#I don’t think. I’ll ever recover from this emotionally

[shima-draws]

[postmanlinksbootyshorts]

i don’t think i’ll ever emotionally recover from fujieda’s bad end

[drowneddinosaur]

i was texting in my dms ! and someone asked me if i was on grindr bc of the text format apparently

[gwdihw]

I was putting off the finale of Foundation til the ✨ right moment ✨

and tell me why that show put me through the seven stages of grief in ONE FUCKING EPISODE

[mykonosisdead]

I apologize for who I will become after reading the 7 husbands of Evelyn Hugo

[soaps-mohawk]

Cherry Red, Crimson Blood

Chapter 36: To The Sea

Summary: It's time to move on. You're not sure where you're going exactly, but anywhere is better than Texas

Pairing: Poly 141 x reader

Word Count: 7,816 words

Warnings: ANGST, injuries, medical stuff, descriptions of pain and injuries, brief discussion about strangulation, mentions of PTSD and nightmares, so much crying, Alpha/Beta/Omega dynamics, Alternate Universe, angst, a very little sprinkle of comfort, language, mentions of medications, still very heavy emotionally

A/N: Not actually a lot of warnings for this one. It's a lot of dialogue and inner monologues. Not a lot happens, just mostly setting the scene for the next chunk of the story. Bring tissues though, the last part of the chapter emotionally wrecked me but also might be the best thing I've ever written.

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It’s warm outside. 

Not even the shade from the building can completely shield you from the dome of heat that seems to surround the base. It seeps into the concrete and asphalt that lock it into place, trapping everyone in a bubble that may as well be an oven. It’s always hot in Texas, though. You hate it. You’ve been spoiled by the cold, rainy seasons in England. You’d gladly take that over Texas. 

You’d take anything over Texas. 

The heat prickles at your skin, your arm starting to get sweaty in the sling. It had been Dr. Keller’s idea to keep your shoulder as still as possible so you don’t continue to cause yourself pain when you move. It still hurts, but at least you won’t instinctively try to use your left arm now.

Despite the warmth, there’s still a chill deep in your bones. The warmth of the pain medicine has worn off and you’ve been left with the perpetual ice that has seemed to coat your insides. Dr. Keller says it's the stress giving you a fever. Every nightmare, every flashback sends your body temperature spiking, your heart beating right out of your chest. You’re not out of the woods yet. It can take a long time to recover from that level of distress and the omega taking over. You almost regret it, but there was no guarantee you would have lived either way at that time. You did what you had to do, and it did work out in the end. 

But at what cost? 

Dr. Keller’s phone buzzes in her pocket and she pulls it out, staring down at the screen for a moment. “Kyle wants to come by.” 

You don’t want to see him. You don’t want to see any of them. 

“I think you should see him. Even if it’s just for a moment.” She squeezes your hand. “I’ll be right here.” 

It’s a predicament. Dr. Keller supports your decision to keep them away, putting some distance between all of you for the time being. Yet, she also says being close to your pack will help your healing. Having your pack around will help your omega settle once again. She needs that safety, that security before she finally lets go completely. 

You don’t want to be close to them, but you may not have any other choice. 

You sit there in silence, picking at the fabric of your sweatpants as you wait for Kyle’s arrival. Sweat has started to bead on your back, the day only getting warmer and warmer as the sun moves higher in the sky. You want to go back inside, back into the cool air conditioned building. You want to crawl back onto the hospital bed and lay there for the next few hours. 

You can’t. 

Footsteps approach, but you don’t look up. You know who it is. You don’t want to see him. 

“Kyle.” Dr. Keller greets. 

“Christine.” He says back. It still throws you off, hearing Dr. Keller's first name. She'll always be Dr. Keller to you. Kyle turns his attention to you, still standing a few steps from the bench you're perched on. “Hi, love.” He says. The affectionate nickname almost makes you wince. You don't look up at him. You don’t want to see his face. “I wanted to stop by and see how you’re doing.” 

You don't move, don't give an answer. You don't have an answer to give anyway. You shouldn't have to give an answer. 

He lowers himself onto the bench, sitting as far away from you as he can. “It’s hot today.” He says, adjusting his hat. Always wearing a hat. Maybe that's why he and Price work so well together. 

He stares at you for a long moment but you don't bother moving, your gaze still on your sweatpants. They're starting to get a bit warm, even with your perpetual chill. 

“I’m not here to apologize.” He says, breaking the silence. “You’ve probably heard enough apologies to last you a lifetime.” He shakes his head. “Words can’t fix what we did. Nothing can fix what we did, how we left you there. All we can do is give you what you need, try and make you as comfortable as possible.” 

Tears burn your eyes as you listen to him. He's not wrong, an apology won't fix what happened. No words will ever be able to fix what they put you through. You're not sure there's anything they could do that would make up for it. An apology still would have been nice, despite the fact you know how guilty he is. Their avoidance of you, their willingness to give you such space in an unknown place just proves how guilty they all are. 

That doesn't make things hurt any less. 

You slowly turn away from Kyle, angling yourself towards Dr. Keller. 

He doesn't say anything further in that regard, taking your movement as an answer to his non-apology. He leans forward instead, resting his elbows on his knees. “I just wanted to let you know that we’re getting ready to leave soon. We’ll be heading somewhere safe, somewhere quiet and secluded. I think you’ll like it.” 

Dr. Keller had informed you of that earlier after she went to speak to them. They've decided what to do, what's best for the pack again. You might have protested, except for the fact it meant you were getting to leave Texas. Where exactly they're taking you, you're not sure. You just know it's not Texas. 

“I want you to know that we’re here if you need us.” He stares at you for a moment longer before pushing himself up to stand. 

If, not when. 

Maybe they're finally getting the message. 

Dr. Keller stands, touching your right shoulder gently before she steps away with Kyle, speaking quietly with him, but you can still hear every word in the nearly silent space around you. 

“In an attempt to remain a neutral, professional party in this situation, I feel it would be appropriate for me to tell you not to beat yourself up too much about this.” Dr. Keller says. “The unprofessional side of me has many words I’d like to say to all of you.” She clears her throat. “That being said, on a positive note I can say you’re all doing the right thing for once, prioritizing your omega and fulfilling her needs, even if her needs require you to leave her alone for now. I know it’s hard, I know every instinct is screaming at you to help her, but just take comfort in knowing you are helping her. You’re doing the best thing you can do for her at this time.” Dr. Keller puts a hand on his arm, squeezing it gently. “Even if it is tearing you up inside.” 

“Thanks, Doc.” He says. 

“I’ll see you soon.” She says, patting his arm before she heads back towards your bench. 

You turn your head just slightly, not missing the way Gaz lingers for a brief moment before he turns his back on you, walking back down the sidewalk. 

It hurts. 

You want to cry with every swallow. No matter how much you chew, it doesn’t ease the pain of trying to swallow solid food. Even the worst sore throat you’ve ever had pales in comparison to this pain. Tears burn in your eyes as you eat, unable to refuse this time in favor of choking down some liquid nutrients. Even liquids make your throat ache, but they are easy to chug to get it over with at once. 

This feels like torture. 

Dr. Keller looks guilty as she spoon-feeds you the soup. Chicken noodle, something simple and easy but still something with some substance. It makes you think back to when you were sick as a child, your mother dutifully feeding you homemade chicken noodle soup until you reached the age you could feed yourself. 

You do feel like a child again, unable to even hold the spoon. Well, you could hold it, but it would have come at the expense of some burns from how badly your hand was shaking. 

So instead you sit here, being spoon-fed soup you can barely stand eating. 

“I know.” She says as a tear finally falls, your inhale shaky from the ache in your throat. “You need something in your system for the sedative. It’s a long flight and you’ll be sick when you wake up if you don’t have anything in your stomach. That’s going to hurt a lot worse than eating now.” 

Yeah. You’ve already figured that out. 

“Strangulation is a tough thing to survive.” She says, dragging the bottom of the spoon against the edge of the bowl to wipe off any soup that might drip on you. “Then again, so is getting shot, and distressing to the point of your omega taking over.” She holds the spoon up to your lips, and you’re tempted to refuse. “You’ve survived a lot, more than most could. And to look this good after...” 

You blink up at her, teary eyed and sickly looking, exhausted and bruised. Your left eye is still almost swollen shut, and your hair is tangled perhaps beyond saving, tied up in a bun at the top of your head. All just reminders of what you survived, all reminders of what happened to you. Of what was allowed to happen to you. 

You’re not quite sure when the last time you had a real shower was either. 

“I know.” She says, spooning more soup into your mouth. “You might not feel like it, right now.” 

“I want a shower.” You say, your voice still hoarse and cracking through your throat. A real shower might solve a lot of problems for you right now. It won’t fix much, but being truly clean would make a lot of things feel better. 

“I wholeheartedly agree.” Dr. Keller says. 

You give her a look. You don't smell that bad. She should know, she’s the one that cleaned the blood off of you and the one who gave you the sponge bath this morning. 

She gives you a look back. “I meant it would be nice to take a real shower. Once we get where we’re going, we can work on the logistics of a shower.” 

Right. You can’t exactly stand for a long time on your own, not to mention the problem of only being able to use one arm without bringing blinding pain upon yourself. That’s where the pack would come in handy. 

The thought of one of them seeing you vulnerable like that, putting their hands on you right now makes your skin crawl. 

A shiver runs down your spine, your body shuddering uncontrollably. You grunt as your shoulder screams in pain, another electric jolt burning straight through your nerves and down through your feet. Fuck. You mouth the word, squeezing your eyes shut. It makes your stomach churn, the soup starting to burn a path back up through your esophagus.

“Breathe for me.” Dr. Keller says, putting a gentle hand on your right shoulder. 

In and out. You focus on your breath, the only thing you can do without feeling like you’re going to go insane from the pain. It’s all you can do in this situation. It’s the only thing you can do at all. Breathe. Just keep breathing. 

Sometimes you don’t want to. 

The pain passes as it always does, leaving behind a subtle ache that will linger until the next flare of pain. It’s a constant, never-ending cycle that you can’t escape from. Weeks, Dr. Keller had said. It can take weeks to heal. You’ll be stuck in this cycle for weeks and weeks. What if it never heals? That is a possibility. It’s always a risk with any injury. 

What if the rest of your life is like this? 

You’re crying again, hot tears blazing a path down your cheeks. They won’t stop, they never stop. There’s a constant stream down your face, even in your sleep. You’ve woken to find your face and neck damp from the never ceasing flood of tears. 

How you can’t wait for the time to come when you have none left.

You’d welcome the numbness at this point, greet it like an old friend and invite it in for tea. Anything over the pain and tears that won’t stop. The depression-fueled numbness that had filled you when Price and Gaz left, then Soap and Ghost would be a welcome relief at this point. Anything would be better than the pain. 

You almost wish you were in a coma right now. Then you wouldn’t feel anything at all. 

Dr. Keller puts the spoon back into the soup bowl before rolling the table to the side. She puts a hand on your head, gently stroking your hair as you cry. The room is silent aside from your sniffles, Dr. Keller not having to say a single word. The silence is almost a blessing. You’re tired of hearing words, of hearing people speak. There’s nothing anyone can say that will do anything to help you, to comfort you, to make it better. 

There’s nothing anyone can do to make it better. 

You’re so tired of being like this. 

The sedative is kicking in before you even reach the airfield. She can see the way your head is drooping further and further forward in the car, your body jostling without any complaint. It had started kicking in before you even got into the car, as you offered very little resistance when Kyle helped her mauver you into the front seat. She chose Kyle out of everyone to help her in hopes it would be easiest on you. Your claimed alpha’s beta is a good place to start in rebuilding the bonds within the pack, and his calm demeanor certainly helps. He is a caretaker through and through, that beta trait prominent above the others in him. He would have made a good medic, had he gone that route. 

Your chin drops to your chest as the car comes to a stop in front of the plane, your body slumping to the side against the door. 

“She’s out.” Christine says, unbuckling her seatbelt. 

“Makes this easier.” Kyle says, getting out of the car. 

They maneuver you into the wheelchair, Christine easing your head onto your right shoulder to avoid aggravating the left. The less pain you’re in when you come out of it, the better, though pain will be unavoidable. Kyle pushes the wheelchair up the ramp of the plane, Christine following close behind. She’s glad she gave you the sedative before you left the med center to avoid as much pain as possible. She almost wishes she had given it to you earlier, as getting you into a sweatshirt had been a battle of its own. Though, the longer it stays in your system, the longer you’ll sleep through the flight. The longer you sleep through the flight, the longer they can delay the inevitable emotional storm of being enclosed in a tight space with your pack. 

If you’re lucky, you’ll be out of it long enough for them to reach the cottage without incident. 

John is waiting near the front of the aircraft, his eyes watching carefully as Kyle helps maneuver you into a seat. Even with the turmoil in the pack bonds, an alpha will always feel protective over their omega. There’s some things that can’t be undone, even in such a fragile state. Some instincts can’t be unlearned, no matter what. 

“I gave her a sedative.” Christine explains as she gets you as comfortable as possible in the seat. “It won’t last the whole flight, but it’ll take a while to wear off regardless.” 

“Is that more for her or for us?” John asks. 

“Both.” Christine says. “Mostly for her. It helps with the pain of moving around, but it will also keep her calm in close quarters like this.” 

“Here.” John says, handing her something. It’s a blanket, brand new by the feel of it. “Johnny made a store run this morning. It’s going to get cold in here, so he got the warmest one he could find.” 

Christine takes the blanket, the fabric thick and soft in her hands. It’s a touching gesture, speaking volumes of their desire to still care for you despite everything, their willingness to do what they have to, to keep the pack together. “Perfect.” She says, carefully draping it over you and tucking it around you before John gets you secured in the seat. 

“It’s going to be a long flight.” John says, taking a step back. 

“It is.” Christine says, pulling out her thermometer. She takes your temperature, letting out a hum at the number that pops up on screen. “I need to monitor her temperature.” She explains as John gives her a look. “It’s been spiking when she gets stressed.” 

“She's not quite out of it yet, is she?” John asks.

“Not quite.” She says, putting the thermometer back in her bag. “I’ve only seen two omegas successfully come back from that point, and I know the number across the board isn’t very high. It takes a long time for the body and the brain to get back to normal.” 

“And on top of everything that happened...” 

She stares up at him for a long moment. “She’s very strong. I knew she was a fighter, but to come out the other side even where she is now...” Christine shakes her head. “I didn’t want to say this at the time, but I was expecting the worst. When that call came in about what state she was in...” She bites her lip, holding the emotions back. “Her resilience and fortitude is what kept her alive. That and Simon’s courage to do what needed to be done.” 

“I know.” John says, looking past her. “We all owe a lot to him.” 

Christine puts a gentle hand on his arm. “You’re doing what’s best for her. No matter how much it hurts, no matter how much it goes against every instinct you have, it’s what she needs.” 

“That’s all that matters to us right now.” John says, staring down at her hand for a moment. “There’s nothing else we can do, so it’s time we start putting our priorities where they should have been the whole time.” 

Christine gives him a small smile. “I’m proud of you for that. It takes a lot to unlearn the things you’ve been told since the beginning.” 

The corner of John’s lips twitch before his face falls into the emotionless mask he’s been wearing for the last few days. “It’s about time we get our heads out of our arses.” 

“I can’t blame you totally.” She shrugs. “We were all just doing what the initiative was telling us to do. We couldn’t have known. There wasn’t any room to question it.” 

“I wish we would have figured it out sooner.” He sighs. 

“Things might have been worse if the truth did come out sooner. If you started digging into the initiative too soon, Shepherd might have gotten antsy and taken more drastic measures to stop the truth from coming out entirely.” She glances down at you. “I think this was all inevitable.” She turns her gaze back to John. “What happened, happened. None of us can change that. All we can do is keep moving forward with what we have right now.” 

He stares at her for a long moment. “The more time passes, the more I’ve come to realize why Kate chose you for this position.” 

The corner of her lips turns up in a smile. “Well, I am rather good at my job, which, among other things, involves advocating on behalf of omegas.” 

John huffs. “Wish we would have listened sooner.” 

“You can’t change the past.” She repeats, looking down at you again. “But you can change the future.” 

You woke from your sedation about four hours from Helston. 

Well, ’woke’ might have been too strong of a word for it. Your eyes opened, but you were still hazy, movements sluggish and entirely unaware of the world around you. You floated between sleep and awareness for an hour before finally gaining consciousness completely. Awareness took quite a while to return, though. Not until they were moving you to the car from the plane. 

Even still you’re groggy, slumped against the door in the back seat of the car. You blink slowly, eyes unfocused as you stare out the window at the blur of green passing by. 

“How is she?” John asks from the driver's seat, glancing up at the rearview mirror. 

“Cow.” You say, blinking slowly as the car passes a field of cows. 

“Still out of it.” Christine answers from the back seat where she's sitting next to you. Your response might have been enough to answer that. “Better than being in pain, though.” 

“How long will it take for her to get out of it?” Kyle asks. 

“Hopefully she’ll be more lucid by the time we get there, but it could take a few hours for it to completely wear off.” Christine says, wiping a bit of drool from your chin. “Probably not a bad thing. This is a big change, and with everything that’s happened, it’s going to take some time to settle in.” 

“Things are going to be rough.” Kyle says. 

“Yes.” She agrees. “Being enclosed in a small space with the people you want to see the least in the world isn’t an ideal situation. It’ll be an adjustment for everyone. I trust all of your abilities to adapt, though. Just don't go in expecting things to be the way they were.”

John's hands tighten around the steering wheel, his knuckles going white. Kyle cracks his window open, prepared for the thickening of John's scent in the air. Christine knows she hit a nerve, but it needed to be said. Even if you were open to forgiveness right now, even if they had chosen to go after you right away, things still wouldn't be the same. Things won't ever be the same. It is their fault deep at the root of it. Those cameras were put up because of them, you were taken because of them. You were chosen for the “initiative” because of them, because Kate thought you'd fit in well with them. Their decisions shaped your life, and will continue to shape your life. 

Can you ever come to forgive them? Christine likes to think so. She has the hope that they can put in the work and regain your trust and earn eventual forgiveness. She knows you'll allow them to try once the initial hurt and emotions begin to fade, once the two of you put in enough work to start processing the trauma around the events that happened. It will take time. Probably a long time. 

She'll be there every step of the way. 

“Ashley did some shopping for us, picked up some stuff to get us until we can get into town.” Kyle says, looking at his phone. 

“Good.” John says, his shoulders starting to relax. “Should wait a couple days before going. Get settled in.”

“She's still working on cleaning up. Probably still be there when we get there.” Kyle says, putting his phone back in his pocket. 

“That's fine. We’ll probably have to utilize her a bit.” 

“Doubt she'll complain.” Kyle says, looking out the window. “Be thrilled to have something to do besides work.” 

You let out a quiet groan, shifting against the door. “Hurts.” 

“I know, honey.” Christine says, carefully adjusting your left arm. “I’ll give you more pain meds once we get to the cottage.” 

“We’ll be there in half an hour.” John says, glancing up at the rearview mirror again before turning his eyes back to the road. 

The half hour seems to take the longest as you continue to become more and more lucid and aware. The pain sets in first, your brain picking up on those signals before anything else. John’s knuckles are white around the steering wheel as you begin to whine and whimper around every bend in the road and turn he has to make, every jostle of the car. Every instinct in his body tells him to pull over and comfort you, but he can’t. It’s more important to get to the cottage, and there’s no guarantee you’d even let him. It might make things worse. 

The last thing you need right now is for things to get worse. 

Christine breathes a sigh of relief as they pull up to the cottage, glad she can finally get you somewhere more comfortable. You’ve been in far too many uncomfortable positions today, moved around too much. She would have liked to keep you in Texas a couple more days, but she knew as soon as you were able to travel, the better. The sooner they could get off the grid, the better. 

The sooner they could get out of Texas, the better. 

Kyle is getting the wheelchair out of the trunk when Johnny and Simon pull up, not having been far behind. They likely took a turn around the back roads to ensure no one was following and to keep things from looking too suspicious. 

Christine keeps you from slumping out of the car as she carefully opens the door on your side. You’re more awake than you were, blinking up at her with almost startlingly aware eyes.

“Crutch.” You pout when she pulls the wheelchair closer. 

She gives you a look. “Honey I'm not sure you could even stand right now.” You may be more aware, but that doesn’t mean your body is working as it should.

You let out a defiant noise as you attempt to get your legs out of the car, trying to hide your grunts of pain and discomfort. 

She's tempted to stand there and let you try, but she knows all hell will break loose if she lets you fall. She's not willing to take that risk, not to mention it will cause you more pain to get you up off the ground. 

“Come on,” She says, stopping you before you can get your feet under you. “Nice and slow.” 

You let out a quiet growl of indignation but you allow her to help you, your legs trembling as she eases you up. Kyle is there with the wheelchair, getting it as close to you as possible so she can sit you down quickly. 

“Ow.” You breathe, eyes pinched closed as you breathe through the pain. 

“I know.” She says, patting your good shoulder lightly. She's glad she put you in the sweatshirt before you left Texas. It's chilly outside, chillier than it was further inland a few days ago. 

It's hard to believe it's only been a few days since you were taken. Barely even a week. So much happened in such a short period of time. It feels like it’s been weeks since everything started, but then again, it had been weeks since John and Kyle first left. It had been weeks since you had been around your whole pack together by the time you were taken. The deep depression you sunk into before the events of the last week had been draining you slowly for weeks before this. It had started before John and Kyle were deployed, back to that day when you revealed the cameras and the secret you had been hiding from them. 

How long you’ve gone in such turmoil. 

How far you still have to go. 

The path up to the door is rocky and uneven, the wheelchair jostling as she pushes it up towards the door. She can picture your face, the way it has to be screwed up in pain. You're silent though, holding it all in. She almost wishes you weren't being silent about it. 

The door is already open, light shining from inside as she approaches. Kyle is in the house already, having gone ahead to greet his sister. John is right behind the two of you as Christine turns to wheel you up the steps into the house. His eyes are on you, focused and ready should you fall.  

Christine would never let you fall, and from the way your hand is gripping the arm of the chair for dear life, you probably couldn't anyway. 

She wheels you through the entryway, the inside warmer thanks to a fire that's burning. It's a nice cottage, far nicer than she had been expecting judging from the outside. 

Johnny lets out a low whistle as he enters behind John, looking around. “Yer parents own this?” 

“It was given to our mum by our grandparents. They did some...renovations before they passed it on.” Kyle says. 

“Yer tellin’ me.” Johnny says. 

It looks new inside. New wood floors, freshly painted walls. The furniture looks like she would expect to find in an English seaside cottage, though. Kyle’s parents went to France for summer vacation instead of utilizing the cottage, and none of his siblings had wanted to use it, he told them. It looks almost perfect, like it came right out of a home renovation show. Kyle’s sister must have worked some sort of magic to get it this clean. 

It is a very nice cottage. It’s small, the door opening right to the main area. There’s two couches and a chair in the middle of the room around a coffee table. To the left of the couches is a fireplace, the fire already lit and crackling. It looks original, likely having been untouched in the renovations. There’s a door to the left of the fireplace closer to the main entryway. A bedroom maybe? To the right of the front door are two doors, one on the far wall and one facing the front door. 

The stairs are in the middle of the house, leading up to the second floor where there’s likely more bedrooms. On the far side of the main area is the dining area and beyond that is a sliding glass door. Around the corner on the far side of the stairs is likely the kitchen. She can see the fridge from where she’s standing. It’s new. Very new. Makes her wonder just how long ago it had been renovated. 

“Everyone, this is my sister Ashley.” Kyle says, introducing the other woman in the room. 

“Hello,” she says, giving everyone a wave and a dazzling smile. 

She’s dressed simply in jeans and a t-shirt, her medium box braids pulled up into a bun on top of her head. They look a lot alike, her and Kyle. Tall and slender and stunning. They have the same smile and the same soft brown eyes. She's wearing scent blockers, but Christine can imagine her having a soft scent like lavender or something fresh like mint. 

“There's two rooms down here, and two upstairs.” Kyle says. “The main bedroom is through there.” He points towards a door to their left. “I figure we'll give that to our omega. The bathroom in there has a walk-in shower.” 

“Perfect.” Christine says. That will make getting you in and out of the shower easier at least, and you won’t have to go far to use the bathroom.

“You should take the other room down here.” John says, looking at Christine. “So you can be close in case of an emergency.”

And so you don't have to be too close to them, so you won’t feel like they’re hovering.

He doesn't have to say that part out loud. 

“I put new sheets on all the beds.” Ashley says. “I also picked up everything Kyle sent on the list. Food, some clothes, some other necessities.”

You let out a quiet groan, Christine patting your head gently. You have to be exhausted and sore after the day. She should give you another dose of pain medicine like she said she would. You’re going to need it tonight. 

“Let's get you laying down for a bit.” She says, wheeling you towards the door. 

Kyle opens it for her, revealing a spacious room with a big window looking out towards the sea. You're going to spend a lot of time in front of that window, she thinks. The bed is in the middle of the room, and there’s two chairs facing the window. She’s almost tempted to sit you in one of the chairs, but laying down will be more comfortable for you right now. 

You're still too out of it now to care much as she wheels you to the double bed. With Kyle's help they get you horizontal, Christine draping the blanket at the end of the bed over you. It’s not very soft, but it will do for now. She’ll have to get the guys to pick up some soft blankets for you when they go to town. She has a whole list of things starting in her head she needs them to pick up.

She leans your crutch against the end of the bed just in case you might need it for an emergency. She hopes you’ll yell first, but you always have been stubborn. Being mostly bed-bound has only made that worse. 

“I’m going to go look through the things Ashley picked up.” She says, patting your leg gently. “Get some rest.” 

Christine leaves the door open a crack as she exits, wanting to give you a little privacy as you nap, or at least she hopes you’ll nap. It’s going to be a rough adjustment, and you’re going to need as much rest as you can get. 

“I’m assuming you’re Christine.” Ashley says, walking up to her. 

“I am.” She says, giving Ashley a smile. 

She can’t help but get lost in Ashley’s soft gaze for a moment. The Garrick siblings seem to share the same magnetic energy. There’s something almost ethereal about them. She could easily imagine them with glowing halos and angel wings. It’s almost like she’s being blessed with the opportunity to look upon her. She could spend an hour staring at Ashley’s face and not grow tired of looking at her.

“I picked up the items Kyle said you needed.” She says, motioning to the bags on the coffee table, pulling Christine out of her daze. “I couldn’t find the exact nutrient powder you asked for, so I got one that was as close as I could find.” 

Christine glances through the bags. She was thorough, getting at least two of everything. 

“I got warmer clothes for her too, since it can get chilly out here this time of year. Just some simple things for now until you guys get into town.” Ashley says. “I did some research too and I read that omegas like comforting things so I picked up some extra blankets and pillows” Ashley says, motioning to a couple bags sitting on the couch. “I also picked up this,” She pulls a stuffed dog from one of the bags, holding it up. “It was the softest one I could find. I thought it might help.” 

A small smile forms on Christine’s face, her heart fluttering in her chest from the sweet, thoughtful gesture. Ashley doesn’t even know you, nor did she know exactly what happened to you, and yet she went so far as to pick up some comfort items for you. You have nothing right now, only the borrowed clothes on your back. All of your belongings are still on base, all of the things that you had built to make your perfect nest. Would you want any of them still? Or have they been tainted by the events of the last few weeks? 

That Ashley thought to do this has warmth flooding Christine’s body. You can have some comfort now without having to wait for their trip to town. She almost feels the urge to cry. She wants to hug Ashley, thank her over and over for her kindness. Ashley has no idea how much her small act of kindness means, how much it's going to mean. 

A smile forms on Christine’s face as she stares at the stuffed dog. “It’s perfect.” 

You can hear it. 

In the distance, the quiet roar reaches your ears as you’re dragged from the sweet arms of sleep. It must be a dream, or perhaps the sedative is still clinging to your mind, making you imagine things. 

No. 

You’d know that sound anywhere. 

The effort to push yourself up to sit is a momentous one, every cell in your body protesting after a day of being moved and jostled. The last thing you want is to move right now, but you have to. 

The pain meds have done little to help.

The crutch at the end of your bed must be a thousand miles away as you sit there and stare at it. The ache in your body only increases as you become more and more aware of the pain, almost as if it can tell what it is your mind is planning. 

The door is cracked open, letting in a slit of light from outside. It’s dark in the room, the curtains pulled over the window. It’s a blessing compared to the bright yellow light outside the door. You welcome the darkness as your head begins to throb. You could call for assistance. You’d get more help than you needed. More help than you want. 

No. 

You need to do this. 

The effort it takes to get standing nearly sends you back onto the bed. The pain nearly blinds you as your feet touch the floor, your body leaning against the side of the mattress out of desperation. If you fall, you’ll never be alone again. You can’t afford that. You don’t want that. 

If you fall, you’ll never get up again. 

The breaths out of your nose are short and sharp as you reach for the crutch, fingers trembling in the effort to fight the pain threatening to blind you. You’re trembling like a leaf in a storm as your fingers finally wrap around the cool metal. The rubber bottom drags across the floor as you tug it over to you, holding it against your chest for a moment. 

Breathe. That’s what you need to do. Breathe. 

In and out. 

Nice and slow. 

The pain is only a memory. The pain is nothing. The memories forming at the edges of your mind will take over and wipe out the pain and the misery. You just have to be sure. You just have to be certain.

You push yourself upright using the crutch, tucking it under your arm. You should go back to bed. You should rest. 

No. 

You need to know. 

You need to be certain.

The first step you take nearly makes you sick. 

It’s like watching a baby deer walk for the first time, knees wobbling, feet shaking. You lean heavily on the crutch, your determination the only thing keeping you from tumbling to the floor in a heap. That might almost hurt worse than forcing yourself to stand upright. 

If you fall, you’ll never get up again. 

Inch by inch you move across the floor, silently grateful for the socks on your feet. They allow you to slide across the hardwood, but they also pose a threat. Slide too far and you’ll lose your feet. 

If you fall, you’ll never get up again. 

The determination and your desire for certainty is what keeps you sliding inch by inch across the floor towards that strip of blinding light in front of you. It’s hovering before you, threatening you. How do you know there’s not one of them standing guard, waiting for you to try and leave? You can’t know. You don’t have a clue what’s waiting on the other side of that door. It could be nothing. It could be your entire pack. 

Breathe. 

In and out. 

You take a moment at the door, resting your aching feet. Your body is throbbing from the effort to keep yourself upright, the sedative still numbing your brain and your movements. It’s like treading through honey, everything twice as hard as it should be. You can walk. You’ve done it before. You did it in the medical center. 

You can do it here. 

You use the crutch to push the door open more, your free arm still tucked in a sling to keep you from moving it. Reaching for it with that arm would have put you on the floor, would have caused more pain than you needed, would have made you fall. 

If you fall, you’ll never get up again. 

Breathe. 

The light burns. Explosions of yellows and whites erupt behind your eyelids as you screw them tight against the sudden onslaught. The sun is in the room, shining its rays directly into your sensitive eyes. Your stomach churns, your fingers tightening around the crutch so tight your knuckles begin to ache. The oppressive light makes you want to recede back into the darkness of the room behind you like a vampire shying away from the light of day. 

No. 

You won’t be defeated by the harsh artificial lighting. You need to know. 

You need to be certain.

The others are moving around. You can hear voices around the corner, voices upstairs with thudding footsteps. The air is thick with a mesh of scents, cleaning chemicals, and the burn of scent blocker. Your nose wrinkles at the sudden onslaught against your senses, your sedated brain making it all seem so much worse. 

You need to know. 

The hardwood floors continue and you use them to your advantage as you shuffle your way across the main area. The fire crackles as you pass, the popping of a log making you startle. Your feet slide again, your body pushing up against the crutch to hold yourself steady. 

If you fall, you’ll never get up again. 

Your target is dead ahead, a mile away but so close you can almost taste it. Just past the dining table and straight on till morning. 

Despite your snail’s pace, no one seems to notice you shuffling your way across the house. It should make you upset, the fact that none of them notice you moving around, but instead it makes you glad. They’d try to stop you if they noticed you, turn you around and shuffle you back to bed. Or worse, they’d carry you. 

How easily you could slip away, though. 

Well...in theory. 

Perhaps that’s why they ‘re not paying you any mind. How far could you really go in your current state? 

Why would you want to stray from the only safe space you have? 

The world outside is more dangerous with the state you’re in. Not just because of your injuries and your status, but also because you know Shepherd is still out there, and for all you know Graves is as well. 

He could be waiting right outside the door. 

No. 

They’d know. 

They’d protect you. 

They failed. 

You push past the fear in favor of certainty as you push forward, passing the dining table in your slow crawl towards the sliding glass door. 

It poses an entirely new threat as you stand before it, staring out the darkened glass. You have to get it open. Getting it open takes strength and you’re down to one hand that’s trying to keep you upright. 

You have to know. 

You have to be certain. 

You lean your weight on the crutch, ignoring the way it digs into your armpit as you reach for the handle. You click the lock, wrapping your fingers around the plastic before pulling. Your body screams with pain as you tug, the door sliding in the track as slowly as you had moved across the small living area. It’s almost as if it's mocking you. 

It’s open only as wide as you need to crutch your way through, doing your best not to knock your left shoulder against the frame. 

If you fall, you’ll never get up again. 

Breathe. 

You can smell it. 

The salty sea air invades your senses, slipping up through your nose and straight into your brain. Memories come flooding back of childhood vacations back when things were simpler. Back when nothing mattered but the sand and the water and avoiding getting chased by your brothers carrying the piece of seaweed they found. 

Polkadot bathing suits, bright red to be seen easily. Toes in the water, sand everywhere. The nap in the silent car home. 

How simple life was back then. How easy life was. 

Your heart aches for those days again. The days when you could exist without a care in the world, trusting your pack would keep you safe, trusting your family would care for you. Your mind yearns for that sense of safety and security again. 

The world is grey as you hobble across the porch, the grey seeming to go on forever. You missed it, the chill in the air, the gloomy grey overhead. How you yearned for the gloom of England while stuck in the heat of Texas. 

Anything is better than Texas. 

Your forward shuffle pauses at the edge of the deck, your eyes looking out into the grey. Your breath catches in your throat as you stare out into the distance, the ache in your chest intensifying. It blocks out the pain in your body, numbing you to everything else as you stand there, legs trembling from the effort of going the short distance from your room to the end of the porch. 

You can see it. 

Emotions swirl inside of you like a hurricane as you stare out where the grey water meets the grey sky in the line of the horizon. Those emotions threaten to choke you as you stand there trembling at the edge of the porch. There’s a breeze, a cold one that bites through the fabric of your sweatshirt and into the skin below, but you don’t care. 

You can’t care. 

Your legs shake from the exertion, the neverending exhaustion that’s settled deep into your bones. It’s not just a physical exhaustion, but a mental one as well. It’s been a long week. 

Only a week. 

So much has happened in a week. 

You want to sit. You want to sink down onto the porch and rest. 

If you fall, you’ll never get up again. 

There’s a pain in your chest as your breath catches in your throat. The emotions are whirling, tightening around your chest, squeezing your lungs until they feel like they might pop. 

Breathe. 

In and out. 

You needed certainty. You needed to know. 

You can hear it. You can smell it. You can see it. 

A single tear rolls down your cheek as you stare out at the sea. 

NEXT ->

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[unluckiestmember]

how do you think BES characters would react to reader getting sick? i have a feeling taigen would have no clue what he’s doing lmaoo

Coming right up!

Blue Eye Samurai X Sick! Reader

Characters: Mizu, Taigen, Ringo and Ito Akemi

Tags: Established Relationship, Overprotectiveness, Fluff, Worrying boyfriends and girlfriends, Taigen being Taigen

Warning: None. SFW.

A/N: If I ever get sick, take me to Akemi! XD

Mizu

“What’s wrong?... Don’t tell me you got sick? Fine, let’s see what I can give you…”

When you got sick, Mizu wasn’t very quick to realize it. It wasn’t until after a fight did she realize you were sloppy in execution and your movement. That’s when she realized you weren’t feeling so well. Though her cooking skills are not the best, she will do her best to brew up some hot soup for you and even go to villages to find proper medicine for you.

At first she’ll keep her distance so she doesn’t catch your cold, but after many nights of seeing you struggle against your infection she just can’t help but hold your hand tenderly and kiss it while rubbing circles with her thumb. The worse your sickness gets, the more she’ll pamper you and the more worry seethes into her. She may keep a level head, but she’s genuinely concerned for you. As soon as you feel better, expect her to keep an eagle’s eye on you. She’ll be damned if she loses you to a common cold. She’ll be damned if she loses you to anything.

Taigen

“Drink it. Stop being stubborn- As cute as that is, I need you to drink this medicine. Hurry up.”

Taigen is quicker to notice when you catch a cold. He can just tell you’re not yourself physically and emotionally. So expect this man to stop everything to make sure you’re alright. Mizu will find it annoying, yes, but Taigen will not let her annoyance stop him from trying to make you feel better. He’s not the best at making medicine, soups or even tea, but he tries his best and even asks Ringo for assistance.

Being the kind of person he is, expect Taigen to tease you while you’re sick. Not ruthlessly. With love. He will go to the ends of the Earth just so you can get rid of your cold and risk everything as long as you’re okay. When you do get better, Taigen will still have you take medicine and drink soups. Yeah you may be fine now, but for all he knows the next common cold is around the corner! If you gently assure him you’re okay, he’ll be a good boy and lay off.

Ringo

“As soon as you’re done with your soup, why don’t you lay down? Rest is the best medicine next to. Well. Actual medicine.”

Ringo is quick to know when you are sick. If you cough, he’ll ask if you’re okay. But when you start coughing and sneezing up a storm, he will stop traveling and make shelter for a while. He’s very calm when you are under the weather, worried yes, but also calm and collected. He will give you soup, warm up a bath for you as best as he can and make sure you sleep somewhere just as warm. While you’re sick, he will tell you stories in hopes of seeing you smile and even hear you laugh. Just seeing you happy makes him happy.

When you have recovered from your sickness, Ringo will hesitate to stop giving you assistance, but is more lenient to give you space. He will still stay by your side and check up on you, but he won’t be helping you twenty four seven out of worry. Just expect a shower of kisses and many bear-like hugs.

Ito Akemi

“You’re sick? Oh, my darling. Don’t worry, I’ll have service fetch you the best remedies, okay?”

Akemi automatically knows when you are sick. You can cough once or let out a baby sneeze and she’ll proclaim that you’re sick. She will have all of her servants go around Japan to find the best medicine to knock the cold out of you. All while staying right by your side to check your temperature and ask endlessly if you are alright. Akemi is extremely worried when you catch a cold and can’t focus on anything else except you in these circumstances.

Her people will be upset that she’s spending every waking hour taking care of you, but she doesn’t care. You come before everyone else. When you finally get better, she will shower you in love and playfully scold you to not get sick again. But everyone shouldn’t expect to get their princess back immediately because she’ll be too busy giving all of her energy to you for a few days.

If you got any requests for Blue Eye Samurai, send them my way!

Likes and retweets are always appreciated! I love you all, stay hydrated and have a good day! &lt;3

[honeybubbledivination]

Loyalty of your Future Spouse or Significant Other 💛

(Could be your current situation with someone you plan to marry or a POSSIBLE future person.)

Please use your own discretion and discernment. This is for entertainment purposes only. I do not offer medical or legal advice.

[Obvi, major tw for infidelity. Mentions of narcissistic tendencies/personality, gaslighting. Unhealthy relationship themes.]

Pick an image to determine your reading! Options go from 1-3, left to right!

Pile one:

‘loml’ - Taylor Swift

‘Still’ - Noah Kahan

‘Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus’ - Taylor Swift

Obligatory note for each pile that ‘the hidden truth oracle’ cards are basically quotes. These are things that they are saying, have said, or will say. It can also be the progression of their thoughts leading up to their frame of mind from the beginning of the connection to the end or current standing. Take it as you will!

‘Love Oracle Cards’ by Beach Time Soul: Not Today, Soulmates, Girl Talk, Heartbroken, Boat, Healthy Choices, Keys on a Ring, Love Call, Ascending, The Chaser, Mask, Girl With a Snake, The Dragonfly

‘The Hidden Truth v2’ by All Things Intuitive: I can be myself with you. // I am recovering. // I am in a committed relationship. // Will you ever make things right? // I can’t be with you. // You broke my heart. // We don’t share the same values. // I don’t know why this happened. // I don’t know what comes next.

‘The Love Oracle’ by Simplistic Mystic: Ghosted, Unfinished Business, Wedding, Proposal, Fated Meeting, Travel, Date, Magnetic Attraction, Family, Finances, Divine Intervention, Unexpected, Storm Warning, Between The Lines, Crossroads, Break Up

‘The Hidden Truth Oracle’ by All Things Intuitive: I want you. // I love you. // I want to feel that way again. // I hide behind material things. // So many things remind me of you. // We both know I am not the one for you. // I left you before you could leave me. // You and I were too young. // You were the best thing in my life. // We need to let each other go. // I can’t stop thinking about you.

Welcome Pile One! I have a heavier reading for you. If your intuition lead you here and you’re read to see the truth, strap in. It feels like the person you’re asking about is someone you’re already with. You’ve been with them long enough to talk about marriage and kids and seeing the world together. But, they’re a liar. I’ll just be upfront about it, no point in having more than one person in your life beat around the bush with you. They’re emotionally immature and have in fact cheated on you. They will never admit it because of their ego, but that’s why they ghosted you recently. They’ve had a one night stand with someone and it’s reminded them of a time or situation where they weren’t very honest with you in the past about someone you considered family. They’ll lie about it if you confront them, but the guilt is eating them alive. You may be close with their family or they’re close with yours. This could be a union that everyone seems to support because you may have helped this person heal, or at least act like they are. But, while you’re at home holding up the foundation, they’re out doing God knows what with God knows who. You should’ve trusted your intuition from the start, but that’s okay because divine intervention is more than just having something randomly come into your life or leave it. Divine intervention is when anyone or anything is in your life for a reason, season, or lifetime. No matter if you decide to stick by this person and let them continue to treat you poorly or if you break it off, they’re in your life for a reason. A lesson of heartbreak and realizing your worth. Would you let anyone treat your family or friends like this? If the answer is no, you need to look in the mirror and realize you not only disrespect yourself when you accept less than you are worth. You’re disrespecting your family and loved ones. Past, present, and future. Now, this person will expect you to pick up the pieces time and time again while they keep breaking everything. And they’ll blame all of it on you. If not to your face, then behind your back with whoever they’re messing around with. Love is not about push and pull, it just exists. It’s not meant to be fought for within the dynamic. It just exists. It’s simple. I hope you realize this and dump that loser. God bless you, honey bee. Drop that idiot before they ghost you. If they’re gonna talk crap, give them a reason to.

- Bunny 🍯💛

Pile Two:

Bad Guy Billie Eilish

So Long, London - Taylor Swift

Casual - Chappell Roan

Obligatory note for each pile that ‘the hidden truth oracle’ cards are basically quotes. These are things that they are saying, have said, or will say. It can also be the progression of their thoughts leading up to their frame of mind from the beginning of the connection to the end or current standing. Take it as you will!

‘Love Oracle Cards’ by Beach Time Soul: Love Call, Separation, Palm Tree, The Grim Reaper, Karmic Relationship

‘The Hidden Truth v2’ by All Things Intuitive: I don’t want to let you go. // I hide my feelings. // I still have feelings for you. // I know you don’t feel the same. // I don’t know what comes next. // We don’t share the same values. // You inspire me. // I feel so happy with you. // I saved your texts and messages. // Your intellect arouses me. // I feel the sexual tension. // I’m not financially stable.

‘The Love Oracle’ by Simplistic Mystic: Player, Grass Is Greener, Single, Between The Lines, Healing, Mystery, Regret, Heartbreak

‘The Hidden Truth Oracle’ by All Things Intuitive: You were the best thing in my life. // I can’t stop thinking about you. // I left before you could leave me. // Sometimes I stay awake thinking about you. // I will wait for a sign from you. // I bury myself in work to forget you. // Just being near you is intoxicating. // I remember every detail of that day. // I look for you everywhere. // My life is not as together as it seems. // I want you.

Hey, Pile Two! Now, this pile felt like you’re not actually with this person currently. Maybe you had a fling with them or dated once upon a time and you’ve been thinking about them. Maybe people thought you’d end up together, but you never really did on official terms. You’ve been thinking about them a little bit lately, I wouldn’t say too much. Just here and there. And they’ve been thinking about you, too! But, this person is not your FS or SO. They’re a karmic relationship meant to test you to see if you’ll grow from what feels comfortable to what is really meant for you. What’s meant for you is being left as a surprise for now. This person doesn’t love you like you love them. They have an infatuation with you because you’re so kind and sweet to them. They like everything about you, but I wouldn’t say that they have feelings for you. They feel like you should be theirs, but they don’t want to actually lay claim by dating or marrying you. Not when they could have sex with whoever they want while they’re single. I don’t think they’d cheat on you if you abandoned your healing journey and where to reach out to them, but I think they’d do everything in their power to make you despise them, so they could validate cheating on you. This person is not loyal to you. They’re loyal to their ego and their sex drive. Find yourself and know that being single is a blessing itself. Stay strong, honey bee! Love and light!

- Bunny 💛🍯

Pile Three:

I Miss the Misery - Halestorm

Kiss U Right Now - DUCKWRTH

Missing Limbs - Sleep Token

Obligatory note for each pile that ‘the hidden truth oracle’ cards are basically quotes. These are things that they are saying, have said, or will say. It can also be the progression of their thoughts leading up to their frame of mind from the beginning of the connection to the end or current standing. Take it as you will!

‘Love Oracle Cards’ by Beach Time Soul: Soulmates, Love, Lightning, Seduction, Abundance, Engagement, Passion, The Dragonfly, Boat

‘The Hidden Truth v2’ by All Things Intuitive: I don’t know what comes next. // I would do it all again. // Your intellect arouses me. //I compare others to you. // I can’t get enough of you.

‘The Love Oracle’ by Simplistic Mystic: Liquid Courage, Truth, New Love, Proposal, Magnetic Attraction, Date, Soulmate, Legal Matters, Intuition, Crossroads, Unfinished Business, Healing, Regret, Heartbreak

‘The Hidden Truth Oracle’ by All Things Intuitive: I love you unconditionally. // I feel you even though we are apart. // I want to tell you how I feel.

Hey, Pile Three! Finally! A light hearted one! The other two piles are in a heavier energy and having to decide to heal or to go back to what’s comfortable. You could be a healed and clean slate version of pile one or two! Good job healing, baby bee! This person I’m seeing for you loves you. But, you need to make sure you’re all healed from those past situations because the person or people from the past will try to come back and sabotage your happiness. So, stick to your guns and stay with the person that makes you feel safe and doesn’t make you nervous or scared. Choose stability, honey bee! This one was definitely shorter, but you’re on the right track! Keeping healing and stay on the right track! Good love and luck!

- Bunny 💛🍯

Bunny’s Note: Thank you for buzzing by, busy bees! This reading was a doozy, but I think it’ll help a lot of you move on and be more realistic about stuff. Just make sure you’re doing what’s best for YOU. No one else matters. You are the center of your own universe. Heal your world before worrying about anyone else. If you’d like to book a private reading about more concerning this reading or anything else, pm me! I don’t do readings about medical or legal stuff!

[brighttears]

I have a request!!

I cannot stop thinking about Joel noticing that the reader leans into his touch but is scared to initiate anything herself. So when he finds out that her ex made her feel insecure for being clingy, he immediately talks with her and tries to tell her how she deserves all the touches she needs ❤️❤️

It's just so sweet!

Joel Miller x f!reader

No physical description, no use of y/n

Word count: 1.5k

Warnings: pet names (darling, sweetheart, good girl, baby), a little hot and heavy but no smut, mentions of previous mental/emotionally abusive relationship and reader is not fully recovered, reader’s former relationship is with a man

A/n: Sorry this took so long hope it doesn’t disappoint eeee ! also referring to Joel as ‘boyfriend’ does something to me boy oh boy

—

You try replacing touching Joel with looking at him, listening to him, just trying to soak up everything you can, hoping for something to be enough to relieve the yearning ache you’ve always felt for him. When you first got to the point in your relationship where you could touch freely, it was difficult to hold back—you’d wanted it so much and fantasized about it too often beforehand. When Joel does want physical affection, you give him as much as he’ll take, and you always have the solace of how he holds you every night. Still, you have to reel yourself back in constantly. You’d rather have that than a repeat of your ex, though. Joel is different from him in many ways—he is a better man, a good man, and you know he’s not him, but you can’t shake what your ex had told you, and you don’t want Joel to start hating you for being clingy like he had. So, you keep the dog that drools for him at bay; but as it turns out, the leash isn’t as tight as you thought.

You were at the Tipsy Bison that night, chatting with Tommy and Maria on your way out. Joel leaned against a post with you at his side, already standing close, but then he casually slung his arm around your waist, pulling you to him, brushing his thumb up and down your hip. You were barely able to follow the conversation after that, and when you had to ask Tommy to repeat his question, your boyfriend decided it was time to say goodnight. 

He held your hand the whole walk back, and you once again had to ask him to repeat something he’d said, distracted both by the warmth of his large hand in yours and digs of anxiety about your behavior. When the touch breaks as you enter the house, so over you does a wave of anxiety and shame. You bow your head deeply, trying to hide your burning face, and go straight up to the bedroom. Sitting on the bed, you take your time untying your shoes, trying to mentally prepare yourself for the talk you’re sure Joel is about to give you. You’ve been trying so hard, but you’re still too clingy—freakishly clingy. No one likes someone like that. That last relationship was for two years, and you thought you’d loved him—that is, until Joel came into your life—and he was the one that left. Don’t mess this one up. you scold yourself.

When Joel walks in, causally unbuttoning his flannel, you keep your eyes on your laces, but as he moves, you can tell he’s looking at you. Left in his white tee, Joel folds his flannel up in his hands, then tosses it onto the bed as he sits down next to you.

“I’m sorry,” you begin for him, “it won’t happen again. I can control myself. I’ll be better about it. I promise.” your mind is fogged with anxiety, your chest knotted tight. 

“What?”

You look up at him and his brow is furrowed, but a smile plays at the end of his lip like he thinks you’re joking. You blink. “I mean, like about being clingy, I know I have a problem with it, I’m sorry.” you turn your head back down, closing your eyes and shaking your head, hating yourself. 

“Clingy? When did I ever say I have a problem with you bein’ clingy?”

“Well, I just,” you try to hide frustration in your voice, targeted only inwards, “I know I am, and that I’m just too much with that stuff, and I know that's just like unattractive and I didn’t mean to humiliate you in front of Tommy and Maria like that, I’m sorry I made such a fool of myself and you,”

He interrupts, “Woah, woah, where is this comin’ from, darlin’? Who put all that shit in your head? Cause I know I never said anythin’ like that.”

Afraid of a scowl, you keep your head down as you explain yourself, feeling another pang of guilt in your chest. “Well, my ex, I was really clingy, I mean, I am really clingy, but he, you know, taught me about it.”

“Taught you what?”

“Just that, you know, it’s—bad, and embarrassing when I do it in public, and annoying.”

“Your ex told you all this?” Finally, you look at him timidly. He’s leaning forward with his hands on the bed, looking at you with his brow knit with confusion and concern.

“Well, yeah,” you reply sheepishly. 

“Okay, well first of all, that’s all bullshit,” he chuckles lightly, “you’re not clingy. Clingy’s different. An’ if this is about, you know, touch, I like you touchin’ me.” He nudges you with his shoulder, making you chuckle despite your mood. “An’ this ex a yours, well he’s just one man—actually, sounds more like a boy than a man, talkin’ t’you like that—but just cause he did’n like it doe’n mean no one else does, or that it’s bad. It’s not bad, sweetheart,” Joel shakes his head lightly, “nothin’s wrong with… liking to be touched.”  his eyes travel up and down you and he shifts his torso towards you, supporting one hand on the bed, and with the other, he takes your chin with his thumb and index to angle your rosy face to look at him. “You deserve all the touchin’ you want, baby. If this is what you like,” he moves his hand slowly over your cheek, and you lean into it, “this is what I’ll give you.” Instantly you’re liquid in the cup of his hand, warmth making your eyelids lazy. You let out a sigh, near overwhelmed with, just, Joel. Those big beautiful brown eyes wander over your face and he gently presses his hand into the weight of your head and you automatically lean further into the pressure and warmth. He smirks, “I like you like this.” You giggle, easily with all of you feeling lighter.

Your anxiety has washed away completely. You can be an easy forgetter, but ground easily with Joel. He’s your man, he loves you, he’s always held your body like he needs it. You can’t even fit in a thought of your ex with Joel so close to you, holding the weight of your head, and god, those dreamy eyes on your lips. 

You slide your hand up his forearm and wrap it around his wrist, then turn your cheek just enough to start kissing his palm, keeping his gaze. 

Joels’ eyes flash and then he takes his hand away to take your waist and sits further back on the bed to pull you on to straddle his lap. You yelp and giggle but you’re barely actually thinking, just feeling him. He kisses you tenderly and you smooth your hands up his chest and to his face, lips slow, impassioned, and heavy. You’re on autopilot, letting your body move how it wants over Joel. Joel’s hands slide around to splay on your back and he pulls you into him; it pushes a breathy moan out of you, electricity humming over every inch of your front pressed against his body, warm and sound. Your head is angled over his shoulder and he trades your lips for your neck. The pressure of his hold, feeling all of him right up against you, relieves your ache for him, you feel it dissipate and it escapes out of you in a drawl of his name. At that, he clutches you tighter, and you feel a buzz as he hums into your neck. Then he takes his lips away, making you let out a deep breath, his nose and top lip still ghosting over your skin as he says in a husky purr, “Y’know, you’re not the only one who likes this.” Eyes closed, you let out a breathy chuckle, feeling it move against his body. Joel loosens his hold so you fall back just enough to be able to look at him, his head tilted up slightly to meet your eyes, “So don’t be afraid of touchin’ me, sweetheart.”

“Okay.” You respond, almost automatically—if he ever wants to convince you of something, this would be the way to do it. 

“Good girl.” He kisses you once and then enfolds you again in a tight embrace, you hum a sigh, resting your chin lazily on his shoulder, arms around his broad back, and you want to stay here forever. You skim your hands up and down his back and he sighs deeply. Then, quiet and muffled against you, he says, “God, I want you all over me, baby.”

[beelzebubsis]

i don't think i’ll ever emotionally recover from

bbh: as long as richarlyson is upstairs, i'm okay foolish: WHAT ABOUT YOU BAD??

[cressthebest]

i’m trying to mentally prepare myself to read another marauders fic like i had previously planned.

HOWEVER

i am so emotionally devastated from the ending of just lovers that i don’t think i’ll ever recover.

[netherfeildren]

Did the loneliness die that night?

A Fear of God story : Series Masterlist

Pairing: Joel Miller x OFC

Summary: Birdie and Joel's first time.

Content Warnings: Unprotected sex; Creampie; Rough sex; Oral sex; Angst; Hurt/Comfort; Descriptions of medical procedures; Size difference; Size kink; Mutual pining; Emotionally constipated idiots

A/N: Title is from Pablo Neruda's Love Sonnet XVII

Rating: Explicit 18+

Word Count: 7.3K

Read on AO3

“You should head home now, honey. No point staying so late. I think we’re done for today.”

“I will, Connie – soon. Just gonna read for a bit.” He pauses the tidying up of his papers to turn and look at you with those milky, discerning eyes of his. He’s been complaining recently that his vision is getting worse – his eyes tired and weak earlier and earlier in the day. You know he’s getting ready to call it quits soon, leave you with the gargantuan responsibility of running the clinic and caring for the people of Jackson all on your own. Your mentor, your friend, your champion – ready to ditch you.

You don’t think you’re ready. You don’t think you’ll ever be ready. You also know it’s not fair to categorize it as that. He’s tired. He deserves to rest. 

You also don’t think he’s going to give you much of a choice in the matter pretty soon. 

“You felt alright today?” He likes to check in on your confidence levels every now and then, knows you like to second guess yourself behind his back.

“Yeah… good. The surgery went well – I thought.”

“Yes, you were excellent. I have no doubt that our patient will recover beautifully.” He winks at you, slips his coat over his frail shoulders. You let a small smile unfold across your face, excellent, yeah, okay. If you could count on anything it was Connie as your number one hype man. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow, my dear. I might be in a little later in the afternoon,” he warns, and you roll your eyes into your book where he can’t catch you. 

“Sure thing.” 

You sort of lose track of time into the night. Mainly because a large part of you is loath to go back to your quiet and lonely house. 

Sometimes it feels a little as if you’d spat out your heart in the woods where your sister was killed before you found Jackson, pieces of your memories. And this continuation of whatever it is that you’re doing now, building a life, living, going on, fucking bullshit, is a play act you’re putting on for yourself, for the people you take care of now, Connie who counts on you and relies on you and has been planting the seeds of his future and that of his patients in the soil of your mind. Too many responsibilities for a half girl living a half life. 

What was in that framework of a carved out house, that carcass of that fake life you pretend at when the sun’s high in the sky? Archeological remnants of a person you aren’t anymore, bones of a girl that, in too many ways, had died out there with her sister. 

Too morose. Too morose. Unnecessarily dramatic. 

You have a good thing here, this you know. A second chance, a place to do good. Those things are important. But what else? Nothing but stagnation and the waiting shoes of a great man who expects the world of you, and who you’re more afraid of than anything that you’ll be able to do nothing more than disappoint. Connie expects much from you. His past repeated in bright, shining colors in a world gone to rot. An impossible feat. How to make the most intelligent, most amazing person you’ve ever known, that expects the world of you, understand that all you have to give is little more than nothing?

But besides all that? Besides the crushing weight of expectation and inevitable failure and the certainty that you’ll never be able to be good enough for a world categorized in the before – what else is there for you here?

You stare blindly out the warped glass pane of the window. The house the clinic’s been accommodated to is old. Old, sturdy bones. Reliable. Like the house could weather any sort of storm. Remain standing and provide refuge to any of those who’d seek shelter here. This is what you need to make yourself into. 

But what else is there for you besides this? 

The question rings screaming in your mind. That terribly fraught, agonizingly selfish, humiliatingly ungrateful thought – when yes, you already have so much, but wait, there’s still something, something missing – that whispers that you still want one more thing, something else to fill that hollow ache inside of you. 

You wish someone would just tell you – set the answer before you, feed it to you by hand. Tell me, tell me how to fill the ache, and I’ll do it. You’ve always been good at following orders, doing what you’re told. You like to be told. You like the comfort and security of it. 

And then the bell above the front door chimes – it’s late – and there he is, stepping through your office door. 

“Joel–”

“Went by your house – what’re you still doin’ here? It’s late.” Sometimes it’s like he can read minds. Strange, mercurial wonder of a man. 

You take him in. “Your hand–”

He lifts up his bloody palm, dried rivulets of rust snake up his forearm and down his fingers. “Yeah… got caught on an old nail.” He shakes his head, looks back at you with a grumpy frown, “It’s late, sweetheart. You should be home.”

“I got distracted reading,” you say offhandedly, already up and moving around to collect the supplies you’ll need to patch him up. He really focuses on the most inconsequential details at the most inopportune times. “Come here–” you start dragging a chair over from Connie’s desk towards your own, a murmured, let me, from him, trying to pull the thing from your grasp. You shoo him away, “Sit,” you order, settling the chair in front of your own and pulling your desk lamp to the edge. Stubborn man. 

He falls heavily into the chair, an exhausted sigh following in his wake. “Always getting yourself into messes you shouldn’t be,” you say with a small smile, shaking your head at him. He only grunts. 

“You alright?” he asks gently.

“Yep, I’m okay. You too? Well…besides this.”

“Yeah, I’m alright, sweetheart.” You can’t stand it when he calls you sweetheart, it makes you all soft and desperate and wet. He’s quiet for a beat, and then, as if he can’t help himself, he asks, “Seen Ellie recently?” She doesn’t speak to him, and you don’t know why or what the extent of their relationship is, but you know something isn’t right, that there’s history, and that it hurts him. You know he worries for her because he always asks how she’s doing since you and she had become friends. 

“She came in this afternoon – she’s good,” you say quickly, seeing him sit up slightly at hearing she’d been in the clinic, “She just dropped by to say hi… she’s fine, don’t worry.”

He settles back in the chair. “Ain’t worryin’” he grumbles, another grumpy frown. He’s quiet for another long moment while he watches you set your needle in your forcep, gather the antibacterial to sterilize the wound. “Nancy in?” 

The old nurse who helped you and Connie out with the clinic and lived upstairs was a true wild child at heart. “She’s out with her girlfriend.”

“It’s almost midnight… isn’t she like seventy?”

“Seventy-four, but she has a young spirit, and love has no age,” you give him a pointed look. 

“Jesus,” he sighs. You grip the thick bones of his wrist in a firm grasp, drag the tips of your fingers over his palm, down the lengths of his fingers so that he’ll uncurl them. You think you hear what might be the resonance of something deep and rumbling coming from his chest that has your insides going hot and wet and soft. You want to tell him to not make sounds like that when you’re trying to focus, but you hold your tongue and begin to clean out the gash in slow, methodical strokes.  

 He tilts his head back when you start to drag the needle through his skin with a murmured, here goes. His neck is so thick, strong, the muscles and tendons popping starkly with his exhale, and okay, focus, focus, it’s time to focus now. You start to close the wide gash in his palm with a neat percutaneous closure, a simple interrupted suture with your safely guarded and jealously hoarded Vicryl – Connie has a contact that re-supplies you every few months. 

“Your hands are cold.” 

You pause your sewing to peek up at him. “Sorry.”

A shake of his head, “Should get the heat workin’ better in here.”

“It’s fine,” the drag of the suture through his flesh.

“S’not if you’re cold.”

“I’m fine, Joel.” He hums a displeased sound. 

You can feel his gaze searing into the skin of your face. Your cheeks are burning hot, the backs of your knees sweating. You hate it when he looks at you like this, have caught him several times, more and more frequently, and it fills you with a belly full of fizz and nerves, head dizzy and light. You’re certain that if he were to keep his eyes on you long enough you might get so lightheaded you’d do something really dramatic like faint or throw yourself at him and tell him he’s the hottest man you’ve ever seen in your entire life. 

“Got the longest lashes I’ve ever seen,” he says after a beat, so softly, and you feel your blush burn fever bright and self-respect-meltingly hot. A spearing twist of embarrassment and lust and the deepest sort of yearning you’ve ever experienced in your life boils through you so intensely that you even feel your eyes smart at his words. A tick starts up in your left eyelid from how nervous he makes you. All your anxiety and adrenaline being channeled to that one tiny, singular nerve to keep your hands steady while you sew his skin closed.

“Th– thank you,” you stutter, stupid, you should say something more, something better. What you’d really like to tell him is that he’s beautiful – rough and rugged and beautiful and that you see it, despite how hard he tries to hide it behind his eternal frown. You see him. He hums, and you register the tilt of his head out of your periphery as he settles in to inspect you. You’ve got both your knees tucked between his parted thighs, and as he settles in his chair deeper, he spreads them even wider, pushing his hips forward to slouch low, and fuck, you know you shouldn’t be looking, but you can even make out the thick weight of his cock beneath his jeans. So inappropriate, you chastise yourself, you’re the man’s physician, you’re tending to his wounds, he’s come to you in a vulnerable state, you shouldn’t be ogling and objectifying him. But on the back end of that thought is the whisper that there is absolutely fuck all about this man that is even the slightest bit vulnerable. For Christ’s sake, just look at him, so fucking thick and broad and strong and handsome, with the cockiest air of slight menace you’ve ever come across. You think that there is very little that could make a creature such as this vulnerable. You press your thighs together, pressing one foot on top of the other to squeeze yourself as small and tight as you can, cunt a twisting, wet ache. 

You’d wanted him from the first moment you’d laid eyes on him. It had been something almost intrinsic, instinctual. You’d seen him and all your brain and your body had been able to scream at you was that one, that one, we want that one. So perhaps you do have an answer for that screaming question that wants for more. Sometimes it feels like the two of you have been circling each other like blood in the water all this time. Like you both know, even if you can’t admit it just yet, that it’s just a matter of time until this strange, tense dance the two of you’ve been caught in comes to a head; cracks and splinters like a fault line and swallows you whole.

“When was the last time you had a tetanus shot?”

“Twenty years ago.”

You roll your eyes. “We’ll get you one of those then.”

A soft, uncaring grunt. “What were ya readin’?” Really, the most inconsequential things…

“Boring stuff.”

“Tell me.”

You pause again to look up at him, his gaze entirely sincere and demanding. “Foye’s Principles of Medicinal Chemistry, it’s the two thousand and two edition. Last one that came out before…” you shrug, “It’s a text Connie values highly. I’ve probably read it a dozen times front to back at this point,” you laugh as you work slowly. One of the things you admire most about the way Connie practices medicine is how precise and methodical he is in all his movements and decisions. He works with intention and care and a measuredness that’s something you’ve tried very hard to emulate as best as you can. 

“Hell, sweetheart… you do really’ve got a mind that amazes me.” And his voice is so soft, so contemplative as he says it. As if he too possesses that great depth of ability to be as methodical and patient and precise as you’d like to be. The cadence of him is so profound, almost vibrational, as if the words are carried on a frequency that only he exists on. You pause your sewing once again to glance up at him, and the way he’s looking at you… distracting. You are a weak girl, never one for much bravery or outlandishness, content to always follow the path laid out before you by other more exacting hands, but the way he looks at you, the fire in that gaze, you feel like you could do anything, be anything, and he’d take it in stride, be able to handle it. His gaze makes you want to be brave and reckless. 

You turn your eyes back to his hand, almost done now. “Ah, well… not so amazing, I don’t think. I was always just well suited to books and studying, and in a world like this… wasn’t so useful, I suppose. My father wanted me to do this, he was a physician – a real one–”

He cuts you off, “Hey, you’re a real doctor too. Don’t diminish what you do here, it’s fuckin’ amazing.” He knocks his knee into yours.

“Don’t jostle me, or I’ll stick you,” you scrunch your nose at him. 

-

You’re fucking flirting with him, provoking him, that little scrunch of your nose that always makes him feel like he’s two paces away from death, the lilt of your words ending in an upwards flutter like you’re singing at him, beguiling him. He feels utterly beguiled in this moment. He wasn’t lying when he’d said you’ve got the longest lashes he’s ever seen in his whole life. Long and thick and fanned out so that they cast shadows across the planes of your skin. You look like you’ve got the softest skin ever spun together, weaved on a loom just to come here and bring him to heel, and he wants to taste you so fucking badly, to sink his teeth into the back of your neck like prey and force you to your knees – utterly deranged thoughts that you seem to force out of him with those eyes and those lips and that voice. Your hair is long and shinning and he can smell you, sweet and soft like the evening after a summer rain. It makes him hard. 

The first time he’d laid eyes on you, he’d been shocked into stillness, speechlessness, thoughtlessness. So pretty and soft and then when he’d spoken to you, your mind, you’re so fucking smart, the sound of your voice, the pure, utter goodness you constantly exude. He wants to be let inside. He wants to be allowed to feel all that goodness and sweetness from the inside out. 

He’d forced himself to turn away from you then, to run the other way like a goddamn coward with his hair on fire. That was how much his initial reaction to you had scared the living hell out of him. 

He watches you work slowly now, that plush lip pulled between the edges of your teeth. The feel of the needle sliding through his skin is almost erotic, and he knows that he’ll remember this only as a gift afterwards. The slight sting of the laceration secondary to the blissful agony it is to have your hands on his skin. He wants to kiss you. He wonders if you’d let him. He wants to own you, even if for a moment, to feel like you belong to him, like you’re his. To hold something as beautiful and good as you in his hands. You should be in his arms right now, impaled on his cock. Christ, he can feel himself thickening in his jeans. He feels even hungrier now than before he got here. Seeking you out, going to your house to ask you for help even though he knew he shouldn’t. He’s been so clumsy lately, uncharacteristically so. He wonders if it hasn’t been his subconscious’s way of getting him into situations where he’d need mending, just as an excuse to get himself close to you. He thinks this must surely be the case, entirely transparent and desperate and pathetic. 

You finish the sutures in his palm, and he can’t even feel the hurt at this point, so hypnotized is he by the look of you deep in concentration, trying to mend him. You obviously can’t see that there’s no mending a man like him – not in any real way. But there’s a tiny voice at the back of his mind that whispers that if anyone could, it’d be you. 

You tie off the line of stitches in a tiny little square knot, and reach for a roll of Curlex to wrap his hand in. You’re so small compared to his brutish size, your knees tucked between his spread legs. You’re not wearing shoes, just some thick knit socks pulled over your feet, slouchy and scrunched around your ankles. The size of your thigh compared to his has his mouth going dry. Delicate and built so finely – like a little bird. He wonders if your bones might be hollow like a sparrow’s too, if you’d fly away from him if he dared touch you, and at that thought, that dazed thought, he can’t help himself. He is a weak man, after all, when faced with something so fine, and as you wrap his hand in the bandage he sets two of his fingers over the curve of your knee, rests them there. You jolt slightly, and he stares, hypnotized, at the point of contact. He feels you pause your wrapping for one second, the burn of your gaze on his face, and then you resume your work. No comment, no admonishment. No… he doesn’t think you’d let anything distract you from your work, from what you’ve set your mind to. You seem like the type of person who once your mind has been fixed on something, you see it through to the end, no matter what. He admires that about you.

You reach for a vial of something, a syringe, a softly murmured, undo your shirt, but Joel is shocked frozen. His eyes glued to the place where he’s making contact with you. He hears the soft exhalation of your breath through your nostrils, and then you’re reaching forward to undo the top few buttons of his shirt. He looks up at you then, eyes focused on your task, brow scrunched, you drag your fingers over the skin of his chest, through the hair there, along his collarbone and over the thick hill of his shoulder as you push the fabric covering him back. You do not look up at him, but he thinks he might be able to feel the heat of your blood thrumming beneath your skin. He sits there and lets you do with him what you will. 

When you bring the syringe to the hard muscle of his upper arm, a murmured, small poke, he does not feel it. The needle sinking into his flesh is secondary to the texture of your knee beneath his two fingers. With only his index finger and thumb he circles the joint of your knee, sliding slowly over your soft leggings. You’re so warm here, it feels like the heat of you is singing the tips of his fingers. Good, you should always be warm, always be comfortable. Perhaps the heat in the house isn’t so bad after all. He thinks, for one fleeting moment, that perhaps he should take the burn as a flare of warning, do not touch, something this good and beautiful, is not for the likes of you. But if he’s honest, he couldn’t give a fuck. After all, Joel’s never been very good. He’s always been a little on this side of too violent, too angry, too fractured, too hungry. And now that he’s got his hands on you he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to stop. The thought of that, the truth he can feel in it, makes his bones hurt, but he is hypnotized. He grips you more firmly in his hand, squeezes gently to feel the soft give of you. You finish with your stabbing of him, fuss with the bandage some more, and he flexes his injured hand once, still watching the place where he’s touching you, feels the tightness of the stitching, but nothing hurts right now. It couldn’t. It feels like his very bones are on fire, flaming within the confines of his skin, but it still doesn’t hurt. You bring your hands to rest in your lap when you’re finally finished. It’s his turn now, and he slides his hand further up your thigh, squeezing gently as he goes until he reaches your arm and grips the bend of your elbow, mumbles your name softly, cups the sharp angle of it in his palm, slides down the underside of your forearm to your wrist where he drags his thumb over the lacework of blue-hued veins there, beneath the fragile membrane keeping you held together. He thinks that the inside of your wrist might just be the softest thing he’s ever felt in his whole life. 

He can sense the cadence of your breathing ricochet up to a hitched, nervous little stutter, and he finally looks up at you, his thumb still strumming that gentle stroke over the staccato of your pulse. He can feel the beat of your heart in your wrist and he wants to feel it against his tongue, wants to feel you pulse around his cock. Your gaze is fevered, manic, full of fire and a shout that sings, finally, finally, finally, you’re touching me, I’ve wanted this just as long as you have. He can see it in your gaze, and an understanding filled with a juxtaposing poignancy he can’t quite comprehend washes over him suddenly. He thinks he might’ve always understood you, from that first moment, that first sighting. There was something in you that called to him, and he’d tried to resist, as of yet, but he is about to fail spectacularly, to fall into you gloriously.

He wraps his other hand around your opposite knee and brings it up and over the wide expanse of his thigh, and then pulls you bodily into his lap. You let out a soft, perfect little gasp, and then you’re there, straddling him. Both of you pause for a second, taking each other in. Your eyes are so wide, a little wet, he thinks you might be a little overwhelmed by him, hopefully as overwhelmed as he is by you. The feel of your lush ass sitting over his cock has him going almost lightheaded for a second. It’s been a long time since he’s touched a woman, and for him to now make his return to physical intimacy with you, he needs to tread very, very carefully. 

You bring one soft, small palm up to his face and cup his cheek, and he thinks he says your name again, but he isn’t entirely sure. His mind’s gone away from him a little bit. He can see each individual, ridiculously long lash up close like this, the strange amalgamation of colors in your eyes, deep and swimming with wanting him – fucking Christ – he might unman himself right here and now, at that look in your eyes, the peeling, dryness of your soft, plush lips where you’ve chewed on the flesh in concentration. You cup his jaw, drag your short nails gently over the stubble on his cheek and through the thick of his beard. He listens to the soft thwick, thwick of your nails catching on his whiskers, and the both of you shudder at the feel in tandem. You have a way of shaking yourself, as if to loosen your muscles, and he thinks, yes, yes, he wants to be let in, this is his chance. He brings his hand up to cup your own jaw, the hollow architecture of the fine bones, his other hand slides down the slope of your spine to curve over the softness of your ass. “Open up, little thing. Let me kiss you,” he says, his voice is almost unrecognizable to himself, low and gravely. He’s sure you can hear the want in it. 

You give a short, wide-eyed nod, and he presses his mouth to yours – watches the flutter of those long lashes shut, he can feel them ghost against his cheeks as he kisses you. Like a bird’s wings. 

He takes your mouth in long, slow, wet sweeps; licks his tongue into you and tastes the sweet inside of your mouth, runs his tongue over the surface of yours.

I’m inside, I’m inside, I’m inside. 

His hand on your jaw slides to tangle in the hair at the nape of your neck, tugs your head back to open you to him, to deepen the kiss, to take you and taste you as deeply as possible, and you moan, drawn out and whining and for him. Your moans, like your words, end on a little lilt that sing to him, and at that sound he loses himself. He thinks you take him away from himself because he is suddenly made ravenous and of only tenuous control. He groans low in his own chest, his hand on your ass pressing you more firmly into his hard cock, grinds the searing heat between your legs into himself. “W– wanted this for so – for so long,” he presses wet kisses into the corner of your mouth, your jaw, the slope of your neck, pulls the neck of your flannel to the side to lick into the dip of your clavicle. He undoes the first two buttons of your shirt, the tops of your breasts, the flawless skin, the soft contours of you – “Too beautiful for your own damn good,” he growls, pulls you tighter against himself, you’re not going fucking anywhere. 

He wants to keep you. 

He lifts to his feet then, suddenly, taking you with him, gripping you beneath your thighs to wrap you around his waist, and with one brash hand, he sweeps the papers and books off your desk, hears the clatter of your instruments hit the ground, and plants your ass down on the edge of your desk, grips your jaw to hunch over you and eat at your mouth. Your fingers tug at his hair and beard and open shirt, trying to pull him closer to you, your knees hiking up on either side of his waist to press the heels of your socked feet into the base of his spine. 

“Me too, Joel. Me too. Thought it’d never– never happen,” you pant into his mouth, claw harder at him. 

And fuck, to hear that you’ve been waiting for this, waiting for him to come and take you for himself. If he was not already a thing made of thrumming, uncontrolled energy, then he most certainly is now. You pause to look up at him then, a momentary respite of your frantic clawing, and you give him the sweetest curve of a small smile, the moment so private, so acutely intimate, it makes his knees shake.

You move to reach for his belt, but he holds you at bay, taking both your wrists in his grasp and pressing your hands back to the desk, forcing you to lean backwards so that he can kiss at your neck, taste your skin, he nudges his nose beneath the collar of your shirt to get at your clavicle, bites the strap of your bra between his teeth to drag it over your shoulder. “Baby, if you touch me now, this’ll be over before it’s even began.” He bites into the thin muscles of your neck, and you keen for him, sucks a mark into your skin he hopes you’ll wear for days. He wants you marked and branded by him. Your knees hitch higher at his sides and you press your heels into the small of his back, grinding yourself against the line of his cock. You let out a breathy, urgent sort of noise, rolling your little cunt as best as you can against him with your hands restrained as he’s got you. “You want that?” he grunts, giving you more pressure with his hips. Please, please, please, you’re full of the most delicious sort of supplications, and you’re so pretty and so desperate for his cock, and he must handle you with care. 

“M’gonna eat your cunt, sweet girl.” You whine low. He pulls back to take you in, glassy eyes and a deep flush starting at your chest and sneaking up the column of your throat. He tucks his fingers into the cups of your bra and scoops your breasts out. Fuckin’ gorgeous, bends his head to suck one perfect nipple into his mouth and pulls hard on it, enjoys the song of your mewling. He nips gently at the sensitive bud, gives the other one the same adoring attention, and then drops to his haunches before you. The look in your eyes is slightly manic, maybe a little apprehensive. “It’s alright, don’t be scared. Gotta get you ready for me.” All you do is nod. He hooks his fingers under your waist band and starts to slowly drag your leggings and panties down your legs, pulling one foot out, not bothering with the other. One of his hands slides slowly up the back of your calf, the other pulling your leg over his shoulder and spreads you wide by the bend of your knee. Exposing you to him completely. He groans low in his throat, “Knew you’d be beautiful, but I didn’t expect this.” He looks up at you.

“Joel–”

“Yeah…” He leans forward and presses his tongue into your slit, dragging slowly up towards your clit. He thinks he must growl like some sort of animal because you let out a breathy little hiccup, nervous and stuttered and try and press your knee in his grip closed. Nuh uh, he mumbles into your skin, grips you more tightly. He focuses on your clit, kissing and petting at it with his tongue, brings his other hand up to press gently at your entrance. You’re fucking small here, he begins to push a single finger inside and you start to really unravel at that, fucking tight too. He can’t wait to shove his cock into this tight, wet heat. He gives you his entire finger to the knuckle, drinking down your slick, holds there for a moment, and then begins to add a second finger, pumping them slowly, making room for himself inside of you. He scissors his fingers, twisting his wrist slightly from side to side, stretching you in new ways with each careful thrust. Slow and methodical and precise, ever aware that he is handling a delicate thing right now. He watches your face, your eyes flutter closed, your hips tilting to welcome his hand as he fucks you open. All the while he continues to lick and kiss your clit. His fingers find that spongy, sensitive spot inside of you, and you keen as he starts to pet at it, hooking his fingers and beckoning your orgasm forth. He feels your muscles begin to quicken, your head falling back on your neck as your flushed tits heave, trussed up as they are in your bra, and you're so slick, you’re melting down his fingers and into his palm, sweet and salty and musky. And you start to come for him, whining low and needy, your knee hitching up by his ear to press your little foot into the meat of his shoulder, trying to push him away and sit on his face at the same time. You tilt your hips further and roll your pulsing cunt onto his face. Goddamn, you’re fucking beautiful. He is mesmerized. His eyes never leaving your face as your gush all over his face and open mouth. He drinks it all up, licking and sucking and kissing, all while his fingers continue to work you through the contractions of your orgasm. 

Joel, Joel, Joel, you sing his name for him like a little bird. 

When the throbbing pulses have finally gentled he surges to his feet, licking his palm clean of your slick before he presses his mouth to yours and lets you taste yourself on his tongue. He undoes his belt and frees himself. Thick, brutish cock, the swollen head is an angry shade of red verging on purple, precum leaking from the slit. The fat head of it compared to your tiny, fluttering hole is obscene. The threads of his control snap in slow motion, one by one by one, and when you look down to take him in, the size of him, your eyes go big and round and that little foot is back, toeing at him to futilely press yourself away from him. He circles his fist around the thick length as he presses the head to your swollen clit, starts to slide the underside slowly through your wet cleft. 

“No, no, no, no, Joel. That– it isn’t going to fit. No– it’s too big.”

“It’ll fit. I’ll be gentle, don’t worry.” He presses the head into your clit again, hard, and you whimper. “Have you done this before, sweet girl?” Your blush flames even brighter if possible, and he watches the fluttering of those long lashes as you say quietly, “Once,” looking down at where the two of you make contact. One of your small hands has snaked up to grip at his shirt and anchor yourself to him. 

He slides one hand under your thigh to lift you while he lines himself up with the other, and then slowly starts to press inside. And fuck, so, so tight, your walls still slightly fluttering and trembling from your orgasm, hot as sin– “Jesus Christ–” he grits. He holds for one second, only halfway in, but no, no, it’s too much. “Shit, baby. This– This isn’t going to last very long, I’m sorry,” and then grips your ass and shoves all the way inside, hard, almost brutally, all the way to the end of you. You keen high and breathless, clawing at his shirt and skin as he feels you pulse and struggle around him, your muscles working to accommodate his size inside of you. He feels his tip bump your cervix, and he grinds there for a moment. Fucking Christ. 

“It’s too much, it’s too much, please, Joel – I can’t.” There are tears in your eyes. His cock makes you fucking cry, and he likes it, and he wants more. 

“You’re alright, you can take it,” he soothes, pulls out and then shoves back in. You’re impossibly wet, the slick, sucking sound of your pussy trying to keep him inside resounds in the quiet office. He starts to fuck you hard, in even measured strokes. You have to come on his cock. You have to, he has to feel it. “Easy now, settle. Yeah… just like that. Good girl.” Your wet eyes glisten with tears and your mouth hangs open, panting. You’re trembling, the much smaller body trying to force itself to take something so much bigger and remain intact, but he bends his knees and angles his thrusts up to fuck into your g-spot, and he starts to feel the fluttering of your overwhelmed muscles begin to quicken for him again. 

“Christ, you’re huge,” you squeeze your eyes shut, head falling back on your neck, and a single tear rolls down the smooth slope of your cheek. He bends forward to lick it up, fucking animal, and then licks into your mouth, tasting all that glorious desperation. When he pulls back he watches the fat base of his cock stretching you, red cunt, swollen and split down the middle obscenely. He’s sure your little hole is gonna gape for him once he’s done with it. The sight is so fucking pornographic he begins to feel his heavy balls tighten, a searing heat pooling at the base of his spine. 

“You’ve gotta fuckin’ come for me.” He bends to bite the swinging weight of your tit, sucks hard at your nipple as he starts to thrum at your engorged clit. Your hand twists in his hair, the other supporting your weight behind you. You start to roll into his thrusts, and he can’t hold it anymore, he can’t. He wraps a hand around your throat, stiffens and shoves hard and deep, an animal sound ripping from his throat as he feels you clamp down on him, his fist coming down hard on the desk beside you as he growls the start of your name between clenched teeth that turns into a guttural wordless snarl. He doesn’t even try to stop himself when he feels his balls pull up, almost painfully, and he starts to fill the wet heat of your cunt with his come, marking you as his. Fucking his. 

Your contracting muscles pull his spend deep into your womb, and you sing breathy, little sighs of gratitude right into the shell of his ear, heaving tits pressed up against his chest. He dips his chin to lick at the soft mounds and pulls out to spurt the last thick stream of come over your swollen folds. He rubs the spend into your clit with his thumb, pushes the little white trickle into your fluttering hole – he was right, it is gaping for him. His head feels trapped underwater and there’s a rushing noise in his ears. And then a terrible sort of bliss ruining realization settles over him, fuck, how careless can he be, filling you up like this. 

-

His limbs seem to snap with horrified realization. “Shit,” he spits, pulls away from your grasping fingers so quickly you’re forced to catch yourself on the edge of the desk without his support. “I– I’m sorry– I shoulda asked before. I shoulda pulled out, I’m sorry.” He turns slightly to tuck his wet cock back into his jeans, do up the buttons of his open shirt, and you slide off the edge of the desk onto shaky legs, bracing yourself on your chair to keep upright. Your knees knock together pathetically. 

“It’s– it’s okay. My period’s in a few days. We’re okay.” We. You flinch slightly at the word. There is no we in this situation between the two of you. The look on his face is making that painfully obvious. There’s a light in his eye that gleams peculiarly of anger – of fury. That seems to demand: how dare you make me feel like this, how dare you tempt me like this, how dare this thing we’ve both wanted for so long feel so good. Because it had, it had felt so, so good. 

The awareness of the emptiness he’s left in his wake at his withdrawal is almost painful. You feel stretched thin and filled to the brim at the same time. He’d filled you impossibly full, ramming up against your cervix, and then somehow seemingly pressing even deeper. You’re going to be sore for days. Your flannel is long, reaches mid thigh, hiding the vulnerable sight of your used sex from his eyes, but you can feel his come start to slowly seep out of you. 

He runs his hand through his unruly curls, over his mouth and beard. He’s facing slightly away from you, as if he can’t bear to look at you, and the sight of him like this, fucking coward, almost regretful or embarrassed makes a small pinch of hurt and anger curdle in your gut.

“Are you– was that okay?” he asks softly. You push your leggings and panties off your ankle with your other foot, wrap your arms around yourself. “Are you okay? I didn’t hurt you?”

“I’m fine,” you say quietly. You think you almost see him flinch at the sound of your words. 

“Alright… okay–” he swallows. “Okay. That– that was the only time. Alright? That– that can’t happen again. I can’t – I’m not lookin’ to start anything up.”

“Okay.” What else is there to say? You can lie to yourself and say that once will be enough. That you can survive on only one time. You’ve always been very good at lying to yourself. 

He nods once. He’s so uncomfortable, and it makes you angry, nods again, “Alright. Good. I’m sorry again… and thank you,” he lifts up his wrapped hand. 

“Sure, Joel.” He turns and stalks towards the door, but pauses when he reaches it, seems to shuffle back and forth, weighing his options – the risk – and then turns, stalks back to you and takes you in hand. He wraps one large palm around your face, from your cheek to cup the curve of your jaw. The tip of his index finger presses into the outer curve of your orbital bone, his thumb on the edge of your mandible to angle your face up towards him, the other at the small of your back to press you up and into him, “Lemme just… I just want to–” he mumbles and takes your mouth with is. He licks into you, a soft groan of appreciation, of hunger, rumbling out of him. He likes the taste of you, he likes the feel of you, you know he does, even if he wants to pretend at recalcitrance. 

He is a thrumming effigy under your hands. There is something immensely sad and vital simmering just underneath the surface of his skin, and you think: he is so important. You know it now, right now, perhaps, since the first moment you’d set eyes on him. It feels like he owns you – already, in this instant – like he always has, and he’s just been biding his time, an apex predator toying with its food before he decides to gorge himself. You moan into his kiss, let yourself go soft and pliant, sceding all control, all of your will to him. He pulls back, tucks his thumb beneath the cleft of your chin to tilt your head back and peer into your eyes. 

“Sure…” he murmurs. He goes after that, out into the dark night. You stand at your window and watch the span of his broad back as he walks away, the wet feel of him sliding down the insides of your thighs, and you think that you might become quite a monstrous thing under the guiding hand of this desperate want, this terrifying loneliness that seems to abate only in his presence. 

-

He’s on your front porch two nights later, that was the only time, yeah, sure, urging you backwards as soon as you’ve got the door open, his hands in your hair and his tongue in your mouth with a rumbled, just one more time. Taking you for himself, once again. 

Netherfeildren's Masterlist

[tboybot]

asuka decides to accompany mari to recover shinji moments before 3.33 begins. evangelion 3.0 (-120 min.)

of course I see where the assumption that this is further evidence that asuka and shinji are Forever In Love comes from. not interested in the surface level stuff tho, and there’s no argument that’s ever convinced me that Rebuild shinji and asuka were deeply in love. destined to orbit each other, sure, but that doesn’t require romantic love.

to me, a far more interesting and emotional read is that her choice to (begrudgingly, but calmly!!) accompany mari is further support of mari and asuka being some kind of soulmates. let’s just assume mari is intimately aware of the trauma caused by shinji, and she’s old and perceptive enough to have been aware of a definite former crush.

(-120 minutes) is *very* tender stuff. the bond and influence over each other that the women are shown to have seems airtight. Mari makes an emotionally mature suggestion knowing that it *could* be a healing experience for all involved parties, and within at least two hours, asuka has had a total change of heart, even donning a plugsuit he’d recognize her in. i don’t think this is a check mark for team shinji despite this, because I am far more moved that she can humble herself for mari- can you imagine a 14 year old asuka being capable of this turnaround? maybe it’s just more emotional maturity, natural for such an enormous time jump. Or maybe. it is gay

one day I’ll go on a Whole Thing about how a queer read on these two makes a better story for the often assumed love triangle members. love triangulars

[jazzandpizazz]

just watched the final problem and quite frankly i don’t think i’ll ever emotionally recover from it

gonna go cry now bye

[officialchristiancagebbgirlblog]

Can I have prompts 33 “Come here, baby” + 40 “If it ever gets bad again, can you promise you’ll tell me? I don’t want you to go through this alone” with Edge plss? I need some fluff of him helping with anxiety and depression

Tag: @judgementdaysunshine

Fic type: angst/fluff

Warnings: mention of medications and suicidal thoughts

Word count: 858

Link to masterlist

Sorry this has taken so long to come out, had a bit of writers block recently but I think I’m coming back around. Happy reading 🩵

“I’m still a few hours away, baby, but I’ll be as quick as I can to come home!” Was the last thing Adam had said to you before he hit the road again. He had recently suffered a minor injury while working so he had to come back home to recover and rest. Thankfully, he wasn’t too badly hurt, only suffering a sprained ankle. However since it wasn’t severe, at best he may only get a few weeks to recover.

At this point, he had been away from home for about two months and you were desperately missing him. More than you had anticipated. Since you had a part time job you couldn’t travel with him so you were stuck in your shared home. Alone.

Being alone was a massive fear of yours. Less so for the idea that something could happen with another person, and more so the idea that your thoughts might spiral out of control. The medication you would normally get was out of stock and you had been going without for about three weeks. Although you weren’t explicitly dependent on them and you could still function without, you found that taking the pills silenced certain…thoughts. And without them? They were running rampant. You had tried everything to distract yourself: walking, baking, having a shower, having a hot drink, or whatever else your therapist would suggest. But nothing truly helped. Besides the medication.

So you had been laying in bed for the last few days. No showering. No eating. No drinking. All you had the strength to do was get up to use the loo, and wallow in your own negative mind. It felt like you were glued to the bed half the time. You knew you had to get up and clean yourself and the room but you just couldn’t find the strength. All you could think about was those dark thoughts. Those scenarios. Those…solutions.

For the first time in days, you felt tears roll effortlessly out your eyes, down your cheeks. It was exhausting having to deal with depression and anxiety. You so badly wanted to fix the problem but you just couldn’t bring yourself to do that or anything for that matter. From somewhere in the house, you heard rustling. It was like the sound of bags being moved around, zippers being opened, but you couldn’t pinpoint the exact noise. Though when the TV turned on, you figured Adam must’ve finally arrived home. Secretly, you were dreading this moment that was fast approaching. You didn’t want him to see you like this. He was aware that you suffered from mental health issues but not to this extremity. And as the door slowly opened, you held your breath, hoping you’d wake up from a horrible dream again.

But unfortunately, you were wide awake. Adam walked into the room with a big smile, excited to finally see you again! But when he saw the state you were in, it dropped completely. He was completely speechless, heart shattered at the sight. Adam tip-toed over to you to properly look at you.

“Oh, come here baby.” He whispered, effortlessly lifting you from the bed into his arms. You were numb. Physically and emotionally. All you could do now was rest your aching head on his shoulder as he moved you into the bathroom, running you a hot bath. Once ready he undressed you, and helped you in the water.

“Stay here,” he smiled, kissing your forehead, “get nice and comfortable while I clean the bedroom, okay?”

His voice was so soothing, helping to melt away the numbness in your body. Laying back, you closed your eyes as the hot water stung your skin. It was a nice sensation. After days of nothing but a dirty bed, laying in something that hurt was a nice change. 15 minutes later, he came back in to help get you clean, scrubbing away at your body and hair. The feeling was amazing and you found yourself to slowly come around, just slightly though. It wasn’t until you were both laid in a clean bed that you started to feel more comfortable.

“I…I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you that this was happening.” You admitted weakly, begging for the dark waves to disappear from your body. “I didn’t want you to worry about-“

“If it ever gets bad again, can you promise me you’ll tell me? I don’t want you to go through this alone.” He interrupted. His voice was desperate, breaking in the middle of his sentence. Looking at him, you could see tears well up in his eyes. You knew that as terrible it was for you, you were used to the effects of your mental health. For him, he didn’t see it as often. Certainly not the ugly side where you don’t clean yourself or eat for as long as you had done in his absence. Since you refused to ever make a promise you couldn’t keep, you told him you’d do your best. That was enough for him and he pecked you on the nose, pulling you in for a closer cuddle, terrified of ever losing you.

[ginnsbaker]

Im sorry what did i just read (not in a it was bad way cos i don’t think you’re capable of writing something bad it was incredible i mean in a you broke my heart way)

I will never emotionally recover from this 💔

-the now saddest juice box 🧃😭

Ps the whole book was amazing and i’ll be back with a bigger breakdown

My favorite juice box!! Oh no dont be sad :( I think compared to ILGOSS, this was a very light read (right? right??? :P)

You know, if R goes with Leigh, it would hinder her growth. Ever since losing her family, she struggles to let go of those closest to her… she clings so tightly to them, sometimes neglecting other aspects of her life just to hold on (even if it means getting hurt and sacrificing too much — as seen in previous chapters where she gave Leigh chance after chance). By letting Leigh go and respecting her decision to go alone (while also safeguarding R's career and interests), R has grown from the experience. For Leigh, accepting R's love and realizing she's capable of another profound love after Matt signifies her growth. Allowing her partner to pursue their own path is a crucial part of this growth (remember how I mentioned in a previous chapter that Matt always agreed to her plans and followed her everywhere?). It would undo all the progress made if I let Leigh be selfish and take R on the tour.

However, they will remain in each other's lives, in one way or another. They'll figure it out eventually ;)

Thank you so much for reading! Oh my goodness, we've been discussing my stories for over a year now! I'm so grateful you've stuck around this long :')