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pressedinthepages · 4 years ago

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Chapter 20: Epilogue

Summary: So many unanswered questions, with a few answers.

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(There is a link on my page where you can be added to my taglist :D)

Warnings: language, smut, fluff

A/N: Oh my god y’all, it’s here! This is the final chapter! I literally started this back in May, and it’s now basically October? Holy shitballs. A huge thank you to those who were with me from day one and to those who joined me throughout the journey. While this is the last part, I do still have little ideas running around my head. I hope that you all have enjoyed this as much as I have, and I am looking forward to exploring new works too!

A shiver runs down your spine as you watch the fog slowly creep up the mountain path. Your fingers itch to grab for your silver sword, bracing yourself for an attack of foglets. It’s only a split second thought though, a reflex from more than half a century of hunting monsters. Then you remember that foglets don’t come this far north, and you don’t have your swords. They have been left just inside of the doorway twenty paces behind you, and have been collecting dust for the better part of a year.

You watch as the sun rises past the craggled summits of the mountains around you, bathing the lower valley in light. The fog rises and dissipates, revealing the lush green pasture dotted with sprigs of lavender and thyme. After almost an entire decade more of following the Path, you had given in to the occasional yearning that grew more and more constant to finally make a life of your own, by your own choosing. Your ears pick up movement to your left and you turn, smiling when you see a veritable herd of animals approaching in your direction, led by the man who claims to be the source of your sanity.

Eskel leads the pack with Lil’ Bleater bounding at his side, albeit a bit slower in her advancing age. He fulfilled his promise, finding a friend for her named Bellegarde. She had kids earlier in the spring, the three little bundles of energy just as taken by Eskel as their mother. Scorpion and Lady follow just behind, the latter butting her head into Scorpion’s flank as he walks. The two of them have grown closer as well, having had a foal between them. She has the same stoic air as her father, with the gentle regality of her mother.

You had balked when Eskel had walked through the door with a wolf pup in his arms, but he quickly provided a (still somewhat insane) reason for having brought him into the home.

“I found him laying among a bunch of dead wolves, probably had been his pack. I couldn’t just leave him there, he’d die…” Eskel looked up at you with the biggest, saddest eyes he could muster, knowing that you’ve grown quite soft when it comes to him.

You sighed, turning back to the pot over the fire to give it a stir. “He’ll be your responsibility…”

But that had not stopped the little thing from taking to you immediately. You often couldn’t walk more than two steps without him being under your feet, following your every move. You had named him Argos, after a story you had heard of a great warrior with a faithful dog that followed in his shadow.

Now, Argos bounds to your side, letting you run your fingers through his ever-thickening coat. Summer has passed into a chilly autumn, the trees once again turning the colors of fire before shedding their leaves. Eskel comes up behind you and wraps his arms around your waist, nuzzling into your neck and kissing lightly. You close your eyes and lean into his touch. Your mind settles with peace, but it is soon broken by the distant sound of approaching steps from the treeline, and the plucking of a lute. Your eyes shoot open, freezing on the spot as you stare at the place that the sound is coming from.

Silver hair shines in the sunlight as Geralt steps out of the cover of the trees. He looks strong, healthy, well-fed. Roach looks the same, though she always looks at least a little more well-cared for than Geralt himself. His face, twisted in his perpetual scowl, softens a bit when he spots the two of you. Eskel’s arm slips from around your waist as he walks to meet Geralt halfway, the two men wordlessly falling in a tight embrace. You move to greet him as well, but your feet still as the source of the music steps from the woods at Geralt’s back.

He looks just as he did a decade ago, wavy chestnut hair framing a handsome face, blue eyes just on this side of too-bright. He is dressed in bright colors, a stark contrast at Geralt’s side. The lute slides into place across his back as he gestures widely in a greeting to Eskel, full of flowery words and vague insinuations. Jaskier places his hand lightly on Geralt’s shoulder as he speaks, and you can see the way that Geralt softens even further with the touch. As Jaskier turns to face him however, Geralt’s face switches back into his stern expression.

Time freezes for everyone except you, Lil’ Bleater having been suspended in mid-air as she lept to greet her new guests. You huff, turning to see Jaskier at your side. You glance between the two identical men, wishing for the life of you that you had your swords on your back.

“He doesn’t know.” The Jaskier at your side speaks with a timeless tone, one that speaks of wisdom of countless years. He sighs with a smile, “Back then, I thought I was just as human as anyone else.”

You blink, settling a bit in your boots. “So, I shouldn’t say anything to him?”

“Unless you want to uproot this whole beautiful life that you have created with Eskel, no.”

You nod, taking in your surroundings. A home, with a fire and a table and a bed that Eskel warms at your side every night. Countless animals, providing love and companionship. A garden in the back, spilling over with any and every plant that the two of you could think of. Your armor, tucked away under the bed.

“Thank you, Jaskier, for what you did all those years ago.” You don’t know what to do with your hands, flexing uncomfortably at your side.

Jaskier hums, stepping right up next to the frozen version of himself. You can see, even from where you stand behind Eskel, the way that Jaskier is gazing at Geralt, a twinkle in his eyes that could rival that of a star shooting across the sky.

“You love him.” Your words are not accusatory, more so just stating a fact. Jaskier flushes a bit, biting his lip as he turns back to you.

“Could you…” Jaskier steps to stand at your side once more, “Could you not say anything about that either?”

You smirk, nodding a bit before responding, “That’s not in your destiny, then?”

Jaskier puts his hand on your shoulder, squeezing lightly. “No, my dear. Unfortunately, it is not.”

The breeze picks back up as the Jaskier at your side disappears, leaving you to join the group in front of you. This Jaskier shines like a new coin, young and naive. Introductions are made as you escort everyone into the house, Argos weaving through the vines of new legs, nipping playfully at Jaskier’s fingers.

***

A few days pass before Geralt and Jaskier take their leave, headed even further north towards Kaer Morhen. You had invited them to stay at your home, but Geralt had gently refused.

“I uh...I need to see Vesemir. I need his help.”

Your eyebrows crinkled as Geralt explained the mess that he had created around himself, having claimed a Child of Surprise, a princess no less. As he spoke Eskel had gotten up from the table and walked out of the door, silently reliving his own tragedy around the subject.

Later, Geralt and Eskel had spoken. Eskel’s own past with his Child Surprise was still a rather tender subject, but Geralt was experiencing all of that anew. The two of you vowed to be of support to Geralt as he may need, and agreed that if there were any reason to break out the armor and strap the swords back on, it would be for him. Jaskier had agreed, though Geralt seemed unsure of what exactly he could do in this situation.

“You may be surprised Geralt,” you said, probably one too many ales in, “I bet Jaskier’s got a whole lot of power.”

You realized what you said as soon as the words fell from your lips. “I uh- I mean, his songs! He could wield a whole lot of power over the people with the stories he tells, right?”

Jaskier brightened, launching into a whole new tangent about the songs that he will write about his journey this winter, the two witchers sequestered away in their cabin, and the ones who spend the season in a castle high in the wilderness. You tuned him out, quickly finishing your ale before retiring to bed.

Now, Eskel rolls over to face you on the bed, having seen the two of them off earlier in the day. “It was nice to see Geralt again...Jaskier’s an odd bird though.” His voice is teasing, light in the sanctuary of your home.

You chuckle, thinking the same. Though, you choose to keep your mouth shut, hesitant to spill any more information about the mysterious bard.

“I am glad they’ve left though…” Eskel’s voice turns husky as he tucks his nose into your neck. “Couldn’t very well fool around with them in the next room.”

Eskel’s hand finds your core atop your underthings, just barely teasing you through the fabric. You sigh into him, pressing into his touch. You lift your hips as he hooks his fingers into the waist of your shorts, pulling them down and tossing them elsewhere in the room. Eskel has already divested himself of his own smallclothes, so when you reach, you find him hard and wanting in your hand.

“How would you like me tonight, love?” you whisper as you turn to better face him. He kisses you sweetly, taking your lip between his teeth as he pulls back. Eskel grabs you around the waist and shifts his hips, pulling you over him so you straddle him.

“Like this,” he growls, leaning up to take the peak of one of your breasts between his lips. You thread your fingers through his hair, reveling in just how soft it is now that you have all of the time in the world for trivial things like special soaps to keep hair silky.

You sink yourself down onto the length of his cock, your eyes fluttering closed with the fullness. This feeling never grows old, something familiar but oh so exhilarating with every moment that passes. As your hips meet a bolt of ecstasy shoots through your skin, your nails digging into the meat of his shoulders. You moan as Eskel holds your waist, his own hips beginning to thrust a languid pace.

Eskel’s eyes bore deep into your own as he rubs his fingertips in little circles over the bundle of nerves at the peak of your center, fresh waves of arousal soaring through you with every beat of your heart. Eskel can (and has) keep you for hours like this, perched on the precipice of a glorious climax, never letting you fall. Tonight though, he is impatient, his hips soon snapping in a fast rhythm.

Your muscles tense as you keen with your fast approaching pleasure, every nerve feeling like it is on fire. Eskel wraps himself completely around your form as he fucks even harder into you, notching his teeth against the soft skin on your neck. You shatter under his hands, your entire body singing with the all-encompassing euphoria that comes with your climax. You feel Eskel follow soon after, his grip tightening ever so slightly before spilling deep in your core.

Eskel kisses you deeply as he turns, pressing you into the cushion of the bed as he pulls out of your heat. You hum contentedly as he grabs a damp cloth, cleaning you off before doing the same to himself. You know that the both of you could go for several more rounds, but the appeal of rest is so much greater at the moment. You feel Eskel settle behind you, wrapping himself around you and pressing his mouth against the back of your neck.

“I love you so much, my dove.”

Your eyes well a little bit, smiling into the pillow with just how tender your life has become. This is the easiest thing you have ever done, and you can only hope that it lasts until the end of your days. The easiest words come next, just as they do every moment that they appear in your mind.

“I love you, Eskel.”

#hollow things #eskel x reader #smut #fluff #final chapter #bittersweet yall

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iamjhosel · 4 years ago

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BAGONG YUGTO. New Chapter. This is Hope SG Filipino's 24th Anniversary theme. And while I just marked my 7th year with Hope this January, and now I am on my journey to 8 years, which is also the number for "new beginnings", I have been asking myself, what does this mean to me personally? What is my Bagong Yugto? "Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert." ~Isaiah 43:19 BAGONG YUGTO: A NEW FIRE Early this year, my core team member lost her job and had to go back to the Philippines. And so all the more I had to stretch myself, empower the life group and lean more on His leading - not mine but by His Spirit. This is still a work in progress but I claim new wineskin, new core team members, who would be on fire for God, and then eventually as we enlarge ourselves, fruitfulness will follow.

I pray that God continue to work in us, individually and as a life group, so that all the more we can experience how good, how loving and how faithful our God is! In the same way, the Lord has been stretching us in the ministry for the past year amidst this pandemic. He has done great things in the ministry and in how He is using social media as His platform. Day by day, we are learning and exploring new things on how we can make Him known all over the globe with this ministry He has blessed us with. I am just blessed and humbled to serve Him with all my heart, mind and soul, both in the ministry and in the life group. He is my fire! And all these is by Him and for Him! BAGONG YUGTO: A NEW PERSPECTIVE The past few weeks before the conference, I've been thinking a lot. I've been asking God what's His plan for my life. What's next for me? Should I move to the States too, when one by one my ward friends are leaving for US and a family friend's actually offering to help me should I decide to move. Besides, US was the original plan. Singapore was supposed to be just a detour. Almost 10 years after, I am still here. Plus that infamous question: Will I ever have my own family too? So, I was really praying that in the conference, I will receive a word from God or a clear direction where He wants me to go. The answer came fast. On the first day during worship, I heard it loud and clear:

And all throughout the conference, I was just reminded over and over again. God is faithful, so be faithful. Keep sowing. Keep planting. Keep reaching out. Keep loving. And He will take care of the rest. Besides, He never told me to move. It was just me. You see, comparison triggers jealousy and so never compare your life to others because God has His own story for you and me. Look unto Jesus. Fix your gaze and thoughts upon Him. “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." ~Matthew 6:25-34 BAGONG YUGTO: A NEW HEART The first half of the year has been very painful for our family. I praise God that He has blessed me with a very loving and closely knitted family, and so the sudden loss of two of my Uncles in Papa's side, both I am close with, has left us bewildered, broken and very hurt. Early in April, Tito Erick, Papa's youngest brother, was hospitalized for COVID. In just a few days, he was transferred to the ICU because his oxygen level wasn't picking up and his biomarkers were all deranged. His wife, Tita Mitch, was then quarantined on another facility. Everyday we would all do video calls to check on Tita Mitch and get updates on Tito Erick. We would always encourage everyone in the family to keep on pressing on in prayer and keep believing that these too shall pass. That we've been through so much in the family before and we would be able to withstand all of these. I knew that God is a good God and He will never forsake us. I was anticipating that this will be our family's testimony of healing. But then one night, as if in a movie, there was a plot twist. Uncle Ahwee, Tita Shei's husband had a heart attack. He was pronounced dead on arrival. We were dumbfounded. I couldn't understand why all of these is happening, all together, at the same time. It felt like a dejavu. It felt like we were in 2014 all over again when Papa had an accident and he needed to go for a surgery and the next day Lolo Ama, Papa's father, passed away because of cancer. I questioned God why do our family had to experience all these pain again. Did I not pray enough for Him to hear my prayers? There were so many thoughts running on my head but we had to press on for Tito Erick. To still believe and keep praying that he will be healed. We kept Uncle Awhee's passing from Tito Erick. We even blocked him on Facebook so he won't see any post on Uncle Awhee's sudden death. During Uncle Awhee's wake, we were just amazed on how God poured out His love and provision through the help of the many people who loved Uncle Ahwee. Tito Erick's condition then was getting better. He regained some strength, enough to reply to us in our family's group chat. Every morning he would send some selfies to us to let us know that he is getting better. He found out about Uncle Awhee's passing when he saw a post from his high school batch mate but thank God during that time he was already able to take all the news in.

He then had a reswab and we were hoping that if it turned out to be negative, he will be transferred to a regular room. But the next day before dawn, on Lolo Ama's birthday, Tito Erick's oxygen levels dropped which then required him to be intubated. After two hours of being in critical condition, his heart stopped beating. The doctors tried to revive him but to no avail. It was so painful seeing his body lifeless through a video call. The whole day we were on iyak-tulala-iyak-tulala mode. We were so devastated. It felt like the enemy knew exactly where to attack me, that it found my Achilles heel, and it is succeeding. I already had thoughts of giving up and turning away from serving Him. He must have been punishing me for not being bold enough to do more for Him. But then I never heard my family questioned God. Yes, they couldn't understand why all these are happening, but they never once turned away from God. I thought I have the strongest faith, but theirs were stronger. God is still good, because despite of all what happened, He has made everyone in the family stronger in faith. He has reminded us how He has blessed us with a family that is so full of love, and that we are loved not just by Him but by the people that He has surrounded us with. I praise God for my spiritual family, ministry and friends who have helped me to stand when I couldn't, reminded me that I am not alone, and that God sees our pain and He is the only one who can turn it to joy. This wasn't the testimony I was hoping to share but God's thoughts are higher than mine. He has a different healing testimony He wanted me to share, not just for me, but for the whole family. Healing does not come in an instant. And until now, we are all still healing, slowly, taking it day by day. There are days that I still find myself dazed as if everything was just a dream. And same goes for them in the Philippines, in and out of loneliness and what ifs. But praise God we have each other to constantly remind ourselves that God is a good God and in Him, our broken hearts can be made whole again. As God promised in Revelations 21:5, "Behold, I make all things new," He is giving us a new heart. He is renewing our spirits day by day. He is making us lean more on Him, trust Him that all these are for our good, and draw closer and closer unto Him. He is our refuge and strength. At the end of day, He is a sovereign God. I may not have control on everything but He has. And He has me and my family on the palm of His hands. Here's a spontaneous song when I was pouring and crying myself out to God. It is only in His presence that we can find healing.

THERE IS MORE. Every year, I would always have a bible verse declaration for myself and just before 2021 entered, instead of a verse, He gave me a whole chapter, Ezekiel 47. And it dawned on me, how it is unfolding before my eyes, that all these things that has happened on the first half of the year is teaching me and molding me to lean more and more on Him so I could go deeper and deeper into my relationship with Him. I look forward that after everything, I will receive my inheritance! That all these is for my good and a preparation for what is ahead. This is a beginning of a new chapter of my life and my walk with Him! What a great and loving God He is and I will forever praise Him with my life! Oh praise and glory be upon Him, the King of kings, Lord of lords, Lover of my Soul, my Lord and Saviour, Jesus! "As the man went eastward with a measuring line in his hand, he measured off a thousand cubits and then led me through water that was ankle-deep. He measured off another thousand cubits and led me through water that was knee-deep. He measured off another thousand and led me through water that was up to the waist. He measured off another thousand, but now it was a river that I could not cross, because the water had risen and was deep enough to swim in—a river that no one could cross. He asked me, “Son of man, do you see this?” "Then He led me back to the bank of the river. When I arrived there, I saw a great number of trees on each side of the river. He said to me, “This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah, where it enters the Dead Sea. When it empties into the sea, the salty water there becomes fresh. Swarms of living creatures will live wherever the river flows. There will be large numbers of fish, because this water flows there and makes the salt water fresh; so where the river flows everything will live. Fishermen will stand along the shore; from En Gedi to En Eglaim there will be places for spreading nets. The fish will be of many kinds—like the fish of the Mediterranean Sea. But the swamps and marshes will not become fresh; they will be left for salt. Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail. Every month they will bear fruit, because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing.” ~Ezekiel 47:3-12

#bagongyugto #newbeginnings #healing #newheart #newfire #new perspective

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grumpyhedgehogs · 6 years ago

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Lay Me to Rest in a Bed of Wildflowers

Summary: Various citizens give The Judge flowers. Dep realizes a few things.

Part One: Here Part Two: Here

Notes: This one was a long time in coming. I started work on it a week or so after the first part, had to split it in two, lost the draft, started a new one, found the old draft, stitched them into some Frankenstein’s monster, and spent another three days finishing and editing. At this point, if there are any grammar mistakes they’re just gonna have to stay there. But I had a lot of fun finishing this trilogy and I hope you enjoy some angst/fluff/flowers! As always, spoilers for Far cry 5 and Far cry New Dawn, please do not read if you are not finished/mind being spoiled.

P.S.: The titles of the trilogy refer to a trial, execution and funeral.

”You remember the people here. They’re your friends, and you want to help them.”

Carmina

Carmina started with cherry blossoms. It was a cherry tree she so often found Dep leaning against- it was the farthest tree on the property, just on the edge between the ranch and the treeline. She knew it made her parents nervous whenever they saw Dep leaning against that old trunk, staring distractedly into the darkness of the forest. Hell, it scared Carmina plenty.

But Dep wouldn’t run now. Not after Carmina’s mother had asked them not to.

That didn’t mean they didn't think about it; Carmina could practically see it in the air around their head as they leaned against the trunk of the cherry tree, unheeding of the twigs and leaves getting caught in their hood. She could feel it, an aura around them when she got too close, needling at the skin.

When Dep got like this the whole house seemed to grind to a halt. She’d caught her father with his hand on the doorknob, frozen between rushing out and leaving them be. Her mother’s grip on the counter as she watched through the open window was white-knuckled and rigid. It was a storm brewing, demanding to be seen but too far away to be touched, too powerful to be warded off.

Carmina plucked a few blossoms from a low-hanging bough as she passed and held them to her nose, eyes never wavering from the dark figure. The tree rarely ever produced fruit these days; it was too old, too twisted, too broken by the bombs to do more than survive. Maybe that was why Dep liked it so much. They’d found a kindred spirit.

They were silent- so out of character!- as she stepped up beside them, but they accepted the flowers readily enough when she offered them.

“You should smell them,” she prompted but wasn’t too disappointed when they simply tilted their head at her. At least Dep wasn’t looking at the dark anymore. “They’re my favorite scent. Besides Mom’s cooking, I guess.”

Dep’s fingers played lightly over the petals for a moment, as if memorizing their texture. They held them back out doubtfully. Carmina smiled, fondness tugging at her chest, and folded the gloved fingers gently over the flowers. “Keep them. They’ll remind you of me.”

Cherry blossoms meant renewal. Carmina figured Dep already knew that.

She gave them lavender next.

Ever since her mother had pointed it out, Carmina couldn’t help but jerk awake every time she heard them creeping out at night. They never seemed to remember the floorboard to the right of the top stair creaked like something out of a haunted house.

She’d lay staring at the ceiling, wide-eyed yet unseeing, until the screen door’s hinges whined again in the early hours and cat-like footsteps crept back up the stairs. Only then did Carmina’s heart stop thumping so very hard against her ribs.

She dropped a sprig of lavender in their hands the next morning. “You’re keeping me up,” she told them, and refused to feel guilty about the slump of their shoulders. The bags under her eyes were heavy. “It helps sleep.” They also meant peace, but again, these were unneeded explanations.

The apple and orange blossoms she actually felt a little bad about, seeing as they could easily have turned to fruit. But- well. The Dep was a little more important.

“For peace,” she murmured when they looked up at her. The summery early evening was just beginning to chill, and Carmina could feel the tip of her nose numbing. The flowers in their yard were fragrant; Dep looked as at peace as she’d ever seen them. Not that that was saying much. “And family. Now come on, Mom’s let Dad break out the grill and I need you around to help put the fire out.”

Carmina didn’t have to look back to know they were just a step behind her the whole way.

Grace

Grace found them crouching in the dirt. They were not trying to be sneaky now- she could hear them crunching around in the drying, dead leaves of the late summer. The whole yard around what used to be John Seed’s ranch smelled of green and damp and growth; Grace suspected that just might be what Dep needed right about now.

(She had Nana help her with the flowers. The old woman was surprisingly patient, explaining every color, helping her with textures and structures and arrangement and Grace had never put this much thought into a bunch of dead plants in her entire life.)

It was quiet out in the yard except for the ambient noise of the wilderness. Dep liked birdsong; they used to go out in the early morning and sit on the porch of the Rye’s home, just waiting to hear which bird would be the first to wake. Grace would come around with coffee sometimes.

“Do you remember the birds, Dep?”

They stilled and Grace could hear their labored breathing.

(Kim, when she led Grace outside, had quietly explained the Deputy was trying to build a garden. “It’s the only time they’ve been calm out here,” Kim had confided and Grace’s throat had tightened at the strained tone in her voice.)

They must have been tilling the earth for the new seeds; Grace could smell the fresh soil. It was nice.

Leaves crunched underfoot as the Deputy stood slowly. Grace could almost see their shoulders, thin under such a large jacket (“Like a goddamn bear hide or some shit,” Nick had told her over the radio once, months ago now), tensing up somewhere near their ears. They never liked to be snuck up on.

“Do you remember the bluejays?” She asked, loud in the uneasy quiet. Grace’s ears were straining harder than ever, unseeing eyes darting from side to side; she felt them moving, unbidden, in her skull. But she wasn’t scared of anything but the Dep running. They were so very good at running.

“They were your favorite, Dep,” Grace said, something desperate and hot rising to the base of her throat at their silence. She had never hated the quiet so much as now. “You would point them out every time we hunted together- you- you liked when they were the first ones to sing in the morning.”

A noncommittal grunt. A foot shifting in the dirt. The crunch of dry twigs. Birds singing, branches clattering in a slight breeze. A soft exhale.

“I brought coffee but you preferred tea because caffeine made your hands shake when you held a bow,” Grace tried.

Footsteps padded towards her but stopped a few yards- too far, too far- away. She heard their breath hitch violently in their chest.

She couldn’t cry. She never cried, not even at the end of the goddamn world. “You liked jasmine tea because the flowers were pretty. We shared it. You taught me about the birds every morning.”

Nothing. The birds wouldn’t stop singing. She didn’t know whether that was such a good thing anymore.

Finally, heart in her mouth, Grace stepped forward and thrust out her fist. The flowers would be crushed at the stems, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.

“Nana said you’d probably know what they mean,” Grace’s voice was too fast, too high, God she felt like an idiot. “But I think you need to hear it. So- so, edelweiss for courage and devotion, wallflower for faithfulness in adversity, hyssop for sacrifice, lemon balm for sympathy. And- and magnolia, for- for love of nature.”

She came forward again and again and again and held up her hands when she heard them shift back. Fumbling, Grace caught one thickly gloved hand in hers and wished desperately that she could touch skin, just for a moment. The heat at the back of her throat was spreading, pushing at her mouth, the backs of her eyes, lighting her scalp ablaze. Her legs were gelatinous.

She curled her old friend’s hand gently around the flowers and held their loose fist in both of hers. Grace wished that she could see, that they could talk, that none of this had happened.

“Maybe next you could teach me about the flowers,” she whispered hoarsely, and ignored the lump in her throat at the soft sob coming from somewhere in front of her.

Kim

Kim gave them a flower for each day they stayed.

The first one she made a production out of, giving it in the exact same way they left hers for her all those months ago. Dep seemed surprised to come in from their early morning wanderings (it never failed to give Kim a heart attack, seeing their bed empty and made up, crisp cool air where her friend was supposed to be warm and safe- Goddamn Joseph Seed better be rotting in Hell) and find a small bunch of pink and purple petals at their honorary place at the family table.

“Statice,” Kim told them, carefully not looking up from the eggs she was scrambling, “there’s a lot around here. For sympathy. And success.”

The next day, it was peach roses. “Those were a little harder to find,” Kim admitted. She didn’t particularly want to remember that dirty, cramped trek through the woods, or the cursing, or the thorns. “You’re supposed to give them to someone you miss.”

Dep had trembled at that. They’d left the table and were gone for most of the day, the screen door banging shut behind them; for hours, Kim had thought that was it, she’d fucked it all up. But in the end, the sun’s rays were scarcely fading when the Dep had stepped quietly into the kitchen and pressed an apologetic lily-of-the-valley in her palm. Kim kept still as they bowed their head.

“Yes,” she said finally, having to violently tamp down on the overwhelming urge to reach out. “You’re forgiven.Tell us you’re leaving next time.”

Freesia was next. “Thoughtfulness- I thought it was a good fit for you.”

Yellow roses- “Oh, you know you’re supposed to give them to friends. That was a pretty easy one.”

White tulips, which she placed in a box on their windowsill. “For the worthiness part, not the seeking forgiveness part,” Kim had had to justify quickly when the Dep’s head swiveled around as if looking for an exit, “You know you've got nothing to apologize for.”

But they didn’t know, and Kim knew they didn’t. Back to the drawing board.

“Dahlias,” Kim told them later, “they’re for lasting bonds.”

Finally she settled, comfortably, on sunflowers. Hell knew there were tons of them around the house.

“You like yellow, huh?” Kim ventured one day, unsure if the question would cause Dep to flip out. Instead, she got a moment of consideration and then a slow nod. They were a child, unsure if they were going to be granted approval or disappointment. The acid in Kim’s stomach roiled and she hoped the fire burning Joseph Seed’s soul was blistering.

Kim grinned. “Good. They’re supposed to mean happiness.”

She kept a vase of sunflowers on the table after that, and put another one in their dreary bedroom- she’d have to get Carmina’s help redecorating.

And if she had to plant even more sunflowers to keep up a steady flow, well, it’d be worth it when Dep finally took off that damn mask.

Hurk

“I didn’t, uh- I mean, I just kinda thought this was better than trying to rip up some weird flowers and accidentally poisoning you or something.”

Dep tilted their head the same as they’d always done- it was reassuring, almost, that the little things hadn’t changed. It at least gave Hurk the strength to keep going.

He hefted the flower pot between his palms and wished the leaves were long enough to obscure his hot face. “Gina said this was fucking stupid, but then she said maybe it’d help you cause she was thinkin’ you got fucked up, like really life-changing fucked up, and I mean, with Seed and all, and you runnin’ around in that mask maybe she was right, right?”

Dep’s mask did not look impressed. They shuffled back a few steps and looked like they were considering shutting the door on him. Somewhere in that house Kim Rye was thinking about throttling him.

“I’m talking too much,” Hurk stated. Dep did not disagree. Their fists were clenching and unclenching slowly at their sides; they were fighting to keep still. “Um. Sorry. Here.”

He shoved the flower pot into their hands unceremoniously. They fumbled, stumbled under the sudden weight, and finally got it secured against their chest. They huffed angrily at him when dirt spilled into their collar and Hurk was suddenly rethinking the whole ‘let’s-give-our-old-friend-who-is-now-a-little-crazy-a-bunch-of-plants’ idea. Carmina had a good heart but Hurk wondered if she thought more with that than her head.

The Deputy shifted the pot in their hands, looking down at it before jerking their head questioningly at him.

“It’s a fern,” Hurk explained helpfully.

They blinked. It was weird to see the mask with only one eye lens in it, but the eyes weren’t as disconcerting as the dried dirt and who knows what else smudging the white painted surface.

“I, uh, didn’t know anything about flowers, so I got you a fern,” Hurk repeated. He desperately wanted to slap himself in the face. “Like I said I didn’t want to poison you or anything. Knowing me, I’d find the only Bliss left around and end up naked and hogtied alone on the bank of a river somewhere. Uh, not that I’m speaking from experience or anything. But yeah, I thought this fern looked nice. I mean, it is a nice fern. Do you like ferns? Am I saying the word ‘fern’ too much? I feel like I’m saying ‘fern’ too much.”

The Deputy set the plant heavily on the floor between their feet. They tilted their head for a moment and slowly reached out to pet one of the fronds lightly. Then Dep backed up and crossed their arms over their chest tightly, like they were hugging themself. Hurk felt as if iron bands were squeezing his ribs.

“It means humility and uh- shelter. I think.”

Dep paused and then nodded. They held themself tighter. Hurk wished fiercely for this all to be a nightmare- couldn’t he just wake up and realize that none of this had ever happened and he was on his mom’s couch waiting for the Dep to come by and take him to fuck up some Peggies just for kicks?

But what was done was done, and all that was left of his friend was going to shatter apart if he didn’t give them this fucking fern.

“And confidence too, apparently. And like, sincerity. That part is about me, too. Cause, like, I’m sincerely your friend and shit.”

Dep’s head hung low; he couldn't tell if they were looking at the fern or not.

“Hey, Dep?” They shuddered. His voice was strained on the next words. “I, uh- I’m really glad you’re back man. Wasn’t the same without you.”

Silence. He wasn't going to get anything else from them today. Heart like stone in his chest, Hurk turned and reached out to close the door behind him. At least he could tell Gina and Blade he’d tried.

A hand on the door stopped him from closing it. When Hurk turned around, Dep was standing only inches form him- it was always freaky how softly they could move.

Dep hesitated for a split second and then reached out to lay their hand lightly on his bicep. They patted a couple times and then stopped, seeming unsure of what to do next.

His vision blurry, Hurk reached up and closed his fingers around the other’s, movements slow and exaggerated. They blinked at him. He blinked back and ignored the wet warmth on his cheeks.

“Yeah,” he croaked, “I’m real glad you’re back.”

Jerome

“I once told you I didn’t know how to speak to you, old friend.”

Jerome came to a careful stop at the edge of the garden; he could sense a sacred space when he was near it, and this was the Deputy’s. The earth was freshly dug in furrows, and holes pockmarked the yard here and there, heralding in a season of new growth for next year.

He hadn’t known that Dep liked to plant vegetables as well, but Jerome could just spy a bag of what looked like pumpkin seeds sticking out of the basket Dep had by their side. A filthy trowel and a shucked pair of torn gloves lay beside them.

Dep looked up sharply at him before straightening (the lethality in that movement was all catlike grace and most likely completely unintentional) slowly. They dropped the last few seeds from their worn palm into the furrow and nudged a bit of dirt into place above them with a boot.

Jerome waited until he could see the glint of a single eye. “I told you our paths had diverged and that I could no longer think of what to say to you because of what you had done, what you had been through. And for that, Deputy, I can only sincerely apologize.”

Dep’s shoulders hitched upward by a fraction of an inch, but Jerome was watching too closely not to notice. They slid one foot back and ended up kicking their basket over. Jerome could see their hands starting to twist together, an old nervous tick he remembered stopping many a time with a calming palm on theirs.

His stomach flipped; it was almost a certainty that Dep would never let him do that now. Maybe never again.

Jerome sighed passed the tightness of his throat and raise a hand, palm out. “Please, let me finish. Please don’t let your past- what he made you think of yourself, perhaps what I helped reinforce through my thoughtlessness, get the best of you. Can I ask that of you, my friend?”

The Deputy visibly wavered for a moment; Jerome could feel his position here, fragile as the last fall leaves clinging to the branches, ready to be swept away at any second. His tongue felt as dry as the Sahara.

After quite possibly the longest pause of the pastor’s life, the person who had once turned out to be the most true friend he’d ever had nodded twice, quickly, as if they were pulling off a band-aid.

Jerome shifted on his feet. “May I-” He didn’t know quite how to finish, how to communicate the deep urge to reach out, the need to be close to someone he’d thought lost long ago, the wish to make sure this wasn’t some dream from which he would be ripped away at any second. The Deputy was sure to reject the confession, anyhow.

Instead, they beckoned with one hand, crossed their legs, and thumped down into the dirt unceremoniously.

Jerome suppressed the bizarre impulse to laugh. There was something softer about them now, surrounded as they were with flowers and gardening equipment. Their pale face- what passed for their face, anyway- tilted up at him expectantly; it reminded Jerome absurdly of a child waiting for storytime.

Cautiously, wholly frightened of appearing aggressive, he took a seat across from them Indian-style. He abruptly found it hard to meet their eyes over the row of leaves of the freshly grown carrots between them. Instead, he dropped his gaze to the flowers in his lap. They seemed a meager offering now, no matter how much time he’d spent finding them.

“I brought you these,” Jerome told them hoarsely, lifting the bunch halfheartedly. The Deputy was tracking his movements intently, and tipped their head to the side briefly, that single eye blinking slowly at him. It made Jerome’s chest squeeze tight at the sight. This was what Nick meant about the Dep’s old habits shining through at the strangest times.

He held the first one out over the carrots, watching the petals bob and sway in the breeze. It was a moment before ungloved fingers curled tentatively over the stem just above his own. “Gerbera, for loyal love, innocence, and purity.”

There was a quiet exhale from his companion, but still Jerome refused to lift his eyes. “I should have tried harder to communicate with you; I should have known it was you from the start, or figured it out like Nick Rye did. But I think maybe I did know, or I wouldn’t have pushed the notion away so vehemently. I didn’t want to see what Joseph Seed had done to you- what he molded you into. I didn’t think I could take knowing what had been done to so true a heart.”

He passed two more flowers over. He had to wait a few moments before they were accepted. “Sweet William and sweet woodruff mean gallantry and humility. You- you were a hero to us, I hope you know that. You were a hero to me. And I- I wish I’d not turned away from you when you came out of that bunker. You needed us, and none of us realized it until it was almost too late. We left you to fight your demons on your own because you weren’t fighting our battles for us anymore, and you cannot understand- I cannot express to you the shame that brings me.”

Jerome was having a hard time speaking by now, vision blurred into a swirl of watery colors. He persevered, but not for his own sake. “Pink stargazer lily. I know it looks ostentatious, but it- it means honor, prosperity. Deputy-”

He tried to lift his head this time, made a herculean effort to withstand the grief threatening to drown him, but the current pulled him under and he could not meet their eyes. “The sacrifices you made before the bombs dropped, the torment you must have gone through for the sake of us, all to be rewarded with the time you spent under the ground with him- and to come back and help us, and then, to find the strength to fight back against Seed- the story of Job does you justice.”

Finally, the last flowers seemed small, insignificant, a tiny drop of water in the ocean of things he need to spill out to the Deputy, the things they deserved to hear for which Jerome had no words.

“Bachelor buttons,” He said tightly, breathing harsh. They were not accepted for a long moment and Jerome realized they might not ever be. But if this was the last thing he could say to a hurt friend, then by the Lord Almighty Himself, Jerome had better make it count. “For single blessedness. Whatever has been done to you, whatever Seed or I or anyone else has made you believe about yourself, whatever you think about who you are, know this, my friend. You have fought righteously, and you have stood in the way of harm that would have befallen innocents. You’ve withstood hell. Know that you are free now; know that in the eyes of your family and of the Lord you are not damned. You never were.”

There was a moment where Jerome was alone, choking on the silence, drowning in shame and blame and self-flagellation. The garden was still and time could very well have stopped.

And then the flower was pulled from his grip and replace with a hand. Fingers laced with his, and their bare knuckles dropped to rest together on the sun-warmed earth.

Jerome sat with an old friend submerged in a place of growth and life, and let the wind lift the weight from his shoulders, let the sun dry the tears on his face, let the earth turn on and on, inexorably turning away from the past. He hoped the Deputy was doing the same.

They stayed with him (he stayed with them) until the light faded from a friendly sky.

Sharky

This was worse than that time when he was fourteen and bought his crush a bunch of flowers to ask her to the Spring Formal. Okay, so he’d swiped them from the neighbor’s yard. Whatever. Point was, he was less nervous back then, when he’d been holding out the stupid flowers and staring her football player boyfriend in the eye, than he was right now.

The Dep’s hood was up like always, but the height of their shoulders and the way they were leaning as far back in their chair as they could told him enough to guess at their expression. He was sweating.

Kim, sitting at the table in her kitchen across from Dep, looked ten seconds away from throttling him. Sharky recognized that vein beating a tempo in her cheek. “Chives, Sharky? Really?”

“The, uh, the book said they mean, like, usefulness and stuff.”

Kim wrinkled her nose. “You busted into my house to tell Dep they’re useful?” Her tone was deliberately calm. Sharky’s heart was beating so fast it might have simply stopped. He didn’t waver from the Dep, though. He wasn't gonna give up his shot now.

“Hey, I know my best friend, all right? They like to be all helpful and useful to people and shit.”

Their shoulders were lowering centimeters at a time. They’d begun breathing again, having stopped when the door slammed against the wall. Nothing like a dramatic Boshaw entrance to get the blood pumping. The hood moved in their classic head tilt. Their fingers twitched against the worn wood of the table.

“There- there’s dill too,” he piped up helpfully, ignoring the urge to scrub at the back of his neck. Drops of sweat rolled into his facial hair. “Just cause, that book- we’ve only got like one fuckin’ book on flowers and plants and shit in the entire county, how fucked is that, huh?- uh, the book said dill means ‘powerful against evil,’ and I mean, that’s you all the way man, so I thought, you’re all flower power these days, maybe you’d like ‘em! I dunno, I guess I should speak your language and shit.”

There was a second of the loudest silence he’d ever heard. That usually didn’t bode well for Sharky.

Kim let out a long breath. “Sharky, I think maybe you should-”

The Dep’s chair scraped back so fast it tipped backward and landed upside down with a clatter. Kim jumped in her seat. The birds outside the windowsill took flight. The Dep’s glass of water was upturned.

Dep took two large steps over to Sharky and threw their arms around his middle. They squeezed too hard and Sharky wheezed for a second, but when they started to withdraw in alarm he planted a firm hand on their back.

“Oh hell no man, you’re good, you’re good.” They smelled like firewood and rich, healthy soil. At first they held themselves away from his body by a few inches until Sharky gently pressed down between their shoulder blades.

His friend almost collapsed boneless against him; Dep was shaking in his arms and Sharky felt the vicious need to dig Joseph Seed’s body out of his grave and set it on fire. Instead, he held very still and let Dep tentatively rest their head on his shoulder. The skin of their forehead was warmer than any fire he’d lit in months; the warmth seeped through the mask and into the cloth of his shirt, burning pleasantly there.

Their shoulders were trembling, although Sharky was unsure if they were actually crying. He tried not to let the plants get crushed by leaning the fist with them in it gently against the back of Dep’s head.

“I, uh.” He croaked, cleared his throat. Kim was frozen on the edge of his vision, hand over her mouth. “I’ve got coriander too; it means ‘hidden worth.’ I thought it was funny, cause like, you hide your face all the time and you're super cool? But, I couldn't find any coriander flowers. So I put coriander powder on everything.”

The Dep huffed against his flannel. Kim snorted.

“Wait til I tell Nick you got the first hug,” she told him, shaking her head ruefully. “He’s gonna be so pissed.”

Sharky grinned wildly.

Nick

Nick barely had time to realize that he’d grabbed the wrong wrench and would subsequently have to haul himself out from under the truck to go get the right one when it appeared in his field of vision as if by magic. A gloved hand was wrapped around the handle.

“Oh,” He said, suddenly realizing he’d forgotten how words worked. “Uh. Thanks.”

In the three months they’d been staying with the Ryes, Dep had had trouble staying in the same room as Nick. They still couldn’t look him in the eye. It made something dark and cloying claw at the base of his stomach most days.

The hand retreated and there was a shifting of fabric near his feet. Working mostly on memory and instinct, Nick continued to fiddle with whatever was jamming up the undercarriage of the truck, keeping most of his attention on the dark, dirt-covered boots he could barely make out beside him.

After a relatively companionable five minutes, he couldn’t stand the silence anymore. Nick found himself wishing for the days when Dep knew just the moment to crack a joke to ease his tension. Maybe that was selfish. Yeah, it was probably selfish.

“Hey, uh.” He cleared a suddenly clogged throat gruffly. “I uh, jumped on the bandwagon and got you something. They’re over by the tools, you probably saw them. Go grab them for me, would ya?”

The feet shuffled a bit before their body dropped down with a thump that jarred him badly enough that his knees jerked into the truck’s underside. Nick hissed a little but shook off the concerned noise Dep made. “Nah, don’t worry ‘bout it- happens all the time. You got ‘em?”

Two taps on his shin, and the skin there prickled under his jeans; they hadn’t wanted to look at him, much less touch any of the Ryes in so long...

They were sitting quietly beside the truck now, leaning against the passenger-side door. He could just barely spy the bright splash of color he’d worked so hard on in his periphery.

It must have taken weeks to get the canterbury bells alone. Nick had been afraid he’d do something stupid- spill oil on them or drop ‘em in the mud or something. It was a relief just knowing they’d gotten safely into Dep’s hands.

“Listen,” Nick paused when the wrench clanged loudly against metal. He stilled until the silence rushed back in.

There was a single tap on his leg to signify they heard him. This was the most they’d touched him since he’d tried to tackle them out of some misguided attempt at a peace-offering all those months ago. “I know this is the part where I explain all the flowers to you, but I got something to say first, yeah?”

A moment of quiet. Nick tightened a lug nut and ignored how slippery the wrench had become in a matter of seconds. Two taps on his shin.

“Cool,” He replied, and had never felt this hot and agitated in his life. The car seemed to be bearing down on him, threatening to crush his lungs with its bulk. He focus instead on the hand tapping light patterns out on the concrete by his knees. “I ain’t gonna sugar coat this, buddy- Joseph Seed got you fucked up.”

A huffed breath and a light shove, barely enough to jostle him. In the old days, Nick might’ve grinned, wrapped an arm around their neck, ribbed them a little more. Now, his heart was beating too loud in his ears to even think straight. “I mean, there are probably better ways to say that, but it is what it is. And I just wanna say- I don’t care.”

Nick was struck with the acute desire to see what the Dep’s expression was at this moment, but it wasn’t like being out from under the car would help him much with that mask still in the way. He thought maybe the truck hiding his face was the reason Dep could even stand being so near him now- that night with the knife really messed them up. Seems like that blade did more harm to them than it ever did to Nick.

“Aw, I don’t mean it like- like that, you know I- I’m not any good at this, at talkin’. You knew that a long time ago, huh?” Nick was wheezing, just slightly. A hand squeezed lightly around his ankle, and he focused on centering his breathing for a moment.

“Thanks. But I mean it, I don’t care. I don’t care what he did to you, or who you think he made you be. I don’t care if you think you’re dangerous or evil, because you know what? You’re wrong. Seed was fucking wrong about you from the start, and he was wrong about you in the end, too. You didn’t start out evil and you’re not ending up evil either.”

The hand withdrew, and over the roaring in his head Nick could hear them stand. For a moment cold fear drenched him with the certainty that they would run; but all they did was begin pacing.

That was pretty much the best permission to continue he was gonna get. “I don’t care what happened because it doesn’t change who you are to me. It don’t change the fact I’m not gonna leave you alone in this- not ever again.”

He wasn’t seeing the undercarriage anymore, not really; in his mind’s eye, Nick could perfectly render the last time he’d seen their face, all sweaty and grave and ready to bring the fight to Seed if it was the last thing they did. In a way he guessed it was, at least for a while.

“You’re my family,” Nick told them simply. “Pretty much always have been. That ain’t ever gonna change, you hear me? Ever since you strolled in here with that stupid Deputy uniform and a smart-ass grin and told John Seed to go fuck himself, you’ve been one of mine. And I ain’t never gonna give up on one of mine.”

The pacing had stopped, and so had the wrench. It was time- he couldn’t put it off anymore. Feeling incredibly undignified and not really giving a shit, Nick rolled on his back to the edge of the truck and scuttled out from underneath it. It took him a bit of a struggle to get himself upright, back twinging in protest all the while. But he got it done.

The flowers lay carefully abandoned by the tools Nick had discarded earlier. Dep was a few feet away, wearing a furrow in his barn’s floor. When they heard him stand they stopped abruptly, back to him. Their shoulders were hunched inward, trembling. They usually cut a pretty imposing figure without even meaning to; now they just looked small, like a kid playing dress up with their parents’ clothes. They were swamped in the black of their jacket.

Nick hated something about that coat on them- all dark and furred and too heavy. It reeked of corruption, or dominance, and he could just fucking bet it was gifted to them by none other than Joseph fucking Seed. But mostly, Nick hated it because it kept him from seeing his friend in there.

Quietly, careful not to disturb the fragile peace, Nick scooped up the flowers. “Canterbury bells, ‘faith, gratitude.’” He spoke passed the fear clawing its way up his throat, threatening to spill out from his lips. He could just see it, an oil slick down his chin and front, congealing and growing and obscuring his friend from his very eyes. But for every flower Nick took a step forward, surging passed that fear and swallowing it back in defiance.

Dep hadn’t moved.

“Queen Anne’s lace, ‘sanctuary.’ Tiger lilies, ‘happiness, prosperity.’” The last stem Nick offer to them over their shoulder. It was a second before they accepted it. He let his hand fall tentatively- softly so softly, they were like a newborn fawn, ready to bolt at any second- on their shoulder. The coat wrinkled slightly under his fingertips and the fabric almost physically repulsed him.

Instead, Nick gripped just a little tighter, to remind them he wasn’t going anywhere. His palm tingled- this was the first contact with Dep he’d had in- he didn’t know. Hell, for all Nick knew, he could wake up tomorrow and find they’d actually done it, they’d actually run off in the night. Every day he realized it could be the last contact he had with them.

The thought ate away at Nick.

He squeezed lightly again, cleared his throat and in a gravelly voice explained, “Lilac. It’s for family, and innocence. ‘Cause that’s what you are Dep. You’re innocent. And you’re family.”

He couldn’t seem to let go now. Their shoulder moved beneath Nick’s grip, but not quickly, not violently. The muscles shifted, bone creaked. They put their hands to their face, still holding tightly to the bloom he’d given them.

With a larger effort that Sisyphus ever exerted on his stone, Nick dropped his hand; his fingers grazed their hood on the way down. His gaze fell, and he wiped a hand over his own face; he was so very tired.

“So, uh, I guess that’s what I want you to know.” Nick told them, as confidence fled. He kept his hand over his eyes. “I don’t care what happened to you, I’m still with ya to the end of the line. And it’s- it’s okay if it takes a long time. I get it, if you can’t- be around us yet. Be around me yet. I know it’s- it’s gotta be fucking tough as shit. But you’re not alone. You've got me, however long you need, buddy.”

When his hand finally fell from his eyes, Nick was almost too tired to register the eyes looking back at him.

The pair of eyes looking back.

All breath shot out of Nick’s lungs but his body must have realized the importance of the moment, because his muscles locked up before he could ruin it by flailing. He stood, frozen like a deer in the headlights, feeling as if he suddenly acquired lockjaw.

Slowly, deliberately slowly, the Deputy lowered their hood; their hair was rough, and long, and matted as a rat’s nest; it badly needed a cut and it so dirty it could have been any color. Their face was streaked with grime, and pale from lack of sunlight, creating a resemblance to a raccoon around their eyes.

They looked tired.

Dep took hold of the hand Nick had placed on their shoulder and gentle pushed the mask into his palm.

“Fuck that.” Nick sputtered, hurling the mask to the ground. He didn’t even look down to see it shatter to pieces before he’d swept Dep into his arms.

His hand were clutching too tightly to that damn coat, he was leaning too close, probably suffocating them engulfed as they were by his hug, but Nick wouldn’t- goddamn couldn’t- let go.

“You have no fucking clue how good it is to see you again,” Nick told them, and meant it with his whole heart.

They huffed into his neck, hands coming up to hold on just as tightly.

Then the Deputy who had been still stiff, still scared- would that Nick could see the day Dep wasn’t scared anymore- the Deputy who had fought and died and been reborn for them, the Deputy who had run and hid from them, the Deputy who had refused for so long to see the family waiting for them to come back, settled carefully into his arms.

And the Deputy came home.

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thehiddenlawyer · 6 years ago

Text

The Lake: A Short Story

Hello everyone!

I have written! These are original characters, just a bit of writing, a bit of romance to distract.

Caution: The content below contains explicit material, reader discretion advised.

Forcing deep breaths into her lungs, Clementine repeated herself to her brother in law, watching as her sister’s husband finally grasped what she was telling him, and placing the load in the trunk in a way that everything fit. She wondered if he could tell she was ready to murder him, and yet again found herself wondering how she’d survive the weekend at the lake house with her family.

An entire weekend.

Cooped up in a small house.

With her family.

Her entire family.

Parents. Sisters. Brothers in law. Nieces and nephews. Two family friends. The whole lot.

Sixteen people, plus herself and her Bas. Eighteen people sharing a cabin meant for 8. She didn’t know how they did it every year, and she had yet to kill anyone.

This had been a family tradition since before her oldest nephew, now 20, had been born. Twice or three times a year, they’d pack up the SUVs with enough supplies to last them five years in the wilderness, and they’d go off for a few days, hang out, and come back.

And every year, she dreaded the weekend. Dreaded the claustrophobic feeling of the woods, so far away from everyone and everything. Dreaded the forced interactions with her brother in laws, with her family. She had started playing games with herself, making internal bets about what unpleasantness they would pick on her about. Sometimes it was her bookishness, sometimes it was her tendency to keep to herself, at times she’d been accused of arrogance. Recently, her work schedule had come under scrutiny, and her parents kept shooting her worried glances.

Her work phone vibrating in her pocket took her attention away, and she quickly checked to see that one of her crew was texting her to ask something.

“Y’know,” a low murmur came in her voice, “I won’t mind you not have phone reception up there. If I’m grateful for anything about this weekend it’s you taking a break from your phone.”

She looked up into her husband’s pale, knowing eyes, one tawny brow imperiously raised as he watched her, “has my phone use annoyed you?” she frowned at him, suddenly worried, terrified that she’d neglected him unknowingly.

He instantly soothed her, they were standing shoulder to shoulder, facing opposite directions as he slid an arm around her waist, “no darling,” he said softly, “it’s annoyed you. You know you’ve had tough several days love, can you let yourself admit this might be a good thing?”

Clementine, Clem to her friends, took a deep breath and found herself lost in his eyes, in his soul, in the man that loved her beyond anything she could have ever imagined. He was her prince, her knight in shining armor, complete with a British accent and a voice that was essentially whiskey brought to glorious life. He loved her so completely, so wholeheartedly, it shocked her to wake up next to him sometimes and remember that he was real. And hers.

He was also her complete opposite.

She was an attorney by trade, a relentless advocate who was convinced she could make real changes in people’s lives. She ran her life by the clock. Her calendar was her master, and everything was planned out to the most minute detail, with every outcome accounted for and no room left for surprises.

While her husband looked at the world with ease, with a misplaced trust in the universe, a faith that everything would work out the way it was. Bas let himself be swept up by the currents of life, gliding with the ebb and flow while she swam against it most of the time. His easy, relaxed demeanor had brought her down a few notches, and no one would be able to tell from his outlook that he was a former battlefield surgeon, having served in Afghanistan and Iraq before moving to the United States to teach medicine as well as practice it.

Bas’s presence in her life caused more chaos, if she was being honest, but he taught her to be spontaneous if nothing else. She remembered when he’d found out that she had to plan trips to the movies weeks ahead of time, worrying over movie times and fretting over what time she should leave the house to get there with enough time to park and get in line and…he forced her to be spontaneous but in the most effective way possible. He understood her deep-rooted anxiety and taught her to live with it, but still live her life.

So now they went to the movies on a whim, but he planned it a few hours in advance to give her a chance to adjust to the idea. He taught her that it was okay to leave work for a few minutes, to take a break and get back to the task after a few moments of down time. He taught her that weekend trips could be done in an orderly fashion, without the anxiety and stress she’d always attributed to it.

Bas understood her ambitions, understood her need to work and prove herself. He never complained about how much she worked, simply making sure she ate and slept and was taking care of her health. But she saw the worry in his eyes and grudgingly admitted she might’ve worked a tad too much the past few months.

“Maybe,” she murmured, mimicking the way he’d slid his arm around her, feeling the hard muscles of his stomach beneath her palm, “who knows, we might even have fun.”

“My darling,” he murmured, his tone bored and lazy, his aristocratic accent sending shivers down her spine, “you can say that as if you’re not being led to the electric chair.”

“But I am!” she said dramatically, earning a peck on the cheek before he moved on to help her sisters hapless husbands load more gear into the back of the SUVs.

She stood with her sisters, half-listening, half-answering their questions about what had been packed and where it had been put, distracted by her husband. He was rumpled, clearly pulled out of bed by force and yawning so wide and so often, she wondered if his jaw was sore. He was wearing a pair of black sweatpants with a soft hoodie pulled over a snow-white t-shirt, his dark honey curls rumpled and disheveled, his eyes barely disguising his sleepiness. She knew that as soon as he was in the car, he would pass out.

That was another thing they didn’t have in common. While it took Clem hours to fall asleep, and she had to be in her own bed otherwise sleep was a distant concept, she was sure Sebastian could fall asleep anywhere, within moments of closing his eyes.

His sleepiness and her inability to sleep in the car was how they ended up taking the giant white SUV, with him sitting in the back, her father deciding to ride shotgun while she drove, her mom going to one of the other cars. Her dad glanced behind him, his eyes amused and slightly astonished as he beheld his youngest son-in-law, “is he asleep already?”

Clem glanced in the rearview mirror, seeing that he was nestled against the backseat of the SUV, arms crossed in front of his chest, long legs spread out, head back and eyes closed, his chest falling and rising in a steady pace, “yup!”

That night first night in the cabin, the family started getting ready for bed when it was well past midnight. They’d gotten there early enough to have a feast of a breakfast, after unloading the cars, which had taken nearly an hour. They’d hung out together, talking, playing backgammon, drinking tea and eventually making dinner and feasting until bed time. There weren’t enough rooms to go around and, thanks to their sleeping habits, Bas and Clem volunteered to sleep in the loft.

Clementine had shrugged at her mom, soothing her worry, “Bas can fall asleep anywhere and I don’t sleep anyway, so this is fine, I promise.”

Her mother had looked skeptical but it had been the best solution.

So here she was now, sitting in the dark, reading her kindle. The cabin was silent in the way only the woods could be silent. There were movements every now and then from the various people sleeping in the house but it was an eerie quiet that she always hated. She couldn’t even bring herself to look out of the massive bay windows that looked out at the lake, the tall trees at night making her feel trapped until she couldn’t breathe.

She looked down at her husband, who’d kissed her good night not that long ago, and promptly fell asleep with one hand gripping her thigh. She’d been reading, angling the kindle so that the light wouldn’t bother him. But something must’ve awakened him. Perhaps he’d sensed her growing anxiety about the woods at night, whatever it was, his pale eyes were suddenly alert, “what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she answered, putting her book away and slid down.

He instantly wrapped his warm body around her, lifting his blanket and letting her underneath, holding her tightly. “Liar,” he accused softly in her ear.

Clem laughed quietly, looking at him over her shoulder as he molded himself around her, “that’s not very nice.”

“Neither is lying,” he pointed out quietly, pressing his lips to the side of her throat, “you’re agoraphobic darling, I know the woods at night aren’t all that pleasant for you, love.”

“They’re not,” she told him, “it feels like the forest is pressing in against me.”

She felt his lips on her throat again, felt his arms tighten as he threw his leg over hers, “I’m here,” he told her.

“I know,” she sighed, “you’re a God send.”

They lay together in silence for a while, simply holding each other in the dark, laughing softly as the cacophony of snores rose through the wooden lake house. “How do you feel about the lake?” he asked suddenly.

“It’s a lake?” she said slowly, confused by the question as she twisted slightly to look at him over the shoulder.

His laugh was a warm breath of air against her neck, “I meant, does it factor into your general unease about the woods? You’re typically so fond of water and swimming.”

“I’ve actually never gone swimming in a lake,” she confessed.

His surprise was so great that he rose up on his elbow behind her, “what!” he whispered rather loudly, looking down at her, “you? Who spent nearly six hours in the ocean in Samoa? You? My love, I have to bribe you when we go to the ocean just to get you to come back to land! I spend half my life trying to figure out how to convince you to move away from the ocean. You were a fish in a previous life darling, how could you never have swum in a lake?”

Shifting to lay on her back, looking up at him she laughed softly, “lake’s freak me out,” she shrugged, “I dunno why honestly. With a lake you know you’ll eventually drift and get to land where as one wrong current in the ocean and you’re fucked.”

Her husband watched her for a few moments. There was no source of light in the cabin except the full moon that glittered through the high windows. His cheekbones cast shadows, his pale eyes glittering as he watched her silently, lifting his long fingers to her face, he twisted a thick strand of her black hair around his long finger, bringing it to his lips for a kiss, “when I was a boy, back in jolly old England where saying things like ‘I summered at the family home in Hampshire’ is acceptable, we would visit my cousin’s estate, Stony Cross, and put the massive lake to good use,” he tucked the strand of hair behind her ear, “it was during this period in my life where I discovered skinny dipping in the middle of the night.”

She stared up at him, blinking at his words. She heard him, understood the meaning of the individual words, but it took her a few minutes before she fully comprehended what he was saying. Turning her head into his chest, she pressed her laughter into his chest, her shoulders shaking as he cradled her against his body, allowing her to laugh silently at his exploits. “No way!” she managed to say, “you and Westcliff skinny dipping?”

“It wasn’t with Westcliff,” he corrected quickly, knowing the source of her amusement was the idea of his high-born aristocratic cousin swimming naked, “I would usually talk one of the girls from the nearby village or the girl friends that were brought there by the girl cousins.”

Clem shook her head, “so you’ve always been a womanizer eh?” she murmured, “what made you do it?”

He nuzzled her ear, his breath warm against her ear and she sighed, running her head up his chest to run her fingers through his hair, “you’ve never come until you’ve come while fucking under water,” he whispered against her skin.

She cursed softly, wrapping her arms completely around his shoulders and sighed his name. Bas had never been shy about using his words to express himself, especially when they were having sex. Over the years, she’d become familiar with his tendency to use stark, sometimes vulgar words to express his sexual desire for her. But there was something about that prim and proper accent, that whiskey voice saying those words, directing them at her…she cursed again as she felt herself bloom even as the pit of her stomach dropped, encased in cement. “You can’t say things like that when you can’t deliver baby,” she whispered softly.

He raised a brow, his eyes glittering in the dark as he looked down at her, looking absolutely offended at the very suggestion, “I can’t deliver? Says who?”

Rolling her eyes at her husband, she felt him settle against her, “me,” she whispered, “where are you gonna deliver in a house full of family and no privacy.”

Bas thought for a moment, giving her his perfect profile as he looked away from her, narrowing his extraordinarily shaped eyes as he thought deeply about how he would debauch her. Suddenly he reared back and stood up, holding his hand out for her, “come with me,” he murmured.

She narrowed her eyes, suspecting where they were going but not really believing that he could be so bold and brazen. Three years of marriage and five years together had taught her to trust him, to cautiously go with him wherever he wanted to take her. They had put their shoes on, his hand on the doorknob when they heard movement and the unmistakable creak of the floorboards. Standing still as statues, they looked up at the loft where the noise had come from, where her parents slept. But when they saw no one approaching, they hurried outside.

Their fingers were intertwined, they snuck out of the cabin and away from her sleeping family. The woods were quiet but not really silent, the rustle of the leaves in the trees, the soft lapping sounds of the lake, occasional birds who squawked and let the world know they were there. Somehow being outside, she didn’t feel the panic settle into her. He held her hand securely in his, his palm familiar, his long fingers wrapped around her hand, and the sure way he moved through the woods towards the lake dispelled her of any fear.

The lake lay beyond just beyond a thick thatch of woods, nestled in the middle of a circle of tall oak trees. The surface of the lake was glittering under the full moon, the gentle lapping sound soothing her nerves even as she looked at the mysterious depths with distrust.

Clem rolled her eyes at her husband’s obvious enthusiasm, frowning at him in slight reproach as he glanced at her sideways, leading her to the boardwalk that she’d seen people use as a dive board earlier that day. When she realized he was serious about skinny dipping, she tried to disentangle her hand from his, “Sebastian, no,” she protested but he kept his grip tight on her hand, not letting her squirm away.

“Sebastian yes,” he murmured pulling her along with him, the old, worn boards of the walk creaking beneath their combined weight.

“This is absurd! Are you crazy? What if someone hears?” he finally let go of her hand to grab his t-shirt by the scruff and pulled it over his head, tossing it on the board beneath their feet, “Bas, what if someone sees?”

“We’ll be in the water,” he said mildly, having already slipped his shoes off, shucking his soft gray sweats down his legs along with his boxer briefs, “all they’ll see is the top of her heads.”

“Bas,” she protested again, torn between wanting to please him and not disappoint him but horrified at the prospect of what he was planning.

He cupped her face in his familiar, warm palms, brushing his thumb against her mouth, tracing her cheeks with the pads of his fingertips as he drew her closer to him so they were standing chest to chest. His face was intense as he looked down at her, the moonlight making shadows appear beneath his high cheekbones, a fallen angel, sent down for her soul. “Tell me,” his voice was soft, as tempting as the devil as he brushed his soft lips against her cheek, “when have I ever led you astray?”

“All the time,” she grinned up at him “that’s literally all you do.”

His huff of a laugh was an intimate waft of breath against her cheek, “alright,” he said softly, “then when have I ever made you do something I thought you wouldn’t enjoy?” his soft lips wandered over her cheek, the tip of her nose, blessing her eyelids as they fluttered closed. She gripped his naked waist, digging her nails into his skin as she felt him press himself against her, into the familiar place between her legs where he belonged. “When have I ever asked you to do something that would put you into any kind of danger?”

She thought for a moment, lost in the warmth of his skin where she griped his hips, “we jumped out of a perfectly good airplane without parachutes because you were bored.”

Sebastian laughed again, “you have an answer for everything!”

“Lawyer,” she grinned, wrapping her arms fully around him, relishing and rejoicing in her husband’s body, feeling his muscles beneath her palms, soft, warm, male skin covering rock hard, defined muscles.

“Do you trust me?” he asked against her ear, “love of my heart, my greatest strength and my greatest weakness, my pleasure and pain,” he pulled away from her, staring down into her eyes, “do you trust me?”

She didn’t say anything, only stepped back and took off her own shirt along with the bandau she wore to bed in lieu of a bra, shivering slightly under his scrutiny as she pushed her sweatpants down her legs. His hands were on her, his lips buried behind her ear, whispering intimate things against her skin as he skimmed his hands down to cup her behind in his palms, urging her against his growing erection, “you look like a water nymph. A siren. Designed to bring me to my doom, down to my knees.”

Laughing softly, she turned her face towards his, kissing him slowly, licking inside his mouth and felt him growing hard against her stomach, the familiar heat of his erection nestled between their burning bodies, beneath the scrutiny of the solitary moon and the ink black surface of the lake.

She watched, slightly dismayed, as he pulled away, incredulous as she watched him execute a perfect swan dive into the lake. Her breath stopped in terror as he remained submerged, anxiety screaming at her that the lake was dangerous, that he’d been pulled down. His dive had been so perfect that there was barely a ripple on the surface, and everything around her seemed terribly still. When he emerged, he tossed his wet hair out of his eyes and grinned at her.

“Join me, my love,” his voice carried over the lake, slicing through the woods and traveling over her nerves, touching her soul, “you’re already naked,” he made inviting circles with his arms, “it’s not that cold.”

“My ass!” she shook her head.

“I’ll warm you,” he promised, grinning wolfishly.

“Oh God,” she shook her head again, repeating “fuck” under her breath as she took a running start, yelping as she jumped off the edge of the pier and found herself hitting the surface of the water, sinking beneath the depths into a silent dark world. Kicking her feet, she broke the surface with a gasp, disoriented for a moment.

“Here,” she heard his whiskey voice from behind her, turning to find him swimming behind her.

“You liar! It’s freezing!” she shivered, torn between being impressed with herself for being naked in a lake with her husband and horrified that she was naked in a lake with her husband. The water was ice cold, making her shiver and her teeth chatter as the cold seeped into her skin.

“I’ll keep you warm,” his voice was thick, having dropped so low that his words were nearly distorted. The playfulness was gone from his expression, replaced by something low and dangerous, by something that caused her breath to hitch. He looked dangerous, sensual, and it was a look she’d come to know well over their life together. “My love,” he murmured, his eyes gleaming white in the moonlight, “my beautiful wife, my endless agony,” he pulled her towards him, “let me warm you.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck, losing herself in his passionate kiss, welcoming his probing tongue into her mouth as he urged her to wrap her legs around his waist, gasping as she felt his cock slide against her. “You make me crazy,” she murmured against his exploring mouth.

“My darling Clementine,” he murmured and she felt him move them, realizing dazedly that he was actually standing, his feet planted on the lake’s bottom, “you have no idea how beautiful you look right now.”

Unable to respond, she kissed him again, breathing him into her lungs and lost her self to the moment, her senses flaring to life as she realized she was no longer cold, their bodies kindling a flame so high she wondered if steam would start rising from the lake. The quiet, silent sounds of the rustling leaves and quiet animals nearby combined with the ripple of the lake around them, the intimate sounds of her husband filling her ears, her soul. Her nostrils were filled with the slightly tepid smell of the lake and her husband’s clean, male skin.

Clementine had to pull away, had to look into those exotically shaped nebulas that were trapped in his eyes, to reassure herself that this was real, that he was hers, that he was real. Even after all this time, even after everything they’d lived through together, she still woke up in a haze, unable to truly believe they belonged to each other. She stared into his eyes in wonder, gasping when he reached down between their bodies, slipping deep inside her wet body, slowly burying his pulsing cock deep inside her wet warmth.

“Bas,” she gasped, her head dropping forward, her face becoming lax with pleasure as she absorbed every inch of him, as she welcomed him using her intimate muscles to clench him higher into herself, “my love,” she gripped his head in her hands, sinking her fingers into his wet curls as he moved inside her.

“Tell me,” he breathed, pressing kisses to her throat, down to her collarbone where he bit her gently.

Smiling, she let him push her back slightly, floating as he found her nipple with his mouth, sucking her into the warmth of his mouth, teasing her nipples into hard points. She knew exactly what he wanted to hear, what he was asking but speech left her in those moments as she held him against her breast, as she impaled herself repeatedly on him, making him grunt with pleasure. “You’re my heart,” she gasped.

“Tell me,” he ground out, clenching his jaw, the deep blush from his chest slowly trickling up his throat. She knew that when it reached his ears, he would come deep inside her and she couldn’t help bending down to lick his ear.

“You’re the essence of my soul,” she murmured, amazed at tremors her words caused him, at the way he gripped her tighter against him, “the will of my future, the fire in my veins,” he changed the angle in a way that made her groan, fisting his hair as she delighted in the friction he created with the angle, forcing himself deeper, his pubic bone hitting her clit at such a delightful angle, but she had to go on, had to find her words, those simple, familiar words she always gasped when they were making love, “the strength in my legs, the stubbornness in my spine.”

She couldn’t continue, letting her head fall forward to the crook of his neck as she came in waves and waves of unrelentless passion, biting his shoulder viciously to keep herself from screaming her orgasm as he fucked her, as he took her, filled her and she felt herself brimming with her Sebastian, her love. His own orgasm had him gasping her name, grounding his hips into her as her muscles shivered around him, drawing him deeper and deeper inside herself.

The peacefulness of the lake felt strange afterwards, as she let him cradle him, her legs still wrapped around his waist. Her heart was racing, her breathing come in soft gasps, so much chaos in such sharp contrast to the stillness around her. Resting her cheek against his shoulder, she absently licked the rivulets of water on his golden skin. “I hate it when you’re right,” she laughed softly, finally lifting her head to look at him with heavy, exhausted eyes.

He smiled at her, “I know darling,” he nodded, “it’s a curse.”

#my writing #the lake #short story #romance #husband wife #clem and bas #i like giving them weird names

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