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pedrospatch · 1 year

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fall into temptation | one

Jackson! Joel Miller x Preacher’s Daughter Reader

series masterlist

summary: Of all the women to catch Joel Miller’s attention—it just had to be one of the goddamned preacher’s daughters.

warnings/tags: 18+ ONLY, MINORS DNI. SLIGHT PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION OF READER, mentions of her hair which she can put up into braids as well as her style of clothing. despite the nickname Joel gives her, it does not speak to her body type or size. AGE GAP (reader is in her 20’s and Joel is 56, i know, i know but this is self indulgent because my birthday is next month idk just let me have this one) canon language, canon violence, several mentions of religion, terms pastor and preacher are used interchangeably here and there, mentions of the bible and religious symbols (cross), innocent/virgin reader, very brief scene of attempted sexual assault, no explicit smut (yet). asshole Joel, protective Joel, hints of softish dom Joel (if you squint). reader has two sisters, the only physical description for them is their hair, which they can also braid as well as their style of clothing.

MOODBOARD FOR AESTHETIC PURPOSES ONLY, NO MENTION OF RACE OR BODY TYPE.

word count: 8.4k

Jackson, Wyoming

Fall 2024

Joel had seen him around the community before.

He’s an older man in his late sixties or possibly his early seventies with thinning, snow white hair and silver, wire rimmed glasses that always seemed to be perched on the tip of his pointed nose. He was a good, kind man from what Joel could gather—offering up warm smiles and friendly waves to anyone who happened to cross his path, stopping to greet and say hello to familiar faces. The hem of his starched white shirt is tucked into pressed black slacks and even from where he stood across the road near the horse stables, Joel noticed the book clutched in his right hand, old and bound in supple, worn black leather with the words Holy Bible etched into the cover in flaked gold lettering.

Jacob, he thinks his name is. Or was it Josiah?

Something biblical—a name fit for a man who was so fucking clearly devoted to the big man upstairs.

Joel knew his own name was a biblical one, but he was the furthest thing from a man of God. After all that he’d done in the past twenty years, there was only one place he was going and that place wasn’t exactly known for its pearly gates or sweet cherub angels playing harps.

Joseph? Was that it?

He couldn’t be certain.

Not that Joel really even cared to know his name.

It’d been a couple months since Joel arrived back in Jackson with Ellie after Salt Lake City and the truth of the matter was that he preferred to keep to himself whenever it was possible. Joel had zero interest in getting to know the people of this settlement, not unless he had to for the sake of patrol duties—and that’s only if he hadn’t been able to weasel his way out of getting assigned with a partner who wasn’t Tommy or Maria, the only two people in the whole fucking community Joel could stand being around. Minus his kid of course, but even he and Ellie could really only take each other in small doses lately. Perhaps it was their tense, strained relationship that was to blame for the fact that Joel Miller walked around this place with a standoffish attitude and a permanent scowl plastered on his face.

Most people were smart enough to scamper off in the opposite direction when they saw him coming. He was never offended by it. It’s what he wanted. He wasn’t here to make friends.

In fact, the closest thing he had come to a friend outside of his brother’s wife was Esther, the woman Maria and Tommy had tried setting him up with when he first got back to Jackson. He wouldn’t go as far as calling her a friend, either. That’s a little too generous. Friend? No, more like a good fuck when he couldn’t drown his bitterness with Seth’s barrel aged bourbon and he was in need of a different kind of distraction.

But there was a reason this particular man piqued his curiosity. Actually, there were three reasons he managed to garner Joel’s attention and all three of those reasons were trailing behind him in an orderly, single file line, each one more fucking gorgeous than the last. He was positive he’d never seen them around before—because how could he possibly forget the faces of the most beautiful women in this town?

They’ve gotta be sisters, Joel thought to himself, his hand resting on the neck of the horse that he’d ridden out to patrol that morning, a dark, chestnut mare named Willow. Although he was supposed to be walking her inside the stables and back into her stall, he found himself far too distracted. While the three women weren’t identical to one another, the similarity in their traits such as hair color and their skin tone confirmed his suspicions that they were related. They all styled their hair in neat halo braids and wore slightly different color variations of the same getup—pressed, long sleeved blouses tucked into knee length floral printed skirts and worn, leather oxford shoes.

Clutching the brown leather strap of his rifle in his opposite hand, Joel leaned himself against Willow and squinted against the bright afternoon sunlight in an effort to get a better look at them.

The first two were slightly on the older side. If Joel had to take a shot at their age, he would guess the women were in their thirties—a man of fifty six, he still had about two decades on them, easy. Joel let his gaze shift, his dark brown eyes flickering to the last one. His breath audibly hitched in his throat and part of him wondered just how fucking dumb he had to be to be drawn to the youngest one of the three. It couldn’t be fucking possible—you couldn’t be that much older than your mid twenties, if that.

Joel’s grip on the strap of his rifle tightened.

All three of you were beautiful beyond words—why the fuck did it have to be you who held over his interest?

“Take a picture,” Maria remarked with a tiny laugh. She dismounted her horse and peered at Joel over the black stallion’s back. “It’ll last longer.”

She’d led that morning’s patrol, her first time back on duty since she had given birth to her son in the spring. Joel had returned to Jackson right on time to meet his one month old nephew, Noah.

He cleared his throat and shrugged. “Just tryin’ to figure out what their deal is, that’s all.” He paused, then remarked, “Didn’t know polygamy was a thing around here.”

His comment must have struck a nerve in his dear sister in law—fiercely protective of the people who were under her leadership, Maria hadn’t found the sister wives implication the slightest bit amusing.

“Watch it, Joel,” she admonished, shooting him a warning glare. “He’s the town’s pastor and those girls happen to be his daughters. So let’s keep our wise ass cracks to ourselves, shall we?”

His daughters? He almost couldn’t believe it. Surely the girls must have taken after their mother because they sure as hell didn’t get their good looks from their old man. They hardly looked anything like him.

“Pastor,” Joel repeated with a small hum. He then remembered her pointing out an old church house back during the winter when she’d given him and Ellie the grand tour of the community. “So he ain’t got a real job like the rest of us?”

Maria rolled her eyes. “His job is a real job, Joel. It might be hard for you to believe, but there are still a lot of people of faith around here,” she explained to him. “He provides them with comfort and with hope—”

He snorted sharply through his nose. “Hope?”

“Yes, hope,” she snapped at him.

“Hope for what, Maria? That things will go back to fuckin’ normal? That the end of the world is temporary?”

Maria crossed her arms over her chest, jutting her chin. “Some people never lose hope, Joel. There’s a lot of people who need this man and he serves a much bigger purpose than what you’re giving him credit for.”

“And what about the girls? They have it easy too? Do they just stand there lookin’ pretty on Sundays while their old man reads verses out loud from the most useless fuckin’ book known to man?”

“If you must know, they work in the schoolhouse,” she answered, tossing him another glare. “They’re teachers. The oldest one, she teaches Ellie’s class. The middle one, she teaches the primary school aged children and the youngest? She takes care of all of our little ones. She prepares our preschool kids for her sister’s class by teaching them numbers and basic literacy. Shows them how to start counting, reading and writing, things like that. She also helps run the commune’s daycare.”

“At least they have real jobs,” Joel mumbled under his breath.

“What was that?”

He feigned innocence. “Nothin’. Nothin’ at all.”

“That’s exactly what I thought.” Maria pointed her finger at him. “Come on, let’s get these guys back into their stalls. It was a long ride this morning, I’m sure they could use some rest.” Taking her stallion by the reins, she started leading him over toward Logan, one of the stable hands who helped take in the horses coming back from patrol.

Joel took Willow’s reins in his hands—but before he could even think of moving another muscle, he glanced up and saw the preacher leading his three daughters past the stables and right past Joel. His self control faltered. All that he could do was stare at you, his eyes fixed on you so blatantly that one of your sisters had taken notice. Grinning, she turned back towards you and lifted a hand to her mouth. She used her palm to shield her lips from Joel’s view and whispered something to you over her shoulder.

Shit.

He’d been caught gawking.

He thought about making a beeline for the stables but it was too late.

Perplexed by whatever it was that your older sister had just said to you, you gave her an odd look, but then followed the subtle nod of her head.

Glimpsing over in his direction, your lips parted in complete surprise and you came to an abrupt halt in the middle of the dirt road when you found your gaze meeting that of the much older, rugged man standing there with a gun slung over his shoulder.

Unsure of what else to do, Joel simply offered you a polite nod of his head. The gesture was innocent enough but it startled you. He could tell by the way you let out a small gasp and turned away from him, your eyes falling to the ground as you scurried to catch up to your father and sisters like a spooked little mouse.

Joel couldn’t help but shake his head and laugh.

“Is the preacher aware that his precious little daughters pay frequent visits to The Tipsy Bison at such late and ungodly hours?” Joel quipped. He gestured to a booth nestled over in a corner of the dimly lit bar with a subtle jerk of his chin. “S’gotta be the third or fourth time I’ve seen them here in the last couple of weeks.”

Tommy’s eyes followed his brother’s gesture. “Oh man, not again,” he said with an exasperated sigh. He shook his head. “Those girls, they ain’t got no fuckin’ business hangin’ around this place and much less at this fuckin’ hour. But the middle one, she’s a whole lot of trouble.” He paused, just long enough to nod at one of the three sisters, the one who was wearing her hair loose around her shoulders, twirling a lock of it around her finger as she made flirtatious fuck me eyes at the group of drunk patrolmen sitting a few tables away. “She’s somethin’ of a rebel, that one. Likes to drink a lot, get herself involved with things that she ain’t really supposed to be messin’ with. She’s the one who convinces the other two into sneakin’ out and comin’ to the bar when their old man goes to sleep.”

Joel chuckled in disbelief. “You fuckin’ serious?”

“As a heart attack. And then there’s the older one. I know she likes to drink too, but she’s a lot calmer than the other one. Ain’t gotta worry about her all too much, y’know? She tries to be the chaperone—it don’t always work out that way, though. Her halo ain’t exactly perfect either.”

“What ‘bout the youngest one?” Joel asked in the most nonchalant tone he could possibly muster. “Where does she fall on the scale between angel and devil?”

You’re carefully perched on the edge of the booth, your pretty features twisting in disgust with every sip of the rich, amber colored liquid in your glass. Unable to stomach the burning alcohol, you set it off to the side, abandoning it in favor of a glass of water instead.

“Her?” Tommy grinned, leaning back into his chair as stated, “Oh, she’s an absolute angel. She’s just ‘bout the sweetest fuckin’ thing you’ll ever see in your whole damn life, big brother. She’s gotta be the kinda girl who all the little birds and woodland critters sing to when there ain’t no one around,” he laughed. “She’s real good. Too good. Wouldn’t surprise me if the lord sent her down from heaven himself.”

Joel tossed him a skeptical look across the table.

“She really as innocent as she seems?”

“I don’t think she even knows what it’s like to hold another man’s hand,” his younger brother laughed again and reached for his beer, taking a generous swig.

Joel hummed softly and lifted his glass of whiskey to his lips. The mere thought of you being so pure and so innocent—untouched by anyone else—caused something to stir deep in his lower belly.

“She’s the old man’s pride and joy,” Tommy continued, breaking into his train of thought. “Kind. Polite. Behaves. Doesn’t get herself into any kinda trouble—I mean look at her, she can’t even choke down a glass of whiskey. She’s just too good of a girl.”

Joel proceeded cautiously with his next question. “Any of them taken?”

Surprised, Tommy raised his eyebrows. “Joel, don’t fuckin’ tell me—”

“No, I ain’t interested,” he interjected, rolling his eyes. “Just a curious motherfucker, that’s all.”

He didn’t seem too convinced by Joel’s answer. “They’re all single from what I know. To be honest, there ain’t a whole lot of men around here their old man would approve of,” he remarked. “Don’t get me wrong, he’s a nice man and all, but when it comes to his daughters, he’s real strict. Not that controllin’ has done him much good, though.” He lowered his voice as a fellow patrolman walked past their table. “The middle one’s fucked her way through this entire town and then back again. She even made a pass at me while Maria was pregnant with Noah, if you can fuckin’ believe that.”

Amused, Joel snorted into his drink. Ballsy. “How goddamn drunk was she?”

Tommy ran a hand through his jet black curls. “Wasted. Oldest one ain’t exactly the Virgin Mary, either.”

“And the old man doesn’t know?”

“Nope. Ain’t nobody gonna snitch on grown women in their thirties.” Noticing the amused expression on Joel’s face, he adds, “By the way, just in case you haven’t figured it out, this stays between us, Joel.”

He smirked. “Which part?”

“All of it. And take it from me, those girls? S’best you keep your distance from them,” he warned as he stood up from the table. He picked up the blue denim jacket draped over his chair, shrugging into it. “Don’t go gettin’ any dumbass ideas, alright?”

“Look, if the wild one makes a pass at me, I ain’t gonna turn her down. S’not like I’ve got a pregnant wife at home.”

“Joel, I fuckin’ swear. If you even think ‘bout it—”

He held up his hands to stop him. “Relax. Was just a joke.”

“Right. M’sure it was.” Tommy snorted. “Listen, I gotta get back home. Don’t wanna leave Maria on her own with the baby for too long.”

“How’s she been holdin’ up?”

“She’s been so tired. Jugglin’ motherhood, runnin’ this place, and bein’ back on patrol duty. I keep on tryin’ to tell her to slow it down, but she just won’t listen to me.” He let out a small sigh and waved a dismissive hand. “But anyway. If you’re all good to head out, I can walk you back to your place since it’s on the way to mine?”

Joel looked down at his glass, still half full. “I think I’m gonna hang back for a while longer. I’m on the roster for evenin’ patrol tomorrow, s’not like I’ve gotta be up at the ass crack of dawn.”

“Suit yourself.” Clapping him on the back, Tommy bid him goodnight and started towards the door.

As soon as he was gone, Joel looked over towards your booth. He watched as you whispered into the ear of your eldest sister who nodded her head in understanding. You stood up and said something else to her, then spun around on your heel, long skirt flowing along with the movement. Head down, you hastily made your way across the bar, being careful so as not to bump into anyone along the way.

You were leaving. Alone.

In the middle of the fucking night? While drunk morons poured in and out of the bar?

She’ll be just fine, he tried to convince himself.

Joel frowned to himself, gripping his drink tightly in his hand as he scanned the room.

Sitting at a nearby table was Kent, some idiot he’d been stuck with a time or two for patrol. He clocks the smirk that crossed the younger man’s face, his eyes following you all the way to the door. Leaning forward over the table, he whispered something to his buddies, his smirk widening. His comrades, all who looked and behaved more like teenagers rather than grown men, lifted their beers to him, nodding in encouragement. Drunk off his ass, Kent drained the rest of his own beer, slamming the glass bottle down onto the table before clumsily stumbling to his feet.

Joel momentarily froze as soon as he realized what was happening.

Kent was going after you.

Joel’s lips pressed together into a tight, thin line.

Setting his drink down, he stood up from his table and slipped on his jacket before following suit.

Joel stepped out of the bar and into the night, the chilly evening air nipping at his face. He took a look around.

You were nowhere to be seen. Neither was Kent.

That couldn’t fucking be good.

“Where the fuck did you two go,” he muttered to himself under his breath.

That’s when he heard it.

The sound of muffled screaming coming from the side of the building. Joel didn’t hesitate. Following your smothered cries for help, he whipped around into the dimly lit alley nestled in between the bar and the commune’s mess hall. You’re pinned underneath Kent with your skirt bunched up around your waist. One of his hands was covering your mouth while his other hand clawed its way up your bare thigh.

“Aw, c’mon now, sugar,” Kent slurred his words together. “It’d be a fucking shame to let someone as cute as you stay a fucking virgin. Don’t be coy—I know you’re just like your stupid slut of a sister. She’s got no trouble spreading her fucking legs for me, y’know.”

Red.

It was the color that flashed in Joel’s mind. It was all he could see as he went up behind Kent, letting his hands reach for fistfuls of his leather jacket. He lifted him off of you with ease, slamming him hard against the brick wall of the mess hall. Pulling him forward, Joel slammed his body into the wall once more, knocking all the wind out of his lungs.

“Miller, what the fuck are you doing!” Kent gasped out, frantically pawing at the older man’s hands in an effort to break free. “Get the fuck off me!”

“Takin’ advantage of an innocent girl?” Joel hissed at him, tightening his grasp on the collar of Kent’s jacket. “Think that makes you a fuckin’ man?”

Though he was still intoxicated, the sheer terror of being caught in Joel Miller’s hands sobered him just enough that he started sputtering an explanation. “I wasn’t fucking taking advantage of her! Her and her whore sisters were making eyes at me and the guys all fucking night! She fucking wanted it! She asked me for it, couldn’t even wait long enough to get back to my place—”

The lie came straight through his chattering teeth. The same teeth he would be picking up off the ground in the next minute or two.

Joel knew he didn’t need to ask. Still, he turned to you, his rage only intensifying when he took in the sight of you lying there on the ground, the hem of your light blue floral skirt hiked around your waist.

“That true?” He questioned you. “You wanted it?”

You stared at him with wide and fearful eyes.

A single tear slipped down the side of your face.

“Answer me, darlin’,” he prompted. “You wanted this?”

“No. I didn’t.” Your voice was small, barely audible.

But he’d heard it loud and clear.

“She’s lying!” Kent tried to tell him. “She’s—”

Joel delivered the first punch, a blow so hard he’d felt the younger man’s nose crack underneath his curled fist. He struck him again and again, the blows coming in harder and harder, turning Kent’s face into a bloodied pulp.

If Joel didn’t get a grip, he would kill him. Part of him wanted to fucking kill Kent for putting his hands you—and more so for accusing of you wanting it. Pathetic fucking bastard.

Holding Kent up by the throat with one hand, Joel pulled his switchblade from the back pocket of his jeans with the other. Fingers curled tightly around the hilt, Joel held up the knife into Kent’s view. He had left his eyes purple and swollen, but judging by the pitiful little pleas for mercy, it was clear that he could still somehow see the sharp blade being held an inch or so away from his face.

“If I ever catch you anywhere near her again, I ain’t gonna be so fuckin’ generous,” Joel growled warningly. “I ain’t gonna let you walk away next time, boy. That understood?”

He nodded. “Un—Understood.”

“Good.” Joel released him, stepping backwards as he fell to the ground. “Get the fuck outta my face. Now.”

Kent managed to scramble to his feet and staggered off, disappearing from the alley.

Chest heaving, Joel inhaled a deep breath through his nose, then exhaled it through his mouth before turning to you once more.

Petrified, you still hadn’t moved a single muscle.

You looked fucking terrified. Whether it was from Kent’s assault or the way Joel had nearly beaten him to death right in front of you, it was hard to tell.

Crouching down beside you, Joel caught your subtle flinch. He proceeded to move slowly as he reached for the hem of your skirt. Delicately, he gripped the soft, flowing fabric and pulled it down into place. Joel then held his hand out to you.

You hesitated for a split second, but accepted his hand and allowed him to help you up to your feet.

“You alright, little dove?” The nickname had fallen from his lips before he could even think to stop it.

“I think so,” you replied, nodding your head. You’d started to tremble and even though it had nothing to do with being cold, Joel took notice of it and he shrugged out of his camel colored jacket. He gave it to you, draping it over your shoulders. The scent of him instantly enveloped you—a mouth watering masculine mixture of clean soap, woodiness, and musk. It was far more intoxicating than the scotch you had tried back inside the bar. He didn’t utter a word to you as he wrapped his jacket around your body, both of his hands pulling gently at the lapels to bring them together in front of your chest. That was when you glanced down and saw he’d injured his hand. You gasped lightly. “Are you okay?”

Maybe it was the adrenaline, but Joel hadn’t even noticed that he’d split his knuckles wide open. Giving it a light shake, he assured you gruffly, “M’fine.”

Without thinking it through, you gingerly grabbed Joel’s hand, holding it in both of yours. “It doesn’t look like nothing,” you countered. You inspected it as best as you could in such poor lighting. “You’re bleeding.”

“Trust me, I’ve had a whole lot worse,” he deadpanned.

Ignoring his remark, you asked, “Can you move all your fingers for me? Just to make sure that it isn’t broken?”

Joel felt a strange warmth radiate in his chest.

Fucking hell, Tommy had been right about you.

You really were too good.

“Darlin’ I already told you m’fine—”

“Please?”

That word, and the way you’d said it, sent a shiver up the length of his spine.

Joel started wiggling his fingers in your palms. He winced slightly at the soreness. More than that, he knew his cuts and bruises would be all the fucking proof Tommy and Maria would need to know that he had been the one who rearranged Kent’s face.

“See?” He spoke after a minute as he continued to move his fingers up and down. “Ain’t broken.”

“Let me clean you up,” you offered. Looking up at him, you cradled his hand as if it were a fragile baby bird you wanted to take home and nurse back to health.

“That really ain’t necessary.”

“You just saved me from—it’s the least I can do for you,” you insisted. Seeing him open his mouth just to protest again, you cut him off. “Please?”

There it was again.

Christ. That word sounded too good coming from those plush, pretty lips of yours.

Joel sighed out in defeat. “Alright then,” he relented. “I s’ppose there ain’t no harm in lettin’ you clean me up a bit, little dove.”

Pleased that he had finally accepted, you carefully let go of his hand and took a step back, beckoning for him to follow you. “Come with me,” you said to him. “I know somewhere private we can go.”

When you came to a stop at the old church house, Joel shook his head and took a step backwards.

Puzzled, your brows knitted together. “What is it? What’s the matter?”

He backed away further. “I ain’t goin’ in there.”

You tossed him an amused glance. “It’s a church.”

“Yeah, I know that. I ain’t exactly a man of God.”

You couldn’t help but giggle. “So? What does that have to do with me taking you inside to clean your hand up for you?”

Shuffling his weight from boot to boot, Joel shrugged. “Just don’t think I belong in there, that’s all.”

“Do you think you’re going to melt if you step foot inside?” you teased him. After a minute, it became apparent that he was being serious about it. Joel’s discomfort about going inside the church wasn’t some kind of joke on his part, it was real. “Don’t be silly. It doesn’t matter that you’re not a man of God. That doesn’t mean that you’re going to explode or burn into a pile of ashes for going inside, you know.”

“After all the terrible shit I’ve done?” He looked up at the building, shaking his head again. “I just might burn, little dove.”

You bit back a small smile. You’d already grown to be quite fond of his sweet nickname for you.

“There’s a first aid kit inside I can use to patch you up,” you told him. “It won’t take long, I promise.”

His lower lip rolled in between teeth as he thought it over. “I ain’t too sure about this—”

“It’s only going to take me five minutes to get your hand cleaned up and then you can leave. Okay?”

You were as stubborn as you were sweet. How the fuck was he supposed to say no to you?

Reluctantly, Joel finally agreed to it. “Okay.” He followed you up the creaking, wooden porch steps towards the double doors. He’d just started to wonder how the two of you were even supposed to get into the building after hours when you leaned down, lifting the old mat on the floor to reveal a set of keys. Unable to help himself, he scoffed, “Serious?”

“Doesn’t everyone keep a key under their mat?”

“Yeah at their fuckin’ house. Not their church.”

“Well to be fair, this is kind of like a second home. I spend quite a bit of time here,” you confessed.

Joel raised an eyebrow at you. “So much time that you’ve decided to keep a set of keys under the mat?”

Sheepishly, you nodded. “Sometimes when I can’t sleep at night, I’ll come here alone and sit with my thoughts for a while.” You shrugged. “Maria let me have the spare set of keys. She knows I come here and so does the rest of the council. I trespass with their full permission,” you kidded with a small grin.

Unlocking one of the two doors, you stepped over the threshold and waited expectantly for Joel. But he stood there, making no move to join you on the other side.

“This place gives me the fuckin’ creeps,” he admitted.

You laughed. “It’s only the outside that’s creepy, I promise.”

Grimacing, Joel finally walked inside, his back and shoulders stiff with tension as he stepped into the place of worship.

You closed the door and flipped on the lights, then opened a second set of double doors with another key from the ring.

“Whoa.” He was pleasantly surprised. For as old as this place was, the interior of the church was quite nice. He could tell that it had been well cared for in its lifetime—the former contractor in him had little choice but to appreciate the high ceiling, the large windows, and the satin finish of the white paint on the rustic, wooden panel walls.

There were a total of twelve pews, six on each side of the church. There was an older, antique piano in pristine condition nestled over in one corner of the room and in another, there was a large chalkboard propped up on a wooden easel, biblical verses that had been the focus of the congregation’s previous gathering still scribbled across it in white chalk.

“See?” You nudged his arm with your elbow. “This isn’t so awful, right?”

“S’ppose it ain’t all that bad,” he muttered.

Your eyes twinkled with pure amusement, adding, “And you didn’t burn into a pile of ashes.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Joel grumbled out in response. “Can we just get this over with so I can get outta here?”

You tossed him a playful little eye roll then nodded towards the pews. “Go ahead and just have a seat anywhere,” you instructed him. “I’ll be right back.”

You disappeared down a short, dimly lit corridor.

Letting out a heavy sigh, Joel slowly made his way down the aisle holding his injured hand against his chest. Now that the adrenaline had started wearing off, it’d started throbbing with pain.

There was an altar at the front of the church—if he could even call it an altar.

It was a plain oakwood table with a white fair linen cloth draped over it and nothing else.

Above it, bolted onto the wall, was a wooden cross.

He averted his eyes, turning away from it.

Of all the shit to be intimidated by in this world.

A fucking slab of carved wood.

Joel’s attention shifted over to the chalkboard. He squinted at it, silently reading the verse to himself.

God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability. 1 Corinthians 10:13

“But with the temptation, he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it,” you recited the rest of the verse from behind him.

“No offense darlin’, but it sounds like nothin’ but a whole lotta gibberish to me,” he remarked to you over his shoulder.

“No offense taken, Joel.”

Whirling around on the heel of his worn boot, Joel blurted, “How did you know my name?”

“You’re Tommy Miller’s brother. Everybody in this town knows your name.” You held up the white tin box in your hands. A big, red cross had been spray painted onto the lid. You sat down in the first pew and patted the seat right beside you. “Come sit.”

He sauntered over and dropped down next to you, watching as you opened up the box and started digging through its contents. “You know my name,” he stated after a few seconds of silence. “Sure would be nice for me to know yours.”

Smiling politely, you told him your name.

Joel repeated it. It rolled almost too sweetly off his tongue.

“S’real pretty, little dove. Just like you.”

His compliment nearly knocked all of the air out of your lungs and for a split second, you have to remind yourself to breathe.

Cheeks burning, you murmured a small thank you and plucked a bottle of saline solution from the kit along with a piece of clean cotton. You tried not to think about the way his eyes were fixed intently on you as you unscrewed the cap and poured a bit of the liquid onto the cotton. “It shouldn’t sting,” you reassured him, reaching for Joel’s injured hand. It was rough and calloused, a stark contrast against your own soft and smooth. You set his hand down on your knee, a strange sensation fluttering in the depths of your lower belly when the warmth of his skin seeped right through the fabric of your skirt.

Comfortable silence fell over the both of you like a curtain as you started cleaning the blood off of his knuckles and his long, thick fingers.

“You really believe in all this stuff?” Joel spoke, his question echoing off the bare walls of the church.

You continued dabbing at his cuts, thinking it over in your head for a moment.

“I honestly don’t know,” you admitted.

Your answer took him by complete surprise.

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“I have always been taught to believe in God, Joel. It’s all that I’ve ever known. I grew up in a religious community,” you explained to him, making sure to keep your eyes focused on his hand. Tossing aside the bloodied wad of cotton, you picked up another piece adding more saline to it. “After the outbreak, things changed, of course. I couldn’t imagine how He could let something like this happen. When we lost our mother to infection about five years ago, I stopped praying. I finally stopped holding onto the ounce of hope I had that He would make the world right again. I refused to believe in God. Sometimes I still do,” you confessed quietly.

“You said you spend a lot of time here. Why come to church if you’re not even sure you believe in any of this shit anymore?”

“I’m always here because there’s still a part of me that thinks there’s a chance for me to believe again. When I told you I come here when I can’t sleep at night, it’s true. It’s my time to be here completely alone, the time that I use to mend my broken relationship with God. Or at least, I’ve been trying to mend it.” Taking a little glass pot of homemade antibiotic ointment one of the women in the town made and traded, you took off the lid and scooped out some of the salve with the tip of your finger. You applied it carefully to his cuts and continued, “But lately, the more that I try to pray and talk to Him, the more foolish I feel. It’s just not working. It hasn’t been working for a long, long time.”

“Then why keep tryin’ if it ain’t workin’ anymore?”

“Because I don’t really have much of a choice.”

“Your old man?” Joel guessed, wincing slightly as you went over a particularly sore spot on his hand, right over the torn up knuckle of his index finger.

“Mhm.” You nodded. “My father never lost faith in Him. He knows how I feel, but he refuses to let me give up on God. He won’t ever let me miss church or go to bed without reciting my nightly prayer. He won’t let me abandon our faith. Not until the day he is cold and buried in his grave.”

“So what I’m gettin’ is that he forces you?”

You finished applying the ointment and wiped the remnants lingering on your finger off on your skirt.

“Force is such a harsh word. I wouldn’t say that—”

“He’s forcin’ you,” Joel said, flatly.

“Joel—”

“You can twist it however the hell you want, sweet girl,” he cut you off. “But if you’re tryin’ this fuckin’ hard to make yourself believe in somethin’ just for the sake of appeasin’ your dad because he can’t or won’t accept how you really feel ‘bout all this, well I hate to break it to you, but you’re bein’ forced.”

Your eyes widened ever so slightly at his words.

You had never thought about it like that before.

Placing the lid back onto the pot of ointment, you put it back into the first aid kit and then set the tin box down onto the floor. You sat back and clasped your hands together in your lap, not knowing what else to say to him.

He was right, after all.

Joel’s fingers lightly squeezed your knee. “Hey.”

You brought your gaze over to meet his. “Hm?”

“Can I ask you somethin’ ‘bout your dad?”

“What is it?”

Joel chose his words carefully. “Has he ever—he ain’t ever done anythin’ to hurt you, has he?” he asked you, earning himself a perplexed stare. He continued to elaborate. “What I mean is, he ever put his hands on you or anythin’ like that?”

Oh. That’s what he meant.

“Never,” you assured him quickly. “He would never lay a single finger on me or my two sisters.”

He gave your knee another squeeze. “Just needed to make sure of it, sweetheart. Back in the day, I used to hear and see awful things on the news ‘bout—”

You were quick to cut him off. “Look, my father isn’t perfect, but he’s not like that. He’s a good man who only wants what is best for us. He’s strict and he can be tough, but it’s only because he cares. He just doesn’t want us running down the wrong path.”

“The wrong path?”

You shrugged. “Life here in Jackson is decent, but there’s a lot of temptations he doesn’t want any of us falling into. He wants to protect us.”

“By controllin’ you.”

It had been a statement, not a question.

Giving him a wry smile, you assured him, “Joel, it’s really not as bad as you’re making it sound. I could be a whole lot worse off than this, you know.”

There was another short bout of silence.

Joel’s dark eyes fell to your blouse, noticing how a couple of the top buttons had come undone.

He caught the slightest glimpse of the soft curves of your breasts—all it had taken was just a peek at them for his cock to twitch against the zipper of his jeans.

Don’t you get hard in a fuckin’ church, Miller.

His gaze wandered down a little further and that’s when he caught sight of the cross hanging from a delicate gold chain clasped around your neck.

Joel expected the sight of it to calm the straining in his jeans. Somehow, it only made it worse.

“Earlier, when we were standing outside,” you had started to say, “You said you might burn if you came inside the church because of all the terrible shi—things that you’ve done.”

“S’right.”

You peered at him with curiosity. “So what exactly have you done, Joel?”

Joel leaned back into the pew, shaking his head at you as he finally pulled his hand from your knee.

“You really don’t wanna know, little dove.”

“Why not?”

His answer was honest. “Don’t want you to be scared of me.”

Angling your body towards him, you placed one of your hands on his thigh. Your fingers burned right through the dark blue denim of his jeans.

Joel’s lips parted slightly, taken aback by the bold move and the sudden shift in your demeanor.

Were you the same girl who’d nearly had a fucking heart attack a couple of weeks ago when Joel had nodded at you back at the stables?

“I’m not scared of you,” you murmured, softly. You gave his leg a squeeze, pulling your plump bottom lip between your teeth. Between that and the wide innocent doe eyes that you were giving him, it was taking every last ounce of strength Joel had inside him to keep a straight face, to pretend you weren’t driving him absolutely wild with desire.

He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d felt such an incredible need to have someone.

Want, sure.

He had wanted Tess. He had wanted Esther.

But Joel didn’t just want you.

He fucking needed you.

And he didn’t know why.

“I’m not scared of you,” you repeated, trailing your hand further up his thigh, setting a fire neither one of you would soon be able to contain.

Joel leaned forward, bringing his face dangerously close towards yours. His warm breath fanned over your lips. It was still laced with bourbon. “You sure ‘bout that, darlin’ girl?”

You tried to answer him in the steadiest voice that you could muster, but it was impossible for you to hide the effect this man had on you.

You breathed out a shaky, “I’m sure.”

Lifting his uninjured hand, he reached up to tuck a loose lock of hair that had fallen out of your braids behind your ear. As his hand fell away, the palm of it grazed against the silkiness of your cheek.

Though brief, the contact sent an electric current through each and every last single nerve ending in your entire body.

Exhaling sharply, your eyelids fluttered closed. You nearly whimpered out his name. “Joel?”

“What is it, babygirl? What do you want?”

“I—I want you to kiss me.”

Joel leaned in even closer, stopping only when his mouth was less than an inch away from yours.

You heard him chuckle softly.

“Y’know, I’d expect better manners from a good girl like you,” he tsked lightly, his nose skimming near the corner of your mouth. Closer. “What’s the magic word, little dove?”

“Please.”

“S’much better.”

Your heart pounded with anticipation.

It was almost too much for you to handle.

Joel closed the remaining gap of space, capturing your lips with his own. He remembered his brother talking about you at the bar—how he had told Joel that you had never even held a man’s hand before.

It occurred to him that he was giving you your first kiss. Him. Joel Miller. The town’s resident asshole and a man who was well over twice your own age. He was the one giving you your very first kiss.

The guilt suddenly started to creep in, sinking into his bones.

What the fuck had he been thinking?

And what about you?

Where the fuck had your common sense gone?

Probably ran off together with Joel’s.

“Sweetheart,” he murmured, pulling away slightly in an attempt to stop it from going any further. He tried again, mumbling against your lips, “We gotta stop. This ain’t right—”

You were having none of it.

None.

Clutching fistfuls of Joel’s denim shirt, you swung your leg over his thighs and straddled his lap. Your knees rested on either side of him on the bench.

“Please,” you nearly pleaded. “Just kiss me. I want it—I want this. I promise you that I do.” You placed both of your hands on his broad shoulders, sliding them around him as you slowly sank down further onto his lap. “I want this, Joel.”

Suddenly, he realized that you were asking him for more than just his kiss.

Now he knew for sure that all common sense had left that pretty little head of yours.

“Baby, y’need to think real hard ‘bout this—”

Desperate, you uttered one final, “Please.”

Joel bit back a groan. How could he deny you?

He couldn’t. Simple as that.

“You sure ‘bout this?”

Your fingers toyed with the curls at the nape of his neck. “Yes. I’m sure.”

“C’mere then, darlin’ girl.”

Joel cupped the side of your face in his large palm and tilted his head up towards yours. Your mouths fused together and although he tried to be gentle, it was proving to be much too difficult—how could he be gentle when you were practically clinging to him? Holding onto him with fervor as if you’d been holding onto dear fucking life itself?

Temperatures rising, you quickly shrugged out of his jacket, letting it fall to the floor behind you with a soft thud before wrapping your arms around him once again. You melted against him as your mouth molded to his in a perfect fit.

His teeth nipped at your bottom lip, silently asking for permission to explore the cavern even further.

Eagerly, your lips parted, granting him access. His tongue slipped past them, meeting yours in a slow and sensual heated dance.

You breathed him deeply into your lungs, a little moan vibrating at the back of your throat.

Joel’s hands went to your waist and he yanked the hem of your blouse free from your skirt.

“Can I feel you, baby?” he asked, breathlessly. His mouth abandoned yours and he began to trail hot, open mouthed kisses underneath your jawline.

Dazed, all you could do was nod in reply and utter, “Mhm.”

Joel’s hands slipped under your blouse and he slid them up the length of your sides. “Fuck, you gotta be the softest fuckin’ thing,” he cursed against the delicate, tender flesh of your neck. His lips latched onto your pulse point, suckling at the skin there as his fingertips dug into your hips. He needed to feel more, but he forced himself to wait. The last thing he wanted to do was make a wrong move or move too fast and scare you off.

“Joel,” you mewled his name. “Joel, I need—”

You trailed off, moaning when his mouth released your skin with a loud, wet popping noise.

“Tell me, sweet girl. Tell me what you need and I’ll give it to you,” he promised. “Anythin’ you need or want, I’ll give it to you. Just say the fuckin’ word.”

“You, Joel. I need you.”

His hips involuntarily bucked upwards and you let out a startled gasp the moment you felt his bulge, hard as a rock, brush against your clothed cunt.

Tearing away from him, it suddenly hit you. You’re in a church, straddling a much, much older man in a pew—and if that wasn’t sinful enough, the warm and slick arousal pooling between your thighs only proved that you were ready to fall into temptation, give into the lust and give your body to Joel. But it was none of those things that worried you. It was something else.

You pulled yourself out of his arms and jumped up off his lap, nearly tripping over your own two feet.

“Darlin’ are you—?”

You didn’t even hear the rest of his question.

Knees trembling, you somehow managed to make your way up to the altar. Heart pounding and head spinning, you planted both of your hands firmly on the table and steadied yourself. Part of you hoped that Joel would just get up and leave. But a bigger part of you hoped he wouldn’t.

Joel rose to his feet. “Listen, ain’t nothin’ wrong if you changed your mind, alright?”

“I didn’t,” you choked out. “That’s—that’s not it at all.”

“Then what’s the matter?”

Embarrassed, you tried to explain yourself. “I have never done anything like this before. I’m a—”

You couldn’t even bring yourself to say the word out loud.

“You’re a what?”

Blazing heat flooded your face. “Joel, please don’t make me say it,” you groaned. “For the sake of my sanity, don’t make me say it.” You heard the sound of his brown leather boots as he walked up behind you, one heavy footstep after the other.

“Turn around, sweet girl.”

Joel’s command was firm but still gentle.

Swallowing dryly, you obeyed and did as you were told. He stood close and you found yourself at eye level with his chest.

“Look at me.”

You tried, but couldn’t.

“I said, look at me.” Joel gingerly took your chin in between his thumb and index finger. He lifted your face, forcing your gaze to meet his own, timid and submissive meeting bold and dominant in a sweet and tender exchange. “Never known the lovin’ of a man, have you little dove?”

He backed you up against the table, pinning you in between it and himself. Planting both of his hands on either side of you, he caged you in and brought his chest flush against yours, pressing your bodies together.

Close, but somehow not close enough.

Joel lifted his hand to your cheek, cradling it in his palm. His thumb swept over your quivering bottom lip.

You reached behind you, clutching at the fair linen as you tried with every fiber of your entire being to remind yourself that you were standing at the altar where your father preached and delivered all of his sermons to the faithful people of Jackson.

The very same altar where your father encouraged you to kneel and pray in effort to mend the broken relationship you had with God.

You couldn’t help but to think if you were to get on your knees tonight, it wouldn’t be for prayer.

“I asked you a question, darlin’.” Joel’s voice broke into your train of thought. “Need you to be a good girl and give me an answer, alright?”

“My father loves me,” you stammered out in reply. “He loves me and my sisters—”

“C’mon, babygirl.” He chuckled and shook his head at you, lightly pinching your cheek. “That ain’t what I mean and you damn well know it.”

Sighing softly, you finally answered, “No, Joel.”

“No, what?”

“No, I’ve never known the loving of a man.”

Joel slipped the tip of his thumb between your lips and leaned into you, his hardness pressing against your upper thigh. Even through all the clothes, you could feel every inch of him. “Do you wanna know how it feels, baby? What it feels like when a man makes you his own?”

You nearly moaned around his finger. “Yes.”

“Yes, what?” he prompted, pulling his hand away.

“Yes, please.”

“I can show you.” Joel paused. “But not tonight.”

You stared at him in disbelief. Both of you were so clearly riled up and he was going to take a pass?

He almost laughed at your expression.

“C’mon, don’t give me that face.”

“But Joel—”

“Just don’t wanna rush it, not with you,” Joel said in a tone so soft it nearly threw you for a loop. “M’gonna need you to be real patient for me, just for a little while, alright? You think you can do that, little dove? Think you can be patient for me?”

Your answer came without an ounce of hesitation.

“Of course,” you breathed.

You would wait an eternity for Joel Miller.

#joel miller x you #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller x female reader #joel miller x reader #joel miller x y/n #joel miller smut #joel miller fic #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller series #joel miller story #joel miller self insert #the last of us fic #pedro pascal characters #fic: fall into temptation

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netherfeildren · 1 year

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The Cassandra Complex : Chapter VII : Hysminai

Series Masterlist : Moodboard

(Din Djarin x F!Reader)

A/N: Hello tin can man nation, happy Mando Monday and one million billion trillion apologies that it’s taken me a whole goddamn month to update. This has literally never happened to me with any of my stories before, and quite frankly, it feels terrible! All I can say is that like I said in my last note, after this the story changes drastically, and I was having a difficult time crossing the bridge between how we were and how we will be (oh I sounded so philosophical, are you impressed?) I needed to figure out how it was they’d be feeling in the in-between sort of place they’re at in this chapter. Apparently, that took me a whole month to do, sometimes I think I need to get a grip or something idk.

Anyways, more canon divergence more timeline divergence. so yes, that’s all. Here it is — it’s a little idk — idk how I feel about the chapter after all that, but it is what it is, so tell me what you think!

Rating: Explicit 18+

Word Count: 8.0K

Read on AO3

CHAPTER VII : HYSMINAI

Where does unbelief begin?

Anne Carson, Glass, Irony and God

“My fucking back hurts,” he groans, flopping down on top of you. Dirty and sweaty and a little stinky from his unsuccessful hunt today, you push your hands up beneath his shirt, pulling it out from where it’s tucked in his pants to get at his skin, wrapping your legs around the tapered expanse of his strong waist.

A soft whine, as if he thinks he should argue or tell you no but can’t bring himself to. “I’m sweaty,” and then like a confession, or something frightening and shameful, “And tired, and I’m getting old,” he whispers, heavy helmet digging into the crook of your shoulder, crushing your collar bone.

“My poor baby,” you croon at him, one palm stroking the slope of his spine, the other digging beneath the layers of fabric around his neck to get at his tender nape. “You just need a bath, some rest, something to eat. It’ll all be okay after that.” And he groans, great beast that he is, rumbling through the modulator and rolling the curve of the helmet over your shoulder. You press the tips of your fingers into the thick slats of muscles along his spine, feel him jerk at a particularly sore spot, and then melt once you begin to soothe the hurt away gently. His bones seem to sag into you, the entire tremendous weight of him pressing you into the blankets until you feel like you can barely breathe. He’s a huge mass of sweltering, sweaty man, worked into exhaustion.

To say that it had been difficult convincing him you’d be fine left on the Crest so that he could go out and hunt the bounty you’d come to Yavin 4 to retrieve, would be putting it lightly. First, he’d said you’d be coming with him, and you’d watched, patient and silent, as he’d worked himself into a knot, pacing back and forth, muttering to himself as he talked himself in and out of bringing you along several times over before he’d landed on the decision that no, you could absolutely not come out on a hunt with him – too dangerous. And so, okay, sure, whatever you say, Din. Now come sit and have some soup, and he’d grumbled and huffed and puffed the entire time while you’d stroked all the bare skin you could get at, trussed up in the armor as he was, soothing him back into calm. But then he’d come up with the brilliant plan that you’d simply return to Nevarro, jumping up to pace once again, and he’d tell Karga that he’d be unable to acquire the remaining bounties, return the pucks, and wash his hands of the Guild entirely. That idea had lasted a total of thirty seconds before you’d helpfully pointed out that the two of you still needed credits to live, fuel for the ship, food and supplies. Somehow, it seemed the practical necessity of money had slipped his mind in the midst of his stress. However, eventually, in the gentlest and most placating voice you could muster, you’d bade him to come sit with you, and crouching at your feet while you perched on your stool, fingers pressed to the tee of his vizor you’d told him that you’d learned your lesson, you weren’t going to be caught unawares again, and that he couldn’t abandon his work and his Guild because of what happened. Something about the words had felt, not necessarily like a lie, but like a falsity. There was something frightened and aware within you now. And you didn’t want to examine it closely enough to categorize it for what it truly was yet, but you knew it was there, that it’d been woken and stirred to restlessness with the appearance of the Thalassians and all they’d had to tell you about the whispers of you circulating the Outer Rim.

And worst of all, you hadn’t told him anything of what they’d said. You hadn’t told him of the claim that there were rumors of the two of you, knowledge of what you are being passed between scheming mouths with cruel intentions. You didn’t want to worry him, you didn’t want to distract him from his work. The thought of him going out there to face unknown dangers while he left his mind here on the ship with you, worrying and fretting and not watching out for himself the way he needed to, with full attention – well, it just wasn’t a possibility. And anyways, you told yourself, liar, liar, liar, you could handle anything else that came your way. You could handle your own worry and your own fear and your own raging thoughts, what you could not handle, and this you knew with absolute certainty, was his worry and his fear. You needed him to be calm, focused, well and happy. Nothing else really mattered besides that, especially not you.

He pulls you forward, pulling your wrists to wrap around his neck, needy, needy Mandalorian, “I’m sorry. I’m just–” a gruff sound of frustration, “Just worried.” Sometimes you think he’s the one with the ability to read minds, not you. “I’m taking you somewhere,” he says into the crook, “Once we’re done with this one.”

We. Always a we now. There is such togetherness here and now, between the two of you,

“Where?” And it’s a funny thing, always existing in the dark with him now, and you hadn’t thought about it or looked at it closely enough up until someone else, someone bad, had stepped into this comforting darkness the two of you had settled into with each other, made you realize that that's what you’ve been doing, living in the dark again. But now it’s everywhere, glaring and demanding your attention, and you can’t understand how it is that you ended up here again, a different sort of dark, surely, but still the same thing constructed in an altered form, nonetheless. Or perhaps, how or why it is that you’ve pulled him, someone that burns like a flame on their own, into your shadow. And you’ve watched him, and you know him now, so surely it must be that a man such as he could never be pulled or taken or turned into anything he didn't choose for himself because watching him is like watching a man be a god, and for a girl who’d been told all her life she was a god herself while she sat in the place of slave, it is exciting and erotic and so many things. But it is also confusing.

And there are locked rooms inside of you: lust, grief, apathy. You would like to take a hammer to them all, but it seems that, perhaps, Din is the one taking that hammer to those doors and obliterating them for you. That help you’d always been so afraid of, he’s there to give it to you, and so the easy answer, the right answer, would seem to be for you to take that help… no? To accept what he gives you in whatever way he thinks is best because he only wants what is good for you, to help, to soften, to make things easier for you. To remove that interminable struggle you’ve found yourself in for so long, for your whole life.

Sometimes it feels like I haven’t been happy my whole life. But I know I feel it with you.

“It’s a surprise.” Another reminder of happiness.

It only takes him one more outing on Yavin 4, before he returns with the bounty slung over his broad shoulder. Grunts and curses as he wrestles with the heavy weight of it, stuffing it into the carbon freezer. His hair is getting too long, the rich curls peeking out beneath the lip of his helmet in the back, and the sight of them does something strange to you. A small thing like a vulnerability, a reminder that he’s only a man, only human beneath all of that beskar. That thing of fear that’s been roiling inside of you thumps and thumps and thumps, and you try and swallow it and push it down, kill it if you must, but it will not be silenced or settled. As he passes you on his way to the ladder you stop him with a small hand on his chest plate, small and seemingly insignificant in comparison to the great breadth of him – you’ve always liked that, the way that if no one knew you for what you really are, in comparison to his size and strength they’d never take you for the more dangerous one. There’s something comforting in that. You reach up to tuck the soft curls back beneath his helmet, you wish you could reach up to press a kiss to his mouth also. “Hair’s getting long,” you tell him instead. But again, he’d been distracted, worried, forgetting the small things he needed, forgetting to take care of himself. You can’t help the feeling of guilt this brings on, but then he’s gripping you around the waist and pulling you up towards himself, pressing the round of his helmet against your cheek, a hard metallic nuzzle, basically carrying you up the ladder to the cockpit with him, and you’re forced to abandon your guilt and worries for the moment.

After a maintenance stop in Mos Eisley on the planet of Tatooine, he takes you to the terrestrial ice planet of Maldo Kreis where he tells you he’d once crash landed and come upon, believe it or not, hot springs. Nestled deep into a system of caves that run below the surface of the planet, there live a collection of hot baths. He said that the caves weren’t entirely without their threats, but that if one was careful, the baths he’d found were enough of a desolate little pocket of space that he could relax without fear of discovery.

You’d told him that you loved water, and so he’d brought you to water he could share with you.

You watch the broad line of his shoulders as he lumbers through the icy snow, he’d wrapped you in all your layers and one of his thick capes over your own cloak so that he was sure you were as warm as possible during the short trek from the toasty interior of the Razor Crest to the cave he was familiar with. He pulls you along behind him, blaster in one hand, your fingers gripped tightly in the other, his tactical light swinging in a slow arc from side to side as the two of you make your careful progression through the dark, near silent caves. Nothing but your short, excited panting, the hollow crack of the all encompassing ice around the two of you, and his low murmurs to watch your step here and careful, cyare and step where I step; ever careful and ever cautious with you. And the cave, when he steps into the high domed cavern, the great echo of the drip, drip, dripping of the ice above melting in the rising steam, and the sight of the baths, like nothing you could have ever imagined. Nothing like the ones on Carosi XII you used to visit in your youth in the moments you found to sneak away. The bath is large, about six by ten meters in diameter and it glows. Suffused by some sort of bioluminescent light at the heart of its basin, some sort of unearthly blue light shining up from its core to alight the cavern and refract against the ice glittered walls. You stand there shocked for a moment, eyes slowly roving the large space, small and shivering and maybe even a little terrified, beside a man that on the surface would seem to the unknowing eye to be just as hard and just as frigid. “Do you like it, cyar’ika? Did I do well?” He asks you in a soft voice that holds something like boyish shyness, vulnerable uncertainty. You squeeze his arm tight, hugging it to your chest and squishing your cheek against the ice cold pauldron, burning the fine skin there.

“Oh, Din,” you look up at him with that thing you can’t say out loud, but that you’re so entirely full of for him, “It’s so beautiful – let’s get in please. Is it safe? Please, let’s get in.” He makes an indulgent noise in his throat, extracting his arm from your tight hold to wrap it around your shoulders and urge you forward gently.

“You get in. This is for you, little one.” And you want to argue, to say that it’s not the same without him, that it’s not worth it without him, but the water looks so lovely and warm and an azure so pure and crystalline it looks as though you’d be stepping into the heart of a diamond. He pulls his own cloak from around his shoulders and lays it on the snowy floor of the cave for you to stand on as he removes your clothes in quick, efficient movements, somehow keeping you wrapped in the layers of your own cloak and his extra cape he’d tucked you into so that you’re never entirely bared to the frigid air of the cave until he’s gently wrapping one large, gloved hand around your forearm, the other clasped at your waist to help you step into the warm bath. And that first moment of contact, submerging the tips of your toes in to your calves, knees, thighs, your hips and belly and finally your breasts, that first moment almost hurts, the shocking change from sharp cold to soothing heat burns, your skin going too tight stretched over your bones and then loose and relaxed, all strength seeming to seep from your muscles so that you’re sagging into the pool weakly with an airy moan. You float slowly out into the middle and then suddenly, remembering the most important part of the scene, you turn back to look at him, but he's still at the edge of the pool, slowly going to a crouch on his knees to watch you. He isn’t going to come in, and you try and swallow your disappointment, letting yourself sink down to the bottom, squeezing your eyes shut tightly so that all that remains is the blue glow of the pool’s luminescence. Your bare bottom settles at the base, the rocks hot against your skin, and wait there a moment, feeling as though your at the heart of a womb, nothing but a thought at the start of your life, and then pushing yourself back up, breaking the surface with a gasp, pushing the sluicing water out of your eyes, your lashes seeming to crackle and freeze at the contact with the frigid air once again. When you turn back to look at him with a wide smile, he’s slowly shaking his head at you, pissed off sound rumbling through the modulator at you staying below the surface for so long.

You let yourself sink down until only your eyes remain above water. Stretching your toes to skim the bottom of the warm rocks at the base of the pool, and you watch him watch you, that intensity of his, so powerful it spears his visor, suffuses your entire body, moving through your limbs like electricity and pooling at the tips of your fingers and toes. You know he can see the distorted shimmer of your naked body beneath the surface of the water, the tips of your breasts, the line of your belly down to the apex of your thighs, your hair floats away from you in ghostlike fingers, as if they were reaching towards him. You suck in a tiny bit of the slightly brackish water, hold it on your tongue, and when you let your mouth break the surface you spit it towards him in a crystalline arc. “The water’s so lovely. Come hold me,” you flirt at him. He’s crouched at the edge of the pool like some metallic sentinel, entirely still, frozen in time and space. You’ll remember him like this always, you think, silent and riveted only on you. That silence of his that sometimes says so much, echoes in your mind like a shout. The helmet cocks slowly to one side, entirely predatory, and if you hadn’t come to know him as well as you have, you’d worry for a moment that he’d seem entirely unaffected, but you can make out the tiight grip of his fingers around the cap of his bent knee. The restraint in the lines of his limbs he holds himself with, and the tips of your breasts go tight and aching at the display of want, subtle and silent as it is. The stillness and the silence, he uses it as a weapon when he likes, and sometimes they hold him in reserve, but other times, they tell you so much. “Please, come join me. I won’t look. I’ll be good,” you whisper, mouth just above the surface of the water, and slowly start to tread closer to him. “I promise.”

The hand over his knee tightens, and he makes a pained, frustrated sound, spit through the modulator. He looks around the cave again, visor slowly scanning the dark crevices and passageways, and you know he’s scanning once more for heat signatures. “Turn around,” he says quietly, vizor finally coming back to you. You obey silently, treading water to the far end of the pool, as far from him as you can go, giving him space and time and privacy to divest himself of the protections of his Creed. Protections he’s ridding himself of for you. You reach the stone ledge on the opposite side of the hot spring and rest there, arms crossed over the edge and chin propped on your folded wrists, and you close your eyes and listen to the sound of him giving himself to you, the disengaging of the magnetics that hold his armor together, the hollow drop of a pauldron, another, chest plate, vambraces, the thigh and shin guards. Then the heavier thud of his helmet, and the sound of his naked sigh, your heart drops into your stomach. You bring your face down into the cove of your folded arms, hiding away, heart racing as fast as a small, hunted creature. Your water warmed arms and neck are steaming in the frozen chill of the surrounding cave, but your lower half is enveloped in all of the sensual heat of the pool. The warring sensations shiver through you, up and down the length of your spine like electricity, the back of your neck prickling and breaking out into gooseflesh. Your entire frame trembles in anticipation, everything inside going tight and hot as a flash fire, and then loose and shaky, wet and molten. You hear the rustle of clothing, his softly pained grunt and sigh from what must be him bending to shuck his boots and pants, his back hurts, and then the splash of disturbed water and a different sort of groan, one of pleasure as he submerges his sore body in all the heat of the pool. You can’t help the almost silent answering whimper that claws its way up your throat, he calls to you so strongly always, that string from rib bone to spine that you’re terrified of being without one day. Terrified of the sort of lost you’ll become if it were to ever be severed. His movements go still suddenly, all sound seeming to cut off from one moment to the next, a pressurized sort of silence so immediately jarring that for a single second of panic you’re tempted to turn around to make sure he’s still there, but then: the whisper soft pressure of a single finger dragging straight down the line of your spine. His hand unfurling to spread entirely at the small of your back, pressing you hard against the stone wall of the pool. The facade is jagged, but warmed by the volcanic heat source deep within the core of the planet, and the incongruous sensations have you breathing out a whimpered moan. “Hi,” he presses a kiss to the ball of your shoulder, the top of his dark head flashes in your peripheral vision and you snap your eyes shut quickly, and then the press of his long, hot body all along your back. His chest, his groin and the already hard cock there, the rounds of his knees at the backs of yours. He wraps his arms around your waist and pulls you away with him, lets your bodies float out into the middle of the pool. The heat is more concentrated here, as if the pool possessed its very own beating heart, warming the rest of its body, and the two of you float there, quiet, with him wrapped around you like this, the soft press of his plush mouth every once in a while, and the deep hums and rumbly sounds of his relaxed contentment. You lay your head back on his shoulder and sit in the quiet risk of this with him, but everything is so well and so peaceful that you let your mind close away that worry and that fear and that door that’d been opened inside your mind, just for now. The galaxy is exceptionally still, here in this place with him.

“You’re happy,” he reads your mind all the time now and amongst all the risk that surrounds the two of you, nothing bests that. “I did good. You’re happy.”

“You’re perfect,” you say in return, turning your face into his throat, hiding yourself away in his skin.

“Tell me something else that makes you happy,” he says, and a furious flush of heat floods your face, you, you want to say, you make me happier than anything, a swift frantic throbbing starting up at your throat, wrists, the backs of your knees.

But you hold your tongue, think of another thing you’d once thought you couldn’t live without. “My blade, I think,” you say slowly. “I told you once that I, perhaps, should not have made another lightsaber.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know if I deserve it anymore. But… she’s beautiful and unique and comforting. And I wanted one. I wanted to be the bearer of a lightsaber, and so I forewent what I thought I should do, and did only what I wanted to at the time.”

“And now? Do you still think you don’t deserve it?” His voice is gentle and tentative, and you’re sure he knows these questions will only aggravate old wounds. But there is also a part of you that wants him to know anyway. Amongst all the things within you that you’d like to keep from him forever, there are others which you’d like him to understand about you, as well. Things no one else has ever or will ever know.

“Yes, maybe more than ever.”

An admonishing click of his tongue. You know there are certain things you believe about yourself that he doesn’t agree with, you can sense it within him, and it’s the greatest gift he constantly gives you, the benefit of his doubt. “What else do you want?”

You lift your head from its hiding place in his neck, chew on the thought, peek down at his bare arms wrapped around your middle. Something about seeing them so out in the open, water strewn, the soft dark hair covering the golden brown skin and sinewy muscle feels like breaking a rule. You hold your palm hovering just beneath the surface of the water, let the tips of your fingers break the glass-like edge, the glowing light that burns beneath the rockbase of the pool suffuses between them,“Absolution, perhaps.” You.

“From what?”

“Everything.”

“From who?” You have no answer for that – a moment of shocked speechlessness. The entire galaxy. Him, above all, him. “Because you aren’t going to get it from me,” voice grave and sad and serious, gentle, as if he’s telling a very young child a very big thing. “I have nothing to absolve you of, and so I cannot give it to you.” A lie he does not know is a lie.

I know, you breathe in the smallest voice you can. As if the quiet will prevent the words from going out into the world. Acknowledgement breathes life into a thing, and you do not, cannot, acknowledge this truth. That you have started to fear that even if he knew the truth of it all, that it would still not satiate your guilt, silence it. That, most terrifying of terrifying truths, you fear you are the only one who can give that to yourself. You wish, very badly indeed, that you had the courage to tell him the whole of it, every bad or terrible thing, the worst thing, that you could be yourself entirely. You want to ask him how he finds the courage to be so brave and so mighty all the time? You would like to say: This is me at my best. I am asking you to endure it. I know it is selfish, but it’s what I’d like anyway.

The sight of the heavy end of the Thalassian’s stick hurtling towards you flashes in your mind, the sound of your bone crunching beneath the weight. Years and years of beatings and darkness and horror. You shut your eyes to it, focus on the sound of his breaths, the drip of water, the luminescence of the pool’s hot stones glowing through the thin membrane of your eyelids, the electric blue seeping into your corneas.

“What are you afraid of?” You ask instead. You suspect that the answer to your own courage does not necessarily lie with him, and so you alter the framing, cast it in a more revealing light. “What sorts of things worry you?”

He thinks on it for a moment, lets his arms slip from around you to tread water, and then stillness, the sound of him cupping little pools in his palms and letting them trickle back into the bath. “I’m getting older. I worry about the day I realize I’m weaker, slower. What that’ll do to me, what it’ll feel like – to realize the tool… weapon, I’ve relied on for so long is failing me, my own body.”

“You’re not that old,” you laugh lightly, “Only the disposition of an old man.” He bumps his spine into yours, turned to face away from you now.

“Brat.” You love this game of questions. Your favorite of all the games you play together.

“If you can look into my mind,” he says slowly, “Could you also erase my memories?” Your stomach churns with the change in direction.

“Perhaps. I… I’m not sure – I’ve never tried to do that.” You hum in nervous consideration, “I could rework them, maybe, change them. But it would be difficult to pick and choose without running the risk of wiping a mind completely, I would think.”

“Yeah… I guess that makes sense.” He’s quiet for a moment, and you listen to the rustle of the water, the lapping of his movement slicking up against your naked back. “What am I thinking about right now?” He asks suddenly, and a flush of angry heat sizzles across your face.

“Don’t ask me those things. It’s not a game, Din.” A hypocrite in your own mind.

Another silent pause, and you can hear a smile in his voice that forces your annoyance away. “Play with me anyways,” and he bumps his back into yours again, then turns to pull you to his chest once more, drags you slowly bobbing through the water to the far end of the pool to rest on the ledge there.

The two of you sit there back to back, and you wrap your arms around your bent knees, resting your chin against the dome of your joint and close your eyes. All of these games… But you let the Force wrap around the both of you slowly, a bubble made entirely of yourself, let it slink around him, snake up his ankle to his knee. Another up the curve of his back and over the hill of his shoulder, up the column of his neck and over his face, your power licking and tasting as it goes, feeding off of him. You listen to him gasp and can’t help but smile a little. You feel him everywhere, always, you wish – hope, he feels you like this always too. And then in, gentle as possible, like piercing the thin, delicate membrane of a piece of fruit skin, a transparent membrane, and it’s like you’re running your fingers over the contours of his present thought, held just there, tasting it off the tip of his tongue: it’s you. He’s thinking of you, and the sight of yourself within the space of his mind is jarring like a snapping bone, ragged edges of white ivory, blood red marrow. You want to jerk away immediately at the sight of yourself, but you pause, take in the sight of yourself asleep earlier on the Crest. He’d woken before you, and you’re naked and vulnerable, cheek smushed against your folded hands, hair a bedraggled mess. He drags the pad of his thumb over the swell of your breast, feels the smoothness of your skin, leans forward and crowns a fading bruise along the slope of your shoulder with a kiss by the same mouth that had placed it there earlier. You can almost taste the scent of yourself on his tongue, and you smell like him, like you belong to him. The thought that you do, that you’re his follows, charges in on the tail end of your mingled scent. Ownership so pure, so intrinsic over another being should seem wrong, no? But it’s merely fact here, as he looks upon you. And he lo–

You pull yourself back, blinking away furious, overwhelmed, distraught tears. Tears of exaltation and such grief. This is how he sees me, you think. I am beautiful and good in his eyes. Perhaps, the greatest lie you’ve ever made him believe.

The Thalassian crone’s voice cracks in your mind, worth nothing more than an invisible and illusory thing, The Force. He doesn’t see it yet, he still believes in the game, but fate is about to best the both of you, you’re certain of it. And you feel so fucking angry at the thought, at the reminder and memory. So frustrated that they’d found you, that they’d pierced the bubble of happiness the two of you had secluded yourselves in these past weeks together, that you were letting them disrupt it. That you couldn’t let go of the past.

“What do you see, cyar’ika?” His voice is gentler than the water.

“Me.” Your tears salt the pool.

“That’s you,” he whispers, reaches back to grasp your hip. And you want to argue, to make him see the fallacy for what it is, but it’s such a lovely lie. You can’t bring yourself to ruin the dream. A sob breaks in your throat, spills out, and he turns in the water, hugs your back to himself. His face is right there, so close, out in the open. You can almost touch the dream. “Don’t cry, little one. I’m right here.”

“I’m sorry–” you gasp, press a hand over your mouth, swallow the horrible outpour back down.

“I’ve never resented my Creed more than I do right now.” He says it through clenched teeth, as if he knows he shouldn’t. “Not being able to look at your face, not being able to have you see me, to kiss you – I want to kiss you so badly.” Your heart drops down into your stomach.

“Don’t. Don’t – you can’t. You don’t want that.”

He’s silent for a moment, stiff, and then slowly: “Why not?”

How to be honest without splitting yourself open? “You can’t give that to me, Din. I don’t– I don’t deserve it,” your voice ends on a shamed whisper. The idea of him trusting you with that last, most important thing, the sight of his face. It could never happen. Never.

“So many things you think you don’t deserve… It’s my choice, isn’t it?”

“It would be the wrong choice.”

“I’ve never done it, you know? No one has seen my face since I was a boy. The night you told me we ran the risk of you seeing me in my memory– sometimes I feel like I can’t even remember it myself. Like that isn’t even a possibility because the memory doesn’t exist. Like the face I occasionally glance at in the mirror isn’t actually me.” You could understand this so well, the phenomena of being wholly unrecognizable to yourself, and it was moments like these, when he said something that reminded you so entirely of yourself, that showed you how alike the two of you were in certain ways, that frightened you more than anything. That brought that keen sense of knowing into awareness. That made you awake to that thing you felt for him that you could not yet name or acknowledge. Acknowledging a thing brought it to life, after all. He presses another kiss over the bruise, intensifies it further with a pull of his mouth. “I never want anyone to know something about me that you don’t know. If I were ever to give it to anyone, it’d be to you.” As if he’s the one who possesses the power to read minds, not you, and you're pressing your hand over your eyes and turning in his embrace, blindly, madly shoving your face towards his and stumbling for his mouth. He grasps you around the waist, another hand to your jaw, squeezing so tight your bones feel set to burst, and with a snarl, he kisses you. Blindly, madly, like everything else this thing between the two of you has been, so full of risk. Your name in his mouth is a savage thing full of sharp teeth and want and violence, and you breathe a warbled moan into him as he pulls you further onto his lap so that you’re straddling him, aching cunt nestled against his hardness. “I never want anyone to know something about me that you don’t know,” he breathes again, licks the words onto the surface of your tongue, and you’re sure he’s trying to break you, to leave an imprint, a brand, a burn inside of you in the shape of him. Something that hurts worse than anything else ever has. It’s unfair, it is almost a cruelty, for Din– Din does not always know how a thing will end as you do. He’s absolved of such a curse, and so he must not suffer the certainty in which you’re sure there will come a time when there is a whole life of things about him which you’ll not bear witness to. It makes you cry harder, it makes you want to scream and rage and draw blood, to drink him down so that you might keep him forever. Please, please, let me keep him, let me keep him. You sob into his mouth, pull at his hair so hard he whimpers, subdues you with sharp teeth and pinching fingers.

What is it? What is it, cyare? Tell me, and I’ll fix it for you. I cannot overcome your anguish. Your eyes are filled with darkness again, and I wish you wouldn’t cry. I know everything, and I’m still here.

You bury your face in his neck, mouth at the warm, damp salt of his skin, try and control your anguish. He doesn’t deserve these hysterics. He doesn’t deserve this. So many lies he doesn’t know you’ve embroiled him in, and you feel unfixable, like you’ll always disappoint him, like it’s inevitable. The Thalassians had been a savage reminder of this. Finally, the hiccuping cries settle, the ricocheting stone in your chest resting, and you prop your chin on his shoulder to look out at the dim surrounding cave. Steam rises off the surface of the warm pool, and the yawning mouths of the branching tributaries are pitch black holes descending into absolute darkness. You wonder, first, what it would be like to become lost in that maze of pure dark, you remember, second, that you already have been.

“I haven’t been to a hot spring since before,” you murmur, unseeing, feel the ruffle of his overlong curls tickle your damp cheek. “I used to steal away to the ones on Carosi XII sometimes. I loved it–”

“Before…” He smoothes a large, rough paw up the sensitive line of your spine. Calluses catching at your skin, scraping and inciting. Drawing back down in a swoop to press at your tailbone, nestling his throbbing erection more snuggly between the lips of your sex.

“My escape.” Quietly, as if speaking of it too loudly will undo the entire thing.

“Ah.”

“It was so dark for so long,” you confess, voice full of air and ghosts.

Both arms wrapped around your back now, he presses you tight as possible to himself, squeezes all the air and memories of the past out of your lungs. “What did it cost you? The dark, your freedom?” You wish he wouldn’t ask such things, you also want to tell him anyway.

“Hard to define. My soul, I think. But I’m getting it back.” A soft hum, one that understands. “Have you ever felt like that… like you’d lost your soul?”

“Once or twice, maybe.” A bite to the line of muscle connecting your neck and shoulder, a slick slide of your hips ending in a jolt of pleasure. “A soul is a finicky thing to keep hold of constantly. Don’t you think?” You’ll never be happy anywhere else besides right here with him. Of this you’re absolutely certain.

“Undoubtedly. Slippery little fuckers – souls,” and his laughter is always such a gift, almost a benediction. You wrap your hand around his throat to feel the humming joy of it there, and it pulls your own from your heart, matches his happiness in the way he deserves. He deserves to have his joy reciprocated. To be with someone capable of such unadulterated happiness, that can give it to him and return it to him and amplify it ten fold. An illusory sort of thing… and Din, Din, Din deserves more than a non entity, more than something non existent. Your Mandalorian deserves so many things. You never thought it would be like this when the two of you first started this, that it would require so many things of you you’re not sure you can give. You press a soft kiss to the shell of his ear, eyes closed and safe, fingers twined through the damp curls at the back of his head. You wonder if they flop down over his forehead, if they’re laying slicked and soaking wet, pasted against his skin. You wonder what color his eyes are – dark, you think, dark and warm and rich like his hair. His scruff is grown out too, beard scratchy and a little scraggly. It leaves burns and raw marks on your skin that you press at when he’s away, not looking. The reminder of his mouth at your cunt and breasts. Another kiss to the rounding of bone behind his ear, the scrape of teeth over his jugular, the flavor of his collarbone. An entire sun inside the heart of a single man, and you wonder what that makes you. The dark sky that consumes him, perhaps? That steals the light?

“What does your Creed cost you?”

“Everything,” he says, and your name shouts at you from his mind. The two of you are so alike in so many unknown ways again and again and again. And so many things frighten you, terrify you. You feel afraid of everything and weak and half made, only half a girl, half a creature. You don’t want him to be anything like you. You want him to be only himself full of all the greatness and goodness he possesses.

He slides his palm between your thighs, rough fingers whispering and teasing, and then he’s pulling your hips back and notching the wide head at your entrance, wedging that thick cock inside of you, in, in, in, bumping at the mouth of your womb. No preamble, no warning, only claiming. You lay your head on his shoulder, so strong and broad, and watch your tears slide over the hill and down the valley of his back; your moan is ragged as you take him within you, and he burns inside of you like a fever. Or not like a fever, like a second heart, and there’s no reason to cry, you want to tell yourself, console yourself. He’s here, he’s as close to you as he can possibly be. And you’re happy, you are, but you are also aware. You are also yourself. You also know so many things about yourself and fate and destiny that he does not.

“F–feel so– so fucking good, cyare.” You wrap both arms more tightly around his neck, bury your teeth in his skin, and he grips your ass with one hand, the other wrapped around your breast and pulls you harder onto his cock. “Always.”

“Din,” you whimper, clit grinding against the bone of his pelvis, little toes curling in pleasure as you moan for him.

“Yeah? Like that?” You feel him spread his knees wider beneath you, deepening the angle, and you brace your feel on the stone ledge behind him to leverage yourself better on his lap, ride him. “Fuck, yeah – just like that.” He wraps a fist in your hair, “Close your eyes. Let me see you – need to look at your face,” and he tugs your head back, chin tipped to the ceiling of the cave, throat bared, mouth hanging open.

“Din, no– wait,” he takes too many risks. “You’re being careless–”

“Am I? I don’t give a fuck,” he grits. “I have to look at you, I have to. You can’t say no to me, you can’t tell me no.” He fucks up into you quicker, hitting that spine melting spot inside of you. “No one fucks this cunt like I do. No one,” he growls.

No one, no one, no one. I have to look at you.

“Din, please–” you beg for something unknown.

And he tells you that he knows and understands while he drags his fingers through your wet hair. “I know it’s so much,” and he pushes his hips up again, your cunt letting him in that little bit further, opening and blooming for him. He is changing – a changing sort of man. A phenomena of nature. He is changing you into something different. You can feel it like this hunger that cuts you in two. You fold yourself into the dream that soon your past self will be lost to you entirely if the two of you continue like this, but what worries you is that you are, in turn, changing him, as well. And you aren’t certain that whatever change wrought upon him by yourself would be something good, something that wouldn’t be damaging.

But you… the sun could only ever change a dark thing for the better. And it was true that together you could do such incredible things, but you would not let yourself be destructive with him. You would not let yourself destroy him. “I’m not going to open my eyes,” you tell him. “I’m not going to open my eyes.”

And he begs: “Please,” but he does not say that which he’s begging for, and you won’t ask. He bends his head and pulls on the tip of your breast, sucks as much of the heavy weight of it as he can into his mouth, you’re so beautiful, he murmurs, fingertips gripping your bottom, slithering down to pet at the place where your cunt is stretched swollen around the thick root of him, wedges his fingers on either side to feel where he enters you. You rest your cheek on the crown of his head, wrapping your arms around him so that his face is buried in your breasts. The feel of his cock throbbing and swelling within you is maddening, and you’ve done this more times than you can count now, yet each time feels like there won’t be enough room within you to take him, that he’ll cleave you in two, cunt stretched to obscenity, to almost pain. The whole sun inside of a man like a god, inside of a girl who only ever wanted to be a god and failed. The whole sun illuminating the darkness into flame, and your cunt begins to pulse and flutter around him, pleasure like agony surging up your spine in electric sparks and pooling in your pelvis, tightening around him to rouse his own orgasm to spill forth and coat you from the inside. He groans savage and wanton and yours into the deep crevice of your breasts, you feel his tongue licking into the space between, tasting and branding, and you wrap around him like vines.

Perhaps… one single moment of truth now.

You realize you’ve never loved anything before in your entire life. You’ve never had anything to love. Din is the first. The memory of your parents, always too weak, too far removed to have ever been anything more than an acute yearning, but him, he is here, he is alive, he is with you, and you love him.

And Din deserves so many things, but he does not deserve this. He does not deserve such a fate, such a damnation – the love of a creature such as you, a thing you’d not wish on your worst enemy. After all, it’s an impossible thing to swallow an entire sun, it’s an impossible thing to abscond entirely from the darkness. I’m sorry, you whisper as he stills within you, and he presses you so tight, as if he could squeeze out the very seed of wrongness that still lives within you.

You love him, and they will always come for you. As long as you’re alive, as long as the dark exists, as long as The Force exists they will always come for you. And one day they’ll go through him to get to you. Like some sort of grotesque chant in your mind, endlessly, without mercy, this is the only truth that remains.

I’m sorry, you say again and again and again.

“Cyare, I can’t help you if you won’t tell me what it is.”

And a lie to comfort can surely not be such a bad thing, if done with the right intention. Surely, it cannot be such a terrible thing. “It’s only that I’m so happy,” and you know, as soon as the words leave your mouth, that he won’t believe you, but he says nothing anyways, and it only makes you feel worse, for you know that his reticence only comes by way of his own fear. He's scared for you, scared of you, of the fact that he can feel that roiling shift within you, between you, and hasn’t yet managed to solve the riddle of it, of you. You realize that here and now, he’s scared of you. And the truth of it sears you, makes you feel worse than anything the Thalassians could have ever done to you, but this is the true mark, this is the scar forming, invisible above the injury. This is the true consequence, the worry and the apprehension and the seed of fear they’d planted between the both of you.

“I believe in you above everything else,” you tell him in lieu of all the rest, in lieu of your love.

He’s silent for a moment, the sound of his swallowed fear, “Why does it feel…sometimes, like all you’re doing is saying goodbye to me?”

Like a lancet through the throat, like dying, something worse than the darkside, but somehow, your voice is measured and even when you tell him, “I don’t think, even if the worst happened, that I’d ever really be able to say goodbye to you.”

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