up beneath her. 
This is where Anna would know what to say. How to soothe this girl with so much awareness in a world that is raw to even those willfully ignorant. You can’t bullshit Ellie the way you can some kids. She knows too much. Seen too much. 
You settle down next to her in the shadow of her shoulder. Your fingers hover, locked between the yawning gap of touching her and not touching her, when she finally speaks.
“Is this really going to work?” Her voice is quiet, soft, dust-covered and buried. “Is Joel really gonna . . . are we safe?”
You cannot bullshit Ellie Williams.
“I don’t know. I’d like to think so. I know you don’t like him, but I think we can trust him.”
She’s quiet again, only this time because there’s something she doesn’t want to say. 
“Not like Uncle Robert – or Robert, if that’s even his real name. I’d never met the man in person, but I wanted – so badly – to believe . . .” You swallow, your own shame boiling your skin. “I think we’re safe with Joel Miller.”
The god’s honest truth. 
She hears it in your voice.
Ellie tips back to look you in the eyes. She’s lost so much weight recently. “Yeah?”
You tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear, the ghost of your thumb across her cheek. She allows the show of affection. “Yeah, El. I do.” 
You want to say: you can trust me. I’ll always take care of you.
But you know it would only come out hollow.
Neither of you would think it was honest. 
She pulls away from your grasp, her eyes almost golden in the firelight. She nods and stares at the burning wood. 
“Okay.”
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“So . . . is your car, like, broken or something?”
You elbow Ellie and she sits up from hanging over the edge of the wagon. She frowns at you – what? – and you both glance at Joel at the front of the wagon. If the question annoys him any more than he perpetually already is, he doesn’t show it. 
“Don’t have one.” He says to the back of the horse. The wagon rocks and sways over the clods of dust and stone in the road. “Never did.”
“Uh, why?”
“Cars break down in the dust storms. Short out. They end up being more trouble than they’re worth.” 
Again, that half-centimeter turn, his tone implying what his eyes can’t, faced away from you. Ellie narrows her eyes at the back of his head. She wrenches her mouth open, fire in her eyes, but she catches you glaring, and her mouth snaps shut. Pouting, she chucks a lone pebble off the back of the wagon. 
The sky is strikingly blue, bright as a livewire, the air warm and crackling with the early summer heat. Away from Dalhart, away from the collection of dust on every surface, dripping through every crack, you find the clarity and distance of the southern plains to be . . . unexpected. So careless and abrasive one minute, but then, in moments like these, it became hard to believe that nature could ever be so cruel as to make the earth rise up and swallow it all whole. 
You swing your legs off the wooden edge, the sunshine warm on your knees. It’s no use trying to hide how badly your socks need darning, so you lean back and stretch your legs as far as you can, your face tilted towards the sky, the still air peaceful. This morning, you’d put on your yellow plaid dress, torn cotton lace around the sleeves that stop at your elbows. You tucked your hair up and pinned your straw hat to your head. It was a reflex, to present your most beautiful self to a man, even one you barely knew. By the way Ellie had rolled her eyes, she felt no such compulsion. 
Demure, your mother always told you, you’re not very pretty, you’re not very bright, the least you can be is demure. 
The wagon shudders, clicks, over the empty road and you open your eyes. Ellie is turned away from you, eyes out to the fields on either side of you. You don’t understand what she’s looking at, until you realize that’s exactly it: there is nothing to look at. On the other side of those loopy barbed-wire fences through cock-eyed posts, there are miles and miles of nothing but churned-over dirt. A lazy wind spins over a patch of emptiness, tossing clods and sand into the air, an aimless sadness as tangible as the dust itself. Phone lines stand, corroded and chipped, along the side of the road like tangible manifestations of a deadly infection. 
“There’s no crops here either.” Ellie says, voicing loudly what you only thought. You can’t see her face but she sounds as stunned as you are. “What happened?”
You watch over her shoulder, eyes level with the earth bleached of all material, all life. With the drought, your husband’s field shriveled up in months, the cracked ground peeling away from the sodhouse in some places. You still have nightmares about waking up with grit between your teeth, choking and coughing up bloody chunks of mud.
This is desolation on an epidemic scale. 
“Ask different people ‘n they’ll tell you different things.” Joel says in his slow drawl, the crackle of the earth soft beneath the wooden wheels. “No one really knows. But nothing like this happened when the buffalo grass was here, ‘steada wheat.”
“Wait, you were here before Dalhart?” Ellie twists on the wagon, leaning over the lip where Joel sits and drives the horse. 
“My family was. Here before anything. My grandpa befriended the Comanche Indians and –,”
“You got to hang out with Indians?” Ellie nearly hurls herself over the edge of the wagon to try and look him in the eye. “What are they like – did they teach you how to shoot a bow and arrow – can they really ride horses like that –,”
“Ellie!” You want to grab her by her collar and yank her back into the wagon. “Not so many questions.”
The noise Joel makes is somewhere between a grunt and the word no.
“It’s fine –, “ he looks down at Ellie, still curled around the back of the seat, her eyes wide with a giant smile on her face. His ever present scowl doesn’t seem any deeper, nor does it deter her. Joel turns away again and in the sunlight, his hair is gooey, caramel brown. You stare at the dirt road while listening, the back of your neck hot. “They’re good people. Didn’t deserve what happened to them – to any of ‘em. But they taught my grandpa and grandma how to take just what they need, nothing more. But then everybody needed grain, offered money for cheap, easy labor. They poured in here, into the prairie, and in years, it became this. Folks blame the drought, but it’s more’n that.”
Ellie’s inordinately quiet. She knows exactly what your husband did to you, to your family, and now, maybe to the entire land. 
“‘Next year’ people, they claim,” Joel continues, his voice deepening with anger, “‘next year’, things’ll be better. ‘Next year’ the rains’ll come. ‘Next year’ the wheat’ll return.” He shakes his head, boots creaking against the toeboard. “Anyone who thinks that is lyin’ to themselves. Anyone’s who’s been here, seen what’s here, for us it’s been –,”
“The end of the world.” 
The silence that follows your words stretches long, an anchor dropped off the end of the wagon and rattling around the wheels. You swing your legs, fingers curling around a tear in your hemline. It wasn’t the first time you’d heard those words to describe the state of things. That’s what your husband called it and you believed him. 
Evidently, Joel agrees. His wide shoulders taught, the denim blue faded beneath the boundless sky, he nods.
“Griiim,” Ellie mutters as she curls up and drops her chin on her knees. 
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You’ve been watching a single cloud chase the sun from the floor of the wagon when Ellie, silent for all of about fifteen minutes, lifts her head from her hands draped over the edge. Her eyes go wide, her ears pink from the sun, and says:
“Whoa.”
The horse huffs as you sit up, a soft wind snagging the loose hairs on the back of your neck, and your mouth drops. 
Grass. 
Fields of it. 
The air is fresh, warm, and filled with the scent of living, breathing earth. Tipped with lush purple seeds shaped like paintbrushes, a sea of stalks bend and ripple in the cooling breeze, undulating like waves on solid ground. The wind is soft here, teasing, rolling through the tall grass, carrying the scent of growth and green in the air. You’re suddenly aware of how dry your mouth is, cracked and padded with dust. 
“We left it be.” Joel offers simply, voice too gruff to surely be filled with pride. “It’s endured and survived, and so have we.”
Further back, you can see where the line of his property ends – a harsh division of paradise and purgatory – and marked to the north by a dip in the ground and even over the crunch of the wheels over the ground, you hear it: water. 
A river. An oasis in a wasteland. 
Ahead of the white tufts of hair on the horse, the road curves, disappearing into the sea of grass, but letting your graze drift up, you see an a-frame home, white like a lighthouse at the edge of a storm. The instant the home comes into view, Joel clicks his tongue, urging the horse faster – eager. 
He leads the horse up through the road, through the grass, and on the other side, by the river, two cows chew up the green, oblivious. Beyond them, tucked behind the house is a barn. Low to the ground but wide, hunched like a fighter with a heavy center of gravity, it looks ready to endure and survive. As this entire secret world had. 
Joel tugs the horse to a stop, the wagon rattles as it slows, by the wide porch of the a-frame. It sits also low to the ground, wider with a dark roof, held together with something black and smeared. You’re so distracted by the unique qualities of this house in the middle of paradise that you miss it when the door creaks open until you’re staring down the barrel of a shotgun.
“Who are you?” The voice behind the gun is deep, even if the barrels shake slightly. In the dark of the doorframe, you can’t quite see their face, only their short stature. 
You see Ellie’s hand twitch towards her knife, which she now carries in her sock since the night of the county store. 
However, Joel is less concerned. In fact, the boulders of his shoulders loosen, ease to simple muscle and blood. He makes a noise that on anyone else, it might be considered a laugh, a chuckle, but he isn’t even capable of smiling –
He slings down from the seat and pats the horse.
“Easy there, Annie Oakley, it’s just me.” 
The shadow in the doorway stiffens.
“Dad?”
The shotgun lowered, the shadow staggers into the light. Brown eyes, just like his, scrunched against the blinding sunlight, a girl with the most beautiful head of curls blinks at Joel, her thin hand held up to shield her face. 
“Hey there, baby girl.”
In a single leap, she jumps down from the porch but all too quickly, the smile slips from Joel’s face.
“Hang on, not too fast–,”
She stumbles towards him as best as the metal braces around her knees, down to her ankles, will allow, defiant and smiling, despite the beads of sweat that have swelled over her forehead. Joel surges forward, faster than you thought possible, and reaches for her, nearly on one knee. 
“Slow down, please, Sarah.”
“Dad, I’m fine,” she huffs before tossing her arms around his neck. “I’m fine. Just – missed you, is all.” 
You can’t see his face, but he straightens up still holding her. With one hand he flattens those curls to her cheek, and kisses the other. 
“Enough to forget all the things I taught you about gun safety? You just tossed that thing aside,” he scolds fondly. She rolls her eyes as he sets her down. 
“Okay, but if you didn’t know it was me, you would’a been totally scared, right?” 
She watches as he chuckles, a deep, warm sound, but her own smile flatlines when she spies Ellie climbing down from the wagon. You ease off the edge, your lower half sore from the ride. 
The girl, Sarah, narrows her eyes. 
“Who are you?” She positions her body slightly in front of Joel’s. “And why are you dressed like a boy?” 
Joel’s soft scolding – “Sarah” – is lost beneath Ellie’s scoff. She adjusts her satchel. 
“Why are you dressed like Raggedy Ann?” 
Her father’s massive hands clench down on her shoulders, Sarah’s scowl evident that she’s about half a second away from launching herself at Ellie, leg braces be damned. 
“Now, let’s slow down here.” Joel’s deep baritone is light, but just as firm as his grip. If you knew him better, you’d think he is about to laugh, the lines around his eyes thick, while his mouth stays flat. “We got off on the wrong foot. Sarah, this is Ellie and her aunt. They’re going to be staying with us for a while to help out with your schooling.”
Those curls go flying, her frown now pinched in worry. Another girl caught between a child and adult – for the sake of their single parent, you notice, your chest tight. 
“I thought you needed a farm hand. You were going to teach me.” 
“You know you already read better than I do.” 
“Dad–,”
“Miss here is also a nurse.” 
“Oh. Oh.” She glances down at the metal braces as if she’d forgotten they were there. The skin on her knees is chaffed, rubbed pink. “She can . . . help me?”
Twin pairs of brown eyes settle on you, one hesitantly curious, the other aggressively determined. 
You can, right?
Ellie’s staring at the braces, her gaze distant, heavy. She’d seen this before, but everything back then moved too fast. Back then, there was no time for braces.
Braces only help a small percentage of polio patients. The lucky ones.  
You nod, your heart hammering under your chest bone. “Yes – yes, sir. I think with Ms. Kenny’s therapy, we might be able to alleviate some pain.” 
Those eyes, exactly like and so unlike her father’s, widen.
“Really?”
You introduce yourself with your first name, pressing the crease in your glove between your nail and your thumb with your other hand.
“I’d like to try, Sarah.”
You suddenly understand that Sarah is Joel Miller’s most guarded secret, out here in paradise, paradise as the most beautiful prison in the world. He continues to stare at you from under thick eyebrows after Sarah moves away from him. Ellie, caught off-guard by her forward movement, takes a significant step back.
“I, um, got some marbles out back,” Sarah starts, thumbing over her shoulder, and every other word sounding like an apology. “If you wanna play.”
Ellie jerks forward, her eyes round with excitement, but stops. She looks at you.
“Can I?” 
Soft when eager, just like her mother. So unlike you. You nod.
“Stay close, okay?” 
You and Joel watch as Ellie and Sarah toddle around to the back of the house, Ellie quietly narrating every thought she has as she keeps pace with Sarah.
Those look actually really cool, you know?
Yeah?
Totally. Have you read Amazing Stories? You look like you could be part of the Space Family Robinson.
Who are they?
Oh, you’ve never read those!? Okay, so they’re a family who live in space and they go on these awesome adventures together to different planets and . . .
The farther they go, the faster Joel turns back to stone. His gaze lingers just a hint longer before those dark eyes pin you to the ground. 
“You said you can clean? Cook?” 
You nod quickly. “Yes, sir.” Guard dog Joel. Stocky pitbull, teeth long and wet Joel.
He tilts his chin towards the house.
“Kitchen’s in the back. I gotta clean up the wagon and the horse, then gonna tend the field. I’ll be back in a few hours, but Sarah knows where to find me if y’need somethin'.”
You nod again, but he misses it, turning away to unbuckle the horse. You slide your trunk and Ellie’s satchel off the end of the wagon and head into the shadow of the house.
The white clapdoor snaps shut behind you, followed by the softer snik of the screen clicking into its frame. Slipping the bobby pins out of your hair to release your hat, you take in the Miller home.
The air is cool. Dust motes float in the sunlight streaming in from the second floor over a staircase with wooden wainscoting leading away from the open front room. With a brief glance up, you can see the faded white walls of the upper hallway, some not-yet-seen window drawing in bolts of morning light that pierce the air in bullet holes. It’s quiet and it smells warm, like lace kept in the back of a drawer near a wall that faces the heat outside. 
A blue two-seater couch faces a squat fireplace, with a Queen Anne table sandwiched between the two. Behind you, a large grandfather clock ticks and waits, a server waiting in the shadows with a watchful eye to report back to its master on the going-ons of the house. With only a cedar hutch, a few daguerreotypes, a smattering of books, the room is sparsely decorated, but kept clean and organized. You could see Sarah, a focused look in her eyes, sitting on the steps of the stairs and making Joel move and rearrange furniture over and over again until the room felt right. 
Through a white arched doorway, you find yourself in the kitchen. The light sparks more brightly here, the sky a stark blue through the four square window over the kitchen table and above the sink, reflective of the sun. You realize then the house runs north to south at an angle, where there are limited windows in the walls on the east and west sides, thereby limiting direct sun exposure and, more importantly, heat. Both the kitchen and the front rooms had been built out of the line of the sun, making cooking and cleaning and living bearable without a painful glare. 
A thoughtful and patient consideration.
Someone had attempted to add some levity with brown and blue plaid wallpaper around the cove of the dinner table, all the way to the other side of the room around the kitchen counters and stove. But unfortunately for everyone else, the wallpaper is hideous, only tampered by the off-white counters and cupboards. 
The cupboards have glass doors, blurring ceramic cups and plates on the tops of the shelves. 
It reminds you of the small apartment Anna and you lived in back in Boston, when it was just the two of you. It wasn’t much, but it felt sturdy, secure. Safe.
A door to the right of the stove has a latch, and you lift it and poke your head inside. A chilly darkness greets you, along with the scent of wet, deep earth. A basement? No. Not this close to the kitchen. Curiosity pulling you forward, you descend the sturdy wooden stairs, into the sunken darkness. You count ten until a draft licks your ankles. You keep going, one squeak of wood after another until - you touch soil. The heady scents of pine bark and peat moss soothe the air from where your feet press into the ground, fertility thick like mushrooms in the gut of a lichen-drenched tree. But it’s dark, too dark to make out much, barely your own hand in front of your face. With your fingers outstretched, as if you’ll bump into a gas lamp conveniently on the ground, you shuffle forward and almost immediately a cold chain tickles your face. You grab out of instinct and pull. 
Nearly blinded by the light that erupts from an exposed bulb directly in front of your left eye, you stagger back, wincing, your footsteps muffled by the earthen floor. You blink through the tears as the secret at the end of the stairs finally reveals itself. 
A pantry. A cellar. 
At least twenty feet deep and ten feet high, with rows and rows, stacks and stacks, wood shelves cover nearly the entire length of the underground room. In between the rows, large barrels sit, quiet and sturdy, with bottles of vinegar and olive oil sitting on their rims. 
You realize two things within seconds of each other. 
This house has electricity. It stands above the ground, proud, independent, full of heat and light. So unlike your husband’s dark hole in the ground. 
and
there is so much food. 
Pickling jars. Seed pouches. Culled wheat. Cans of fruit and vegetables and eggs. Olives with squash and pumpkins. Crates of potatoes and half bottles of wine and syrup. Onions and carrots and spices and garlic.
A feast. Meals for days and days and days. The bounties of earth stored, safe beneath the ground, like a secret. 
It’s more food than you’ve seen in years.
A hunger like you can’t remember having roars in your stomach out of nowhere and everything pitches to the right. The edges of your vision blurs, your shoulder knocking into stone wall, and breathing becomes a nearly impossible task. You turn, nearly stumbling up the dozen steps that have turned into a thousand.
The tacky memories that stick to the crevices of your dreams yawn awake, bringing with them dry mud in your mouth and thick salt to your eyes. Mud, dirt, dust – everywhere. In that stinking hut in the ground, the dust replaced your molecules, your atoms, until you too might blow away, until you are cracked and empty and dry. The static from the dust storm memories shoots down both of your arms and you sway on your feet. Your heart suddenly pounding so achingly fast, you have to drop your forehead against the flat surface of the closed door to keep the room from spinning. 
You had forgotten what safety looked like.
You had forgotten what living could be.
You know the ringing sound of that gunshot is just in your head, it’s not real, but you shudder all the same, your hands curling into claws under your chin, your nails tearing up the white paint. 
You’re here, not there. You are safe. Ellie is safe. That house and him have been entombed together under piles of dirt, with the bugs and the rot and the stench from the weak stove. Rivers of sweat rolling down the back of your neck, you beg yourself to stop shaking. You feel like cheap terracotta pottery – made from dirt, left too long to bake in the sun and made brittle; one good tap and you’ll shatter. 
You breathe in and taste wet salt. Breathe out and cry – cry from the fear and the dread and the relief and the hope. God, that hope tastes worse than all the dirt in the Panhandle of Texas.
You cry and cry and cry until you don’t feel so brittle anymore.
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Sunlight has struck copper, heavy, tangy in the mouth, when the back door opens and the house is instantly filled with the sound of girls’ rabid conversation. You step back from the stove, cheeks warm and arm sore from continuously stirring the rice and vegetable soup. It’s not as thick as your mother once made, but without milk, it would be nearly impossible to improve. You smile at the girls as they tumble in, more dust mite than human, whispering about some secret. 
“Having fun?” You ask with a grin on your face as Ellie helps Sarah take off her shoes, already attentive to what a girl with her health concerns might need. 
There’s an overlap of chatter as Ellie and Sarah both answer you and then, answer each other.
“Well, good,” you say, turning back to the stove, making sure the bottom of the soup doesn’t burn, “but whatever you got up to, it’s all over your faces so please wash up before dinner.” 
“It smells real good, miss,” Sarah says as she hobbles over to the sink and starts rinsing off her arms and cheeks, while Ellie takes off her own shoes. “What is it?”
“Something my mom used to make when the cupboards were bare.”
Sarah stills, the water rushing over her soft skin. Those inquisitive eyes are just as captivating, just as forceful as her father’s, but for entirely different reasons. She tugs the words out of you by the sheer, needling strength of her gaze.
“I mean – I found the cellar, the house is incredibly well stocked, but I didn’t see any preserved meat or dairy and I didn’t – I didn’t think your dad would want me poking around out back.”
Immediately Sarah softens and rolls her eyes. “Dad’s all bark and no bite,” she huffs. “We’ve got stored beef and cheese in an ice chest downstairs. I’ll show you around tomorrow.”
You smile and those brown eyes go warm in the coppery light. “Thanks, Sarah.” 
“Bunch up, I gotta wash my hands too.” Ellie none-to-gently bumps Sarah with her shoulder to get to the sink but before you can scold her, Sarah swings back, using her precarious momentum, and pushes Ellie back. They both giggle. Something that’s been cramped far too long in your chest loosens. 
“So, Sarah, tell me where you are with your schooling. Do you have books, diagrams?”
She thinks for a minute as she opens a drawer that leaves her back to you and takes out two, then four thin cloth placemats. She hobbles back to the table to carefully spread them out.
“I was up to seventh grade before the school shut down. That was about two years ago, so Dad’s been trying to make sure I don’t forget anything. He got me a Midsummer Night’s Dream by Shakespeare a while ago and made me read it out loud to him. He has me work on my letters every day – including cursive.” She adds, with a bright spot of joy cranking her mouth open. You imagine someone like Sarah would have beautiful penmanship. “He shows me around the yard, asking me to identify plants and animals, especially anything that might be poisonous. I don’t think he really understands it but he explains what happens when you add water to a seed and keep it in damp earth. Oh, and he has me help balance the books for the farm – what we made, what we sold, how much we have left, stuff like that.”
You smile at her over your shoulder as Ellie hands her bowls. “Accounting.”
“Huh?”
Ellie rolls her eyes. “It’s so boring, don’t worry about it,” she whispers conspiratorially.
“What your dad is teaching you is called accounting,” you say a bit firmly, eyes tracking your niece as she shows no shame. “It’s a very special skill to have, especially if you work on a farm or in a business. Do you like it?”
She nods rapidly, those cork-screw curls bouncing around her thin face. “Yeah! I do! I’m much faster than Dad when it comes to figuring out the sums and dollar value.”
In the front hall, the clap door creaks open then slams shut, heavy footfalls proceeding the man that makes them.
“Does that happen a lot?” you ask softly as Sarah sidles up next to you to peer into the pot.
“Where I know more than my dad?” Sarah smirks up at you, all devious youth. “More often than you think.”
A mini sun bursts from the ceiling as Joel flicks on the light switch and is almost immediately tackled by Sarah. The copper sun on the horizon finally, in the distracted moment, slips down and drags the night behind it. It’s purple twilight outside when Joel lifts his head from the embrace around Sarah’s shoulders to stare at the two strangers in his kitchen.
“Dinner’s almost ready,” you say brightly and you can almost picture your mother in the same exact position in front of the stove, stirring soup until her cheeks were pink, her hand resting low on her back, her tummy round and full in her second attempt to keep her husband’s rage diverted from her. It’s a boy, she promised.
The memory makes you so violently ill out of nowhere, you lose your appetite. But you persevere; you carry on and load up the bowls Sarah stacked for you. Ellie saves you from having to dislodge the prickly knot in your throat when she snags a bowl and eagerly yells, “get it while it’s hot!”
The arrangements from the stove to the table are a bit of a blur, the slick anxious weight from earlier today curling around your lungs again as you remember shadows in chairs like these, but so different from the flesh-and-blood bodies that occupy them now. 
You’re dazed, a little light-headed, but not so much to miss the glance between Joel and Ellie. A junkyard puppy skirting the territory of an older watchdog, a bone in each of their mouths and dragged to opposite corners of the battlefield. Satisfied with the lines of demarcated territory that had been drawn, they call a temporary truce by eating in complete silence, until Sarah groans.
“Oh my god, this is better than it smells!” she hums, her mouth full of potatoes. 
“Just wait till she adds chicken,” Ellie grumbles, mouth cupped open to keep from spilling. You watch her, a faint smile on your face, and the slippery feeling fades. When cleaning up, she missed a spot on her left nostril and you fight the urge to clean it with your thumb.
“There’s more.” 
Your gaze snaps to Joel hunched over his bowl. The spoon that Ellie and Sarah have to both clutch in their fists to eat barely swings between his massive fingers. 
Joel’s dark eyes trace down your nose, your chin, your neck, to where your hands lay flat on the table in front of you. Your own bowl and spoon sit on the counter behind you. You worry you might have upset him, with the way he’s frowning.
“There’s more,” he repeats, same tone. 
“I'm sorry?” 
He puts his spoon down and clears his throat, then nods to the pot on the stove. Ellie watches him out of the corner of her eye.
“I saw how much you made. If you’re hungry, you should eat.” 
As though speaking a language only you could hear, he looks at Ellie the same time you do. 
She frowns. “What? Is there something on my face?”
Sarah begins to giggle, nodding, when Joel starts again.
“You should eat. There’s enough.” 
It’s like his eyes can see through your blue veins and clammy skin, to your yellow bones and clawing stomach. You choke on the mudball that’s been hovering in your throat for months and nod.
“Alright.”
You don’t know if you’re actually hungry – you can’t really remember the taste of warm food – or if you’re doing it just to appease him, but something about the heat of the bowl and solid spoon in your hand, it rouses you from this sinking you find yourself in. Your bones feel like jelly.
“How’re the fields, Dad?” Sarah asks with her big eyes, seemingly unaware of the layered exchange between you and her father, or kind enough not to address it. 
He responds to her, his voice deep in the cavern of his chest. It’s an easy way he speaks to her, heavy with the seriousness she’s earned to be talked to like an adult, but gentle enough that for all his low grumbling, it comes out as a thick murmur. You find yourself listening to their conversation, their interactions, as soothing as music turned low from a well-tuned radio. Ellie is even roped in when Sarah tells Joel all about the Space Family Robinson and Ellie’s knife. “It’s really cool, Dad,” she says preemptively. “She knows how to use it and she’s really safe.” 
“Well, if it’s really cool . . .” he fills his mouth with potatoes, tamping down the ghost of a grin on his lips around the spoon. 
Ellie shuffles in her seat, her own hesitant smile glittering in her eyes, and with only minor prompting, she holds no prisoners when gleefully telling Sarah that she’s got the story of finding a mess of wriggling worms out by the back of the barn all wrong. 
“Just keep ‘em outta my side of the bed, alright?” You grin at her, spooning another dribble of soup into your mouth. You’ve realized too much, too fast can just as easily twist your stomach so you focus on cradling a digestible amount of food – broth, potato, carrots – in the well of your spoon. 
But the landscape beyond the silver lip has stilled. Both girls are happily slurping up the last bits of their meals, throwing quips back and forth, but Joel’s shoulders have locked up again, the bones of his wrists flat, a static alertness that you’re sure would travel all the way down to his ankles if he was standing up right. You aren’t sure if Sarah has picked up on the subtle change in his breathing – from the deep well of his lungs to shortened and shallow – but somehow you have. 
You’re staring at him far too long.
Those thick eyebrows pitch down again. Beneath the loose button that pins your dress closed over your chest, you feel a swell of heat and you wish you were like Ellie, capable of making an easy joke – what, is there something on my face? The heat bubbles almost uncomfortably under his weighted gaze. 
“I hate bugs,” you blurt out, desperate to give him what he wants, if only you knew. The girls glance at your sudden outburst. “I don’t like worms especially. I don’t mind straw beds, as long as they’re clean – I mean, I–I hope they are, the straw beds, not the worms.” 
Another eternal second of being pinned down by Joel’s frown, this one decidedly less hostile, before understanding breaks open the harsh lines of his mouth and around his eyes. His eyes go wide for less than breath, then he drops his gaze to the bowl. His shoulders shift, muscle redistributing weight as he settles his thick forearm closer to the edge of the table.
Oh, that relief of muscle says. 
“You’re not sleeping in the barn.” Joel says, head tucked down. At that, Ellie slows her ravenous eating and frowns at him. 
“Then where are we sleeping?”
Joel lifts his head, a new, special emotion just for her tugging on his mouth: exasperation. “My room. You two in there and I’m takin’ the couch.” 
Shame and embarrassment drip down over your skull, between your ears, like a cold, runny egg. 
“No, we couldn’t possibly–,” 
He shakes his head, eyes still on the split potato chunk at the bottom of the bowl. His hand flexes briefly and you think of it around the bridle of the horse. 
“It’s not up for discussion.” 
Beside him, Sarah frowns at him and you’d wonder how many times in her life he’s ever said that to her – if you could think properly over the roaring of blood in your ears. 
“Joel,” you say, something syrupy under your tongue molding the words Mr. Miller into a tone you’d use for an old friend. “I can’t ask you to–,”
Hand flexes. The seat of the chair squeaks.
“You’re not askin’, I’m tellin’.” You’re still vastly underprepared for when those eyes - those deep, dark eyes - suddenly snap on you, as if your very presence commands his entire attention. You notice the dirt underneath his nails and around the knot of his wrist on the table. He’s filthy. 
Quietly, with the surety of a dog slipping its snout between its paws, he cuts the last chunk of potato in half with the curve of his spoon. “The new mattresses’ll be here next week. We’ll make do ‘till then.”
The slurp of soup between his lips seems to signal the end of the conversation, but you can’t quite mash together your kaleidoscope-spinning impressions of the man across the table from you. 
“Thank you . . . Joel.” 
He nods, back teeth breaking apart the soft mush of the potato. He swallows and glances back up at you. 
“It’s good,” he says, briefly holding his spoon aloft. “You did good.”
His words burst the choking bubble in your chest and warmth drips down your spine, splashing in the cradle of your hips. Hunger rises, but it’s a different kind of hunger. A growl of neglect. One you sometimes wondered if it was even possible for you to ever even feel. 
Even while you were married to your husband.
You put your spoon down to keep your hand from shaking. The soup won’t feed this new churning hunger and, frankly, you don’t know what will. 
You did good, he praised, parsed out like torn bread tossed across a black lake. 
It makes you warm in places food never could.
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The immediate next morning, you meet the sun early, eagerly. Eager to wake and rise and become so useful, you are intricately tied to this house; if you are removed, a vital piece of the land, the prairie is torn up along with you. Ellie sleeps softly next to you, curled up in the same position she was in the hotel bed, tucked in so tightly as if to take up the least amount of space possible. She sleeps, unbothered, blissful, and again you fight the urge to brush the hair that covers her sleeping eyes. You settle for tugging the beautiful quilt, with its stunning blue and red and green patches, up to her shoulders. 
As you tie your dress up, your suitcase partially open and on the ground, movement from outside in the dawning pink catches your eye. A brisk shadow, those thick shoulders proceeding a taught waist are unmistakable as they move towards the barn. You stand, transfixed for a moment as broad hands slide open the barn doors, you hear a faint creak, and he disappears inside. The capability of those hands; the surety, where every action is deliberate and intentional – it makes something arc up your throat. A warm piercing that bursts through bone and muscle alike. Trembling fingers tug at the wilting lace around the cuffs of your dress, imagination stretching out into the dark morning, inspired by curious and impossible ideas of those hands. 
Something – most likely Sarah next door – squeaks the floorboard and those tendrils of thought snap back as if someone had slammed a lid shut. You glance at the clock and make a mental note to wake up earlier tomorrow, to beat him to the kitchen. 
You are also desperately eager to get out of the room where you can practically smell Joel on the walls. It’s simple, just like the rest of the house, but amongst the hand-drawn sketches of himself and birds (likely gifts from Sarah), the half-spent candles and well-read books, you find him in everything. You wonder, briefly, if the indentations made on the cotton mattress are from him or you – the scent of his hair in the pillow from sweat or soap. 
The encroaching feeling that you don’t belong here in this house nearly swallows you whole as you dress in a room you definitely don’t belong in. 
Joel remains a distant figure, a familiar shadow across the lightning horizon, long after you finish the eggs and toast. You consider perusing the pantry for blueberries or something similar, when Sarah comes down. Fresh-faced, dressed with the care most people reserve for church, she stumbles in, her braces clacking as she finds a seat at the table. 
You notice a brief flash of pain across her face when you bring over a plate of food. She unconsciously rubs a circle with her thumb on her left knee as she picks up her fork.
“Pain today?” You ask, eyes on her knee, even though it’s obvious. 
She nods, strained. “Just a little bit. But it’s nothing. I’m sure it’ll go away when it warms up outside.” 
You doubt that is remotely true, but you let her hold the comforting lie. She doesn’t seem like the type to swallow pity with ease, and neither was Anna. You put on that detached but focused "nurse's" mask, your lips a straight line and brow furrowed, your voice slipping on something more commanding too.
“Let me see.” 
Sarah blinks at you briefly, evidently surprised by your shift in demeanor but eventually, she obeys. She drops her fork and slides the chair back, the chair legs squeaking against the rough wooden floor.
You crouch in front of her, gathering up her ankle first and testing its mobility.
“When were you diagnosed?” you ask, as soft as you are firm.
“Never, technically.” She watches you and occasionally winces. You wonder how long she’s grown stiff like this. “The doc had left over braces that Dad bought before the guy skipped town.”
“So then how did you know it was polio?” 
By her sudden stillness, you know this is the first time that word has been uttered under this roof in a long time. You lower her ankle, rising gaze meeting hers. Her mouth is pulled tight. You can practically read the familiar headlines as they scroll across her mind.
New Polio Cases by the Thousands
Polio Claims Life of Infant
Polio Outbreak: Thirteen Dead
“Not every case is serious,” you say, gently, using the word serious in place of fatal. You don’t want to scare her unnecessarily. But by her wide eyes, you know the word sits in her chest all the same. 
“I know. And I know it can be made worse by moving too much. That’s why Dad’s always on me about resting and going slow.” 
You return to your examination. Her skin is rubbed raw in some places by the braces. You remind yourself to ask Joel for some old sheets to make better padding. 
“That’s not always true,” you say, shifting to her other leg. “Even though she was sore after, Anna often said she felt the stiffness go away after walking around the neighborhood block.”
Curious, Sarah tilts her head, those lovely curls swaying like leaves in a breeze. “Who’s Anna?”
Your skin around your eyes tightens – how could you be so careless with such a secret – when you hear feet thundering down the stairs and a second later, Ellie swings around the lip of the doorway.
“Is that toast?” She asks, eyes wide and hopeful. “If you got bacon, I’m gonna start kissing faces.”
You and Sarah exchange a small grin before you stand up right and Sarah returns to her own meal.
“No bacon today, but who knows what else is stored in the pantry?” 
“Oh, fuck yeah,” Ellie exclaims as she slides into a chair, her own plate pilled far too for a girl her size. “Treasure hunt.” 
You see the tips of Sarah’s ears go briefly pink at Ellie’s language but the muffled smile on her face hints at awe, impressed – so you let that one slide. A stream of light through the half-shut curtain tugs your thoughts outside, to the man literally toiling in the fields. 
“Does your dad want me to bring him some food?” You ask, standing from the chair and glancing out the window. You can’t see him any more and for some reason that makes your chest go tight.
Sarah shook her bouncy curls. “No. He’ll come in and get it when he’s hungry.” 
You didn’t like the idea that you weren’t going to be directly feeding the man who employed you literally to cook for him and his daughter.
“Does he like coffee?”
Sarah arches an eyebrow at you. “Yeah, he loves it. But I’ve tried for years to make it the way he likes and he always drinks it, but I think a little piece of him dies inside every time he does.” 
“Then you must be a great cook too,” Ellie smirks up at her. In response, Sarah smiles impishly around a mouthful of eggs. 
You hold that little bit of information about Joel - something you knew that he didn’t know you knew - close, like a dollar bill in your pocket. You drum your fingers, searching for memories of how Anna used to shoe-string coffee when you couldn’t afford a maker in Boston.
“Did you eat?”
Ellie’s voice tears your gaze from the window. Her plate is only halfway empty. Her fingers uneasily move the fork around.
“Yeah,” you answer truthfully. In fact, you are rather ashamed by how much you took, sitting at the table in the purple dark, before you remembered that you had to feed three other people. “I’m good, Ellie. Thanks.”
She nods, returning to her plate and shoveling two bites into her mouth without slowing down.
“What’s first today?” Sarah asks, her eyes bright. “I can show you my sums. We have a chalkboard in the barn.”
You smile at her eagerness to show off while Ellie dejectedly pokes at her remaining floppy eggs. She had never been one for school, another thing you found hard to relate to about her. Fortunately for her, Anna nor you ever had the time to be as diligent about her education as Joel had been for Sarah. And unfortunately for her, you intend to fix that as quickly as possible. 
“I’d love to see them, Sarah, but would you mind showing me around the cellar first? Maybe there is bacon hiding down there somewhere.”
You don’t miss the small smile that creeps across Ellie’s face.
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“Junk or keep?” 
Sarah looks up from the tip of her stick dragging nonsense through the barn’s dirt floor, her chin flat in her palm, elbow on her knee. She frowns at Ellie holding up . . . something that might have been a tractor part at one time. 
“I don’t even know what that is, so – junk?” 
Ellie shrugs, tosses the piece back and forth in her hands, and then chucks it like a ball to the opposite end of the barn. It collides loudly with the wall and Flora, the white and black cow, lifts her head at the noise from her stable and lets out a low groan. 
The entire barn smells of hay and animal but in a way that is warm, almost comforting. The two cows lazily munch from their troughs in their stalls, occasionally eyeing you as you carry items back and forth. It’s fortifying in a way only working outside and with your hands can offer. 
You turn to her disapprovingly but she’s already back, elbow-deep, in the pile you had designated hers to sort. Sarah, to whom you suggested rest this morning, goes back to boredly drawing circles in the dirt. Even though she clearly hates the idea of being idle, you are surprised she takes your medical advice without any fight. 
If you had successfully completed your duties as cook, now it was time to take on your other task as teacher. Sarah had a few textbooks, but mostly outdated and only one copy. You know trying to find a full library in times like these is laughably impossible, but there is nothing wrong with hoping for a blackboard. You’d made one before when the school district you tempted at didn’t approve new funding, and you feel confident you could do it again. Trouble is, you have nowhere to put it, much less set up a laughably impossible classroom for two students. 
Until Sarah casually mentioned the unfortunate pile of junk in the back of her father’s barn, “taking up at least half the space in there.” 
She wasn’t wrong.
“Yuck – is your dad a hoarder?” Ellie asks with slight disgust as she pulls up a stack of newspapers held together by twine. “Why does he even have this stuff?”
Sarah grins, delighted by Ellie’s prickly teasing. “This place actually used to be pretty organized. This was his space for a long time – where he went to think, or figured out what crops we needed for the next year.”
Her smile crumbles. “But, uh, then I got sick and now he doesn’t come out here unless it's for work.”
Ellie pinches the soft of her cheek with her teeth, nodding, her eyes downcast.
“So . . . junk?”
“Yeah, I guess so.” 
The stack of newspapers comes up to her knees and Ellie struggles, off-balanced, to carry it across the hay-covered floor. 
You reach for it and she gives it to you gratefully. You take it with a smile; you never know what she’s going to appreciate or just see it regretfully as charity or pity. 
“I think your dad is losing it,” Ellie says as she wipes sweat from her brow, shaking her head far too seriously. “Losin’ it, big time.” 
Sarah giggles.
You drop the stack of papers in the corner, but when you let go, the string snaps and the papers spill everywhere. With a sigh, you kneel down and gather them back together, but not before a few headlines catch your eye. 
Your heart twists.
Paralysis Takes Three Children
Join the Mothers’ March on Polio
QUARANTINE: POLIOMYELITIS
Why would Joel keep these? Everyone knew how devastating polio could be to children, even infants. Why would he –
Roughly dispersed throughout the article, sentences and phrases were underlined in blue pen. Sentences containing, “iron lung”, “bedrest”, “antibiotic” –
No cure.
Warmth spread out across your chest. Joel was looking for a way to treat his daughter, the only way he could in a town without a doctor: outside information. Something about this makes the space beneath your chest bone hurt so badly, you get a little nauseous. 
Now you consider conserving these papers as if they are important historical documents. Behind you, where Ellie and Sarah are lobbying jokes back and forth, you see more stacks of neatly contained newspapers. He looked everywhere and found nothing. 
You reshuffle the stack that fell, when you spot something else that hardens the warm feeling in your chest and makes it brittle.
Mob Over Breadline Kills FIVE
Experts Say There is No Way Out of This Depression
Mother of Drowned Children Claims She Did “What Was Best”
The rough floor hurts your knees. Eyes closed, you try to ignore the flood of images of what you witnessed in Boston, how desperate and cruel people became in Oklahoma. With each memory, your heartbeat pounds harder.
Red. Blood. Pink. Skin. White. Bone.
The riots got to be so terrible, but people were just hungry.
Ellie calling your name jerks you out of the sinking muck of memories. 
“What? What is it?”
She eyes you with distant concern then glances at Sarah. “She wanted to know where you learned all this stuff.”
“About cooking, and teaching, and nursing,” Sarah clarifies. “I think I’ve read every book in our house probably four times and I still feel like I don’t know anything.” 
“You probably know more than you think,” you offer as you scoop up the uncomfortable newspapers, easily switching tracks of thought to mute the swell of horrors from the rotting box in your mind. You leave them in the corner for Joel to do what he wishes with them and stand, dusting your dress off. “What do you call the process by which plants get energy from the sun?”
Sarah’s eyes brighten immediately. Where her body fails her, her mind is as sharp as a tack.
“Photosynthesis!”
“Good,” you nod, smiling. “And what’s the primary source of energy in animal cells?”
“The mitochondria!”
“Very good.” 
Ellie sighs angrily from her pile and puts her hands on her hips. “I think I’m gonna make like mitosis and split, if we keep talking about all this boring stuff.”
Scorned for her love of learning a second time and already in a bad mood from the pain this morning, Sarah frowns. 
“What’s your problem? Why do you act like school sucks? You had your mom teaching you –,”
“She’s not my mom!” Ellie snaps back, her knuckles white around a rusted bucket. “She’s just my aunt!”
“Yeah, well, I have an uncle I never even get to see!” Sarah stands up as smoothly as she can, but her knees and ankles are pink again. Her calves shake. “You’re lucky!”
Ellie’s teeth clench in the back of her jaw, lip curling. 
You remember distinctly more than once having to pick Ellie up from school early because she’d been caught fighting and you take a step in her direction, even if Sarah could no doubt land a few solid ones in. 
“And you’re–,”
“Ellie.” You know how rough Ellie can be. You remember the tone to take with unruly students, even if you don’t mean an ounce of it. “Don’t. Just let it g–,”
“Why do you always take her side?” That ire whips around to you. Loyalty, that was another trait her mother favored. Ellie’s shoulders roll forward, her fists clenched. “Why do you let her talk like she knows anything about us? About Mom?” 
“I’m not taking a side, Ellie,” you say firmly, your chin tilted down to her. One day she’s going to be taller than you, you know it. “Both of you, this is enough.”
That was the wrong thing to say. Ellie tosses the broken bucket in her hand to the ground and storms towards the barn doors. 
“You just like her because she’s a fucking dork like you,” she growls under her breath before shoving open the large square door. 
It swings shut, the metal clattering against the wood. The brief stream of light filtering in is shortly swallowed up into the shadows again. 
“I’m sorry,” Sarah says almost immediately, her brown eyes swiveling on you. Her skin is tinged a little lighter and there’s sweat along her hairline. With a fleeting flash of worry, you wonder if she’s in more pain than she lets on. “I didn’t mean it . . . I mean, I think she is lucky to have – but . . . I shouldn’t have said that.”
She drops your gaze and you think those dark eyes might be softer, wetter than usual. She plucks at the hem of her dress, her mouth twisted to the side. 
Where Ellie explodes outwards, Sarah implodes inwards. You never could understand Ellie’s inclination to destroy everything around her.
You hand her a broom, with a smile on your face. 
“Do you want to tell me about your uncle?” 
She takes it slowly from you, eyebrows furrowed down. This is a look you are familiar with, even when it comes to Ellie. She is stuck between answering like a kid, getting it all off her chest to be free of the emotional burden, and swallowing it all to please the adults in her life. 
You’ve also found Ellie tends to open up when she doesn’t have to look you in the eye. Sarah’s own gaze is stuck to the floor as she vaguely sweeps at the hay. 
“We don’t talk about Uncle Tommy a lot,” she mumbles. 
You focus on untangling an old bridle. “Oh? Why?”
“Dad’s still pissed at him for moving out to California. Said he left what’s really important for a bullshit dream.” Her eyes pop up, wide and shocked. “Sorry, that’s what he said.” 
Despite your limited time with him, you can easily see how Joel Miller might take something like that personally, but you just store that away too, another breadcrumb leading the way.
“Why California?”
“It’s–,”
The barn door opens again and Joel’s shadow breaks through the almost painful white light. Behind him, Everett (the horse) snorts and huffs, pulling along the giant creaking plow, the air suddenly pungent with the smell of warm dirt, leather, and animal sweat. Joel murmurs something to the frothing snout and wipes his own forehead with the back of his arm, smearing sweat and dirt across his browline. He stops when he sees you two staring. 
By Sarah’s wide eyes, it’s clear Uncle Tommy is a subject that is not often brought up in this house either. Joel frowns, but just as he opens his mouth, you interject – you know how to deflate a potentially angry man.
“We were just cleaning up the back of the barn,” you say, careful not to use words like junk or scrap heap. “I’m hoping to use the space as a school, for Sarah and Ellie.” 
His gaze settles on you, like the dust at his feet. 
“Mhmm.” His tone scrapes something low in your stomach. 
“I’m sorry – I should have asked – I didn’t think –,”
“No, it’s –,” he shakes his head. His eyes catch Everett’s foamy nose and he pats it, noting the long sweaty forelock. “Smart. Next spring, we’ll come up with something better, but there’s no time now, with the harvest comin’.” 
You nod, peeling off what you were going to say from the back of your teeth with your tongue. Joel casually drags his fingers through Everett’s forelock before stepping back to unhook the plow’s leather buckles. It’s when he shifts towards Sarah, looking to her, that he grimaces. 
He put his weight on his right knee and it immediately caused him pain.
“We could help,” you offer, eyes on his knee, his thick fingers rubbing into the muscle just above his knee cap. "Ellie loves being out in the sun and I can teach her how to plant–,”
“‘M fine,” he mutters gruffly, straightening up and wiping his hands on the cloth around his neck. “Sarah, go inside for a bit. There’s something she n’ I gotta discuss.”
His tone indicates this is not the time for eye rolling but she does it anyway.
“I’ve said for years that you need help, Dad. She’s just offering to–,”
“Sarah, inside. Please.” 
Sarah scowls and drops the broom against one of the stalls. She hobbles out of the barn, first scrunching her nose up at Joel’s obvious smell, then muttering something about having to go look for the hell spawn. You finger the scrap metal in your hands, a fluttery nervousness growing in your stomach the closer Sarah gets to the door. With one more disapproving shake of her thick curls, she shuts the door behind her. 
Everett nickers and paws the ground, eager to be returned to bed after a long morning of work. Light streams in gold from the slanted windows above the loft, separating the front stalls from the back of the barn where you stand, fidgeting. There’s no escaping the hot animal smell now, and it’s your turn to be intercepted by Joel. 
Another apology is nearly out of your mouth when he speaks first.
“Do you know how to shoot a gun?” He asks, his mouth set into a firm line. In the half-darkness of the barn, you can’t quite make out his eyes. 
You swallow against the encroaching dryness in your throat. “I-I have a gun. Keep it in my purse, o-only for emergencies and I–,” 
“That’s not what I asked.” He shakes his head, tone soft, almost gentle. He glances past you to the stacks of newspapers you had moved into the corner, the ones about violence and pestilence. He rubs his fingers between the bridle and Everett’s thick hair. “Found a hole in the barbed wire fence today.” 
You frown, the tension of his voice indicating a severity you are utterly unprepared for. “What does that mean?”
“Someone tried to cut through.” 
A white hot panic lurches up your spine out of nowhere. Fueled by fear, you see the outline of your husband shambling across the propertyline and you go cold. 
“W-why would someone do that? What are they after?”
His hand stills as every muscle in his body briefly tenses. Eyes dark beneath a tight brow, the tightness in his jaw is an answer and a threat all at once. He looks almost offended by your question.
You know exactly what they would take. 
All you can do is nod. 
Everett nudges Joel’s shoulder, impatient to get out of the harness, for that bath he so very much deserves. As though you had disappeared, Joel unbuckles the restraints, taking a brush to the gray coat as he goes. Maybe you’d misread that last signal and he thought he told you to fuck off.
You move towards the back door when his voice, timbre deep and low, stops you again.
“I’m gonna to teach you to shoot.” He announces to the lathered withers of the horse. “But you keep that gun on you, at all times, especially when you’re out with the girls. You got that?”
He pauses just as he slides the hitch off the horse's back, his arms covered in dirt as dark as the leather. It’s minute, the shift in his weight, but you suddenly realize he wants verbal confirmation.
“Y-yes. Yes. I’ll take it with me.”
The minutia shifts again, a lessening of tension across his broad shoulder, his thick back. He nods. 
“Good.”
The aching need for him to say more, for that good to turn into you did good or good job – or good girl – it sparks so fast and hot inside of you, you think you’ll choke. Instead, you leave through the door on unsteady legs, jaw locked tightly shut. 
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You find comfort in the monotony of sewing. 
Anna always scolded you for it, that you were “giving into women’s work.”
How are they ever going to take us seriously when you actually like doing this dainty shit? 
But where Anna seemingly delighted in her mile-a-minute thoughts, you need an outlet – some way to settle, to ground yourself in the here and now. Furthermore, you could sew anywhere – on the train, on the bus, in a foreign house in the middle of nowhere where you were, again, dependent on the kindness of a complete stranger – 
It isn’t sewing specifically that you enjoy. If there was another activity where your mind could detach itself from your body, you would have liked it too. Here, in this space of blank concentration, you separate further from yourself with every stitch you pull together. Here, you are not a sister, a housewife, or an aunt. Not a nurse or a teacher or a failed fieldhand. 
Not scared of living or scared of your husband or scared that you’ll fail your sister over and over and over again – 
For a handful of minutes, you are not scared and you are the closest thing to yourself you can possibly be. You think, as a child that might have been the closest you’d actually been to understanding your own wants and dreams and desires, but now it is through this act of repetition, of delicate guiding, do you find yourself remembering what it was like to exist unafraid, as thoughtless as a child.
You sit on the edge of Joel’s bed, eased into something vaguely like relaxation by the needle and thread in your hand. You’d found some old pillows in the barn earlier today and surprisingly the stuffing was still intact. After watching Sarah struggle today, you knew you couldn’t spend another second watching the poor girl hobble around on painful braces. 
It’s twilight, the sun gone beneath a blanket of scarlet and indigo, everyone fed and full – the girls almost instantly forgetting their first fight in favor of a discussion about their most effective marble-flicking techniques – and you already have at least one leather-bound pad that is twice as thick as her old one. You grin, excited to share your creation to her. You wonder what Joel will say.
Through the wall over your shoulder, in Sarah’s room, you can hear the low murmur of their voices, as quick and fast as two co-conspirators. You can’t quite make out what they’re saying, but the words don’t matter. It is the high joy in Sarah’s voice, or the creaky laughter from Joel. They could be speaking in a completely incomprehensible language but the sentiment is unmistakable: you make me happy and I love you.
I love you.
The needle and thread stills in your lap. 
You glance out the window, to a much smaller shadow in front of the barn as it cuts and darts in the blurry half-light. The silver tip of Anna’s knife winks in the glint of the light from the windows as Ellie slashes and digs in the open air. Alone. 
In the late hours, in the hours when the veil between life and death felt so especially fragile, Anna made you promise that you'd look out for Ellie, to raise her as your own. To finally give her a childhood like the two of you never had. 
You had done that. You raised her. She’s alive and healthy and fierce. 
But would she find your sentiment about her unmistakable? Do you know hers as intimately as you knew your sister’s? 
Do you make her happy when both of you are constantly reminded of the ghost between you?
Sarah’s chatter echoes throughout the dark house, disembodied and entirely untethered.
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It’s one week into this new, adjusted life in a house you haven’t yet found a home in when the unthinkable happens.
A loud, wet cry startles you awake and immediately your hand flies towards Ellie, panic like ice in your jaw. Your palm touches her shoulder, but she’s already sitting up, eyes towards the door. She glances at you and from your stumble out of a dreamless sleep, you realize it wasn’t Ellie who made that noise. 
It comes again, as sharp as a bone crack, and you both scramble out of bed.
Sarah. 
Up against the far wall, in the corner where her bed tucks up into the corner, Joel holds her like a lion clutches to prey. 
Giant, fat teardrops pour down the sides of her ashen cheeks, those bright eyes clamped shut, her mouth twisted in agony and she claws at her father’s forearm across her shoulders. His other hand is going white from her fingers crushing his in a bone-cracking grip. His voice is soft, firm, and fast in her ear, comforting and scared as hell, as she whimpers. 
Every muscle from her thighs down is stretched taut. Every muscle unwillingly tightened, flexed, the chemicals in her brain battling the commands of the bacteria. The pain, as described in medical journals, is crippling. 
Ellie glances at you out of the corner of your eye. Muscle spasms. 
“Sarah, darling, how long has this been going on?” She’s trembling from the pain and exhaustion. You wrap your robe around you before kneeling down to inspect her — and you feel Joel’s glare nearly singe the skin from your face.
“Don’t touch her,” he snarls and pulls her closer. Sarah whines and buries her face in his shoulder, trying to stifle her sobbing to keep from shaking and causing more spasms. “She’s–,” 
“I can help her, Joel.” Your training became a bulwark – strong, immobile – in moments like these. Maybe it was all an act but that first rush of hope that you could ease pain, soothe what hurts, made you feel like you were made of gold. You let that unbreakable shine pierce Joel’s gaze. “But you need to listen to me.” 
Sarah squeaks and you watch his resolve instantly break. Shakely, he nods. 
“Ellie,” you instruct over your shoulder. “Go start boiling water. There’s a pail out on the porch.”
She is out the door before you finish your sentence. She knows exactly what you need. 
Help on the way, you turn back to Sarah, her feet twisted in grotesque contortions. 
“How long has this been going on?” 
“About ten minutes,” Joel grumbles. She squeezes his hand so hard you hear his knuckle pop. She sobs, open mouth, and he presses his cheek to her. He murmurs softly, “I’m sorry, I know, I’m sorry.” 
“Is this the longest fit she’s had?”
Joel reluctantly nods. 
“Sarah,” you say and gently touch her knee. She peels her eyes open, cheeks stained with tears, eyes wet with fear. “We need to loosen your muscles, okay? That’s what’s causing you pain right now. So, we’re going to use heat and pressure to do that.” 
She nods, gaze solidifying with your every word, every word a new step out of the path of pain. Joel smooths her curls off her sweaty forehead, his own wide-eyed stare never leaving your face. You roll up your sleeves and curl up your hair off the back of your neck just as Ellie stumbles back into the room. She’s got at least five towels around her neck, and she’s red-faced and straining from keeping the pail of boiling water from spilling or burning her. She eases it down next to you and hands you a towel. Both of you each take a side and immediately tear the one in half.
Before you wore gloves, some sort of protection, but now there is no time. You hear Ellie inhale sharply, recognizing what you’re about to do a second before you do it.
You dip the towel into the steaming water, let it soak, and pull it out. You grit your teeth against the immediate burn on your palms, the trail of fire over your knuckles and wrists, as you squeeze out the dripping water, Sarah’s soft cries in your ears enough to push past your own pain.
Half-way between an inhale and an exhale, you think you hear your name. 
Ellie already has another dry towel loose around one of Sarah’s legs. She glances at you, her brows knitted together. 
Ready? She asks without words.
You drape the hot towel around her leg and Sarah yelps. She thrashes in her father’s arms as you wrap the towel tighter and tighter. Expecting Joel’s inevitable bark, a hard shove against your shoulder, get away from my daughter – but it never comes. 
As soon as you tighten the towel as firmly as it can safely go, Ellie slides in next to you and begins to massage the muscles in her calves, her feet, her toes. 
Sarah whimpers again, but the sound isn’t as sharp, pain-choked. Joel holds her tighter, as if her torso is also knotted and could be relieved with warmth.
On an inhale, you pick up the other half of the towel, drench it in boiling water, and wring it out with your bare hands. A silent prayer for lotion is fleeting as it drifts through the dense focus of your mind. You squeeze out the dripping water and wrap Sarah’s other leg, prepped again by Ellie. She watches you as you tug and tuck the steaming towel, her own focus as sharp as a tack, mirroring your motions as you knead and massage the muscles. 
After a few minutes of faint whining, a couple of sobs, the room slips into an exhausted silence. Her breathing slow on his chest, Joel draws back her damp curls and finds her face relaxed, asleep. His mouth parts and the skin around his eyes goes slack.
Relief. 
With a shudder, Joel knocks his forehead against hers, his thumb on her chin as if to feel her breathing. You look away, the moment so tender it shouldn’t be witnessed. 
You realize then how badly your palms ache. 
The towels have lost their immediate heat, so you unwind them. Ellie’s small hands overlap yours as she helps. For some reason, you can’t bring yourself to look her in the eyes. The both of you fall back into roles most comfortable to you. 
The wet towels gone, you wrap her legs more tightly this time, slightly past the edge of comfort. You ease her back, flat into the bed, and some small part of you is aware Joel is letting you guide her. He slips out from behind her when you tuck her in, tight with another blanket around her legs. She could be exhausted for days after this.
“We’ll need to keep heat on her legs every thirty minutes, fifteen if we can manage,” you say as you fold up the damp towels. Joel hasn’t moved. Stares down at Sarah’s small body. “I’d like to keep a warming pan here, to have hot water on hand if she wakes up in pain again. When she comes out of it, she needs water and food. Have her eat it slowly, small bites at first.”
You remember a doctor at the hospital where you trained as a nurse give advice to a newer doctor: medical mysteries and illnesses are one thing. Nervous parents are something else. 
You call his name and he doesn’t move. 
You step forward, touch his forearm, and he blinks at you. He feels so remarkably solid.
“Joel. She’s safe.” 
“Do you want me to go get more towels?” Ellie’s gathered the damp towels off the floor, her chest wet. She stares at Sarah’s bed frame. 
“Get breakfast first. Then I might need your help later.” She nods, turns to go, but hesitates. Her mouth is pinched tight, eyes wide, looking for something to ground her, to calm the vortex that the adrenaline in her veins widens with each beat of her heart. She looks so . . . childlike. 
She looks so much like Anna.
The momentary fortified strength shatters and you're afraid again. What do you say to comfort her? What would Anna say? Good job, I'm proud of you, thank you -
But then she turns away, carrying the dripping towels, and you lose your chance to parent.
Joel has curled himself into the rocking chair by her bed, so close his knee touches her mattress. He holds her thin hand in the cup of his two massive palms. His heel taps loosely, quietly against her rug, every possible outcome of this morning striking him in the chest with each drop of his foot. His face is a blurred, dark shadow, hanging between his shoulders.
To describe Joel in this moment, nervous seems quaint. 
In silence, you gather up the tepid pale of water and exit the room, closing the door after you.
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The rest of the day passes in haze, tendrils of sleep still between the cracks in your brain left there by the harsh break into consciousness. 
You have Ellie feed the animals, and you start a load of laundry. The ratio of dry towels to wet is rapidly becoming unbalanced and you know after the initial attack is over, pressure is more important than heat. Sarah has barely moved all day but she is responsive and drinks water when she comes out of her deep sleep. You’ve made soup again – a heavy meal that doesn’t require much managing and can be easily re-served – and it gives you time to think. Sarah mentioned the doctor skipping town, that he had all but dropped everything and ran. You wondered what else might be in the doctor’s old shop. Morphine seemed too valuable to have been ignored in any ransacking, but often doctors kept a secret supply, unbeknownst to even most nurses for special cases or when supply was low. You think about that and stir the pot as the sun crawls across the sky. 
With your head bent over the pot, something moves in the field outside and you watch with surprise as Ellie leads one of the cows, Fauna, out of the barn. Through the rippled glass, you watch her talking to the cow, her face scrunched up in concentration, and shockingly, Fauna appears interested, her big ears flicking back and forth. But Ellie leads her only a little bit from the barn, in the grass but visible from the house. She drops to her knees and takes out a wooden stake and a hammer — nevermind where she found those – and then ties Fauna’s lead rope to top of the stake sticking out of the ground.
Ellie wags her finger, her back to the window, her stance very serious. You smile to yourself and to Anna as she marches back inside and shortly returns with Flora, the other cow, to do the same. She gives them both a stern talking to, as evident by her hands on her hips, before turning back to the house. You glance down, knowing she wouldn’t appreciate it if you saw her babysitting the cows. It was what Joel did every morning – let the cows out to graze – but she did it in her own Ellie way: on a smaller scale and perhaps with a little more gentleness. 
See, Anna, she’s all grown up.
By nightfall, both of you are exhausted. You don’t know how Joel manages to run this place by himself, especially with a sick child, but after one day, you’re ready to curl up into bed and never leave. Ellie looks like she’s about to face-plant into her soup, her eyes half-shut. You smile, stretching, before gently shaking her shoulder.
“Go to bed, Ellie. You’re exhausted.”
She blinks harshly, indignant and scowly, as you take both your bowls to the sink. “‘M fine. Just a lil’ –,” she yawns deeply, “sleepy.” 
“You’re right. My mistake.”
“Besides, we got coffee coming, don’t we?” 
On the counter, your make-shift coffee press gurgles, the cap steaming from the bubbling water over the grounds you found in the cellar. You eye her over your shoulder.
“You don’t even like coffee.” 
“Yeah but you’re staying up, right? You and Joel?”
Neither of you had seen Joel leave Sarah’s room all day. Ellie eyes the ceiling as if she can see right through it. 
“I’m taking him some food and a cup of coffee,” you say as you finish drying the plates. There’s a rigidness to your hands as you delicately lay the plates flat, unconsciously careful to keep them from making a sound as they touch. “But at St. Joseph’s, some of the nurses would offer to keep vigil, to give the parents a chance to rest.” 
You know in your heart he won’t take it. You just hope he finds your coffee inoffensive.
But Ellie doesn’t respond. She sits still, staring at the ceiling. 
“Ellie, she’s going to be okay.”
Those bright eyes fall on you. “You can’t know that.”
In your hands, you wind the damp towel between your fingers. They’re pink and still ache but the rough linen is a welcome distraction from the churning acid in your stomach.
“This isn’t going to be like last time,” you say, your hips against the counter. “Sarah’s infection is nowhere near her lungs. And she’s been responding to treatment.”
Ellie drops her gaze, her bottom lip curled between her teeth. 
“Don’t say that unless you mean it. Unless you can swear to me.” 
One of life’s simple truths: parents lie. 
You recognize there is a part of her that wants you to look her in the eyes and lie. She’d be angry, eventually, if your lies were exposed, but in that moment, as she sits in an unfamiliar house, at an unfamiliar table, with you and this wretched ailment the only things she knows to be constant – she wants a comfort you can’t give her. You are not capable of parental truth.
“I can’t promise anything.”
She inhales, breathes shaky, and exhales, the spoon in her hand trembling. “I know.” 
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Hands full of a white, chipped food tray, you knock twice carefully with one hand like you had been trained to before opening the door. The lamplight has been turned on, but the room, blanketed in darkness and shadows, looks the same. Sarah sleeps deeply, if not well, her hand curled by her face against the pillow, her heavy storm of curls cradling her head gently. Joel watches her, as still and silent as the moon. His foot has settled, but now he breathes so slow he might not be breathing at all. 
Of all the terrible things you had seen during your time as a nurse, witnessing someone like this is always the hardest. Feeling helpless is a sentiment you are all too familiar with and the thought of someone just sitting there and watching you with your grief makes your skin itch. 
“Joel.” A formality, because those trapped in a cyclone of worry require a slow approach, easing a startled animal. “I brought you something to eat.”
Speaking, it lets him acclimate to your voice. 
You set the white tray on Sarah’s dresser, a piece of furniture meticulously crafted. Like Joel’s room, there are books everywhere, but more animal drawings, some directly on the walls. Sarah’s brilliant personality expanded here, in the blues and pinks, not capable of being contained in a single body. 
A body that seems so small and fragile in that little brass bed, while her father looms impossibly large.
“Joel.” Again, soft, but this time you put a hand on his bicep. Never near the neck, an older nurse warned you, that area is sensitive. His denim shirt is soft beneath your fingers, nearly bleached white from the sun and worn smooth from dust and dirt and wind. You think you smell churned earth and hot leather in the instant it takes you to kneel down beside him, your grip sliding from his shoulder to his forearm. With the other hand, you tip a steaming cup into his open palm. 
“Sarah told me you liked coffee.”
Slowly, as though he had blinked and reality disintegrated and reformed around him, Joel’s gaze slides from Sarah’s waxy face, to yours, and then the hand on his forearm. The back of your scalp prickles, the bulwark of courtesy shaking, before you remember you’d done this hundreds of times, to people of all ages, men and women. He seems to understand this – a professional gesture – and he takes the mug from you. With an almost perplexed expression, he stares into the nearly black liquid, his jaw tight. 
And then he drinks, without saying a word. 
You think you might have heard a low rumble from him, a pleased groan as heavy as the plow in the barn outside, but the floorboards creak when you stand up, so you might have been imagining things.
“This tastes good,” he says bluntly, voice weather-beaten. You smile into the bowl of soup as you wave a hand over the steam to cool it down to something bearable. “How?”
Despite his monosyllabic responses, you take this as a good sign. Something tells you that you’ve made exceptional progress by getting him to talk at all. 
“I got pretty good at making cowboy coffee, as my sister used to call it, before we moved to Oklahoma. You already had the beans in the cellar,” you say, shrugging as you bring the soup over to him. He eyes it warily, as if this is not the appropriate time to eat, as if his own suffering would make Sarah’s lessen. 
You’d only ever seen that instinct in a handful of parents while in the hospital and it made something wide and warm press up against your chest bone. 
So you don’t give him a choice. You push the soup into his hands with enough speed that he has to take the bowl or drop it entirely. He, like most people with common sense, takes the bowl. He has a second to frown at you before you turn away to Sarah. 
“And I suspect they were hidden down there on purpose?” You ask as you take out another blanket from the basket beside her bed and flutter it over her legs. You remember stories about the women working with Elizabeth Kenny filling quilts with rocks or beans, anything with weight, and putting them over the affected limbs of polio patients. The compress soothed the ache. 
Sarah snores gently in her sleep as her father behind you laughs, a soft rush of air from his nose, his mouth preoccupied with a half-grin. 
“I try not to hurt her feelings,” he admits quietly. You hear the clatter of metal on porcelain as you fold and refold the blankets to carry more weight. “That girl is a lot of things, but good at making coffee isn’t one of ‘em.” He slurs around the soup in his mouth. 
It’s hard to believe she’s only a year older than Ellie. They have both lost things, indescribable things at too-young an age. But where Ellie carries it in the grip of her hand around her knife, Sarah takes it on the chin. 
Polio, a disease of freezing agony. 
You wonder how much of Sarah’s inner world she keeps to herself. 
Like with Ellie, you fight the urge to brush a lovely curl away from her cheek. 
“You have a special girl here, Joel.” 
You feel his gaze on the back of your neck and you drop your gaze from her pristine face, remembering it’s not your place to look at her like that. Not like how you want to look at her.
Not like how you might want to look at him. 
Joel shifts on his feet, leaning forward to put the now empty bowl on the ground.
“I know.” By the strength of his tone, he admits to knowing that you see the bright light about Sarah like he does and so he lets you look. Your heart stutters at this silent transference and you grab blindly for that mask of noble duty. 
“How has her breathing been?” You sit down next to her and pick up her wrist, feeling for that steady pulse. You relax slightly when it’s easy to find. The beat of it is a little faster than you would like, but it hasn’t woken her up. 
“Good.” A disgruntled groan from the chair as he adjusts behind you. His voice is rich like molasses, dripping warmth down the knots in your spine. “Woke up here n’ there, like you said. Gave her food. Got her water. But she just went right back to sleep.”
“But she ate and drank?” 
He nods out of the corner of your eye. You check the mobility of her joints and they seem to be back to their natural looseness. Whether she’ll feel strong enough to walk is another matter entirely, but it’s not good to worry him unnecessarily. 
“That’s good, Joel. That’s really good.” 
You smile at him and finally, finally, the corners of his eyes soften, his brows pluck up, and he breathes deep. The tension leaves his body the way steam leaves a lake in the hours before dawn, the cup of coffee resting on his thigh. His gaze falls from your face to hers, shrouded in shadow.
“She’s never slept this long after an attack,” he says quietly. “Always restless, pain flaring up. We once stayed up a whole day and night when it got bad.” 
He shakes his head, clears his throat a bit as if the words in his mouth leave behind a mucky, sour taste.
“Thank you. For treating her properly.”
For doing what I couldn’t. 
It’s true. But no amount of reassuring – I’ve just had training, you did the best you could – would dissipate that repugnant scent of guilt lingering in the air. You are forced to let it linger, unable to say a single damn thing that would mean anything to him. 
As he finishes the last dregs of coffee, Joel unwinds his long legs from beneath the seat and his knees crack. Stiff joints after a long day of stillness, but immediately his fingers fly to that same spot he touched in the barn in that afternoon, his mouth tight from the unexpected flash of pain. 
Immediately you kneel down, worried at the slight hiss he made, fingers inches from his thigh when he straightens.
“You don’t have to–,” he shifts as if he can pull away from your touch and stay seated. “It’s not that bad –,” 
You frown at him. “Can the person here who has had actual medical training determine that?” 
Something light flickers over his eyes, so fast it might not have been real, smoothing the lines around his mouth. Joel nods, glancing to the floor. 
“Yes, ma’am.”
That single word almost splits your skull in half like lightning. 
You are immediately grateful for the heavy shadows in the room. Your palms, smarting all day, are now blistering with heat. Mouth shut tight, you don’t trust whatever sits behind your lips, so you begin your inspection of his muscles. Thumbs down, you feel along the lines that lead down to his knee.
Hard, firm, you notice. Made solid by work and toil. A few of the bricklayers and farmers you’d attended to had muscles like these. Despite the rough denim and how unsettling it is to be this close to him, it’s easy to lose yourself in the methodology of the human body. You’ve learned to read sinew and bone and scar tissue like a map and you come to find that the topography of Joel Miller is mountainous. 
“So, mhm, where’d you learn to make coffee?”
You thought the stiffness in his thigh was due to lingering pain, but when you look at him and his guarded expression, chin tilted into his chest, fingers tight around the bottom of the seat, you realize he is uncomfortable. He is made uncomfortable . . . by you. Something sharp pokes through a slot between your ribs and you sit up straighter, trying to make your touch even more clinical if possible. But what he says next, you aren’t sure if it’s genuine or genuinely meant to hurt.
“Your husband?” 
You shake your head. “My sister, actually. Ellie’s mom. We’d trade night shifts when she was a baby. One of us would come home from our second job, and the other would leave for their first. Anna said she’d never have survived those first years without coffee.”
You can hear the question he wants to ask buzzing in his head, your thumb rubbing therapeutic circles around the inflamed area. But instead he asks:
“And you . . . you like coffee?” 
You shrug. “I don’t think I ever slowed down enough to ever taste it in the first place.” 
With Joel Miller, silence means a thousand things. It’s not the way he looks at you, but the way he looks into you.
“Anna always said we’d be fine, that two unmarried women with a baby could make it in the city. But I wasn’t so convinced. There wasn’t much time for something like enjoying the taste of coffee because I was always busy taking every job I could get.” 
“Like treating sick kids.” He says it like he just found a piece of you off the ground and added it to a sprawling puzzle. He politely stares over your shoulder.
You swallow, throat tight. “Actually, um, Anna had it - polio - too. I took the job as a nurse to learn how to treat her from home.” 
Those heavy eyes swing into you full force and you can feel your stomach roll and collapse against your spine. 
“Every case is different, Joel. What I did for Sarah, it wouldn’t have helped someone like Anna.” 
“But she died?” A third unwelcome presence. 
“Yes. She went fast. There was nothing anyone could do to save her.”
There was nothing you could do to save her. 
Your thumbs are starting to ache, but you don’t want to leave just yet. You want to sit and listen to his voice, even if it’s pitched in anger towards you. 
But it’s not. His next words come out soft, if not a little bit disbelieving. 
“Where did you come from?” Joel asks. “You said the city, Oklahoma. How’d you end up in fuckin’ Dalhart, Texas?” 
You use your elbow on the thicker muscle up his thigh and he tries very hard not to wince. 
“We grew up in Boston. City girls all our lives. We had big plans of catching the bus line and going all over the country, just the two of us, but then Anna got pregnant and overnight, everything changed.”
He nods, knowingly. You add that to your own Joel Miller mosaic.
“I met the man I’d marry while I worked as a maid in a motel. He was a banker, or so he told me, and he wanted to whisk me away. We were three months behind on our rent, so I told him yes, I'd marry him after knowing him for a week — as long as I got to bring Anna and Ellie with me. All he talked about was money, so I thought he had it. What he did have was enough to get us to Oklahoma, buy some farm equipment for the wheat boom, and then lose it all in a handful of years.”
“And then we lost Anna. We lost my husband. I went back to trying to find a job in town with no jobs.” You pull your hands back, the deep tissue of his thigh flushed with blood from your therapy, and having nothing more to do, little more to say, you drop them into your lap. “Just after we missed the payment for the equipment for the second month, I got a letter from a man claiming to be my long lost Uncle Robert. I hadn’t eaten in three days and Ellie just got tagged by the police for shoplifting. I sent him a letter back and he said if I sent him our last twenty dollars he’d get us set up in Dalhart where he had a successful car dealership. I did and he didn’t and if you hadn’t picked us up, I don’t know what we would have done.” 
You sit with the hot truth of it and he sits with the both of you. It’s silent in a way that only a house in the middle of nowhere can be. Sarah stirs in her sleep, her legs rustling the sheets, but doesn’t wake up.
“You don’t have to do that here, you know.” He straightens his legs, just as quietly as the rest of the house. He crosses his arms over his chest and you think about the muscle just under his forearm, thick and immobile as sea-drenched rope. “Not eat . . . for Ellie’s sake. There’s enough for you and her. Always.”
You think of the cellar with its soft dirt, cool air, the endless rows of stored fruits and vegetables and meat, buried like a still-beating heart beneath the dust-whipped house in a paradise on the prairie. 
“But I understand the inclination.” With you on the ground before him and Joel leaning forward, elbows on his knees, his broad back arching under the stripe of white moonlight, he looks at you. 
Really looks at you. 
Like recognizing like.
A passing in a distorted mirror that might be me but it’s not but I think I know you all the same there is a thing just like me out in the world and it sees me.
Slowly, hesitantly, as if he’s afraid you’ll bite, he reaches forward and takes your wrist from your lap. The calluses on his thumb brush roughly against the knot of bone as he twists your palm upward. Pink, too pink, a stinging color, even in the low lamplight. Joel works his jaw back and forth, staring at your palm with weary concern, as if it told him things he didn’t want to know. 
His gaze lifts and your fingers curl instinctively in. He’s trying to make you look and you don’t want to. He sees your sacrifice and you don’t want it called that, there’s certain nobility in sacrifice, in a sort of suffering for other people, but it’s not sacrifice if you go willingly and despite you not wanting to look, not wanting to put a name to it, not wanting to take up any space at all, he looks at you like he, a man as broad and wide and powerful as he, is grateful. 
For you. 
Every bulwark inside of you, every foundation that you had built yourself because you never had the chance to grow hearty roots somewhere permanent, rumbles. Shakes, beneath a single solitary, rolling earthquake. A landslide of earth behind the strength in his eyes. 
“For her, for Sarah, I’d do the same,” he says. 
For her. For the children in your lives. 
Do you even like coffee? All you know is how to make it. What would you do with it if you did? If you liked coffee? If you loved it.
If there was someone outside yourself and Ellie to make you coffee simply because you wanted it. Because you were in a circle of people for whom people would do things for. For her. For you. 
The heart of Joel is like coffee: dark but warm. 
Your wrist slips between his fingers, finding refuge again in your lap. 
“I know.” 
You wonder what it would be like to be within Joel’s circle of people for whom he does things. To be given coffee, just because you want it. 
You bet it’s warm.
You stand up, collect the empty, used things, and wish him a good night. 
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A noise and sunlight startles you awake. Your eyes tear open, hand flat on an open pool of sunlight in the center of the mattress, head twisted and knees bent up by your chest. In your sleep, your body twisted itself into a Gordian knot, unable to escape the dreams about the cellar ground turning into coffee beans, and the cramped bloodflow leaves you disoriented until you can roll onto your back and remember where you are. The smells that surround you. 
You hear the noise again and you think of Ellie and in that instance where complete consciousness returns to you, the weight of her is gone. Literally.
Ellie is not in the bed beside you. 
The room’s brightness is suddenly too bright, the clear, electric blue sky too blue – it’s too beautiful and it lulled you into a sense of comfort. Stupid, so stupid. You ignore the warm floorboards against your bare feet, the faint birdsong from outside, as you rush towards the source of the sound, towards Sarah’s bedroom – oh god, I was wrong it’s too late it took her in the night and I –
The sound you do not recognize, the sound you could not comprehend while buried in dreams and memories, is the sound of laughter. Loud, full laughter.
The brass bed creaks as Ellie uses the mattress to fling herself into the air. On the other end, just as determined to reach the ceiling, is Sarah. Hands outstretched and reaching, her legs bend and flex and propel her up and up. Every time she gets within a handful’s reach of the ceiling, Ellie’s laughing, cheering her on, and then it’s her turn, Sarah giggling as Ellie’s face scrunches up as she reaches out towards the blue sky on the other side of the roof.
“Oh, hey!” Ellie says, pink-faced and causal, half-way out of breath. Sarah spins, mid-way through a jump, her eyes bright, sweat peaking on her brow line. “Sarah bet – I couldn’t touch – the ceiling — so we’re taking turns – loser has to shovel – the barn!” 
You watch, dumb-struck, as the bet continues, the girls laughing and criticizing each other and offering techniques as they work in tandem to fling the other one higher. Sarah is flush with vitality, with life, with a dewy glow reserved for spring mornings when the earth stretches awake after the death of winter.
And Ellie . . . she looks her age. 
The earth has shifted beneath your feet, while you were sleeping, and a seedling has been planted, the dawn of something new, something fresh and utterly unexpected. You can feel it in your bones. Hear it in their laughter. 
“Not a bad thing to wake up to.” 
Joel, arms crossed, eyes soft, leans up against the door frame, blue striped pajamas low on his hips, a thread-bare white undershirt cupping his biceps. He eyes you from toe to head and stops when he meets your eyes. You wonder how long he’d been standing there – if he too woke to noises he couldn’t explain, rushed in here, and found something miraculous.
The smile crinkles his eyes as it unfurls across his face. 
“I haven’t heard her laugh like that in a while,” he says quietly, head tilted towards the bed, as if there could be any other meaning. “I owe you one.” 
You could say the same thing about Ellie.
There’s the line, the boundary of the circle to the place of being warm. He’s not cleared the way for you, not invited you across, but he’s shown it to you. You can see it, feel it, and know what it takes to get there.
Your smile blooms. The girls’ laughter rings throughout the house and into the sunlight.
But, outside of paradise, away from the river and the white a-frame house, from the horse and the cattle and the long strands of prairie grass, where there is not enough to eat and the earth is in its death rattle, the wind blows. It swallows up dust, and dirt, and fine sand, gluttonous. It swirls and pulses, agitated and restless and seeking violence. Spinning with the power to blind with a single whip of dust, it spins up over the earth in its death rattle, where there is not enough to eat, towards the prairie grass. Towards the horse and the cattle. Towards the river and the a-frame.
Towards paradise with the promise of total ruin. 
END OF PART I 
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series masterlist | AO3 Link | prologue | part ii
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iluvmorales · 10 months
Text
The alleyway
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summary Prowler!miles meets you, but not at the best time?
a/n send in requests! For any of the spiders or prowler!miles <3
word count ??
You don’t know why the fuck you thought it was a good idea to go on a walk at night, and in Brooklyn. Ever since the police captain was killed, the area, the city, and the people went to complete shit.
So now here you are, running through the alleyways, ducking left and right trying to get this group of grown men away from you and off your ass.
Were they after money? Your valuables? Or you? You didn’t even know because they didn’t say anything, just 5 men start fucking bolting at you with no warning.
You slid, practically drifting left and around a corner. You breathed out, after you’d been holding your breath for god knows how long while running.
“Why the fuck, these assholes..” you heard the footsteps coming closer and closer, knowing one had seen where you turned. You grabbed a plank that’d been thrown behind the dumpster and right when one was about to turn
Whack!
The board hit him dead center on his face, causing him to fall back and hit his head. He stopped moving thank god, but you assumed he was still alive.
“You bitch!” One launched at you, but you hit him with the board as well, only this time you weren’t as successful with knocking him onto the floor and out.
The prowler overheard the ruckus between the alleyway, and peered down from the top of the building. A girl, around his age trying her hardest to whack, possibly kill 4 men with a wooden plank. A wooden plank? What the fuck?
Obviously, to him she looked like she was doing alright seeing as how one was already unconscious and another was beaten bloody with a broken nose.
The prowler felt bad leaving you, but he had work to do and people to meet. He had no time to save some random girl in an alleyway.
“Ugh get a fucking life! Someone help!” You yelled to the men, then as loud as you could you asked for help.
Your arms were getting tired, your head was pounding and you were frustrated. Frustration quickly turned to pure fear when a man came from behind you and grabbed you, you elbowed him in his face, kicked and screamed.
Suddenly, the man fell to his knees and someone caught you before you hit the ground. You freaked out even more, still kicking and yelling.
“Chill out, I’m helping.” The distorted voice whispered, placing you down. Your knees were weak and you stumbled back watching him easily take out the guys one by one.
You let out a sigh of relief, back against the wall as you slowly slid down, your head falling into the palms of your hands. “Are you okay?” The “prowler” asked, stepping towards you.
Suddenly you remembered just who you were saved by and the unsafe feeling crept back. Quickly standing you replied; “yeah-yeah I’m good thank you. Even though I had the situation under control.” You cleared your throat and laughed, trying to lighten the mood and hide your fear.
“Aight, that’s good. You need me to walk you home? It’s not safe out here at night, if you haven’t noticed.” He spoke, the distorter gone. You could tell he was laughing at his own little joke and smiled. He was scary looking and had a dark aura, but his voice was so comforting.
“Yeah, please. That was lowkey kind of scary.” You say, walking out of the alley with the tall, dark prowler towering over you. Just his aura and looking alone scared off people, and you had him following behind like a guard dog.
Your house was kind of a long walk, and awkward silence was creeping up. “So, what’s ya’ name?” He asked, peering down but his head still tilted up. “Y/N..think i already know yours” you laughed a little, earning an un-seen grin but content a hum from the prowler.
“You know.. I thought you were a old man but lowkey, you sound kinda young” you called him out, looking back while walking then quickly turning back. “Let’s just say we’re around the same age” the prowler replied, shrugging off the indirect question.
Finally, the silence between the both of you was more comfortable. Enjoying the beauty and dangers of the neon-lit city, it’s graffiti and lights. You came to a stop in-front of a town house, turning back to the prowler.
“Thank you for everything, really.” You smiled at him, a genuine look in your eyes he had never received from anyone while in this suit. “Yeah it was no problem hermosa ..” he shrugged again, this time also shrugging off the heat that rose to his cheeks. You smiled as your cheeks got hot at the nickname, the way his voice was breathy and he rolled his r had you freaking out internally.
“Hope to see you around, without me being in danger that is” you laughed, walking up the steps and opening your door. “See you around” was all he could manage to say as he watched you walk up the steps and into your house.
He hummed to himself before walking into an alleyway and clawing his way up a building so he could easily jump roof to roof, on his way to meet his uncle.
“Y/N..” he whispered to himself, a smile across his lips.
2K notes · View notes
josephquinnswhore · 11 months
Note
Hi
Can I request a fic where Ellie and Joel are traveling to Wyoming but before leaving they go to a store to pick up supplies
And Ellie asks why they are there and he’s like “I have to stock up for my family “ ( cause he left for supplies “ and she’s in shock he has a family but when they get there, they notice that the house has been raided and there are dead raiders in the house
So Joel starts to freak out and can’t find his wife and kid but then ellie finds them in a hidden shed
And when Joel rushes to them, he’s worried about the blood on her but then she’s like “ it’s not mine”
Sorry for it being so long , and it’s totally fine if you do not want to write it :}
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A Mothers Strength
Pairing: Joel Miller x female reader.
Summary: you and your baby aren’t where Joel left you, instead there is a trail of blood and two bodies he doesn’t recognise.
Word Count: 3.1k
Content Warning: typical tlou violence, reader bashes someone’s brains in, (out) Joel has a mild panic attack.
Note: I’m gonna make this so angsty lol. Thanks for the request I love you anon 🫶🏼🥰 this is one of my new faves!!!!
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If there’s one thing Joel taught you; it’s not to panic, to think rationally and do what you have to do to protect yourself; to make sure you were the one that survived, no matter what that entailed. Joel was gone, he had gone to do one last trip to the Boston QZ, he had gone to trade some pills and alcohol for a car battery, he had found a truck a while back but the battery was busted, he claimed Tess knew someone who had one, he hated leaving you, and your 6 month old daughter. But he knew if you had a car, it would ensure safety compared to travelling on foot. That was 5 days ago, it wasn’t unlikely that something had happened, trading in itself was a danger that set you on edge, let alone travelling by himself back and forth with one measly gun and a whole city worth of infected, however many were out there, you would imagine it’s a lot. You had to learn to fight while you were pregnant, you couldn’t be in the Boston QZ and be pregnant, they wouldn’t allow it. Joel helped you escape and you’d been travelling since, looking for a safe haven and trying to find Joel’s brother Tommy. You’d learned you were capable throughout your pregnancy at taking out infected. Very capable.
Unlike Joel however, you had never had to face up against something even worse, other people. Joel had told you stories of when the infection first began, the things he did, the things he and Tommy did to survive, it was essential, survival of the fittest and you had never reprimanded or judged him for it once. Now you were finding yourself in a situation where you would have to find yourself in Joel’s shoes, you would have to find the strength to take lives of people if necessary, to protect you and your daughter. Joel had boarded up the windows and doors before he left, which apparently only made the raiders more suspicious, their murmurs outside becoming louder and more aggressive as they tear down the planks of wood, two voices of men can be heard. You load your gun quietly and hold it to your chest, your uneven breathing causing you to shudder through your nose as you purse your lips. You take one last look at your sleeping daughter in her small hand-woven basket, blue blankets keeping her warm as they wrap around her. “I love you, so much.” Worried you’d never get another chance to tell her again. You slide the basket under the bed out of sight.
“Hey, did you hear that, there’s movement in there. We’ve got company.” One man laughed as their voices became clearer you realised the protection Joel had set had been torn down; it was up to you now, to protect your family. “What if it’s an infected man?” The other man voices reluctantly as they turn the knob and swing the door open. You tiptoe behind the door, hoping that your daughter would stay quite long enough for you to eradicate the intruders. You held your breath as the door opened and you shot the first man in the head, his body dropped to the floor with a thud, the blood seeping through the cracks of the old wooden floors. The gunshot had rung through the room, you could hear the muffled sound of your daughter crying, her wailing drew the attention of the second man who had just growled, “fucking bitch!” As he charged towards you, he had tackled you to the ground, overpowering you easily as he knocked the gun from your hands, he’s heaving from the struggle, his gun pointed at your head once he’s got you still enough. “Gunna fucking kill you then that annoying fuckin kid.” Adrenaline kicked in at the thought of something happening to your daughter, you struggle underneath him and grunt, bringing your knee up to his crotch which he groans at, “you fucking whore, gonna make you pay for that!” He’s holding the crotch of his jeans when you find a baseball bat hidden in the corner that you’d stashed days ago for an emergency in case you’d run out of bullets, you hurry back wards and grab the bat, standing to your feet and before the man can react, you bring the bat down onto his head, he falls to the ground holding the back of his head to try and protect himself from the blows.
You’re seeing red, yelling over the top of your screaming daughter, rage overcoming you as you repeatedly bring the bat down over and over again. You only stop when your arms begin to ache with a weakness that makes you drop the bat, his brain and blood is coating the floor in a slick that you almost slip on as you step over him. You bend down and reach for your daughter, taking her out of the basket, shushing her, “shh, I know baby, it’s okay. Mama’s got you.” Rocking her back and forth until she calms down. You set her back in the basket once she’s settled, you begin to rip up the floorboards in which have your supplies hidden beneath them. “Well, we can’t stay here now can we?” You tell yourself. You pack your bag full of the supplies, food and batteries weigh the bag down heavily on your shoulders, let alone trying to carry your baby in her wooden basket that’s heavy enough without a baby in it. With one hand, you somehow manage to pick up your gun, turn the safety off and stick it in the back of your jeans. You have to walk over the two dead bodies that have begun decomposing, you couldn’t stay here, not with the smell and mess to clean.
“Alright little one. Let’s find somewhere safe to stay till your dad comes back, huh?” As you take your first step out of the house that was meant to protect you; you wonder if you’ll be able to find somewhere safe, if Joel will be able to find you. You just had to hope he would.
“My pack is heavy Joel, can’t we rest?” Ellie grunts in discomfort as she shuffles the heavy backpack in an attempt to try to get it to sit more comfortably, it doesn’t.
“We ain’t stoppin’ till I say. Ain’t got long left to go so stop complaining.” Joel’s fast on his feet, even though the sun is baring down on him without mercy, he’s sweating in his long jeans and blue flannel shirt that’s well outworn and a size too small, his stomach less toned than it used to be, it was a ‘dad bod’ as you had called it, the sleeves are rolled to his elbows. The skin of his face, the back of his neck and arms are well golden now, after hours of travelling in the sun, the damage had been done and his skin was already tanned, he would have to invest in a hat, like you’d always scolded him about, was was sure you would again, after seeing how burnt he was.
“Ain’t got long now, just a few minutes up the road.” Joel clarifies, they walk along the empty tar road, the green grass is long overgrown, well over a foot taller than Joel, his eyes scan the area for raiders as he knows from past experience that they like to lurk in the tall grass and try to ambush you. It happened one time in this area and he hoped you’d never have to protect yourself like how he has, or does. “What are we doing here?” Ellie asks as Joel’s body had subconsciously led him to the small dirt pathway that led to an old house, the paint was faded green and peeling from the wood that seemed to be rotting. “My family are here. Had to trade something before we left for Wyoming.” For the first time ever, Ellie was speechless, Joel had a family? “What’s their names?” It didn’t take Joel long to notice two sets of footsteps, large, around the same size as his own in a boot print, he knew it wouldn’t be infected, it had to be raiders. “Quiet, get behind me.” Joel growls as he reaches for his gun from the back of his jeans, pushing Ellie behind him with the other arm, he walks forward and sees the wooden planks he’d hammered to keep the building closed, were now on the ground, some snapped in half, the front door was open and the silence was eerily quiet, Joel didn’t like the ache that formed in his stomach, the guilt, the fear.
“Fuck.” He breaths, pushing forward with his gun in front of him, the first floorboard he steps over, because he knows it creaks, “stay here. You hear me? Do not come in here.” Ellie nods, seeing the colour falling from Joel’s face and his orbs are blackened, his exterior is hardened and he’s never seen Joel look so fierce, she almost cant recognise the man in front of her, compared to who he was only a few seconds ago. Joel pushed forward, the dining room was clear, everything seemed to be in place which was odd, as he walks through the hallway he checks the first bedroom which is clear, again seemed untouched which he thought was weird, if it was raiders, why didn’t they raid the house? The boards along the windows had all been torn down, the windows open wide and giving the outside world a look into the house. His heart hammered in his chest as he approaches the bedroom door, where he left you, told you it would be okay, that you would be safe. He almost can’t find the will to turn the knob, scared of what lies inside the room.
When he turns the knob, he’s not expected to be hit with a stench so foul he’s taking a few steps back, he almost pulls his shirt over his nose just to try to mask it, he pulls out a bandana and secures it around the back of his neck, giving him some relief from the smell, but not much, it was a stench he knew too well; decomposition. His body is shaking as he bursts through the door, expecting to find his wife and infant daughter, he finds two bodies he can’t recognise, one with a single bullet wound to the head, the other.. was probably the cause of the smell. His brains were splattered along the floor and upside of the wall, blood was stained and now black as it leaks through the already damaged floorboards, your baseball bat sits a few feet away with a huge chip out of the wood, a giant crack through the middle and brain matter and blood splattered up to the handle. He almost lets a breath of relief escape him, seeing the floorboards pulled up and supplies all gone he can almost conclude that you survived and escaped with the supplies, but where were you? Where was your daughter?
“God damn it where are you darlin’?” He says to himself. When Ellie calls out to him. “Joel! Joel? I think you should see this.” Joel steps over the bodies and closes the door, leaving the bat behind. He meets Ellie at the front door and follows her concerned eyes to a shed about half a mile away from the house, a light shimmering from inside the shed caught their attention. “Get out your gun.” Joel instructs coldly. Ellie doesn’t ask about his family, although she can piece the puzzle together, there was something in there that Joel won’t talk about. Could it have been? She doesn’t want to ask.
“Keep up kid.” Joel quickens his pace to a jog and Ellie stays beside the man, she suddenly forgets how heavy her pack is, and Joel ignores the way the battery digs into his back as he runs; but he’s frantic now, wondering what’s happened to you. He can’t, he refuses to lose you and your baby after all he’s been through since this shitstorm started. The gravel crunches underneath their boots as they run towards the shed, the light shutting off when they get within 50 yards. Someone is definitely occupying this shed.
“Stay behind me, got it?” Ellie only nods, she starts to panic at the thought of approaching this shed, she knew nothing good could come of it, seeing the look on Joel’s face scared her. What the fuck was in that house?
You hear it before you see it, the crunching and shuffling of someone coming in your direction, you had to cut your baby feeding off your breast short, lying her down and rocking her basket for a few seconds so she’d settle and quiet down. You pick up your gun that’s set on the work bench beside you and try to peek through the small hole in the wood, to add to your terrible day- two blurred figures ran towards the shed, arms outstretched which you figured must be guns. Fuck. You look back towards your fussing baby with tears in your eyes, maybe your luck has run out. You weren’t going down without a fight. Your adrenaline was still at a high from the fight before, your body still aching but prepared to gauge out eyeballs if that’s what it took to protect your daughter. Where in the world was Joel? The shed door creaks open, it’s a decent sized shed, although you knew there were only so many places you could hide. You heard a voice, a female, she sounded young, but you can’t underestimate anyone these days, anyone and everyone is a threat. You shimmy your daughters basket under the work bench, where you’d pulled a blanket over it to give her a better chance of not being seen.
You creep behind the work benches, hearing their footsteps you can calculate where they are, you’re going in blind, you don’t know how many people they could have hiding around the area, and that’s what worries you. You see a spanned on the ground and throw it, it lands about 8 metres in front of you and it catches their attention. “Did you hear that?” The girl says, her footsteps are fast and then stop. You hear hushed whispering of a man, but you can’t hear what they’re saying. It’s quiet now, they’ve gone opposite ways around you to try and box you in, one is heading straight for the direction of your daughter, by the heavier footsteps you’re assuming it’s the man’s
Fuck it.
You rush back to your daughter, knocking over some things in the process that gain the attention of the two people, you’re sitting in front of your daughter, the cloth barely holding up, you sit with your gun in front of you, your body aching and you weren’t sure if you’d make it this time. You see the girl first, she’s holding a gun towards you and she’s scared, she doesn’t shoot. It’s obvious she’s never held a gun before and you don’t want to shoot a child. “There’s someone over here, she has a gun.” She says in a panicked state, the man comes running over from behind you, seeing you covered in blood and arms shaking, his eyes are scanning and he can’t see your daughter. “Put the gun down,” he warns the young girl, he approaches you, puts his hand over your gun and lowers it. “It’s me darlin, it’s just me. Where is she? You’re covered in blood.” The panic in his eyes and voice is evident, his body tense as he kneels down to you. You don’t say anything, you just pull down the cloth that’s behind you, exposing your fussing daughter in her basket, in the same blue blanket Joel had wrapped her in a few days ago.
“S not mine, the blood.” You’re trembling as you feel the adrenaline leave your body, you were exhausted, eyeing the young girl that was standing there awkwardly. Joel picks up your daughter, rocking her with tears in his eyes, “hi baby girl. It’s your dad, I’m so sorry I left you behind, promise I won’t ever leave you again.” Joel turns to you, “cmon darlin’, we gotta get you up.” Joel helps you up, you stand on wobbling feet like a newborn foel. He sends you a concerned look and you turn away, “I’m fine.” You lie, he notices but doesn’t protest, he’d get to the bottom of it later.
“This is Ellie, she’s comin with us. Ellie this is my wife and daughter.” The girl awkwardly waves and you mutter, “hey, sorry bout the gun kid.” She shrugs, “no big deal. You seem like you’ve had a worse day than mine.” You just shrug in respond, not wanting to talk about it.
Joel makes quick work of putting the new battery in the truck and it starts, having half a tank of fuel your luck is beginning to change. You pack the supplies into the car and Joel begins to drive, it doesn’t take Ellie long to fall asleep in the backseat. Joel’s hand rests on your leg, trying to offer some comfort. “We don’t have to talk about it, jus know I’m here for you.” You look away as you start crying, tears just fall one after another. “Said he was gonna hurt our baby, I just lost it Joel, I blacked out I just- I had to protect her. I don’t even feel guilty, that’s the worst part. I took a life so brutally and I don’t even feel bad about it.” You look to Joel and his eyes are soft, the wrinkles on his head are prominent as he frowns softly. “You did what you had to do darlin’. You kept our family safe. He was a bad man, he got what was comin’ to him. You don’t ever feel bad for protecting your family. You won’t ever have to do it again. I ain’t ever leavin’ you two again, I promise you.” Joel’s own eyes start to blur as tears fell from them, from fear and relief. “Joel?” Your voice is quiet as he looks to you, “are you okay?” He sighs, trying to even his breathing. “I saw the windows and the door open and I just thought the worst, then I smelt the blood and I was terrified that I was goin to find you and-“ he chokes up, unable to finish the sentence, he thought he would find you and your daughter dead. “We’re okay Joel. I fought, just like you taught me to.”
“An now I’m never gonna leave again, can’t risk losing you two, not after everything.” “I know Joel, I believe you.” There’s a moments silence between you when you notice how burnt he is. “You’re sunburnt.” You deadpan, unamused. Joel looks bashful as he rubs the back of his sunburnt neck, “I know. Promise I’ll get a hat soon.”
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