#my hair is thick but it’s also baby fine so lots of thick creams and hair moisturizers/oils weigh it down

[twilightakiishi]

every time my hair gets to a length i like i look at the ends and they are split

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Stolen Goods 2

Warnings: noncon and other dark elements. As usual, be mindful of your content consumption.

Ft. Lloyd Hansen, petite!pregnant reader

I also beg of you to leave me some tuppence in the form of a comment and/or reblog. You are cherished!

Enjoy, my loverlies.

You go through checkout in autopilot. You pay, not paying mind to the total, and a bag boy helps get the bags in your cart. You’re still trembling from the encounter at the bread shelf. You’re starting to think you imagined it. Can pregnancy hormones make you delusional? 

As you push your cart out to the lot, you feel a chafing against your thighs. Your panties are still askew. You slow as you near the car and peek around to fix them. A shiver rolls over you at the brush of fabric across your pelvis. 

What are you doing? You should march back in there and demand the surveillance footage. You should call the police and file a report. It’s not about them believing you, they’ll have to see it on the cameras, right? 

You’re kept from your moment of clarity by the buzz of your phone. Shoot. You answer as Jake’s name flashes over the screen.  

“Hey,” you wisp you as you keep hold of the cart, hovering just next to the trunk of the car, “did I forget to put something on the list?” 

“Checking in. Been there a while,” he says. You can hear him typing as he speaks. He’s always so busy, even when he’s at home. If he isn’t logged into work, he’s up to some coding of his own. You suppose he’s trying to get as much in before the baby comes. “So, you almost done?” 

“Yeah, yeah,” you try not to let your voice quaver, “just packing up the bags now. How’d your meeting with Harold go?” 

“Usual. That big project we’ve been working at? Got scrapped. Starting over,” he scoffs. 

“Oh, I’m sorry, Jake,” you pout as you reach into your purse and fish out the car keys. You pop the trunk and angle the cart so it won’t roll away. “I think I might get that promotion though.” You lift a bag and puff out as you balance the cell between cheek and shoulder, dropping it in the trunk, “Terra’s leaving so...” 

“Babe, I told you to wait until I finished work,” he sniffs, “you okay?” 

“Yeah, I didn’t get anything too heavy. Jake, it’s fine.” 

“Mm, I feel like... like you don’t let me do enough,” he whines. 

Your lips slant. You won’t let the hormones loosen your tongue. He has every opportunity to help. He could do the shopping himself but he says he needs you to make sure he gets the right things. He could cook dinner but he burns everything. He could clean the dishes but he breaks at least one thing each time. 

“You can rub my back?” You suggest, “or my feet.” 

“Mm, yeah,” he agrees noncommittally. Right, he’ll only do that if he gets a bit of fun after. 

“Anyway, we’ll talk when I get there. I don’t want the ice cream to melt,” you lean on the cart and hold back a sigh, “love ya.” 

“Mm, huh, yeah, you too. Gareth’s calling.” 

He hangs up and leaves you listening to dead air. You drop your shoulders and shove the phone back in your purse. You shake your head and move around the basket to grab another bag. A pair of thick arms beat you to it and you step back as a man in a yellow polo smirks down at you. 

“What’s a lady like you doing all the heavy lifting for?” The man asks. 

His timbre hits you like a train off its tracks. Your pregnancy brain unfogs and you remember what you’d meant to do before the phone call. You feel the scene back in the store, the creep of his hand under your dress. That voice. It’s definitely him. 

You gape at him as he steps close, hugging a bag to his stomach, and you back away in horror. His hair is combed back on top, his sides shaved close, and his lip is trimmed with a thick mustache. Despite his clean shave, a shadow already darkens his jawline.

Your heart hammers wildly and your whole body tingles. He steps around the cart and places the bag in the trunk. You touch your stomach as you try to calm yourself.

“Get away from me,” you murmur. 

“I’m just being helpful, sweet cheeks. You should know, I’m not really the type to help an old lady cross the street or whatever shit,” he snorts and faces you. 

“Go,” you rasp hotly as your eyes tinge. “Get away!” 

“Now, don’t go shrieking like a banshee. I’m really not into the whole...” he makes a motion in front of his stomach, “baby thing, but you’re convincing me.” 

“I said--” 

“I’m not done,” he points at you, “so keep your ears open, sugar tits.” He gives a leer at your chest, “now those... that’s amazing. You gone up a cup size or were they always honkers?” 

“Ew, you--” you try to accuse him and he taps your lips, stunning you to silence. 

As he comes closer, his size is even more obvious. Everyone’s big compared to you, he’s probably about the same height as your fiance, but he seems broader. Maybe because he’s older? 

“I’m just being a good Samaritan,” he looms over you, “helping you get your shopping all away.” He grins down at you and brings up two fingers, giving them a sniff, “getting you off--” 

“You--” 

"...your feet," he finishes.

He’s quicker than you. Your voice dissolves as he has you by the neck in and instant, your keys and purse falling to the tarmac. Your top-heavy stature has you off-balance without much of a struggle and you barely keep your side from hitting the open edge of the trunk. He bends and scoops up your leg, pushing you to roll onto the groceries and land uncomfortably against the emergency kit. 

“Hey!” You cry out and he snaps the lid shut. He slaps it and gives a cackle loud enough for you can hear. You hold your stomach, terrified that you landed too hard on your side.

“I only came for milk, imagine that.” 

[ravensmadreads]

UM??????

Sit down and lace up cause im going on a LONG FUCKING RANT-

Ok firstly, im SORRY it took me so long to get to this.. i know i know you're gonna say its fine but hush let me apologize because i feel horrible about letting you and my dust bowl daddy hang for so long. That being said????

TAYLOR???? i dont know how you do it i swear i dont. Every single time. Fucking brilliant, after fucking brilliant-er and it just keeps getting MORE AND MORE BRILLAINT LIKE FUCKKKKK QUEEN FUCKKKKK. HOW TF DO YOU KEEP GETTING BETTER?? SHARE YOUR WITCHCRAFT WITH US MORTALSSSSSS MA'AM PLEASEEEEEE

Before i get all hyper and rambly i just have to say i LOVE the world building you do like?? Its so artistic? So poetic? So vivid? I can legit SEE myself on the supply run with ellie and joel, sweltering in the fields with reader, heart melting in the room with all four of them as they stare at Ellies cake, The Dip with Joel like?? F U C K? You're a genius fr fr fr 💯

and now to the feralness: MY BABIES T_T ILOVETHEMSOMUCH T_T the whole run with joel and ellie is like banger after banger i mean fuckkk offfff because how dare you write their relationship so well you menace im crying over them already and the angst hasnt even reached boiling point yet?!?!

And then the mini little bombs you leave everywhere???

His feet are starting to sting from balancing on that knife’s edge these past few months. - grrrr shut up the poetic imagery of this LINE. HIS ANGUISH, HIS FEAR, HIS TURMOIL, HIS HOPE ALL TANGLED UP IN HIS HEAD AHHHHHHHHH

The silence stretches, a handful of conversations pressing up to the back of his teeth before fading on his tongue. - JOEL YOU EMOTIONALLY CONSTIPATED MAN LET ME GENTLY HOLD YOU IN MY ARMS AND PET YOUR FLOOFY HAIR CAUSE YOU SO DENSEEEEEEEE T_T

Are calloused hands and thick, ruddy skin – supply runs into ghost towns – all that she wanted for her only child? - IM GONNA LOSE IT TAYLOR ISTG MY MENTAL HEALTH IS HANGING BY A THREAD AND IT'S THE WIDTH OF READERS HAIR

Earning Joel’s trust precipitated a steady climb or thundering fall – you just weren’t sure which yet. - do you hear that banging??? Its me at ur door threatening to break it tf down because HOW DARE YOU?! (also shut upppppp the whole scene with the hand cream had me rolling aroundddddd because fuckkkkkkkk they're so cuteeeeee kiss alreadyyyyyyy)

The chalk clicks as you press a small circle beneath the question mark. - i know this seems so out of place but like im in awe of your mind and i will explain with great rambling why this in particular made me lose my marbles in your dms thanks

“Who’s going on a date?” - when i tell you i SQUEALED AT GLASS BREAKIKG FREQUENCY IM NOT EVEN LYING!!! FOREVER KISSING YOU ON THE MOUTH FOR INCLUDING THISSSSSS (also i will pester you like the rodent i am until i get that 🍆 joke :p)

There is so much of you in her, it hurts to accept she is not yours, in any capacity. - sobbed with actual tears throughout this interactions thanks I hate you T_T (also the hint of writer Tommy? And Joel's anger? BAWLING MY EYES OUT T_T)

“Oh, it takes a lot to piss me off. ‘Cause I’m a casual and easy-going kinda guy, y’know.” - THEY'RE TEASING EACH OTHER T_T CAN I CALL THE CHURCH WHEN'S THE WEDDINGGGGG T_T

“No, goddamn it, I don’t!”  - SHUT THE FUCK UP. SHUT UP. SCREAMING CRYING THROWING UP. HOW DID IT ALL GO SO WRONG WHEN IT WAS JUST RIGHT A MINUTE AGO. WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO ME. WHY. IM SICK ALREADY WHY MUST YOU HURT ME LIKE THIS WHEN IM VULNERABLE. ANSWER FOR YOUR CRIMES WOMAN

But he’s also not that kind of man who knows how to navigate the aftermath. He doesn’t know how to be anything other than a father and a worker. Hasn’t cared to be anything else for a long, long time, and the muscle has atrophied. Can’t be a friend. Not a companion. Not whatever paints his dreams with streaks the color of your eyes.  - TAYLOR WHAT THE FUCK????? I DONT EVEN HAVE WORDS??????

They who have been alone together all their lives sit and hold their other half for a long, long time. - excuse me while i have a whole ass breakdown T_T

If talking to animals is the first step in going crazy, talking to holes in the ground must be a pretty bad sign. - ilovethemallsomuchitsborderlineinsane

And then the dancing THE DANCING AND THE APOLOGIES AND THE BAREST HINT OF SPICE IM SWOONING IM CRYING IM DYING IM WAILING IM THROWING UP IM LOSING MY MARBLES IM FUCKING INSANE FUCK YOU FUCK THIS FUCK ME WHEN DO I GET TO HAVE THIS JOEL AND ELLIE AND SARAH BECAUSE FUCK THEY'RE MY FAMILY NOW

And yet for a moment, for a brief moment, you had stepped into his light and, goddamn it, you were right. 

It was warm.

SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-

I'M OKAY IM FINE-

and in their falling, rise again (lover, share your road - part ii) series masterlist | AO3 Link | part i | part iii

chapter rating: T

word count: ~25K

chapter summary: You and Ellie have adjusted to the Miller homestead in your own ways. Much to Sarah's delight, these roots you've planted have grown a bit deeper than any of you initially expected. But figuring out how Joel is feeling about all of these changes is a complicated dance you worry you're stumbling through — except when he takes the lead.

chapter warnings/tags: reader is described as skeletal early on but that is due to food scarcity not her natural body type, psychological/mental effects of domestic abuse, allusions to domestic abuse, underground spaces, one dead body, brief moment of gore, guns, aggressive behavior, father/daughter relationship dynamics, slow burn, praise kink in a trojan horse of "making friends"

a/n: this would have taken months longer (or not at all) without the support and guidance of @toomanytookas. everyone please say thank you! please note the update to the series parts on the masterlist - we're doing four (you have @toomanytookas to thank for that as well!)

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine - Wild Geese, Mary Oliver

part ii:

Dawn comes slowly to Dalhart, a place hardly anyone knows about, the last stop on the railway line where the forgetful or the sleepy end up because they’ve missed their stop somewhere else. The wheat boom made this place swell with life, with the blood of eager men, with the sickness of greed, and now the boom has burst, the guts and blood of hopes and dreams splattered up and down the dusty streets. Still, the next year people believe they can conquer the elements, conquer nature, their own hubris leading the way in the dark, following the guidance of a false sun. So they who came have stayed, mostly — mostly because they follow promises like fireflies, winking in the night with just enough light to convince themselves the darkness won’t last.

It’s for this reason, these stragglers with misbegotten illusions of grandeur, that he moves without light, embracing the dark. The lock on the back door was rusted from the wind and dust storms, easily broken against the butt of his gun, but he moves, low and fast, as fast as his knees will allow, relieved to find the windows still boarded up and threads of curtains still covering the dirt-smeared glass. The office in the back is windowless, which will make rifling through it, checking for false bottoms and loose walls, easier. This building is technically abandoned but getting caught will mean he has to answer questions he’d rather not answer – to himself or anyone else. Which means moving quick through the front reception room and maintaining the utmost silence is paramount to –

crunch

Joel whips around, the grip around his Colt tightening briefly, and locks eyes with the fourteen-year-old behind him, crouched as low as he is. 

A red handkerchief around her neck, she scrunches her nose up in a grimace, teeth stacked in her mouth. Oops. Sorry. My bad. 

Dropping the barrel of his gun lower, he points to her other foot, frozen in the air, inches above another cracked plate of glass. He indicates it with the jerk of his gaze and she nods, hands raised, slowly backing up and off another potential alarm. Shaking his head, he eases forward on protesting knees, his own thick boots shuffling flat against the floor. He feels eyes on the back of him, watching how he navigates the shards littering the ground. 

Briefly listening for movement, he knocks back the office door with his shoulder, rising slowly in spite his screaming thighs, scanning the darkness before flicking on the light. The girl behind him shuffles in and shuts the door after her. 

He sees Ellie blink rapidly against the light, scowling behind her raised hand, before she takes a look around. 

“Shit, man, did a fucking bomb go off in here or something?”

People, like most pack animals, tend to react instead of think in moments of fear. Fear, like when their town’s only doctor takes off in the middle of the night with no warning. A bad omen, an egg forgotten until it starts to stink. 

“Dalhart got all pissed off when Eldelstein split. Came here to either ransack the place or take what they thought they were owed.” Joel moves to slides his gun into his waistband, but the muzzle keeps getting stuck on his belt. 

“Guess they thought they were owed a lot,” Ellie muses as she kicks over a broken plank of wood, adding to the debris that litters the dust-covered floors. She watches him struggle tugging his shirt out. “I can carry the gun, if you want. You know, if you need a hand free.” 

He responds with that glare, the glare that he often reserved only for her. Disapproving, unamused, but . . . Ellie smirks, hands up in the air. 

“Sorry I asked, man, just trying to help.” 

Joel nods sternly. “You heard what your aunt said. Help, but don’t touch. D’you need the list again?” 

She waves him off, wandering over to the overturned couch. “Nah, I know what I’m looking for. And you know she’s no fun anyway.”

He watches her, hesitant, as she crouches down by what used to be a consulting couch and peels back the wood planks and torn wallpaper. This isn’t the first time she’s done something like this – scavenging for supplies – and he is reminded again of the bits and pieces of Ellie’s old life he has picked up on over the past few months. Every time, it knots his stomach. 

Jaw tight in his head, grasping at that relentless focus that seems to be eluding him as of late, Joel overturns what used to be a desk to look for the latch you told him might be there. 

Just by the top drawer.

Your shoulder, then the crease of your arm had touched his as you leaned in towards the rough sketch you make of a doctor’s desk. You smelled like lilac and sunlight. There was a curl of hair on the back of your neck, loose as it curled down your throat, by your pulse. 

It’ll be small. Just a latch.

Your fingers had brushed his wrist, eyes downcast, lashes soft against the curve of your cheek. There was a smear of something green on the sleeve of your dress. Fresh grass, maybe? Herbs from the garden? The light behind you illuminated the thin skin of your ear, the supple drop of your earlobe.

You won’t need much pressure. Just a flick. It should open up under your thumb. You can’t miss it, Joel.

Joel.

“Joel!”

“What?” 

Ellie rolls her eyes at his nearly-bared teeth. “I’m gonna have my aunt look at your hearing, ‘cause there’s definitely something wrong with you.”

With a grunt, Joel kneels down and reaches into the far back of the desk where it is still held together in the corner, resolutely smothering the high flutter in his chest. His fingers touch something metal, something other than that green felt and split wood. He gets his thumb around it and it clicks.

“I found gauze and iodine,” Ellie says, holding up half a bottle and some dirty wrapping. “That wasn’t on the list she put together, but we probably need it, right?” 

He feels something give way, but it isn’t clear where. He eases the desk back further to try and lift it to the light. 

“Iodine is meant for keeping infections out. Wounds clean n’ all that.”

Ellie huffs, more exasperated this time. “I know that. That’s why I was asking.”

“Planning on getting wounded any time soon?”

“Fine, you jackass, I’ll just throw them out –,”

“Put ‘em in your pack if you’ve got room. Otherwise, we only take what we came here for.” 

With a light press, a small drawer eases open. Just a crack and barely enough to get his fingers inside, but he can see the bottle. Clear, made of glass, and filled with little white pills. 

Morphine. 

It had been his first idea when Sarah’s condition started to deteriorate, but the papers and medical journals he ordered in at the supply store about addiction kept him from ever really considering it as an option.  But with you here – and you had already done so much for her recovery – with you here –

I can manage it, Joel. They’ve done wonderful things with rehabilitation and comfort. I promise I will monitor her closely.

He knows a line should exist about what he would and wouldn’t allow for Sarah’s treatment, but as of late, that line has become so blurred he sometimes has to scramble to find it. 

Would and wouldn’t.

Should and shouldn’t. 

His feet are starting to sting from balancing on that knife’s edge these past few months.

He hears the pills rattle as he drops the bottle into the bottom of his canvas rucksack. Ellie’s buckling hers as Joel stands and joins her search of a knocked-over cabinet. Not much there either but cough syrup and penicillin. 

“What else you got?” 

“Some bandaids, a handful of calcidin tablets, and a busted hot water bottle that I think we could melt shut.” She adjusts the straps, her face serious. “Maybe he kept the good stuff for himself upstairs.” 

He nods to the fourteen-year-old with a knife in her sock and a hard scowl on her face. “Yeah, maybe.”

He objectively can see the absurdity of supply stealing with a girl barely older than a child, but in this world, in Dalhart, at the end of the line, there is always more innocence to be lost. He knew Sarah’s own childhood was not a normal one, not one that any fussy school marm would deem appropriate for a young girl, and so if he isn’t working himself to the bone in the fields, he is working himself tirelessly to shelter whatever is left of her youth. But, like so many other things, it feels gone already, passed on in a cloud of dust. 

He thinks, had her life been different – that look in her eyes only comes from being exposed to violence – Ellie might have been a bit softer at the edges, no different from any other teenager. He wonders, briefly, what happened to her that made her believe she has to carry a knife with her everywhere.

“We’ll go check but you’re gonna follow the rules, right?” 

Ellie’s shoulder slouch forward, buffeting air between her lips. “Stay behind you, stay low, and stay quiet. Oh, and help but don’t touch. I got it, I got it. ” 

“And here I thought it was physically impossible for you to listen,” he mutters as he flicks off the light and opens the door again. He crouches low again, easing out into the front hallway as bruised morning sunlight peaks in between the boarded windows. 

“Only one of us is deaf, old man,” she mutters gruffly over his shoulder. 

Across from the reception hall is where Eldelstein would receive and treat patients. Most likely the first place that was ransacked, but there might be things missed. He makes a note to circle back after checking the apartment upstairs, but now with it getting light out, he knows their time is limited. 

The Colt at his side, Joel shuffles up the wooden staircase, dirt and dust sitting heavy between the crevices. Without much surprise, he realizes he can barely hear Ellie behind him at all, as if she took to his flat-footed approach. 

In the few months that have passed, he’s come to learn that Ellie is a very quick learner. 

The second story is almost the exact layout as the office arrangement downstairs. A brief hallway with two doors. He glances over his shoulder, rewarding her trust with an opportunity to lead, and Ellie’s eyes widen in understanding. She frowns at the two closed doors, thoughtful, and then she shrugs. 

“I’ve always felt good about being a righty.”

With a shallow huff, he moves forward towards the right door, hand gently twisting the knob, finger hovering over the Colt’s trigger. The door squeaks open as it swings back, Joel against the doorframe until he can give the space one quick sweep of his gaze. Then he’s opening the door wider and pocketing the gun.

Here the damage is less. Less rage and more morbid curiosity. The few narrow beds are shoved haphazardly around the room as if someone went about kicking them aside. Old gray sheets lay in tangled bundles on the floor and the mattresses. Beat-up infusion stands are rusted and broken in the corner, one halfway stuck in a torn-up chunk of wall. A thin door at the far end of the room shielding a dark bathroom is missing its handle. Drawers are torn open, left hanging like loose teeth, violence as enjoyment. A patient recovery room, most likely, for those needing overnight care and –

She gasps sharply behind him before sprinting across the room, the floorboards shrieking.

“Ellie!”

“Joel, look, it’s a radio!” 

It’s about the size of her head, turned away and tilted on the back of a long shelf below the window, but she drags it forward, setting it in front of her and her fingers immediately fly to the knobs.

“I’m gonna shit a brick if this works–”

A faint crackle and her own gasp of delight. It’s not much, it’s hardly music, but there’s something there. She spins the dial, moving across radio waves, the faint yellow light flickering behind the numbered notches. Just as a voice breaks through the dusty speakers, the box hisses and the radio goes silent. 

“Okay, but you saw that, right? It worked for, like, ten whole seconds! If we take it home, I bet–,”

“No.” 

“Aw – what?” She frowns. “Why? C’mon. It’s one radio.”

“It’s too big and we can’t travel light with it.” 

“But I’ve got room in my pack –,”

“No.”

“Fine!” She flicks one of the broken dials off, scowling. “Whatever.” 

Her back turned to him, Ellie yanks open a nearby cabinet door, the lines of her shoulders tight. Joel watches her rummage around, a heavy weight in his gut, before he rights a fallen bedside table to get to the counter behind it. 

He finds scissors, a stitch kit, and saline solution. Behind him, he hears Ellie load her pack. 

The silence stretches, a handful of conversations pressing up to the back of his teeth before fading on his tongue. Sarah is rarely ever this annoyed with him – especially not as often as Ellie seems to be – and it doesn’t sit well with him, knowing Ellie is over there, stewing. 

He doesn’t want her angry with him, for no other purpose than she made Sarah happy. 

No other purpose at all. 

He’s reaching up, checking above a tall wooden wardrobe, when his hand bumps into something, a jar, and he remembers those comics she told Sarah about. Maybe some of them are around here somewhere. 

“Hey, Ellie, uh–,”

“Why hasn’t anyone found out about your homestead yet?” Ellie asks suddenly, her arm digging around behind a chipped bureau. “Or raided it? It’s just you and Sarah out there and people could . . . how do you keep it a secret?” 

His fingers close around the cool jar and he pulls it down. 

Luxor, the label reads. 

Hand cream. 

His dirty thumb smears brown over the lip of the jar. He thinks of delicate skin, raw pink, a painful pink. The thing he has in his hands would soothe that ache. He thinks this might form the words I thought of you when his own mouth fucking can’t. The muscle between his shoulder blades twinges painfully as he takes off his pack and slips the jar inside. 

The radio really would be too much weight, but . . .

“It’s complicated.” He tells Ellie. Across the room, she stills, turns around and looks at him straight on. This is the niece of someone who almost shot two Texas Rangers, who at fourteen carries a knife in her sock and won’t hesitate to use it. There is something wild in her eyes. 

“I don’t think it is.” Her tone edges the line between curiosity and taunt. Her eyebrows ride high on her forehead and her lips slightly purse, mouth centimeters from a smirk. She speaks quietly, honorifically. “I think it has something to do with why those ranger guys were so fucking scared of you they nearly shit themselves. I think it also has to do with Sarah.”

Eyes narrowed, locked across the recovery room. Careful. Be very careful. The jar offsets the distributed weight of his bag. 

“I don’t think anyone actually knows about her condition or how well the homestead is doing. And I think you’d fuck up a whole squad of those assholes to keep it that way.” The silence stretches but it’s sticky now. Ellie grins up at him, the secret she plucked from him sitting in her smile. “But don’t worry. I won’t tell.”

She smirks with the confidence of youth, a spark of naive innocence.

Joel scuffs his shoe on the ground, his hands going to his hips. “You’re right. I’d do anything to protect Sarah. To protect what’s mine.”

That smile drips off her face when he lifts his gaze. He lets it grow hard, weary – a warning. 

“I have done a lot of things – things I never want her to know about – to keep her safe. Those men, this town – they’re right to be afraid of me.” 

Ellie swallows around the weight of the room, her gaze metallic, bright and sharp. Her mouth is a straight line of barely contained victory. I knew it. 

She lifts her chin, hands curled at her side.

“How?”

“How what?”

“How do you make them afraid?” 

He can see a flash of bone between her lips – teeth, eagerness. And then in a blink, it’s gone. Wiped clean from a youthfully smooth face. Ellie drops his gaze, deflates, and stares at the floor. 

“I mean – it just seems like a lot – keeping it all a secret.” 

“It’s not. Not when it’s for her.” 

And it’s like he’s pressed roughly on a fresh bruise; she curls further into herself for protection, almost wincing. He suddenly remembers her half-snarl when he said there’d be twice as many mouths to feed if he took them in. A burden, twice as heavy. 

��Yeah, of course, she’s your kid.” 

Her rough voice is as physical and real as she is as she pushes past him, marching out of the room and twisting the handle of the closed door across the hall.

“It’s not much of a choice then, is it?” She says, loudly, the door squeaking as it opens. 

Behind him, over his shoulder, the door to the bathroom slams shut – a draft. His heart pitches in his chest – he’s seen how you and Ellie have reacted before at loud noises and certainly slammed doors before – he hears her soft gasp, her narrow back tight in the frame of the door, but it’s different from one from the one he expects, one of learned skittishness. It’s a boneless sort of horror, wet, sudden, cold – he fights the urge to tug her out of the room by her collar. But she’s already seen it. There’s no taking it back.

The smell is horrendous. The blockage by the door must have masked the stench because with the door open, there is no denying the scent of rotten flesh. 

Someone who was unlucky enough to get caught up in the crazed fervor of the lynch mob meant for Eldelstein? Someone who deserved it, maybe? Whatever and whoever they were, they make up a mutilated shadow beneath the far window, the soft bits of their flesh a home for flies and maggots. The room is dark, drained of sunlight and the sense that anything living ever existed inside its walls. Boarded up and stale, it stinks of a graveyard, but one without coffins, where the bodies are left to ooze and decay and spill out into the wet soil. It stinks of putrefaction, of tainted earth and poisoned air.

But Ellie doesn’t scream. Doesn’t turn. Doesn’t run. Doesn’t cry. 

Just stares wide-eyed and inhales. 

Joel watches and waits for her. Watches because he recognizes that hard, blank look on her face, one that is familiar to him and far too old for her. Waits because he doesn’t know how to react because this activation is so unlike Sarah. 

There are not many fourteen year olds who would barely flinch when eye-to-eye with death.

He stands behind her, a physical presence larger than herself, something bigger and scarier than all the flies and maggots in the world. 

“Is this your first time seeing somethin’ like this?”

Her answer doesn’t entirely surprise him: she shakes her head. 

He nods and takes the handle from her. He gently shuts the door, inches in front of Ellie’s face. “I think we got all we needed. Ready to go?”

She nods, then heads for the stairs, not taking another second to look back at the room with the radio.

The metal teeth of the cultivator catch and drag over a large dirt clod and with a grunt, you shatter it with a few good thwaps. When you stand, sweat races down the back of your neck and between the cotton straps of your bra, cooling the heat of your skin. Your muscles throb pleasantly beneath sunlight. It’s a sensation you’d never had before coming here, to Joel’s homestead, but one you had quickly gotten used to. 

You are not the same girl who came here all those months ago.

You first noticed it when stepping out of the bath one summer morning and your eyes caught yourself in the mirror. 

There are no divots in your hips any more. The deflated skin around your ribs has filled in. Your body – a thing that had merely housed you and sometimes betrayed you to slow down and eat, and ached when you didn’t – had changed. Without you knowing, seemingly overnight, your clay sculpture had been remade. Rebuilt and reborn. For the first time in what felt like years, you wondered how you appeared to another person. 

Thin and skeletal, you had offered nothing to anyone because there was nothing for you to give. But, at the homestead, around Joel with Sarah and a kitchen and abundant food, that had changed. Things swelled here, near him, made ripe and sweet. A vitality returned, flooded in, and you, with your thin petals and wilted spine, blossomed. There’s now the inkling of a person in the mirror, one that hadn’t existed with your husband and now you wondered who she might be. 

And yet, while you flourished with regular meals and the stability of Ellie’s safety, the vitality of the land itself had seemingly dried up to a trickle. The last rain was days ago, the downpour offering even less than the previous one. 

You squat to your ankles, balancing the cultivator against your weight, and press your fingers into the ground. Dry. Delicate. An absence, and an unusual one at that. The dirt trickles off your fingers like sand. The sun’s heat prickles your entire back, oppressive and stifling. A drop of sweat slips off your nose, a finger wagging at you: you can’t deny this anymore. 

This is the same baked and dry earth that had been found on the southwest edge of the property, beneath the waves of dust that had blown in, covering the crops and grass in a gnarly, heavy film. Joel decided to cut his losses there and replant what he could, closer north, nearer to the river. But the look in his eyes was beyond frustration or annoyance. He moved with quick, long strides covering the fields with his tools and the horse. Agitated, maybe – a shark rechecking and double checking the edges of its territory. 

And then the next morning, in the blue of dawn, with the smell of fresh coffee drawing him out of his room and down the stairs where you stood trying to decide whether or not you liked the taste, he asked if you knew how to rake crop stripes.

No, you told him honestly. That didn’t seem to surprise him, but he postponed the lesson you had for Ellie and Sarah that day to diligently walk you through the tools that hung on the wall of the barn. He wasn’t satisfied until you knew them all by name, what their purpose was, and how to properly maintain them. Then, he broke down the pieces of the plow – what they’re called, how they connect, and what to check for before loading up the plow onto the horse.

Sarah and Ellie gleefully watched from the porch that following morning– their chores mysteriously done faster than a blink of an eye – as he had you strip down the tack, clean the leather, and reassemble it. Then he made you haul the plow onto Everrett, never once offering to help. But by the set of his jaw, you knew it wasn’t out of cruelty or distaste. By the time sweat was pouring down your back, the afternoon sun beating down on your exposed ears and neck, you realized he wanted to make sure you could do it all on your own.

By the end of the week, you knew as much as any farm hand. In practice at least. 

But another week went by and Joel never mentioned the lesson, or any further ones. 

Until the morning you came downstairs to find a man’s work shirt and pants waiting for you on the kitchen table. 

Your thin dresses wouldn’t protect you from the sun, he posited, his broad back to you as he poured himself a cup of coffee. The hat he left you was a little too big, as were the clothes. You’d never seen him wear them, but you kept your questions about the original owner to yourself. He didn’t seem to mind when you altered the pant’s hemline and brought in the waist of the shirt. 

Who’s Annie Oakley now? Sarah giggled when you tried on the hat for the first time. 

You could hardly recognize the woman underneath it. 

From there your lessons became about crop rotation, polyculture, and agrochemicals. He had you walk beside him in the rows of crops as he pushed Everrett along with the plow, identifying out loud any signs of vascular wilting, necrosis, and soft rot or tumors. Bacterial diseases were particularly devastating to crops, he said, eyes forward and sweat rolling down his temples, the muscles of his shoulders straining beneath the tight straps of the suspenders hooked into his belt loops. The heat of the sun spreading to your cheeks, you were grateful for the excuse to keep your eyes trained on the ground. 

Leaf blight, he warned, was also very common in young crops – caused by the fungus Cercospora carotae. You asked him then if Sarah had been taught any Latin. His cheeks were flushed pink, but that was probably due to the heat more than anything else. 

Over time and at Joel’s side, you eventually felt confident in your new knowledge. Memorization had never been a problem for you and witnessing the theoretical application of the knowledge in real time helped significantly. However, it was the physical application where things got difficult. 

The day he let you push the plow, he wore a familiar expression all morning. Jaw clenched, Jaw tight, nostrils flared, it was the same look he wore when you approached Sarah during her first fit. He was helpless when you angled the share into the dirt and tore the ground apart. The sight of his furrowed brow knotted your stomach, but you pressed on. You pushed forward, one step after another, just as you had seen him do more than a dozen times. You could almost retrace his steps in your mind’s eye.

With him a hair’s breadth behind you, quickly barking out commands if you strayed a centimeter out of a straight line, something occurred to you.This was no longer a job for you. This was living proof you could take something in your hands and make it better. All your life you had been subservient to someone; a doctor at the hospital, your manager at the diner, your husband in that goddamned dug out – they all held power over you and your choices. But you knew this was different. You knew if you could eventually prove to Joel that you were worthy of being trusted with his land, then he would treat you as an equal. So you pressed on. You pushed yourself until your skin baked in the sun, until sweat dripped from your neck, until blood spilled from your cracked hands. 

Under Joel’s supervision, you fed the land with your blood. 

And six weeks later, the blisters on your hands had calcified, proof and reward of your dedication. You had muscles, hard and lean, strengthened joints and flexible tendons. The molten steel of your body, your form, had finally solidified. 

Your days started alongside Joel’s now, instead of divided by domestic spaces. Some days, he lingered inside even longer than you, polarized positions of where you stood weeks ago: you unlocking the barn, loading the horse and driving out into the fields while he stood at the window, a mug of coffee in his hands. He never made you wait for long, usually offering you a full canteen of water for the day, a single nod before you worked opposite ends to meet in late afternoon. 

But there were times – instances, occasions – that you think, you wonder, if, from the window, he still was watching you. 

Thoughts of his face, all lines and dark eyes, as he held your palm up to the heavens that night in Sarah’s room trickle in when you rest idly, in the seconds before you sleep. When you let your unconscious awareness drift. Which, fortunately, didn’t often happen out in the fields, especially not when Joel had told you about another threat to the crops; what to look for and where to find it. 

And worrisomely, you had – again: dry, inhospitable earth. 

You frown at it beneath your hat, the sun’s touch hot around your shoulders and spine, a low skirting wind by your ankles. An infection spreading. Joel won’t like this, not at all, but he’ll know of some way to shelter the crops. An alteration with the irrigation system, maybe? 

Flora huffs at you, eyeing you with a twitching tail. How much longer are we gonna be out here?

“It’s hot, girl, I know, I’m sorry.” You pat her speckled rump. “We’ll be done soon.” 

Whenever Joel gets back. 

Dusting your knees off, you stand and take a small stake with a white flag from the cart. 

Beneath the bag of staked flags sits your handgun. It hasn’t been used once in these past months, but Joel never lets you go into the fields without it. More often than not, he makes you keep it physically on your person – in a pocket, in your socks, somewhere within reach – but the sight of it sickens you, the horror of what you almost had to do that night you met Joel. How easily you were willing to do it for Ellie. How easily you’d do it again, to keep her safe. 

But now he expects you to do the same for Sarah and this homestead in his absence: protect at the cost of violence. 

The longer the gun sits out in the open, glinting sharply in the sun, the guiltier you feel. 

The breeze comes not a moment too soon. It breathes across your clavicle, the muscles of your throat. It draws your gaze up, outward, to the line of white flags peeking out of the ground. Soldiers in a row, surrender fluttering in the wind. Grave markers of failed crops. You forget the gun as your stomach turns at the sight of the fields full of little white flags.

The land is ill. You can’t deny this anymore.

The breeze thickens to a harsh blow and you grab your hat to keep it steady. Under the rush by your ears, you hear your name. By the house, under the wired row of drying clothes, Sarah waves to you – too far away to hear anything distinct, but she’s pointing and waving to the road and a cloud of smoke barreling down it. 

No, not smoke. Dust. Two figures atop a white horse racing through the chalk of the earth. 

Ellie.

And Joel.

Flora lets out an audible groan of relief when you take her reins and pull her back towards the house, the cart of flags clicking behind you. You wonder if he’ll see the line of flags from the road.

The barn is quiet in the late afternoon heat. You hear june bugs chitter in the rafters as you unclip Flora from the wagon and lead her to a stable. Fauna’s big ears flap towards her sister, brown eyes sparkling, almost bragging.

Ha, ha, you had to be in the fields today.

“None of that,” you scold, as you loosen the leather cord around your jaw and let your hat fall back against your shoulders. “You’ll be getting it soon enough, missy.” 

“You know, talking to animals is the first sign of going crazy.” 

Sarah slides silently through the side door and offers you a towel. She smells of soap, her bouncy hair pulled back today, her smile soft and warm, and you take it, rubbing it up behind your neck. 

“Well, at least I get a warning,” you grin. Sarah was no longer the same plagued girl you met those months ago. 

The ground had shifted in more ways than one the morning of Sarah’s recovery. Of course, there was still pain and soreness, but for the first time in months, she felt strong enough to walk around without her braces. She couldn’t run, couldn’t move fast, but standing next to Ellie, there was nothing that would suggest them any different. She seemed taller, hair bouncier, a focused glint in her eye that wasn’t there before, as if she alone had decided something rather vital. 

Her treatments of warm compresses and exercises went from daily to weekly to now every other week. Once she’d seen you walk through the steps of her therapy, she started to do it on her own in her room. Preventative and calculating. 

The days she can now spend outside doing laundry and planting fresh herbs have done her good. Her healthy skin glows. 

But there’s something delicate about the way she does, or rather, does not look at you now in the barn. An energy you can’t quite place, one that seems to hum louder as the months pass. She watches you, a placid smile on her face, her shoulders halfway turned to the barn door as if she wants to be the first one to see them open. 

“Has Ellie come by yet?” She asks breezily, her fingers lightly running against the edge of the stack of towels tucked up under arm. “I saw my dad walk off to the house, but she wasn’t with him.”

“No, I haven’t. But if they’re back, she should be around here somewhere. Is there something wrong? Are you alright?”

Sarah inhales, round eyes widening – caught – but she shakes her head. “No, of course not. I just . . . I’m just wondering if they had a successful trip.” 

If you knew her better than only for six weeks, you’d think she might be anxious. She goes quiet as she watches the barn doors. The arch in her neck belies tension. You realize she has one of your dresses folded over her arm. 

“Sarah, are you –,”

Everett’s irritated whinny cuts you short and the barn door is thrown back as a short figure tugs the off-white horse into the cool half-light. 

“Yeah, I know I smell. It’s not like you’re a bucket of roses either, pal.” 

At least crazy runs in the family. 

“How was the run?” Sarah asks immediately as Everett clops by dramatically, the weight of the world seemingly on his hooves. The kerchief around Ellie’s neck is crusted over with dirt. 

“Good. Really good, actually. Got a shit load of supplies.” 

Ellie, another changed casualty in all of this. Except, instead of shedding an old skin, she’s grown a new one. The original. Something that, perhaps, always was there. 

She removes the saddle with practiced ease, despite it being nearly twice her size, and puts it on the stock post, just as Joel had shown her. She returns to Everett with a brush and a blanket, because the sun is going down soon and the night will be cold – just like Joel had told her. She banters a bit with Sarah, the work almost mindless with her confidence.

She has taken to this life like a fish takes to water, as Anna would have said. 

But what would your sister think of this life you had rushed her daughter into? Are calloused hands and thick, ruddy skin – supply runs into ghost towns – all that she wanted for her only child?

This, among threads of Joel, keeps you up at night. 

But these are the least of Sarah’s concerns about Ellie. Her fingers dig into your dress as if to physically stop herself from lunging forward. 

“What’s the town like? Are there people still there? Has anyone new come in?”

Ellie shrugs as she unhooks Everett’s bridle. “Boring, like four, and I probably wouldn’t know.” Ellie’s eyes widen, a small smile unfurling across her lips. “But we found a radio. Joel said we couldn’t keep it but – oh, wait, Joel said he was looking for you. Had something he wanted to show you.” 

You blink as Ellie and Sarah, in twin movements, glance to you.

“Oh? What was it?”

“I dunno. But he’s up in the kitchen unpacking the supplies if you wanna go ask.” 

“Was there–,” The corners of Sarah’s mouth goes red as she is suddenly seized by a violent, hacking cough. Both you and Ellie move towards her, but she waves you off. She steps back, turning her mouth into her elbow, her back shuddering as she gasps in air only to choke on it again. 

“Must’ve – breathed wrong–,” her eyes are watery. “I’m – fine.” 

In recent weeks, despite the rest of her body prospering, Sarah’s cough had turned rather rough. But every time you check her airways, she’s clear. Still, the concern lingers – you see it in Ellie’s eyes too. It’s not the kind of cough that comes from polio, you know this. You self-soothe with this. But you think of the white flags in the fields and something sour rolls down your spine.

You meet Ellie’s gaze while Sarah’s back is turned. Excitement, agitation, they had been bringing on more and more coughing spells – whenever Sarah tried to breathe too deeply. Ellie shakes her head at you, jerking her head back towards the house. I got this. In a low tone, she offers Sarah some water who drinks it gratefully. 

 It’s not the kind of cough that comes from polio.

The last bit of sunlight drips down below the horizon, lazy and pungent. A quick glance out to the fields, you can barely see the flags in the periwinkle distance. The air is warm, buzzing with a lingering heat from the escaping sun. You inhale, closing your eyes just for a moment, as you slope up the creaking wooden steps to the porch, and exhale, a chaff of tension sliding off your shoulders. 

When you first came here, you could barely stand the thought of being alone in the same room as him, just like with any other man. But eventually you learned that Joel Miller is unlike any other man in the world, unlike anyone you’ve ever met before. The foreign alchemy of his quiet nature, his diligence over the land, and his deep, endless well of love for Sarah was all at once confusing and – strangely – exciting. 

Earning Joel’s trust precipitated a steady climb or thundering fall – you just weren’t sure which yet. 

Despite the lateness of the hour, Joel hasn’t turned on the kitchen lights, coating the kitchen in a film of purple, blurring edges, and spreading shadows. His broad back greets you first, arm still deep in his pack at the table, when you shut the back door and move for the sink. 

“Ellie says the supply run went well. I hope that means you didn’t run into any trouble.” The rushing of the faucet saves him from having to answer, but you feel his eyes on your back, your shoulders, the flat seat of your hat between your shoulder blades. Brown muck runs down the drain. 

“It was fine. Did she mention anything?”

“No.” You shake your head, digging at the dirt under your nails with another hand. “Why? What did you find?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary, at least.” 

Joel never rushes unless he means to. He holds everything in before he speaks, each word as deliberate as the sway of his shoulders, the crunch of his knuckles. But this – how he talks now as if the words he says are chosen at the very last second – it feels like he’s hiding something.

In the failing light, you face him, eyebrows tugged down. 

“Joel? What is it?” 

At the table, he’s no longer digging around in the pack. With one hand on the table, fingers lightly pressing into the wood surface, he stands as if bracing for impact. He works his jaw back and forth, eating letter after letter, word after word, until –

“C’mere.” 

The deep timber of his voice strokes the back of your neck, releasing a quiver down your spine, heart suddenly up in your throat. It’s not fear you’re feeling, not exactly, but it makes you break out in goosebumps all the same. 

You go to him without question. 

But like a magnet repelled, he steps back the closer you get. With his gaze, he points to the array of supplies. On the table, in almost a sterile, clinical order, is the cache of medical items you requested. Medicine for Sarah, potential treatments for burns or cuts. The bigger items like splints or canes aren’t there, you didn’t expect them anyway, but you could treat the four of you for months with what they’ve found. You open your mouth, praise and appreciation on the tip of your tongue, but he still hasn’t looked up, hasn’t looked at you. He stares at the pack on the table with trepidation.

Wordlessly compelled, you reach into the nearly empty pack until your hand closes around one single item.

You draw it out, the jar cool against your overheated skin.

Luxor. You can’t tear your eyes away from the glass jar. 

His voice is so rough it barely makes it out of his mouth.

“For burns.” His gaze drops to your hands, which have since healed after the night of Sarah’s fit. Weeks ago, in fact. “It wasn’t on the list, but –,”

Oh, Joel. Your throat is sealed shut. You have to nearly wrench your jaw open to push words out of your mouth.

“No, no, that’s fine – that’s –,” you press the glass to the spread of your clavicle to ease your pounding heart. 

This wasn’t on the list. And yet he . . .

Your choice was either to look at him or shatter apart. 

How can a man almost fifty years old look so boyishly uncomfortable? 

“This . . . I . . . this is wonderful. Thank you, Joel. I mean it. Thank you so much. ”

You can already smell the rose water. You wonder if Joel likes the smell of rose water. His jaw unclenches enough, relieved, and his lips almost form – a memory, a dream, an aspiration of – a smile, and he says: 

“You’re welcome.”

In the half-light, you stare at him far longer than you ever have before – and he stares right back. 

In the half-light, you hear it, louder and more cruel than before:

You can’t deny this anymore.

“Okay, who can tell me the difference between genus and family in biological classification?”

One hand in the air.

“Yes?”

“A genus contains one or more species. A family contains one or more genera.”

“Correct. And how does this relate to our lesson last week?”

“We were identifying different species of crops, but how they often overlap in genera.” 

“Correct again.” 

You bend over and pick up the basket at your feet. In the motion, you can feel your dress unstick itself from the warm dampness clinging to your skin beneath your armpit. The summer day is hot, scorchingly so, and only made worse by the lack of a breeze and the immobile stench of cow in the barn air. It’s a different kind of smell than the one that soaked your husband’s dugout – burnt cow chips –  but it is still gut-churningly familiar. You wonder if Ellie remembers that smell as intensely as you do. 

But if she does, she doesn’t show it. Ellie always could hide her emotions better than you. Head down, she draws circles on the wooden table with her finger, side-by-side with Sarah. The girls’ chairs come from the dining room and the table is an old woodworking mount that Joel repurposed for your classroom. It’s uneven and heavy, but the wood is as smooth as butter. After the harvest, he promised a new one, but you don’t think you could bear getting rid of it.

Ellie jumps when you drop the basket in front of her. You return to the back of the barn, gather up another basket, and leave this one with Sarah, whose eyes grow wide when she catches a glimpse of the contents inside. 

With the single square of chalkboard, made from paint and grout, and a rapidly-dwindling nugget of chalk, you write three words:

Genus

Common name

Poisonous

The chalk clicks as you press a small circle beneath the question mark. 

“You have ten minutes to identify the genus of each of the mushrooms within your basket, as well as its common name and whether or not it’s poisonous.” 

Sarah sits up even further in her chair, eyes bright and mouth a sharp line. She loves pop quizzes. 

You had thought of Ellie’s strokes with her knife outside at sunset, her physicality with the animals, and her near abhorrence for traditional learning when designing this particular test. Despite her resistance to any sort of structure, Ellie had been quick to follow directions and provide support as Anna got sicker and sicker. Ellie would make a good nurse – a good anything – but that potential only simmers, never indulged. Anna would have known how to bring it out in her, you often think. The best you can do is try and adjust your lesson to make this at least partially entertaining for her. 

Her forehead shining, her gaze brushes each mushroom in the basket with slow intention.

“Licking them probably won’t help, right?” She smirks at you as she plucks one out and spins it with her fingers. Smartass, as always, but for once – engaged. You try to muffle the spark of excitement in your fingertips.

“That’s one way to determine if they’re poisonous or not,” you reply just as flippantly. “But you’d better be sure.” 

Ellie’s smirk lightens to a grin, her head tucking down as she starts to rifle through her basket. Sarah already has her basket empty and is sorting her mushrooms into the corners of her table. She hasn’t once looked up from her task since you set the timer. Head down, eyes bright, lips tucked tightly between her teeth, you can almost hear her reviewing her notes in her head as she carefully picks up each mushroom, testing the spongy flesh with her thumbnail, watching if any flakes fall off, and glancing at your handmade chart of the animal classifications every few touches. 

Ellie merely sniffs hers. 

You turn, hiding your grin to catch a glimpse of the outside blue sky.

The timer goes off and Flora groans at the loud noise. Sarah correctly identifies all the mushrooms, while Ellie only knows the poisonous kinds. Close enough and perhaps most practical. 

“Just so you know,” Ellie begins to Sarah, head again in the cradle of her palm, her eyes watching you as you swipe the mushrooms back into the basket, “most pop quizzes aren’t fun like that at a real school. Usually it’s just math and the clock makes an annoying little ticking noise the entire time.”

Sarah’s eyes brighten, I love math clearly on the tip of her tongue, before she settles a bit and she scoffs, sophomorically indignant. 

“Yeah, of course, I know that.”

“So you better hope they keep the school shut down for a long, long time.” Ellie leans back in her seat and presses the soles of her sneakers to the edge of the table. “That place is the worst.” 

Sarah shrugs, practicing some of Ellie’s casual indifference. “You’re probably right. It’s definitely lame. Just . . . it would be kinda cool for a change of scenery or whatever.”

“Um, you’re not gonna get a better change of scenery than this.” Ellie bats her eyelashes with her eyes crossed, tongue out, and Sarah giggles. 

“Oh, whatever,” she swats Ellie across her shin, “like you wouldn’t go crawling up the walls if you had to live here every single day, day in and day out.”

You slow in your collection of your supplies, something she said the day of the supply run scuttling up the banks of your memory to prod you in the back of your head. Ellie concedes by crossing her arms, contemplative. “Still better than school.” 

“How long did you go to the school in Dalhart?” You ask as you erase the white chalk on the board. 

“Since it opened,” Sarah replies. “I hadn’t gotten sick yet and it wasn't anything special. It was kinda far from here, but Dad always made sure I got there on time. He always wanted me to get an education, focus on school and studying. He never wanted me to be a farmer like him.”

That sends the front leg’s of Ellie’s chair to the hard, packed dirt. “Really? Why?”

“I dunno. But I guess it all worked out. I’m better at memorization and trig than I am at carrying a saddle.”

“What’s trig?” Ellie asks, head tilted. 

“It’s a kind of math –,”

“Advanced math,” you interject. 

“Yeah, I guess. But my teacher at school really made it fun! She’d stay after class and show me things that weren’t in the textbooks, or even in the syllabus. And Sam, he’d –,” 

All at once, Sarah’s mouth snaps shut, her eyes diving to the floor. She tugs a bouncy curl behind her ear as Ellie’s frown deepens.

“Sam? Who’s Sam?” 

“No one. He was just – this boy – in my grade and he was really good at trig too and he lived right outside Dalhart for years and sometimes he’d help me when I got stuck on certain problems,” Sarah rambles, her voice a tick higher. “His family left the year they shut the school down.”

You stifle a grin. A crush. Sarah Miller has a crush on a boy. Even at the end of the line, at the end of hope. 

Ellie, however, remains completely baffled.

“Yeah and? He’s just some guy.”

Sarah blanches at the suggestion that she might have to defend him past being “just some guy” while trying to keep her secret of him being “the guy” all at once, so you step in and save her.

“Did you ever spend time with Sam outside of school?”

Sarah shakes her head no. 

“Not even with a group of people?”

At that, she bites the corner of her mouth, the heel of her brown boot circling in the dirt. You know her cheeks are fire-hot.

“No. My dad totally would have found out.” 

Ellie stares at both of you as if you had started speaking gibberish. And then she blinks.

“Oh – you mean like a date.”

“Who’s going on a date?” 

The three of you jump at the masculine voice that breaks out from the back of the barn. Those thick brows furrow in as Joel visibly wonders if he walked into something he shouldn’t have. On the days you have class, he spends his time repairing things around the farm, often taking stock of the cellar in preparation for the harvest and then the winter. Whatever he had been working on has a wet flush peeking out from under his collar – not the heated lather that comes from the fields, but a run-off of the hot summer day. He wipes his brow, mouth parted slightly.

You stand upright, as if the headmaster had just strolled in. Well, to a certain point, he had. 

Ellie, with the least amount of skin in the game, rolls her eyes.

“We were talking about boys.”

One of those dark eyebrows twitch up as his gaze roams from Ellie to you to Sarah, who you think you see sink a fraction of an inch in her chair. 

“Oh.”

“We were learning about poisonous fungi as part of the curriculum on important flora,” you say pointedly to Ellie. “That particular topic came up at the end of the lesson. Both girls scored very well on their pop quiz.”

Joel nods, wiping his hands on his shirt. 

This Joel, the By-the-Light-of-Day Joel, is different from the Joel that meets you on the purple, blurry edge of night and day. The shadows that soften the world soften him too, the hidden planes of his face affording you delusions of further softness regarding his own feelings towards you – feelings of, if not companionship, at least respect. There were times you were righteously sure of how and where you stood in Joel Miller’s eyes – he appreciated you enough to watch over his land and his daughter – and then there were times you could have been on entirely different planets. A twisted Space Family Robinson, alone and lost in the cold vacuum. 

The Joel that gave you the cream for your burned palms is not the same Joel that stands before you. He fidgets with the rag in his hand, weight shifting uneasily from one foot to the other. Sweat leaks into your hairline, and you are suddenly overcome by the desire for him to look at you. 

“Given how close it is to the harvest, I thought having some extra hands who know what we’re looking for might help. Might be useful to you.”

“Yeah.” He nods slowly, as his gaze falls to Sarah. “But I don’t want you overworking anything.” 

Her eyelashes flutter as she rolls her eyes to the ceiling. “I’m not overworking myself. I’ve been studying, like you asked.” 

“And it shows in your work.” You smile. Sarah pins you with her own vulnerable gaze. “You’re an excellent student, Sarah.” 

The tension in her shoulders eases and she sits up straighter, grinning. 

Something flashes across Ellie’s face out of the corner of your eye and she leans forward, mouth twisted with a thick smirk.

“Bet you were a lot better student with Saaam around!”

“Ellie, shut up!” She springs up in agitation, her eyes wide, her jaw tight as she rounds on the other girl.

“Who’s Sam?”

“The boy Sarah’s going on a date with–,”

“I am not!” Sarah snaps, her voice wavering at the end. 

Those dry lips curl up, a smile hidden somewhere beneath that wiry beard, and Joel puts his hands on his hips. “I know that’s right. No dating ‘til you’re thirty.” 

Sarah’s grip tightens around the back of her chair, her mouth tipped down, eyes blazing. 

“That’s not funny, Dad.”

“I’m not tryin’ to be funny,” he replies, very seriously. “Just want you to know the rules.”

Whether or not Joel actually has any rules around Sarah’s dating life, it doesn’t matter. That’s not the point.

The point is that he very clearly, unintentionally or not, brushed up against something that, for Sarah, was very, very tender. 

She stands, awkwardly lurching out of her chair as it catches on the dirt floor. Her delicate fingers clenched into fists, she darts off for the back door.

“It’s not like anything’d ever happen anyway,” and she’s out into the sunlight. 

By the shocked look on Joel’s face, that might be the first teen tantrum he’s ever witnessed. Instinctively, he takes a step forward, an apology in the curve of his lips, but you reach out with a hand, even though he’s several feet from you.

“Joel –,” your fingers flutter close, politely rejecting the implication they know what his skin feels like. “Just give her some time.” You glance at Ellie, whose expression is dark, confused. “Both of you. She needs some time to cool down.”

Joel frowns at you, more at your words, evidently just as confused as Ellie. Of course a man could not fathom why it would feel so ridiculously cruel to a girl to be teased about a boy by her father. You smile at Joel’s instinct, your own father never possessing such a level of concern. A girl could be such a fragile thing after all.

“Would you talk to her? After she, hm, has some space?” 

His thumb anxiously edges the ridges of his forefinger, then his palm. He looks at you, uncomfortable, as if his request is particularly unwieldy, too much for anyone but him to bear. But, to you, this gift is lighter than air.

Joel’s trust makes your heart soar. 

Only to come crashing down. 

You are not capable of this kindness, this nurturing, guiding hand that some women and men ingratiate on instinct alone. You’ve failed Ellie, you know – you feel it in the distance between you and your niece – the best you can offer is a teacher, a thoughtful friend whose insular life is a world away entirely. No more, even when she needs it the most.

Nurture. It’s not what you do. 

“I – I can’t – I don’t know what – would she even listen to me because I don’t think –,”

There’s a conviction in his eyes as he looks at you that wasn’t there when you first set foot on the homestead, an acquired belief that had grown over the past few weeks with you as you learned and serviced the land under his guiding hands. 

That ping of his steel gaze against the porcelain of your skin. It makes something within you sing. 

  “Alright, Joel. I’ll try.” 

Quietly, without much conjecture or fanfare, Sarah has taken over doing the laundry for the whole house.

She rises with the sun. Not the blurry violet light smearing shadows, but the dawn – bold, bright, loud and full of thunderous color. She rises in the gold morning and, arms full of sweaty, dirt-thick clothes, she gathers them all into a white wicker basket and takes them out into the backyard near the spigot and the wide, low-set wooden basin. From the time you see the screen door shutter open until the moment you and Joel guide the heat-lathered animals back into the barn, she scrubs the dirt loose on the metal washboard then pinches the clothes high in the white, dry air.

And then, in the falling darkness, she carries her wicker basket, attached to her hip, around the house, laying out towels in the proper cupboards, and folded shirts smelling of sun-drenched air inside heavy dresser drawers. She tucks her dresses inside the line-thin wardrobe and, occasionally, she lays yours out on the bed. 

So it’s not entirely surprising to find her in the room you share with Ellie – the room that used to hold storage, old suitcases, and paintings, things of Joel’s foremothers and forefathers, where Ellie has now started to store her collection of unearthed arrowheads and snake skins – standing at the foot of your bed, with your yellow dress between her fingers. 

What is surprising, however, is the reverent, almost-delicate way she touches the buttons, strokes the faded lace, pinches the thin fabric between her fingers, like it’s made of threaded gold. Like it’s so much more than just a dress.

You watch her for a moment, from the shadows of the hallway. With Ellie, you never had to pick apart her feelings – either she made them known or would snap and snarl at anyone who dared to coax them out. Anna had eventually stopped coming to you for advice as you both got older, deciding to handle her personal problems all on her own because everything you said turned out wrong. You worked so well with your hands because your mouth couldn’t be trusted to be of any help.

And yet, looking at a girl who is brave and curious, but perhaps as lonely as you are – maybe you could just speak from the heart instead. As you get closer, under the sloshing anxiety, curiosity tugs on you: why did she come here – to your room? 

“My mother gave me that.” Sarah jumps at your voice, the late afternoon sun through the window coaxing the russet out of her curls and her large brown eyes. She drops your dress as if she had been snooping around in your things as opposed to simply doing her self-assigned chores and steps back. 

“I’m sorry – I-I didn’t mean to stare. It’s just . . . it’s pretty.” 

“She made it by hand,” you say. “But you have dresses just as pretty, Sarah.” 

You slide away from the door frame to touch the dress on the bed. It had been your mother’s. You always hated it. You thought, briefly, when she first tossed it to you, that it might be cursed. Might bring down your father’s eye towards you, away from her for once. And you had been right – sort of. He came for you all the same, the dress nothing but a waving flag that to him signaled your own complicity. But Sarah stares at it with a certain fascination, roused into alertfulness by something awakening inside her. 

The conditions of the farm, of being field hand, barely lent itself to the constriction of being beautiful, of being lovely and soft. You, like every other challenge that had been placed in front of you, swallowed that fact whole; an acceptance that Joel didn’t seem to care what you wore because he didn’t care to look at you at all. 

You sit on the bed, watching the young girl in front of you. She’s made improvements, her health not the underlying current in every room for weeks now, but now, sitting so close to her, you can see the weight of that disease. The weight of an unconscious consumption in a conscious body. Sarah’s hand trembles as she touches the dress again. 

“I don’t have anything of my mother’s,” she says simply. “I don’t have anything I didn’t make or my dad bought in Dalhart.” 

The dress means so much to her precisely because it’s your mother’s. Sarah doesn’t know how she fell apart, just that she raised you. Staring at your mother’s dress, you are quite confident that she would hiss and spit at the hard woman you’ve become. For once, and gratefully, this dress no longer feels like hers, or yours because you had avoided the same fate that befell her while entombed in this dress. And you weren’t about to subject Sarah to your family’s curse. 

You stand and pull out a blue pin-striped dress from your drawer, one that you’d had since you were her age, but one that never seemed quite right and over the years had grown too short on your calves and too small around the waist. You take it out and hold it over her shoulders.

“I think this is about your size.” You inspect it thoughtfully. “Have it. Wear it for the next school year. Or, one day, on your first day as a freshman in college.” 

She peels the dress away from her body like it sticks uncomfortably to her skin and laughs – a huff, a sharp release between tight ribs. 

“I don’t think so.” 

“You don’t like it?” Your heart seizes – did you say the wrong thing?

“Oh, no, no, no – I do – it’s beautiful, I’m sorry, I mean – but school – college – I don’t think it’s for me.” 

The dress bunches in her fists as she holds it in her lap. She hasn’t drawn it towards her but hasn’t set it on the bed. You frown. She is capable enough to pass the entrance exams and she knows it too. This is something else, something you could see she didn’t want to address directly, or simply couldn’t. 

Your mother’s yellow dress was a signal for you too: a blazing icon, a silent voice screaming –  you don’t belong with these people with whom you share only blood. You do not belong to them.

The silence stretches thin, lean and taught. You don’t know how to pick up the threads of her denials, so you simply march forward, into the crux of things.

“I was wondering if we could talk about today.” You start over. “An outburst like that isn’t all like you at all, Sarah, and your father and I are concerned. You know he was just teasing you.”

Her hands tighten their grip around the folds of your dress. “I know.” She squeezes her eyes shut. The silence lingers, sitting down heavy on the mattress underneath you. What do you say to a fourteen year old whose girlhood was vastly different from yours? Who has a father that loves her and a safe place to sleep at night – how could you possibly compare? As dozens, if not hundreds, of compassionate but meaningless comforting cliches race through your head, you take her hand and squeeze it and you decide to tell her what you at fourteen always dreamed of hearing.

“It’s okay if he doesn’t understand you, Sarah, but he loves you. He’d do anything for you.”

“I know. “ She repeats in a voice that says she doesn’t. The back of her free hand pressed against her lips, she lets out a sound like a hiccup and sob. Sarah closes her eyes with a sigh. “You’re right. He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t get it. And even though Ellie and I have gotten really close . . . she doesn’t get it either.” 

You scoot closer to her and squeeze her hand again. “Doesn’t get what, darling?” 

Sarah lifts her gaze and you see hope in her shiny gaze. A flame, small, but bright – flickering, building as if swelling under music, a tune that existed without shape or ears to hear it until this moment. 

Until something sang out to it. 

“How?”

“How what?”

“How do you see the world?” 

You sit back and she leans forward, the blue dress tighter in her hands than ever before, that spark in her eyes burning.

“I want to be like you and go to Boston. I . . . I wanna see skyscrapers and ride in taxis and take elevators as high as they can go. I wanna ride across the country on a train and eat in beautiful restaurants. I want to go to college, to learn, and carry textbooks, and go to a giant stadium and watch football – and I –,”

She swallows down a gulp of air, hands shaking from the tension in her knuckles, and in the pause, you touch her shoulder, like you would Flora if she were agitated. That completely derails her train of thought and she lets out the air in her lungs with a sigh so fast, it’s almost a hiss.

“Sarah, darling, why do you think you won’t ever have those things? Your dad wants you to be happy, to follow any dream you have –,”

“But I can’t leave him.” 

Sarah’s thumb rubs the thin fabric almost mournfully. When she speaks, her voice is tight, cramped with grief. 

“He’s given everything he has to keep me healthy and safe, especially because it’s just been the two of us for so long. More than anything, I want to make him proud, and so I study, and I study, and I work hard the only way I can –,” she swallows, her long lashes fluttering against her skin. “I can’t abandon him. I won’t. Not for something this . . . silly.”

Calmly, she puts the dress on the bed and stands, her hand and shoulder slipping out of your grasp, the wicker laundry basket still at her feet. 

“Thank you for the dress. But I think it'd be better if we just . . . forget about this.”

There is so much of you in her, it hurts to accept she is not yours, in any capacity.

“Sarah, do you know what rouge is?” 

The resignation melts from her face, those curls twisting towards you in curiosity. 

“I think so? It’s what women wear on their faces, right? To make their lips . . . um, redder?”

“Have you ever worn it?” 

Eyes go wide; a dawning and the enforcement of protection for a vulnerable thing all at once. “No?”

“Would you like to?”

You stand and go to the tan, leather trunk. It’s old, out of time, bears the marks of the frontier before it was settled and it keeps the last few talismans you’ve dragged to the ends of the earth. Your hand goes to a small cloth bag at the bottom.

Sarah is like you in many ways, but then again, she is nothing like you.

The day you and Anna ran away from home was the best day of your life. So much so, it became your escape strategy for everything. Run and hide for cover until the storm has passed. Staring up at you, her brown eyes blazing with hope as you gesture for her to come back into the room, you know Sarah has never run away from anything in her life. So, in this moment, you decide to bring everything else to her. 

“My sister and I lived next to an old woman when we were kids. Our parents were always out working, so we stayed with her a lot. And she always let us play around in her cosmetics.” You sit, the click of blush compacts and mascara loud as you dig through the bag“A girl in school must always look her best.” You pause and pull out what you were looking for. “This is real rouge from Lancome. Would you like to wear it?”

Eyes wider still, she drops onto your bed as if her knees suddenly gave out, her head nodding vigorously. She watchest the small tail of the brush twist in your fingers, around and around the pot, gathering the paste like dust on a wet cloth. 

“Open your mouth. Just a little bit, soften your lips. Yep, just like that.” 

She jerks back, half her mouth as pink as a sunset and curled up into a giggle. “Sorry, that tickled. It’s cold.”

“Feels weird, right?” You wrinkle your nose at her with a smile. She nods, grinning.

“Sorry, I’ll be still, I promise. Keep going, please.” 

You finish her lips and return to your cosmetics clutch. The metal lining is cold, as if it had been left in the dark. With care, you push the realization that you haven’t touched this bag in weeks out of your head. 

“You know, my sister loved getting all dolled up like this. Tilt your head to the window.” 

“Really?” Sarah murmurs. “From how Ellie talks about her . . .”

“Hard to believe, right?”

She doesn’t want to move again, but the eye contact she makes with you is all the sheepish nod you need. 

“By the time Ellie came around, there really wasn’t much time to spoil ourselves like this.” You smile softly, adding a few more strokes of blush against her high cheekbones. “But, a long time ago, Anna was an artist.” 

Sarah hums noncommittally, her gaze hovering around the edges of the window sill. When the blush kit clicks close, she looks at you. 

“My uncle Tommy was – is – that way too.”

“How so?”

“He liked writing stories, which I guess is a different kind of artist. But he’d come up with these crazy fairytales and I always thought he got them from books, but he said he made them up, off the top of his head.” She quiets when you take out the small palette of eyeshadow and tell her to close her eyes. “I think that’s why he left in the first place. He didn’t want to stay on this farm his whole life.” 

Her skin is soft, forgiving, as you dust the powder over her eyelids with your ring finger, the lightest touch you can offer. 

“Have you seen him since he left?”

“No,” she says, staying as still as possible. “Dad says if he wanted to see us, he’d make the effort . . . or he wouldn’t have moved out there at all.” 

Her words slide a stint up into the crevices of your heart, the reasoning behind her hesitancy to leave all the more apparent, but you close the two-color palette without saying anything else. With a few flicks, you finish her glamor with some light mascara.

“Now,” you say as you close the black tube. “Would you like to see yourself?”

Sarah’s eyes spring open, the russet vein of that thrumming, hopeful fire bright.

“Yes. Yes, please.” 

Despite the erosion of the very core of you brought on by the sheer enormity of what it takes to survive in this world, this little tarnished gold disc is the weight of your own vanity in the palm of your hand. Yet every time you open it, you hoped for a glimpse of Anna’s beautiful blue eyes, the curve of her smile, the bounce of a dark curl the way she kept it as a child. The mirror rarely felt like a mirror, more a clear window into the murky cold fog of your past. 

To every cop and ticket-taker on a train who looked through your purse, you kept a compact mirror for vain, silly reasons because, as a woman, you are a vain and silly thing. 

But at the look in Sarah Miller’s eyes, as you reveal the great and powerful secrets of ancient sisterhood to her, this compact is a mirror, and a window, and a weapon all at once. 

“This . . . is what I look like?” Her voice is barely a whisper. She turns her head slowly back and forth slowly, the powder shimmering on her cheeks, a queen surveying her jewels. “H-h-how?” 

“Practice.” You hand her the compact and she takes it, her own hand trembling. She hasn’t looked away from the mirror for an instant. You sit beside her on the bed, her crossed knee pressing up against your thigh and you wait. You wait until she’s had her look, until she’s absorbed her image from every angle, and you slip the cosmetics bag into her lap. She stares at it, and then her eyes widen. “And the right tools. With that, you can do this anytime you want. Do anything you want.” 

“Really?” Small. Hesitant. Hopeful. 

“Really. It’s yours . . . to do what you want with it.” 

“Then I want to do it to you!” Sarah’s smile erupts across her face immediately, her fingers digging into the soft pink material. “I have to practice somehow and I think Ellie will come after me with that knife of hers if I try it on her.” 

You grin, already picturing Ellie’s hackles going straight up if she sees Sarah anywhere near her with that bag. You nod and Sarah actually squeals. You can’t help but grin as she flips through the jars and compacts in the bag.

“Okay, okay – it’s easier to start with any concealer – this one. I didn’t use any on you because you’re far too young and beautiful to need it.” 

Sarah flushes as she unscrews the pot and takes up the brush you hold out for her. With familiar diligence, Sarah’s hand is steady and her dark eyes are clear and focused. She absorbs every instruction you give her, every tip you offer. 

For a minute, there is no farm. No debt to be paid. No pain or disfigurement. Only a bond, one willingly given and one willingly taken. For once in your life, connection is wonderfully easy. 

“Did you know it’s Ellie’s birthday tomorrow?” You ask after a while, mouth stiff as she applies rouge to your lips.

Sarah stops, her eyes widening. “No! She hasn’t said anything!” But then she makes a face. “Actually, I think I’d be more shocked if she did.” 

“I know there isn’t much I can offer her all the way out here. But . . .” And maybe this is where you take it a step too far. All Joel asked of you was to make sure Sarah was alright. None of this had anything to do with the argument she had with her father. Maybe this is incredibly selfish on your part. But, whether you – or Joel – like it or not, you care for Sarah, in a way that was entirely different and exactly like how you cared for Ellie. You couldn’t help but want more than to make sure that Sarah is just alright. You pull away from the brush in her hand and hold her gaze. “I was wondering if you wanted to help me make her a cake.” 

Sarah’s face nearly shines with joy.

Cool. 

A sensation that draws heat, soothes aggravation, exhilarates that which is dry.

Water, fresh and clear, anoints your forehead and sinks into your hair. It pours off your shoulders, catching the soft skin near your hips, your calves. Droplets pepper your toes like embers from a fire. 

Another splash and the water spills over the crown of your head, through the thickness of your already damp hair, threatening to drip onto the back of your neck and send a flood of chills down your exposed skin – 

But a warm hand cups you near the base of your skull and a new sensation flutters awake, this time from within.

“Good?” His voice. You hear it more in your chest. It’s deep, rumbling. Patient. 

You can’t find enough of your body to tell him, yes, Joel, yes, feels so good.

His wide hand slides down your bare back, a warm stone against the river of your skin, and another spout of water drenches you again. 

A second hand joins the exploration of your body, massaging and squeezing all at once. Slow, steady fingers curl around the wings of your ribs, then where your skin thickens and swells, his nails scraping across the low curve of your breasts.

Oh. Oh, Joel. 

“Tell me you want this.”

That voice prickles your ears, the rough scrape of a beard nebulous on your shoulder, just as you had always hoped it would be. Water splashes you again and every inch of your shudders.

“I won’t stop.”

Don’t. Please. 

“I won’t stop. You just have to pick it up.” 

His hands are gone, his warmth evaporated. 

The water is suddenly slick, lichen-drenched, and stagnant. It lurks by your ankles.

Pick it up. 

The stone walls at the bottom of the well ring with coldness. You shiver, naked and alone. Afraid, as frozen as a block of salt. 

Don’t just stand there. You’ll never do it. Just pick it up. That voice. You hate that voice.

The barrel of the gun brushes against the edge of your foot, the head of a snake gliding in the water –

You grab wakefulness by the throat and use it to yank yourself out of the nightmare. 

The familiar silence of the early gray morning in the kitchen that had become comfortable as of late is decidedly – worryingly – not. Your shoulders are taut, straight as a board from end to end. Over the suds and the dishes your hands move mechanically, ignoring the clatter of knives and forks and the rush of water. But above everything else, it’s the expression on your face that concerns Joel the most.

Even when you’ve worked yourself to exhaustion, there’s normally a light in your eyes that settles something restless inside of him, even after hours of labor. A source of strength that he finds himself eager to chase, to let it flood him – but right now, as you stand at the kitchen sink, you’re gone. Elsewhere, disappeared into blackness where that brightness used to be. 

If he were a different man, a man capable of this sort of concern, he could ask you about it. At the very least get you to look at him. During breakfast, amidst the girls’ playful bickering, you hadn’t even noticed he, or anyone, was there. You had eaten as though your spine had been sealed to an iron rod – stiff, painful. Ellie and Sarah had run out a while ago, Sarah leaving to gather up the laundry and Ellie to let the animals out to pasture. He isn’t even sure if you noticed that he stayed behind, but that stirring behind his chest, one that’s become more insistent when you’re around, froze up to a painful knot at the thought of leaving you alone like this. Like you were caught someplace where you might not come back from. 

So, straddling this widening gap he fears slipping off of, Joel lands on the only thing he knows where there is some common ground:

“Don’t think I said anything before, but Ellie’s a pretty brave kid.” 

At her name, you blink. Slow the scrub of soap across the plate, then stop. You look at him and the darkness is not so deep in your gaze. He busies his hands with picking up a rag and beginning to dry the stack of plates to your right.

“Oh?” Recognition flickers over your face as if you’re suddenly aware of who you were talking to. A tender crease appears between your eyes. He dries off another plate and turns to face the sink, to hide the curve of his mouth from you. 

“You’re surprised.” 

You blink, glance down at his hands, and pick up the sponge again. 

“No – I’m not – I mean, I know she’s a good kid, but . . .” You swallow, brow furrowed again. “What did she say to you?”

“Hm, not so much said anything as just listened. Stayed close, kept quiet. Left no rock unturned.” The edges of his sleeves are damp. You have your dress sleeves pushed all the way up past your elbows; it’s Saturday, a brief respite from the cycle of labor in the fields. The skin over your forearm and wrist looked particularly delicate against the breakfast table, now hidden by the soap and the water. Joel dries the cup in his hand with a bit more force. “She’s smart too. Knew all about iodine and what it’s used for. Had some idea how to seal up a hot water bottle. I’s glad to have her with me.” 

You actually snort – without an ounce of respectability – and he stares at you, transfixed by a noise he’s fairly certain he’s never heard you make before. You duck your head as the small smile falls off your face, scrubbing the fork in your hand a bit rougher.

“Sorry. It’s just . . . Ellie doesn’t get along with most people, or . . . anyone for that matter. Sarah – well, Sarah could make friends with a feral cat so I’m not surprised they get along. But you . . .” You trail off and Joel shifts his weight back and forth, all the possibilities of what you meant reverberating in the spaces between his ribs. “I guess I’m just glad she didn’t piss you off.”

“Oh, it takes a lot to piss me off. ‘Cause I’m a casual and easy-going kinda guy, y’know.” 

You freeze again as if he had just tried to convince you the sky was green and you should be looking for some sort of head trauma. He lets a small grin spread over his mouth, even brighter as your eyes widen. A joke. He is teasing you. 

A soft, barely intimate gesture. 

You smile. He feels something shift in his chest. Whatever else happens today, he’ll keep that smile in his breast pocket. He clears his throat.

“Nah, she’s a good kid. Just needs an outlet, I think.” 

You stand shoulder-to-shoulder with him at the sink. The cream lace curtains drawn horizontally across the window block out the brightening horizon. An early morning breeze smooths across the pasture grass, the light weak with the sun still low in the sky. The silence that follows is easier, something he can stomach. In the sink, the water sloshes, silverware clatters, and the plates squeak when he dries them off. The faint curves of your mouth he sees out of the corner of his eyes embolden him further.

“She, hm, ever mentioned any interest in music?”

You shrug. “Ellie and her mother loved dancing to our neighbor’s radio in our apartment in Boston. Why do you ask?”

“She found a radio while we were in town the other day, and she was curious. But with no radio here, the best I can do is a guitar – I know’ve got one around here somewhere and I figured she might like to learn some chords. But I wanted – hm –,” that goddamn tickle in the back of his throat, “wanted to make sure it’d be alright with you if I showed her a couple of things.” 

Eyes wide, soft lips parted – he doesn’t know where to carry the look you’re giving him now. 

“Y-yeah, Joel, that’ll be fine. If you think that’ll make her happy, then . . . of course.”

He nods, slowly, the hot realization that he’ll now have to approach Ellie with an offer for guitar lessons pricking the back of his neck. Her bewildered expression probably won’t look much different from his own.

“‘Least I could do, after what you did with Sarah.” He means going to talk to her, not the immense relief you’ve provided her physically the last few months. He still hasn’t said thank you for that – or that you indulge in her every academic desire or curiosity. There’s no question too outrageous or problem too difficult that she brings to you – and curiously, you seem delighted every time. “She, uh, she’s getting older and I don’t always . . .” It’s an admission of his own shortcomings and it twists his gut. But then that radiant smile returns to your face and he thinks he feels that restrictive choke of guilt ease . . . just a bit.

“She’s very special, Joel. We had fun.” You finish laying out the last bits of damp silverware and a plate or two on the drying rack, your hands all white with soap bubbles. And then you pause. “She . . .”

He catches the brush of your gaze as you look away, shoulders suddenly rigid. You were about to say something, something you assume that he doesn’t already know about Sarah. You have something precious of Sarah’s and you don’t look willing to share.

“What?” It comes out a bit rougher than he means, but his heart rate is up a tick and the corners of his mouth are dry. “She, what?”

You unplug the drain, your movements slow, hesitant.

“She has dreams, Joel, just like every other teenage girl.” 

“Of course she does. I know that.”

The murky water swirls low with a gurgle. You follow it with your eyes, the timbre of your voice low, but firm. “If you want to go out there and ask her what they are, then by all means, go talk to her. But she trusted me to keep her confidence.” 

He swallows, as much as your words burn him – deeper and hotter than he expected – you’re right, of course. But now, for the first time, there is a visible crack between him and his daughter. A wet slippery feeling snakes around the bottom of his spine, tying a knot in his stomach and grinding his voice down to a growl. 

“That is not your decision to make.” 

Your mouth is set firm, but the brightness of your eyes has faded, more distance between you and reality. More space, on the edge of a protective cavern. You step back, about two arm lengths away. 

“Joel,” you begin. “She is entitled to her privacy.” 

The knot in his stomach expands up into his ribs. His heart beats faster, attempting to stretch away from the hot iron in his gut but he can’t escape it. “What did you two talk about?”

“School. Makeup. Clothes. Her life here. ” 

His hands sweat. “What about her life? Is she unhappy?” 

“Oh, God, no, Joel, she loves you and she loves being here with you. She just wants –,”

“What? What does she want?” You stiffly turn to put away the dishes, to close him off, but he steps closer, over the already blurring lines. “Look, I took you and Ellie in off the streets – I hired you – to come here and look out for her – act as her nurse, her teacher – to keep her safe. Not to keep secrets from me.” 

Your spine goes rigid, just like it was at breakfast, as you gingerly put the plates down on the counter. 

“And we’re enormously grateful for your kindness. You know that.” Hands pressed flat onto your hips, you turn and look at him, blank-eyed and drawn thin. You stare at him like he’s a stranger. Something completely foreign and unfamiliar – he hates that look. “Are you asking me as my employer?”

What else are you to me? 

Someone at least worth the weight of a jar of hand cream. 

He shoves back that thought as the fog of a dozen others crowd in to take its place.

“I am. I appreciate your help earlier, but this is the line. Is Sarah alright or not?”

You glance away from him, as if he might find the truth in your eyes. “What she’s experiencing is perfectly normal for a girl her age. You wouldn’t understand.” 

The ground trembles, unsteady, beneath him. Where had he gone wrong? He didn’t feel the earthquake but now can see the broken faultline, the great maw opening its jaws beneath his feet. Fear, so dark and deep – it threatens to swallow him whole, but he gets his hands around it, by the throat, and snaps it clean in two. Joel narrows his eyes. 

“Somethin’ I do understand is Ellie’s been eyein’ my gun since day one. What kind of fourteen year old girl s’after that? ” 

At that, you blanch. It’s like he can see the bile rise up in the back of your throat, sit on your tongue and stay there. You’ve gone totally still, barely breathing. Joel isn’t sure if he’s satisfied or not that the remark landed its blow so thoroughly. 

“She’s just a c-child who wants to pretend she’s an adult. Just like S-Sarah.”

His fist curls around the damp rag in his hand, desperate for something to hold onto, to squeeze until the ground feels solid, but his anger isn’t fortifying him anymore. The next words out of his mouth are disgustingly desperate. 

“Is that what this is about? Did Ellie say something to her?” 

“Ellie? What? No! No, this has n-nothing to do with Ellie.” You look at him, something tender and wounded flashing there and it chills the heat rising in his chest just for an instant. “I would tell you if it was something serious. Don’t you trust me?” 

But you can’t come between him and Sarah. Nothing should.

The black chasm that he feels compelled to claw back against breeches open again. Edges crumbling beneath his fingers. Sarah, Sarah –  is the only one who matters. 

The muzzle runs its clammy tongue up the back of his spine, releasing a landslide of heavy dread across his body. His anxiety peaks in a wave and as it crests, he slams his hand on the counter, a blown fuse. 

“No, goddamn it, I don’t!” 

Jaw locked, he whips his head up. Whatever sits sour on his tongue, when he looks at you, it turns to a block of ice.

Where it bubbles up like black tar behind his chest, a thing that possesses him, you watch him with horror. Eyes wide, lips drawn so tight they’re practically nonexistent, hand around your throat as if to protect it preventively.

The bracing skeleton of indignant rage melts from his body so fast his brain goes fuzzy. He wasn’t thinking – wasn’t thinking about how you flinched, tears in your silver-dollar eyes, at the loud sound that time he accidentally knocked a pot to the floor. He had never seen you so bewildered and terrified – until now.

“Look, I’m–I’m not . . .” he swallows, “I didn’t mean it.” 

He watches your eyes drop to his hand curled around the edge of the counter and he intentionally relaxes the muscle. He stands up right, but leans back from you, giving you space. The tension in your shoulders eases only a fraction. “She doesn’t . . . doesn’t have to tell me everything, but I just wanna make sure that she’s safe, and happy. Can you at least give me that?”

You’re breathing rapidly, eyes watching his hand at his side as if anticipating it curling into a fist. He turns his palms up in supplication – he really, really didn’t mean to lose control like that –  and he steps back until he’s up against the door leading to the cellar down below. The wood is warm against his back, but his shoulder bumps into the hinge and it pinches his skin.  

Your hands are no longer wrapped up in tight fists. With a deep inhale, you close your eyes, as if steadying yourself against a torrential wind. When you breathe out, it’s unsteady and shaky. 

“Physically and m-mentally, she’s fine. She’s j-just . . . just growing up.”

All this time, bits of you have been growing towards the light as the days and weeks pass. He’s watched you transform, can’t take his eyes off you some days, into this woman where before he had seen you as just a tool, another a rake or a trowel. Now you’ve curled back into yourself like nothing had ever happened between you and him – all it took was too-sharp a snap. Sarah always said his bark was worse than his bite. 

Joel takes a half a step forward and you take three steps back. Your hand is over your heart, fingers curling into the fabric, eyes still as wide as they had been the night in the general store, facing down those rangers entirely by yourself. Shit. 

He wants to ask you why you fear loud noises, wants to know who did this to you and why.

He’s not that kind of man who does this sort of thing, someone who scares women.

But he’s also not that kind of man who knows how to navigate the aftermath. He doesn’t know how to be anything other than a father and a worker. Hasn’t cared to be anything else for a long, long time, and the muscle has atrophied. Can’t be a friend. Not a companion. Not whatever paints his dreams with streaks the color of your eyes. 

“‘M gonna go find Sarah, talk to her, like you said,” he mutters, shuffling towards the back door. “If you – need – if you want –,”

His throat finally closes, shame making his gaze slippery and it slides away from your face. He doesn’t stay long enough to hear if your breathing has settled as he shuffles out the door and towards the barn.

The metal of the iron flares to an ugly, angry red, and you wipe your forehead before the sweat can drop onto the stove top and sizzle. With your teeth mashed together so tightly your jaw aches, you lift up the six-pound metal wedge up off the stove, shake it free of as much ash as possible, and then press it down onto Ellie’s collar shirt on the floor. Immediately you sweep up and down the length of the shirt, careful not to linger too long on any one spot, but sure to flatten the wrinkles.

Sad irons, is what Anna called them one day after taking in the laundry from the washing line outside. She had heard a few of the neighborhood bitties tittering about them and found the term hilariously apt. Sad irons because they’re more work than they’re good for. 

Truth be told, you liked ironing, only in certain instances though. Moments when you wanted physical exhaustion to serve as a numbing agent to the battle of emotions building between your ribs. Sweat drips down your neck, your knees aching from pushing into the hardwood floors, your arms and shoulders burning from lifting the hot iron up and down, as you rock back and forth to clear away every last wrinkle. 

Joel’s hand smacking against the counter echoes in your mind again and again and again, as the kitchen and the homestead and reality bends away from you as you tumble through memory after memory – distracted, the iron brushes up against your flesh and bites in.

You yelp, sucking the flat back of your thumb into your mouth to ease the sizzling burn, and you sit back onto your heels. 

Yes, the pain is bright and it stings, but not enough to draw tears to your eyes, and yet they well up all the same.

A single image breaks through the numbing barrier of pain: the jar of Luxor in your room. You want nothing more than to sink your scalded thumb into its cool gel, but instead the image alone threatens to crack a sob out of your chest. 

He wouldn’t have done anything. Nothing like your husband.

You know that, and you hate yourself a little bit that you reacted like that, even after all this time. Why couldn’t you stand your ground, even for Sarah? God, if you had cried in front of Joel – the mere thought of that embarrassment burns hotter than the sting on your thumb. 

He had gotten so close. Too close to the truth. What had Ellie told him about the gun, even by accident? Joel didn’t seem intent on calling the police, but he’d left so fast. He must have been so angry just to leave like that. 

As you open your eyes, a thought occurs to you and the strength of it nearly disconnects you from your body: what if you left?

Your gaze darts to the blue sky just outside the window, too low to see the gold ground but you know it’s there – just as wide and open as it had been that first night in Dalhart. 

What if you gathered up Ellie right now and ran? It had worked before, and this time you didn’t leave the evidence in the bottom of a well. He couldn’t prove anything, just the ramblings of a fourteen year old girl. 

Shit, what the hell did he know?

“Hiya!” Sarah skips in through the back door, arms full of fresh herbs in her basket.

“Be careful!” You snap at her, your thumb throbbing, tears and hasty decisions receding. “Don’t track in dirt – I just mopped.”

She freezes, catches sight of the iron and Elllie’s shirt. You haven’t looked up at her. Slowly she unlaces her boots at the door and steps gingerly onto the wooden floor. You can feel her eyes track you as she walks to the kitchen counter and drops off her basket. The anxiety pulsing beneath your skin ratchets up your heart rate, hot blood pounding in your ears. 

“So, um, anyway, I was wondering if we could talk about Ellie’s birthday. I know she loves chocolate, but Dalhart hasn’t had that in years. But I think we might have a bit of vanilla in the cellar. Do you want me to go look?” You don’t miss the way her eyes flit over her shoulder to you, the question posed as if she was sticking a tree branch through the bars of a tiger’s cage on a dare.

“Um, yeah, that’ll be fine.”

Ellie never had the language to find the source of your anxiety and over the years learned either to leave you to your physical work or silently help you with it. Joel evidently – obviously – was a better parent than that:

“Are you okay?” Sarah asks.

You stop, in daze, then slide the iron off the clothes and onto its side. It seems ridiculous but you can’t remember the last time anyone asked you that. Ellie, your only connection to family, knew exactly what you had to do to keep you both safe, so the question was always irrelevant. So when did you let another person in enough for them to care that much to ask?

“Just, uhm, busy. Need to get this done.” 

Sarah narrows her eyes at you. “‘Cause you don’t sound like you’re okay. In fact, you actually sound really bad. What’s wrong?”

“I’m . . . I just didn’t sleep well. Had a bad dream. That’s all.” 

The lies knot in your throat; it’s insufficient to call it bad – it’s insufficient to call it a dream, the thing that had scared you so badly, even Joel picked up on it. 

“Wanna talk about it?” 

You glance up, still on your aching hands and pinched knees. She watches you with those same endless brown eyes as her father’s but immeasurably softer, arms wrapped over themselves, eyebrows furrowed with concern. You had snapped at her when she didn’t deserve it and she just . . . moved on.

“No, Sarah, I-I don’t want to burden you . . . it’s nothing, honestly, I’m just being silly.” 

She rolls her eyes, that wise stare cracking in half. “Fine. Don’t talk to me, but you should talk to someone. Talk to my dad. I know he doesn’t look like it but he’s a really good listener.”

Your cheeks go as warm as the iron beside you, making it impossible to keep looking at her. “Sarah, please, I am his employee. That is entirely inappropriate.” 

“Oh, please.” She swats away your concern and turns back to the herbs. She pulls out canning jars from below the sink and begins to organize by food or medicine. “Fine. Don’t tell me. When do you want to start working on Ellie’s cake?” 

The iron is no longer nearly hot enough to be effective but you run it up the shirt again, to smooth the uneven threads of your own feelings.

“Maybe tomorrow morning, when she’s out with the cows.” You pause. “No, wait, we’re spraying pesticides tomorrow. I can’t.”

Again, in that flippant teenager way, she shakes her head. “Dad’ll let you have a morning off if you tell him what is for.”

Joel’s anger, the smack of his palm – they reverberate in your head again as if someone had struck you with a bell. Your chest tight, you say,

“I don’t think your father wants anything to do with me right now.”

The excited buzz that always follows after Sarah like floating dandelion seeds settles eerily. You bite your lip – why did you say anything? – and watch her back stiffen, rosemary in one hand and a jar in the other. 

She is the daughter of your employer; you cannot forget that, but you had – you had forgotten, and so easily too. She was well within her rights to –

“What did he do?”

You blink. “What?”

She lets out a frustrated groan. “God, I swear that man likes the taste of his foot in his mouth!” Sarah turns around, rosemary and jar back on the counter, her hands on her hips and you feel like you’re the one about to be scolded. “What did he say to you to make you upset?”

“Nothing, Sarah, I swear.” She raises an eyebrow. You break instantly. “We just had a disagreement. He wasn’t . . . pleased with my work, and he told me so. Which is perfectly fine, given that I am his employee.” 

She shoves her palms into her brow, groaning. “But that’s not all –,” she shakes her head. “That’s it. I’m gonna go talk to him.” 

“Sarah, don’t –,”

You struggle to your feet, your knees stiff and popping, hand outstretched after her, but she’s too fast. She opens the back door and lets it slam shut behind her, leaving you blinking on the floor. 

He’s been staring at the back wall of the wooden shed for twenty minutes. Hadn’t made a move to grab a single tool, or pick up a bag of feed. Behind him, the wind dives into the fields, scuttles apart the branches of the oak tree by the river in a soft crackle. In the barn, one of the cows lets out a loud groan.

The back of his neck is starting to grow hot from the sun. Sweat peaks at his brow. His hand on the door, the other by his side, his fingers ceaselessly twitching, taking on physical shapes of his anxiety. But he can’t move away. If he moves, he’ll make the wrong choice again.

He’s angry. He’s still angry.

But that anger is fueled by a churning ball of fear that sits right on top of his chest and lashes at his skin like steel wool. It itches like hell and he can scratch at it all he wants, but it never goes away.

This was all a mistake. He sees that now. He could have handled another season on his own. He didn’t need another farm hand – he’d done it before and could do it again. Sarah was smart enough to read the right books all on her own and if she didn’t have the ones she needed, he’d go get them – wherever they might be. 

Sarah didn’t need anyone either. She’d make friends with kids soon enough, in town or whenever the school reopened. She was smart, always had been. They’d figure it out, together. 

He could have lived the rest of his life without another living soul crossing the boundary onto the Miller lands. 

And yet he hadn’t. 

He’d let someone in. 

As a general rule, he tried not to think of you in any capacity outside of work, education, and medical treatments, but he found that he had no defenses against the presence of someone who lives in his house also taking up residence in his mind. Against someone who cooks his meals and makes his daughter laugh. Who has a fraught relationship with her niece and yet would quite literally kill for her. 

That he understood, even if you and him seemed determined to prevent yourself from relating to one another in any capacity - which was fine with him. But he saw it in you, even if he didn’t recognize it at first in that bar in Dalhart. And then he saw it again the morning you and Ellie saved Sarah. The instinct to protect, to secure. It had been years since he’d seen it on someone else, and had never seen it that strong. 

And that’s what had gotten him into trouble today. That instinct he’d had all his life suddenly butting up against a tender feeling that is so foreign to him he doesn’t know what to do with it. Doesn’t know how to hold it, carry it, so it goes everywhere, soaks him down to the bone. 

All his life, he’s only ever enjoyed the company of two people, now one. He knew that if he took care of the land, it would take care of him and his family, so he never needed anyone else. But Sarah had a caretaker and a friend and nurturer but still clearly wanted more. Something he couldn’t give her. Something that never would have come to her otherwise if he hadn’t taken in you and Ellie. 

In his hardest of hearts, he both highly praised and deeply, deeply resented you for that. 

For coming here and upsetting everything. 

Fuck. 

His thumb catches on a splinter from the doorframe, tearing his eyes away from the blank wall, the brief pain causing his anger to flare brightly, the slice of wood embedded deep in his skin. His eyes snap to the back wall, looking for pliers to yank the damn splinter out – but his gaze catches something on the back wall first. 

Your work gloves, on the shelf. As broken in and soft as his. Taking up space beside his own as if they had belonged there all along.

In direct conflict with everything he thought he wanted, everything that he understood about himself and his daughter and the land he protects, you and Ellie had become embedded in the homestead such that now he's not quite sure he could picture it without your presence. It's a permanence that, he could tell, you all had sorely needed.

You, unlike him, did need someone else to survive in this world, one that isn't built for or kind to or willing to value women like you – and yet he got the impression that you never had a soft spot for people either. Been on the receiving end of harassment and cruelty too much and too long to find anyone or anything meaningful outside your family. It was narrow-minded and perhaps selfish, but not a perspective he would ever disagree with.

Ellie, unlike Sarah, had a caretaker but lacked a friend, someone to nurture her emotionally, tenderly, despite her vocal protests. He can see in the dark well of her eyes every time she watches him out of the corner of her eye when he cocks his gun or saddles up the horse. Like you, the ability to share a burden had been beaten out of her.

Now, what does he do with –

“Dad!” 

He jumps, the bark of her voice so loud and brash it rattles his heart for a second. Christ, is that what he sounded like?

He looks over his shoulder to see Sarah striding over to him, fists clenched, eyes blazing, dark hair turned light in the harsh glare of the sun. Sometimes – oftentimes –  he was surprised that a tempest like her came from him. 

“Dad!” Sarah barks again, the smack of her boots in the dirt launching puffs of earth by her ankles. She grinds to a halt in front of him, hands on her hips. “She’s my friend! What did you say to her?” 

“I haven’t seen Ellie since breakfast –,”

“No. Not Ellie.” The pitch of anxiety plummets into his stomach. He knows what she’s going to say before she opens her mouth. “Her aunt. You said something to her that made her upset, and I want to know what it is.” 

Where her fists lock onto her hips, one hand curls onto his hip as it juts to the side. With a sigh, Joel wipes his eyes with his fingers.

“Sarah . . .” 

“Oh, don’t Sarah me! And don’t act like I’m too young to understand, either! You raised me better than that.” Her footing shifts slightly and Joel sees an opening, small, flickering. He sees her pouting at five years old, wanting to stay up past her bedtime not for the sake of being disagreeable, but merely to spend more time with him. 

He tilts his head. “I don’t think you’re too young to understand, Sarah. Come to think of it, I’ve probably let you see and hear too much. Put too much on you.”

Her boiling anger simmers and the frown on her face softens. 

“That’s not . . . that’s not it at all, Dad.” 

With half a sigh, he extends his hand towards her, a peace offering as much as he was capable of. “C’mere, let’s get outta the heat. You and I gotta talk.” 

Her eyes fall to his outstretched hand, lip bitten between her teeth, as if under some obligation not to take it. He lets it fall, as much as it stings a very delicate part of him, and turns back towards the cellar doors. Attached to the house near the water pump, they face west, spending most of the day in the shade. Where he would sit to catch his breath after laboring in the fields all day and she brought him water and they would talk – about anything and everything. 

Joel slides down into the dirt, dust clinging to his shirt, his pants. He looks up at her, waiting, holding his will silently against hers without demand, and with a huff, Sarah drops down next to him. They sit in the shade, like they’ve always done. 

This place has always been a place of safety for him. Not just this land, but this spot, this shaded seat next to her. Joel looks at her, his smile wan. “So, if that’s not it, what is it, baby? ‘Cause I clearly haven’t got a fuckin’ clue what I’m doing. I’m sorry I made you so angry. I promise you, I was just teasin’.”

She always liked it when he spoke softly to her, maybe bringing back memories of when she was small and slept for hours on his bare chest. He turns his gaze to the yellow land, the distant dirt roads, and the sprawling emptiness beyond them. This land, that is his responsibility to keep safe. 

“I know, Dad.” He listens to her scrape the heel of her boot back and forth over a pebble. She feels warm against his side. “I’m not mad about that. I mean, I was, but not anymore.”

“But you’re mad about somethin’?” 

She’s not ready to meet his eye, he knows. That’s okay. He can wait. 

He smells lavender as her hair flutters again, her gaze joining his to watch their fields, the fields held by their family for three generations. The memories of her illness –of so many nights spent in fear, in anguish nearly as painful as death itself, as she cried and cried and cried and he could do nothing to stop it – overwhelm him out of nowhere and, like a fist has settled around his throat, he can’t breathe right for a moment. His hands flex and strain where they hang over his knees.

Air returns to him when she rests her head against his shoulder, and he is suddenly more grateful to you for bringing back his little girl than he’s ever felt towards anyone in his life. But the taste of his words he said to you lingers on his tongue. He had been so terrible.

“I like learning.” Sarah says. The wind tugs on her hair, the hemline of his pants. He resists the urge to press his face into her curls and instead settles for breathing in her scent, her warmth. He closes his eyes. She is his whole world. 

The heat of the sun toasts the air around them as the wind settles. He opens his eyes to the solar star far beyond this planet. Another world entirely. It feels particularly close today.

“I know you do. You’re good at it, always make me proud.”

Sarah lifts her head and he feels the traction of her gaze. His stomach knots, but not as heavily as his heart swells. Her eyes are older than he’s ever remembered seeing when he finally looks at her, and he’s felt a lot of his years recently. Her hands curl around his elbow, like she used to do when she begged him for a new book or a new dress. Pleading with him, to make him see her.

“But I think I’ve learned all I can . . . here.”

Joel breathes through the gaping wound and surge of pride in his chest. She watches him, brown eyes wide, mouth set. The same little girl he’s always known, and nothing like her at all. How had he missed it, this fundamental and irrevocable change? Where had the time gone? 

“I know, baby. You have to go.” 

He expects something like a girlish squeal, maybe little dance, a yelp of joy – throwing her arms around his neck, making promises to be on her very best behavior – 

But instead –

“But not right now.” Her eyes fill with tears, voice small, uncertain. Vulnerable in a way only a child’s can be.

He puts his arm around her shoulder, between her and the dirt-crusted house on the land that is now his, was his father’s, and his father’s before that, and hides his own wet eyes from her by burying his face in her hair. Her arms are wrapped so tightly around his chest, his heart nearly stops.

“No, not right now. But some day.” 

They who have been alone together all their lives sit and hold their other half for a long, long time.

The sun hovers in the late afternoon sky, unwilling to let time march forward, but it always does. It always has to. 

With a gruff grunt, Joel pulls away and wipes at his eyes with the palm of his hand. Sarah sits up more, sniffing, her delicate fingers smearing away the dampness on her cheeks. He clears his throat again. 

“C’mon, enough out here. Ellie’s probably out lookin’ for you, and I need to help, um –,”

“Dad.” He drops back down the half inch he pulled himself up. Suddenly, with a grin and a mischievous light in her still-wet eyes, she looks as young as she is supposed to be. “We haven’t talked about everything yet.”

“What do you mean?”

Her dark eyes flit back to the house, a pointed look. A knowing look. He doesn’t know why but it makes his stomach churn and his heart rate speed up, ever so slightly. That grin on her lips evolves into a full fledged smirk. 

“You were a jerk. Now you have to make it up to her. How are you gonna do that?” 

Joel’s mouth twitches. “I’m out of ideas.” 

“Good. ‘Cause I’m not.” Sarah heaves herself onto her feet, then stands, and dusts the back of her skirt with a few good thwaps. “It’s Ellie’s birthday tomorrow. Me and her aunt are gonna make a cake, so you’re gonna get her a present. You’re also in charge of distracting her while we get everything ready.”

Joel chuckles lightly as he stares up at her, one eye squinting against the sunlight. “Yeah? And what am I supposed to get her?”

She extends her hand and he takes it. Together, they get him on his feet. She dusts off his sleeve, then grins up at him, her smile wide and full and loaded with secrets he knows he didn’t tell her. “I can’t give you all the answers, old man.” 

It’s nerves. 

It’s nerves and that’s why you can’t find the vanilla you know is down here. For the fourth time, you get on your toes and look at the far back of the top row of cellar shelves. Joel had organized the cellar by least perishable to most, and vanilla beans stayed intact for years if kept out of the sun or moisture. Sarah was distinctly confident that they had at least a handful, far more than enough to flavor a cake, and this was Ellie’s cake. You owed it to her and Sarah –and shit, since he’ll be eating it, Joel – to not give up the search. 

But by the time your line of sight got to the second shelf, your mind was already wandering. 

He had taken Ellie out onto the front porch for a guitar lesson. 

After the terrible things he had said to you this morning.

After you acted like he was a cruel man whose viciousness knows no bounds.

He wanted to teach Ellie something, after he had asked you first. 

Came out of the hall closet with it in his hand, and while his dark expression was distressingly unreadable, his voice was light when he offered to teach her some cords. Ellie, who was nose deep in another Space Family Robinson, nearly launched herself off the couch: “HELL YEAH!”

Standing at just an angle that allowed you to see the living room from the kitchen, you could have sworn he smiled. A muffled thing, but it drew up the corners of his cupid’s bow in a beautiful twist, the long expanse of his throat looking warm as he turned his head to give Ellie the guitar, his hair curled in reckless waves at the nape of his neck. He smiled at Ellie and offered her a lesson – 

And you haven’t been able to focus since. 

You stop halfway on your fifth search, press your forehead to the wooden post, and sigh. 

The silence in the cellar is different from other silences on the homestead. More compact, more dense. You suppose that has something to do with it being buried several feet underground, but the strength of it is comforting in a way you’ve never experienced. Since you were sixteen years old, you’ve worked a full time job, sometimes two, sometimes three, for just enough money to eat and keep your sister housed. You often have trouble sleeping because you can still hear the noise of all those people, gears in your mind churning, despite the physical exhaustion of your body, always thinking about tomorrow’s to-dos and where your next meal might come from. You’ve been going so hard and so fast – barely surviving – you forgot what true, thick silence sounded like. How much easier it was to breathe and smother that runaway train of thought. 

Despite your initial apprehension, the cellar had become your most favorite place on the entire homestead. The silence was almost friendly, protective; you could whisper your secrets to it and know they’d be safe forever. Surrounded by abundant food, lovingly grown and cared for, you too sometimes feel as if you too had been raised, had been grown to ripeness, on this earthen floor. 

For the first time in hours, your heartbeat slows. With a grin, you lean into the wooden shelf, its corner sticking into your shoulder like a hand would press into your skin. 

“I’m trying to do something nice for Ellie. You know she deserves it,” you grumble into the silence. The wood is soft, gently carved. If you try hard enough, you think you can still smell the wood grain. “Having some vanilla flavoring would really make her happy, and that kid needs a win.” You shuffle, standing up right, and the toe of your boot kicks the post. It shudders slightly. “I –,”

In the momentum, something falls off the shelf and plops into the dirt to your right.

Vanilla beans.

You grin as you pick them up, trying half-heartedly to find that watchful eye. Just before you click off the light, you affectionately rub the corner of the wall.

“Thanks.” 

If talking to animals is the first step in going crazy, talking to holes in the ground must be a pretty bad sign. 

“‘kay, it’s real easy.” He clears his throat again, shifting, and the wood panel squeaks beneath him. Crickets echo in the shadows beyond the light of the porch. “This is gonna be your C – your A – your G, and your D. There’s only twelve you really gotta know. From there you’ll get the basics and can start to –,”

“Where’d you learn to play?” Ellie asks abruptly. She sits with her back against the wooden post outlining the porch, her knees tucked up to her chest. Joel is reminded of the look Sarah once gave him after he silently helped her chop the rest of the wood before a rainstorm came – he had told her she couldn’t do all of it by herself, and she had adamantly refused, but he didn’t rub it in her face when he came to help. They narrowly avoided the downpour but had enough firewood to last them a week. 

Grateful, was the expression he remembers. 

The heat of the day still lingers in the air, the sun just beneath the horizon. Flies and gnats swarm and tangle around the exposed bulb over the porch, thickening the shadows of his hands over the neck of the guitar and beneath the porch steps. 

Joel’s fingers still, the music of fluttering wings and electrical zaps taking over. “My dad taught me. He taught me . . . and my brother.”

Maybe it was the talk with Sarah that had loosened something, at least temporarily. He doesn’t feel like he’s been torn open, spilling his guts, when he tells her about Tommy. He wonders briefly if Sarah had ever mentioned her uncle and if she didn’t, why. He can see the question build behind her eyes, thoughts shuffling, looking for a memory if he had ever mentioned a brother before. 

“We got pretty good for a time. Played at school, church. Had a guy come through town once and tell us we could really be something.”

“Like a Hank Williams kinda something?” 

Joel eyes her, impressed she knows one of the greatest artists who’s ever lived.

“I dunno what he meant,” he says. “But that’s never why I did it anyway. Just wanted something to do with my little brother. He had some good lyrics too. He was always talented that way, with his head, you know? I think sometimes that’s where Sarah gets it. ‘Cause i'snot from me.” 

Joel smiles and Ellie grins back, an inside joke they didn’t know about yet. He strums quietly.

“I think he wanted to be that Hank Williams kinda somethin'. But it’s hard when you’re no one from nowhere. And I think him leavin’ would’ve broken our mama’s heart.”

“Tommy . . . right?” Joel glances up at her, the name so foreign on someone else’s tongue she could have meant someone else entirely. “Sarah – she, um – she mentioned him, once. And that he left for California – a while ago.” 

Joel nods, again in search of that anger to wield as a weapon, but the guitar digs into the place in his chest where it hurts the most. 

“Is that why the guitar was in the trunk? ‘Cause you’re pissed at him?”

It’s almost funny, the way she needles through to the center of things. He could lie, but what’s the point?

He hums. “I stopped playing this thing long before Tommy left. No time. Even with his help, you gotta fight with this land to grow anything. Then Sarah got sick, and now there’s all this fuckin’ dust . . .” 

He puts a hand on the belly of the guitar to stop the vibrations. He looks up at the stars, blinking into existence as night falls like a dropped curtain, and shakes his head. It felt like an excavation of something haunted, when he pulled the guitar from a trunk in his bedroom closet. Truly, he hadn’t thought about this guitar in months and taking it out again was just asking for something dangerous to befall him. Maybe something already had, given how much he had started to care for the girl who carries a pocket knife in her sock. 

Joel’s gaze drops to that girl now, her wiry little fingers wrapped around her ankles as she stares right back. He had forgotten they still made people like her.

“But it’s good. It’s good to remember.” Joel slides the guitar off his lap and onto the wood step between them. This guitar is older than Ellie and he hands it to her. “Now let’s see if you’ve been paying attention.”

She stares a second after he leans in to point out the chords before she tries to match his fingers on the strings. But then Sarah opens the screen door, out of breath and the tip of her nose pink as if she’d been standing over a fire. 

“Dinner’s ready.” 

Joel stifles the urge to roll his eyes; his girl was many things, but subtle was not one of them. As she disappears back inside, Ellie hands him back the guitar and meets his eyes with a confused look on her face – what’s up with her? Joel shrugs, then tries not to groan as he stands up, his knee acting up again. Odd, given that it only used to ache when a storm was coming, like a warning. But the skies had been clear for weeks.

“Good first lesson, kid. I’ll put this up, you go see what they got cooked up.” 

“You sure?” Her gaze drops to his knee, observant as her aunt. 

“ ‘M fine. Go on.” He knows there’s more affection than gruff in his voice, but at least Ellie doesn’t seem to register that. 

He follows her inside, the air warmer in here due to the oven and a lack of a breeze. When she moves towards the kitchen, he goes to the closet beneath the stairs and opens up the trunk at the back. 

He isn’t entirely sure he can forgive Tommy for what he did, but at least he understands it. Beneath where the guitar laid, there’s a scrap of crumpled paper – a telegram he thought about tossing in the fire when it first arrived. Instead, he is glad he just wanted it out of his sight. 

It is blank except for a few letters and numbers: a forwarding address. 

He can’t pick it up and look at it, not right now, but maybe. Maybe someday, when he needs his brother.

“Holy shit!”

Joel smiles as he shuts the trunk lid and stands. Not today.

When he finally makes it to the kitchen, Ellie stands at the head of the table, her shoulders by her ears, arms out, as if preparing to be tackled to the ground. Her eyes are bigger than he’s ever seen them.

“Happy Birthday, Ellie!” Sarah yells from the other side of the table, the words bursting out of her. “Do you like it?”

“Like it? I . . .” Wordlessly, she slides into the chair, her face glowing in the light of the candle sunken deep into the top of the cake. The shadows, thick and heavy around her mouth and under her eyes, blur the emotions on her face. 

“Ellie?” You say, tentative. That crease is back between your eyes and Joel wants to press his thumb to it until it goes away. “Is this okay?”

Slowly, she lifts her eyes. The shadows cannot hide the wet shine there. Joel has to look away, something hot expanding under his ribs. 

“Uh, yea-ahh . . . this is fucking okay.” He hears the slight chuckle in her voice and he looks back. Her smile is stretched from ear to ear. “And this is dinner too, right? We get to eat cake. For dinner?”

You smile, relief and excitement giving your own face a special glow. And then, your eyes fall to him and that hot band in his chest thickens to his throat. He’ll dream of your eyes again tonight, he knows it.

“Mr. Miller has extra storages of flour in the cellar,” you say, gaze slipping away before he can hold onto it. The band in his throat hardens when you refer to him so distantly. “We used just a bit of cream and milk –”

“And sugar!” Sarah blurts out. She is practically vibrating next to you. “We have to really conserve sugar, only for special occasions, and what’s more special than a birthday?”

Ellie tears her gaze up from the candle and, for a second, she looks very small. 

“You used it for my birthday?” 

While Sarah nods vigorously next to you, he watches as your face falls. He knows that look, felt it screw up his face too – you feel like you’ve failed Ellie somehow.

“Of course, Ellie.” You say quietly, your hands knotted in front of you. He watches as the words get caught in your throat, all the right ones and the wrong ones. “You . . .”

“You’re a good kid.” Your eyes jump to him, wide, as he steps closer to the kitchen table. He puts a hand around the knot on the back of Ellie’s chair. “Is what your aunt means to say. Happy birthday, from all of us.”

Ellie’s gaze is so gentle, she looks timid. She glances between Joel, you, then Sarah, and back to you. 

“Um, thanks, guys. I guess.” 

In the soft silence, she takes a brief moment, her eyes closed, and then leans forward over the candle and promptly blows out the flame. The kitchen falls into darkness, a second before you reach for the light. 

Sarah claps her hands, the amber electrical light softening her already smooth skin. “What did you wish for?”

Ellie’s smirk returns, her hard edges returning. “Can’t tell you or it won’t come true.”

Sarah rolls her eyes as you gather the plates you and Joel had cleaned just this morning. “I always thought that rule was so stupid. It’s no fun.”

You grin at her as you hand Ellie a plate and then Sarah herself. 

“It’s the secret that gives the wish its magic. All the good things are best kept secret.”

Your hand extends a plate out towards him, but it’s your gaze that meets him first. Mouth slightly parted, you watch him from beneath your long lashes. The light that softens Sarah emboldens the curves of your cheeks, the slope of your nose, the entanglement of your hair against the nape of your neck. A table between you, he hasn’t been this close to you in what feels like days, when it had only been this morning. This morning, when he had never felt further from you, when his own fear had gotten the better of him. 

For so long, the circle of his love ended at the property lines and he had spent years of his life etching in that demarcation, digging in and digging in until the wet earth swallowed him whole. There was nothing else but Sarah and this land because he could not afford to lose either of them, so he held on tight and burrowed deep.

But this deep down, the earth he loved might as well have been a coffin. A tomb. In order to stabilize his daughter, the land, and himself, there had to be less of him. Less to carry. Less to burden. 

Less of him to share. 

He thought – maybe hoped – that those bits of him that had fallen away would always stay gone, another sacrifice in addition to his blood and his sweat into the soil. It was easier to mourn a loss if you never had it in the first place.

But, as he looked at you from across the table in the low light, as your fingers touched his beneath the plate – even for a fraction of a second – the pieces he’d left behind roared to life once again. 

Heat warms him up his arm, down into his chest – and it keeps going. The smell of you, of sweat and sugar and honey and sunlight, invades his head like a dirty wind and the fire inside scorches him as it flushes down his ribs, through his stomach, and right into his groin.

You all but drop the plate into his hand, pulling your fingers away from his touch, gaze diving away. But he can see your nervous swallow, the way your hand shakes when you pick up the knife to cut the cake. 

“Let’s eat.” You smile at the girls, but it’s as weak as your voice, crackling, trembling, overwhelmed. As if you too had been consumed by years of dormant want out of nowhere and now couldn’t possibly put those feelings back into hiding even if you wanted to.

Even if you begged.

The cake is gone in a matter of minutes. 

Ellie lets out a groan, leaning back in her chair, her hands resting over her full stomach. “That was so goddamn good.” 

“It’s inappropriate to lick the plate, right?” Sarah asked, sponging up crumbs with her finger. 

“I won’t tell if you don’t.” Ellie grins. She snatches up her plate and with her tongue flat against her chin, licks up every last morsel. Sarah snorts, laughter bursting out of her, before doing the exact same thing. It’s not long until both of them are making grotesque noises. 

“You girls act like you haven’t had a proper meal in weeks.” Joel sits across from you, his arms folded across his chest, a faint glint in his eye as he glances back and forth between them. He sits low in his chair and his shoulders look especially broad across the back of it. “Y’all are gonna eat me out of house and home.” 

Sarah giggles and wipes her spit-covered chin. “Ellie said she found a really good spot out back to look at the Milky Way. Can we go look?” 

You expect him to ask that they clean up the table first, at least put the dishes in the sink, and not to stay too far into the dark. He’s watching Sarah for a beat too long before he opens his mouth again.

“But then when will Ellie get her present?”

His eyes lock onto you.

“THERE’S MORE?!” Ellie screeches.

The heat in his gaze sends a tangible shock down your throat, across every single one of your ribs, right into your nipples. Your faint gasp is overshadowed by Sarah and Ellie’s yelling – oh my god you didn’t tell me about this what’s wrong with you – please please please can I see it I’ll clean the bathrooms if you just lemme have it please –  but the look is gone a second later when he stands up and jerks his chin over his shoulder to the living room. The girls sprint into the room before he can take his first step. He doesn’t look at you as he follows them, slow, confident, teasing them just a bit.

“What is it?!”

“Is it more comics?”

“More marbles?”

“New clothes?”

“Ew, that would suck.” 

As if deaf to their pleas, Joel slowly walks over to the chest in the corner of the room and just as the girls are about to burst from excitement, he bends down and picks something up from behind it.

A radio. 

The radio.

The same one they had found in town. 

Ellie and Sarah’s eyes widen to the size of the dinner plates sitting on the kitchen table, covered in spit and cake crumbs. They drop to their knees, fingers outstretched like they approached a feral kitten.

“Now, it doesn’t work right.” Joel says, his arms crossed again. “But I thought it might be a good project for you girls. Something to work on together. Maybe learn about magnets and electricity n’shit.” 

His eyes fall on you again, as if you knew all about “magnets and electricity n’shit.” Joel grins again, this time just for you, and something inside of you snaps in half, melts, sparks open; some great weight, one you didn’t even know was there, has been lifted off your shoulders, your heart, and you can breathe properly again. You sink into the blue sofa, hands in your lap to keep them from trembling. 

The idea that you would ever willingly leave this place is laughable.

The idea that you would take Ellie away from this, from Sarah, is agonizing. 

They’re both fiddling with the buttons and twisting the jobs, the novelty of it perhaps the most fascinating. They are silent, more reverent than if they are on hallowed ground. 

“I’ve got some pliers and a screwdriver if you wanna –,”

Perhaps it was the witchcraft of the sisterhood. 

Perhaps they had managed to work out some secret code.

Perhaps they were just lucky. 

The radio lights up and the tear of a trumpet whines out of the speakers. Their yelp of delight is muffled beneath the white-hot music of a jazz band. 

Joel watches with what can only be considered bemusement as the girls leap to their feet and start dancing like no one had ever taught them about rhythm. 

The sofa squeaks, the cushion under your butt tilting up, as he sits down next to you. 

“Not likely to win any competitions any time soon,” he mutters quietly, presumably to you, as you both watch Ellie’s jerky knees and Sarah’s dizzying twirls. You sit, hands in your lap, perched on the edge of the cushion, while he leans into the sofa, arms back in place over his chest. With the way you are positioned towards the radio and him facing straight on, your knees almost touch. 

You wonder if he’s as aware of that chance as you are. 

“Listen, I wanted to say I’m sorry.” His voice is deep enough to be heard over the music. He glances at your hands, and then your face. The sincere regret in his eyes makes the blood in your wrists pound. “You didn’t deserve all of those things I said to you this morning. Both you and Ellie have been . . .” he struggles for the word, his bottom lip moving with the swipe of his tongue, “a good change in our lives, and I regret saying the contrary.” His gaze falls back to your hands, your thumb tucked into the hole made by your other fingers. You wouldn’t look away from his face if it was the sun itself. “The fields have been well taken care of . . . and I know Sarah’s grateful for everything you’ve done for her. You’ve changed her life for the better. You’ve changed m–,”

It’s like his voice crumbles and slips off a cliff. His broad shoulders sag forward and then he looks up at you, a desperate sort of hope in eyes. Hope that you understand what he’s trying to say, and hope that you don’t make him say it. 

Oh, but you want him to say it. You want it so badly. 

You nod, this crumb sweeter than anything on the kitchen plates. On some heady sugar high, you smile at him.

“Well, I meant what I said.” He frowns and your grin widens, but then teeters and topples over. Your wrists ache. You have to lose his gaze for what you’re going to say next. “We are very, very grateful you took us in. I know it wasn’t a decision you made lightly, risking so much of you and Sarah for two complete strangers.” You shake your head with disbelief. “I’ll spend the rest of my life proving that you made the right choice, if I have to.”

You glance up at him – and immediately wish you hadn’t. 

It’s that same look he gave you when you handed him his plate over the kitchen table. Lips pursed, brow slightly furrowed, with a wary uneasiness in his eyes. Like he’s finally figured out what kind of woman you are, and he can’t quite tell what to do with you.

“C’mon you two!” Sarah yells and that hazy bubble that envelopes you bursts. He blinks, as if not remembering where he is. “You gotta dance!”

“Yeah, you old farts!” Ellie pants, red-faced and nearly out of breath. “It’s my birthday so you have to do what I say and I say, let’s boogie!”

You lunge at the chance to be distracted; you turn away from Joel and arch your eyebrow.

“Oh, you’re dancing? Is that what you’re doing? Can hardly tell.” 

Ellie sticks out her tongue while Sarah starts kicking with one foot then bounces to the other, flicking her wrists. “I saw this move on the school’s television!”

Ellie immediately stops the flailing of her limbs and watches her moves. “Teach me!”

Sarah slows it down until Ellie gets the hang of the bounce. Sarah looks much more natural in the rhythm, but at least Ellie is partially on beat. 

“And then I think you do this–,”

Her foot dangling in the air, she loops her ankle around Ellie’s and starts hopping in a circle. Ellie lets out a giggle.

“No way this is a real thing!”

“It is, I swear!”

“You got any moves like that?” Joel asks quietly, but still ensnaring your attention completely. He sunken completely into the sofa, hips low, legs wide. His thumb taps the beat on his thigh. Something about the way he has completely relaxed allows you to unclench your fists and loosen your foot tucked behind your ankle.

“Me?” You chuckle, leaning back on the arm rest. “I never had the time to go to the dancehalls, much less learn complicated moves such as the – Sarah, what is that dance called?”

“Hell if I know!” They’ve switched feet, trying to go counterclockwise this time.

“Complicated moves such as The Hell-if-I-know.” He rewards your terrible joke with a low chuckle. 

“Me neither. I can’t dance for shit.” 

As though he had called her name, Sarah stamps down her foot and rolls her eyes at her father, Ellie trying to follow along with the instructions the singer is giving over the speakers.

“Yes, you can. You taught me The Dip.” 

“That’s not a real move, Sarah–,”

“You can teach her!” Sarah’s brilliant smile extends to her eyes as if she had just announced the best idea in the history of ideas. “Then she’ll know at least one!”

Your fingers return to their fists. Joel stiffens beside you.

“Yeah, you should.” Ellie yells over her shoulder distractedly, one arm raised and the other leg straight out – in complete opposition to what the lyrics said. “Can’t have her embarrassing me in public.”

“C’mon, Dad, just one dance!” Her brown eyes flicker to Ellie and sweat-damp shirt. “It’s Ellie’s birthday!” 

“And for the party, we – must – dance!” Ellie strikes a dramatic pose and Sarah, giggling, swishes her dress with a flourish. With a brief glance at you, she rejoins Ellie, her skirt twirling.

The sofa squeaks as if he’s moving, a soft hand comes to rest high on your back, and panic leaps into your throat.

“Mr. Miller – Joel – you don’t have to – Sarah is just being silly –,”

“Well, it's not like I’m going up there by myself.” 

That rough palm slides over your scapula, then your shoulders, and down your arm. Tugging gently, a soft pinch around the bone of your elbow nearly pulls you to your feet, but sense-memory has you folding your arm back up towards your chest, your knees locked and heels heavy. Immediately he senses your rejection and stops. 

The warm light above threads gold through strands of his silver hair, the ends of his curls long enough to disappear into nothingness, into the halo around him. 

Joel Miller would never, ever hurt you.

Joel Miller is not your husband.

Joel Miller could be your friend.

His light touch releases and just as his fingers drop from your sleeve, your arm unfurls towards him, taking him by the bicep. His eyebrows lift slowly, watching as your fingers curl around his arm. Drawn towards his light like a sunflower, you stand, closer to him than ever before, and smile up at him. Friends go dancing together all the time, right? 

But all the standards and regulations of propriety and social mores were flung out the window the second you, an unmarried woman, stepped foot onto the land of an unmarried man. Nothing about this, about any of this, could be considered conventional.

A step or two away from the sofa, he holds your waist in one hand and yours aloft in the other, fingers interconnected. Respectful. Decent. A good man. No boundary crossing here. 

“Ready for your next lesson?” he asks, a little breathless. Maybe he forgot the steps and he is simply nervous to perform – hm, teach. He does a bit of adjusting, watches his own feet adjust as you stand still in front of him, waiting to be moved.

So, you open your stupid mouth and say,

“See, teaching isn’t so easy, is it?”

You grin and finally his eyes meet yours. Soft as leather, warm as a saddle in sunlight. It’s your turn for necessary air to be drained from your lungs and he decides then to move.

“Gotta lead up to it,” he grumbles, the corner of his mouth lifted. “Can’t just dive right in.” The way he leads is completely out of sync with the music, but you see that it’s intentional, a choice to slow things down. Not quite what you’d expect at the Boston dancehalls, but something far more precious and memorable. He sways with you, as supple as a blade of prairie grass in a warm wind. 

The curve of his shoulder is warm beneath your fingers, your thumb inches from his collar. He is more solid than any other person you’ve ever touched – including Anna. He could stand at the bottom of the Grand Canyon and never be washed away. You cannot imagine what that stability feels like, but you crave it all the same. 

There’s a respectable distance between your hips and his, but you can still smell the sweetness of the cake on his breath, the hot earth he tends to so lovingly, and the tang of sweat. 

“I know you’re a fast learner.” You turn your head towards him, but he gazes straight on. For a moment his face is so stoic you start to wonder if he actually said anything, but then a smile, a small one, flickers across his face. He turns his head towards you, his nose brushing yours, and suddenly you are too close together. Instinctively you pull away – your head, your shoulders, your hands – then find yourself frustrated that this is how you still react. You don’t even mean it. You don’t even want it, this temporary separation. But still Joel stands. He waits for you and sure enough, you sink back into his arms, your palms separating for only a second. “We made a regular farmhand out of you in a handful of weeks. Could get you to a full Dip in days.” 

He’s talking too softly to be easily heard over the banging percussion, the scream of trumpets, the boozy warble of the singer, so you bend closer. Over his shoulder, Ellie and Sarah take turns curtseying and bowing and then locking their elbows together and spinning each other in circles, giggling. 

“They’re alright.” The words hum in your ear, heat warming the air after a flash of lightning, and you fight a full body shudder. You tear your gaze back to him and his smile. His hand hasn’t moved an inch on your back. You worry your palm is getting sweaty. “Just focus on me.” You nod. 

From the radio, the song ends and the band slows to a discordant crash, as exhausted as the ones who danced to their rhythms. Men raucously laugh over the airwaves at their own created chaos and the two girls collapse onto the couch, red-faced and sweaty and laughing. 

“You trust me?” His eyes are brown and dark and smoky, firewood kindling. He really intends to teach you something. You nod slowly. The memory of his hand smacking into the counter breaks apart when his palm slips further down your back, his leg shifting in between yours, and he leans forward to lean you back. Back, back, back, off the edge of the earth. Hair slips off your shoulders as you hang, suspended above the floorboards, cradled by his hand and his thigh, the other hand holding yours to his chest. The world is upside down – in more ways than one. 

When you lift your head, he blocks out the light above for just a moment. Joel, for a moment, is all you can see. He holds you like you weigh nothing, gravity a suggestion to a force of nature like him — and a moment later, he pulls you both upright. 

Your cheeks are burning, your heart roars in your chest, in your ears, and there is no other way this would have ended: you glance at his mouth. He looks at yours. The fingers entwined with yours tighten. 

And then the radio dies. No preamble. No warning. Just ringing silence.

“Welp, it was fun while it lasted.” Ellie huffs, out of breath, smacking her hands against her thighs. 

Sarah wipes away sweat from her forehead with her arm. “Nah, we’ll get it back. I know we can fix it. Right, Dad?”

Joel Miller is still staring at your mouth. 

He’s quiet too long before he drops his gaze and clears his throat. Caught in a daze, you blink and suddenly his warmth is gone. Your hand floats in the air, empty. Joel pulls on the waistline of his pants and turns back to the sofa, nodding.

“Course, we can fix it. But not tonight. Get to bed, both of you.” The gravel of his voice makes his words harsher than they need to be, but Ellie just rolls her eyes and Sarah throws herself onto her feet. 

“C’mon, teenie bopper, I found a mouse skull the other day I forgot to show you.”

Ellie’s eyes widen as she follows Sarah up the stairs. “Like a skull skull? No meat, just bones? Was the rest of the skeleton there?”

Her interrogation continues as they move around the second floor and you can almost hear every word of it. A stark and abrupt reminder that this house echoes – any noises or sounds made can be heard anywhere, in any room, by anyone. 

Your gaze drops to Joel like a stone and with the added weight of whatever he was thinking, it all becomes too much for him. He turns away, denim shoulders nearly up to his ears.

“I’ll clean up.” He waves his hand vaguely to the kitchen. Cake. Plates. Flour on the counter. Oh, that’s right. “You cooked.”

A trade, a sharing of responsibilities between two equal partners. There’s some part of you that knows you should argue, cleaning was what he hired you for, but this is not him telling you as your employer. 

This is . . .

“You did good today,” he says, quickly, his hands on his waist, a step forward, as if he remembered something mid-stride. “It meant a lot, to the both of ‘em. I know you don’t think much of it, but you’re good at this.”

Your face heats, a familiar zing from his words racing down your spine into the bowl of your hips. The next breath you take is a shaky one. “Thanks, Joel. I think I’ll turn in for the night.”

He swallows, then nods. “Night, then.”

“Good night.” 

You might have let yourself believe you had imagined the whole thing, as you walk down the long wood floor to your bedroom, the girls’ chatter now just noise in your head. You might have believed that, after half a decade of being unwanted and undesired, abandoned at the edge of civilization, you extrapolated sentimentality from the first man who looked at you. All your life you doubted yourself; doubted your ability to keep Anna safe, doubted that you’d ever be something more than a pathetic replacement for Ellie’s mother, doubted your own sanity at times when you sat in that dark, dank dug out and listened to the scratchy winds tear apart your husband’s finances. 

But this – this you did not doubt. You did not mistake, or dream up, or lie to yourself. 

Before he let you go, Joel had squeezed your hip, rubbed his thumb against the waistband of your skirt. Let his fingers snag and catch in your blouse.

Whether it was trust or companionship or something ultimately more terrifying, he felt some kind of way about you. 

What kind of way you felt about him, you couldn’t answer honestly. 

And yet for a moment, for a brief moment, you had stepped into his light and, goddamn it, you were right. 

It was warm.

END OF PART II

series masterlist | AO3 Link | part i | part iii

[asafirsttimemommy]

July 16,2024

I am on my first year, 1st month mommy of Calis.

Lately, I have been not in a good place.

I looked in the mirror and saw my curly, wild hair. As i tamed it with ponytail, the curl is so wild it looks like a chaotic cotton candy.

A lot of hairfall everytime I take a bath. Especially when I shampooed my hair. It keeps on falling, when I gently massage my scalp, hair falls. What to do but to collect the hair on the floordrain and put in at the corner of the bathroom. Gently with the conditioner. Hairs on my body, on the floor. I learned to accept it all and have faith in my thick hair. I do not care because my hair is thick, and the hair fall will not be noticeable. It is true. And then, they grows back curly. 🫣😅 Anyway, it will pass. 😬

I have lots of white hairs now. It is because of genes and because I am getting old.

My eyebrows are perfect. It is still beautiful.

My eyes looked tired. A bit of wrinkles. But, thank you younger self for taking good care of our eyes they are still 20/20. Also, thankful for the eye creams we put in there because we are preparing for crow’s feet.

My nose. 😬 is still the same. Blackheads, pores. I accepted it all.

My lips are sometimes chapped. Most of the times, it is pale.

My teeth hasn’t been brush a lot. Sadly. There are days I do not. I can only imagine the smell and the nasty, slippery feeling. Ick. Need to take care of them now, though.

My chin have hairs. And are now doubled. 🫣 it is time to make a move and smart eating. Gonna try ketosis as advices by dr.delapaz.

My face shape is still the same, but my cheeks are getting smaller than before I am not a mother. They are also cleared with pimples and blemishes. Honestly, maybe because our house is much cleaner than the office’s air.

My neck have warts. But, lesser. I didn’t actually take a note of my neck. It is fine.

My arms got slimmer. But my left wrist now has a keloid, a titanium plate, and I need a year to fully heal. My right hand is still awesome. I think it misses art.

My boobs are changed. My right peck is much much bigger and produced much more milk. My left peck is smaller, nipples are getting crumbled, dry and dark because it rarely been breastfed by Calis, though it still have milk.

My tummy is really full. I ate a lot. And I am always hungry. I need to take good care of my tummy and get them slim.

My caesarean scar is healed outside. But they said it needed 3-years to be fully healed. I am not bother with the scar. It doesnt have keloid.

My legs are slimmer now.

My butt got small into nothingness.🤣 Well, I read that it has omega3. I need the omega3 to produce milk. So, it is okay. Sometimes, I looked in the mirror and sighed.

My feet gets dried and cracked. I used vaseline creamy petroleum jelly on my feet, put celophane and socks. The nextday, it feels so soft and looks whiter than before. It was moisturized and glowing!

My hands are doing great. Works are done perfectly and extraordinarily.

Now, my heart is full with love for my Calis. It is also tempted with hate on people who cause my Jun some pain and disappointments. My heart also wanted me to follow my passion in arts. My lost first love that I chose to forget because it doesn’t pay the bills.

My brain is forgetful. But, it also have lots of mental load. Food for the baby, breatfeed her, get the sala clean, prepare the food, change her diaper, feed her, have her drink the water, changed the diaper when she pooped, she keeps on crawling to milo’s bowl, climbing the sofa to table, crying and wanting mommy, going into the walkin closet room and reaching for the breaspump kit, hearing her playing with the crib’s railing, checking her everytime because I fear that she might get hurt, play the youtube, she will crawl again. I have laundry to finish. Hanging clothes I have to fold. Dishes on the sink I have to wash. Toilet is dirty and smelly. I keep on smeezing because I am allergic to dust. My left arm hurts. I cannot use my left arm fully it might break again. I look ugly. I looked like an unhappy mom with her appearance. I do not have income. I am not working as an architect. My opinion do not matter anymore. Milo wants food and water. Milo wants to go outside. There are things on the walkin closet room to organize. I still need to do a design on something for free. I forget what I am going to do. I feel overwhelmed. Jun is not home yet, he is working overtime again. My parents have a problem with money and needed cash again from us. Jun is getting mad at me. I am getting mad for no reason, he said.

I am overwhelmed.

Lately, I have been watching animations. Thought it might ignite something in me, passion, love, arts. I feel happy. What if I pursued. But the reality is I pursued a technical career, an Architect. I still can.

I am also aiming to learn about digital products. They said I needed 1-month then shotgun. I will start it. No one will know, even Jun. I will do this.

[saetoru]

Since you think about Hanma so much 24/7, tell me how you imagine him. How is he? In his day to day interactions, how is he between the sheets, what hobbies does he have?

i’ll tell u all about the version of hanma i think of in like a regular just normal person au where he’s just my college bf bc that’s my fav hanma ever even tho i do love psycho skull cracking hanma

he’s a menace—which isn’t a shock, but like casually for no reason at all. like he disconnects the mouse from the computer he used in the library at school. he walks slowly when someone who’s in a rush is behind him. he sits right next to someone in class when the whole row is empty. he lets his phone buzz continuously in the middle of a lecture without silencing it no matter how many glares he gets from the ppl sitting by him. he clicks his pen in the middle of his exam just to bug people. he’s rly annoying fjsjfkdkajd but he’s actually rly nice and never rude—a little dry, but sometimes it’s more awkward than anything. he never talks to you first, but he’ll keep the conversation going if you do. he’s an average student—not insanely good grades but they’re never bad or barely passing either.

he’s also got a single dad—idk why that matters but it does, he’s got a single dad and he was raised without a mom. he didn’t grow up poor, but him and his dad weren’t the best off in money growing up. he likes his coffee really sweet—but he never orders actual coffee from starbucks often, it’s always those like rly rly sweet drinks that are 95% syrups and caramel and creamer and like 5% coffee. he likes strawberry gum. he can’t handle too much spice but he tries anyway every time and then regrets it nfjsjfdh. he has a navy blue car. he actually doesn’t rly know much about car stuff, he can change a tire if he needs to, but he struggles a bit 😭 he likes chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream or the ones with peanut butter cups in them. he has an extensive hair care routine. he wears a few silver rings. his room is messy but not dirty, never dirty. he only has two pillows :/ he has a rly persistent habit of drumming his fingers on everything without even noticing. he whistles a lot too and never notices that either. he hates the smell of citrus. he has a soft spot for the elderly but he’s very low key about it. he hates birds. he gets cold easily. he sleeps with socks on and just in boxers. he’s a shoes kinda guy :,)

he’s rly good in bed when he cares to be—he’s a little selfish when he’s just hooking up, but when he feels giving or he’s with someone he likes, he knows how to show a rly good time. he’s a little bit silent in bed like it’s mainly just grunts, but he makes up for it by talking 🫶🏽 he’s a talker, has rly good dirty talk. he has sensitive nipples and he’s also a tits over ass kinda guy bc his fav position his cowgirl and he loves sucking on your tits while you ride him. he really likes post sex cuddling but he never ever initiates it himself unless you’re in a serious relationship. he’s a little longer than he is thick, but he knows how to use it + he’s really good at teasing so you cum faster when he’s actually fucking you. his fingers are very long and skilled at fingering <3 he kisses your clit after eating you out, giggles when you shudder a little, and then kisses it again. he likes it when you put the condom on for him he just likes being babied like that. the first time he makes love instead of fucking, his hands shake the whole time and he stays up while you sleep on his chest and wonders about his mother

he plays drums. like. he’s rly good. he never mentions it either—like u just come to his room and see a drum set and u almost think it’s just for decoration or something and then he’s like “no i deadass play” and he gets kinda irritated when you stare at him shocked bc he takes it as you thinking he’s not capable enough to do it so he plays them for you like ���fine i’ll prove it.” he likes working out a lot, but he’s not one of those gym bros where fitness is life and it’s all he ever talks about—he just never skips a day and he rly likes how it helps him blow off steam. he plays video games like most other dudes—kind of a boring a fact but yeah

there that’s my college au! hanma fun fact dump. enjoy. he’s mine

[rinstars]

clean up

pairing: college!sukusa kiyoomi x reader

genre: smut

word count: 1.6k+

tags: cunnilingus, penetration, size kink, a bit of degradation/dumbification(?), choking, probably more but i suck at tags.

note: not as long and didn't proofread as much cause i did this on a whim (again) but here's frustrated sakusa cause you didn't watch him practice like you usually do and he missed you. basically, university/college au cause i don't write them as high school students! always always 18+

"you didn't come to see me in practice." you looked up from the desk to see sakusa entering the sliding doors of your classroom. he quietly walks over to you, the mask strapped on his face unable to hide his obvious distate at your absence. he leans on the teacher's desk in front, calloused palms pressed flat on the wood to support him as he looks down on you.

"sorry, baby. lots of council stuff to finish." you look up to him pouting, but his glare on you is hard and unmoving – making you press your thighs together as your body heats up with arousal. with the slight bob of his head, he motions you to stand up and get closer to him as he removes the mask from his face.

the moment you sprung up to your feet, you wrap your arms around him, nestling your head on the crook of his neck. one of his hands traveled all the way down to the back of your thighs, guiding you to lift it so one of your knees are resting on the table while the other one remains standing between his legs. you rest a bit of your weight on him, attempting to sit down on his thigh so you're stradling it. you groan in annoyance as his firm grip pulls you back by the waist.

then all of a sudden, without warning, he licks a bold stripe on your ear before whispering, "shhh patience... missed my baby girl."

your breaths slowly get shallower by the second as he continues licking and biting your lobe, the hand on the back of your thigh slowly disappearing to find its way below your skirt. you whimper as the pads of his fingers press on your sopping clit, rubbing small circles through the thin underwear. "missed this little pussy."

your fingers grip the hairs on the back of his head, slowly grinding on his hand as he continues pressing open-mouthed kisses on your jaw. he hooks his fingers on the band of your underwear as he tries to tug it down with one hand. when he successfully manages to get it on the floor with your help, he pulls back to look you in the eye. he flips you around to switch your positions and hoists you up the table so you're sitting on it.

"spread your legs." he simply murmured, making you twitch in excitement as you slowly opened your legs, skirt bunched up to the sides. his eyes follow your every movement, pupils dilating in hunger as he stares at your glistening pussy.

"omi, touch me now, please." you pathetically beg, spreading your folds even further with the use of your two fingers so he can get a clearer look of the way you're repeatedly clenching into nothing.

he kneels in front of you, thumb collecting moisture as he runs it softly on your protruding clit. "already making a fucking mess. you're creaming so much, it's soaking the damn wood."

his face inches closer and closer to your cunt and you close your eyes, waiting for the warm contact of his tongue – but it never comes. not when he suddenly spits harshly on your pussy, making you yelp both in surprise and pleasure. you feel his spit slowly run down from your bud to your slit – almost at the table when sakusa's tongue suddenly connects with your folds to collect it instead, making you cry out.

the one time sakusa is willing to be messy is when he's lewding you. he doesn't care if you're dripping on the sheets, the floor, all over him. he loves seeing your cunny get swallowed by your wetness.

"my sweet little slut." he groans, sending a series of vibrations through your core as he laps and flicks your clit over and over – drinking whatever drips out of your hole.

"o-omi, ah, yes baby, j-just like that." you squirm against him, panting with your head thrown back. "your t-tongue, put it.. ah shit – put your tongue in, please."

he forces his tongue inside you, wriggling it a little to fit it into your hole as he uses his fingers to roughly rub your already sore clit, making you grip the edge of the table. he interchanges his fingers and tongue after a moment, sinking two fingers inside you and scissoring it as he sucks on your bud.

"gonna cum, omi." you sob, grabbing a fist of his hair and pressing his face harder to you as you slowly rock your hips.

he just hums into you, encouraging and giving you permission to let go. you soon feel your juices flow out along with the sighs escaping from your mouth. when you looked down at him, he's peering at you through his lashes, lips shining with your slick. his tongue glides past his lips as he stands up, pulling you closer to him.

"that's enough prep time, right baby?" he coos at you as he removes the knot on his training pants, sliding it down his thighs. "you'll take me balls deep and let me fuck you dumb?"

you shook with both desire and fear. sakusa is long and thick, lined with prominent veins. the first time you both did it, you cried so much with barely the tip in. by the time he's halfway in, you're already panting from overstimulation. even now, no matter how many times you've done it already, even when your insides are already taking his shape, you can't help but shed tears when he fucks you. that's why he always takes time to prep you, get you wet and stretched enough.

"be gentle, omi." you plead him, reaching out to touch his face. he places his hand on top of yours, giving it a squeeze before pulling it away and eyeing you with mischief.

"you didn't come to see me in practice." he repeats, hand wrapped around his cock as he slowly pumps himself, spreading the pre-cum leaking from his tip. "bad girls get their little cunt punished and split apart."

tears blur your vision as he comes near you, aligning his cock on your opening. you gently grab his forearm and prepare yourself for the impact of his cock slamming into you. you waited as you felt sakusa pull back a little before burrying himself in you, making you scream out and tighten your grip around his arm.

his hands immediately found your mouth, covering it to prevent you from making any more sound. "fuck, quiet down, baby.. unless you want someone to see you? is that what you want, hmm? someone watching you cream around my fat cock while i split you apart?"

you bit his palm to prevent yourself from making a sound as tears continue flowing down your cheeks and into his fingers. you couldn't hold back the gasp when you looked down at your connected bodies to see that only half of his length managed to slip in. he roughly goes in and out a couple of times, accepting whatever you have to offer at the moment as he helps you adjust a little.

when you feel him start to pound the rest of his length into you, your eyes rolled back, touching his waist in an attempt to make me go slowly.

"omi, n-no more – ah ah you're gonna split me apart, you're gonna break me, p-please yoomi you're too big." your muffled voice resonates through the room.

he completely pulls away from you, leaving you empty without his cock inside you. he steadies your head to face him and look at him in the eyes as he slams all of himself to you, making your body shake both in pleasure and pain. you vision whitens when you feel his tip right at your cervix, touching the spongy area inside you.

"hm? then break for me, little one." he moves his hand from your mouth to your throat, squeezing gently while the other one wraps around your waist.

he pounds into you over and over, making you feel every single vein rub through your walls as you take his shape. his hold on your throat prevents you from making any sound – the wet squelching sounds of your cunt being ripped apart along with his grunts the only thing audible.

"you're gushing so fucking disgustingly around me – fuck, stop clenching me like that, i can't move." he grunts, not out of anything but pure pleasure. he loves it. he loves seeing you wrap him in your stickiness, sucking him dry as you tighten around him.

your toes curl as you feel orgasm flooding your body. you look at him with desperation, and he nods to you, understanding what you're trying to say. he lets go of your throat to pinch your nipples through the sheer white of your uniform, closing the distance between you as he sucks your neck.

with one last moan, you spasm around his cock while your own fingers circle your clit to ride your high. you feel his cock start twitching inside you and you hear him suck in a breath before he, too, spills his seed in your walls, filling you to the brim.

he stays unmoving in your cunt, watching you fail to accommodate all of the juices flowing in you as it falls to the floor. after you both catch your breath, he grabs your face gently, turning you to him so he can press a soft kiss on your lips before hugging you to him.

"did it hurt a lot? are you okay?" he strokes your hair, pressing comforting kisses on your temple. you soften with his touch, assuring him it's fine.

you both stay like that for a moment before he pulls his pants back up, walking away from you to one of the cabinets in the room. you laugh as you realize he's getting cleaning supplies to fix the mess you both caused. luckily, you both finished your duties in practice and council late so you don't have to worry much about getting caught (except probably a few more students who also has things to do).

"well help me clean up your damn mess." he lazily glares at you from across the room, making you reach over to your discarded underwear on the floor and slip it on before grabbing one of the mops from him.

note: thank u for 100 followers :D

ghoultobio / risaki © 2020 | all content and its rights belong to me. do not modify or repost.

[orionwhispers]

Bravado // Tommy Shelby Imagine

(A/N - its been a long ass time and i wanted to ease myself back into writing but this ended up being long and also super super angsty. sorry that this illness imagine came during covid idk whats going on with my imagination lol. love you guys SO much thank you for always being there. reblogs, comments and likes mean everything to me.)

trigger warnings - LOTS of angst. fluff. implied smut. my hc that tommy has a fear of illness, bad descriptions of hospitals. 

He knew something wasn’t right the minute his car pulled into the driveway and you weren’t waiting for him under the great concrete arch, with that smile on your face that made his knees buckle and heart race like he was a love struck teenager.

You were always there as soon as he came home. Barefoot in a broderie dress in the summer with tousled hair and baby pink toenails. Wrapped in a hand knit blanket with fire flushed cheeks and woollen socks in the winter - even running across the gravel and into his arms in the middle of a storm, the ice cold rain whipping across both of your faces as you kissed under the light of the moon.

No matter how shit his day or week or month was, no matter what stained his hands or darkened his heart, no matter what lay heavy and hard deep in his gut, seeing you made everything vanish in the night air like wisps of smoke. You made everything worth it.

He refused to give into fear, he wasn’t that kind of man, so he swallowed all of the nagging thoughts and apprehensions as he came up to the dark foggy windows and the iron cast door. It felt strange turning his key in the lock without the weight of you in his arms or the sticky peach kisses you left down his jaw and neck, the smell of the vanilla in your hair and lavender on your skin.

The second thing that sent a jolt of white hot electricity down his spine was Mary, watching him anxiously and wringing her hands in the hallway. Usually, she was calm and collected, taking his jacket and leather travel bag with her signature placid smile and gentle fingers. Usually she would return to the kitchen and finish up whatever she was making - a hearty roast lamb with rosemary and garlic and glazed potatoes or a pheasant pie with honeyed carrots, always followed by a three layer chocolate ganache cake that was so thick and rich you practically had to saw through the sponge. She would always have dinner piping hot and dripping with gravy by the time the two of you returned downstairs, no matter how many hours it took for you to get... reacquainted.

Now she looked sheepish and pale, her skin almost translucent under the syrupy yellow lights. There was something about the way she stood, as still as a wraith, that made his blood run cold.

“Mary. Where is she?”

“Mr Shelby, I - ” Her voice was strained and hesitant, like a slowly fraying rope.

“Where is my wife?”

She moved forward, creases forming around her eyes. “We tried ringing you in Liverpool but the hotel said that you had already left, so we...”

“You rang me? Why? What’s happened?” He couldn’t hold back the desperation in his voice, and it lingered and festered around them both like a poisonous gas.

“Mrs Shelby came down with something a few days ago, we thought that it was just a common cold but unfortunately she seems to be getting worse.”

He tore upstairs before he could even think, his shoes leaving perfect muddy footprints on the cream carpet. He almost slipped at the top, and he lurched forward, his hands reaching out and holding onto the portrait hanging above the stairs for stability.

It was the oil of the two of you. A soft, personal picture that revealed more than he ever possibly could. The love in your gazes, the hint of a soft, drunk smile on the dangerous gangsters face as you leaned into him, melting into him like butter, him holding onto you as though he couldn’t bear to let you go. It was his favourite photo, one that always washed a sense of calmness over him, a reminder of the woman that he loved and the way he felt around you. But now he felt as if was riding out a terrible storm.

He lived his life with no fear, he was capable and practical and used to the sound of bullets and the copper sweet smell of blood. There was really only one thing, one terrible thing that he couldn’t control, and that was what drove him crazy.

Sickness.

It gnawed at his insides like a rabid dog, clawed under his skin and settled behind his ribs. Losing someone he loved was like ripping out a piece of his heart straight from his chest, and he knew better than anyone what it was like to lose somebody to a violent, quick death - the pull of a trigger or the smack of a fist. At least in those moments he could lock them away in his mind, he could leap in front of a bullet or crack the neck of any man who dared to get too close to you, but there was almost nothing he could do to stop sickness, and the devastation it caused.

When you first met him it had been a surprise, almost amusing, that this powerful God of a man had these small little quirks. His house was always sparkling clean and smelling of Lysol, his fruit bowls were filled with citrus fruits and round, plump blueberries. He always made sure you were wrapped up warm in the winter, always placing his coat around your shoulders and bringing an extra pair of gloves in case you forgot yours. It was adorable, the way he took care of you,

It wasn’t till a little bit later when you learnt of those he had lost. His mother and his childhood sweetheart taken away from him much too soon. It broke your heart when he told you late one night of the sallow tint of their skin and the way he could almost see them vanishing from earth, the way that illness had moulded and changed those he loved the most.

You understood.

Your best friends older sister had died of tuberculosis when you were young. The elderly woman across the street from your first flat had passed away from a bout of horrendous smallpox. Your brother lost his first child to pneumonia. Times were changing but the fear of disease was ever present. Medicine was improving and so was knowledge, but still there remained a huge, dark cloud of what could happen, one that always hung around your husbands head.

——————————————-

All Tommy could think was the worst as he ran through the landing. His heart was in his ears and his bones felt loose, like the sweet liquorice the two of you would share at the pictures. He came to a stop by the bedroom door, tentatively pressing his palm onto the wood and ever so slightly pushing it open, listening to the gentle creak it made.

The room was warm. The lace curtains were pulled shut, and your favourite lavender candles were flickering on your vanity, casting syrupy shadows against the wall. He exhaled loudly as he saw you, bundled up under a mountain of satin sheets and hand crocheted blankets, your hair splayed across the pillows.

He moved to your bedside, pretending not to notice the large, untouched jug of water and the tissue box next to you, hoping and silently praying that you weren’t sick - just asleep and waiting for him, ready to wrap your arms around his neck.

You were silent, your lips parting every so often as you breathed, your chest rising and falling. He reached out gently, as though he was picking up shards of glass, and brushed his fingers against your cheek. Your forehead was beading with sweat, your cheeks flushed, and yet your skin was ice cold to the touch. He recoiled quickly, his heart dropping like a weight into his gut, and he inhaled a shaky, deep breath.

He saw something curled up beside your hands, a fluffy white cloud with sparkling emerald green eyes trained on him. Despite everything, he smiled. He thought of your birthday - of strawberry cheesecake and champagne, and surprising you with a ribbon wrapped little kitten as you woke up. He thought of that day often. How you smiled and leapt onto him with tears in your eyes, his whole world blissfully quiet as he spent the day in bed with you and your new best friend.

He would have preferred a big dog, one with sharp teeth and a menacing gaze to ward of visitors whilst he was away. But you were drawn to the tiny, malnourished runt of the litter who was scared of his own shadow. A kitten no bigger than the size of his clenched fist. A little white hairball who only ate and drank from fine pink saucers. A cat that had a very frustrating habit of crawling in the bedroom right as Tommy’s hand was up your skirt and his lips on the sweet spot of your neck, the tiny thing mewling and crying until you picked him up and nuzzled him into your chest.

He was a horse lover through and through, and never saw himself having time for any other pets. But in the summer when you saw the litter from one of John’s barn cats and fell in love with the sweet baby who mewled and cried and crawled right into your lap - he knew that he would give you anything and everything you wanted.

Including a cat who refused to accept that Tommy was the man of the house.

“Hello, boy.” He said, leaning over to scratch Comet under the chin, using a voice he only reserved for the two of you. “Have you been looking after my girl whilst I’ve been gone?”The cat meowed loudly in reply, pressing his head into Tommy’s palm but not moving from his spot beside you.

Tommy suddenly felt you shift under him and his heart lurched into his throat. He turned to face you, cupping the side of your clammy face as your eyelids fluttered open, blinking under the candlelight. A rush of red hot heat built up in his belly as you registered him, that angelic smile growing on your face, your tired eyes glimmering with recognition of the man you loved.

“Tommy?”

“Hi, Princess.”

You smiled sadly. “You’ve been gone for weeks - I missed you.”

He felt his brows crease as he rubbed along your jawline softly, trying to stop you from falling back asleep. He felt panic in his throat as sour as vomit, and he tried to bite back the nagging feeling that something was very wrong.

“No, sweetheart, I’m early. It’s only Thursday. I left on Monday.”

“Oh.” You said softly, your voice as gentle as the breeze rustling through the trees outside. “Well let me welcome you back properly - let me make you a lemon drizzle or a...” You lifted your head from the pillow and shuffled under your blanket, but he pressed his hands against your shoulder and held you down.

“No. You’re staying right here.”

“But - ”

“No.”

“Hmm. Don’t leave me, Tommy.”

“Never.” He said, his tone firm and cast like stone. He stroked your hair softly as your breathing slowed, but it didn’t nothing to quell the hard thump of his heart in his chest.

——————————-

Tommy left the room as quietly as he could after you had fallen asleep in his arms. He hadn’t wanted to move, not when you were pressed against his chest, looking ethereal but vacant, sweat beading under your brow and your face lacking colour. He wanted to stay with you, curled up by his side, his fingers laced through yours, the sound of your heart thumping in his ears.

But he was a man of action, and seeing you there - your lips cracked and dry, shudders passing through your body and goosebumps raised over your skin - he couldn’t fight the fiery urge to do everything in his power to make you feel alright again.

He found Mary waiting outside the door, chewing on the skin of her lips and swaying on the balls of her feet in anticipation. He grabbed her by the arm, harder than he meant to and something he would apologise for later, and pulled her downstairs, determined to let you rest whilst he got some answers. As soon as they reached the drawing room he spun her around, clenching his jaw and pointing a finger at the anxious maid.

“Where the fuck is the doctor? Why isn’t he here?”

“Mr Shelby.” She said, stepping forward calmly. “We phoned Doctor Moore and he came on Tuesday to see her.”

“Tuesday?” He seethed. “My wife has been ill since Tuesday and no one called me?”

Mary raised her hands in defeat, making it clear that the decision wasn’t hers to make. “He said it was nothing of concern . He gave her some antibiotics and told her to rest. She asked us herself not to call you, she knows how you.. worry.”

He ignored her sugar coated attempt to quell his anger, but if anything it made his vision darken. “When it’s my wife, It is always my concern.”

“Mr Shelby, we were just doing what we were told. As soon as we noticed she wasn’t getting better we phoned the surgery again, but Doctor Thomas was out for the day and said he didn’t think it was necessary to come round again, so we -”

“I don’t give a fuck. My wife is the number one priority. Ring every doctor in England if you have to, get somebody out here now to see my wife.”

He stormed away, anger pulsating through his veins, but he stopped suddenly, and threw out over his shoulder:

“And call Doctor Moore’s ’office. Tell him to expect a visit from the blinders soon.”

———————————————————

Once, when you were first dating, you found Tommy at the door to your flat at midnight, with scraped knuckles and blood dripping from his nose. You let him in, cleaned him up and sat with him in the bath until his skin was clear and his breathing was even. He knew that night, as you were pressed against his chest and his lips were pressed to your scalp that he was truly, madly and completely in love with you.

He remembered waking up the next morning, love drunk and blissful, and finding the bed beside him empty. He found you in the kitchen, wincing slightly and pressing a hot water bottle to your belly as you buttered a few pieces of toast. He rushed to your side with eyes as wide as saucers, concern lacing the features that were usually ice cold and hard as stone. You were completely baffled as he held you at arms length, his bright cerulean eyes trailing up and down your body for any signs of injury he might have missed. You were bewildered at the sight of the powerful man practically on his knees as he made sure you were alright, and you bit back a giggle as his warm palms spread over your abdomen.

“What is it? Whats wrong?”

“Tommy. Sweetheart.” You said softly, bringing his gaze level to yours. “It’s just - you know - that time of the month.”

He brushed off your embarrassment and ran his fingers through your hair, pressing a uncharacteristically gentle kiss to your forehead, sending a swarm of butterflies around the pain in your stomach.

“Do you need anything?” He asked, half ready to run down to the corner shop and buy any amount of painkillers or chocolate bars or your favourite lavender tea that you might need; not caring who saw the seemingly terrifying gang leader in the street with an armful of strawberry laces and salt water fudges.

You smiled like the summer sun and he melted, pulling you close as you whispered in the shell of his ear that you only needed him, and that was all you ever needed.

That was the first time you fully saw the extent of Tommy’s fear, but it definitely wasn’t the last. He knew he wanted you forever and always, and it took only six months of neck kisses and pillow talk, red hot jealousy and possessive hands across your skin and dancing in the rain and falling asleep under the pale yellow moon for him to put a ring on your finger. You were both consumed by your love, as though it was the only thing that mattered, it was insatiable and powerful - the wonderful mix of the devil and his sweet little angel.

And with that, came the good and the bad.

Like when you got food poisoning after Arthur cooked you a Sunday lunch to cheer you up whilst Tommy was gone. He came home to you retching over the toilet bowl with Mary holding back your hair, and swore that he would kill his brother with his own hands. Or when you slipped on ice and broke your arm while out with friends in London, and Tommy went ballistic and tried to ban you from ever leaving the house. It was just in his nature, how he always made sure you walked on the side furthest from the road, kept an arm slung around you whenever you were together, kept his eyes alert and vigilant no matter where you were - always looking out for his girl.

But he had never been like this.

———————————————————-

You were falling in and out of sleep. Waking up drowsy and heavy headed, squinting under bright lights, an ache in your skull and a burning in your throat. Every so often you felt a pinch in your upper arm, a squeeze on your palm, a kiss on your forehead - but you always drifted back into unconsciousness.

You weren’t sure how much time had passed when you woke up. The room was dark and you could hear the wind howling and whipping rain across the windows. You felt all too hot and all too cold at the same time, and the bed was damp with sweat. You struggled and tried to sit up, your head swaying and feeling as heavy as one of Tommy’s marble statues; as if you had been carved up and moulded. You could hear voices out in the hall, and unsteadily got to your feet, moving towards the noises.

“Pneumonia?” You heard through the thick wooden door, instantly recognising your husbands voice. “That’s impossible.”

“Sir...”

“Fucking. Impossible.” You knew his teeth were clenched.

The other man cleared his throat.“I know that it’s hard to hear, Mr Shelby, but your wife is very sick.”

“Just...” You felt your heart flutter and clench in your chest as the sound of his broken words, could practically feel his desperation and you wanted nothing more than to hold him. “Just tell me how to make her better.”

The second man spoke again, his voice softening and lowering, something you knew Tommy would hate. “Mr Shelby, the first round of antibiotics didn’t work and that means that it’s time for something stronger. Usually I would suggest the Birmingham hospital but I don’t think it’s equipped for...” He paused, trying to think over his words carefully. He wanted to convey the severity of the situation but also didn’t want to risk getting a bullet in his head from your very protective husband. “...This kind of reaction. I recommend we send her down to London for extra testing.”

“London? That’ll take two fucking hours. How the fuck can you recommend letting my wife travel that far? Are you out of your fucking mind?”

“I’m my opinion this is the wisest choice to make, but unfortunately that could mean your wife might get worse before she gets better.”

“Worse than she already is? That’s not an option.”

The man you assumed was the doctor was insistent, trying his best to portray the severity of the situation but failing as your hardheaded husband had already come to a decision.

“I’ll look after her here. She’s safest with me.”

Once Tommy had spoken that was the final result, and the doctor slinked away into the darkness and shook his head. You remained peering from behind the door, your tongue between your teeth and your heart hammering.

Tommy took one look at you and frowned, scooping you in his arms like a baby despite your protests. He ignored you, acting playfully and cheerful but you could feel his heated skin and the see flare of his nostrils. You wanted to help him but didn’t know how, and let him tuck you under the covers once again. He kissed your crown and stroked your hair and you wanted to speak but no words would leave your mouth.

“You stay there this time. You know I have no problem with tying you to the bed.”

You rolled your eyes as he left, and his clenched fists and tightened shoulders told you all you needed to know.

————————————————-

Comet watched from his spot beside you as Tommy wrestled with the fire. He had noticed you shivering despite your high temperature, and bundled you up in blankets whilst sparking matches beside the fireplace. There were raindrops across his shoulders, evidence that he had been outside and to the log store right at the end of the property - a job that had always been for the Groundskeeper. Your precious cat nudged the tips of your fingers as you sighed and watched your husband throw kindling onto the coal, a deep unease settling over your gut.

“Tommy, my love, I’m fine.” It wasn’t exactly true but you felt he needed to hear it. But you could practically see your words wash over him and evaporate like ocean spray.

He was shaking a metal tin in his palm as he worked, and you groaned and let your head hit the pillow as he pulled out two round chalky tablets. You winced as he placed them beside your glass, your mouth already tasting like the sour talc medicine you had come to loathe. He raised his eyebrows and shot you a look that told you he wasn’t far off plugging your nose with his fingers to force you to swallow, and you childishly stuck up two fingers as you took them.

Your stomach rumbled with nausea and you bit back the bile in your throat as you settled into the pillows. You watched your husband as he pulled off his crisp white shirt, revealing his taut tan stomach and the deep ink tattoos that you loved to trace with your fingertips and your lips. There was something about him standing there, with those damn cerulean eyes and hidden muscles, that boyish hair and slender fingers that you wanted desperately around your throat, that made a million tiny fireworks spark inside of you.

But instead you pushed him away from you despite your body wanting nothing but him wrapped all around you. “Don’t get too close. I might have something contagious. I can’t have you getting sick.”

He ignored you, smiling inwardly at the way you always put others before yourself. It was one of the million reasons he had fallen for you. You were sweating out a high fever and shivering in pain, and yet you always thought of him first. He pressed his lips to your temple and pulled you closer, knowing that skin to skin was a way to bring down a fever - even if it meant he had to restrain himself from tugging off your pretty little white nightgown and whatever frilly things you had on underneath.

“I’m not going anywhere. Fuck it if I catch anything.”

“That’s easy for you to say. I’m the one who will have to dote on you hand and foot, you big baby.” You teased, pressing yourself into him playfully, finally giving in.

He held you like a child, trying to hard to soften despite the way you felt underneath him. Everything on him was running a mile a minute, and he couldn’t help but want to try everything and everything to make you feel better. His hand was pressed against your temple to always try and measure your fever, his other palm across your chest to try and count your heart rate.

He could hear Mary treading across the landing carpet but he ignored his anxious maid, instead letting himself be completely consumed by the only thing that mattered - you.

This was something he had to do by himself. He was the only one who could care for you he reminded himself. And he let the words tumble over and over in his skull until they were all he could hear.

—————————————————————-

You had been asleep for a long time.

Every hour, after pacing the length of the hall and sanitising his hands and wiping the beads of sweat above your brow and above your breasts he woke you up and held a cool glass to your lips. You mumbled and moaned and pushed him away but he kept his fingers across your wrist - harsher than he ever had before - and kept you as close to him as possible.

He couldn’t remember the last time he had cooked. Perhaps it was last valentines when the two of you had camped out under the stars, drinking icy white wine and sharing stolen, day drunk kisses. That night he had roasted a chicken over the fire and it had burnt to a crisp as the two of you rolled around the grass, his head buried in your neck as you giggled at the poultry going up in flames.

He was trying now though, easy, plain substantial meals that wouldn’t upset your stomach. Boiled egg and dippy soldiers. Crackers with smooth cheese. Bubbly water and ginger biscuits. Each time he went upstairs you pushed him away, your whole body shuddering and almost retching, and he felt like smashing the plates against the wall at his defeat.

It had been almost thirty six hours since he had come home and it had been almost as long since you had eaten something, and his heart thundered and shattered in his chest when he found you gasping and wheezing over the toilet bowl when you had taken a bite of toast to calm him. He rarely left you alone, only for a few minutes to put the still full dishes in the sink, to ring Lizzie and tell her that he wouldn’t be coming for reasons that he refused to disclose, to smoke a cigarette under the grey stone archway, his shaking hands and bitten fingernails barely visible through the sleepy rolling fog.

He had grabbed handfuls of papers and the brass ink pen you had got him for your anniversary and broke his own rule - bringing work into your bedroom. It had always been a sacred space. For candlelight and soft laughter, aching hands and heart shaped bruises, a sanctuary for him to breathe and to love and to be loved fully in return. But he was afraid if he didn’t have a distraction, he might just completely lose it, and he had to be there for you.

So he sat squinting in his glasses, the room almost completely dark save for a few candles because of the migraines that had started to spread throughout your skull, and let himself be drawn into the mess of squiggly lines and numbers that suddenly didn’t add up, with you still centre stage in his peripheral.

After about forty minutes of rereading the same sentence a dozen times to try and make some sense of it, he heard your voice, like a small crack spreading across a sheet of ice, coming from the bed.

“Tom?” You sounded so weak, he practically flipped your cream vanity as he got to his feet and darted towards you. “I don’t feel well.”

He lifted you as you reached your arms up at him like a child. He almost gasped at the sweat pouring from your body but didn’t want to scare you, and instead held your shaking, shivering body against his own. How could you be so hot, yet so cold at the same time? Your skin was prickled with goosebumps yet you were burning with a fever, and for the first time in a long time, he had no fucking idea what to do.

He left you propped up against the headboard and he entered the bathroom. He ran over to the claw foot tub you loved, twisting the faucet and trying to find the perfect medium between boiling hot and freezing cold. He didn’t want to overwhelm you, just try and soothe your raging fever, and he ignored the shelves of expensive bath oils and scented soaps that you coveted, instead opting for a handful of something meant to ease tension - praying to whoever was listening that it would help you somehow.

There was a brutal, awful moment as he lifted you from the bed, limp as a rag doll, where he imagined what would happen if your heart were to stop. He couldn’t comprehend what it would be like to miss the weight of you in his arms, the smell of your skin, the feeling of your lips against him, the shovels stopping and fading into nothing. It hit him square in the chest, as merciless as a bullet, and he had to lean against the doorframe to stop the two of you from plummeting to the ground.

He undressed himself first. Tugging his white shirt off, sliding off his slacks and his underwear, keeping you as close to his chest as he could. Then he pulled your nightgown up and over your head. He gathered your hair and secured it up with a claw clip so that it was away from your face, the heat radiating off your neck as fierce as the fire now burnt down to ash in the bedroom.

He lowered the two of you into the bath, sinking down beneath the eucalyptus smelling lukewarm water, letting it wash over you both. Your teeth were chattering and you were barely awake. He gathered handfuls of water, letting it drip over your shoulders and pulse points, grabbing a washcloth and running it over your raised skin, hating how you barely registered his touch. As he scrubbed over your collarbones and up to your face he saw your lips had turned to an awful, silvery blue, as vibrant as a fresh bruise. He hissed and tugged on the plug, now determined to get you wrapped up in a fresh towel and tucked back into bed.

You were soft and placid and he helped you out, lacking the usual fire that he adored. Your eyes were glassy and missing their vibrance, like the vanishing spark of a lighter - and he felt miles and miles of invisible distance between the two of you. You were unsteady on your feet and he used his body to prop you up as he warmed your arms with a fluffy white towel. You suddenly stopped, lifting your hand to your mouth as you started to cough - a horrible, dry, gasping cough.

He noticed it almost immediately. His eyes darting to the splatter of red against the white, a smudge of crimson that was as loud and commanding as a siren, a warning signal that something was definitely not right. A bead of scarlet that would linger long behind his closed eyelids.

He managed to get you back into bed, remaining calm as he stroked your hair and kissed your temple. He tucked you under the duvet and waited for your breathing to even before he ran downstairs, his heart thumping in his ears as he practically ripped the phone off of the wall.

“Pol? Fuck. I think - I think I need help.”

—————————————————————-

The room smelt like bleach and metal. Unfamiliar and clinical. There was something hard on your chest and covering your mouth, it tasted like wet pennies and was as heavy as a hand over your throat, but for the first time in days you could finally breathe. You tried to sit up, but there was a needle in your chest, a gown you didn’t recognise cut straight down the middle to accommodate it. You struggled and lifted the thin bedsheet above your shivering torso, trying to look around the cold room.

“Careful!”

It was Polly, dressed immaculately despite her surroundings. She reached out and placed a manicured hand across yours, and you smiled at the woman who had always been a calming influence when you had joined the circus of a family. There was concern in her eyes, rimmed with black eyeliner and lifted lashes but still swimming deep around her pupils. That made you frown, and you moved as much as you could to face her.

“What happened?”

She ran her tongue over her teeth, choosing her words. “You gave us quite a fright, love.”

“I did?” Your memories of the past few days were much like a fever dream, blurry and distorted snapshots were all you could really remember.

“Your pneumonia got worse. A lot worse.” She paused, looking over to the door and you followed her gaze. “They found fluid in your lungs.”

“So...” You started, gesturing to the needle in your abdomen and the breathing apparatus around your head.

She nodded. “Yes. You were in surgery. It was touch and go for a little bit.”

“Really?” You were bewildered. You couldn’t remember anything, let alone having major surgery. You looked her straight in the eye, asking her the questions that had been on the tip of your tongue since you had woken up. “Where is he? Where’s Tommy?”

“He’s outside.” She clicked her tongue, reaching deep into her purse and pulling out some hand cream, gently rubbing your dry hands like she was your mother. You leant into her touch despite all of your questions.

“What? Why?”

“I think he blames himself. God knows what goes on in that mans head. All I really know is he was bloody terrified.” She paused, looking over in the distance. “I’ve never seen him so scared, not even on his wedding day.” She smiled sadly, trying to lighten the mood, but it soon faded. “He didn’t leave your side the whole time you were asleep.”

Your heart thumped in your chest, a soft aching that you knew all too well. “I want to see him.”

“I know you do. But right now...” She stopped right as a handful of nurses entered, clad in long blue dresses with white aprons, hair tied back and smelling of strong soap and disinfectant. You lost Polly in the bustle as one spoke softly to you before tugging on the needle right beside your ribs, your eyes just catching hers as she left, a promise to see you soon on her lips.

It wasn’t her you saw next, but Tommy.

The nurses had cleaned you up with wet flannels and bowls of warm soapy water. Your hair had been braided and your face washed, and walked you arm in arm over to the bathroom so you could relieve yourself. A skittish doctor followed after, his eyes darting across you and his touch gentle as he changed your dressings and took your blood - obviously under strict instructions from your husband, and despite everything, you smiled.

You were sat listening to the clock tick. A romance novel you had been given was dangling dangerously close to the end of the bed, but you were too tired to focus on it. You heard the door squeal softly, and the sound of familiar footsteps across the tiling, each small thud sending shockwaves across your spine.

“Tommy.”

He looked tired. Exhausted rather, as though he had been awake all the hours that you had been asleep. His eyes were bloodshot and his skin was sallow and bruised. His clean shaven face was dark with stubble and his hair was ruffled and unwashed. You longed to reach out to him and cradle him against you, but he stood in the doorway, lingering like a ghost.

“Tommy?” You repeated, your voice almost a whisper, breaking his already shattered heart once again.

“How are you feeling, my love?”

You smiled softly, like spun sugar and sweet honey. No hospital bed or itchy gown could dull your infectious light. “Better now.”

He approached you almost cautiously. He settled down on the hard chair beside your bed and stroked a line down from your temple to your lips, his touch setting you alight like an electrical storm. There was a sadness in his eyes that reminded you of how he got when things were bad, and you willed him to come back to you. His touch was tentative and he inhaled shakily as you cupped his hand with yours, pressing a tender kiss to the inside of his palm.

“Don’t scare me like that. Ever.” He was stern, as though hoping his words would make it true. “I mean it.” He kept his gaze on your pretty face, trying his best not to stare at the harsh bruising on your delicate flesh or the sickly tone of your skin.

“Tommy I’m going to get sick, even you can’t stop that.” You teased gently.

“I can bloody well try.” His hands cradled your face, pulling you into him and kissing you fiercely, still mindful of the wires and tubes taped to your body. There was something about the tenderness and deep longing in the kiss that when mixed with your total exhaustion and love for your husband prompted tears to start falling from your eyes. You sniffled as he pulled away, concern dripping from his beautiful features, his powerful mind wanting to do everything and anything to stop your hurting.

“Hey, hey.” He said, running his calloused fingertips under your eyes and wiping your tears away. You leant into his touch and he kissed your temple, squeezing you even tighter into him. “You know I hate it when you cry.” He toyed with your hair and winked playfully. “Besides, all you need to focus on is getting better. You’re going to have to take care of me when we get home, this week has given me a fucking stroke.”

You rolled your eyes, kissing the inside of his wrist. “You’re a idiot, Thomas Shelby.” You blinked at the clock looming above you both, wanting to stay in your blissful bubble but also knowing that Aunt Pol would probably be in the vicinity harassing a poor nurse over your results. “You should go and find Polly, let her know that everything’s alright.”

He shook his head and nuzzled his nose across yours, an act so innocent that your heart dipped and swooped in your chest. “Later.” He said, breathless and consumed by you. Everything had been too much. Almost losing you had been harrowing, it had punctured him completely and he just needed to feel his girl safe and warm around him. He needed to know that you weren’t found anywhere.

“I just want to stay here for a while. Just me and you.”

You grinned. “Always.”

[guqin-and-flute]

Modern 3zun/A-Fu Verse--Baby Acquisition Continuation

[Part 1] [Modern A-Fu Verse] [AO3 Series]

[Crediting @little-smartass​ with a lot of the characterization/story beats because I’m positive we’ve had a conversation about this at some point]

“He really is as bald as a little cue ball, isn’t he?”

It took Meng Yao several seconds to register that words had been spoken, another to parse the words, then another to tear his gaze up from the pile of early childhood development books he was accumulating in his lap, color coded tabs bristling from the edges. Da-ge was sprawled in the corner of their enormous sage green couch in his slacks and undershirt, bathed in the ghostly, swimming glow of the TV on mute. He was looking down fondly at the newborn tucked into the crook of his arm, fast asleep with his fist shoved up against his face.

A newborn that was, in fact, very bald. And so very tiny.

“Is that normal? Is that a sign of something?” Meng Yao began to anxiously dig around in the plush crevices of the armchair he was folded into for his phone, preparing to search something along the lines of ‘is baby baldness bad??’

On the other half of the L of the couch from Mingjue, Xichen sucked in a shuddering breath through his nose, making them both freeze and look over. But all he did was sigh in his sleep and return to his motionless sprawl where he had collapsed about an hour and a half ago when Mingjue forcibly removed the baby from his arms and insisted he lay down. “Just for 5 minutes,” Meng Yao had also reasoned in a two pronged attack. “No one says you have to nap. Just close your eyes for a bit, then you can take him again while Da-ge makes dinner, if you want.”

Of course, he had fallen asleep immediately as they all had known he would. But one had to give Xichen explicit permission and then a backup compromise and then incentive before he considered doing something so selfish as making sure he wasn’t dead on his feet, even after a day of running errands with an 7 day old who was still suffering from stomach upset from travel. Meng Yao and Mingjue were long since practiced in being able to maneuver around his particular aversion of self care.

When their eyes met again, Mingjue’s were crinkled and he teased in a lower voice, “Being bald is a sign of being an infant, A-Yao. You really know nothing about babies, do you?”

Meng Yao aggressively squashed back the automatic bridling that happened every time a flaw in his...anything was pointed out. Instead, he primly brandished a pastel yellow book with curlicue flowers around the edge. “I am learning.” It’s not my fault I obtained all my siblings after adolescence. Not for lack of trying...

“I’m telling you, most of those are gonna be useless. Everyone’s got something to say and it’s all going to be different. You’re better off just winging it,” Mingjue stage whispered dismissively, rolling his eyes. “It’s just until Xichen’s uncle gets the custody stuff all worked out, so he’ll be gone before you know it. Just enjoy the baby-head smell while he’s here.”

The what? He narrowed his eyes at him. “You’re making fun of me.”

For some reason, a grin spread over Da-ge’s face--a delighted, self satisfied grin. “Oh.” He got up--(”Don’t wake him up--” Meng Yao hissed, stiffening, remembering his disconcerting little mewling cries from Xichen’s return from the store)--and easily cupped the infant up to his shoulder as he crossed the thick cream carpeting.

“Make room, come on,” Mingjue whispered, grabbing a stack of books in one large hand and carelessly tossing them onto the basket of neatly folded throw blankets beside the armchair.

Lips pursed and fully harassed, now, Meng Yao neatly piled the remaining books down by the leg of the chair. “Why do you insist--” When he sat back up, he immediately almost fumbled the armful of baby that was thrust into them. But Mingjue seemed to have been ready for this, because he just kept pressing him into his chest until Meng Yao’s hold came up automatically to support him.

The baby was warm and very soft, with no tension in him at all as he slept. And so light--almost like some sort of doll. It was hard to believe he was a real, living human being instead of some sort of strange hairless animal. Baxia had more heft, for god’s sake and she was a cat.

For some reason, Meng Yao’s heart rate immediately spiked as if he were being chased. His palms and neck began to sweat. It’s not like he hadn’t held the child in the day that he had been here, he just...well, he actually hadn’t. He hadn’t held any child before--his nephew wasn’t quite born yet and he had never been in a foster home with a baby. All yesterday and last night, he had shadowed Mingjue while he changed the diapers, observing techniques such as ‘The Turkey Hold’ and ‘Tissues Before Wet Wipes’. He had noted the ease with which Xichen just palmed him belly down like a fragile little football while packing the lunches Mingjue had assembled for him and Meng Yao to take to work, or patiently maneuvered his little sausage limbs in and out of clothes like he wasn’t afraid of breaking him.

And they certainly weren’t keeping him from Meng Yao--but he was still researching and information gathering while they had plenty of experience. And the stakes seemed absurdly high to chance a failure with this particular subject He hadn’t been avoiding it, just...he was sure the opportunity would present itself. Eventually.

His face was round and slightly alien in its minute proportions; a perfect miniature of a proper nose, a fine dusting of eyebrows above completely smooth little eyelids, a tiny squinch of a mouth that had fallen open in sleep.  And he sort of smelled like...slightly sour milk and the floral baby detergent Xichen had bought. Nothing that special.

Cautiously, Meng Yao attempted a gentle joggle with his arms, then froze when those little fingers flexed and the baby made a noise, halfway between a snort and a grunt, but so tiny. How on earth did anything this tiny and helpless even exist? How was he allowed to hold something that had this much potential? This much importance? His father wouldn’t even let him touch his fountain pen at the office--how would he ever let Meng Yao hold his heir? “A-Yao, breathe,” Mingjue’s whisper was nearby and amused and when he looked up at him, Meng Yao saw his face was close, leaning down, hands braced on both arms of the chair. Blocking escape.

“I think you should take him back,” Meng Yao hurriedly whispered back. “I don’t think he likes me. He’s going to wake up and cry.”

Mingjue shrugged. “He might.”

Anxiety, old and choking, rose up in his throat like bile, like failure. “Then take him back.”

The asshole just raised his eyebrow. “No. If he does, it’s not the end of the world. Calm down, smell his head.”

“I can smell him just fine from here, I--”

“Smell his head, I’m telling you--”

“Mingjue--” he hissed, baring his teeth, instinctively looking over at the sleeping Xichen to be the tie breaker and peacemaker, but Mingjue just put the back of his fingers to Meng Yao’s cheek and (gently. Always gently.) pushed his face toward the tiny round head tucked to his shoulder.

Stiffly, he gave a grudging, perfunctory sniff, intending to follow the exact letter of the order and not the spirit, because if he was going to be forced--

Oh. Oh. What? Pressing his nose closer, he breathed in properly. What on earth...

His head did smell different from the old spit up and detergent. Warm and--and--almost sweet but not, somehow mild and calming? It felt familiar, even though it wasn’t. How was this unwinding something in his chest? Without intending to, he breathed out through his mouth in order to hastily draw in another breath, deep and slow. It smelled like... sleep and home and softness. Comfort. And he did have hair, actually--downy little fluff, close to the scalp, soft like velvet when he pressed his lips to it to take a third breath. How did the top of his head smell so good? Was it the baby soap they had used? No, it wasn’t, because he could smell traces of that, soapy and artificial. This was something completely organic that somehow exuded from his scalp?

Mingjue chuckled above his head and Meng Yao opened his eyes--that he didn’t even remember closing. He knew he should probably feel more annoyed at his partner’s smugness but the tension that had been humming through him seemed to have utterly bled away. “There, now, was that so hard?”

“What...is it?” he murmured against the baby’s head, unable to tear his nose away.

“Baby-head smell.”

“Baby-head smell?”

“Mm.”

“Do they--do they all smell like this?”

“More or less. It’s so we don’t eat them when they wake us up in the middle of the night, probably. Hormones and shit.”

“Has someone bottled this? Made it into a candle?” He whispered, affronted. “Is this known?” None of the early childhood development books he had read even alluded to the fact that baby heads apparently smelled like magic. “Does Xichen know?”

Mingjue snorted. “Of course you consider marketing. Yeah, most people who’ve handled babies know about the baby-head smell, so now you do, too. Instant stress relief.”

It was. It was like a drug, how instantaneously it worked. Meng Yao greedily breathed in again, cupping his tiny head closer to him. He could feel the thrum of his heart through his back against his forearms.

Mingjue huffed a fond laugh through his nose and smoothed his hand heavily down Meng Yao’s hair, swaying them both gently as one. “See? Not so scary. Now sit there and relax with baby. I’ll make us all dinner.”

Meng Yao could do that--and quite happily.

[sunatooru]

Uh idk if this is weird but like would it be okay to request a head canon where like the reader has a vagina & penis it can be gn or female s/o but like they’ve been very nervous about having sex bc they think their partner will think their genitals are weird (maybe they had a bad experience with an ex). And so they are dating one of the boys and he wonders why you keep swerving around sex so u finally show him why thinking he’s gonna break up with you and be creeped out but he’s like totally,... turned on??? Like he sucks you off while fingering you or like jacking u off while he’s fucking you and thinks it’s so hot as the cums is like dribbling out of your dick at the same time. Mans is in LOVE 😍. If you don’t feel comfortable writing this THATS TOTALLY FINE I was jus trying to see if any of my fav writers would be into it. If you do do it can you do it with kuroo, atsumu, bokuto, and you can pick the fourth!! I’m so sorry this is so specific

Heyyy here is your long awaited request (I’m sorry I’m late). this idea is very hot and I know the boys would get crazy over this. Also I appreciate being one of your favs, thank you xx

~ 

warnings: minors dni, 18+ smut content, may be timeskip spoilers, intersex reader (futanari/ futa), intercouse, fingering, blowjob, mentions kitten and daddy and bunny, praise kink?, creampie and just the boys indulging into you

~

Kuroo

* He’s so lovely to you

* Always holding your hand, kissing your forehead and looking at you lovingly

* And although sex wasn’t necessary for him, he would always wonder why you never got further than making out and leaving hickeys

* Your hands always pushing against his chest when he would carefully slip a finger under your waistband

* And today was no different

* When you break away from his kiss, he worries when you don’t meet his gaze

* “Baby, what’s wrong? Am I doing something wrong?” He questions and you’re quick to shake your head no

* He can see your hesitancy, you’re chewing your lips and you finally tell him. You watch his eyes widen when you tell him you have both sex genitals, and that your previous partner mocked you for it

* He feels a lot in that moment. He’s both angry at the audacity of your previous partner but also curious as to how you look and mostly how you’ll feel

* “Baby, screw them. I don’t care about that. I just want to make you feel good.” And you let him

* He lays you down on the bed and kisses down your neck, your shirt already off and he drags his lips across your chest, grin plastered when you whine as he toys with your nipple

* “So beautiful” he whispers, tongue point out when he slowly pulls your trousers down

* He feels his cock twitch at the slight bulge forming in your underwear

* His own dent forming as he sits between your thighs in only his shorts

* He groan when he takes off your underwear, hips unconsciously rutting forward as he sees your pussy glistening and your pretty cock tip swollen

* “You’re so fuck hot. Look at what you’ve done.” He locks his eyes with yours and watches you trail down to see him free his hard cock out, giving it a few pumps

* He drags his finger against your folds, your own cock twitching at his touch and it’s enough for him to tease his tip at your entrance

* He clenches his jaw when he slides in, eyes shut as he feels your pussy swallow his hard cock

* “Fuck baby just like that.” He groans when you moan our his name, walls tightening when he slides his whole length in

* He places both hands on your hip, holding them down as he begins to rock against you

* “Tetsu- tets- so goo-“ he grins at your inability to form your words, thrust getting faster when you arch your back

* And then he sees your cock stand tall, he doesn’t even think as he wraps his large hand against it

* You yell at his grip, body thrashing in the sheet as he begins jerking you off

* The double stimulation has you stuttering

* And his eyes are just watching how your pussy pulls him in and your cock growing redder with every pump

* “Fuck you’re so hot...so sexy.”

* “Pleas- I.. I’m so close.” And so he moves his hand faster, you tending body sigh you’re about to cum

* And then he sees they way your cum sprays onto your chest, the liquid drops decorating your skin, he feels his balls tighten

* “Shit Kitten!” He moans as he slips out and cums between your folds

* Your now softening cock reaching to touch some of his load and he just knows he’s keeping you forever

Atsumu

* He’s instigated sex a couple of times

* He never got mad when you brush it away though, he really likes you and he wasn’t going to let it come in the way

* And then one day while you’re making out, his hands start to travel down your stomach, almost making it to your crotch if you didn’t stop him

* And now he’s concerned but doesn’t say anything until you tell him the issue

* To say he’s shocked is an understatement

* He’s trying to visualise how you look down their, a cock and a pussy, fuck he instantly got hard

* “That’s not gonna stop me, you know. That’s actually got me fully hard, sweetheart. Ya gonna let daddy give you a good time?” He’s not sure if the image of your cunt and cock made him slip out the ‘daddy’

* “Yes please, daddy.” He groans so loudly when you shyly reply, he drops his face back to yours and kisses you hungrily

* He spreads your thighs apart and starts grinding against you, both of you still dressed

* Your moans has him consumed and he quickly sheds off his shirt, lowering his pants and stripping you that you’re only in your underwear

* A clear outline of the effect he has on you showing

* “Shit babe, who said you could be so fucking hot” he hoots as he kisses down your stomach, slowly lowering your underwear and the small slap of your cock hitting his face has him jumping your thigh

* He licks his lips hungrily, ripping your underwear away and slipping your cock into his mouth

* Your hands immediately goes to his head, fingers gripping his hair as his wet tongue dances around your tip

* “Mmm” he groans and the vibration has you thrusting your hips upwards, dick deep into his throat as he gags

* You try to pull away but he hold you into position, one hand trailing to his own fat cock, stroking it as he makes eye contact with you

* He bobs his head, your whines and whimper making him speed up and when he finally pulls away, he watches as his spit covers your cock, quickly pushing his cock into your pussy, eyes rolled back at the sensation of your tight wet walls hug him

* “So tight, fuck you gonna take my cock like a good bunny?” He demands as he begins moving back and forth

* He hunches over you, gives you sloppy kisses and feels yo it hand travel between where you’re connected

* He bellows a moan as he watches your pump your cock fast, he matches up it pace, his balls slapping against your ass as you use jerk yourself off

* When he feels you tighten against him, he thrust sharply and bellows a groan, eyes stuck on your hand as you arch your back and shoot out a little bit of cum and cums inside you

* “That’s a pretty fucking sight..” he smirks as his cum oozes out

Bokuto

* You actually enclosed to him about not being comfortable with sex yet, not really explaining why but he respected it

* Until one night you’re both rubbing your hands against each other and he accidentally places his hand over your crotch and you tense

* “Huh ? Baby baby what’s wrong? I - I’m so sorry.” Starts apologising over and over until you calm him down

* And then you tell him about having both a dick and vagina, also telling him that you had a bad experience with your ex because of it

* He just looks so confused, why would your ex have an issue at being able to pleasure you in two different ways?

* “Baby, if you let me I’ll replace that memory with something amazing.” He gives you a small smile and you agree

* His eyes grow when he sees your semi hard cock and how pretty your pussy looks

* He kisses you hard, biting your lip as he pulls away

* He grins and then stuffs one of his fingers into his mouth, making sure to coat it with enough saliva before slowly pushing it inside your cunt

* “Aghh..” you roll your hips and he smirks and looks at you determinedly

* He pumps his finger inside you, surprising you when his tongue flicks at your folds

* He synchronises his thrusts and licks, getting faster and faster until he feels you’re wet enough for another finger

* The stretch of him adding another thick finger makes you mewl, you clasp around him, thighs pushing together as his face gets struck between

* But he doesn’t mind, in fact he loves it

* “Taste so good, pretty” he tells you and then he uses his over hand and strokes your cock from the base upwards

* He releases a groan when he feels you pulse both on your cock and pussy

* And then he gets to business

* His fingers continue to fuck your hole, the sounds of squelching motivating him as you cry while he fists your cock harshly

* “You like this baby? Like how I’m fucking you together? Use your words, go on.” He bites his lips when you cry out

* “S-so good don’t stop please Kou...” your nails scratching at his hand when he curls his fingers inside of you

* He feels pride fill him, knowing that no one has made you feel this good, knowing that he’ll continue to make you feel good

* He thinks you look so sexy, sprawled out as you suck his finger into your cunt and wither as your cock is in his tight grasp

* He feels himself straining against his joggers, but he doesn’t care, his goal is to make you scream

* He pulls away from your cunt to spit on your cock, letting it act as lube and gets back to eating your out like his life depended on it

* It’s too much for you. You good, you scream as you feel your stomach tighten and you push his face further into your pussy as you cream around his tongue

* Your chest rising rapidly at the orgasm, you look at his smirking face that’s wet with your juice

* “That was so fucking hot.” He states, lifting his body up and your eyes fixate on his joggers

* A small wet patch growing against his cock

[prttypearlydoll]

A Doll’s Guide to a Pretty Pink Winter ❄️

The winter season is upon us! And as dolls, we have our very own way to do it. Get ready to see some pink, white and brown puffer jackets, turtlenecks, skirts and tights, demonia boots, jewelry accents, cute earmuffs, and more!

Layers…🎀

Since it’s obviously SUPERcold, we of course want to maintain some warmth so that we’re not shivering when we go out to flaunt it these streets.

So to do this, we want to wear layers. I cannot count how many times I’m freezing in the morning, but it gets hotter during the day and I’m stuck with a huge jacket all day- If you wear a short sleeve underneath your thin sweater and finish off with a thicker jacket, it’s easy to shift through your the changing temperatures. Here are some staple pieces and examples:

Trench coats make for adorable and cozy outer layers for colder points of the day! So do fuzzy jackets, puffer jackets, or thick cardigans.

Sweaters and crewnecks can be a lighter option! As can light jackets or long sleeves.

And as a last layer, we can use turtlenecks, tanks, baby tees, or dresses underneath for warmer parts of the day! (Unless it doesn’t get warm; then you can wear thicker sweaters and long sleeves ^^)

And last but not least bottoms. Skirts or plain ol’ pants with tights underneath work just fine!

Accessories…🕊️

Okay, now that we’ve got the main outfit locked down, let’s talk details. These go from headbands and earrings to tights and shoes. Accessories really carry outfits by giving them some extra wow factor and flavor. Here are some key parts:

Now the most important accessories are shoes ofc! Boots are a major staple for this season. Try some uggs or demoniacs or any affordable ones you can find!

Cute hair accessories like bows, headbands beanies, or hair clips can really bring together an outfit! Just try it!

Jewelry is another piece that just really makes an outfit. Try to look for silver lockets or necklaces and dangly earrings!

Last but not least, bags! To wrap it all up, a nice complementary bag will suffice so that you can hold your belonging in style!

Colors…🩰

To end this blog post, I just wanna mention our color scheme. We’ll be seeing lots and lots of luck of course, but also some cream white colors, brown, light blue, purples, etc. So when you’re out shopping, look for your items in some of those wintry colors!

And that finishes everything! I apologize for all the reading and scrolling, but I hope you found this guide rather helpful for building your cold-weathered wardrobe!! Love you my dolls ! 💋❄️

[mrsdeanwinchester19]

The Dinner-Sequel to The Interview

Pairing: Steve x reader

Word Count: 3k

Summary: Sequel to The Interview.  Steve takes his wife to meet his team after her interview

Warnings: None

“Steve, do you think this dress is ok?” I ask, coming out of our walk-in closet wearing my lace, off the shoulder red dress.  Steve is taking me to dinner with the team tonight, so I want to make a good first impression.  Most people would think I’ve met the team before, but Steve kept our relationship a secret in the beginning and then the team broke up because of the Accords and we got married when we were on the run, so we really couldn’t invite any of the team members.

We had our wedding in Norway, one of the few countries that hadn’t signed the Accords.  They claimed they didn’t sign because if a non-government owned unit made from people from different countries called the Alsos Unit hadn’t helped them in World War II, the Germans would have succeeded in creating an Atomic bomb in their country.  In Norway, there was one team member, Thor, who was visiting Earth; he vouched for us.

After our wedding, we went to Wakanda on our honeymoon and visited Bucky. We had been having dinner with Bucky, T’Challa, and Shuri when we told him we got married.  He was upset that he couldn’t be there, but he understood when he found out the wedding happened when he was asleep.  When he said Steve could make it up to him by naming his first son James; Steve started choking on his Umqombothi drink.  I know Steve wants kids, but he wasn’t willing to have them while being on the run. Now that we’re not hiding, we’re actively trying for a baby.  I wonder if tonight he’ll break the news that he has a wife AND is trying to get said wife pregnant.

As I walk out of the closet, I bend down to adjust the ankle strap on my right heel.  I stand back up, smooth my dress, and look up at Steve.  He’s staring at me with a dopey smile on his face, love evident in his eyes.  “The dress itself is fine, you make it look perfect.”

“Ugh, Steve, quit it with the cheesy lines,” I protest while blushing.  Men used to say these things to their wives and girlfriends back in their time, it’s why Steve and Bucky can be prince charming when they want to be. Bucky more often than Steve now that he’s more like his old self, or so Steve says.

“I’m just being honest,” he defends, shrugging his shoulders.  He comes over to me and wraps his arms around my waist.  “You nervous?”

“What do you think?” I ask rhetorically.   I haven’t been this nervous since I first met Steve. In 2014, during a career conference once for journalists, the resort we were at was seized by terrorists.  One of my coworkers and I were the only ones from The New York Sun attending, despite the fact that it was in New York. I suppose they only wanted to go if the convention was out of town so they could get out of work and go on vacation. We were held in the resort’s Grand Hall for hours until the Avengers were able to save us.  There was a pretty big fight between Steve, Thor, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Black Widow, and the terrorists but luckily no one died.  I had been hurt in the kerfuffle, a broken finger, but after Steve wrapped my finger in a brace, he allowed me to interview him.  During the on-camera interview with him, Thor was teasing him in the background, doing silly faces and the “blah blah blah” hand motion.

Steve had asked for my name and number to “keep in touch and see if my finger heals correctly”.  When I gave it to him, he wrote it down in an old-fashioned address book. I hadn’t expected him to call me ever, but he did, asking for a date.  At first, he was weary of me being a journalist, in case things ended badly and I wrote a bad article about him.  However, a year later, he was thankful I was a journalist because I had access to all archived articles about the Winter Soldier.  After that happened, I knew he trusted me wholeheartedly and I felt the same. When the Accords started happening, I had access to the signing, to interview government people about it, and relayed that information to Steve about who he could trust.  That was how I found out about Norway not signing.

“They’ll love you,” he says.  “Bucky loves you, Tony will probably love you because he’ll think the interview prank you pulled on me was hilarious.  Nat and Wanda will be happy another girl is around.  Thor likes you, even Loki took a liking to you; he would love the interview prank. Clint will like you, Bruce will like you; no one has a reason to dislike you.

I turn around and take a good look at him. Royal blue dress shirt and black pants. His hair is up and I want nothing more than to run my fingers through it. He keeps me pressed to his body closely and I rub my hands along his chest. “If we didn’t have to go to dinner with your friends, I would be all over you right now.”

“Sorry, last night’s sex is just gonna have to hold you.” I give a little laugh.  “I’m just messing with you, I’ll be all over you tonight,” he growls, pulling my face up to his and kissing me deeply.  His kisses always leave me breathless, whether they’re passionate like this or small, chaste kisses when he’s leaving for work in the morning.  This however, is a whole new level and it’s making my heart go crazy.

Steve picks up the basket on the kitchen counter and we walk out the door. When we get to the car, he opens the door for me, ever the gentleman, before climbing in himself.  As he drives there, I fiddle with the hem of my dress.  I’m so worried I’ll talk too much or too little, or I’ll offend someone or embarrass Steve. What if I mention something about him that they don’t know?  Like that he bawled like a baby at Where the Red Fern Grows and Homeward Bound. Tony would probably love that but I don’t want to make Steve feel bad, I was crying too.

My biggest worry is what they’ll think of me after the interview.  Will they think it was funny or will they look at me as unprofessional for not telling them I had a conflict of interest with the Avengers?  I think Tony will like me, and maybe Nat, but I have no idea about the others.   I don’t think Bucky would come around as much as he does if he really didn’t like spending time with both Steve and me. Besides, sometimes when Steve is on a mission and he isn’t, he comes and keeps me company with old movies and our little two person book club we started.  His first choice of book was The Hobbit, which he told me he had read it when it first came out in 1937.  He was happy but not surprised to find out there were movies based on them.

When we drive up to the compound, Steve has a difficult time getting me through security.  They recognized my face and apparently Tony told them not to let me back. “Don’t alert Tony about her,” Steve said as he explained the situation to the guard.  He looked skeptical but agreed.

Steve led me upstairs, but not to the dining room where the team was waiting. He led me to his room.  “Well, well, well, Mr. Rogers, I thought we had to meet your friends in a little bit. Though I know you could probably get it done in ten minutes.”

“Ha ha ha, very funny,” he sarcastically replies.  “I just needed to grab…this,” he says, pulling his wallet out of his nightstand.  “Forgot it here yesterday.”

I simply hum in response to his explanation because I’m too busy looking around his room.  I’ve only seen it over FaceTime and in pictures.  It’s very different from our room at home. Our house, which we had just moved to from our apartment in preparation for a family, has a farmhouse theme.  Our master bedroom has a cream colored walls and one shiplap wall which our bed’s decorative headboard sits against, while our king sized bed is covered in a thick white comforter.  There’s a gray bench at the end of our bed and a blue and white rug.  There are nightstands on each side of the bed where we keep our small before bed items and our white, shared dresser is on the other side of the room, next to the door for our walk-in closet.  We have an attached bath with a clawfoot tub and a shower stall.  Our room lets in lots of natural light, which Steve loves because he likes to let the morning sun warm his back on his days off.

This room has a completely different feel to it. It’s much darker than our room at home. The walls are gray and his comforter is dark blue.  He has a black dresser across from his bed with a TV mounted to the wall above it. A plain bathroom with just a few essentials like shaving cream, a toothbrush, toothpaste, etc sit on the counter.  While our walls at home aren’t covered in pictures, we have more than the two he has here.  One is a picture of him and Bucky laughing and the other is of his parents before his father went to war; the war he never came back from.  Both pictures he has copies of hanging up at home. There’s a somewhat large window on the wall, but it’s covered with a blackout curtain.

I did most of the decorating at home, while this decorating was all him.   “Steve?” He looks at me.  “Do you not like our room at home?”

He furrows his eyebrows.  “No.  I love our place.  Why would you think that? Also, that’s very random to be bringing up now.”

“Well it’s just…this room is so different from ours at home.  I just didn’t know if you liked the darker colors better.  I want you to be comfortable in our room at home.  We can change it if you want it to look more like this one.”

He gives a little laugh and turns to face me.  “I didn’t decorate this room, Tony’s person did and he gave me this room because it’s the “most masculine”.  I prefer our room because it’s bright and spacious.  The fact that you decorated it is special to me because it’s like a present you gave to me.  Plus, I don’t have the best eye for interior design since everything I grew up with was either floral or had doilies.  But to be honest, this one feels a bit like a dungeon.  I just don’t bother to change it because I just sleep at home.  And I didn’t change it before I met you because even then I just used it to sleep, if I slept at all,” he looks into the distance, remembering all the nights he spent up in the gym, trying to beat the memories out of his mind.  He changes the subject, “Ok, so when we go down there I’m gonna have you wait around the corner and then you can come out when I tell you.”

He leads me downstairs and has me wait in a hallway. He walks around the corner and I hear Tony say, “Alright Capsicle, what’s the surprise you have for us?”

“Everybody just sit down and I’ll get to it in a minute,” he replies.  The sound of chairs scraping the floor is heard and Tony grumbles something about how he had been planning to have lasagna with Pepper tonight.  After a few seconds of silence, Steve comes back around the corner, grabs my hand, and leads me out. I nearly trip over my heels when we start moving and the pit in my stomach only grows.

At the sight of me, Tony and Natasha stand up startled. “What is she doing here?” Tony angrily asks.

“I thought you banned her,” Natasha adds on.

They all begin chattering, asking Steve why I’m here until Bucky calmly says, “Hey Y/N.”

Sam looks at Bucky confused, “You know her?”  Bucky nods his head and Sam looks at Steve, confused and a little hurt.  “Steve?”

“Everybody,” Steve starts, setting his hand on my lower back.  “This is Y/N, my wife.”

“WIFE?!” they all shout at different times.  Steve and I get bombarded with about a million questions at once.  When did we meet, why weren’t they invited to the wedding, when the wedding was, why I interviewed Steve the way I did, etc.

A loud thud on the balcony draws everyone’s attention. Thor is standing there in his armor and cape, holding his hammer.  “Sorry I’m late for team dinner,” he begins but stops when he sees me.  “Lady Y/N, I haven’t seen you since the wedding.  How has being married to the Captain been?”

“Oh you know, being married to a man-child is a struggle, but he’s hot enough for me to keep him around,” I joke.

“Thor, you know her too?” Tony asks.

“Yes I do.  Loki does too but I decided not to bring him tonight.  I think it would have been a bad idea.”

“Alright, Tony, sit down and I’ll explain everything,” Steve says.  Tony hesitantly sits down and everyone else follows.  Steve explained everything from why we met to why we couldn’t invite them to the wedding.

As he’s finishing telling the story and answering questions from the team, Tony’s bots bring in the pasta and Steve gets up and grabs something from the basket we brought.  He opens a bottle of wine and begins filling glasses.  When he gets to mine, I put my hand over my cup.  “Not tonight,” I say.

“But it’s your favorite,” he says.

“I can’t,” I say, not wanting to get in to it.

“C’mon, I won’t let you drink too much,” he says jovially.

“No, Steve…I can’t,” I say forcefully, looking up to make eye contact, hoping he understands without giving anything away.

He understands, but unfortunately his mouth works faster than his brain.  He looks down at my stomach and an excited smile spreads on his face.  “Are you…?”

I look around the table, seeing the Avengers all looking at us expectedly.  I look back at Steve and sheepishly nod.  He gasps and nearly drops the bottle, but luckily he realizes that when I reach out to catch it.

“A babe,” Thor says happily.  “Mazel tov.”

“They’re not Jewish,” Bucky says to Thor.  “Can’t wait to meet little James or Jamie.”  I give Bucky a look to let him know it’s not happening.  “Ok, Bucky works too.”

Tony puts his head in his hands looking like he’s about to pass out.  “Oh my god, we find out Steve is married to a woman I banned from the compound, and now that he’s going to be a father.”

I look at Steve to see him with tears in his eyes. Thankfully, Natasha saves us. “I’d like to propose a toast,” she says, standing up and holding her glass out.  “To Steve and Y/N, I hope you have a long, happy marriage and a healthy baby girl that you name Natasha.”

“That was the other thing we had planned to tell you tonight.  We’ve been trying for a baby.  I guess we were successful.”  Steve finishes pouring the drinks while everybody suggests baby names.  After a while, the conversation drifts to other things.  I enjoy listening to them, though they’re constantly quipping (mostly Tony).

Bucky, who’s sitting next to me, whispers to Steve, who’s on my other side, “Are we going to church this Sunday?”  The three of us go to church most Sundays. Steve and Bucky both grew up going to church, and it gives them some hope in a dark world.

Tony, who wasn’t involved in the conversation, cuts in. “Barnes, you could live at church and you still won’t go upstairs when you die.”

Bucky’s metal hand clenches so hard around his fork I’d be surprised if it isn’t bent.  He looks at Tony and gives him a very fake, overly sweet smile.  “Tony, I love how mean you are to me because it makes me feel less guilty about what I did to your parents.”

Tony stands up, slamming his hands on the table and Bucky mirrors him.  It looks like they’re about to attack but Steve intervenes.  “Tony, Bucky!  Tony, that was uncalled for and Bucky, that was unnecessary.  We know how you actually feel about your past and we’ve watched you try to change.”  Both men slowly sit back down.  “We have a guest.”  Bucky relaxes first, then Tony does.

“Y/N,” Tony addresses me.  “I need to apologize for my rudeness towards Bucky on my first night officially meeting you.  I was hoping not to fight with him tonight.”

“You call that a fight?  You should hear these two,” I say, gesturing to Steve and Bucky on either side of me.  “These guys can bicker with each other like an old married couple for hours about the smallest things.  Last week they had a 45 minute argument on how many times you can reuse a towel before it needs to be washed.”

“Wash it right away,” Steve mutters.

“Steve, we used to use towels so many times before we washed them in the 40s,” Bucky argues.

“Yeah but that was because if we needed to wash things, Mom had to heat up water and then hang-dry it on the balcony.  It’s easy to wash things now days.”

“Anyways,” Tony says, stopping their argument.  “I guess the interview you gave Cap makes sense now…somewhat.”

“Well I was pissed at him that day, so I think he deserved it.”

Tony smiles at Steve.  “You need to bring her around more often.”

Taglist: @imanuglywombat @infernal-fire @dottirose @carpediemm-18​

[forlove2020]

Day 2 - No Vacancy

It is the last day of November and no one wants to buy any more pumpkins. 

Halloween has gone by, and Thanksgiving has blown past too. The people of Lebanon, Kansas have had their fill of the bright orange gourds - for more than two months they've displayed them on their front porches, carved them into jack-o-lanterns, and added them into every kind of dessert and frothy little drink imaginable.

And that is why, on November 30th, Dean decides his family is going on a field trip to the Lebanon Corn Maze and Pumpkin Patch.

Things have been good lately. No, scratch that. Life has been freakin' awesome. It has been just under two weeks since he rescued Cas from the Empty and a week since Jack came home. Dean is over the moon; radiating happiness in a way he never has before. They're all together, alive, and no Big Bad hovers menacingly on the horizon. Dean's not one to believe in a 'best case scenario,' but hell if this doesn't feel just like it.

The farm is about a twenty-five minute drive from the Bunker, and Dean, Cas, and Jack pull up in the Impala at the same time as Sam and Eileen arrive in Sam's CR-V. 

(Dean had teased him mercilessly about his new ride until Sam looked him dead in the eye, placing his hand protectively on Eileen's protruding belly, and insisted "Honda gets really good safety ratings, Dean." Dean, wisely, had shut up after that.)

Claire and Kaia are already there waiting, leaning up against Claire’s car, hand in hand. Jack leaps out of Baby as soon as Dean puts her in park, barreling toward the girls so he can nag Claire about his latest obsession: TikTok. Even from a distance it’s clear she’s rolling her eyes at him, but smiling despite herself

Dean and Cas get out of the car at a more leisurely pace and survey their surroundings.

What had been a busy festival complete with a lush corn maze, vibrant pumpkin patch, and stalls selling kettle corn and caramel apples two months ago is now a dismal scene. The corn maze has dried out and shriveled up, and the stalls are unmanned. Technically, there are still pumpkins aplenty in the field, but they're the ones that have been forsaken. The remaining pumpkins are leftovers that were considered either too skinny, too fat, or just too misshapen and lumpy to have been picked as the cream-of-the-crop.

Dean looks over at Cas. He’s squinting at the scenery in the dim autumn sunlight, and the nippy breeze has swept through his dark hair, making it seem more tousled than usual. Not for the first time, Dean thinks that he is gorgeous.

But now, he can actually tell Cas what he is feeling in these moments. There are no more half-truths or lies between them, nothing secret. After years of pining for one another without any hope of reciprocation and hiding the pains of longing, they’ve finally broken down the walls that kept them apart. They love one another fiercely, and while their relationship is new, it is not tenuous. 

So, Dean turns to him with a crooked grin.  “Hey, handsome.”

Cas blinks, and then a little smile curls the corners of his mouth. “Hello, Dean.”

Dean moves closer until their shoulders are brushing and he can feel the warmth of Cas’ body through both of their jackets. “You think Jack’s gonna be disappointed?” he asks quietly, watching their kid practically tackle Sam with a hug as Eileen signs something Dean can’t quite make out from the other end of the parking lot. “I mean, this isn’t exactly the ‘autumn glory’ we were promised on those fliers earlier this month.”

Cas doesn’t even hesitate. “No. I think Jack just appreciates having a normal...uh, sort of a normal life again. He’s excited to be here picking pumpkins, especially with Claire and Kaia, and Sam and Eileen joining us. This was a nice surprise you planned for him, Dean.”

It’s a simple compliment, and not even particularly saccharine, but Dean flushes from head to toe anyway. He’s working on believing the good things Cas says about him; he’s really trying, but it’s always been difficult for him to take a compliment about anything other than his good looks or hunting prowess. Instead, he meets Cas’ eye, and nods silently. And then, remembering he is allowed, takes Cas’ hand in his own, twining their fingers together.

They walk hand-in-hand to join Claire, Kaia, Jack, Sam and Eileen at the front gate. It’s hanging wide open, and no one is standing there to charge them an entrance fee. However, the sign does make a point to state that the maze is open until December 1st. Eileen shrugs, and so the seven of them wander down the path towards the pumpkin patch and the entrance to the maze. 

“Kaia! I’ll race you to the end!” Jack shouts, and laughing, Kaia chases him into the maze, dragging a grumbling Claire along behind her. 

“Let’s see if we can find anybody still working,” Sam suggests.

Eileen points at a worn down farmhouse tucked mostly behind a newly-painted red barn. “Someone must be home,” she signs pointedly, gesturing to plumes of smoke exuding from a grey chimney stack.

Dean ends up knocking on the door. He leaves Sam, Eileen, and Cas at a nearby picnic table, debating in Sign Language about the best flavor of cotton candy and whether or not the color of the dye changes the taste. 

 A minute or two later, an older man swings open the squeaky screen door to the house. He’s scowling, wearing muddy overalls, and chewing on a thick cigar. “Yeah?” he asks shortly. “Whaddya want?”

Dean raises his eyebrows at the farmer’s bluntness, but manages to respond politely. “My family and I saw fliers for this place a few weeks ago. We were hoping to buy some pumpkins and candy apples. What are you charging”

The farmer’s scowl grows deeper, and he looks past Dean to Sam, Eileen, and Cas relaxing on the bench, then narrows his eyes at the corn maze, where shrieks of laughter can be heard as the younger adults chase one another through the thinning stalks.

Getting impatient, with the man’s surly silence, Dean prods, “And…? It’s a yes or no question. Are you still selling pumpkins?”

The old man pulls the cigar out from between his teeth. “My wife and daughter run this hokey shit,” he grunts. “They went into town today ‘cause folks already came through here earlier in the month. They like customers. We haven't had anybody else stop by since before Thanksgiving.”

As his temper flares, Dean turns his grit teeth into a sharp smile. “Well, then it’s your lucky day! Here we are,” he says mockingly, sweeping his arms wide. The farmer mumbles something insulting and covers it with a hacking cough. Dean pretends not to hear him, “Fine. I take it from your sunny attitude that there will be no popcorn or apples today?” 

The man scoffs, “Enjoy the maze, boy-o. Free of charge.” He turns to lumber back inside, but Dean grabs the screen door before he can try to disappear.

“Hey!” the hunter barks. The farmer pauses, his body tensing for a fight. “Are you gonna sell me the goddamn pumpkins or not?” 

Cas has wandered to his side, either noticing the commotion, or simply because he wanted to be closer to Dean. Now, he interrupts casually, “You still have quite a few squash left in the fields and there’s going to be heavy frost two days from now, overnight. It’d be a shame if all of these pumpkins rotted, and you wasted the rest of your harvest.”

He has, quite deftly, snared the salty old farmer’s attention. Money is the man’s language; he might not enjoy having customers on his property so late in the season, but he certainly likes having the funds to maintain his land.

****************************************

“A hundred.”

“A hundred?” Sam sounds insulted. “You’re gonna pitch all of these in a couple days. There’s no way we’re paying a hundred. Try twenty-five dollars.”

The farmer rolls his eyes dramatically. He is in his element; the thrill of making a good deal and bartering his wares on the last day is an unexpected but welcome surprise that has put him in high spirits. “You’re cute, kid. I know my produce is worth more than that. I’ll go down to eighty-five, and you can take whatever you can carry in one trip.”

“Thirty-five,” Sam shoots back.

“Eighty.”

“Forty-one.” Once, Sam was going to be a lawyer. He’s got the upper hand in this situation and he’s going to crush his opposition. One more price reduction and they’ll have dozens of pumpkins to take home, way below the original asking price.

“Sevent…”

“Sixty-five, and we fill up all of our cars,” Dean interrupts, and Sam looks at him, utterly betrayed as the gleeful farmer shakes on the deal.

As Cas, Jack, Claire, and Kaia help carry the pumpkins to Sam and Claire’s cars respectively, Dean just claps Sam on the shoulder and tells his brother, “It’s still a cheaper family outing than going to Disney.” 

“Yeah, I guess,” Sam says mournfully, and sulks over to help Eileen, who is supervising the influx of pumpkins that are being loaded into their vehicle.

Dean chuckles, and scoops up a few pumpkins. He’s got some recipes he wants to try out, plus he’s excited to teach Jack to carve ‘Jack’-o-lanterns. The kid seemed to want to learn how to do everything the human way now, and Dean is more than happy to teach him.

One by one, Dean places eight pumpkins in the backseat of Baby. One is tall and oblong with lots of stringy stems, matched with the only short and well rounded pumpkin he sees in the field. Between those two he sets a teeny tiny baby-sized pumpkin. Then, there’s a pumpkin that is half-green half-orange. It seems like it must have grown too fast because it is still quite young despite its size. Next, he adds two medium pumpkins that are also young, but growing strong. And last but not least, he picks up two more pumpkins. They are both a bit damaged - one is bruised and discolored, the other looks like it might have grown sideways. But Dean picks them because they lean against one another in the field, steady despite their flaws, despite what they’ve been through. 

He sets them all up in a long line along the backseat, and when Cas sees what he chose, his eyes go soft and warm as he looks at Dean.

“Let’s go home,” he breathes out, and takes Dean’s hand again.

Everyone gets in their cars - Dean in the driver's seat and Cas taking shotgun, as before. Jack tries to get in the Impala, then looks in the back window, and starts laughing. 

“Dean! There’s nowhere for me to sit.”

Cas chuckles quietly beside him, as Dean grins. “Aw, tough break, kid. Guess you’re walking home.”

“Hey, no fair- Dean! C’mon! Cas! Tell Dean he has to -”

Dean starts to roll up the window, laughing loudly as Jack knocks on the window pane.

“Sorry! No vacancy!” he hollers. Jack is nearly doubled over, hilarity spilling from him in peals of laughter.

Claire honks her horn loudly, and throws open the back door to her car. Jack straightens, and scrambles to join her and Kaia, shooting Dean and Cas a bright wave goodbye.

Sam and Eileen also wave as they leave the parking lot, wheels sending gravel spinning in their wake. Claire and Kaia follow, and Jack rolls down the window as they pass, and calls across to Cas and Dean, “This was the best family trip ever!”

They too are soon gone, headed for the Bunker to drop off dozens of pumpkins which will decorate every room until they end up decaying or until Dean cooks them. 

Dean and Cas wait until the others have left, and then Dean leans over and kisses Cas, long and sweet. When he pulls back, Cas traces his cheek, and says thoughtfully, “We could take the backroads home today….”

Dean is so gone on him. He kisses Cas once, twice more, and then puts the Impala in drive, and they’re on the road, taking the long way home.

**********************************

I enjoyed adding a little Day 1 ‘Harvest’ flare to Day 2!

My goal is to make most of my Suptober fics one-shots that are in some way related to my multichapter fix-it that is still a work in progress (Dean/Cas, Sam/Eileen, etc, post 15x20).

Thank you for reading!

-V

[wornoutmouse]

Warnings: angst and close call pregnancy

Y'all with all the trama Shiggy got, you know damn well he aint gon be a good daddy right off the bat

Baby daddy shigaraki

You looked at the small pink stick in your hands shaking in fear. "I'm..pregnant." you whimper as the faint lines began to blur from your tears. If it were anyone, absolutely anyone else, then the leader of The Legue of Villains, you would have been fine with taking care of the child on your own. But there would not be a chance of that if he ever found out.

You stand up and run to your kitchen, tossing the pregnancy test into the trash sweating profusely as you glanced into the room your new baby daddy rested in. Different thoughts swirled in your mind about how you could hide this from him. The first few months would be fine but how were you to hide it afterward? Your hands trailed down to your now flat stomach. "I got this." you mutter as you walk to your kitchen pouring you a cup of tea.

An hour later, Shigaraki trails out of the bedroom groggily, hair hanging creepily in his face as he looked at you with piercing red eyes. "Why the hell are you looking at me like that?" he asks making your heart rate pick up ever so slightly. "N-No reason just didn't think you'd be up so early, that's all." Tomura comes behind you and wraps his hands around being careful of his fingers. Even that didn't stop you from feeling faint at how close his hands were to your stomach. 

The first month was easy, you showed little to no symptoms and your stomach remained a normal size. However, that didn't stop you from being paranoid whenever a diaper commercial came on screen. A few weeks after you took the test, you went to the doctors to confirm your fears. "Yes ma'am, it looks to me that you are indeed with child." the doctor said, signing off on a few papers glancing at you, briefly acknowledging your shaken state. "If you're anything to go by, I'd say, either the father doesn't know, or you don't want it." You shook your head, "He doesn't and I don't plan on letting him know." 

The doctor put the clipboard down, "Is this your way of telling me you want an abortion? If that is the route you want to go, I won't judge but this isn't a spur of the moment thing and I want you to be positive you won't be in any danger if someone finds out." You sigh sliding your hands over your scarf-covered hair. "N-No, I think I'll keep the baby, b-but, I don't know what to do." The doctor smiles at you patting your back. "You look like you have a strong head on your shoulders, I'm sure you'll figure it out."

The third month was harder as your bump was finally showing so you could no longer wear your normally form-fitting shirts. Shigaraki had luckily stopped coming around as often due to villain things, something you were grateful for since you could finally give in to your cravings. That plan was soon compromised when Komugiri suddenly materialized on your rather 'indulgent' days. And by indulgent you mean you were propped up on the couch, shirt up, with some ice cream, toast, and two large boxes of french fries. 

"I may have lost most of my human necessities, but I'm sure this amount of eating isn't necessary for normal human consumption." You jump at the sound of his voice, quickly looking around if Komogiri brought someone else with him. "You can't tell him please!" Komugiri looked at you, misty smoke unwavering before a deep sigh erupted from him. "I know not the reason you are keeping this from Tomura, but for now I shall indulge you." You sag slightly relieved. "However." You glared at the misty man. "Now that I know you're carrying the offspring of a sought after villain, I will be checking in on you a lot more. I shall also implement a healthy diet for you and the child."

You groaned at the downright disrespectful amount of joy showing through Komugiri's voice. 

The next 2 months were a game of cat and mouse as you were forced to sneak past Komugiri's watchful eyes to give in to your cravings. "Please! You don't understand, I need a cheese dipped pretzel!" you whined as you were dragged from the pretzel stan by a goon Komugiri had brought along to do the labor for your shopping trip. "Get ahold of yourself young lady, you're causing a scene!" Komugiri reprimanded, truly sounding like a disappointed mother scolding her child. For the rest of the day you pouted, "How the hell are you even sneaking away so much, shouldn't Tomura be suspicious?" 

You would later have to admit that the meals Komugiri prepared, did make up for the food he wrongfully withheld from you. Another good thing that came from the whole ordeal was the doctor visits Komugiri took with you. Although it was rather embarrassing as he stood over the doctor, arms cross watching his every move. "Komugiri, the doctor is washing his hands, I think it's okay." you sigh flipping through a magazine for couches. Komugiri huffed and left the doctor alone, of course after he checked the temperature of the water.

Late in month 8, you were so obviously pregnant that you had developed a large waddle. Something your mother exploited. "Hah! See that's what yo ass get for making fun of me when I was pregnant with your brother!" you'd roll your eyes as you looked at your mother who had now become red in the face with laughter. "That's not fair, this is my first time being pregnant you cant make fun of me!" Your mom scoffed leaning back in her chair, "Girl please. Anyways when am I gon meet yo baby daddy? What was his name? Ziggaraki or whatever?" 

You were quiet for a moment before bursting into tears. "Mommy!!" Your mom looked thoughtfully startled at the outburst. "Girl what the hell wrong with you!" You hiccup and wipe your face, whines increasing. "He doesn't know I'm pregnant, I'm too scared to tell him!" Your mother cooed consoling your the best she could through the screen. "Aw sweety, he does know your pregnant." You wipe your eyes humming in question. "What are you talking about?" 

Behind you, something heavy hit the floor making you quickly swivel around in your chair. There in all his glory stood the man in question staring at you with concealed rage. His eyes stayed at your face before trailing down your body, irises shaking at the sight of your perfectly round belly protruding from the tight confines of your shirt. You swivel back around in your chair cringing at the fear evidently showing on your face. You shiver at the questioning look your mother was giving you but before she could say anything you turn off the video call. 

You shook in your seat refusing to turn around as you heard heavy steps walking towards you. "Turn around." You shook your head squeezing your eyes closed wishing Komugiri was here to help you. You feel the back of the chair bending at the weight being put on it. "Turn the fuck back around Y/N your I will dust this chair." He growls lowly trying to keep some sort of self-control. You refused to move making Shigaraki sigh and do it himself. 

You couldn't bring yourself to look at him so you kept your head-trained down on the floor. 'You're pregnant." Shigaraki wheezed finally letting the realization overtake him. He drops down low to his knees becoming eye level with your belly. "And I wasn't even here for most of it?" Shigaraki became angry making you stiffen and reflexively place a hand over your stomach. Shigaraki doesn't miss this and get's even angrier. "Y-You, hide this from m-me and now you're insulting me b-by acti-ng like I'd actually h-hurt you?!" he screamed at you making your hormones fluctuate from anger to sadness as tears well up in your eyes. 

"This is why Tomura! I didn't know how you'd react! You're not mature enough to handle a baby!" You scream back equally as fears flinching at a strike of pain traveling up your spin at the strain. Tomura chuckled darkly taking a step back throwing his head back in laughter. Giggling as he cards his hands through his stringy white hair and looks at you with a sharp glare. You swallow shallowly, you knew for a fact that a Tomura with a crazed smile was better than a stone-faced Tomura. 

Shigaraki swayed towards you hunched as he took in your fearful features. "Since you're so scared, why don't I make your fears a reality?" The sight of Tomura's hand coming up to your stomach sent you into fight or flight mode. You stand up and grab his wrist, "Look here Lil nigga, I don't care who you are, of how you feel, you not touching my baby." At the moment, you felt on top of the world, until you didn't as you felt something slowly drip down your leg.

Looking down, there was a thick trail of red leaving your genital area. You wail loudly at the sight, legs buckling. Shigaraki stepped away and at that moment, Komugiri materialized next to you. "Y/N!" Shigaraki stumbled, as Komugiri makes a portal and carries your body through it. 'This must be what shock is." you thought to yourself were you layed in Komugiri's arms unable to move as you heard the world pass by you.

There were sounds of frantic yelling and bright lights erupting your vision as you travel from one white room to the next. You were settled on a rather uncomfortable bed as you hear the frantic movement and an incessant beeping noise coming from your right. "Move quickly you bastards or I'll kill you all!" You internally smiled starting to become loopy likely from sedatives. 'Just Tomura being Tomura.' You frowned, 'I hope my baby won't inherit murderous intent.'

'Baby'

'Baby'

'My baby'

You jerk in the bed finally getting a clear head, "MY baby!" you yelled trying to take the needles out of your arms. "Hold her down!" came a feminine voice and you felt a series of hands push down on your shoulders forcing you to lie down. Tears rolled down your face, "My baby!" Shigaraki came near your face, "Y/N it-it'll be fine just....just...just laydown." You had never heard Shigaraki sound unsure of himself and that just angered you more as you gripped the front of your shirt. "You better keep my baby safe your I will ream hell fire on you!" you growled making your quirk startup. "Sedate her!" is all that you hear before your grip was loosened.

The darkness enveloped you and you could only see the worse ahead of you.

You shiver awake breathing heavily before trying to raise yourself off the bed. You were halted by Komugiri's hand. "W-What?" you start off but Komugiri raised a smug finger to his lips before pointing over to the left side of the room. Turning your head you gape at the sight before you. 

Shiagarki, in all his villainous glory, was sleeping in a chair shirtless with a tiny bundle of a blanket over him. "Is that?" You ask looking at Komugiri who nods standing up and walking over to Tomura, carefully removing the bundle of blankets from his arms walking back to you. 

You hear small gurgles and your heart beats faster as Komugiri sets the small weight into your arms. Looking down at the small face of your child, all your problems went away. "Hi there little one." you cooed softly at the child in your arms. The baby had the same dark skin as you but its hair was light blue like its father. "Come on, let mommy see you." you whisper booping your nose against the baby's smaller one making its face scrunch up. 

"Look, Komu, I made this!" you said still sounding slightly loopy. Komugiri chuckled, "You and Tomura are so much alike I see now."

From the other side of the room, Shigaraki jerks in his place standing up and looking franticly around the room effectively disintegrating the armrest. When he makes eye contact with you, he instantly relaxes. Komugiri excuses himself from the room leaving the two of you to awkwardly stare at each other. "So, what happened." you started off not exactly wanting to talk but you knew you had to.

Shigaraki raised his hand to his neck but didn't scratch for some reason. "Preeclampsia, a reaction to stress making your blood pressure go up." You hummed looking down at your infant. "It's so cute." you mumble, "He... it's a boy." Shigaraki chimes in as he gazes at the baby with wide eyes. You smile feeling the waterworks return. "My baby boy."

Shigaraki shuffles awkwardly as he watched you cry silently. "You want..a tissue?" You glare at him nodding. "Can we name him Daku?" Shigaraki hesitantly asks as he brings a box of tissue. "Doesn't that mean Dark in Japanese?" you ask quirking your eyebrow. Shigaraki shrugged, "I mean look at him, he is dark." You look at Shagaraki for a painstakingly long time. "Keep playing with me and I'll name him Komugriri." Shigaraki frowns at that.

"The bastard didn't even tell me and he knew the whole time!" you rolled your eyes at your partner's grumbling. "If you want to call him dark so bad how about...Yami." Shigaraki shook his head, "That's too close to All Might's real name." "I'm not even going to ask how you know that."

You two sit in silence as you gaze at your new unnamed baby. "We can't ignore the elephant in the room Y/N." Shigaraki states putting a hesitant hand on your shoulder. "Ignore what Tomura? about how you caused me to go into labor early. Like threatening to kill both me and our child?!" you said voice raising a bit. Shigaraki looked at you, gears turning. 

There was nothing he could actually say to that for no matter how you could look at, nothing he did was okay. "I...I was scared." You sighed placing your head back on your pillow looking at the tiles above you, wishing that this never happened. "Well, you scared me Tomura." The silence was deafening as Tomura silently gasped, "You know that I would never-" you groan, "No I don't Tomura! I don't know what you would do! Why do you think I hid this from you in the first place!" 

There was no response just as you expected and for some strange reason, that broke you more than getting something half-assed. Small noises bubbled from your arms drawing both your attention to it. "Hey.." Shigaraki mumbled as you slowly watch small slanted eyes open, looking up at you. "His eyes are two different colors Shig." you respond shocked as a perfect little set of brown and red eyes looked up at you. "Cool...c-can I hold him." You playfully glared at Shigaraki, "You had him all while I was sleeping!" 

You name your new baby boy Daiki, Daiki Shigaraki. You of course picked the name since it seemed that all Tomura wanted was a child with a name that represents the darkness inside him, his words not yours. 

I KINDA WANNA CONTINUE THIS

[ellgrimm]

Sweets (OHSHC bakery AU)

He lightly dusted the rectangle of dough with fine, white flour and ran it through the sheeter one last time. Mori peeled the slightly bouncy dough off the machine bed and placed it on a tray lined with a piece of plastic film. Wrapping the film snuggly around the croissant dough, he smoothed out the indents impressed by his fingertips. He scooped the tray off the maple wood table and spun around gracefully, with habitual movement, to slip it into the fridge along with the other identical trays of dough.

With that done, he slid out of the floury work apron and traded it for a fresh one he kept tidy for sales at the front register. He washed his hands and checked for any errant streaks of flour on his face. Satisfied, Mori walked out from the fairly austere kitchen and into the world of rich woods and shining glass cases that was the customer-service side of the French patisserie shop and cafe.

Haruhi was in the middle of preparing a cup of drip coffee for a patron. Another customer just arrived at the pastry counter and stood politely, waiting to place his order. “Why don’t you see to our guest, Mori?” she asked cheerfully, as she held a gooseneck kettle and slowly circled hot water over the fresh coffee grounds, keeping an eye on the weight of water being poured. A rich, gold-black coffee dripped out the bottom of the cone filter into a ribbed glass pitcher.

Mori turned to face the pastry case and reflexively picked up a set of tongs. He performed a test click: *click*. Then he looked out over the top of the case and said in a deep and calm voice a phrase he had said at least 500 times before: “Good afternoon, what would you like today?”

But there wasn’t anyone there?

He scanned left and right.

Then he directed his gaze down and his heart skipped. A pair of enormous, caramel eyes were looking up at him from underneath a glorious mop of flaxen hair. The boy spoke, blushing a bit, in a voice that rang out clear and light, “Good afternoon! I would like one tartelettes aux fraises, please.” His French was pretty good, or at least it sounded good, Mori thought. “For here,” the boy added.

“Of course,” Mori replied, as he carefully lifted the mini tart off the ceramic tray. A glazed strawberry, sliced and fanned out over piped pastry cream, sat like a glistening red jewel. He placed it on a round plate and brought it over to the register counter. “Anything else today?” Mori asked.

“Can I… get a caffe mocha?” the charming and petite lad said reluctantly after reading through the coffee menu.

Mori caught the hesitation. “Yes, sir. How many shots of espresso?” he asked attentively.

The caramel eyes wibbled a little, damply, and he burst out suddenly “um? No shots? Please?”

Mori was relieved. Now he understood what the problem was: the menu did not list “hot chocolate.” He made a mental note that he should suggest a menu update to the manager. Making cute boys cry was already not his preference; and this boy in particular deserved the world, he immediately and definitively decided.

Mori nodded and completed the cash part of the transaction. “I will bring your strawberry mini tart and no-shots ‘caffe mocha’ to you in a minute, sir. There is a table with a nice view by that window, if you like.” He gestured to a small, round table that offered a glimpse across the street of a park with a duck pond. A coveted sight in urban Tokyo.

The boy smiled and practically floated over to the promised seat. He caught sight of a mama with her raft of ducklings zooming past and gasped with delight. Mori had to work incredibly hard to suppress a grin. It was everything he had hoped for.

Haruhi noticed. She noticed a lot of things, to be clear. Here, she was shocked and intrigued that Mori had said the longest continuous string of words than she had heard at any point over the past two years since he had started working here.

To be honest, she had been surprised when Kyoya had hired him on, considering how much talking is often involved in customer service. Kyoya, in an uncommonly forthcoming reveal into the inner workings of his mind, succinctly told Haruhi once that “diversity is a strength.”And that meant, in stark contrast to longtime coworker Tamaki’s effervescent and somewhat scattered personality, a staunchly grounded giant who is almost religious in keeping up on the daily labors of a bakery is certainly an asset.

Haruhi grabbed a silver dessert spoon and placed it and a napkin on the wooden serving tray, next to the strawberry mini tart. She winked at Mori as he finished making what was honestly a hot chocolate. He grunted softly, as if to say “hush, you.”

---

He came in every day that week. And every day he tried a different sweet pastry. As far as Mori could tell, he loved them all equally.

And Kyoya saw no objection to adding Hot Chocolate to the official cafe menu. “It’s not seasonally appropriate, but there has been an anti-caffiene health trend picking up lately,” he said decisively.

On the last day of his work week, Mori once again watched the boy leave the shop for the day. This time, the boy, busy looking at his phone, bumped into a trio of well-built, strong young men. He started to apologize for running into them, and Mori panicked a little, instinctively leaping over the counter and dashing past the other customers sitting at their tables. A blur of hyperactivity in an otherwise amazingly calm and inviting space.

And then Mori stopped, his heart beating hard.

“Haninozuka-sensei! We are so very sorry for getting in your way!” the trio barked, stiffly and respectfully bowing. Honey smiled kindly and waved them off.

“Oh, no, it was my fault entirely! I must have been busy with my own thoughts,” Haninozuka offered brightly. And after a quick exchange of pleasantries, he turned and walked up the street.

The trio lingered and talked amongst themselves. Mori tried not to listen, sort of. But he desperately needed to know more about this Haninozuka person. Their… sensei?

“Sensei was so...” Said the first one.

“I know! He’s been such a goddamn hardass at the dojo lately. I wasn’t expecting it.” The second offered.

“I was ready for him to beat us up right here on the sidewalk.” The third expressed, now relieved.

Mori was dumbfounded. This bubbly slip of a lad who giggled at baby ducks and was afraid to ask for a coffee without coffee... was apparently also a brutal martial arts teacher? He couldn’t possibly... and the name was familiar, but he couldn’t finish the thought.

Mori swam in his thoughts for a minute, completely adrift in the dissonance, before Tamaki finally caught his attention and brought him back to earth. “Mori-senpai!” he practically sang, “you left this winsome young lady before giving back her change~”

Mori’s eyes flashed and he looked back, embarrassed. “Very sorry, miss.”

“Um, well, I don’t mind!” she chirped. And she honestly hadn’t minded. He had been athletic and lithe --like an action hero-- when he vaulted himself over the counter, and it had made her think spicy thoughts she would never say aloud. Not something she had expected to experience during her trip to the nicest pastry shop in the ward, but it was a surprise she would treasure for years.

---

It was an agonizing week before Haninozuka came back into the patisserie.

Mori spent every shift that week dutifully doing his work, to the best of his ability. But his ability had degraded because a solid half of his brain was fixated on this mystery. Cute? Cruel? Sweets? Sensei? It consumed him, and he was beginning to hate himself for it. It had been much easier to do this job before he had someone he so looked forward to being around.

Then Mori caught himself. Sure, the work was easier before, when he had been habitually focused entirely on the tasks. Separating eggs. Measuring flour. Shaping butter into thick slabs. Pouring coffee and picking croissants out of the case. Even washing dishes. It had become a somewhat mindless rhythm.

But Haninozuka had made him want to come to work. It made the work feel more purposeful, somehow. It was like Mori had a specific audience in mind when he wiped tables. An audience he wanted to feel safe and comfortable and happy in his domain.

But what if Haninozuka was a bad person? Those three guys had been so sure that this was an unusual side to him. He wasn’t sure if he was ready for their comments to color his idea of this boy. But he also was afraid it would be foolish to not heed their words. Surely they knew their sensei better than Mori could possibly have gotten to in a handful of hours over a few days?

But eventually, he did come back.

This time, he was escorted by the trio from before, as well as a new face. The fourth person, who had similar facial features to Haninozuka, but was a bit taller than him, also had a permanent scowl topped with a grown out bowl cut and glasses, and he was nervously eyeing Haninozuka, watching to see what he would order.

Mori was ready to push the register icon for in the hot chocolate part of the order, and jumped ahead to asking “What pastry would you like today, sir?”

Haninozuka, looking resolute, jaw clenched and without the usual gleam in his warm eyes, stated plainly “I’ll take a plain croissant and black coffee today. Thank you.” The bowl cut kid visibly relaxed a little.

Mori felt the pain in his unusually flat voice, but only nodded. “Excellent choice. Is this together or separate?”

Once he finished taking the group order, they paid and left to go sit down at a pair of tables outside on the sidewalk, well away from the previously frequented pond-viewing seat.

Mori turned to the task at hand. He brought out a set of wooden half-trays, one for each order, and selected pastries for each guest while Haruhi got to work on the drinks. Mori used the tongs to pick up the plain croissant and paused. He couldn’t bring himself to do it. It felt so wrong.

He put it back and selected a hazelnut and chocolate ganache filled croissant instead. It looked nearly identical on the outside, especially if you weren’t paying close attention. Only a small seam with chocolate peeking through could be noticed, and even then, that was on the bottom side of the pastry.

He then turned to Haruhi and said, without room for question, “make the black coffee a hot chocolate. And put all the drinks in to-go cups.”

Haruhi smiled, and used a marker to write “black” on the paper cup that would be destined to not, in fact, have any coffee in it whatsoever. She was already thinking similarly, but had been waiting for Mori to declare it officially.

Haruhi helped Mori carry the trays of drinks and pastries out to the sidewalk tables. He carefully placed the correct one in front of Haninozuka and gave a half smile. Haninozuka barely noticed, staring dead ahead, bracing himself for what would be an absolute trial of bitter drink and plain food. She distributed napkins and utensils appropriately. They both chimed “Thank you, please enjoy,” and turned to head back inside.

“Why don’t you wipe down table 3?” prompted Haruhi, who magically produced a clean damp rag and offered it to Mori. Table 3 was inside the shop, but aside from the large pane of clear glass, was right next to the sidewalk tables. The audio was barely muffled. Mori took the cloth and singlemindedly started wiping at a table that was cerftifiably already clean.

Haninozuka tremulously started with the pastry. He nibbled cautiously at one corner. He sighed.

Mori cursed silently. “You have to take a bigger bite to get to the filling!” he thought.

Haninozuka couldn’t bring himself to try a sip of black coffee yet. He went back to the croissant. This time a luscious double whammy of chocolate and hazelnut hit his tongue. His eyes widened, but he didn’t say anything.

Haninozuka Yasuchika, his brother, was taking a bite of his own pastry and found the kouign-amann satisfactorily salty as well as only lightly sweet. He grabbed his latte and brought it to his lips, then paused. He couldn’t help himself. Squinting suspiciously through his glasses, which light glinted off of even though they were all fully sitting in the shade, he prodded verbally “what about your black coffee, Mitsukuni-san?”

Mori kept pushing the cleaning rag over a now polished strip of an already spotless table and watched intently. “Mitsukuni” he thought to himself. “A nice name. And… I feel like I know it?”

Mitsukuni tried to not lament the inevitable ruination of his surprisingly edible, nay delicious, croissant. He reached for his cup and brought it closer. Holding his breath, so as not to overpower his sense of taste, he sipped delicately. Yasuchika grinned.

“Why it is perfectly tasty, brother! As usual, I mean.” Mitsukuni smiled, practically florid.

Yasuchika was caught between doubt and relief. His alien brother had so obviously hated giving up sweet things this past month. How could anyone go from entire cakes to once piece of (albeit very nice) plain bread? And from the most syrupy, whipped cream-bedecked drinks to black coffee? It was an unprecendented transformation. But on the other hand, Yasuchika felt accomplished. He had singlehandedly pressured his older brother to reform his ways. It was for the best, obviously. What sort of dojo is led by someone who would do anything for a chocolate bar? The lack of self control was shameful.

The other three guys were completely oblivious to the intimate details of sugary drama. They had simply thought it would be a good idea to bring their sensei to the only place they had seen him happy in recent memory, as part of a quiet campaign to improve the captain’s mood. Practice had gotten shockingly intense this past week, and, if they were to survive next week they needed their sensei to ease off a touch. Not that they could EVER say so to his face.

Mori checked that Mitsukuni was happily enjoying his hot chocolate and pastry, and that Yasuchika remained none the wiser. Satisfied, he decided the table’s newly worn hole was deep enough and turned back to his work behind the service counter. Haruhi winked and said nothing.

---

It was almost another week before Mitsukuni came back to the patisserie. Mori had been more patient this time. He felt firmly confident that Mitsukuni would find his way back when he was ready.

And his patience was rewarded, in a way.

Mitsukuni staggered in, after dark and only twenty minutes before closing. His eyes were bleary and his countenance groggy and listless. Mitsukuni, usually so sprightly and upright, dragged his bookbag on the ground and pulled up to the duck-watching table. Mori wasn’t sure what to do. Hand the man a hot chocolate as usual? Or… ask how he was doing???

Mori decided to walk over and offer some direct, compassionate human interaction. “Good evening,” he said, simply.

Mitsukuni looked up, with dark circles under his eyes.

He slammed his hand on the table, which startled Mori for but a moment, and said “I wanna shot!”

“...” said Mori.

“Of chocolate syrup, I mean. Like, a couple pumps in an espresso glass.”

Mori left and came back in an inhumanly fast turnaround with exactly that, and offered the teeny glass full of viscous sugary syrup to Mitsukuni, who promptly sucked it down and smacked the glass upside down on the table. “Another!” he garbled.

Mori didn’t remember grabbing the entire syrup bottle, but it was in his hand already. He decided not to think too hard about that and just left the entire thing on the table and walked away, back to cleaning up behind the counter for the night.

Well after the shop closed, with most of the lights off, save for the one over the register, Mori was done closing with one exception. Mitsukuni was finishing the last of the chocolate syrup. He had perked up considerably, and was now waving his arms animatedly, talking fast about his troubles.

“And Chika-chan comes up to me, and says, you know what he says?” Mori did not know. “He says that real men don’t like sweet things! He tells me I won’t be able to get any respect from my men if I keep eating midnight cakes and carrying candies in my pockets!”

Mori assumed Chika-chan must be the grumpy boy in glasses from the other day. He couldn’t say he liked him, particularly. Or, to be more precise, he didn’t like anyone who dared tell Mitsukuni that his respectability was dependent on having “appropriate” and “masculine” interests.

Mitsukuni blurted out a final exclamation of “Chika doesn’t have the balls to talk shit about Usa-chan, though!” and he… passed out.

Mori didn’t know who this Usa-chan was, but he did know that the shop was closed and that Mitsukuni needed to go home. But where was home?

He decided to try something. He looked up the name “Mitsukuni” along with the words “Bunkyo ward” and “dojo.” The search results were conveniently helpful, offering a website that encouraged serious karate students to sign up under the tutelage of Haninozuka Mitskuni.

“Oh. He is really that Haninozuka,” Mori thought to himself. Ages ago, there had been a falling out between their families. Once a close bond through fealty and eventually marriage and bloodline between the Haninozuka and the Morinozuka families, had been broken a couple generations back. The stories we still told, the wounds still fresh. Mori hadn’t even thought about them as “real” since they had become more of a background radiation to his life than a pressing influence. Until today, that is.

He grabbed the leather book bag and slung it over his shoulder, and then picked Mitsukuni up gingerly. Mitsukuni remained unconscious, a few smears of chocolate around his mouth. A legendary sugar crash.

Mori locked up the shop, without even having to put the boy down. He walked towards the Haninozuka family dojo, which was close by.

The lights were on. It was fairly quiet on the grounds. Only once voice was shouting from inside the dojo training hall as they practiced the forms.

Mori called out. “Excuse me. I have your sensei.”

A surprised face poked out. It was Yasuchika. “My… sensei? Oh, you mean my brother, Mitsukuni.” He looked suspiciously at Mori. “Who are you? What did you do to him?”

“I work at the French pastry shop up the street. I didn’t do anything, he was just very very tired.”

Mori purposefully “forgot” to mention his name. And he didn’t want to stick around to find out what Yasuchika really thought of him, especially with their families at odds.

Instead, he gently deposited Mitsukuni’s slumbering form on a training mat and put the book bag down next to him. Mori looked into his calm, round face and committed it to memory. Then he issued a quick departing bow and turned away, leaving the compound. He didn’t look back with his eyes, but a small part of him looked forward with his heart, in a complicated way.

He couldn’t shake that, despite it all, he still wanted to see this Haninozuka back at his patisserie and cafe. He walked home, tired.

[plaidbooks]

Hi babes - a request that’s kind of specific- (readerxcarisi) this would take place in season 19, episode 8 where Rollins and Carisi are at the shitty motel and they have that moment. So the idea would be that reader is also a detective, maybe newer or something tagging along with them two and reader knows Carisi has a thing for Rollins and reader was with him when they saw the guy leaving Amanda’s room. Reader is there for him after and he realizes maybe he was chasing the wrong girl??

New Girl

A/N: Hey Anon! I had to rewatch this to do some of the dialogue from it (I condensed the first scene so it’s not incredibly long.) but it’s a good idea to rewtach this ep before reading....unless you remember that Heather was the catfisher and stuff. Anyways, this is a little longer cause t’s slower paced. I like the idea of being there for someone without needing to ask. Also yes, I’m taking the chance to flex some sports knowledge, sorry not sorry. Hope you enjoy <3

Tags: none

Words: 2727

Taglist: @the-baby-bookworm @beccabarba @thatesqcrush @itsjustmyfantasyroom @stardust-fray @permanentlydizzy @infiniteoddball @ben-c-group-therapy @glowingmess @whimsicallymad @lv7867 @storiesofsvu @reading--mermaid @averyhotchner @mrsrafaelbarba @detective-giggles

“They traced the IP address to West Virginia,” Sonny said to Olivia, as they both came into the precinct.

“Good, get a John Doe warrant and send it to the local precinct,” Liv replied.

“Done and done.”

Liv gave him a smirk. “Then fill up your gas tank. Fin, you’re riding shotgun.”

“Oh, hell no; I’m allergic to West Virginia,” Fin said, leaning back in his chair.

Liv sighed. “Okay, Rollins, you’re up.”

“Really?” she whined.

Liv glanced between the two, already looking tired of this crap. “Come on, someone’s gotta translate for him,” she joked, gesturing at Sonny, who rolled his eyes.

“I’ll go,” you perked up. You were still the new kid, so you were jumping at every opportunity to go out in the field. Plus, you had a massive crush on Sonny, and being stuck in a car with him seemed like a good chance to learn more about him.

Liv gave you a relieved smile. “Thank you; at least someone here wants to work. But I’d also like someone with experience; Rollins, you’re going too.”

 ***************

The drive wasn’t awkward…at least, not for Sonny and Amanda. They’ve been partners for years now, chatting up a storm. You sat in the back seat, listening in on their stories, jumping in when appropriate, but otherwise fading into the leather behind you. This wasn’t what you had hoped for when you thought about going to West Virginia with Sonny, but at least you were getting some experience in the field…right?

The arrest was quick, painless. You actually found yourself feeling bad for Heather as you had her arrested in her mother’s home. But then you remembered what happened to Katie, and it solidified your resolve.

When Amanda suggested you three, and Chuck, the local officer, go to The Barrel—the local bar—for information, you’re first thought was that maybe alcohol would help you loosen up around Sonny. But after a few shots and a cocktail, all you saw was how he looked at Amanda, and you cursed yourself for not seeing it sooner. Why would he ever fall for someone like you when he could be with someone like her? And they were already so close; what was the point of trying?

Complaining about a headache, you excused yourself, telling them you’d see them in the morning.

“Want me to walk ya back to your room?” Sonny asked, looking concerned.

Your heart fluttered at the thought, but then you remembered the heart eyes he’d been giving Amanda all evening. “No, I’m fine. Thanks though.” You wandered back to the hotel across the parking lot, wiping the tears from your face, locking yourself in your room.

 ******************

You were in the hotel lobby making yourself coffee when Sonny came in.

“Morning, [y/n],” he said, smiling at you. “Feeling better today?”

You melted at his smile, tears threatening to form again, but you pushed down your feelings. “Uh, yeah, much better. How’d you sleep? Hopefully you and Rollins weren’t up too late.”

“Nah, it was fine. We may have started a bar fight, though,” Sonny grinned at you, and you giggled, trying to picture him fighting anyone. He went about making two coffees and grabbing an assortment of free breakfast foods. He put everything on a tray and you followed him out, heading towards Amanda’s room as he called Liv to give her an update. But you both froze as a man came out of Amanda’s room, both of them chatting for a moment before he left. And Sonny’s face fell as he turned and went towards his SUV instead.

You gave Amanda’s closed door one last look before you went after Sonny. He stopped at his SUV, putting the tray on top so that he could fish his keys out of his pocket. He sniffled and it was only then you realized he was crying.

“Hey, you okay?” you asked tentatively. But you knew the answer—of course you did. Because you had felt your heart shatter last night.

“Fine,” he grunted, opening the driver’s door and sliding in. This was sure to be a fun ride back to New York. Grabbing the tray he had left on the roof of his SUV, you climbed in behind the passenger seat.

You sat in silence for a few awkward moments before you said softly, “I’m so sorry, Sonny. If you ever need to talk, I’m here for you.”

 *****************

The ride back was worse, to say the least. The tension in the air was thick, not to mention, you sat in back with Heather, who seemed to be daydreaming about meeting The Monster. You found yourself watching Sonny, or at least, the half of his face that you could see. He was quiet, subdued; so unlike him, and you realized you hated it. You wanted him to be his laughing, jokey self. You tried asking him questions—and Amanda, so you weren’t too obvious—but he wasn’t all there, his mind somewhere far away. Eventually, you gave up. falling into the silence of the drive.

 *****************

Liv mercifully gave the three of you the rest of the day off after delivering Heather to the precinct. You were just debating what to do for dinner when there was a knock at your door. Curious, you unlocked it, opening it to see Sonny shuffling on his feet on your doorstep.

“Son?” you asked in confusion.

He gave you a nervous smile. “Hey, can I come in?”

“Uh, yeah. ‘Course.” You moved out of the way, letting him enter your brownstone.

You both stood there awkwardly before he asked, “have you had dinner yet? If not, I can maybe whip something up? Or I can order takeout?”

“I haven’t yet, no.” Now thoroughly confused, you shrugged, playing along. “Did you have something in mind? I was thinking of ordering a pizza or something….”

“Pizza sounds great. Here, I’ll order. You like pepperoni, right?”

 ******************

You both idly chatted while waiting for the pizza to arrive, the awkward tension still palpable. Sonny didn’t say why he came over and you didn’t ask. The delivery man showed up soon enough, and Sonny insisted that he pay, so you let him. You found some beers in your fridge, offering one to him, which he gratefully accepted. As you ate, you started talking more, just about where you were before transferring to Manhattan, why you decided to come here of all places. The tension in the air subsided, and slowly, Sonny started talking about himself; his family, his recent accomplishment at Fordham—you had started just after he had passed the bar exam, so you didn’t hear much about it—and how much he loved his job.

“So, now that you passed the bar, are you going to leave us for Barba?” you asked. Sonny cocked an eyebrow, a grin on his face. “Oh my god, that’s not what I meant, and you know it,” you giggled, your cheeks burning.

Sonny chuckled at the implication. “I—I don’t know yet. I really do love my job as a detective. But I always wanted to be a lawyer, ya know? And now I can be. But with Mike passing…it just doesn’t seem like the right time.” He took a sip of his beer. “Hey, maybe with you taking over, I’ll be able to. I’d feel less bad leaving the department behind; they won’t be as short-staffed.”

It hurt to think about Sonny leaving; you were just getting to know him. “I still got a long way to go, though. Liv wouldn’t even let me go with you to West Virginia alone. What was it she said? ‘I need someone experienced’ or some shit.” You rolled your eyes.

“Hey, I was in your shoes before, too. It’ll pass quicker than you can blink.” Sonny spun the bottle in his hands. “Besides, I almost wish it was just us, and that Rollins wasn’t…” he trailed off, his eyes staring at nothing.

You swallowed hard. “You like her, don’t you?”

“Hm? Nah…I mean, she’s my partner, yeah? I have her back, and I know she’s got mine…. We’re close and…yeah, I don’t know.” He looked everywhere but at you, a slight pink tint in his cheeks.

You nodded sympathetically. As much as you wanted him to like you, you just wanted him to be happy. And if she made him happy, then you’d have to live with that. “Being so close with someone for so long, it’s not shocking if feelings…developed. Have you talked to her about it at all?”

He shook his head. “Look, I appreciate you trying to help me with this, but can we stop talking about Rollins? Please?”

“Of course. Sorry…. I got ice cream, if you want some dessert?” you tried.

Sonny sat there for a moment, staring a hole into your floor. “You know what? I think I’m gonna get out of your hair.” He stood, stretching. “Thank you for letting me crash your night for a little bit.”

“You sure? You can stay as long as you need,” you replied, but he was already moving towards your front door, sliding his jacket on.

“Yeah, I’ve taken up enough of your time. See ya at work tomorrow.” And then he gave you that heart-melting smile before he was gone.

 ****************

Whether Fin or Liv could feel the tension in the precinct the next day, you weren’t sure. But Sonny had gone back to his nontalking self, sitting at his desk, working through Heather’s posts. At some point, Amanda invited him to lunch, but he declined. They had a few clipped, whispered words that you didn’t hear, but after she left, Sonny looked upset again.

Standing, you went to the coffee maker, making two cups—one for yourself and one for Sonny. You came back, placing it on his desk, within hands reach. He glanced up at you, and you gave him a soft smile before moving back to your desk, diving in on something to help Barba with his case against Heather.

After another half an hour, Sonny got up, coming over to your desk. “Wanna go grab lunch?”

You looked from him to the mountain of posts and pictures you still had to go through, then back at him. “Please,” you groaned, grabbing your jacket and following him out.

 ****************

For the next two weeks, you and Sonny would get lunch. Or, if it wasn’t possible to take lunch at the same time, you’d bring each other something, switching off each day. You both also seemed to know when the other ran out of coffee, placing a refill on one another’s desk just as you’d finish the last sip. Conversation started to flow easier between you two, and you found that you highly enjoyed just chatting with him. Every now and again, he’d come over to your place, and you’d just talk; mostly about work, sometimes about your families. You still had a crush on him, but you shoved it down, trying to not let it interfere with work, or with your new-found friendship. Though, you noticed with some glee that he no longer looked at Amanda with that sparkle in his eyes.

On Saturday night, Sonny showed up at your doorstep, a 12 pack in one hand, takeout in the other. “Are you not watching the hockey game tonight?” he asked, his Islanders sweater on proudly.

“I, uh, wasn’t planning on it?” you replied, confused. In all your talks, neither of you had mentioned sports, except that Sonny had played basketball as a kid.

“Pffttt. You are now,” he said, pushing into your place. You giggled, following him to your couch. Plopping down next to him, you grabbed a beer while he flipped through the stations until he found the game. He cheers’ed you, then you both took a sip, watching and yelling at the screen. It was hard not to get caught up in the excitement with him, even if you didn’t know all the rules, nor particularly cared about hockey. You just enjoyed spending time with him.

At some point during the first period, Sonny put his arm on the back of the couch, his legs spread. You never understood how someone so lanky could take up so much room, but it made you smile. He just looked so natural, so comfortable on your couch, and you loved it.

“Come on, Lehner! You gotta cover your 5-hole!” Sonny yelled at the screen, groaning as the Islanders let in a goal.

“Uh, explain that to me, please?” you asked, confused.

Sonny sat up, leaning his elbows on his knees, moving closer to you. “Okay, so, ya see how the goalie, Lehner, has his legs so spread? Well, when the Pens shoot, that’s where they aim, ‘cause it’s his weak-spot and they know it. He’s slow to get his glove there and it’s an easy goal.”

“So…the 5-hole is between the legs?” you guessed.

“Exactly; see? You’re a quick learner,” Sonny smiled at you as the game cut to commercial.

You grinned back. “Well, I have a good teacher.”

Sonny’s eyes lit up with an idea. He put his beer down, then turned to face you. “Here, stand.” You cocked an eyebrow at him but obeyed. “Put your arms out and spread your legs…not that far; be comfortable. Okay, so, right here,” –he put his hand to the left side of your face, above your arm— “is the 1-hole. The opposite side here, that’s the 2-hole. Then here,” –he went back to your left side, under your arm this time— “is the 3-hole, and—”

“The opposite is the 4, and between the legs is 5?” you finished.

That lopsided grin was back. “Exactly.” He looked at the screen as the commercials ended. “Ooh, game’s back, here.” Sonny’s hands went to your hips, sending electricity through you. He dragged you back onto the couch next to him, your leg touching his, and his arm around your shoulders. You couldn’t pay attention to the game as your whole body heated, a stupid grin on your face from the closeness. At some point, you relaxed against him, snuggling into his side. If it bothered him, he didn’t say anything. In fact, quite the opposite—when he wasn’t groaning or gesturing at the screen, he had his arm around you, holding you to him.

Once the game was over, Sonny helped you clean up. “Thanks for letting me crash your night again,” he said—the same thing he said every night when he showed up unannounced.

“Anytime,” you replied. “Are you sure you’re okay to drive?”

“Sober as a fox,” he smiled.

You raised an eyebrow at him. “Is that even a saying?”

“It is now,” he declared, a mischievous gleam in his eyes. “Really though; I’m fine. Thank you for worrying.”

You walked him to the door, holding it open for him. Sonny stopped just outside your place, turning back around to look at you. “Text me when you get home, so I know you’re safe,” you said softly.

“Okay, I will…. I, uh, wanted to thank you. Not just for tonight, but for every night…and lunches, and coffees, and just—letting me be me for a little.” He gave you the sweetest smile, and you thought your chest was going to burst.

“Yeah, anytime, Sonny. I want you to feel…safe with me,” you replied.

“I do…I really do.”

You were leaning against your doorframe, and he had one hand on the wall next to it, leaning against it. Slowly, he leaned forward, his face getting closer to yours. Swallowing, and praying you weren’t misinterpreting, you leaned in, too, until your lips met in a soft, chaste kiss. Sonny’s mouth was gentle against yours, his lips smooth, and you stood up on your tiptoes, pressing yourself harder against him, afraid that he’d realize what was happening and that he’d pull away, disgusted. And though he did pull away, his eyes were still closed in bliss, a small smile on his face, one that slowly grew the longer you looked, making your own smile appear.

“You sure you don’t want to stay the night?” you asked, your voice hopeful.

Sonny looked deeply into your eyes, then to your lips, then back to your eyes. “Well, if you insist, maybe I can be persuaded to crash your night a little longer.”

[ssa-sapphic-inactive]

Hey hey bae, congrats to 500 you totally deserve it <3

First I have a 🧸 and a couple of questions

* If you could choose any song to describe your life currently which one would it be?

* How would you describe your ideal day?

* How would you describe your sense of style?

* If you could live anywhere where would you live?

And some CYMAs, I’ll be back with another ask again so stay tuned <3 but CYMA as

* Types of weather

* Cm characters

* Colors

* Emily Prentiss eras (like her in different seasons if you get what I mean)

Anyways see you soon for my next ask bae and ily <3

if i could pick any song to currently describe my life it would be “i wanna get better” by the bleachers

my ideal day would have to include an equal balance of relaxation and productivity

for my style, a lot of it consists of clothes that i can’t afford lol but when i have no special reason to dress up i just like being comfy you know? if you live with me you could catch me in shorts and a t-shirt or sweats. there’s no in between. but like i said, the style i want is currently out of my budget

if i could live anywhere, it would probably have to be france

cyma: again, to save me the energy i don’t have i’m just tagging the supersquad lol

weather (i went all out for this one lol) :

@sweetprentiss - a springlike atmosphere where the sun is shining down warm against your skin and the light breeze in the air provides a cool contrast as it blows through the wild wisps of your hair. where the foggy mornings are bright with life from crickets singing in meadows and frogs leaping on the lillypads of the glistening waters. the aroma is thick and sweet and you’re surrounded by freshly bloomed flowers resting with dew drops on their petals. the sun herself is rising in the east, yet the moon still watches over you until she has finally arrived. you lay in the open field as a feeling of hope consumes you and you get lost in daydreams

@alexbllake - when the snow is falling heavy, yet gracefully, under the dark sky. the only sound immanent being the distant wind chimes caused by the howling blizzard and the faint melodic voices of carolers echoing throughout the neighborhood. the night itself is silent, while snowflakes as big as coins hit the ground peacefully. your breath visible as it escapes your mouth and travels past your frostbitten nose and lingers above the crystallized snow in your lashes. you take a step inside your home only to be instantly comforted by the warm of the fireplace in the corner. you sit next to your lover and cuddle on the sofa as you watch a corny christmas movie and sip your hot cocoa, feeling nothing but utter contentment

@ssajemilyprentiss - you’re the epitome of radiated happiness on a hot summer’s day. the inviting swimming pools and oceans that cool off our heated bodies. the vibrant sensation of ferris wheels and carnivals on the boardwalk, the relaxation of longer days and brighter nights filled with endless fireflies and fireworks. when families gather for barbecues and the charcoal of the grill fills the air. the time where little kids play at parks with their melted popsicles and ice cream cones, laughing and screaming as they imagine other worlds and ignore their realities. where refreshing juices of lemons are turned into ice cold lemonade and the colorful hues of seasonal berries are being picked and tossed into woven baskets for future recipes. just the overall feeling of endless possibilities

@taralewiz - the time of pumpkin spice scented candles and oversized sweaters. no wind, yet there’s still a light chill in the air as you walk through piles of colorful leaves. hearing them crunch beneath your feet as you sip on the hot cup of tangy apple cider in your gloved hands. the warmth and excitement of hayrides and bonfires, and roasting fluffy marshmallows over open flames. hearing the trees dance together as their leaves crash amongst themselves and break away only to race towards the ground below. eerie nights in october where new personas waltz around the neighborhood in search of their next trick or treat. feeling nothing but thrill and adrenaline from the spooky facades and haunted nothings of adventure. finally feasting on the hearty delectables of being thankful for new beginnings and feeling comforted by being home with family

i think i did cyma criminal minds characters already so i’m going to skip this one if that’s alright

colors: @taralewiz is vibrant red, @sweetprentiss is like peachy pink, @alexbllake is warm aqua, and you my dear are soft lime green <3

emily prentiss eras:

@taralewiz - lauren reynolds (no explanation needed)

@sweetprentiss - season 5 (the pony tails and turtlenecks were everything)

@alexbllake - season 11 (cause you’re the oldest of our group and that woman ages like fine wine. also because i wouldn’t dare cast you as prentiss’ wig era lol)

@ssajemilyprentiss - season 4 (the reason for this decision is simple: bangs)

i’m casting myself as season 3 emily because i’m the youngest in our group chat so baby emily seemed fitting lol