#the cowboys have been overdue for a smooch

[beps-brainrot]

Bare with my self indulgence, but it's my birthday, and I get to dress as my fav Y/Ns to smooch my fav boys. Also idk how to draw horses, but I tried sfkjsfdkj

Featuring: @castercassette's Cowboy AU @bamsara's Solar Lunacy AU @miwachan2's Vampiric Equinox AU

I will probably make more since there were a lot of AUs I had ideas for, but I just didn't have time

[mishasminion360]

How Do You Do It?

Jack Daniels x fem!reader

Warnings: Mild language; words said in anger; stress-induced anxiety; mild angst; self-doubt; but lots of fluff, I swear.

Summary: Being a new mother and a homemaker are two difficult jobs to juggle at the same time, and even more of a challenge when your husband is constantly away. When Jack returns from his latest assignment to find you overtaxed and irritable, he decides to make it up to you by spending a day in your shoes.

A/N: What a busy summer/early fall. So much has changed in such a short time. Change is weird sometimes and brings a lot of stress. Had my first-ever panic attack. Zero stars; do not recommend. But even the stressful, scary parts of our lives can be inspiring. This fic is proof of that 😝

P.S. As you can see I began this fic in the fall of 2023 and look how late I’m posting it! I’m sorry for the long hiatus, folks, but believe me when I say it was necessary.

How is it that your husband is the secret agent, but the weight of the world always feels like it’s been thrust upon your shoulders?

The day you found out you were expecting was one of the happiest of your life. You and Jack had been over the moon and spent the entire adventure of pregnancy fantasizing about all the joys of parenthood that would arrive along with your bundle of joy. You weren’t kidding yourselves; you knew that a baby brought big changes and more than a few challenges. You just weren’t aware of just how high those hurdles would be until you were thrown into the race.

The roles of wife, homemaker, and now mother all seem to merge into one monstrous, never-ending task; and your duties seemed all the more daunting when you were left to fulfill them alone.

Jack is nothing short of attentive and dedicated when he’s at home. The problem is that “home” is usually the last place one will find him. As of late, his job with the Statesmen pulls and pushes him this way and that into parts unknown where he’s embroiled in espionage for some indeterminate period, leaving you with a house to maintain, meals to prepare, clothes to launder, and a colicky infant to soothe.

You’re trapped inside a pressure cooker and the temperature is nearing critical.

***

“Baby Shark” is on its 25th iteration, every “doo doo doo” is like a bat to the back of your head. You dance topless in the living room with your wailing son clutched to your naked chest. You’d tossed your t-shirt into the wash twenty minutes ago, covered—like the two before it—in your baby boy’s milky vomit.

Your sanity is a mere thread, frayed, delicate, and seconds away from completely unraveling. Your head is pounding and back aching, and you’re trying to convince yourself that the flush of heat you feel just beneath your skin is not a fever. You can’t afford to be sick now. Not when you are all your son has; when you are all you have.

“Daddy’s home, darlin’!”

The sound of his voice, the familiar clip-clop of his boots on the hardwood floor, should fill you with after hardly having heard it for a solid week. Instead, it has your already tepid body simmering with frustration.

“Hey there, Mama Mare.” The affectionate term oozes from between his grinning lips with all the smooth, sweet ease of honey. “Give this ol’ cowboy some sugar. He missed you.”

His lips are on yours and then detaching themselves before your mouth can even register it’d just been in contact with another; far quicker and more careless than the long overdue reunion kiss you’d been anticipating. The brief little smooch held about as much passion as a handshake.

“There’s my little cowpoke!”

Jack lifts his squalling son from your arms and little John’s cries instantly cease. Of course they do. Of freaking course.

“Well, now, you didn’t have to get all dressed up on my account, honeybee.”

You snap to attention after possibly having fallen asleep on your feet for a split second to see that Jack’s devilish gaze has zeroed in on your bared tits.

“You certainly know how to welcome a fella home.”

While he’s busy ogling your non-seductive nudity, your own eyes have locked onto the trail of muddy prints stretching from the front door, each filthy footfall a perfect imprint of the sole of Jack’s boots. Yet another mess you’ll have to clean up; another chore added to the already heavy burden you’re shouldering.

“How’s about after dinner we mosey on upstairs, put this little buckaroo to bed, then I show you just how much I missed you?”

You don’t even know how to respond to him right now, so you don’t. You simply turn your back and walk away, seething in a silent rage as you stomp your way upstairs to put on the thickest, ugliest sweatshirt you can find that leaves everything up to the imagination.

John starts to wail once again, but that’s Jack’s problem now. You have about a million other tasks to accomplish—make that a million and one, thanks to his filthy freaking boots.

You slip into the master bath and toss back a couple of Advil for your pounding headache and by the time you re-emerge, Jack is pacing around your bed, hands on his hips and a pensive scowl on his face.

You take a deep breath through your nose and the words tumble from your lips in a sigh. “I haven’t started dinner yet. Give me just a few minutes and I can—“

“Did I say somethin’ wrong?” he blurts. “‘Cause you gave me a look back there that reminded me of an angry steer about to trample a rodeo clown.”

“Just forget it,” you mutter, brushing past him toward the door. His hand wraps around your wrist before you can cross the threshold.

“I ain’t forgettin’ nothin’,” he drawls as he turns you to face him. “Sugar, what’s wrong? No use lyin’ because I can tell somethin’s stuck in your craw.”

Oh, it’s stuck alright. Like a bug in a windshield.

“Jesus, Jack,” you sigh. “Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve had a total of five non-consecutive hours of sleep this week. Or it could be the fact that the house is a mess or that I’m down to my last pair of clean underwear. All the chores have been put on hold so I could tend to our son while you’ve been off playing ‘secret agent man’ in God only knows where.”

His mustache twitches and his jaw ticks.

“Honeybee, why didn’t you tell me you’ve been strugglin’? I would have—“

“Because I shouldn’t have to tell you!” you snap. “You should know me well enough by now to tell when I’m not okay! You should already have some inkling of how hard it is to raise a child and that the process usually goes much smoother when both parents are involved. But I guess I’m just a fool for assuming. Getting shot at is far less hazardous to your health than changing a dirty diaper after all.”

When the red finally clears from your vision you see that Jack’s has become clouded with a look you’d only bore witness to once and concluded that you never wanted to see again. His mirthful brown eyes dulled by a deeply rooted pain planted long ago by a cruel twist of fate. He’d been robbed of his first chance to be a husband and father and you’d just accused him of squandering his second.

“Sugar, I’m….I’m sorry.”

Shit. It’s not fair. You have been miserable for an entire week and you can’t stand to see him miserable for even a millisecond.

“No, I’m sorry,” you insist, voice and legs quivering. You lower yourself to the bed before exhaustion and gravity get the better of you. “I’m just so tired. Tired and frustrated.”

He drops to the bed beside you and pulls you into one of his signature hugs you’ve missed so much. The tightest of embraces that only he can give.

“I know you’re working hard to provide for our family,” you sob. “I know that but still I….I feel so alone, Jack.”

Before even a single southern-drenched syllable can leave his mouth, a sharp wail blasts from the baby monitor and your body reacts instinctively and urgently. You shoot up and out of Jack’s arms like a rocket.

“Let me check on him and then I’ll start dinner,” you say with a sniffle.

“I’ll get him, darlin’,” Jack insists, gently grasping you by the wrist and halting your minimal progress toward the door.

“But he probably needs—“

“I will get him.”

His hands are on your shoulders now—firm yet gentle—and grounding, comforting.

“Please, let me take care of my boy so you can take care of you, honeybee. And then, later, I’d like to take care of you, too. If you’ll let me.”

You can only muster a nod before he’s striding out of the room. Taking advantage of the first minute you’ve had to yourself in a week, you slip into the shower and let the warm spray unclench every muscle coiled tight with stress.

By the time you emerge, John is sleeping peacefully and a pizza’s been ordered. Jack dotes on you the entire evening, giving your aching feet a rub down with his skillful hands and cuddling you close as you both zone out to some ridiculous reality TV. His mere presence is a balm to your weary soul.

Whenever the baby cries in the middle of the night and your body moves on instinct Jack stills you, urges you back to the mattress, and takes on the challenge himself. It’s the best night’s sleep you’ve had in you can’t remember how long.

***

And surprisingly enough, you don’t manage to sleep any later than 9 a.m. The smell of extra greasy bacon lures you from bed, a siren’s call to your stomach.

John bounces in his high chair, babbling around a mouthful of mashed banana, most of which appears to have ended up on his face, shirt, and chubby little fists. Jack is an even more astonishing sight than your messy son, strutting about the kitchen in your frilly apron topping his off-white Henley and faded Wranglers.

“Well, good mornin’, sugar,” he cries, grabbing your hips to tug you in for a kiss. “Though I wasn’t expectin’ to see you up so soon.”

“How did you expect me to stay asleep when something smells incredible?”

“That would be my famous chocolate chip, peanut butter, and banana flapjacks.”

In true Southern gentlemanly fashion, he pulls out a chair and eases you into it before setting a towering stack of syrup-soaked pancakes before you, coffee and bacon following suit.

“Better eat quick now, darlin’,” Jack urges as he takes a seat with his plate. “You’ve got a busy day ahead of you.”

As if you could forget. That laundry is begging for attention, the house hasn’t had a good dusting in you can’t recall how long, and Johnny already needs a bath—

“I made you an appointment for noon.”

Your train of thought instantly stalls on the tracks.

“Appointment?”

Jack grins over the brim of his steaming mug.

“Honey, you need a break. Figured you might enjoy yourself a little spa day.”

You can hardly believe your ears.

“Spa day?”

“Yes, ma’am. Massage, mud baths, whatever the heck they do with seaweed, the whole nine yards,” he explains proudly. “I even called up your buddy from work and asked if she’d like to join you. And it’s all on me.”

“But Jack, what about John? And the house, the laundry, the cooking?”

“Gimme some credit, sugar,” he chuckles. “I think I can keep the homestead standin’ and our baby boy breathin’ for a day. Besides, it’s high time I start puttin’ in my fair share of help around here, isn’t it?”

You’re not sure if you want to thank him or burst into tears. Maybe both.

“You do so much, honeybee,” he says warmly, voice as smooth, rich, and sweet as the syrup sluiced atop your pancakes. “You move mountains every day to make this house a home. How’s about lettin’ someone do somethin’ for you for a change?”

You scarf down the rest of your pancakes before kissing him with sticky lips and racing up the stairs to get ready for your big day out.

***

You feel rejuvenated and refreshed. Brand fucking new. A far cry from the husk of a woman who’d left the house this morning. Wrapped in seaweed and slathered with mud you’d been returned to the earth and reborn at full strength, like a phoenix risen from the ash.

You'd been reunited with an inner strength and power you'd all but forgotten. And thank God for that, because you're going to need every bit of it to face the chaos you come walking back into upon your return home.

You can hear John’s piercing wails before you’ve cut the engine and opened the driver’s side door. You can smell the smoke before you've even reached the front steps.

Inside all hell has broken loose. Gray tendrils of smoke slither through the air, teasing the detector into screaming its warning. Your baby boy is giving it some stiff competition with his own cries as Jack struggles to bounce him on one arm while he tries to fan away the smoke with the other. Both gestures prove futile.

“It’s okay, buckeroo. You’re okay. Don’t cry. Please, please don’t cry.”

Jack looks so frazzled. The situation is far from funny so the last thing you should do is laugh at his expense. But dammit if you don’t anyway.

“Do you need some help there, cowboy?”

His frantic eyes find you through the haze and pierce you with a desperate, wordless plea. You take the inconsolable infant from your husband’s arm and soothe him into silence as Jack does the same to the smoke alarm.

“There now, Johnny. See? Everything’s okay. Daddy made the bad sound stop.”

“He just stopped cryin’ for you. Just like that.”

Something in his eyes burns. Something in his voice cracks.

“I couldn't bring him any kind of comfort. He didn't….want nothin’ to do with me.”

Your weary cowpoke sags into one of the chairs at the kitchen table and buries his face in his hands with an exasperated sigh.

“You were right, darlin’. I'm useless.”

You settle John into his high chair with a teething ring to distract him before turning your attention to your distressed husband.

“To be fair, I never said you were useless.”

“You may as well have,” he sighs. “And if you weren’t thinkin’ it before you’ll be thinkin’ it now.”

You smirk. “Rough day?”

“Oh darlin’, you don’t even know the half of it.”

He begins to recount the day’s challenges, his voice raising in pitch as goes from describing one hurdle to the next. He almost seems on the verge of tears.

“And I got so distracted while tryin’ to get our fussy boy to eat his dinner that I failed to hear the timer and let ours burn. Hence the fiasco you came home to. And when John started bellowing for his supper I was in the middle of the laundry and I forgot to separate the colorful items from the rest, so my new red jockeys turned our bathroom towels pink and….and I just failed so miserably today, sugar. I’m so sorry.”

You laugh, unable to help it. It’s all you can do at this point. “Welcome to my world, sweetheart.”

“How on Earth do you do it, sugar?”

If you’re being honest, you ask yourself that question at least once a day, and not always with the same emotional connotation behind it.

“There’s just something inside of me that encourages me to power through the difficulties. A force, a reminder.”

“An iron will for damn sure,” he scoffs.

“No, that’s not it,” you chuckle. “It’s love, Jack. For you and our boy. That’s what keeps me going.”

He looks at your have cradling his own, a gesture of both dominance and comfort. In this moment he believes that he is made of inferiority.

“I love you both to the moon and back, yet I can’t even do a load of laundry.”

“Jack you do enough. I have not, do not, and never will doubt your love for me and John,” you reassure him. “Acts of service just happen to be my particular love language, not yours.”

“Then what is mine?”

You lift his hands and kiss both sets of his knuckles. “Words of affirmation.”

His acts of service are for the world, but his words are just for you.

“But ain’t actions supposed to speak louder?”

“For others, maybe,” you shrug. “But that’s only because no one else speaks as loudly as you.”

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