#and now I'm potentially way too late to be reassuring where it may matter most

[oneiricazalea]

Under a lot of stress recently and I'm feeling it badly tonight hahaha

[duskwood-legacies]

"Summer Sunsets"

•Fandom: Duskwood

•Pairing/Character: Jake x fem!MC

•Word Count: 1,5k

•Genre: Romance, Fluff

•Summary: Jake and MC share a gentle moment underneath the setting sun neither of them wanted to end.

Before I start with the one shot, I wanted to thank all of you for the massive support on my last story, it was heart-warming!🥺💕 I hope you enjoy this story as much as the last one🌿💕

As the sun dipped down behind the horizon, the sky appeared in the most beautiful shades of orange and purple. Wind was slowly howling through the trees, slowly caressing the grass with its gentle melody.

Carefully, MC guided Jake through the fields. Her hands covered his eyes from behind, both their hearts beating a tad bit faster than usual.

“Where are you taking me?” Uncertainty lined Jake’s voice.

“We’re almost there” He could hear the smile on MC’s lips. It loosened his tightened nerve endings, at least by a little. It was dangerous out in the open, especially when the afternoon hours faded into the slow evening. His pursuers were still out there.

Of course MC noticed his discomfort. She knew danger was lurking everywhere around them, but that shouldn’t stop her from doing what she wished to do for so long. Tenderly, she rubbed her thumbs along Jake’s temples, hoping to get his anxiety to simmer down.

Her small act of compassion caused fireworks to explode in his chest.

They halted.

“Tada!” MC beamed as she removed her hands from Jake’s eyes.

A blanket, thoughtfully spread out on the ground, with a bottle of champagne and two suiting glasses lied ahead. A long chain of fairy lights was placed around, illuminating the scenery with a soft and cozy glow which made the setting sun appear like a joke.

“MC…” No words matched what Jake was feeling. Emotions overwhelmed his body. Not ever has he experienced something like that in those days he could remember.

MC walked over to the blanket. Her dress was weightlessly flowing in the wind and her slightly messed up hair only made her frame so much more breathtaking to him. She sat down and met Jake’s unbelieving gaze with a smile. Regarding all their conversations, all their late-night talks and all things told in-between their moments, she expected this kind of reaction.

She patted the free spot on the blanket. Jake couldn’t bring his body to move. He was lost in feelings and sensations, the bitter thoughts of his pursuers washing down into temporary oblivion.  

“Jake?” MC’s humble voice brought his attention to her. Her love-lined smile, her oh so sweet eyes filled with kindness and patience. Nothing ever felt so real, yet so much like a cursed hallucination. He glanced down to her hand, still resting on the empty spot.

Slowly but surely Jake’s body stopped betraying him. One step after another, he approached the setting. MC’s eyes were set on him, cautiously observing every move and every bit of expression with curiosity until he finally sat down.

MC could feel how her lips carved into an even larger smile.

“You’re blushing”

“How could I not?” Jake responded with a display of shyness “MC, how long did this take you?”

“Not too long” She comforted him, “I feared you wouldn’t enjoy yourself as much when you knew, or at least had the feeling, this took me longer than 5 minutes”

There it was again. The cheeky tone that made his heart skip, the sound of her voice which made breathing impossible. Even if her words were accompanied by seriousness, her features still held the gentlest expression he had ever seen.

“Hey…”

“Apologies.” Jake quickly replied, “I don’t mean to disrespect you with my silence. This is a lot to take in.”

And… and he felt validated. MC took his feelings into consideration and treated them, treated him, with respect and understanding. It was more than he’ll ever be capable of returning to her.

“I understand” MC nodded. Her eyes lingered on Jake for far more than a few seconds. He sheepishly refused to look at her. She’s never been able to shake this damned, ever-so-tiny piece of worry off. No matter how many times she reassured herself, a small part of her was afraid she was going too far with this.

With all the courage she could gather, MC’s hand reached out and covered Jake’s. Jake flinched at the sudden action, but did nothing to rid of her hand. No, instead he prayed for time to stop, freeze everything but the warmth of her loving touch.

Loving… was her touch even meant to show affectionate feelings? How high was the possibility MC was only being friendly and not displaying romantic attraction?

After all, they still were nothing more than friends.

“Jake,” Her voice cut through his thoughts once again “please talk to me. There is a lot going on in your mind, I can see it. I’m worried about you. Do you want to go home? Am I going too far?”

“No!” Jake blurted out “I want to do anything but that. I enjoy my time with you. It’s bugging me that I will never be able to pay you back.”

“You don’t have t-“

“No MC. I mean everything. You could live a life full of joy, a safe life. By having you here, by my side, I have taken so many of your opportunities. I have stolen the potential of the person you could have become. I pulled you down from the heights you could have climbed, drowned you in the ocean you could have made run dry. I am sorry, MC. So incredibly sorry.” Every word poured out of him like a tide. With every word spoken, his chest ached a little more, with every word spoken guilt came creeping back into his eyes.

MC was silent. Her heart ached as much as his. Seeing the hurt on his face, hearing the distress in his voice pained her so much more than she ever thought was possible. Her hand tightened around Jake’s, afraid he’d slip from her grasp, disappear right in front of her the moment she’d let go.

“From the day I met you, you interested me. I wanted to be the person who protected you. I wanted to be the one who kept you safe and calm. And now here you are. Running from the same people as I am, facing danger every second of your life.”

The meaning of Jake’s words weighted in on MC. She always suspected Jake may beat himself up for a decision she has made, but hearing it from his mouth hurt so much more.

She brought Jake’s hand up to her face and placed a gentle kiss on its back, closing her eyes while doing so. Blood rushed into Jake’s cheeks as well as hers. Their skin burned with the heat of a thousand suns, hearts beating rapidly and air becoming thin inside their lungs.

MC opened her eyes and gave Jake the most heart-felt smile he had ever witnessed. Her free hand found its way to cup his warm cheek, thumb gently brushing over his skin. He could feel the light shiver in her hand.

There was a tension neither of them could explain, but both so dearly wanted to follow.

“It’s okay you’re not who you thought you’d be.” MC whispered with sympathy resting every part of her voice “Sometimes things don’t work out the way we want, and that’s okay. Besides, you’re still keeping me safe, no? You’re still sheltering me from harm and making me laugh every day, don’t you?”

"You laugh a lot." Jake admitted, or more likely realized, as he attempted to fathom what she told him. She resembled so much calmness, did the fact that he endangered her not bother MC at all? Or, even more so, how could she not blame him for the danger’s she’s facing? How can a person be so gentle and understanding with him?

For a moment, silence embraced the two of them. Nothing but the soft flow of the river and echoes of each other's voices in their head surrounded them.

Their eyes were still locked onto each other, no one daring to break the trance they both sent themselves into.

The tension got stronger.

MC gulped. She lightly pulled Jake's face closer, hoping he would know what she tried to initiate. He did. He wanted nothing more than this.

Both were hesitant. They knew what this meant for their future, what complications everything would bring.

No, right this second those thoughts carried no value.

It was their time to cave in, their time to finally release what's been held back for so long. And so they did. Jake freed his hand from underneath MC's and pulled her closer. He couldn't take it anymore, neither could she.

Their lips met and veins filled with passionate fires as fierce as a raging inferno. Jake's free hand cupped MC's one still resting on his face, longing for her touch, longing for this moment to never end.

They broke apart. Both trembling softly from the adrenaline rush, both taking their time to take in the feelings engulfing their bodies with an unforgettable memory.

This moment was magical. All their wishes and desires became true. Reality has barely been so blissfully comforting, especially for Jake.

A quiet chuckle emitted from MC's mouth, grabbing Jake's attention and automatically making him join in. All dangers aside, nothing ever felt so right. So perfect.

MC was the first one to speak up again, grinning as she held up the bottle of champagne that had lied next to them, untouched.

"Champagne?"

Jake could only smile and respond with a nod.

Truth is, none of them needed the alcohol. They were wasted on their feelings for one another, wishing nothing more than for those emotions, for this summer sunset, for this serenity to last for eternity.

-----

I'm not too confident in the ending of this story, but I'm really proud of the beginning!💕🍀

[xtheromanticrealistx]

I guess I can only ask a question, because messenger was being a bit wonky. I'm curious, on your post about faith and female reproductive health, how that fits in the paradigm of premarital sex. I'm without judgement on either mind you. What's your feeling personal feeling on physical intimacy before marriage?

Sorry for answering this question so late. I had intended to answer it during my spring break, then became swiftly overwhelmed with personal and familial responsibility and never got around to it, and then I kept putting it off because I wasn’t quite sure how to handle such a big, personal question without writing a novel. I’ll try to due my best in a short response, admitting that these are, as you’ve asked, my personal feelings.

I think premarital sex is, in general, discouraged by most religious institutions and cultures for historically good reasons, and if it feels like women get the bulk of the finger-wagging, it’s because they’re largely the ones who suffer for it & because they, as the primary stewards of their children’s futures, should know to do better. The sexual revolution and the emergence of the acceptance of casual sexual encounters has led to upticks in children born out of wedlock, fatherless families, date rape culture, women cheapening their worth in the sexual market that is the dating sphere of the West, men left empty in paternal rights, etc.  I could go into any of those points on their own forever. Honestly, my biggest precaution against premarital sex is this:

I’ve never met someone who has tons of one-night-stands and casual sex who is happy with themselves. Not.A.One.

They’re invariable broken or ruined in some way--emotionally,mentally, etc. in the way they value themselves and others, with bad family lives--and they’re never role models in the other parts of their lives. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying these people are evil, or undeserving of your love or kindness or sympathy, but you know what they say: don’t put your dick in crazy. I’m just stating no-fluff-attached observable pattern I’ve noticed among my own family, peers, and so forth. If someone has had a ton of sexual encounters with many partners, it’s normally a red flag to something they’re trying to fulfill in themselves, poorly, much like a drinking or drug addiction (even though, in my opinion, substances use doesn’t have to indicate addiction when not used to excess). Whether its a guy, a girl, whatever: don’t mess with thots. Our grandparents’ generation was more accepting of complete or quasi-arranged marriages because they understood that you *could* choose who you love by learning to love, or not love, someone. (Hollywood’s lie that love is the same as lust, which we have little control over, is ruining people’s love lives. You can pick who you love, family and lovers, as long as you train the mind to think logically. So pick wisely). 

I’m well aware that not all premarital sex encompasses a one-night-stand, and that very committed people can have sex with someone, that same someone, and not be married.This is where my stance has softened a lot more over the years. As someone who has been in a long-distance relationship for 3 years now, I understand the desire for intimacy. My advice on this: just get married. It doesn’t have to happen 6 months after you first meet, but I think the sooner you don’t put it off, the better. 

I’ll be blunt: most people can’t handle premarital sex, because most people are bad at relationships and are bad at birth control, too, to boot. I’ve seen more people get knocked up by accident than should be possible in 2018, and I’ve seen plenty of people who swear up-and-down that they’ll marry their sweetheart get left in the dust when the sex gets good and boring, because they are constantly chasing the high of a new relationship and because they keep picking broken people. I don’t want the movement to discourage premarital sex to rush people into marriages doomed for divorce anyway: the point isn’t to rush people to the altar, but to make people think much more critically about why they want to have sex with someone, and the responsibility towards having sex. I strongly encourage people to consider the following:

A. Sex is intimate enough to spread disease and impactful enough to literally rewrite your neural pathways and release hormones to cloud your judgement about another person, no drugs needed.  Look up studies on male voles during sex, human men are no better. Sex changes you, mind and body. Never look lightly on that. It’s more than a game of tennis. If it weren’t, than rape wouldn’t be as egregious as it is.

B. Everyone you ever have penis-in-vagina sex with could be a parent to your child. You could get pregnant with this person. Half of your kid’s biological makeup...which is a major determinant of their health, their temperament, their intelligence, and their environmental upbringing, no matter what anyone tries to reassure you...is reliant on this person.

(Men should be especially weary that his female partner will gain all legal control of his child. Everything from whether his child lives or dies in the womb, to how it’s raised, is her choice today. You’re lucky if you get to suggest anything as just the guy that knocks her up. The girl, of course, gets to worry about the kind of father they could kind in the person that knocks them up, any financial support they may need, etc)

Whether your kid has a good parent in your sexual partner or not is entirely on you, and its the first choice you get to make to help or harm your kids life. 

You can’t fuck that up due to sheer negligence and call yourself a good parent. Sorry, not sorry.

That alone would get me not to want to have premarital sex with anyone I didn’t want to marry anyway. If the wait is whats hurting people who are already prepared to make the commitment of marriage, with points A and B in mind, then my advice is...don’t wait. I certainly wouldn’t be waiting till March 2019, if I weren’t in an LDR and still in school. If you have a partner thats shying away from commitment--whatever that looks like to you, even if thats just moving in together or signing a marriage contract, whatever, I’m not assuming you even prescribe to traditional marriage ideals as represented in a Christian ceremony or anything--it’s a red flag. Points A and B are even important for people in the BDSM community to consider, nonmonogamists, etc. 

The exchange of disease, the psychological attachment, and the potential for procreation need to be explored as something of a natural outcome of sex, and we should never get too comfortable in it being a purely recreational act. Marriage doesn’t magically answer these points for you, but it is supposed to compel you to come up with answers, or otherwise draw back from these actions if you can’t feel comfortable getting into it so thick with your potential fuck buddy. If you have some other symbolic moment of commitment that helps you to separate the cream of the crop of sexual partners, then so be it, I dob’t expect everyone in a free society to get married as I would, but you’ll need *something* to tackle these points if you don’t want to end up another statistic in the casualties of the sexual revolution. I’m not here to lecture you on my Christian traditions, but you asked me for some basic explanation for why they exist, so here ya go.

[thesummerfox]

How would Ward be in a relationship? We know he'd be super clingy and all that, but what about the other stuff? Would he be texting them all day like "where are you? What are you doing?" I wonder if they would fight a lot. He'd try to keep them safe and they'd would not have it. "I'm just going down the street for some bread! It's not a big deal" how would he show his affection since he isn't that open right now? What are the things he would need to hear during one of his emotional episodes?

Ahh gosh, that’s such a complex thing for a man like Ward and he breaks my heart a lot when I contemplate this aspect of him. I don’t think that he has had many lasting relationships in his life, outside of the ones with his family and Danny by extension. (And with his work, which is probably one of the main sources of ire within a potential future relationship if he keeps up that current pace of working late and almost never going home.) I think that any kind of love relationships he may have had will have been either very fleeting in that blink-and-you’ll-miss-it way, or totally shallow in the we-never-talk-about-our-feelings-ever sort of way. I keep having this impression that he never dates for long, has no idea about how to be with someone for a prolonged stretch of time, and prefers the one-night flings if he really has to choose. 

I think that Ward would never really want to intrude on someone’s life in a big way. He’d quickly feel like he was ‘too much’ in the life of his lover, taking up only a minimal amount of space that would verge on appearing as disinterest. He’d really need a partner who’d involve him in their life no matter what and coax him out of his shell more. I have a hunch that he would connect with someone intellectually first if he was really interested in them, so the challenge would be in getting him to stop thinking and start allowing his feelings to come into play. He’s the type of guy to feel a lot (and feel a lot at once, too) but hide it all away under that perfectly thin veneer of control until he feels safe enough to let it out or until something shatters his control. Funnily enough, I think that his partner talking about and sharing their own feelings and thoughts with him would be the fastest way to get him to reciprocate by haltingly sharing things about himself too. It’s something that’s slow going, given his many trust issues and his possible conviction that showing weakness opens him up to abuse, but something that would eventually happen all on its own given enough time.He’d feel absolutely terrible after a fight, even if the fight was not technically his fault to begin with. I think he’d be the first to cave and apologise, but he’d probably need a little time to process the fight itself and reassure himself somehow that one fight doesn’t mean his partner has actively begun hating him. Then again, I think he would sometimes invite the fight with some of his more careless comments and that he would come to relish the little jabs of arguments thrown back and forth. He’d probably seek it out as a challenge now and again just to spice things up. (Especially after he finds out that making up after a fight is really, really good stuff. Haha.)

While I think that he would have issues expressing his deeper thoughts and feelings, I think that he would be very casual in his affections. He would probably not even know he was doing it, but I can see him do things like playing with strands of his partner’s hair or brushing their hand with his fingers casually or just sitting as close to them as humanly possible without sitting in their lap outright. (What a mental image that conjures, haha.) I feel like the clinginess people talk about when it comes to Ward is a very physical kind of clinginess -- the scene with Joy in his office where he’s snuggling up to her comes to mind -- and I think that physical touch would be a massive factor in reassuring him and helping him calm down in turn. The thing that Ward would need to hear most is “I’m here with you and I’m not going anywhere”, in my opinion, but more importantly he’d need someone to physically hold him and curl up with him.