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The sound of wood chopping in the distance makes the corners of your mouth turn up into a half smile. The steady rhythm of the axe hitting the stump mixing in with the sounds of the forest, the rustling of small animals in the bushes, the breeze whispering through the early autumn leaves. Preparing food in front of the kitchen window is one of your favourite parts of the day. Carefully cutting the vegetables you picked from your garden this morning and dropping them into the pot. You watch as a stronger gust of wind knocks the leaves gently from the swaying branches to the forest floor in beautiful muted shades of yellows and browns. Your eye catches on a deep auburn leaf as the axe stops falling, which you take this as your sign to place the pot of vegetable stew you’ve lovingly created onto the hook above the fire. Glancing back out of the window, your heart flutters as Floch’s familiar figure appears over the brow of the hill, pulling a cart of logs behind him. You can see the exhaustion in his steps even from that far away. So you pull the metal tub down from against the wall, push it in front of the crackling fire, grab your buckets and make your way out to the stream that runs behind the cottage. Beads of sweat run down your face as you run in and out filling the tub up, hoping that the fire warms the water enough before Floch returns home. Your arms shaking with the weight of the buckets, your apron soaked through from filling them up in such a hurry, causing the crisp autumn air to chill you to your bones. You tip the final lot of water into the tub as you hear Floch whistling cheerily as he stacks the logs he’s spent the afternoon chopping up onto the porch.
The door creaks open as you quickly stand up and run your hands down your front to smooth down your apron. He calls out your name to let you know he’s home as he steps into the kitchen area, inhaling deeply. You can hear the smile in his voice as asks what’s for dinner and he comments on how wonderful the cottage smells. Floch loves your cooking, it’s not that he can’t cook, it’s just that he loves seeing the pride you wear when you serve him the meal you’ve worked so hard on. Your contribution to your life here together. He drops another couple of small birds on the counter and you gesture over towards the pan of simmering stew, it did smell wonderful, filled with the vegetables you so carefully tended to in the garden you’d made for yourself at the side of the cottage, carrots, potatoes, onions, squash; herbs picked from all over the forest that you’d collected on your daily walks, tying them together into little bundles and hung to dry out by the window; the stock you’d made from the bones of a game bird that Floch had brought home last week. The last of that meat you’ll serve to him in his stew tonight. You look around the small cottage, the meal that you’ve made from food you’d grown, or Floch had caught, seasoned by herbs you’ve foraged, being cooked over a fire lit by the wood that Floch had cut. You couldn’t think of a more blessed life if you tried.
“Dinner will be a little while yet, I filled the tub for you while you wait, it should be warm enough by now,” you tell him, matching the smile he gave you when he came in.
He grins in reply. “How did I get so lucky, huh?” He wraps his arms around you, and notices your river soaked apron.
“You’re shivering, you been for a swim in your clothing?” He mumbles into the top of your head.
You laugh softly. His cheeky attitude was one of your favourite things about him and for a couple of years that version of him didn’t seem to exist. You were aware of what he’d been through and you couldn’t blame him for losing his spark but you’d missed him all the same. Slowly, over the years of him living with you in the forest, away from everything that reminded him of his past, the old Floch shone through more and more. The one that you’d fallen in love with as a kid, the one you knew before he went off to war and even though he sometimes still wakes up in the night sweating and calling out the names of the people he had lost, you were there to comfort him as he cried.
“It’s just the splashes from the bucket when I was filling the tub. I was in a hurry when I saw you coming over the hill, it’s fine, it’ll dry. You get in and I’ll check on dinner.”
“Absolutely not.” He frowns. “You need to get out of this wet dress and get warmed up, I'll check on dinner.”
You open your mouth to protest but he interrupts you before you can even manage to get a word out. You should’ve known he wasn’t going to let you sit in wet clothes while he bathed, he always prefers you to go first. Even though you spend a lot of time walking through the forest collecting herbs or tending to your garden Floch is always the one who ends up in more need of a wash after a day deep in the trees and since you have to share the bathwater out here he always makes sure its cleanest for you.
“Go on, it’ll still be there for me when you’re done, it’s not going anywhere.”
A smile makes its way on to your face, and you know better than to try and convince him to go first. So you pile your hair onto your head to keep it dry, and fold your clothes onto the stool to hang near the fire once dinner had finished cooking and the tub put away. The warmth of the water seeping through to your bones, surrounded by the comforting scent of the stew, the dim candlelight dancing around the room now the night had fallen in the woods. The melody of the songbirds has been replaced by the deep hooting of the owls, the breeze still whispering through the trees. You hadn’t realised quite how cold you were until now, you wash quickly scrubbing your skin with the cloth until the only thing left is the feeling of a pair of hazel eyes at your back.
“You ready?” You turn to look at him when he doesn’t answer you. “Flochie?”
Your eyes meet but he still doesn’t say anything, you stand up and reach for the towel but Floch has jumped up and made it across the room in three strides. Ever the gentleman, he offers his arm to help you out. You take his hand and step onto the mat you’d placed there. He wraps the huge towel tight around your shoulders from behind you to keep the autumn chill off of you, and rubs your skin in an attempt to dry you more quickly whilst keeping you warm. Pressing a gentle kiss onto the top of your head, he inhales deeply before clearing his throat.
“Sorry, I was just thinking.” He clears his throat a second time as he pulls off his shirt and drops into in to the bucket where you keep the laundry to be washed - your eyes scan his back noticing how much more muscled he is in the more recent years from the level of physical labour he does every day. You know that he knows you’re watching him and he turns his head slightly to the side, the heat rises in your face and you quickly avert your gaze - the rest of his clothes quickly follow.
He grins as he sinks down into the steaming tub. Stretching his arms across the back and tipping his head backwards, eyes closed. He sighs contentedly, water trickling down the sides from where his arms lay. His grin disappearing and settling into relaxation. He’s spent most of the day out in the woods - you’re not complaining, you’re infinitely grateful for him chopping the firewood and hunting the birds but Gods you’ve missed him - you can’t help but think how perfect he looks in the dim candlelight that’s dancing around the cottage. You pull your nightgown over your head, braid your hair back, move the stool to the back of the tub and sit down behind him. His head still tilted backwards, he half opens one eye to look at you as you pick up the cloth and start to wash the day from his skin. He mumbles something that sounds like a greeting or it could be a thank you and closes his eye again, long, dark lashes brush the top of his freckled cheek. Helping him bathe is a routine you are so happy to have fallen in to. Any excuse to be this close to him, any excuse to touch him.
His jokey demeanour from earlier has melted into exhaustion. You ask him to sit forward as you grab a cup and fill it with water, you pour it over his head and watch it drip down onto his shoulders. You don’t think you could ever get enough of washing Floch’s hair. Your fingers tangle in the unruly tufts of beautiful red, darker with the weight of the water, scrubbing away all remainders of the forest from his scalp. You can still hear that crisp wind bustling through the leaves, knocking more of them to the floor. The owls are still calling to each other through the trees and yet the inside of the cottage is blissfully calm, the only sounds in here are full of a beautiful domesticity; the meal was bubbling away in the pot, the fire softly crackling between the sounds of the gentle splashing of the water and Floch’s sighs as he relaxes into your hands. He loves you washing hair just as much as you love doing it for him.
You don’t know how long you’ve spent with your hands on his head all you know is that it will never be enough time. Being able to touch him like this fills you with such immense happiness. It doesn’t matter if it’s helping him relax by washing his hair for him or laid in the flowers in a glade in the middle of the forest with your fingers intertwined or in the dead of the night with your bodies pressed against one another sharing the same breaths, touching him was your favourite. The life that you’ve built together after everything you’ve been through during the war, never even knowing if you’d be able to see him again or tell him exactly how you felt, is perfect. Being able to spend every day with him is something you never thought you’d be afforded and yet here you are, making meals in a pot filled with produce you’ve grown and meat he has hunted, over a fire full of logs that he has cut down, the soaps you were currently rinsing from his hair made by you. You look around the cottage and take in the clothing you’ve sewn, the bits of furniture Floch has built, the pieces of art scattered around that you’ve made together.
You love that your life is as self sufficient as it possibly could be, the closest town is several days walk with a cart away which is a journey neither of you enjoy taking. The cottage that you live in is as far away from it all as possible by design but sometimes it's necessary to stock up on ingredients you can't grow or gather yourselves, flour and butters and cheeses- all luxuries that don't last long which made you appreciate them all the more-, tools, materials to make your clothes and blankets, the items that you can't make yourselves and maybe a book or two; which you got by trading things that you’ve grown or picked or made. It fills you with such a huge sense of joy every time that you see people inspecting woodwork Floch had made or pieces of embroidery that you’d sat making on the porch waiting for Floch to come home. Often offering up their own wares for you to take home, the pride on Floch’s face is always so beautiful to see, happy and carefree, the face of a man who is in love with his life. There was a time when you hadn’t known whether you’d ever see those kinds of expression on him ever again, not after he came back from the war.
He was different when he came home, of course he was. The things he told you with his head on your lap and tears in his eyes were enough to shatter your heart. The boy you knew was gentle, he was loud and honest to a fault if a little naïve. The man that came home was broken, quiet, he was trapped between his anger and his guilt. Angry that he had been sent into battles that they were hopeless to win, that there was any need to have to fight to start with. Why couldn’t those people across the sea just let us live? Wracked with guilt from the things that he had done while he had been a person he did not recognise. That he had survived conflict after conflict. Why him? There were much more capable soldiers than him that kept dying, what did he have to offer anyone? Why did he have to live? These were the questions he kept asking you over and over again and for every thing he told you had happened, for every dark, desperate feeling he had described to you, you knew that there were so many more that he would never share. Things he did to give himself a purpose, to try and give those lost lives peace, in the name of survival. In the name of protecting his people. In the name of the devils that consumed him; things that the Floch who went away to save the world wouldn’t have dreamt about ever doing and that the Floch who came home struggled to live with the knowledge of, the things that shaped his nightmares.
You will always count your blessings that you both made it out and found each other again, even when it’s hard, even when he was in the absolute depths of despair you were grateful that you were there to help him through.
You hear him calling your name. His comforting voice pulling you out of your spiral. You offer him another soft smile and really take him in. His unruly hair in your favourite shade of red - it’s been your favourite since you met, just two kids with no idea what lie beyond the cage you’d been born into - falls into his face. He returns your smile as he brushes it out of his eyes, oh his eyes, you’ve spent so many nights lost in the love he holds for you within them. A love mirrored in your own eyes now as you kneel down on the floor beside the tub, damp cloth in one hand you rinse the last of the soap suds from him. If there’s one thing you find yourself missing about living in a town is access to a proper bath but as you sit here right now you wouldn’t swap this moment for plumbing. You’re close enough to count the pale freckles that cover his body. You feel him shiver and his breath catches as you gently run your fingers across his speckled shoulders and reach out to cup his face in your hand, he leans into the touch, softly you rub your thumb over his cheek which was now starting to flush heavily. You loved it when he got flustered, the blush quickly spreading down his neck and chest. Any doubts that you ever have about deserving this life with him are instantly forgotten. His reactions a reminder that he feels the same way as you do. You feel your own face starting to heat up in response and glance up to meet his eyes again as his hand reaches up and closes around your own hand resting on his face. Your heart skips and the butterflies in your stomach are fluttering at the touch. No matter how many times he touches you, no matter how much time you’ve spent together just the two of you in this cabin you still feel as giddy as you did when it was still new, and you hope that this is how it would feel forever.
“Sorry, I was just thinking,” repeating his earlier words back to him with yet another smile. “I’ll go serve up dinner, it should be ready…” you trail off, brushing your hand lovingly down his cheek as you get up and walk towards the kitchen area. His gaze follows you to the fireplace and you feel your heart skip another beat. How lucky you are to spend the rest of your life with the person who makes you feel like this every day. You almost can't believe it's possible to be this happy, this comfortable. These moments are ones you cherish. After all, you’d fought so hard to get here. While you’re busying around the kitchen serving the food you can hear Floch whistling again behind you as he dries off and pulls on his comfortable clothes. He stops his tune to let you know that he will empty out the tub while you’re setting the table. The door is open whilst he is taking out buckets of water and that autumn chill whips around at your feet, all the sounds of the forest are much louder and yet they feel so far away from the blissful bubble that you and Floch have been floating in this evening.
You listen to Floch’s day as you eat, you love this part of your routine, hearing him speak. The excitement in his voice as he tells you all about a glade that he doesn’t think he’s seen before at the other side of the hill, covered in crunchy autumn leaves right now but he’s got a feeling that come spring it will be full of flowers and he would love to take you there. If it’s too far to walk to he’ll pull you on the cart. You already can’t wait as your mind wanders off to memories of you both laid in grassy fields together, rolling around, laughing, watching the clouds pass by. Just the two of you in your own world. You think about how happy and free he gets when he’s splashing around in streams and lakes or climbing trees to check his directions, even the times you’ve gotten lost together within the trees have made you both laugh because if you’re with each other that’s all that matters. His presence is safety. It’s security and he always manages to lead you back home.
You’re pulled out of the memories with the sound of Floch whistling out the tune of a bird that came to watch him cut down a tree and he tells you about the strangest looking fish he saw whilst walking down the side of the stream. He finds so much joy in life lately all of these little things pile on top of each other to create a patchwork of contentment. You know that he shares the same thoughts that you do about making it out of the war and him finding happiness is every day mundane things is beautiful. He deserves it. He periodically pauses his storytelling to keep letting you know how much he loves the food. How proud of you he is for being able to make something delicious every day. He comments on how cold it’s starting to get already and how he thinks you’re in for a bad winter, how he needs to make sure the wood is covered for when the heavy rains start and he wonders if he should he take a trip into the town to get you some more materials for extra blankets.
He turns the conversation to ask about your day so you show him the embroidery you’ve been working on and mention how you don’t know if it’s good enough to try and trade at the market. Which he absolutely will not hear and tells you anyone would be lucky to be able to display it in their home including him, so if you decide you don’t want to trade it he will put it up on the wall so that he can appreciate it instead. You tell him how the garden is doing but you’re worried about the frost coming in early this year so you need to get a head start on preserving some of the produce for winter.
Once you’re both done eating you take the dishes outside together and rinse them off from the bucket of clean water in the back. Floch tells you to go back inside to the warmth and he’ll finish up the dishes so you do. You hang your wet apron up over the rack that Floch had made for you, and wipe down the table and work surfaces. Then, you pull the curtains tighter across the window to try and keep some of the warmth in after the fire goes out.
You hear him come back in rubbing his hands together to get warm as you’re preparing the bed, you pull a couple of sheets out of the blanket box and lay them across the bed. Floch goes over to the fire to put it out and you crawl under the furs. You lay there on your side watching him. The light from the fire highlighting just how handsome he is. The curve of his jaw. The slope of his nose. His mouth twitches, stifling a smile as you realise he’s noticed you watching him. Your face flushes pink for what feels like the hundredth time tonight. You’re glad when the fire goes out so he can’t see how flustered you actually are. The room is now in almost pitch darkness save for the few cinders that will soon disappear. The sounds of the forest outside seem miles away now as you hear him carefully pad across the floor and then feel the bed dip as he gets in behind you.
He puts his hands on your waist and pulls you in to him your back pressed against his chest. His hands are still cold but you don’t mind, they’ll soon warm up and you’d rather have his cold hands on you than not have his hands on you at all. You just pull the blankets around tighter. He wriggles an arm under your neck so he can hold you even closer whilst his other hand softly runs up and down your side and even through your nightdress you can feel how rough and calloused his skin is. The days he spends in the forest evident as he touches you. The friction of his palm slowly stroking over your hip and waist sends small shivers dancing down your spine. He stops briefly to move your hair out of his way so he can press kisses down your neck and across your shoulders, he nuzzles into your neck sleepily murmuring your name. His hand has quickly warmed up and he steadily strokes higher until he’s lightly brushing over your ribs.
The butterflies that have been building in your stomach all evening are turning heavy, from a playful giddiness into something entirely different. You turn over to face him and take his jaw in your hands, you scan his face, his heavy lidded eyes looking right back at you. You can barely see the freckles that adorn his face because his skin is flushed a familiar shade of pink. His eyes flit between your eyes and your lips. He gently grabs your chin and slowly closes the gap capturing your mouth with his own. He tastes like fresh mint, pine and lavender, a mixture of the earthy forest he spends so much time in. The tension that has slowly been building up all night threatens to shatter as he pulls you into him. His growing want for you evident. He kisses you again and your hands move up from his face to rest in his hair, scratching slightly on his scalp. His mouth starting to press into yours a little less carefully, a little more firmly. You give his hair a tentative tug. He groans into your mouth and flips you onto your back, one forearm holding him above you by the side of your head, the other firmly gripping your bare thigh. Your nightdress now ruched up around your waist, your knees settled either side of his hips, hands still gripping firmly in his hair. He drops his forehead onto your shoulder and mumbles something you can’t quite hear, he clears his throat-
“Do that again,” he whispers, his head still resting on your shoulder, just barely louder. So you do.
Your hands are full of his thick, soft auburn hair. Alternating between gentle tugs and running your nails lightly over his head and neck, coaxing the noises from him that you’ve been waiting all day to hear. His kisses become much more desperate, his touch much less gentle. Both of your chests heaving as you’re barely breaking apart long enough to pull your nightclothes from each other, never mind for air. The autumn chill long forgotten with the heat radiating from your bodies. This entire evening has been a build up to these moments, every blush, every touch, every cheeky smirk leading up to now. The excitement an electricity thrumming through every inch of your body. You’re a tangle of limbs, hands roaming each others bodies, leaving a burning fire behind on your skin. A desperation to be as close as possible to each other until it's no longer physically possible to be any closer. It feels like time has stopped and there’s only the two of you. All of the noise of the forest has disappeared and all that’s left is the sound of your love for each other. Sighs falling from you in the shape of his name as his mouth explores the whole of your body, leaving every inch of you tingling. He hovers above you and you place your hand over his heart feeling it hammering in his chest. You are absolutely, irrevocably in love and so you tell him. Over and over. Every declaration of your feelings encourages him to take you closer to the edge. His skin is damp with a sheen of sweat. A slither of moonlight peeking through a crack in the curtain highlights the intensely loving expression on his handsome face as he looks at you, his eyelids heavy, his eyes dark and focused. You melt under his gaze. He leans down to kiss you. The tension within you is wound like an elastic tighter and tighter with every touch until the band snaps and you gasp out his name, your whole body set alight like a huge explosion of fireworks.
You can tell Floch so badly wants to kiss you again but he doesn’t, the breathy whispers of his name coming from your lips are like music to his ears, muttering that the sound is better than any birdsong he’s ever heard. He settles for kissing your neck instead, from the hollow of your throat to up behind your ear as he presses into your body. This close you can hear how shallow his breathing is becoming, but can barely understand his words of praise for you that he’s babbling into your neck. You can just pick out him telling you how beautiful you are, how much he loves you, wants you and needs you over and over until he’s tripping over his own words. Your hands are back in his hair, ankles crossed at his back pulling him in closer with another desperate kiss. He drops his head once again into the crook of your neck. His breathing comes heavier and heavier. The rolling rhythm of his hips completely lost. Your own breathing is slowly starting to even out, the fog in your head is lifting now but your heart is still racing from his touch and his words and as you’re coming down from your high. Floch shudders with a groan of your name and reaches his own.
Floch’s chest is rising and falling steadily as you nestle down to rest your head on it. His breathing deep and even as he starts to drift into sleep. He kisses the top of your head and lazily rubs his thumb on your hip in circles letting you know he’s still with you for now but you both know it won’t belong before he’s in a heavy slumber. His touch brings you such comfort, a peaceful atmosphere has settled back throughout the room. The cinders in the fire are now completely out, you can hear the soft rustling of the wind and the nightlife of the forest in the trees again. The heat from earlier has gone, replaced by a calm that lets that autumn nip in the air. You pull the blankets further up and tuck them under your chin making sure that they cover Floch’s bare chest. The bubble that you’ve been in together this evening seems to have finally burst but laid here in his arms you feel so safe, so happy. It’s not been an easy journey for either of you - you’ve both seen things that would change a person forever - but you’re here and its yours. The love you’ve created here can get you through anything and you wouldn’t trade this feeling right now for anything. You lay with your legs intertwined in Floch’s, your head on his chest and arm wrapped around him, as you follow him into a deep comfortable sleep. Content in the knowledge that you get to keep repeating days like this every day for the rest of your life.