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retrievablememories · 6 months

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cherry bomb | part 2 | jungkook (m)

pairing: jungkook x fem reader

summary: after your town goes into lockdown because of the cherry bomb massacre, you find out that the murderer's interest is on you. eventually, you’re left with no choice but to face him.

genre: horror/slasher, angst, smut, college!au

word count: 13.7k

warnings: major character deaths, gaslighting, hallucinations, anxiety/paranoia, grief, trauma, violence (including knife and gun use), torture, blood, gore, descriptions of dead bodies, a funeral scene, fuckboy!JK, oral (fem receiving), fingering, finger-sucking, handjob, cumplay(?), hair-pulling

a/n: this part is quite rougher than the first, so heed the warnings. same notes as the last part—not meant to be entirely realistic since this *is* a slasher. block/filter as needed. i didn’t mention this in part 1 but this fic is not set in present day; more like somewhere in the 2000s? i don’t think this fic would work as well with all this advanced technology/the prevalence of social media now

...also, i had this story all written out and then decided to completely change the plot at the last minute because i figured out a way to write the original plot i had wanted to do from the beginning. 💀 yeah…just leave your thoughts below

taglist is at the very bottom of the fic—for some reason i wasn't able to tag everyone who requested, so please reblog this fic so folks can see it

sources for the fic dividers: one | two

link to part 1

you’re standing in front of some stranger’s house in the early hours of the morning, your body heavy from exhaustion as your adrenaline has run out. this is not at all how you expected your night to end when you left your dorm hours ago. it must’ve taken at least 40 minutes to get to this house, and you’re less familiar with this part of town, which you try not to feel uneasy about. you suppose the farther away from the scene of the carnage, the better.

jungkook bangs on the door, calling out the name yoongi-hyung until the porch light comes on. though it’s illogical, you’re tense with apprehension that the murderer could somehow appear at any moment, and you hope whoever yoongi is lets the both of you in soon. so much for no longer looking over your shoulder.

a man with hair just as long as jungkook’s answers the door, looking disheveled and annoyed. “why the fuck are you banging down my door at nearly 2 am—"

yoongi stops speaking as he eyes the both of you up and down, his gaze going from the bite mark bruises you left on jungkook’s neck to the dried blood on your face to the bullet holes in jungkook’s car. his expression is between surprise and curiosity. “what the fuck is going on here?”

“can we talk inside?” jungkook says, though he doesn’t wait for an invitation before pushing his way past the other man and stepping inside.

“uh…hi. sorry.” you step inside too, glad to not be out in the open anymore.

yoongi takes another look outside the door at the state of jungkook’s car before closing and locking it. “mind explaining this shit? i thought you were going to that party you told me about?

“i did,” jungkook says, his voice full of frustration. “the fucking killer showed up at the party.”

“the fuck are you talking about?”

“you know what i’m talking about. that werewolf-masked freak? he came and just started stabbing people to death. we watched him shoot a fraternity member in front of us, dude. that’s why my car looks the way it does.”

“the campus is probably dangerous,” you add. “that’s why we came here. we just need somewhere safe to stay for the night.”

yoongi goes to the window and draws back the curtain. he peeks out the small holes in the side of the blinds rather than pushing the blinds down to look outside. “and you’re certain he didn’t follow you here? i thought he only killed virgins anyway. why the hell was he shooting at you?” then yoongi turns away from the window and looks at you. “oh. is this why?”

feeling put on the spot, you blurt out: “look, i don’t think that matters much anymore. he seemed to be killing anybody who was in his way.”

“and he was on foot the whole time, so there’s no way he could’ve followed us,” jungkook adds.

yoongi shakes his head and walks away from the window. “whole town is fucked, then. come on.”

you’re relieved to be able to scrub the blood off your face and change into fresh clothes. you initially thought it was peculiar that yoongi had spare clothes ready for you to wear until he alluded to keeping them on hand for any of jungkook’s hookups that he brings over.

“sure—of course.” you’d just nodded and tried not to look embarrassed as you accepted the clothes.

even after showering you don’t feel entirely clean, though. you think it might be impossible to return to feeling anything like your former self after tonight.

the couch has a pull-out bed, so it’s not as uncomfortable as it would be just sleeping on a regular sofa, which you are grateful for. you’re still arranging the pillow and blankets when jungkook walks into the room holding his own bedding.

“i think i should sleep here,” he says.

“there’s no room on the couch for the both of us,” you protest, thinking he means to take your spot.

“i mean on the floor. earlier, you didn’t seem like you wanted to be left alone in here.”

“oh.” you try to take the edge out of your voice; it’s hard to be polite when you’re still so overwhelmed with stress. “that’ll be uncomfortable though.”

jungkook just waves his hand and dumps his pillow and blanket on the floor before going to push the coffee table out of the way. “doesn’t really matter, i think we’ve been through worse tonight than sleeping on a hard floor…”

“thanks,” you say quietly, watching him spread his blanket out on the ground. you want to say something else, but you can’t think of anything.

“it’s fine, don’t worry about it.”

after a few more moments of staring at jungkook as he arranges his sleeping area, you finally ask, “i was wondering how’d you meet yoongi? he doesn’t seem like he’s a college student. i’ve never seen him around our campus, at least.”

“he isn’t. he works as a music producer, so he’s out of town a lot, but this is his homebase. as for how we met—it’s a long story. he and my brother actually used to know each other, so…” you think he’ll explain further, but he just shakes his head. “but he’s a good friend.”

“i see. a music producer…nice. how cool for a little town like this.”

after everything is to his liking, jungkook gets under the blanket. “tonight was a lot, so try to get some sleep.”

you nod and turn the lamp off, though you’re doubting you’ll get any peace tonight. “yeah…you too.”

SATURDAY MORNING, NOV 4

you wake up around 11 a.m. on a strange couch wearing strange clothes in a strange room. with your brain’s half-conscious state, your terror reawakens; you think maybe you’ve been kidnapped by the murderer and the car ride with jungkook last night was a dream—until yoongi pops into your mind.

you try to regulate your breathing and settle back beneath the blanket, though you know you won’t be going back to sleep.

you haven’t gotten more than an hour of sleep in total, broken up into 20-minute intervals across the hours. every time you’ve tried to close your eyes and drift off, you see the frat member’s skull bursting apart again, shocking your entire nervous system. you can think of nothing but the piles of bodies and the deaths you witnessed. perhaps it’s better that you don’t sleep; you figure your dreams wouldn’t be any more tolerable than your thoughts.

as you shift around on the couch, your whole body screams with soreness. your arms, your ribs, your sides, your legs, and—to a lesser extent—even between your thighs where jungkook was last night.

you glance over and see that he’s still sprawled on the floor, blanket halfway kicked off. he’s actually awake, his face turned away from you as he blinks slowly and stares at nothing, but he doesn’t say anything and so neither do you. with you spending most of your night awake, you saw that he was able to get more rest than you did. lucky him.

it hurts to move, but you reach for your phone and check for any signs of lorelai. none. there is one text from camille, sent 40 minutes ago.

➤ camille: I talked to Lorelai’s sister. She went to go see about a missing persons report. The police took her information but didn’t seem very concerned about it and said she might have just stayed the night with other friends after the party. Apparently a lot of others had the same idea as you. Campus is a ghost town. They’re still identifying all the bodies, so no word yet.

➤ y/n: so we just have to sit here and wait to see if she’ll turn up alive or dead? that’s useless.

➤ camille: As per fucking usual with the pigs.

➤ camille: She also told me there’s supposed to be a lockdown or something. It’s on the news.

➤ y/n: a lockdown???

looking around the room, you spot the TV remote sitting on yoongi’s coffee table a few feet away. you try to sit up, but it takes you a couple minutes longer than you anticipate because of the pain. jungkook notices the movement from the corner of his eye and turns to look at you. “what are you doing?”

“tryna get the remote.”

jungkook grabs it and hands it to you, and you turn the TV to one of the local news channels.

➤ camille: They’re telling people not to leave their homes for anything non-essential while they search for him. Not sure how long that’s supposed to last. I guess now they wanna get serious about this fucking killer? Too late for that.

you and jungkook watch as the newscaster gives a rundown of last night’s events; to your small relief, it looks like the killer didn’t try to go to the campus after the murders at the party house. the newscaster goes on to announce that the police are instating a citywide curfew, which they’ll discuss further at a press conference in the afternoon. in the meantime, they advise everyone to only travel in groups, shelter in place if possible, and keep all windows and doors locked.

you laugh humorlessly, and jungkook glances at you again. “in groups? we were all packed into one damn house at the party, and how much did that help?”

➤ y/n: are you sure you’re okay at the uni?

➤ camille: I’m fine. My roommate brought some of her friends into our room so no one’s left alone. Either way, my dad is coming to help me move some of my things out and come back home.

➤ y/n: okay, please just stay safe.

➤ camille: You too.

“what now?” jungkook says once the newscast goes off. “everybody just stays holed up for like a month while they hunt for that guy?”

you roll your eyes. “people won’t stay in their homes for that long. i don’t know how any of this is gonna work. we wouldn’t be in this mess now if they’d cared when this first started happening.”

“you think so? students would still be getting killed. the only difference is that a good chunk of people would just be sitting at home freaking the fuck out and too scared to go anywhere while the killer would still be on the loose.”

“…damn. it’s truly bleak to assume we’d still be in the same situation. you’re an optimistic one.”

“better than deluding yourself about it.”

“whatever. where’s your family to freak out over you? somebody should be concerned about your whereabouts by now. didn’t you say you have a brother? speaking of, i’m gonna have to call my sister soon…”

jungkook turns back to the TV, and you can tell he’s become more tense than he was seconds ago. “yeah, but i’m estranged from them. yoongi’s my family.”

wrong thing to ask. you wonder about the reason for it but decide it’s probably better not to pry. “ah…that sucks.”

jungkook looks back at you like he’s irked by that response, but he makes a noise resembling a chuckle. “tell me about it.”

later that afternoon, after you’ve reassured your sister veronica on her work break that you are fine and at a “friend’s” house (because you have no clue how to refer to either of these men), you and yoongi sit at the kitchen table with brunch while jungkook goes outside to examine the damage to his car more closely.

it’s difficult to eat, but you do so anyway; you don’t want to be rude by wasting the food yoongi made. the news station still plays loudly from the living room as you wait for the press conference to come on.

“so, about you and jungkook...” yoongi starts, looking at you from over the rim of his cup of coffee.

“what about me and jungkook?”

“we both know he didn’t get those bites on his neck from a wild animal attack.”

you sit up straighter in your seat, a sudden spike of irritation hitting you. “aren’t we all grown here? who cares?” you try to sound unbothered despite feeling very green about all of this. after all, you’d only had sex for the first time last night.

“look, i don’t care. fuck him all you want. i’m just trying to advise you not to get emotionally involved, because that’s not how jungkook operates. the amount of girls i’ve had somehow coming after my neck when their situationship with him doesn’t work out is starting to get really old. it’d be best if you didn’t do the same.”

you’re simultaneously annoyed at his assumption of you and flustered because you want to prove him wrong about acting the same as the other girls. you hate both feelings. “i don’t want anything like that with him. i just needed something done and i got it. it doesn’t matter anymore.”

yoongi shrugs, and you get the sense he’s heard that before and isn’t convinced, but you can’t be bothered going back and forth with him about this.

the press conference comes on TV a few minutes later. they announce that classes at your university are cancelled indefinitely; parents and relatives will need to come move their students out, and the school will be operating with a skeleton staff and increased security presence for any students who can’t leave the campus. the citywide curfew will be at 8 p.m. every night, by which time almost everyone will need to be in their homes, and it will end at 6 a.m each morning.

“fun,” you say sarcastically. “at least i won’t have to worry about finals and trying not to get murdered at the same time.”

when jungkook comes back inside, you let him know about what he missed from the press conference.

“we should just stay here for now.” when you raise your eyebrows, jungkook says, “i basically live here when i’m not on campus for classes. plus yoongi-hyung lets me bring girls here all the time, this is nothing new.”

“if both of you are gonna be hiding out in my place, we’ll need to go to the store,” yoongi says. “more mouths to feed.”

“…or i could just go home?” you propose, your mind reeling at them already making plans. you feel awkward about staying in a stranger’s house for who knows how long. “i think we only really needed to stay here for the night. it’s fine.”

“will you have people there with you?” jungkook asks. “it’s not safe to be alone.”

you’re surprised he seems to be this concerned, but you answer: “well, i mean…my sister works 12-hour shifts as a nurse and she’s the only one living there, so…” you’d chosen your university because your older sister lived in the area, and because it was a tradition for women in your family to attend that school, but there were no other relatives you could turn to. your parents lived a couple of towns away.

yoongi comes to the conclusion so you don’t have to. “in other words, you’ll be alone most of the day.”

“…i guess. but i’m really not tryna impose on you by staying here.”

yoongi tilts his head, a small smirk on his lips. you automatically dislike the look on his face. “why don’t you take jungkook with you, then?”

you and jungkook glance at each other. “but, hyung…”

yoongi shakes his head. “you already know i can take care of myself. seriously, don’t worry about it.” and then yoongi winks at you. you don’t know for sure, but you take that to mean he’s probably packing heat like camille’s dad.

“if you’re sure.” turning to you, jungkook says, “so, how about it?”

“it’s my sister’s house, so i’ll have to ask her,” you say tentatively. “yeah…uh. let me do that now, i guess.” you pull out your phone to text her about it, though you know it’ll be a while before she gets another work break and can answer. “in the meantime…i think we’ll need to go to the store either way. and then to campus to pick our things up.”

“you’re right. let’s go then,” jungkook says.

the store is full of people panic-buying food and necessities in preparation for the curfew and effective lockdown, which you expected. you and jungkook end up going your separate ways to find the things you need because it’s quicker that way, and because you want to get in and out of the store as soon as possible. the crowdedness is too much like the party, and despite yourself, anxiety begins rising in you due to the claustrophobic atmosphere. you try to maintain even breaths as you keep searching for items. just what you need—a shiny new trauma to make your life harder.

you pass by a man in one of the less-crowded aisles before realizing he’s standing in front of what you need to get, examining one of the food packages. you wait a few moments to see if he’ll finish up soon, and when your eyes begin to wander, you see that there’s a long gray hair clinging to the back of his leather jacket, standing out clearly against the black. you probably wouldn’t have noticed this at all on any other day, except your mind has been on high alert for hours now; you find it strange that this strand clearly doesn’t match the shade or length of the hair on his head, which is short and plain brown. the shade of the hair also weirdly reminds you of something, though you can’t quite recall what; it remains just out of your mind’s reach.

you shake your head. he could’ve come to the store with somebody who has long gray hair, or hugged them before he left home, and a strand stuck to his jacket. it’s the least of your issues right now.

the man must feel your presence behind him because he turns around to look at you. you’re a little taken aback by his gaze; his expression isn’t mean per se, but very intense, as if his entire focus is trained on you.

there’s a second’s pause, like he’s thinking about something before he speaks. “am i in your way?” he asks, never breaking eye contact. his voice doesn’t portray any particular emotion.

“i just have to get something really quick.” he steps aside and gestures to the rows of food without a word. you slip in beside him and grab what you need before moving away again. “thanks.” you think about telling him about the hair on his jacket but decide against it; your decision is solidified when you spot a wolf figurine keychain on his keys, faded from time but still distinguishable. it makes your breath catch.

there’s no way it could be him. it was kind of dark in the party house with nothing but string lights and lamps illuminating it, and everything happened so quickly…but you do remember the colors of that mask. red, yellow, black—and that dark gray for the fur.

but maybe it’s really all just a coincidence; how much sense would it make to turn every person with wolf paraphernalia and random stray hairs into a suspect?

you walk down the rest of the aisle and away from the man with growing unease. maybe it’s time to find jungkook so you can get out of here; you can hardly keep yourself together, and despite your best attempts at logic, you can’t stop yourself from getting more frantic about those two things.

speeding up your walk and weaving through people, you look down every aisle in search for jungkook before you find him, rushing over to him as you breathe heavily.

“whoa, what the hell is wrong? did somebody do something?”

“no, i…”

“what happened?”

“it’s the…well, the…i saw, uh…”

“y/n.”

“i saw—the mask. the fur from the mask. do you remember it?”

“…you mean that stupid ass werewolf mask?” you gesture for jungkook to lower his voice. “wait, you’re saying you saw it in here?”

“no, i saw a man who had a strand of hair on his jacket…” it starts sounding ridiculous to your own ears the more you speak, but you continue. “the strand—it was the same color as that fur. the same length! and he—he had some weird wolf keychain…”

jungkook stares at you for a long moment before sighing. “you’re not serious? a random strand of hair that could be from anybody or anything? that could be from someone’s fucking grandma for all we know. plus a keychain…maybe he just likes wolves, y/n.”

you already know that saying i just feel like something is off won’t be enough to convince him. you sigh with a deep sense of defeat, considering that he’s probably right. maybe your initial assumption was the more sensible answer. “…right. i think i’m just really fucked up right now after everything that happened. can we finish up here?”

“yeah, we will. because you definitely need to lay down soon or something. you haven’t had any sleep all night, right?” the way jungkook eyes you with concern as if you’ve lost your mind annoys you. you’re about to give a smart remark when you notice something in the carrying-basket he has.

“…a baseball bat?”

“if the killer comes after us again, duh. we’ll be prepared this time. or at least i will.”

“good luck with that if he happens to have another gun.” rolling your eyes, you brush past jungkook to go to one of the checkout counters.

in the parking lot, you see that the man from earlier has also come out and is putting the last of his grocery bags into his car trunk. there’s really nothing spectacular about his appearance that would make him stand out in a crowd, with his average height and average looks, let alone incriminate him as a serial killer. yet that familiar unease won’t leave.

he sees you and jungkook walking towards the car together, and his eyes dart to the bullet holes in jungkook’s car. then he makes eye contact with you. you give a half-hearted wave, unsure what else to do with his eyes stuck on you. for a moment, his lips turn up into the faintest smile before he shakes his head and gets into his own car.

MONDAY, NOV 6

you’ve spent half of saturday and all of sunday trying to get used to living in your sister’s house with jungkook. veronica had been surprisingly okay with having him stay over, though most of it was her being relieved you finally found “a potential boyfriend who’s actually cute.” you didn’t have the energy to argue with her.

you’ve also been constantly checking on camille (to her eventual annoyance) and seeing if there are any more updates on lorelai. still nothing. your dread grows the further away you get from that bloody friday, but you try to keep your thoughts from straying too darkly.

right now, you, veronica, and jungkook all sit on the couch together in a neat little row, a bowl of popcorn in front of you on the coffee table and some science-fiction B-movie playing on the TV. your sister proposed the idea to distract yourselves from everything going on, but so far, you feel like it isn’t very effective. at least not for you. your mind keeps wandering to other things every 5 minutes.

eventually, veronica yawns widely, stretching her arms and legs before rising off the couch. “okay, i’m getting tired as fuck. i need to go to sleep for work tomorrow anyway. you guys enjoy the rest of the movie, okay?” she pats your shoulder as she passes by you on her way out of the room.

jungkook waves. “oh, sure. goodnight.”

“night, sis.”

when jungkook’s attention goes back to the movie, your sister makes eye contact with you and points her finger at you menacingly. you give her a shocked look while she mouths you know what i mean and swirls her finger in jungkook’s direction. embarrassed at the implication, you roll your eyes and turn your head back to the TV screen. having sex with jungkook on your sister’s couch is not high on your list of priorities tonight.

after your sister is gone, jungkook spreads out on the couch like it’s his own living room, placing his legs right over your lap. you sigh, looking over at him—and hoping that your eyes don’t linger too obviously on the expanse of thigh muscle that’s now on display from his shorts riding up higher.

“…really? i don’t want your big ole legs in my lap.”

jungkook just grins. “you should lay down too, it’s more comfortable this way.” you stare at him, and he tries to egg you on by pulling the sleeve of your shirt. “come on.”

“i’m not laying down on top of you, if that’s what you’re after.”

you do end up lying down, but on the opposite side of the couch so that your legs are tangled together, which really just increases the amount of contact between you either way—but whatever.

this makes jungkook laugh more. “ha, it’s like we’re scissoring.”

“so damn corny.”

you two continue watching the rest of the movie, but by the end of it you don’t remember half of what happened. taking the remote, you flip through the channels and try to find something else to look at. there isn’t much interesting to watch on a random monday night—which would be a school night anyway, if not for the current context.

as you search for a channel, jungkook asks: “what would you do if you found out who the killer was?”

you squint your eyes at his odd question. maybe the obvious answer would be to alert the police. but after days of having your anger stoked like a fire, that’s not exactly the answer you’d choose. “maybe i’d kill him.” the words leave your lips easily, and you hardly think twice about them once they’re out.

neither of you speak for a few long moments.

“does that scare you?” you ask, after the silence starts annoying you. you want to laugh, but there’s nothing really funny about the situation.

“…not really. angry women are kinda sexy. so are dangerous ones.”

you scoff. “i’m not tryna be sexy, you fool. and how many dangerous women have you dealt with? seems to me you only have a thing for the innocents.”

“it’s not like i only fuck virgins. you don’t even know me like that.” he nudges your leg with his foot like he’s also annoyed, but his expression doesn’t show any actual irritation.

“…if you want to go back and forth about it, go outside and argue with the wall or something. i’m in no mood, jungkook.” you shove his foot off of you. “just, holy shit. i wish i could have just one hour where i don’t have to think about any of this shit. my mind can’t even breathe.”

he’s actually quiet for a couple minutes after. you think he’s moved on from the conversation until he finally says, “i can give you an hour.”

your body becomes alert at that. the insinuation in his tone is obvious. you glance backwards as if your sister could hear you from upstairs, though you know that’s illogical. “i got what i wanted from you already,” you whisper.

“so? what if i wanted to give you more? you know you’re allowed to have sex with a person more than once, yeah?” he chuckles.

here he is making you this offer, and once again you feel like you’ve been reduced to the state of a confused lamb in front of a hungry wolf. you realize that the idea of letting yourself get more physically entangled with jungkook scares you. he is not someone you can turn into a boyfriend, who wants to be a boyfriend, and you are only looking to save yourself from any potential hurt. “it would just be sex—right? you have to know i’m not looking for anything deeper from you.”

jungkook smirks. like with yoongi, you don’t know if he believes you. “i know.”

you want to undo almost everything from the past few days. you can’t forget, but for a while, you want to just exist outside of the timeline where there’s a killer on the loose and one of your friends is missing. it’s too much to handle; your body is approaching its limits for the amount of stress it can take. you need a balm to numb the pain and the fear, and you dislike that you are giving into your base instincts to do so. you feel guilty, somehow. but pleasure is easy. at least it has been whenever you sought it on your own—and now you have someone else to give it to you. someone who is in front of you now, proposing it with all the willingness in the world. maybe there’s really nothing wrong with saying yes.

“jungkook…”

“hm?”

“please just shut the fuck up and don’t say another word about the outside world right now. i don’t want to think about anything but your…” you falter, still trying to get used to expressing what you want sexually.

jungkook sits up, his hands sliding up your legs and to your hips. “but my what?”

“um, your…” your thoughts end when he leans down and pulls the hem of your sweater up, planting a kiss on your waist where your skin meets the waistband of your sweatpants. one kiss turns into a second, and a third. the fourth becomes an open-mouthed embrace of his lips on your skin, and you make a small noise of pleasure when his tongue gets involved.

“careful. don’t want veronica to come down here, remember?”

you huff. “that isn’t happening any time soon, believe me.”

his kisses continue as he begins to slide your sweatpants down, revealing the waistband of your panties. once they’re fully on display, he leans forward to nuzzle his face between your thighs, his mouth and nose pressing into the seat of your underwear. his actions take you off guard. you actually give a brief chuckle from surprise, though you are also somewhat embarrassed. “now what the hell are you doing?”

“let me savor my meal before i eat it.” his warm breaths tickle your inner thighs as he speaks.

“ugh, don’t turn me off.”

“that’s funny, because i seem to have an easy time getting you wet.” to prove it, his fingers press into the seat of your underwear to feel the wetness that’s seeped into them; you sigh from the brief pleasure his fingers’ movements afford you before he pulls them away.

jungkook drags your panties down next, his lips trailing down your lower abdomen and across the curls of hair covering your pubic mound. your body fills with anticipation at the gradual pace of his actions and the purposeful, wet caresses of his mouth.

when he uses his thumbs to press your lower lips apart and expose you more fully to him, you have half a mind to be self-conscious about it until he places his mouth on you in earnest.

jungkook eats like someone who hasn’t done so in a while and doesn’t know when he’ll get to do it again. his mouth sucks at your clit like he’s desperate for you to come, tongue rolling over the swollen nub in an unrelenting pattern that has your stomach tensing, and you quickly realize you do have to try to silence yourself even if you know it won’t wake veronica up. you twist your hands into the sleeves of your sweater and lean your head back on the couch’s armrest as you arch your hips up closer to jungkook’s face, uncaring about how vulnerable you feel completely offering yourself up to him like this; right now, all you want is to feel good.

“gonna come quick again? maybe we can set a new record?” jungkook pins your knee against the couch with his elbow to keep your legs open as he slides two fingers inside, diving straight in instead of working you up this time. your body breaks out in a sweat and you know you really won’t last long once he does this, the tips of his fingers aiming for that dreadful, wonderful, and overpowering place inside you. you don’t know how people do this—you feel like you’re going to die when he stimulates that spot, and all you want to do is scream even though you can’t.

“a r-record? fuck off…” you choke out, though you begin to rock your hips into the rhythm of his fingers, needing so badly for him to take you over the edge again.

he chuckles. “i don’t think you want me to fuck off right now.”

you have no words for a good comeback when he buries his head between your legs and slurps at your pussy again and crooks his fingers repeatedly to where your orgasm is unexpectedly rushing down upon you, causing your body to tense as you gasp and stifle any sounds that escape with your sweater sleeve.

jungkook doesn’t stop there and you don’t really expect him to, because you’re beginning to learn he isn’t a one-and-done type of man. he keeps sucking and stroking you right into another releasewhile you push the beanie off his head, fist your fingers into his strands, and tremble over the sight of his pitch-black mess of hair between your thighs. something about the visual is so appealing to you.

after he has made you come for the third time, you watch him sit up on his knees to reach into his shorts and pull his dick out, his darkened tip slick with precum. his long hair falls into his face as he glances downward, using the hand he’d been fingering you with to lube himself up with your cum.

“come here,” you tell him, your voice coming out sharper than you intended; but he doesn’t care, because he follows your request without a word and presses himself into your side. the couch is just big enough to accommodate both of you in this position, but it’s still a tight fit, and your bodies are once again tangled together.

“let me touch you,” you say, your palm pressed to his stomach, feeling the firmness of the muscle.

he raises his eyebrows, like you didn’t even need to ask. “of course.”

“no, i mean…” he realizes what you actually mean as you brush his hand away from his shaft and wrap your fingers around it instead.

“should i teach you how?” jungkook brings his hand to overlap yours, though his breath becomes a bit strained when you slide your hand to the base of his cock and back to the tip again, the pads of your fingers rubbing over the sensitive head. seeing your fingers around him turns him on more than he thought it could, and it’s just a simple fucking handjob.

you roll your eyes. “stroking a dickshouldn’t be that hard.”

“everyone likes it differently, though. fast, slow, soft, or rough…just the tip, or the whole shaft.” you can’t deny that—or the way you find yourself throbbing at his words, his voice husky from the pleasure. which is why you let jungkook close his hand more fully around yours and guide your movements.

it’s captivating to observe his reactions from your hand on his skin—the heavy breaths he lets out and the soft moans and even softer whimpers that come in between the exhales. whenever you squeeze his shaft more firmly or rub your thumb against his leaking tip, you find yourself grinning at the rise and fall of his chest and the tongue that darts out of his mouth to lick at his lips. but mostly, your eyes are drawn back to the sight of your hand working him over, his thighs and stomach tensing sporadically.

eventually, you both look away from your joined hands and at each other’s faces. your eyes dart to his lips and back to his gaze again, and you shift your face forward to signal your desire for a kiss. he meets you there by pressing his lips to yours, and it isn’t hard for him to get lost in the meeting of your mouths and the heat from your palm on his shaft.

your free hand returns to his soft hair to tug on it as your tongues slide against each other. he grunts at the burn of his roots being pulled but doesn’t stop you; on the contrary, his body responds favorably as more precum swells from his tip and his nipples poke against the material of his shirt.

“do you like that, jungkook?” you mumble against his mouth.

“you know i do.” at some point, his hand falls away and he lets you stroke him on your own.

jungkook gives a shuddering moan into your mouth when he climaxes minutes later, thick streams of his cum shooting onto his shirt and dripping down your hand. he tries to keep quiet and doesn’t entirely succeed, but it doesn’t much matter.

you squeeze the few remaining drops of cum from his cockhead, trying to make sure you don’t grip hard enough to actually hurt him. you pull your sticky hand away from jungkook when you think he’s finally emptied, but he grabs your wrist and you look at him questioningly. you watch with shocked eyes as jungkook brings your hand up and takes your messy fingers into his mouth, sucking his cum from them. you know instinctively it isn’t the first time he’s done this—not with the look of pure satisfaction on his features as he licks his own seed off your fingers.

his enthusiastic pleasure is part of the reason why you accept when jungkook gives you a crushing kiss, passing his cum from his tongue to yours. you don’t know what you expected it to taste like, but it isn’t gross like you’ve heard others complain about when sharing their sex tales; despite being salty, the overall taste is neutral. still, it takes some getting used to.

when you pull away from each other, noses brushing and lips wet from each other’s spit, you look into his dark brown eyes and get the sudden desire to say something that’s been buried in the back of your mind for days now.

“why did you come straight to me that night?” you whisper. “like you already knew who you were there for.”

jungkook stares back, his lips curving up slightly. “i just wanted to. or i wanted you, more specifically.”

“that’s not an answer.”

“well, it’s my answer.”

“was i another one to knock off your list?”

“you think i have a list?”

“i’m not stupid. it’s not unusual for guys to have a list. plus, plenty of rumors go around.”

jungkook taps his fingers underneath your chin and kisses you on the lips again, though it is brief. “stop believing everything you hear.”

you clearly won’t be getting a straight answer from him tonight. with the moment broken, you sigh and begin pulling your bottoms back on. “…whatever you say, dude.” once you’re dressed, you climb over his body to get off the couch. you poke him in the chest as your eyes roam over him in his disheveled state, his shorts pulled down and his cum staining his black shirt. “might wanna clean yourself up, huh? i’m going to sleep. and, yeah…thanks for the distraction.”

TUESDAY, NOV 7

with the weather being as cold as it is and heading toward winter in another month or so, lorelai is surprised by how quickly the bodies began to smell.

she doesn’t know much of anything about bodily decomposition—because, to her parents’ disappointment, she wasn’t about to be a biology major and have to be around cadavers in a dissection lab—but if this were a movie or something, she would’ve thought it would take longer than just one day. the smell started to hit her the saturday after the party.

but ultimately, this isn’t a movie, and the fact that she’s trapped in a decrepit house in some remote part of town is her present reality.

she doesn’t remember anything about how she got to this house; she thinks she must have been concussed before she was brought here. her head has been hurting badly for days, and not even the simple relief of a painkiller is available.

what she does know is that she’s being kept in a dirty living room on an equally dirty mattress, her hands and legs tied by rope and zip-ties. if there were any miniscule chance of her escaping, it would be impossible to go anywhere considering both her ankles are broken, only adding to the amount of physical pain she’s been in for days.

the living room is mostly empty except for the bodies of some other students from the party, which have been scattered around the room. lorelai tries not to look at them—especially not at the ones she knows—but it’s difficult. they become even more terrifying to her when night falls, turning into dark, rotting shadows in the corners of the room. there has been nothing but the company of these corpses for days, and a couple of visits from the killer.

he's never once taken off his wolf mask or his gloves, and every other part of his body stays covered in all black. she doesn’t have the first idea of what he looks like underneath it all. he has spoken to her a few times, but the voice isn’t one she recognizes. his words when she first awoke inside this house still knock around in her mind, filling her with dread.

he’d crouched in front of her, watching her move around on the mattress and try to orient herself. he had the casual air of someone observing a flipped-up bug struggle on the sidewalk before crushing it underfoot. “you aren’t y/n, but you’ll do for now. we’ll have some real fun later on. you’ll help me give her a good scare.”

“how the fuck do you know y/n?” lorelai had struggled against her restraints, but this only made her newly broken ankles hurt worse. tears began to fall from her eyes from the pain and fear.

the killer had said nothing to that—only tilted his head curiously and stared at her, which was unnerving even if she couldn’t see his eyes.

“you have no fucking reason to go after her, she’s not even a virgin anymore you dumb fuck—” with those words, the killer had backhanded her, sending her already injured head into a fresh wave of agony.

“things would’ve been different if not for that fucking party. you students think you’re so fucking clever, yeah? and look how you paid for it.” it was impossible to see any facial expression, but his body language spoke of anger. “no matter, though. virgin or not, i’ll see this through to the end.”

now it’s yet another morning, and he has returned. he has a lot of debris in his hands—stuff like sticks and dry moss and foliage. he’s also carrying a small bag, the contents of it a mystery. everything he does causes alarm for lorelai, but now confusion joins in.

“ready to have some fun?” he asks. with duct tape over her mouth, she can’t answer back. she watches as he arranges the debris on the ground in front of her, her anxiety mounting as he takes a lighter out of his pocket and sets fire to the foliage.

leaning forward, he rips part of the duct tape away from her mouth with his gloved hand, causing her face to sting. “got anything to say?”

“wh-what the fuck are you doing?”

“i’m gonna stoke a nice fire here…get this knife hot enough to hurt.” he brings out his knife then, and lorelai shrinks away from the blade as he drags the flat of it across her throat—but there’s nowhere else to go, as she’s sitting up against the wall. “then i’ll just cut this pretty little body up a bit. the finishing touch…i think i’ll slice your throat open. how does that sound?” he takes the knife away from her neck to hold the blade over the flames.

lorelai’s breath hitches, and her stomach begins to physically hurt from the outpouring of anxiety flowing through her. she starts to sob, trying to speak through the tears and snot and drool. the only question she can muster up is, “wh-why?”

“this is for y/n—remember? i hope that concussion hasn’t fucked with your memory.” the killer watches the reflection of the flames on the blade as it grows hotter. “and…i’m doing someone a favor.” he doesn’t wait for her to speak again before putting the duct tape back in place over her mouth, leaving her to cry to herself and face her rising distress as he heats the knife until it’s burning hot. internally, she wishes there was any way in the world to get out of this situation.

it isn’t much longer before he’s finished. lorelai screams as he approaches her with the knife, and then at the feeling of the red-hot blade scorching her skin, though the sounds are stifled by the duct tape.

“now, be still while i fix you up.”

WEDNESDAY, NOV 8

you go outside that afternoon to check the mail and have an excuse to get out of the house; it doesn’t matter if it’s only for a few moments. you’re not used to staying cooped up in one place for so long with absolutely nothing to do, and you feel like you’re not too far off from going mad with cabin fever. it hasn’t even been a week since everything happened.

you open the mailbox, and there are the usual bills along with something strange: a blank envelope with no return address. even your sister’s address isn’t written on it. flipping it over, you see that the envelope was never sealed. someone must’ve just come up and put it inside the mailbox. but who the hell would do that, and for what reason? whenever any of your neighbors have something to give you or your sister, they come straight up to the house to do it.

inside the envelope is a set of polaroids. their content makes you drop the rest of the mail. your legs grow weak, and you end up sitting down hard on the end of the driveway, some of the polaroids slipping from your hands. the pictures show the bodies of some of the students from your university, their corpses posed in odd positions and some bare of clothing—all dead.

you struggle to breathe as you frantically flip through the rest of the pictures. in the center of all the group photos is lorelai, her neck torn open and her wrists and ankles tied. she’s still dressed the way she was the night of the party, though her dress is stained with dark brown blood. there are open cuts all over her bare skin, their appearance rough-looking and uneven as if they’ve been cauterized.

there are several group polaroids, several of lorelai alone, and several angles of the outside of a house, which must be the same one the bodies are being kept in. one photo of lorelai slips out of your shaking hands, and you see there’s barely legible handwriting on the back of it, which reads, “this is just the teaser, y/n.”

you scream and don’t stop screaming until jungkook comes running out of the house holding the baseball bat, as if the killer might’ve gotten bold enough to attack in daylight. a couple of your neighbors peek out of their houses and make their way over with concern on their faces once they see you sitting on the ground, your exclamations ringing through the street.

there’s a disarrayed group of people around you grabbing at your shoulders and asking what’s wrong, what happened, and then gasps and exclamations of shock when they see the polaroids. you feel yourself being pulled to your feet and then lifted up—maybe it’s jungkook, because it smells like him—but you’re too disoriented to make proper sense of anything right now. you can only think of how much time has been wasted, and how little time lorelai actually had left.

SUNDAY, NOV 12

in the main lobby of the funeral home, you sit in a chair next to camille, staring into empty space while the other girl tries to cry as quietly as she can. she cries as if she’s ashamed of it, and you wish you could comfort her, but you don’t know what to say or do. for the past few days, you’ve mostly just felt numb.

you’re waiting for veronica to come back out so you can leave, as she’d stayed behind after the service to talk to lorelai’s family for a little longer.

lorelai’s family had opted to have her cremated after seeing the state of her body. a lot of other families did the same after the events of cherry bomb, not even wanting to entertain the idea of a closed-casket funeral. you can understand their feelings about it if you push through the haze in your mind to consider it for long enough. though the morticians have done the best they can over the past week, sometimes knowing that your loved one has multiple stab wounds and eviscerated organs beneath all the makeup and fancy clothing is too much to handle.

when veronica finally comes out, the three of you walk outside to join the rest of the people who’ve started getting in their cars. some still linger in small huddles, shaking their heads and wiping their faces.

jungkook, who’d driven you and veronica to the memorial, waits outside for you all, leaning on the side of the building. you both thought it was probably better for him not to attend the service considering lorelai was never fond of him and he didn’t know her that well.

“is it finished?” he asks.

“it is.” veronica sighs. “god, funerals are so damn…bleak.”

you notice a man waving at your group from the other side of the parking lot and realize it’s camille’s dad. her posture straightens when she catches sight of him, and she hurriedly tries to wipe the rest of her tears before shoving her tissue into her pocket. “i-i think my dad is waiting for me. i…i’ll see you guys later, alright?”

“okay, camille.” the strange absence of emotion that you’ve been trapped in for the past few days suddenly cracks open when you notice camille’s anxious demeanor as she speed-walks away from the rest of you. intense sorrow overtakes you; you don’t want her to leave, but she has to go.

you are crying before you fully understand what’s happening. veronica puts her arms around you and squeezes you against the side of her body. jungkook reaches a thumb up to wipe away your tears, though you don’t let him get very far before turning your head away and into veronica’s shoulder.

“y/n…”

“how am i supposed to go on?” you exclaim, catching the attention of a few people nearby. “the police said maybe she’s just staying with friends. and now look. plus, the killer knows where me and my sister live now…maybe he always knew.”

“we don’t even have a clue who the killer is…” jungkook mumbles. “there’s no one you know of who might have a grudge against you?”

“no, jungkook. the police already gave me all that questioning. and it doesn’t help me feel any better to think maybe all these deaths are somehow my fault.” you scoff.

“y/n, nothing’s your fault because some freak decided to go around killing people; that was his decision.” jungkook argues.

you nod slightly to his words but say nothing else, not wanting to go further into that topic. you don’t know if you can believe him about that.

the parking lot is emptying out now, so you try to pull yourself together so the three of you can leave. “well…you don’t need to keep staying with us if you don’t want to. we have those assigned bodyguards now, so…” you glance in the direction of one other car sitting beside jungkook’s—inside it are two men the police force appointed after the polaroids of the bodies were planted in your sister’s mailbox.

jungkook looks at you as if he’s trying to gauge your expression; he himself looks surprised, though he attempts to play it off. veronica glances between you both, recognizing the awkward shift in the air.

“you don’t want me there anymore? i mean it is your house—” he glances at veronica “—so that’s fine with me if—"

“what? i didn’t say i don’t want you there, neither did veronica, it’s just if you don’t want to be there—"

“i never said i didn’t want to be there, though?”

you both become quiet, jungkook looking at you and you returning his gaze for a few seconds before looking off to the side. veronica is still standing between you both like she’d rather be anywhere else on earth.

“i just figured that maybe…” why are you being so concerned about me? isn’t this the part where we go our separate ways? is what you really want to ask. you have seen and learned enough from your friends’ and even your acquaintances’ experiences to realize that any other one night stand would not have cared so much. that’s how these things go, right? but he isn’t really a one night stand anymore, either.

you don’t even know if you’re considered friends with benefits, but what would that change? you’d still seen others tossed aside without much thought by their FWBs while in times of need. considering his history, you don’t understand why jungkook isn’t following the same template now, and you don’t think you should ask why for fear of breaking the illusion.

fed up with your own confusion, you decide now isn’t the time to lament on your lack of knowledge about these things. “nevermind. that’s fine. so you’ll stay?”

the corner of his mouth lifts in a brief smile. “i’ll stay as long as you won’t try to kick me out.”

you aren’t in the mood to attempt to smile back, but he seems to understand that. “right, well...good.”

“…now that you two have figured that shit out, can we leave?”

FRIDAY, NOV 17

jungkook thought that getting outside a bit more would help you feel better and prevent you from developing a complete fear of leaving the house, which is why you’re sitting in this claustrophobic little diner now with him, yoongi, and camille—and of course, your ever-present bodyguards in the booth behind you all. but this outing isn’t doing anything to mitigate your fears.

nearly 10 minutes in, you have to ask jungkook to switch seats with you so you’re not on the outside of the booth, as you’re afraid that it’s too easy-access if anyone—say, the killer, though you’ve been trying not to think so obsessively about him—were to come in and start stabbing you to death right where you sit. being on the inside calms you for a little while until you become anxious about the window beside you; what if he has a gun again and simply shoots through the glass? all he’d have to do is stand on the sidewalk and aim, his werewolf mask laughing at you with its eternally frozen growling expression, and your brains would be all over the table just like that frat guy’s.

your meal sits half-eaten as you get increasingly lost in your anxieties. the others are talking about something, but you can’t hear what. it’s like some of your senses have shut down or begun working incorrectly. the strawberry sauce in camille’s sundae looks too much like blood and even smells like it from the occasional whiffs you get, and you find yourself staring at the sundae dish and wanting to throw it across the restaurant.

jungkook’s hand touches you on the back, and the tension in your body increases. he feels it and draws away, though he keeps trying to meet your eyes. “are you okay?” he whispers.

“why ask that? she obviously isn’t,” yoongi says, like he’s annoyed with the obviousness of jungkook’s question.

“hyung, i’m just trying to help.”

“it was your great idea to come out here when she didn’t want to, though.”

“y/n—” camille starts.

“can’t you throw that out? it smells like blood.” your mouth feels useless and hard to maneuver, but you manage to say those words.

“what?”

“the…that. that thing.” everyone looks at camille’s melting sundae. yoongi raises his eyebrows.

“blood?”

“do you mean it—looks like blood?” jungkook suggests.

you raise your voice in irritation, not understanding how everyone else is unable to perceive the same scent that you do. “no, i-it does, but it smells like blood too! just get rid of it!”

one of the waitresses comes over to the table. “is everything okay over here?”

“um, we’re fine! i’m finished with this though.” camille hurriedly hands the sundae off to her, trying to keep the situation calm.

“oh, well—the rest of you too? that’ll be it, then?” she gathers everyone’s plates and leaves with a smile that attempts to be cordial but is still colored with unease.

her departure leaves a stiff silence in which you all spare glances at each other but try to avoid directly meeting eyes. camille is the first to break it.

“i’ll ask my dad if i can stay over with you,” she suggests. she suddenly sounds much more tired. jungkook’s eyebrows furrow slightly at her words; yoongi silently glances at the younger man. “just, you know…maybe the extra company would help? he’s been treating me like a kid again, but we should be safe with the bodyguards there, so…”

“you don’t have to do that,” you say, though you’re too exhausted to truly argue.

“you’re in shambles, y/n. and it’s not just for your benefit. i’m feeling pretty fucking alone right now, and it’s hard for my dad to understand the emotional side of it, so…” camille plays with her fingers and doesn’t look at anyone as she speaks; you know talking about her father can be a sore spot for her sometimes. “uh, anyway. not to trauma-dump or anything. just let me do this.”

you sigh. “fine…okay. do whatever you have to. can we just leave?”

as you’re all walking outside, jungkook pulls you aside.

“i still worry about you after that incident at the store, you know?” he admits.

you shrug his hand off your arm and glare at him. “you think i’m crazy.”

“i don’t. i just want you to be able to relax and not feel like you’re being hunted 24/7. i don’t think the killer is constantly waiting around the nearest corner for you, y/n.”

“you don’t know how close the killer could be. he knows where i go to sleep at night. so stop the bullshit, jungkook.”

“you’ll be okay. you have me, remember? i protected you that night…i can do it again.”

you examine his face for a long moment and find that you are too overwhelmed with stress and fear to be moved by his words. “i’d like to trust you…but the killer might just murder you too. then who’ll save me?” you don’t wait for his response before walking away to catch up with the other two.

LYING IN WAIT...

it’s strange to see the police bodyguards in veronica’s driveway and backyard everyday. it’s not the same two all day—they switch off so that there are two doing a day shift and two doing a night shift.

the security team at the hospital where your sister works is aware of the situation, so you try not to get too worried about her safety when she’s away from the house—but it’s difficult.

there have been no more kills connected to your university since lorelai. it seems like half the town has forgotten their fears and tried to go back to some sense of normalcy while the other half still hides away and lives in perpetual panic, including you. the former group of people has started muddying the waters for the police, with some teenagers getting brave enough to sneak around in wolf masks and vandalize buildings with red-lettered virgin graffiti just to fuck with the cops. there have even been a few people who turned themselves in claiming to be the killer—only their supposed confessions never matched the details of the case.

reporters have tried to hound lorelai’s family and your family several times for any speculations or answers on the killer’s identity, but none of you are willing to spread misinformation just to give them something to write about. however, that hasn’t stopped other residents of your town from sharing their speculations and even implicating their own relatives or neighbors—whether as a fucked-up joke or as genuine revenge just depends on whoever’s speaking. with all of these false leads, the police are still no closer to finding the killer than they’d initially been.

everyday feels like you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop, though the chances of any more kills are starting to seem improbable; the university is practically empty. but it doesn’t matter to you if the school is nearly deserted, because the killer has his aims set on you now, and you only wish you knew why.

up in your room, you and camille sit on your bed gazing out the window—the window that must always remain locked now, for fear of unwanted ingress. you’ve never been uncomfortable in your sister’s house, but lately you’ve been feeling like you’re boxed in with every wall pressing towards you.

sitting up from your lying-down position, you have to find the appropriate words for a moment before speaking. “camille—i can’t stop feeling like maybe we aren’t entirely safe,” you murmur.

camille raises her eyebrows. “why not? those guys stay outside all day, and we keep everything locked up day and night. literally, the only time the front door opens is for veronica to leave and come back from work everyday.”

“i don’t know. there’s no particular reason for it…it just seems like we’re waiting for something.”

“…yeah? for the killer to be caught.”

“but he’s made no moves recently. you remember the policeman’s daughter, right? i even texted her and she hasn’t heard anything new that we don’t already know. seems like things have slowed down at the police station. it’s not like that abandoned house was in the killer’s name or anything, so what leads would they have?”

camille frowns and rubs her eyes like something’s in them, but when she looks at you directly, you see her eyes are red from unshed tears. “…i want things to be okay, though. i’m tired of living like this. you know how i had to beg just to get my dad to let me leave the house. he’s constantly on edge.” you feel even more unsettled to see camille so distressed lately, as she’s always been the only one able to pull something funny out of a terrible situation—something enough to distract you from the horrors. “all i know is they’ll have to dig his ass out of some hole in the ground at some point. he can’t hide in this town forever.”

“yeah…i guess you’re right.” you still don’t feel reassured, but you don’t voice your doubts.

WEDNESDAY, NOV 22

“i think i might go mad,” camille says from her position on the armchair, her limbs splayed haphazardly across it and one hand stuck in a bag of chips.

you sigh. “you’re the one who wanted to watch this thanksgiving movie marathon.”

“the most mid holiday of the season,” jungkook adds.

“no one cares what either of you think, thanks.” it isn’t long before the program is over and the ending credits are rolling. with an exaggerated exhale, camille gets up from the chair and crunches the bag of chips in her hand. “i’m going to your room, y/n. you two just do whatever it is you do down here, since you hate my movie choices so much!”

“means we can finally turn the channel.” jungkook snatches the remote off the coffee table and does just that.

camille goes into the kitchen to throw out the chip bag and wash her hands. your focus returns to the TV. a few seconds later, you hear the upstairs flooring creak above the noise of the water pouring from the tap.

“what’s up, sis? i thought you were sleeping.” veronica is known to be a deep sleeper, so it’s not common for her to be getting up in the middle of the night. there’s no answer to your question. you glance upstairs, but your sister isn’t standing there; she isn’t standing at all, instead being carried by someone wearing an all-too familiar mask.

you scream as the killer tosses your sister over the stair railing. her torso has been sliced open from collarbone to navel, her body leaving a large splatter of blood on the floor where she lands. jungkook jumps to his feet but is momentarily immobilized as he gazes at your sister’s body crumpled on the floor. you slide off the couch and crawl over to her, still crying out, but there’s no life left to try and salvage.

the screaming brings camille rushing to the kitchen doorway. she can barely vocalize what’s wrong? before spotting veronica’s body and stopping in her tracks. in a moment that feels like it takes forever to pass, the killer pulls a gun from his waistband—you recognize it as one of the guns the policemen carry and realize he must’ve killed the bodyguard posted in the backyard—and shoots her in the chest twice.

“camille!” when you go over to where she’s lying on the ground, she is still alive but bleeding intensely and struggling to breathe. your knees slip in the blood that begins pooling around her. “shit, camille…p-please don’t die…” you press your hand against the wounds, but they’re bleeding so much that your efforts don’t help, and the pressure of your hand causes her more pain.

there’s the sound of a gunshot at the front door as the lock is blown off, and the door is banged open a few seconds later by the remaining bodyguard. he has virtually no time to fire off another shot before the killer is shooting him in the head first.

the killer throws the gun aside, taking his knife in his other hand and making his way down the stairs. “your sister left her window cracked open. i waited for days for a slip-up like that. see how much harm can come from a simple mistake? well, she was collateral damage anyway.”

even in your panic, it’s as if all your bodily functions freeze when you recognize the familiarity of the killer’s voice. camille reacts with a rattling gasp, but her body is becoming too weak for her to utter anything; all she can do is watch as the man stops at the bottom of the stairs and pulls his mask off.

“yoongi…” your voice breaks as you try to speak again, but nothing coherent comes out.

he drops the mask on the floor and brushes a hand through his hair. “i guess you weren’t expecting that. good. we kept it up ‘til the end.”

your lips form around the word we, but your vocal cords won’t cooperate. you twist around to look at jungkook, who is still standing by the couch.

the man who you’d gotten too close to for your own good and done so many firsts with, who’d promised you that he’d protect you and was even there for you on the day of lorelai’s memorial, looks at you now with eyes glowing from the thrill as his mouth twitches into a smile—small at first but growing into a full grin. “i almost can’t believe we staged all that shit and it actually worked. you really believed it all, y/n.

not all of those kills were hyung’s, of course...there’s no way i’d miss out on the best parts. you don’t know what it’s like until you kill a person for the first time. crashing cherry bomb was his idea, though. and lorelai was mine. that bitch would’ve kept you away from me, and i needed her gone for this kill to work.”

through tears, you finally muster up the strength to ask, “wh-why have you done this? that night…y-you mean to tell me none of that was real? being shot at—why would you—” your voice rises until you’re shouting. “you-you’ve killed so many people. what was the purpose?!”

jungkook’s smile fades somewhat as he pretends to think about it, acting like he’s reminiscing on wistful memories. “i realized that killing and fucking aren’t that different, y/n. the real ecstasy of it is in taking someone pure…and doing something to them that has never been done before, and can never be done again. there’s a certain eroticism in killing someone, stabbing them, entering them…it’s like sex in the most profane sense.”

“you’re disgusting,” you mutter, glaring at him through your tears. you can’t help but feel shame to think of the times you’d had sex with him. had he simply been imagining murdering you during those moments? it makes you want to throw up.

yoongi steps closer until he’s right in front of you and camille. “and as for me…i just enjoy it. practice really does make perfect. you wouldn’t believe how entertaining it can be to see someone beg for their life.” his lips turn upwards in a dark smile resembling jungkook’s. “but instead of raging at us, i think you have bigger matters to be concerned with.” yoongi gestures his knife hand to camille, and when you look down at her body, you realize she’s no longer moving.

you lift camille’s head up with your hands as if that could make her return your gaze, though you can find no sign of breathing or pulse. “god, no…” you scream in frustration, your hands slipping in her blood. you check once more and again for any signs of life, because there is just no possible way this could’ve happened, but there are none present. “please—i’m sorry…”

“time’s up.” yoongi grabs your arm and yanks you away from camille, jostling you to try to get you on your feet. you flail around in his grip, fruitlessly scratching at his arms that are covered by his thick jacket, before managing to elbow him in the groin with your frantic movements. “shit!” this causes him to loosen his grip, which is enough for you to scramble away from him, slipping in the blood as you go.

you make it to the other side of the room where the officer lies facedown—though there isn’t much left of his face from yoongi’s shot. you snatch the gun from the dead officer’s hand and point it in the direction of both men. the safety is already off; all you’d have to do is pull the trigger and kill either one of them right now. before you can act, yoongi uses his free hand to pull another gun from his waistband—his own.

“as i said before, i know how to take care of myself,” he says, flicking the safety off and aiming for you, though his stance shows he’s still in pain. “please don’t assume it’ll be that easy. do you even know how to shoot a gun?”

you and yoongi are at an impasse as you both point your guns at each other, jungkook looking on with casual amusement coloring his face. “fuck you,” you spit out. you remain hesitant to fire on him, knowing that even if you succeed, he could fatally shoot you at the same time.

“let’s not do it this way,” yoongi says, his voice low and soft in an attempt to be persuasive, though you just find it disturbing. “you were supposed to be a clean kill. a few stabs and it’d all be over. i’ll even let jungkook do it, since you seem to like each other so much. do you really want to be shot down like a dog like camille over there?”

“you and him can both fry in hell!” you shout.

yoongi glances over at jungkook. they both nod before yoongi hands the knife to him, and the younger man takes a few steps in your direction. you don’t know whether to point the gun at him or keep it trained on yoongi; your head is pounding with a headache that you’ve only just realized you have. “don’t come over here. stay away from me!”

you press your back to the wall as jungkook comes closer, inching towards your right side with his knife at the ready. you slide away from him as you keep your back against the wall. “hand it over, y/n. it doesn’t have to be like this.”

“hand it over and let you kill me? are you insane? you lied to me this whole time, you fucking piece of shit.”

jungkook scoffs and looks at yoongi as if to say can you believe this? “why wouldn’t i lie to you? you were always meant to die.”

he won’t stop coming towards you, and you’re running out of room to slide away from him. you grasp for anything to try to reason with him, though you know it’s futile. “you realize that if you kill me now and you conveniently survive, everyone will know it’s you? you’ve been living here for weeks, you jackass!”

“hyung and i have that covered. it’s not for you to worry about, considering you won’t be worrying about anything soon.”

jungkook lunges for you with the knife, thinking he can catch you off guard and overpower you. you scream and pull the trigger in your frenzied state of mind, shooting yoongi. the next few things seem to happen almost simultaneously:

you hear the crash of yoongi’s body hitting the TV stand and the TV falling to the floor.

you feel jungkook’s knife piercing your shoulder, causing you to fire a stray round into the wall from the unexpected burst of pain.

you hear another gunshot that’s not from you; you see and feel jungkook stumble into you, the knife sliding from his fingers and to the floor.

you realize that he’s been shot when his hand flies to the bullet wound on his lower back; he’d been standing in front of you, and yoongi meant to hit you, not him.

“jungkook!” yoongi’s shout is furious and regretful as he steadies himself on the TV stand.

trying to push the pain into the back of your mind, you clumsily grasp jungkook’s fallen knife and run for the stairs. more shots follow you and most of them miss but one, which strikes you in the thigh. while you cling to the stair railing and try to regain your footing, you are suddenly staring mortality in the face and understanding with a freezing-cold clarity that you will die right now if you don’t do something.

your nervous system vibrates with fear and adrenaline as you tighten your grip on the police officer’s gun and shoot yoongi with it twice—in the same area he’d shot camille.

these last two bullets finish him off immediately. you don’t think it’s fair, with how camille suffered and bled and died in your arms. for a moment, you’re so outraged that you wish he’d come back to life so that you could kill him again. you’re torn from these thoughts by jungkook.

“you bitch…he was my only family after everyone else threw me away. do you understand? i’ll fucking kill you!” jungkook is nearly writhing in the ground from his upset and from the hurt of his injury; it frightens you that this same man is someone you once thought you could grow fond of.

you aim the gun for jungkook next, but the chamber is empty. either way, he currently has no weapon, which leaves you with a small chance to get away before he re-arms himself. throwing the gun away, you stagger up the rest of the steps while his screams continue echoing up to you.

you give no thought to the blood trail you’re leaving behind as you rush to veronica’s room and to the window yoongi had entered through. you begin squeezing yourself through, keeping your grip on your knife all the while, but your injuries make it difficult to move. a few more tears slip out as you try to balance your injured leg on the tree branch beneath the window, and the desperation of wanting to give up clings to you.

you hear jungkook’s heavy and limping footsteps coming up the stairs, and you attempt to hurry, but you’re only halfway out of the window. when he crashes into the room, it’s unnervingly easy for him to grab your arm and yank your body back through the window, uncaring of how you get scraped up in the process.

he jams you up against the nightstand with one of the kitchen knives to your neck to stop your movements; his harsh maneuver causes the objects on the nightstand to rattle. the nightstand’s edge digs into the backs of your thighs, the pressure causing your wounded thigh to hurt more.

“you want to know why i picked you?” jungkook hisses, the knife’s blade stinging your throat as it begins to break skin. “you were just another choice out of many, but i decided you’d be the first one that i’d fuck and kill.”

it’s painful to hear, but it angers you at the same time. “fuck you!” in your rage, you spit in his eyes. jungkook jerks back and the knife shifts from its previous position at your neck; you take those few seconds to grasp the alarm clock off the nightstand and crash it against his head.

“shit—!” he cries out, stumbling and grasping the side of his head. he tries to grab for you again, but you jump onto the bed and crawl away from him, your stomach lurching at all of veronica’s blood soaked into the sheets. you spot a small decorative glass bowl on the dresser—the one filled with little candies that you’d always teased veronica for, saying she was so much like a grandma handing out treats to her grandchildren. when your feet touch the ground again, you clasp your hand around it like it’s a lifeline and fling it at jungkook’s head as hard as you can, just as he makes it around the bed to your side. the shards cut his face when it breaks, slowing him down further as he grabs his slashed and bleeding face. one of his eyes is blinded from the blood and glass.

this will probably be your only chance while he’s struggling to gather himself. you rush towards him with the knife handle tight in both of your hands and drive the blade into the middle of his chest, putting all your strength into that movement—just as his own knife impales your abdomen.

you are both simultaneously struck from the shock of being stabbed, and it takes you a few long moments to piece your mind back together as the pain radiates throughout your body. jungkook groans when you shift the knife around in his wound as you pull it out, letting his blood flow out freely. his breaths become wet and rattling as he chokes on his own blood, the red fluid staining his mouth and dripping down to his neck. he jams his knife further into your wound in retaliation so that the handle is flush against your body, causing your head to spin.

“i-if i die, i’m taking you w-with me.” jungkook gasps with his remaining effort. his body starts to sag from its standing position as he weakens, his hand slipping from the knife handle. he loosely grasps the comforter with one hand as he collapses to his knees, his torso becoming soaked with blood and his head bleeding from your earlier hits.

you drop your knife and lean against the bed too, shifting your body to find a position that could lessen the pain, but it’s impossible with a knife lodged in your abdomen. you know enough to understand that you’ll bleed out faster if you remove it, though, so you resist the urge. “you can rot in hell alone, jungkook.” you watch him struggle for what feels like minutes before his breaths stop altogether and his body slumps to the floor. he is just a blur of clothes and blood through your tears. you’ve never felt so lonely in your life.

you have a thought to call 911, but you’re becoming more and more lightheaded from the blood loss, and you can already hear sirens approaching on your street. you figure one of your neighbors must’ve called after hearing the gunshots; perhaps the bodyguard sent for backup before he was shot. your rescue has come much later than you would’ve preferred—or maybe everything just happened much faster than it seemed. you can’t tell anymore.

you can’t tell anymore, and you no longer want to look at the carnage around you, and nothing makes any sense. so, you close your eyes to it all; and when you feel someone lifting you in their arms—this sensation is so familiar—and maneuvering you onto a stretcher, you allow yourself to relent to it and empty your mind of everything.

@ihatemen55 @cottoncandyclouds-stuff @yunhofingers @heybabesposts @twilight-loveer @whipwhoops @mrsminho @junecat18 @hoshi-is-ult-bbg @okayiamkassandra @witchbitxhxx @hopefulrascalstatesmantoad @thaiika @goldentea10 @iloverubberduckiez-blog @katie-tibo @ohsweetmimosa @dream-cvtcher @hoseokteardrop @lpgirl2324 @vanillacupcakefrosting @gukiemochi @jkslaugh97 @ahgasegotarmy116 @jeonjklibs @bangtans-momma @screamertannie @kenzietaetae @han-nah-banana @00frenchfries00 @taiwan0618 @laurynne5 @monvante @ynisthatyou @thiccthighs19 @jeonwiixard

#jungkook smut #jungkook fic #jungkook imagines #jungkook scenarios #jungkook x reader #jungkook x you #bts scenarios #bts imagines #bts fic #bts smut #bts x you #bts x reader #black reader #x black reader #x black fem reader #black fem reader #fem reader #female reader

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ceilidho · 9 months

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prompt: im also thinking of a very bad fic where ghost is taken pow for awhile and it fucks him up and he’s forced to see a therapist when he’s rescued but he’d rather use her p[] as therapy instead. tags: nsfw, implied/not described violence, slight dubcon, unprofessional relationship lol

It isn’t serendipitous that you meet; it comes because of a lot of bad luck and malevolence.

He’s captured during a routine surveillance mission and spends three months as a POW in some shed in the Ural mountains. He comes back different. That’s to be expected. Trauma is an insidious thing that takes root under the skin, that twists and turns even in the dead of night. It’s a tunnel that gets tighter as you walk through it. It would be concerning if he didn’t come back that way.

You know far too many gory details to ever feel truly comfortable around him. Not because of anything he’s done but because you can’t help the way the narrative builds in your mind when you look across the room at him. Even sitting on the prim and proper little sectional in your office, his body too big for the cozy little couch you picked up from some upscale boutique with your government paycheck, you can’t help but mythologize him.

The official story is that four men were found dead when Simon Riley was finally extracted from the shed-turned-torture-room six months ago due to a bacterial infection that, luckily, Simon was not exposed to. The story’s flimsy even to your untrained ears; you may not have gone to medical school, but it just seems too perfect, too impeccable. When you push your superior for the truth, the look you get and the quiet “leave it alone” tells you far more than your paygrade deserves.

Even knowing what you know, he shows up day one with the skull balaclava like some bone fortress that tells you before you even try, I am unknowable. You can try to cut me up and look inside, but this is all you’ll find—bone and bone and more bone.

He’s remarkably resistant to therapy, which is also to be expected; you aren’t at the stage in your career where you’re surprised that a man entrenched in the machinery of militarism won’t acquiesce to talk therapy.

There’s a point where you want to try a new tactic, something to get to the root of what he’s hiding from you. So, you poke at it. You ask him to give you a five-minute account of the traumatic event, something that took place in the shed.

“Which of those events do you dislike thinking about the most?” Your pen is poised over the pad in your lap.

He raises a brow so high up that it disappears behind the mask. “How could I pick just one?”

His voice rumbles like tires over gravel. Sometimes your leg jitters when he speaks and it’s not your fault. You shut it down though because this is not a legend in front of you but a man, and you are in this room with him for a very specific purpose that does not include finding the sound of his voice attractive.

You ask him again: “Which comes to mind first?”

Simon doesn’t answer you, but there’s a flash like quicksilver across his eyes and you catch it not because you’re looking but because he lets you.

He shifts forward in his chair so that his elbows are propped on his knees and he’s leaning forward, closer to you than you’re comfortable with. You didn’t think to put a coffee table between the two of you. With other vets and active personnel, it’s easier without the sense of distance; makes them feel closer to you, vulnerable because it’s just skin, oxygen, and skin.

With Simon, you get the sense that distance might be better.

“What comes to mind first is that it was dark and I could smell the blood. I could taste it. But I couldn’t see it.” He doesn’t blink for as long as he speaks. You try not to let your breath shorten; you feel hungry for his truth the way a wolf hungers for the moon. “And it was dark and I could smell it; it was in my throat because I knew it was the only way out of there. I realized in that room that there is no righteous path but the one you take.”

Simon leans so far forward that his body glides up to stand and the pencil trembles in your hand when he takes a step close. He’s bigger looming over you, all brawn in the way military men often are, but sleek in his movements. You think of snakes or panthers.

He breathes in. “You smell good though, love. Do you think we could start there instead?”

You open your mouth to reply, maybe even tell him to sit down so you can approach the question from a different angle, but then he’s on you, quick as he must have been that night. One big callused hand over your mouth and one knee on the couch, his other hand reaching up to pull the mask below his nose. You feel the warm press of it into the side of your neck and try not to struggle.

His breath shudders across your skin. You shake because you feel all the bone hidden beneath his frame now.

Simon’s hand is rough when it slides up your shirt. Pretty pearl buttons go flying; one rolls under the prim and proper couch. You only struggle for the first couple of seconds before professionalism melts away like a fine mist. Like you can do anything but look at him like a revelation. You stare at the pearl beneath the couch when he fucks you, legs split around his waist and you know it’s going to hurt in the morning.

“If I’d known that you were waiting for me while I was in there,” he breathes, sonorous and rich, mask rolled up over lips bisected by a puckered scar, “I would have torn out their throats much more eagerly.”

#cod mw2 #ghost x reader #simon ghost riley #simon riley x you #cod simon riley #cod x reader #simon ghost riley x reader #ghost/reader #ghost cod #ceil writing #cod modern warfare

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reiding-writing · 4 months

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Hiii, I absolutely loved immortal it was adorable! I was wondering if I could request a fluff fic w Gn!reader where when Spencer goes to the swing set after the whole thing with Cat at the restaurant reader also goes there maybe to read a book and it's a whole meet cute kinda thing cause it's one of his favorite authors or smth? sry for the long request I was trying to be specific Imao

swinging [s.r]

Summary:

You attempt to find your usual late night escape in the empty play park late one evening after an argument with your boyfriend, instead you find a handsome stranger that you find oddly endearing.

WARNINGS: shitty boyfriend (not spencer obviously)

pairing: spencer reid x gn!reader

genre: fluff (kinda hurt/comfort)

wc: 1.5k

masterlist!!

a/n: i am reuploading this once and once only so if it doesn’t upload to the tags again then i am giving up-

“It’s a little late for a play date don’t you think?”

Your comment clearly catches the boy in front of you off guard, his head shooting upwards and his eyes wide like he was in a state of fight or flight.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” You take a second to admire the man in front of you through your apology.

His hair was fluffy, bordering curly, and long enough that it was getting caught in his eyelashes as he blinked up at you.

His eyes were big, round, and practically glistening in the warm lighting of the lamp post to your left.

He was dressed in a finely pressed black suit fit with a baby blue shirt and a lilac tie that made him look like he’d walked right out of one of those rom-coms where the male lead is a prolific billionaire.

He was gorgeous.

“I came here to wallow in my own self-pity but it looks like you beat me to it,” You can’t help but chuckle softly at your own explanation. “Do you mind?”

You gesture towards the swing besides his with a book held in your left hand and a soft expression, as if to silently tell the beautiful stranger in front of you that if he wanted to be alone that you would feel any offense.

“Uh- yeah- no- no, go ahead,” You don’t even try to suppress the smile that creeps its way onto your face at the way he stumbles over his words, and you take a seat on the swing next to him with a chuckled “Thank you,” as you turn your head down to the open book in your lap, just illuminated enough under the lamp post so you can read the words on the pages.

Any distinguishing factors, including the book’s title were unceremoniously hidden from view as it blends into the night’s shadows, effectively halting curious effort of the boy next to you to figure out what it is.

Of course, it doesn’t take long for you to feel his lingering gaze, and you follow it down to the novel in your hands before you show off the cover in his direction.

Paramenides by Plato.

“Have you read it?”

Your voice stops his psychoanalysis of your literature choices as he turns his eyes back up towards your face again.

“I have actually,” He nods softly at you with a pursed, slightly awkward smile, the contours of his cheek bones perfectly captured in the dim lighting. “I read it when I was doing my Philosophy degree.”

“No kidding-“ You let out a small laugh in surprise at the fact the cute stranger encroaching on your usual pity party venue just so happened to have a degree in Philosophy.

He also just so happened to have an absolutely beautiful laugh, the sound like a song in your ear as he joins you in laughing about the absurdity of the odds that the two of you both had a keen interest in philosophy.

“So, what brings you out here so late then?” You seem to lose interest in your book as the two of you make eye contact, shutting it in your lap as you turn your shoulders towards him. “No, wait, let me guess, shitty date?”

The boy lets out a breath that could almost constitute as laugh, averting his eyes from you and leaning towards slightly to awkwardly run his hands over his legs. “Something like that-”

You give him a sympathetic smile and a nod. “Don’t let it ruin your perception of romance, it’ll work out in the end,”

The boy’s eyes turn up towards you once more as you speak, and your smile becomes a little more awkward as he meets your gaze once more.

“You don’t look like you believe yourself…” His words leaving you blinking softly in his direction, facial expression full of confusion.“Your relationship isn’t going very well at the moment is it?”

Your expression morphs at his question and he immediately backtracks, waving his hands around as he tries to pull back the conversation.

“I’m sorry- I didn’t- I’m-” He takes a sharp breath in through his nose before attempting to actually speak a full sentence to you. “I’m a uh profi- A behavioural analyst- I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable i’m so sorry-“

“No it’s alright,” It was your turn to awkwardly drag your hands down your legs now, fingers curling over the edge of your book as you reach it and fiddle with the metal plating on one of the corners of the cover. “You’re not wrong,”

You can practically see the curiosity in his eyes as you confirm his suspicion. “Is that why you’re here?”

You can hear the cautiousness in his tone as he presses you further, clearly scared about crossing a line, “You said you came here to ‘wallow in self-pity’ earlier…”

You can’t help but laugh at the ridiculousness of your earlier statement as he repeats it back to you. “We uh, had an argument,”

You play it off as something insignificant, but you can tell that he doesn’t believe you and soon end up finding yourself spilling the entirety of your relationship problems to someone you’ve never met before.

“He has this best friend that he’s like weirdly close to and he stood me up on a movie night we were supposed to have so they could go out together instead-“ You sigh exasperatedly as you replay the nights events in your head.

“I called him to ask where he was and it spun into him yelling at me for ‘not respecting’ his friendship because they’ve been friends longer than we’ve been dating, it’s stupid really-“

“That’s not stupid at all,” He shakes his head determinedly at you. “He’s not respecting your relationship, i’m sorry you have to deal with that,”

You can’t help but feel minorly guilty for making a stranger feel bad for you, but you give him a soft “Thank you,” nonetheless.

You unfortunately don’t have time to continue your conversation as your phone buzzes with a message from your boyfriend telling you that you have to go home to your shared apartment.

With a sigh you pick yourself up from the swing, clutching your book underneath your arm.

“Well, it was nice to meet you…” You trail of the sentence with indication for him to fill in the space with his name.

“Dr. Reid- Spencer Reid- Spencer- I’m Spencer....”

You can see the flush spread across his cheeks and over his nose as he stumbles out his name.

“I enjoyed speaking with you Spencer,” You give the cute stranger, Spencer, a soft smile as you prepare yourself to leave, hands stuffed in your pockets.

“I enjoyed speaking to you too,” He returns your smile with one of his own, albeit one that’s slightly more awkward, and you can see his mouth fall open again as if he was going to say something else, but his words fall short.

“Good night,” Your stopped in your walk home almost before it even starts as Spencer calls after you with a new found confidence.

“Wait-“ His voice echoes through the empty play park, and you turn around to meet his glistening gaze once more. “Am I- going to see you again?”

His half-awkward demeanour was oddly charming, eliciting a soft smile that spreads to your eyes.

“I like to read here sometimes, bring a book with you and maybe we can read together…”

Spencer smiles at your indirect invitation to see him here again in the future, and he nods softly at your answer, standing from the swing he was sat on to mirror you. “I’d like that,”

“Good,” You give him another soft smile that joined by a slight tilt of your head. “I’ll see you soon then..”

“Yeah…” Spencer stays stood as he watches you leave to go home, mind running at a million miles a minute as his brain fully comprehends what just happened.

You’re already out of sight before he realises that he forgot to ask for your name.

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid #criminal minds #criminal minds x reader #spencer reid fluff #criminal minds fluff #mgg #asks 🫶

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darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 14 days

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Winter's King 4

No tag lists. Do not send asks or DMs about updates. Review my pinned post for guidelines, masterlist, etc.

Warnings: this fic will include dark content such as noncon/dubcon, cheating, violence, and possible untagged elements. My warnings are not exhaustive, enter at your own risk.

This is a dark!fic and explicit. 18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: You are a maid to the Duke of Debray, a lord of the Summer Kingdom. That is, until the king of Winter appears with his particular air of coldness. (Medieval AU)

Characters: Geralt of Rivia

Note: double chapter day?

As per usual, I humbly request your thoughts! Reblogs are always appreciated and welcomed, not only do I see them easier but it lets other people see my work. I will do my best to answer all I can. I’m trying to get better at keeping up so thanks everyone for staying with me.

Your feedback will help in this and future works (and WiPs, I haven’t forgotten those!) Please do not just put ‘more’. I will block you.

I love you all immensely. Take care. 💖

The summer sun brings little warmth to the castle of Debray. Those left behind in the shadow of their lord’s march to war, bide their time with baited breaths and unspoken worries. The duchess sinks into her cups, a nectar to her already sharp tongue, as her daughter buries herself in her wardrobe.

Lady Jazlene hands you dress after dress, demanding a stitch here or there, only to snatch it back and have you cut the cloth of another to alter yet a third. And a fourth, fifth, sixth. Strips of fabric and loose buttons litter the drawing room table as you and Merinda put your needles to work.

“Motherrrr,” Jazlene swirls around, swaying her hips back and forth, “it has been a fortnight already.”

“Your father will return soon,” Lady Rezlyn slurs before she empties her goblet. She has no husband to chide her away from excess. “Never fear, dearest.”

“That is not—mother, what am I to do? I have no wedding dress!”

“You have no mind,” Rezlyn snickers, “you will have only rags by the time you decide.”

“Hm,” Jazlene approaches the table with her hands on her hips, “mother, that gown with the gold lace. The one you wore last solstice--”

“My gold lace,” Rezlyn sneers, “no!”

“But mother. I only want the lace. You can have it re-trimmed. It would look much nicer with pearls,” Jazlene whines, “do you not understand? I am to marry a king. I cannot look as some simple countryside daughter.”

Rezlyn clucks and shakes her head, “if it hushes your endless moaning, have the lace.”

Jazlene gives a triumphant grin and turns to you. She grabs your arm and the needle catches in the fabric, slipping from your grasp, “go fetch mother’s dress. It is rosy satin.”

“And wine! Bring more wine,” Rezlyn interjects.

Jazlene rolls her eyes and flicks you away with her fingers. You hastily retreat as Merinda grimaces at her labour. Your fingers hurt from the endless hemming and seaming and you’ve noticed she’s jabbed herself more than once as the noble daughter changes course back and forth.

You flit from the chamber and sweep down to the kitchens. The descent into the cellar is lit by only the candle in your hand, the flame wobbling dangerously before you. You find a bottle of the duchess’ preferred and climb back into the light.

You snuff the tallow and quickly press on you. You climb the stairs again but falter as the wail of a horn breaks the afternoon din. You spin and turn to the window. Several other servants cluster beneath the arched opening as they try to see the horizon. The blast comes again, three in quick succession, followed by a long blare.

The noise of chain and mail comes from the courtyard below. The few men left behind to man the castle walls are quick to action. You can see the flap of banners and nothing more between the other curious bodies.

“Who is it? Enemy soldiers?” Waldon wonders.

“I cannot see, my eyes are dim,” Margite shields her vision from the sun as leans over the sill. Their chatter swirls at the approach.

“It is them! The Lord’s banner!” Stellan exclaims, “I can make out the sun and the sword on the banner. And the Winter King’s white crown.”

“They return! They return!” Another cries out, “are they victorious?”

You shuffle away. You forget about the golden lace and return to the drawing room. You enter and look down at the bottle in your hands. You blink, trying to recall what you were about to do. You set the wine on the table near the duchess as Jazlene seizes your other arm.

“Where is the dress?” She snarls, “ugh, are you so useless--”

“They’ve returned,” you utter cluelessy.

“They...” Jazlene begins.

“The king and your father, my lady,” you explain, “we saw them through the window. I thought to say so before I went to your mother’s wardrobe--”

“Quiet!” She shoves you away, “I need a different dress. The crimson slit with ivory. Yes, yes, now!”

She pushes you again and you stumble to the door.

“And slippers,” she calls after you, “Merinda! Get over here.”

You scurry back out and to Lady Jazlene’s chamber. You enter and sort through the mess of her clothing strewn and heaped about. You find the red and ivory dress and a pair of slippers of a similar hue. You are certain to bring a selection of jewels and pins to assuage any further remonstrance.

In the drawing room, Jazlene has Merinda fixing her hairpins. You approach with your armful and lay it on the table. Outside the walls, you can hear the chaos unfurling. You can hardly keep the noises straight as cogs grind, ropes groan, and the noblewoman carry on their tittering.

You help Jazlene step into the dress, Merinda holding the other side. As you work at the sleeves and skirts, she fidgets around.

“The king? The king is with them for sure?” She breaths.

You nod, “yes, my lady. His banner--”

“Mother! They have won. They must have.”

“Do not be too presumptuous,” the other lady rises and nears the table, snatching up a string of pearls, “come. Put these around my neck.”

There’s banging and knocking and footfalls and voices yelling. The walls cannot keep out the rising fervour. Horse hooves and rusty hinges. They are close, in the castle or more. You pull tight the laces of the dress as Merinda clasps the pearls around the duchess’ thick neck.

There is someone before the door. A shadow darkens below it for just an instant before it opens. No permission is asked as Lord Dustan clatters in. His eyes is swollen near shut.

“Daughter, wife, you must come down to the--”

Heavy, steady steps follow him. You continue to weave the laces through the eyes, going as fast as you can.

“Father, I am not dressed. I am not ready to receive--” Jazlene protests.

Dustan looks behind him and backs away from the doorframe. King Geralt fills it with his large figure, a dark cut along his hairline though he hardly seems bothered by it. Otherwise, he is untouched, unblemished. You knot the laces as you peek over Jazlene’s shoulder and his gold eyes shimmer in the low lantern light.

“Your highness,” Jazlene gasps and drops to a curtsy. You stand, dumbfounded for an instant before you bend your neck and your knee to his status. “We were not warned of your coming. I pray you have tasted victory,” she raises her head slowly, “and we may wed in celebration to ring your reign in the Summer Kingdom.”

He grumbles as his eyes search the space. Dull yet vibrant at the same time. He tilts his head as his jaw squares, “a king’s wife mustn’t fret so much about silks and wine,” he growls as he breaks the threshold. He marches to the rigid high back chair and lowers himself, “victory is mine but that does not mark the end of my efforts. I have no kingdom until all that which has broken is repaired.”

“Certainly, your highness, and I will be by your side to help you amend what has been injured. As your loyal wife and queen,” she wilts as she wobbles just a little, “I am only so happy to see you alive and returned.” She rises as straight as she can and sweeps over to him, pushing out her chest, “but not unharmed. Your highness, you have been wounded.”

She goes to touch the gash along his forehead and he motions her away with a flat palm.

“It is not dire,” he insists, “Lord Dustan, where is your bishop?”

“I sent away for him. He will come,” the duke avows.

“The bishop?” Jazlene looks to her mother.

“For the vows, precious,” Dustan assures.

“The vows? Now? Today? But father--”

“I haven’t time to wait around on paltry feasts and drunken hordes,” the king insists.

“But-- but--” Jazlene stammers, “I am a queen, I should have a wedding.”

“You are still but a duke’s daughter,” the king snaps, “a wedding you will have. Let us swear the words as was arranged. Then we must away.”

“Away? Away?” Jazlene echoes again.

“Take this parrot away from me,” King Geralt barks as he slams his fist into the arm of chair, “I tire of her squawking. When the bishop arrives, fetch me and I shall keep the oath I made.”

The edge in his voice cannot be missed on that single word. He is a man who would not break a promise given, not the like the one cowering by the door. You glance up slowly as you notice Jazlene quaking. You can tell by her fists that she is not so much afraid anymore as she is angered.

“Daughter,” Rezlyn girds and touches her daughter’s arm, “a wife should learn first to obey. Let us go paint your lips and await the bishop.”

“This cannot be...” Jazlene hisses.

“Quiet,” Lord Dustan snaps, “you want to marry, you marry as you are told. Out.”

Lady Rezlyn keeps the duke from grabbing his daughter, instead steering her through the door herself. Merinda follows first and you trail after. The king grumbles, “Debray, leave a maid. She may fetch me that wine.”

“My lord,” Lord Dustan points you back tersely, “the wine.”

“Leave me,” King Geralt demands of his fair-weather lord.

Dustan retreats and shuts the door heavily. You turn and cross to the table where you left the sealed bottle. You put your hand around the neck and lift it. You face the king and cross to him with your head low.

“Your highness, would you like a goblet?” You ask.

“I am not interested in imbibing,” he reaches beneath his mail and pulls free a grey handkerchief, “pour it on this.”

You crack the wax seal of the bottle and grab the bulbous head of the cork. You wiggle it but cannot dislodge it. You struggle with it and he wraps his large hand around the pregnant bottom.

“Little maid,” he slips it from your grasp and puts the kerchief in your hand.

The uncorks it with only his thumb, flicking free the stopper, and he reaches out to you. You press the cloth to rim and he tilts it slightly, wetting the fabric. He pulls it away and reaches to place it on the floor. You look at him curiously. He leans forward and runs his index below the gash in his head. You get his meaning and daintily press the damp cloth to his head.

“The alcohol cleanses,” he says as he leans heavier into your touch.

“It looks rather painful, your highness.”

You wince at your own careless words. You don’t know why you said anything at all. He sits in silence, breathing slowly. At last, he sits back and looks at you. You drop your hand and your chin.

“Might I get you anything else, your highness?” You offer as you fold the cloth into a tight wad.

“Tell me, how do you fare?”

“Your highness?” You peek up at him through your lashes.

“Are you well? Have you rested? Are you fed?” He prompts.

You raise your head, surprised by his questions.

“I am well, your highness. I have a roof above me.”

His cheek ticks, “same as you were. Same as I remember.”

He puts his head back and closes his eyes. He sighs deeply. You waver before him, unsure what to do next.

“I don’t mind the cold. My land is frigid most days but I felt a true shiver out there on that road. Even Roach could not ease it.”

You watch him, awaiting an order, not so well attuned to conversation. More often than not, a response is not warranted, just action. He gives you little direction though he is a man who easily commands.

“My horse. Stinky steed,” he muses as he keeps his eyes closed, “valiant nonetheless.” He lets out another heavy exhale, “will you mind the door? Wake me when the bishop arrives should I doze?”

“As you wish, your highness,” you go to the door, taking your usual stance beside it.

He is still. The amber light of the lantern limns his large figure as he reclines in the stiff chair. He does not move but a man who has ridden to war has slept on worse. You cannot tell if he truly slumbers but you know it is not appropriate to stare.

You remain in silence. It isn’t so bad to the duchess and her daughter. Almost serene if not for the tension of the man’s presence. A king. A wintry figure with his icy hair and colder demeanour. You do not envy Jazlene, he will be a rigid husband. She will not bowl him over as her mother does the duke.

You listen beyond the walls, trying to track the activity beyond. There are softer voices you can’t make out, creaks which could be only the wind, and footfalls which are most certainly only servants about their tasks. The tedium stretches on as the lantern light wobbles.

You stare at the wall opposite. The summer hue breezes in with a hint of pollen between the open curtains. Still the chamber remains dim in stone and mortar.

There is the crank of the gates and you shift. You turn your head to hear better the entry of a new party. A man’s tenor from below assures you of the arrival. You wait until the footfalls reach the stairs. You do not relish waking the king should he have managed to sleep.

You look to the king in the chair but find him alert. His eyes are centered on you as he sits straight, golden irises blazing. You gulp and shy away.

“I believe the bishop has come, your highness.”

He doesn’t speak or move. He just watches you. His gaze bores until it burns. You fear you might have strayed somehow.

Finally, he slides to the edge of the chair and stands. He does not seem eager as he makes slow progress towards the door. As he crosses the room, he stops, just before the door, right beside you.

“A war for a wife,” he mutters, “a barter, I suppose.” He reaches for the metal loop on the door, “come, little maid, we might need a pillow should the lady faint again.”

#geralt of rivia #dark geralt #dark!geralt #geralt of rivia x reader #the witcher #fic #dark fic #dark!fic #series #au #winter's king #medieval au

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nikkisheep · 9 months

Text

To Be Alone With You (Part Two)

Anthony Bridgerton x Sharma!reader

Series Summary: Let's see, dear readers, where this journey of betrayal, lust, passion, and love take our viscount and Miss Sharma as they find their ways back to each other.

Warnings: Angst, kinda betrayal, guilty reader, proposal, sexual tension, reader stumbles upon Edmund Bridgerton's grave, Smut (oral F)

Summary: After the night of passion that was of you and the Viscount on the dock, Anthony is hit with the realization that he still planned on marrying Edwina.

Tag list: @faatxma

"I dare ask, Brother, what has gotten you to smile so much this fine morning?" Colin asked with a smirk gracing his face.

"I just happen to be in a good mood from the lovely night of sleep that I received last night." Anthony said with yet another smile.

"Could it be that our brother is actually in love with Miss Edwina now?" Benedict teased.

Anthony looked at Benedict and his smile faded at the mention of Edwina. She is a kind girl, just not who Anthony wants. At this, the Sharma sisters hurdle down the stairs in a fit of laughter as you were carrying a bucket of water and chasing your sisters down the stairs in hopes of soaking them. Instead, you slipped on your dress and Anthony raced to catch you before you had hit the floor. The other siblings including Anthony's watched as you let go of the bucket as it soars through the air and you land in Anthony's strong arms. You look at him and go to speak but the water bucket comes crashing down on the two of you, soaking you both completely. The bucket landed on Anthony's head and all you heard was a groan.

"My lord," You say as you shyfully lift the bucket off his head and his dark eyes peek under and make eye contact with you. His hair was ruined and your lady's maids were going to be upset that their hard work went to nothing because of how wet your hair was. You give him a light smile and just as you were getting one in return, Colin cleared his throat.

"Well, Miss Sharma, I am quite impressed with your entrances that you have been making." He smiled.

"I do try," You smile and give a bit of a bow.

"Please, Lord Bridgerton, do not think that we are always like this," Kate tried to reason, hoping that he wasn't mad.

"Miss Kate, you are quite fine. Nothing to worry about. I actually enjoyed the refreshing shower," Anthony laughed, a smile reaching his eyes when he looked at you rather than your sisters. His intended.

----

Another walk in the gardens, you take in the flowers. You didn't realize how long you were in the garden and where the path was taking you. You walk under a large tree and see something that looks like a headstone. You look around and then continue on your walk to the headstone.

"Edmund Bridgerton, Loving Father and Husband," You read on the stone and figured that this had to the man that Anthony always looked up to. This was his father.

You looked down at the flowers in your hands and then bent down to your knees and placed the flowers at the grave site. You were in the middle of a prayer when you heard footsteps. You stand up quickly and then turn to the sound. It was Lady Bridgerton.

"Viscountess-" you started. She lifted a hand to shush you.

"Please call me Violet, dear." She smiled sadly when she looked at the grave.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know and I-I-I wanted to pay my respects to him," You say with a smile.

"This is Edmund. He is my husband. Well, was my husband," The older woman smiled with a sad smile.

"You loved him very much. I can tell. I wish I could have met him," You try to make her feel better.

"Have I told you yet about how much Anthony looks after this family?" She asked.

You shook your head.

"He has been there for all of us after Edmund passed. He was only 18 at the time. God, the stress that fell onto that poor boy. He was holding Edmund when he died and...and I think that was the day that my little boy died. When Edmund left, so did a piece of my son." She said with tears.

"Why are you telling me this?" You ask kindly. You thought she would be telling Edwina.

"Miss Sharma, when Anthony says that he is going to do something, he does it. He says he is going to marry your sister so I wanted you to know that she is in good hands. Anthony is the best of my sons to marry her because there is nothing more important to Anthony than his word." Violet said, taking your hand.

"Violet, he loves her?" You ask with a tremble in your voice.

"I fear so and I have seen the way you look at my son." You looked up with confusion.

"Viscountess...Violet, I'm not understanding what you are talking about. I don't look at Anthony in any way."

"I saw you in the hallway earlier today," She said with a sad smile.

"Tha....That was an accident." You sputter out.

"Darling, I'm not talking about your situation or position. I'm talking about the look in your eyes. It's exactly how I used to look at Edmund." She pat your hand and then stood up to invite you back to the house. You followed her with your heart heavy and mind clouded.

---

Dinner was prepared and you were seated to the left from Anthony who was seated at the head of the table. You couldn't keep a smile when you looked at him because you saw how your sister looked at him. Like he hung the stars in the sky. Your stomach hurt with guilt of what had transpired between you last night.

"And Miss Sharma, I was wondering if you would like to maybe be a model for my paintings," Benedict said with a hopeful look in his eyes.

You smiled at the brother and nod.

"Of course, I have always wanted to be a model and to have my face and body drawn for me," You laugh a little and Benedict smiled and then blushed at you.

Kate smirked at you as she watched you interact with Benedict. You finished your drink and stood up. You turned to leave and kissed Benedict on the cheek. You smile at Violet and she smiled back. You left the room and that made Anthony fuming. Yes, he was supposed to marry your sister but he didn't want her. He wanted you.

Anthony excused himself from the table to follow you. He ran after you and he grabbed your elbow to keep you from going all the way up the stairs.

"Follow me," He said, pulling you down the stairs to his office and closing the door behind you.

"Yes, my lord?" You ask.

"I have been looking for you all day. God...being away from you has been driving me crazy," He says before moving to kiss your shoulder that was exposed. Your head falls back in bliss as you feel his lips ghost your sensitive skin that has only been touched by him.

"My lord-"

"Anthony, darling."

"But my lord, we need to stop." You moan out the last part when he sucks hard on your sweet spot.

"Call me by my name, Miss Sharma. My name is Anthony," He growls into your ear before picking you up and laying you down on his desk, papers sticking to your sweat-layered back.

You look down to see Anthony move under your dress. You start pulling the fabric over your stomach so that you could see his hair and you smile when he kissed your hand that was pulling at the fabric.

"My lord, we should stop. You are to be...married." Your back arched as his tongue made contact to your secret area that he was just last night and you moaned out his name as he ate you like a starved man. He dipped his tongue inside of you and your hand shoots to his hair and pulls harshly and he moans against your body.

"Anthony, oh god.'' You cry out as his finger starts to poke at your entrance and you were overcome by pleasure to even think about Edwina or Kate or what the mother of the man in between your gracious legs had said when her son is tasting you like this.

"Fuck, sweet girl. You taste divine," He groans against your pussy as he pumps in a finger before adding another. Your walls clamped tightly to his fingers and his mouth moved to your clit and starts to suck at it as his tongue flicks out to run over the sensitive bud there.

You reach up and grab a hold of your own breast as he ravages you in the best way. He starts curling his fingers to hook at that sweet, sweet pleasurable spot that laid deep inside you and you felt the coil in your stomach start to tighten to a painful blissful way as he looks up at you with deep, dark eyes that were blown with lust and you let go just at his stare alone.

"Cum for me, let me feel you. That's it. Be a good girl and let go for me. Let me taste you," He moans against you as he feels you gush around his fingers and onto his awaiting tongue. He drinks everything you have to offer until you have to push him away due to the over stimulation that happens due to his constant assault to your sensitive nerves.

He kisses up your body again and fixes your dress. You lean into his kisses and he whispers about how much he loves you before he helps clean you up. You hold onto him and he carefully takes you back to your room. You sigh because you know that you have to tell him that you couldn't keep doing this because he wants to marry your sister.

"My lord," You start.

"Anthony," He says.

"My lord," You try to continue.

"Why won't you call me Anthony unless we are private like we just were?" He said with a sad look in his eyes.

"Because you are not mine, my lord." You sigh before closing the door in his face.

---

The following day, you were walking with your family as everyone was ready to leave and head back to London. You were sad but as soon as you saw Anthony walking to you, a smile crossed your face.

"My lord," You give a bow.

"Miss Sharma," You think he was talking to you but when you turn to his voice again, he was on one knee in front of your sister.

"Miss Edwina, I think this has been a long time coming and I would love to have the honor of making you my wife," Anthony said before you let out a gasp as he opened the ring box. It was his mother's. Edmund had given it to her and now he was giving it to Edwina.

Edwina gave a yes and kissed Anthony's cheek. Not knowing that his face was just between your legs last night and the night before. She will never know and you would sit in silence. You watched the happy couple and Kate hug them both and your mother was so happy. You smile to the couple and make eye contact with Anthony. All was said in those few seconds.

"I still want you."

#anthony bridgerton x sharma!reader #anthony bridgerton fanfiction #anthony bridgerton x reader smut #anthony bridgerton #anthony bridgerton smut #anthony bridgerton x reader #to be alone with you

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asumofwords · 11 months

Text

Smoke, Fire and Ash

Warnings: This fic includes noncon, dubcon, manipulation, violence, death, forced marriage, and inc3st. Tags will be added as the fic goes on.

This is a dark!fic. 18+ only. Read at your own discretion. Please read the warnings before continuing.

Summary: You are the eldest daughter of Rhaenyra and Daemon Targaryen. You are forced to navigate the difficult surroundings of your upbringing and the eventual disintegration between your family and the Hightower's relationship. What will happen when your older and estranged uncle suddenly takes a more sinister interest in you? (Dark!Aemond x Reader)

Masterlist

Characters: Aemond Targaryen X Reader, HOTD characters.

Note: Hello angels!! This is a much longer chapter than usual because I kept writing and couldn't stop and didn't want to split it into two parts! Thank you all for the love as usual, I hope you enjoy ! <3

Chapter 65: Lanta hen keskydoso, Two of the same

Returning to your chambers after your interaction with Larys caused you to have spring in your step. It had given you a rush to speak so plainly with him, smiling at him so that all in the gardens who passed by suspected nothing.

For once you felt you knew something that the so called Master of Whispers did not.

The Maester had helped you.

The Maester had given you that broach. A symbol of allyship that you needed in the Keep. And yet they still did not know it. They did not know that there was a traitor in their midst.

And it excited you.

When you opened the door to the chambers, you found Aemond already inside, sitting in front of the fire, tome in his lap. His hair was pulled back behind his head in a half ponytail, the long silver tresses lifted and flowing down his back. Messy strands fell around his ears and framed his face.

This new style came as a shock to you. The man had worn his hair in the same way, every day, as he always had since he was a child. It revealed more of his sharp face and neck, the hair pulled away to reveal the pale skin beneath.

Without greeting him, you moved about the chambers to seat yourself at the window, picking up a book from the pile on the side of the room to read. When you sat you felt his gaze lift to you, but you did not meet it, opting to ignore him and read instead. But the harder you tried to ignore his heated gaze, the less you could resist, letting your eyes flick up to his.

Aemond watched you beneath his lashes silently, finger tapping on the page in his lap.

“Can I help you?” You asked.

“I’m sure you are enthralled with the prospect of reading ‘Crispian Celtigar, Master of Coins; Wealth of the Realm’.” Aemond hummed.

You let your eyes fall back down to the book in your lap.

You had picked up one of the most boring books of all.

Why did Aemond even have this?

“I am sure far more enticing than this conversation.” You drawled.

Aemond hummed, before letting the chambers dissolve into silence. You opened the page and began to read the history book, eyes skimming the words and immediately regretting your quick choice.

‘The Lord of Claw Isle came from the blood of old Valyria. His allyship lay with the Velaryon and Targaryen Houses naturally. Lord Celtigar was a clever and young Lord of his House. He had grown in the Isles and-‘

“How was your walk with Lord Larys?” Aemond’s smooth tone pulled you from the words of the book.

How did he know?

Did he see you?

“Enlightening and refreshing. The air was crisp, and the sun shone beautifully. I regretfully had not taken the time to be acquainted with the last Lord of House Strong.”

You watched him as he took his eye from his book to look at you.

“Hm. And what did you talk about?”

“That’s neither here nor there, husband.” You spoke bluntly.

Aemond blinked, staring at you, trying to push you to respond to his question with his silence. You thought of not answering him, letting him stew in the possibilities of finding comfort in a man like Larys.

But you sated him instead, “He doesn’t speak plainly, as I am sure you would know. Pulling teeth would be easier than talking to him.”

"Larys will only tell you what you want to hear.”

“Of that I have realised.” You replied.

You looked back down at the tome in your hand, trying to force yourself to read the words on the page.

Why was it so dull?

How could he read this and not fall asleep?

“We are to dine with the King this evening.”

“Delightful.” You droned, flicking another page over to look at the endless boring script.

Aemond stood, and you let your eyes peek at him from below your lashes as he walked towards the door, requesting the knight to summon the maids.

A short while later, the two girls entered the chambers and Aemond asked them to ready you for the evening.

They braided your hair, half behind your head and dressed you in a deep black gown, the cleavage dipping to show ample breast. You wore your gold chain with the rubies, with the earrings and ring to match, twirling the dragon around your finger as you waited in anticipation of yet another tiresome, and most likely, eventful dinner.

As the maids left the chambers, Aemond waited for you by the door to walk side by side with him to the small dining hall. He watched you as you observed him from across the room.

“You were gone quite some time.” You interrupted the silence, looking down at your hands in false boredom.

“I had duties to attend to.” He responded bluntly.

“And how is she?” You looking up at Aemond with curious eyes.

You watched his jaw tick.

“Who?”

He wanted to know what you knew.

“Alys Rivers, of course.” You smiled at him, stepping forward across the room to stand at his side as you moved to leave the chambers. You walked out the door and waited in the corridor, looking back to see Aemond still where he was, eye narrowed.

Oh yes, I know all about her.

Silence filled the air as Aemond stared at you, and you awaited his response. He walked out to join you, the tow of you beginning to make your way to dine with the Greens. Aemond kept his gaze straight ahead as you walked, and you felt a sense of satisfaction at his silence.

And so you asked again.

“Is she well?” You smiled looking to your side, all sickly sweet, like a soft honey bee with its stinger hidden away.

Aemond hummed, looking down at you as you continued, still not having answered.

The knight escorted the both of you down the halls and corridors. The doors to the dining hall were just up ahead as you rapidly approached them, your hands held together in front of you, and his behind his back.

As you stood in front of the entrance, watching the two guards lean forward to pull open the large wooden doors, Aemond shifted, leaning closer to you as he looked down into your eyes.

Your husband opened his mouth to speak, but paused before closing his mouth shut. The Prince straightened and looked ahead as the room was revealed to you.

No response then.

The knight announced you to the room as you walked up the small steps to the landing where the table lay. Aegon sat in the centre with his mother and Otto flanking each side. All dressed in green looking like an odd bunch of peas.

The Master of Whispers sat beside Alicent in robes of burgundy, watching you with hawk like eyes after your interaction. Lord Jasper Wylde sat opposite him, in pale green robes, whilst other small council members littered the table like cockroaches.

“Welcome back, brother.” Aegon smiled from the across the room, watching as the both of you came to the table.

Aemond pulled your chair out for you, as he always did, and you seated yourself in it softly, giving Aegon a small, yet polite smile. Alicent pursed her lips at you in a stiff greeting and Otto simply watched you. Your eyes flicked to Lord Jasper Wylde and you gave him a gentle smile.

Aegon’s brow creased, if not for only a moment, before a large smirk wound its way on his face.

When the servants laid out the supper for the evening, you had sat and waited patiently for Alicent to say her prayer to the room, thanking the Seven for the spread and the health of the King. You piled your plate high with steaming vegetables and meat, and sipped generously at a honeyed wine from Essos, and not the spiced wine from Dorne that you loved. It was sweet, but also tart on your tongue, a distinctly different wine to what you had grown accustomed to.

As you ate, conversation filled the room between the small council members and the Hightower's. You could sense however, that Aemond’s gaze was stiffly on his brother, who had not taken his eyes off of you.

“It was a beautiful day today, was it not, niece?” Aegon asked, one side of his mouth twitching as he spoke.

“It was, uncle. I took myself for a walk around the gardens and was fortunate enough to be accompanied by Lord Larys.” You answered honestly and politely, smiling at Lord Strong at the mention of his name.

“It must be a relief to have your Lord Husband back in the Keep. I cannot imagine how lonely it must get for a wife without their husband.”

Lonely.

Your eyes flicked to Jasper Wylde who would not meet your gaze, eyes down on his plate as he ate.

He had told Aegon.

“It does, uncle. There is only so many times I can read the same book, or walk the same path in the gardens, before the task becomes tedious. But thankfully, he has returned to me after so long away.”

Aegon sipped his wine as Alicent’s voice flitted across the table to you.

“Perhaps you would like a loom, so that you may embroider?” She inquired, hands clasped together on the table, head tilted.

“That would be welcomed, thank you. Although, I may not be very good at it. It was always more of a talent Princess Helaena had. I find my talents elsewhere.”

Aegon scoffed loudly into his cup and Aemond shifted beside you.

Conversation slowly moved around the table with the other guests and you let yourself settle back into your chair, listening for anything important. Any tones that grew quiet or hushed or stressed. Anything that could be of use.

But most of it, was not.

“I’m curious to know about these talents you spoke of. I am sure my brother has experienced such things. Does this mean we will have an heir soon?” Aegon questioned, grinning at Aemond.

You unreservedly pathetic, loathsome, waste of breath.

You grit your teeth, the sharp incisors sliding over each other in your mouth roughly, and forced a small smile on your face, fighting away a grimace that tried to replace it.

“Those talents, I unfortunately have no knowledge of, uncle. But, no,” You paused, “I had my blood, so there is no babe.”

Speak plainly and openly.

Appear to be complacent.

Aegon pouted and sighed, “The Realm needs a babe for the treaty." He announced loudly, drawing all into the conversation again, "Have you even been trying? Do you need me to instruct you?”

You smiled at him, and thought of all the ways you could tear his head from his shoulders.

“The Prince had taken to Harrenhal for many days. Aemond often warms the bed of the Strong bastard, Alys Rivers.” You took a pause and smiled at your uncle beside you, “But now, thank the Gods, he has finally returned.”

Aemond stiffened at your side, hands gripping his cutlery tightly. You reached a hand over to grasp one of his in your own, soothing his white knuckles with your thumb, smiling at him brightly.

“I go where my King commands me.” Aemond purred, hand dropping the utensil beneath his hand and grasping yours tightly, digging his fingers into your soft skin painfully.

You bit the inside of your cheek.

Alicent stared daggers at her son, and Ser Otto sat quietly watching you. Aegon laughed loudly into the room, looking at how his brothers eye twitched and avoided meeting your gaze.

“I envy you, brother. You seem to have been wed to Visenya reborn.”

“Then that would make Aemond, Aegon the First reborn.” You replied, and watched as Aegon’s smirk dropped from his face with triumph.

You could never measure up to Aegon the Conqueror, you half-witted swine.

Aemond’s harsh grip on your hand loosened at the comment.

Otto steered the conversation away from you and your uncle, and you sat with you hand in his until the dinner was over. Aemond stood, assisting you to stand, and excused you both from the table with a curt parting glance and a stiff bow of his head.

You had thanked Aegon for the meal, and smiled at him and the other Green council members before leaving the dining hall with your husband.

The walk was quiet, and once you had entered your chambers, Aemond began to pace the room. Each step he took, his boots clacked against the stone floors loudly, hands behind his back as his lips were pulled into a sneer.

“Your childishness knows no bounds.” Aemond growled, back faced away from you and towards the window.

“My childishness?”

Aemond spun on his heel looking at you, “You dare to bring her up whilst we dine? Before all the Lords?”

You tilted your head and looked at him, “The Lords already knew. I was the only one it seemed, in the entirety of Kings Landing, who was not privy to my husbands whoring.”

“Whoring?” Aemond sneered, taking a step closer, “And what of your little walk with Lord Wylde?”

Fuck.

Thinking on your toes, you scoffed loudly, “You must think me stupid to approach a man who is known as 'Ironrod' to the small folk for his refusal to bend to any man. A Lord dedicated to law, who will not budge, and has openly ridiculed my mother? Do you think that man such as him,” You narrowed your gaze, “Would even look at me for one moment? Do you think a man like Lord Jasper Wylde would even fall for such an attempt?”

You had hoped he would.

All men are the same.

They think with their cock.

Aemond crowded your space, his chest brushing against yours as he looked down at you.

“You know nothing of men.” He growled.

“I know plenty.” You countered, looking up at him, staring into his violet eye.

“You know nothing.” The One-Eyed Prince snapped, breath fanning over your face.

You sighed, stepping back and away from him, “I know that you fly to Harrenhal and bed a bastard named Alys Rivers. I know she is of House Strong. I know that she is called a witch, and I know that you love her.” You turn away from Aemond, his lips twitching as you spin on your heel, “I know that your words are hollow, for you have cursed my brothers as Strong bastards and waged a war on them, and yet, you bed one of your own.”

You stood in front of the fire, looking at the flames as they licked at the wood within, the bark peeling away from the heat only to be devoured by the orange and yellow teeth of the fire. The flames flickered for a moment, swaying as though disturbed by a breeze.

When you turned, Aemond was behind you, his large hand coming to snatch your throat tightly, ripping the air from your lungs.

Your hands flew up to grasp his wrist as he sneered down at you.

“You know nothing of her. Do not presume to speak freely.” He growled, face shadowed by the light of the fire, accentuating the sharpness of his features.

You wheezed, hands still gripping him, and yet you did not feel frightened.

“Even if she has your child, it will never be an heir. It will always be a bastard.” You gasped, staring him in the eye.

Aemond’s mouth pulled taunt and his hand squeezed your throat harder, body looming over yours as the fire crackled loudly beside you.

“And yet Aegon could legitimise them both, if I asked.” His sneer pulled upwards into a smirk, fingers twitching around your throat.

“And yet you and I would both know the truth.”

Aemond’d grip yanked you towards him, his nose brushing yours as he grunted, eye searching your face before he shoved you backwards, your hand coming to your chest as you breathed in deeply, coughs clawing their way up your throat.

“If you are free to bed her," You wheezed, watching at how he reacted to your words, "Then I shall find someone to warm my bed elsewhere.” You smiled widely, voice hoarse from his grip.

His single eye flickered, and you saw his hand twitch, “Or perhaps I will fuck Aegon. He seems to show interest in warming our bed.”

There was a shift.

The air in the room seemed to chill, and a shiver rolled down your back.

Aemond’s face morphed into something you had never witnessed before.

You had grown accustomed to seeing his rage and fury often, his bitter anger and spite, but this? This was something new. Like any lingering presence of the man you had known, or even the man you had witnessed just a moments pass, was gone, and in his place something dangerous and unforgiving.

“Tread carefully.” He whispered, barely restraining the pure rage within him.

The mere mention of Aegon stirred this response.

You pressed on, testing the waters.

“What do you expect me to do whilst you are gone and the King lingers around these chambers? If he commands it, he is King. I cannot refuse him. And he has made it clear to me that he wishes to teach me things that you could not.”

“Aegon is a little boy, dressed as a man who we are all forced to call King. His word holds no power over me.” Aemond sneered, animosity pouring out of him as he looked at you.

“And yet you do his bidding, and go where he commands you, like a dog.”

The slap sounded into the room before you felt it. Your cheek stung and your eyes began to water, head turned towards the fire. Your hair curtained over your face as the pain began to bloom across your cheek.

A little boy he's forced to call King.

'His word holds no power over me.'

You let a shaky hand move to touch the heat that rippled along your face before you looked back at Aemond, whose chest rose and fell, fist at his side curling and unfurling.

Stepping towards him, you took a deep breath, “Do it again if it will make you feel better.”

You watched as Aemond’s brow furrowed, confusion and anger dancing around each other as he watched you.

“It makes no difference to me. I expect your cruelty. This is what I know. I know you." You breathed and watched him as you dropped your hand, revealing your red cheek to the room.

"You have raped, and defiled me.” You took another step closer, watching as his breaths evened out, “Beat, and choked me. You have scarred me and haunted my dreams far longer than any folklore or tale. I anticipate every blow, every curse, every drop of blood taken from my body, because that is the man that you are.”

Aemond stiffened with every word, looking down at you as you came closer.

“You have called Aegon a monster, and yet he has shown me more mercy than you.” You smiled sadly up at the man.

“I do not fault you for taking Alys as your lover. Anyone in a loveless marriage such as this would do the same. And that is the only mercy you have given me. Each day that you are gone from the Keep, and leave to warm her bed, I am given a reprieve from your cruelty and having to look upon your face.”

Aemond’s gaze darkened as he let you continue, “Don’t mistaken me, uncle. You are a handsome man, an image of a true Targaryen.”

You let yourself look over his body. He was tall and lean, with a sharp face. His hair was soft and shining, silver locks pulled back away from his neck. Aemond's plump lips were pulled into a stiff line, and his purple eye was locked on yours.

His robes fit him perfectly, tailored to perfection, and the way he held himself tall and strong, added to the allure of the man known as Aemond Targaryen.

Aemond was handsome, there was no denying that.

You would not lie to yourself about a trivial thing such as appearance. For anyone with half decent taste could see that he was a very attractive Prince. Even if he was the most limaceous, despicable, and horrifying man you had ever come across.

“The loss of your eye has weighed very little on your looks, and if you were anyone else, I would have thought myself lucky. But you are not anyone else, and it is not the scar that makes you so hideous.”

You let your hand move to cup the side of his face, watching as he flinched at the movement, brows furrowing deeper on his face. His cheek was warm against your hand, heat radiating into your palm as you felt the subtle stubble of his jaw.

Your thumb rubbed against his jaw. In thought. In questioning of your next words. In a form of comfort to both yourself and him. Aemond’s gaze dropped to your lips, eye half lidded as he leant into your touch.

“It is not your eye, kepus. It’s the person you are within.” You whispered, all soft and cooing, but words sharper than a blade.

Aemond’s eye flicked back to you, blinking, lip twitching as he watched you. You moved to take your hand away from his face, his gaze piercing through you.

Aemond's large hand shot up, and grasped your wrist, holding your hand against him.

Holding your palm against his cheek.

His grip was unyielding, and his fingers twitched around your wrist in thought, tightening to a bruising and crushing vice, to simply holding your arm in his hand.

“You will come to love me. Just as I love you.” Aemond whispered, grip tightening around your wrist painfully.

“When the sun rises in the west, and sets in the east. When the rivers and oceans run dry. When the tree hold no leaves, and the sky holds no colour. That is when I will love you.” You breathed.

“And yet you did once. And you do still. You just refuse to see it.”

“You refuse to see reason.” You pulled your hand from his grip, feeling the warmth of the fire beside you, “You are disillusioned by time and war.”

“You are disillusioned by your own fears. You refuse to see it. To see that we are meant to burn together. That a great fall would tie two threads. Fated by the Gods.”

You took a step back away from him.

What?

“Lanta hen keskydoso,” Two of the same, "Vējes ondoso se Jaes.” Fated by the Gods.

You shook your head as Aemond spoke, stepping forward to grasp both of your hands, pulling them towards him to press against his chest.

“You must see. She must have told you. Surely she spoke of it to you.” He whispered.

“Who?”

“Helaena.”

Helaena?

“Lanta rōvēgrie zaldrīzes perzyssy, hēnkirī hae mēre.” Two great dragon flames, together as one.

One hand left yours as you looked up at him, blood running cold. His hand moved to the back of your head, long fingers tangling themselves in the hair at the nape of your neck. He pulled you closer, looking down at you hungrily as his pupil expanded, swallowing the violet of his eye.

Air caught in your throat as his nose brushed against yours, his breath fanning over your lips as he watched you.

“Spool hen Kasta, spool hen Zōbrie.” Spool of Green, spool of Black.

Spool of Green, Spool of Black.

“Syt iksan aōha spool hen Kasta, Se ao ñuha spool hen Zōbrie.” For I am your spool of Green, and you my spool of Black, Aemond murmured, lips brushing gently against yours as he spoke.

Hand turns loom.

Green to Black.

Green to-

“Iā rōvēgrie ropagon naejot letagon lanta hubon. Vējes naejot zālagon hēnkirī.”

A great fall to tie two threads.

Fated to burn together.

Aemond’s lips crashed into yours, teeth clashing roughly into your own as he wrenched you close to him, one hand tangled in your hair, the other wrapping itself around your waist, pulling you flush against him.

It was all teeth and tongue, suffocating and rough. Where you would try to come up for air, or wriggle from his grip, Aemond would double his strength and hold you against him with no likelihood of escape.

A great fall.

All you could think about was falling, whilst Aemond’s hand pulled you under.

His fingers pulled at the laces of your dress, roughly ripping them open from behind as you were forced to bend to his will. Aemond ripped the front of your gown and chemise down, breasts spilling out of their confines.

You yelped into his mouth as his hands pinched your breasts meanly, fingers twisting the stiffened peak between his thumb and forefinger.

Aemond moved you backwards until your legs hit the back of the chemise, your body almost toppling over the back of it. You pushed back into the kiss, nipping at his lip harshly as he continued to undress you, gown pooled at your feet.

He pulled back to look at you, his eye wild and hair messed. His lips were swollen and red, and the tiniest hint of blood rose from his bottom lip where you had nipped it.

“Gevie.” Beautiful, He cooed, looking you up and down as you shivered under his gaze.

Aemond stepped close, hand gripping your chin, pulling your face up to look at him. He brought his head down towards you and whispered.

“Mine.”

Your front was pushed up against the back of the chaise as Aemond spun you around roughly, your hands coming to grip the dark wood beneath you tightly for balance. You breathed in shakily, trying to steady your breaths as Aemond loomed behind you.

“Alys has seen it too.” He whispered, hand trailing down your back, causing goosebumps to rise in its wake.

“Blood will be spilt to seed the garden, and set the future sway.” His fingers curled beneath the crease of your ass, tickling the skin as he pushed you forward with the other hand, bending you deeper over the back of the chaise.

“Ravens will whisper the words of a burning star, a crown forged of blood.” He continued, fingers trailing up the back of your thigh, fingers scratching short nails against the skin as they made their way towards your centre.

“And from her blood, the Prince that was promised. Five years to come, his song of ice and fire.”

Two long fingers swiped through your folds, caressing your bud as they moved back down toward your hole, forcing their way in. You gasped at the intrusion of his hand as he pushed down on the front of your walls with two skilled fingers.

Your fingers gripped the wood tightly as you breathed heavily through your nose, desperate to calm yourself as he began to slowly drag his fingers in and out of your heat, rubbing against the soft spongey spot within you.

“Our heir will be the prince that was promised. Our son will be what Aegon the First prophesied.” He purred, speeding up his movements with his hand.

“I will fuck heirs into you, and you will give me the Prince that was promised.”

You whimpered as he became rougher, the sounds of his leather breeches being untied behind you. Aemond’s thumb rubbed against your clit as he continued to fuck his fingers inside of you, wetness begin to drip down his hand. You moaned at the sudden combined pleasure.

“Each time you deny me, you deny his word.” His hand became rougher, “Each time you bite at me, you desecrate his vision.”

Your head spun as the coil within you tightened faster and faster, his knuckles beating bruisingly against the soft flesh of your thighs.

“And each time you refuse to see it, you delay the prophecy from coming to fruition.” He growled, thumb pressing against your pearl sharply, and suddenly your peak was ripped from you painfully and viciously, back curled as you tried to pull your hips away from his fingers that never slowed their motions.

Aemond continued to fuck his hand into you through your release, sobs and gasps spilling from your lips until he finally pulled his digits from your core, your walls clenching and spasming around nothing.

He wiped the wetness along your inner thighs, trails of your slick coating them. Your body hummed from the abrupt orgasm, and your mind was hazed as you tried to wade through the thick sludge to think clearly.

From her blood the Prince that was promised?

The heat of Aemond’s body behind you disappeared, and you slowly pushed yourself up to stop leaning over the back of the lounge, turning your head to see where he had gone to.

Where was he?

Two large hands grasped at your cheeks and parted them, a tongue swiping from your pearl, all the way to your puckered hole.

You cried out and fell forward, hands losing their grip of the wood as Aemond began to seek out the release that leaked from within you with his tongue. His nose buried into your flesh as he lapped at your hole, tongue pushing inside to drink your essence.

Pleasure rippled through your body as you whimpered, a hand flying back to try and push him away from you, body jerking from overstimulation. Your hand dug into his hair pulling the soft locks. You felt Aemond groan into your cunt, vibrations shooting up through your body.

“I have missed this cunny.” He moaned.

"Your legs buckled slightly, fingers gripping his hair tighter, pulling him closer to your heat.

Aemond groaned happily into your folds, licking and suckling at your slick, tongue teasing your bud as his hands dug into your ass with a bruising grip. You felt pleasure mounting within you quickly and rapidly. The front of your hips digging painfully into the front of the chaise as you tried to pull away from his mouth, his lips latching around your bud as he sucked on it.

“Going to fill you with my seed.” He growled, pulling away from your core as your legs shook, eyes unfocused as you stared at the fire.

Your heart pounded in your chest as you let him continued to lick, and nibble at your folds, the tide mounting higher and higher within, until he latched his teeth upon your bud and sucked it sharply into his mouth.

You came undone with a wail. Blinding white behind your eyes as hot pleasure flooded through you, the force of the second peak causing you to slump against the back of the chaise.

Aemond rose behind you, placing wet kisses on the backs of your thighs, the curve of your ass, and a single kiss for each and every vertebrae he passed, until he pressed himself up against your back.

The thick head of Aemond’s cock brushed through your folds and you shuddered, overstimulation and exhausting pouring out of you. He rubbed the tip of his cock through your slick folds, humming as he moved down to your entrance, slowly sliding inside.

Aemond pushed himself to the hilt, your walls stratching to accomodate him, the head of his cock pushing up against your cervix. Your fingers curled into your palms as you held back a cry of pain and pleasure.

A large hand gripped the back of your neck, whilst the other slid itself around to grip your hip. He groaned as he seated himself inside of you, feeling your warm, wet walls gripping him tightly as he stilled within. You could feel his hot breath, fanning onto your neck at your ear as he bent over you.

Slowly, he pulled himself out, inch by inch, letting his shaft drag through your tender walls, veins rubbing against you deliciously as you fought to keep your moan in.

The tip stretched your entrance as it began to pull out, before Aemond slowly plunged back inside of you. Feeling your core clench around him as he hummed.

"Sīr ȳrda.” So tight, He moaned, hands gripping your neck and hip tightly, fingers digging into your tender flesh.

He began a steady pace, slowly pushing into your heat and pulling back out, almost as if he was teasing himself, working himself up to a frenzy as he relished in the feeling of your velvety walls.

Each thrust pushed your hips fighter into the chaise as his pelvis came flush against your backside, pushing himself as deep as he could go. It caused a pleasurable stretch as he opened you up for himself slowly.

“Bisa orvorta iksis ñuhon.” This cunt is mine.

Aemond’s pace began to quicken, the force building, your body being pushed into the hard oak of the chaise, its legs jolting against the stone floor as he rutted against you.

Pleasure began to bubble up within you again, it’s tendrils spreading through your body as it wrapped itself around each and every nerve ending within your body.

“The gods made you for me. They made you so perfect for my cock. So perfect. I'm going to fuck an heir into you.” He grunted thrusting into you with earnest, rapidly becoming more savage as he sought out his own pleasure.

“Going to fuck my seed into you and watch you swell with it.”

You moaned into the chambers, pleasure rising inside of you, mind lost to the world around you as you steadily moved towards your third release.

You wanted to let go. You needed it.

You were owed it.

And if it came from Aemond, so be it.

The echoes of his thrusts filled the room, the wet slapping of skin meeting skin, his breaths and grunts, and your tiny whimpers and mewls, surrounded you as he fucked you harder. The hand on your neck pulled you up flush against him, his arm moving to wrap itself under your chest, holding you to his chest.

“No one will have you. No one will touch you.” Aemond growled, “You’re mine. Mine. Always been mine, my zaldristos.” He purred, his thrusts pushing air out of your lungs as you limply leant into his chest.

“I’ll kill them. I’ll kill anyone who has you. Anyone who touches you. Iksā ñuhon.” You’re mine.

“Please.” You whimpered in his arms, peak rapidly rising as he continued to fuck into your wet heat, slick coating your thighs.

Aemond’s lips came to the juncture where your neck and throat met, a place where you had once stabbed him, and pressed his lips against you, sucking the skin harshly. His hand left your hip to come to your front, and skilled fingers dived between your folds to rub needy circles on your pearl in tandem with his thrusts.

Bursting hot pleasure rippled through you as he brought you closer, your mouth parting and an airy moan flitting through.

“Fuck.” He groaned, feeling you tighten around him, his fingers speeding up their movements as he continued to fuck you harder, almost pulling you from the floor with each thrust.

The knight outside your door could no doubt hear the sounds of your rutting. His grunts and your moans filled the space, and with every slap of his hips into your wet and wanting core, a high pitched whine would peal fourth from your lips.

Not even the thick oak doors could hide the sounds of such carnal pleasure.

“Iksā… sīr gevie.” You’re so beautiful, He grunted, pace becoming sloppy as his fingers raced to bring you to your peak.

His lips pressed to your ear as he nipped the lobe before whispering, all breathy and wanting.

All commanding and giving.

All at once.

“Come for me.”

The coil within you snapped.

You felt like you were floating.

Your body had no weight to it as you soared high into your third release, long moan falling from your mouth as you leant back into Aemond behind you, feeling his pace begin to falter as he felt your cunt gripping him tightly.

“Fuck.” You whimpered as he continued his pace, his thick cock jabbing sharply into your sensitive spot within, the head brushing it over and over, as you felt yourself soar higher into the pleasure.

It kept mounting and mounting, and you felt yourself hold your breath as a new, unfamiliar pleasure erupted within.

“Thats it, good girl.” Aemond purred, feeling your wetness burst forth from within, coating your thighs and dripping to the floor.

You cried out, feeling almost dizzy as your walls continued to squeeze around his length. Your release leaking from your body, pooling onto the stones below.

“Fuck.”

Aemond pressed his lips into the junction of your neck again, grunting as he pushed himself to the hilt within you, teeth scraping over your skin as he bit down roughly, drawing a loud pained gasp from you as he came undone.

Thick hot ropes of his spend coated your walls, filling you deeply as your head slumped back against his shoulder, his arms being the only thing holding you up from sliding down to the floor. You breathed heavily, fatigue hitting you as you felt Aemond’s cock throb inside you.

Your mind was gone as you stayed in his grip, the ebbs of your own pleasure still lingering. You were hot, and sticky, wet and tired, and Aemond kept you upright on his cock as he came down from his own peak.

Lips pressed against where teeth had been, a comforting gesture meant to soothe the aching flesh. Aemond shifted back, and you felt his cock begin to slide free from your core. You whimpered at the overwhelming sensation until you felt him pull out completely, his arms still holding you up. He breathed heavily behind you, catching his breath as he held you.

His sticky seed began to drip from your folds, sliding down your inner thighs as you stood in his grip. Your eyes became heavy, and your knees shook.

A kiss was pressed to the side of your head, and the world suddenly tilted.

Aemond lifted you from the floor, hand under your knees, and arm wrapped around your shoulders to hold you close to him as he steadily began to walk towards the bed. His chest radiated heat onto your body as he held you close.

You were so tired, you could barely keep your eyes open, letting the man gently place you down onto your side of the bed. Your eyes shut, the vision of Aemond moving away from you to the side of the room, replaced with the comfort of darkness.

The bed dipped and warmth settled beside you as you let your breath even and the dregs of sleep begin to pull you under. A gentle hand brushed a stray strand of hair away from your face, before trailing down the rest of your body. You felt Aemond’s heated gaze and cracked open an eye to look at him.

He was watching you intently, brow covered in sweat, shirt and pants finally removed.

Bare to the world, just as you were.

His silver locks were tousled and messed, completely down and pushed back behind his shoulders. You let your eye gaze to where the scar was on his shoulder, your own flesh aching in its spot.

“Even Hell Cats would fear you.” He murmured, hand trailing down your body as his gaze moved to between your thighs.

You shifted, feeling exposed.

Two fingers trailed down over your mound and you moved to wriggle out of his reach.

“Keligon.” Stop.

You stopped.

His fingers dipped between your folds and you jerked, you were far too sensitive and overstimulated for anymore, but his fingers kept travelling down to your soaked entrance.

With two fingers, Aemond scooped up his seed which had begun to leak from within you, pushing it back inside of you with great care. Your back arched off of the bed as he kept his fingers inside of you.

“Don’t want to waste it.” He purred, keeping his fingers inside you, plugging you full of his seed.

You whimpered and shifted as they sat inside of you, until he pulled them up, fingers coming straight to his lips as he licked your combined releases from his fingers. Aemond hummed as he watched you, wrapping his tongue around each digit as a blush rose on your cheeks.

Your core clenched around nothing and you felt a breathy whimper escape you.

It was all involuntary, you told yourself.

It was all a reaction to what he gave you.

Once licked clean, Aemond’s tongue wet his lips before he leant forward towards you, pressing a chaste kiss to one of your eyes. You closed them out of instinct and felt your uncle pull the blankets up and around you, tugging you against his body. You could feel his softened member between your thighs begin to harden again, but he made no move to act on it.

Instead, Aemond pressed another kiss to your shoulder and mumbled beneath his breath. You were so tired, and his body was so warm, a strange comfort you learnt, that your lids stayed shut, and eventually the comforts of sleep pulled you into its depths.

And from her blood, the Prince that was promised.

Thanks so much for reading along with me, if you wish to be added to the tag list please let me know :) Likes and reblogs are greatly appreciated ! Enjoy <3

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antimony-medusa · 11 months

Text

This is verging on discourse, but I have to say, as someone aroace with the emphasis on the aro, it's a trifle disheartening to ever try to look for queerplatonic relationships that look like mine within this fandom. QPRs can cover a broad spectrum of experiences, and it always seems that within MCYT what a QPR looks like has calcified into this one depiction that is very close (but not actually crossing the line) to shipping, just without kissing or sex! With emotional connections that are very similar (but not quite) to romance, hitting many of the same beats. And that just doesn't reflect my experience at all. Personally, I have more fun reading about straight ahead romance than a qpr that hits almost all the same notes, but just doesn't quite go there, that never digs into an aro or ace experience that I recognize, and that is always what I seem to find when I go cruising the tags.

For one thing, QPRs are not just an ace thing, and they definitely don't have to be a sexless thing! You can be aroallo and in a QPR and have sex, or you can be ace and in a QPR and have sex for the sake of your partner, or just for fun! Sex is fun for a lot of ace people, including those in QPRs, and using QPR eternally to mean "sexless" cuts off a large swath of the population that DOES have sex, for whatever reason. And there are tons of ace people who are extremely fine with kissing, including people who are sex adverse, so using a QPR are a shorthand to mean "sexless and also kissless" is only depicting a very narrow slice of the experience.

And QPRs in practice often look very different from romance, including with people who are romance-adverse, and who don't want any of the trappings that normally come with romance (marriage, specific terms like "love" or "darling", metaphors or positioning like "half of my heart" or "soulmate"), and I just never get to see that. A QPR can be two people who sleep in seperate rooms co-parenting a kid! (Or more than two people!) A QPR can be people married together and sharing a bed and holding hands at the movies and calling each other "darling", or it can be people who signed legal paperwork together who call each other "bro", and those are BOTH valid QPRs. But I only ever get to see the one that looks so close to romance that it's alienating to me, while people tell me that I should be happy to be depicted. (I'm not depicted.)

And I'm also frustrated because I have read QPRs that are sharing all the same hallmarks-of-romance-but-no-sex that I would theoretically have a problem with, but they also ring as true to me because people actually talk about what the relationship is and isn't to them, and I go Yes! Not me but I am on a similar wavelength! But so many people just go "QPR" but never unpack the actual ace/aro/aroace experience, so again I'm left with something that is using all the romance and affection tropes that I've come to expect over decades of living in an amonormative society, just slapping a "but it's platonic" on it at the very end. Where's people making assumptions about your relationship that you have to consider whether to correct or not? Where's the inside jokes? Where's the intimacy negotiations and teasing each other about what you want in terms of touch+? Where's the doing life together in a non-romantic way? Where's the epic friendship? Where's the aro experience? (If we're mutuals, you probably write all of these things, and I'm not complaining about you, you're good.)

And it's hard to escape the feeling that at least some of these people are writing QPR because they're afraid of shipping, as I see the tags scroll endlessly by, not because they actually want to depict the a-spec experience.

Some of it is just people not used to writing affection outside of the romance tropes in our society, and some of it is that so many guestures of affection in our society get romance-coded when like, holding hands is not inherently romantic, I know. But sometimes, man, I want to tell people that it's okay to romantically ship, they don't have to keep it platonic, if they're going to write something that is so similar to shipping but has a giant "don't worry, these guys don't fuck" stamped on it.

I don't know, maybe there are even less people like me than I thought. Or maybe the people like me aren't writing fanfiction (lol).

I don't know. QPRs are more varied than they get depicted, and the a-spec experience is special to me and I wish it got written in its diversity. It's frustrating to see only ever one type of QPR, one that is exclusionary to me. I wish I could see the tag and not know exactly what that relationship looked like, or saw something that I felt was strongly influenced by what the characters are, instead of the same sort of sexless romance-lite every time.

#discourse #fandom meta

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mncxbe · 5 months

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Hi, I was wondering if I could request bsd characters (you can choose, im sure you know what characters you’d like to write for best) with a reader who’s bad at numbers/maths and stuff like that

This is so silly I love it (excuse any mistakes I didn't proof read this one)

°☆○

𝑲𝒖𝒏𝒊𝒌𝒊𝒅𝒂

ofc I had to include Kunikida

as a former Maths teacher he gets so annoyed with you (in a very silly way) whenever you struggle with numbers.

you're supposed to calculate Ada's monthly expenses but just can't get the hang of it so he ends up doing it for you

if he's in a good mood he may explain you how it's done

"How do you not get this?" he groans for the nth time that afternoon "Jesus Christ how did you end up doing the accounts?"

"I dunno" you cry out, staring at the papers in front of you with a desperate look on your face. "Please help me Kunikida I really can't do this"

He only sighs in response, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose as he drags a chair from a nearby desk to sit next to you. He grabs the pen from your hand "Don't I always..."

𝑭𝒚𝒐𝒅𝒐𝒓

he straight up side eyes you; may also call you stupid

doesn't even try to help you with Maths, he just does it himself

Fyodor's gaze follows you as you walk around the rows and piles of books in the store, carrying a stack of books.

"Fedya honey what was the budget again?"

He tells you the sum absentmindedly and sighs as he watches you stuggle to add up the money you were gonna spend so far. You check the price tag on the back of each book, brows quirking as you tried to calculate the sum.

"That's 2.800 yen myshka. You've got about 1.4k left" he points out, earning a smile from you.

You thank him in that cheerful tone of yours and he can't help but smile, the crease between his brows growing a little bit softer.

𝑱𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒐

he doesn't really mind it as long as it doesn't inconvenience him in any way; in fact, he finds it amusing

but let's assume you're Fukuchi's assistant and you need to calculate the expenses for a month's missions and you just can't, so he has to stay overtime to help you

he's a bit pissed off about it but deep down he's happy he can help (we all know he's secretly a softie)

When Jouno found you in your office a couple of hours ago you were sitting at your desk with your face buried in the palms of your hands, crying lile there was no tomorrow. When he asked you what was wrong you started rambling on about how you were supposed to hand in the final report by tomorrow but you had forgotten your phone at home so you had no way of doing the Maths.

"Just do it yourself" he said plainly but you shook your head in disdain.

"I've always been shit at Maths"

"What do you mean? You've literally been hired to do the accounts" he commented, crossing his arms over his chest. Jouno could tell how embarassed you were by the sound of your rapid heartbeat.

"Yea... well, I never do it. The captain handles the accounts himself, I just make sure the papers are in order and you know, restock his alcohol supply when it runs low."

The man sighed, taking a seat next to you "Good lord, why am I even surprised. Alright, I'll help you out. Wouldn't want you getting fired"

𝑲𝒆𝒏𝒋𝒊 (for the silly)

he's kinda bad with numbers too but he does his best to cheer you up

"Don't worry Y/N. I'm sure you've got this" the blonde smiled, giving your shoulder a reassuring squeeze.

"No, Kenji. I can't do this right now" you sighd, discarding your fountain pen somewhere on top of the papers.

"I really wish I could help, but I doubt I'm the right person for that. Maybe you could ask Kunikida to help"

But of course you couldn't ask Kunikida to help; you weren't in the mood to get scolded again. Leaning back into your chair, your gaze skimmed over the room when you eventually spotted Ranpo at his desk. He was mindlessly flipping through a paper, sucking on his lollipop.

"Kenji, I bet you a gallon of milk that Ranpo's gonna this for me if I give him the slice of cake I bought for lunch"

Your colleague only smiled on response, nodding "I'm really sure he will"

#bsd #bungou stray dogs #bsd x reader #bsd headcanons #bsd jouno #jouno saigiku #bsd kenji #kunikida x reader #bsd kunikida #fyodor bsd #fyodor x reader

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captainkirkk · 6 months

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🦇🎃 WEEKLY FIC ROUND-UP 🎃🦇

All the fics I’ve read and really enjoyed in the past week-ish. Reminder: This list features any and all ratings and themes. Please look at tags and warnings on ao3 before reading.

Merlin

The Hunt for Red Emrys by darkbluedark

King Arthur sets out to keep his promise to the spirit of the Druid boy by repealing his father's ban on magic. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done, for reasons including but not limited to the following:

(1) He can't change the law until he understands magic better, but no sorcerer is willing to explain magic to him until he changes the law;

(2) The sorcerers all have some strange obsession with Merlin, which is awakening all sorts of feelings in Arthur that he really doesn't fancy examining too closely;

(3) He is starting to feel like the butt of some Druid-population-wide inside joke involving the mysterious phenomenon called Emrys; and

(4) Oh yeah, Morgana is still trying to kill him.

Thus he embarks on a journey of discovery, diplomacy, accountability, and self-improvement, and maybe even falls in love along the way.

Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-Kun

Kalego-sensei is...dead? by IcyPheonix

The Misfits come to school one day to discover that they have, a substitute teacher. They decide that this can only mean one thing; Kalego-sensei, has died.

He hasn't but that's not gonna stop them from pretending he has of course.

SVSSS

The Moon's Beloved Shadow by mofumofu

Shen Qingqiu is a man who hides his twin brother from the world with the ferocity of a phoenix-eyed mother crane.

Shen Yuan is a helpless transmigrator who wishes Airplane-bro had given even a single bit of backstory for this side character he's inhabiting!

Luo Binghe isn't doomed to face the Endless Abyss, but he is forced to confront something infinitely more frustrating: an overly protective brother.

Natsume Yuujinchou

What Colors Do You See In This Monochrome World by mermorgie.

Natori's voice brought him back to the present. "You alright there, Natsume?" The look the exorcist was giving him was warm and a tad concerned. Natsume gave him a small, but earnest smile. "I'm fine, Natori-san. Just a bit nervous." This was the truth. He had no idea why the head of the Matoba Clan invited him this time, but he was sure that the man was up to no good.

Or: Natsume gets invited to an exorcist meeting. He is not too happy about it, but at least the view is great.

Harry Potter

Three's Family by darkbluedark

It’s May 1979 and the Order has just apprehended a pair of mysterious wizards who look remarkably like a Potter and a Malfoy. Naturally, James Potter and Sirius Black are called in to identify the strangely familiar strangers and determine their backgrounds and loyalties.

(This would be a lot easier if their captives weren’t convinced everyone they talk to is dead. It would also be easier if they didn’t spend half their bloody time bickering.)

“Just ask them questions only they would know the answer to,” Malfoy suggests.

“There’s not a single thing that I know about either of them from the first war that any old Death Eater couldn’t find out.”

“How is that possible?” Malfoy huffs. “He’s your father!”

“Am I or am I not famously an orphan?” Potter snarls.

Once More Unto The Boggart by darkbluedark

Professor Lupin let out his breath very slowly. “So this is why you think you’ve been struggling to make progress with the Patronus charm? Because a part of you wants to let the dementor close, in a way, in order to hear your parents?”

Harry nodded again, though more guiltily this time. “I want to let the boggart out, just once, and, er, not cast the charm."

Those Who Have Seen by darkbluedark

Only those who have seen death can see thestrals.

It turns out, thestrals look different for those who have seen Death.

#happy halloween!!#this isn't a spooky/halloween themed post #i'm just excited that it's halloween #my posts #fic recs #weekly fic round up #hp recs #merlin recs #m!ik recs #ny recs #svsss recs

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do-you-know-this-adhd-character · 2 months

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SUBMIT THROUGH THE FORM IN THIS POST, NOT MY ASKBOX, FOR YOUR BLORBO'S SAKE. I WILL LOSE SUBMISSIONS IF THEY AREN'T ALL IN ONE PLACE!

Hi! I've never run a poll blog before, but I like the "do you know this character" type blogs and I searched and didn't find one for ADHD characters so I decided I'd make one!

Submission Guidelines

Both canon and non-canon ADHD characters are allowed, but YOU MUST PROVIDE EVIDENCE FOR NON-CANON ADHD CHARACTERS! I completely understand just looking at a character and going "oh they have the Vibes" but it's not enough to be posted on this blog. Even just "they exhibit a lot of impulsiveness and distractability" is enough for me to go on - just give me SOMETHING to work with. However I reserve the right to not post a character if I don't think the evidence is compelling enough, i.e., if you don't list any traits that are specific to ADHD.

YOU MUST SUBMIT THROUGH THE FORM, NOT MY ASKBOX. I am, of course, ADHD myself, and I need all the submissions in one place or I'll lose them.

Got it? Here's the link to the form.

About the Mod/Blog

TRYING not to reveal my main yet, but you can call me Mudkip if you'd like. She/her only please, do not use any other pronouns for me including they/them. I am an adult. I was diagnosed with ADHD at a very young age and have it bad enough that I consider myself disabled. So ADHD rep is very important to me! And I'd like to both learn about ADHD rep I might not have heard of, and spread awareness of what ADHD people are like through the characters that people might not even realize are like us.

My icon is the character 707/Seven from Mystic Messenger, I chose him because although it's a bit hidden he is canonically ADHD! There's a call where he talks about how he talks to himself, and if you say "I heard people with adhd talk to themselves a lot..." he agrees with you, as well as displaying other ADHD traits through the whole game.

...is this entire blog partially part of my agenda to spread the word of canon ADHD Seven? Maybe.

Header is Zack Fair from Final Fantasy VII; he's not canonically ADHD but there's strong evidence for it and I couldn't resist using the "Me? Gongaga." meme.

I often can't resist making non-poll posts on this blog, although I swear I try. If you're just here for the polls you might want to filter the tag "not a poll"!

Tagging System, for your searching or filtering convenience

#poll - the polls. this only includes "do you know this character" polls, not any other polls I might do. #not a poll - anything that doesn't get the above tag. Including other types of polls. You know what I mean. #canon adhd character - polls for characters that are canonically ADHD. #noncanon adhd character - polls for characters that aren't canonically ADHD, but have solid evidence behind the headcanon. #poll results - a reblog of an ended poll with calculations of how many people know the character and what percentage of those people know/see the character as ADHD. #poll reblog - any reblog of a poll that isn't poll results. #other polls - polls from other blogs. #blog management - anything about the running of the blog. #ask - asks. I don't know what else to tell you. #approval inquiry - asks asking if a character has been approved for posting. #submission inquiry - asks asking if a character has been submitted.

this was part of the original pinned and I always like seeing this part of poll blog pinneds so I'm leaving it

I'm supposed to tag other polls for visibility, right? This was largely inspired by @who-do-i-know-this-man and @doyouknowthisdisabledcharacter as well as @do-you-know-this-queer-character !

If you want to know if someone's been posted, check below:

Polls in progress:

Leslie Knope from Parks and Recreation (noncanon)

Leonardo from Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (noncanon)

Mungojerrie from Cats the Musical (noncanon)

Achilles from the Iliad (noncanon)

Tajima Yuuichirou from Ookiku Furikabutte/Oofuri/Big Windup (noncanon)

Benrey from Half Life VR but the AI is Self Aware/HLVRAI (noncanon)

Crowven Corvuson from Cemetery Mary (canon)

Finished polls (under the cut):

Martlet from Undertale Yellow (noncanon)

Zell Dincht from Final Fantasy 8 (noncanon)

Skimbleshanks from Cats the Musical (noncanon)

Goku from Dragonball (noncanon)

Yuma Tsukumo from Yu-Gi-Oh Zexal (noncanon)

Moritz Stiefel from Spring Awakening (noncanon)

Sydney 'Syd' Novak from I Am Not Okay With This (noncanon)

Yuki Takeya from Gakkou Gurashi/School-Live! (noncanon)

Annabeth Chase from the Percy Jackson series (canon)

Maria von Trapp from The Sound of Music (noncanon)

for personal reference - have done results for the below

Lift from The Stormlight Archive (noncanon)

Tim Drake from DC Comics (noncanon)

Monkey D. Luffy from One Piece (noncanon)

Apollo Justice from the Ace Attorney games (noncanon)

Stella from Winx Club (noncanon)

Roy Harper from DC Comics (canon)

Michelangelo from Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (canon)

Tony Stark from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (noncanon)

Aiden Clark from School Bus Graveyard (canon)

Serpaz Helilo from Vast Error (canon)

The Doctor from Doctor Who (noncanon)

Ronan Lynch from The Raven Cycle (noncanon)

Leo Valdez from the Percy Jackson books (canon)

Moth Flight from Warrior Cats (canon)

Ramona Quimby from the Ramona books (noncanon)

Joey Pigza from the Joey Pigza books (canon)

Anne Shirley from Anne of Green Gables (noncanon)

Spinner Mason from Degrassi: The Next Generation (canon)

Lupin III from Lupin the Third (noncanon)

Rainbow Dash from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (noncanon)

George Beard and Harold Hutchins from Captain Underpants (canon)

Alex Woodroe from All the Feels (canon)

Agent Curt Mega from Spies are Forever (noncanon)

TG from Castle of Nations (canon)

Shawn Spencer from Psych (canon)

Sydney Scoville Jr. from Grrl Power (canon)

Marinette Dupain-Cheng from Miraculous Ladybug (noncanon)

Zagreus from Hades (noncanon)

Sherlock Holmes from Sherlock & Co. (canon)

Ash Ketchum from Pokémon (noncanon)

Misfire from Transformers (canon)

Herlock Sholmes from The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles (noncanon)

Christine Canigula from Be More Chill (canon)

Aubrey Little from The Adventure Zone: Amnesty (canon)

Lt. Columbo from Columbo (noncanon)

Billie from Billie Bust Up (canon)

Wei Wuxian from Mo Dao Zu Shi (noncanon)

Jimmy Casket from VenturianTale (noncanon)

Sara Eriksson from Young Royals (canon)

Magnus Burnsides from The Adventure Zone: Balance (noncanon)

Scout from Team Fortress 2 (noncanon)

Luz Noceda from The Owl House (canon)

Zack Fair from Final Fantasy VII (noncanon)

Percy Jackson from Percy Jackson and the Olympians (canon)

April Polls' Day posts, for posterity - ran polls on non-ADHD characters:

Twilight Sparkle from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic

Zenos yae Galvus from Final Fantasy XIV

P.I.X.A.L. from Lego Ninjago

Brutus the Ducky from Real Life and also Rubber Ducky Hell (our only canonically non-ADHD poll subject)

Sophia from Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin (please play it)

#poll #poll blog #adhd #actuallyadhd #actually adhd #disability #neurodiversity #neurodivergency #uhhhhhh what else #we will see how this goes i guess #if youre familiar with me you can probably guess who i am but im not super concerned abt being found out lol #just anon for now

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holdinbacksecrets · 10 months

Text

smitten

college soccer player!jeonghan part 3

part 1 part 2

“hey, i haven’t seen you all day.”

your roommate stands in the doorway to your bedroom, finding you at your desk drowning in assignments and the final draft of your midterm.

“i was at the library all morning trying to get this paper done. is everything ok?”

she’s wearing a blue bow identical to the one left on your dresser that morning. her skirt matches its deep shade, and you realize it’s quickly approaching 7pm.

“of course! it’s game day. i wanted to tell you you don’t have to come tonight if you don’t want to. hana—i think you know her… choppy bangs, green eyes—apparently she’s smitten, so she wants to join me or us if you’re still interested.”

lia’s eyebrows raise, and you can tell she’s hoping you’re still interested, but she’s worried about dragging you along while on pursuit of a boy as if that would ever bother you, as if your own footsteps and love-covered fingertips haven’t submerged into your own version of a boy pursuit.

“i am. i was going to take a shower within the next ten minutes. we still have an hour right?”

she smiles, nodding excitedly. “i’ll leave you to it, then.”

“before you go, who does hana like?”

lia’s smile widens, and she runs her fingertip along the length of your door, swiping vibrant blue polish across a striking white. “jeonghan.”

your heart sinks and melts into the acidic jealousy existing in the pit of your stomach. jeonghan? jeonghan… of course.

you feel deflated as you approach the bathroom, reaching for your towel before switching the light on.

the last thing you want is for this to get complicated. if hana makes a move, what are you supposed to do? for all you know, you’ll be standing beside the girl for two hours, listening to whatever smitten sounds like and pretending you didn’t dream about the same man the previous night or stare at his message about bandaids and lollipops… smitten.

shampoo stings your eyes while you contemplate sharing your own feelings for jeonghan with lia. she’s pushed you a little bit, knowing your history of having interest in athletes, but the years of your friendship have taught her a few things. those things include only sharing what you want to and keeping things close to your chest. your heart is as far from your sleeve as it can get, tucked away safely in the dark warmth within your chest. of course jeonghan has started to shine rays of light, creating beautiful sunbeams and beginning to swell what’s been hibernating in its safety zone.

lia is perched at the bar stool eating a bowl of cereal when you leave your bedroom. she quickly takes a look at your outfit, happy to see a bow of your own pinned to your jacket. your denim shorts have blue ruffles stitched along the curve of each pocket, and you can feel the familiar rush of anticipation. nothing beats an october night, with it’s comforting chill and the scene of a game only a short walk away. you look forward to these evenings all year. jeonghan is the best part, unexpectedly so.

“i didn’t touch the honey bunches of oats. there’s only enough for one more bowl if you’re hungry.”

“thanks, lee.”

you top the cereal off with milk and eye your roommate nervously, hoping she’ll pick up on your desire to say something. you’ve never been good at sharing feelings, especially when you’re afraid of stepping on another’s toes.

“i can feel you staring me down. is there something on my face or on your mind?”

lia palms her bowl, bringing the ceramic to her lips to savor the perfectly sweetened milk before wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

“this season, i’ve never felt like your tag along. you like seokmin, but i’d still go even if you didn’t. even if i didn’t like someone else on the team, i would still go.” members of your family have played the sport for as long as you can remember. in your life, fall doesn’t exist without a soccer ball.

lia doesn’t jump in. you hoped she would push you just a little further, but this is all on you.

“yoon jeonghan is in my environmental ethics course, and we’ve established some kind of unexpected friendship, but my feelings are stronger than that. about hana… i don’t know if there’s anything going on between them. the last thing i want to do is make anyone uncomfortable or embarrass myself.”

lia smiles, but you miss the softness in her expression, watching your cereal float instead.

“you don’t need to worry about hana. she picks a new guy every week, and she’d certainly turn her focus to someone else tonight if you tell her about jeonghan.”

lia taps the counter, earning your gaze. “thank you for telling me. i’m trying to keep my composure, but please know i’m internally squealing and running around the counter to hug you. now, finish your cereal. i’m sure someone is excited to see you.”

the sun begins to set as you walk through campus. you can see the lights from the field come into view, and lia squeezes your hand. she’s always been a cherished friend and supporter, and relief has embraced you knowing the feelings you’ve kept quiet are now a secret shared.

hana is standing beside the ticket counter and waves when she notices the two of you. not a single speck of blue is found on her outfit, but lia quickly pulls a bow from her purse, securing it in her friend’s hair.

after the three of you have paid, hana asks where you two usually sit.

“this one likes to sit at the top so she can see the entire field.” guilty.

“the boys can see you better from the front.”

lia bites her lip but guides the three of you to the middle row, keeping the viewing peace.

both teams are warming up, and your eyes settle on the field while hana and lia chat beside you. you catch bits of the conversation, amused by your roommate’s monologue about how much seokmin’s hair has grown since their last home game.

then, you see him, and your lips part. you lean forward and zero in.

he’s mesmerizing. watching him feels like the sweetest treat.

his dribbling matches the rhythm of your heartbeat, and your lips spread into something consumed by pride, admiration, and hopeful desire.

his confidence has never gone unnoticed, even in its subtly, but it radiates when he’s wearing cleats, his uniform and is existing on the forest green turf.

you’re silent for the first quarter, clapping when it’s appropriate to do so, mouthing calls as the referees blow their whistles, nodding along to the ones you deem just.

the second quarter is smooth. your team is taking the lead: 1-0, and the reaction from lia at the sight of seokmin’s assist is something worth remembering.

she kissed your cheek, asking twice: “did you see that?!”, before heading down the stairs for popcorn.

hana slides across the bench to close the space between you as half time starts. her voice is just above a whisper, “lia told me about jeonghan, so any cheering i do tonight is for choi seungcheol.” she sends you a wink and you nod, feeling a weight leave your shoulders.

during the final quarter, the blue hawks are sailing, and you nearly miss it. your eyes were fixed on the bag of popcorn only seconds prior, but you see him when you’re pleased with the amount of the salty snack in your cupped palm.

it’s jeonghan’s corner kick, in the corner closest to you, and you see him search the stands before landing on your figure. he smiles, and brushes his fingers across his shirt, mirroring where your bow is clipped to your jacket. cute, he mouths before turning to face the field again.

“holy shit.”

“he’s all yours, babe.”

after the game has ended, students start to leave while others who know players stick around, creating small packs around the fence. the three of you stay in the stands until the team exits their huddle.

hana waves quickly, sending you a knowing wink before running down the bleachers. lia pats your knee. she practiced words of admiration for seokmin that morning in the bathroom mirror. you give her a final good luck before she sets off down the metal stairs.

time ticks by and it’s just you now. the soccer fans have left, and jeonghan is one of the last players on the field. you watched him take the bag of soccer balls to the shed behind the field, finding yourself admiring the stars while you waited.

the sound of your name shifts your stare, and you find him leaning against the railing.

“i should’ve given you my practice jersey.”

you stand and descend the bleachers, approaching the man with reddened cheeks and messy hair.

“what would that’ve made me?”

he smiles, and you want him to say it.

“i imagine you’re going to be much more than a good luck charm.”

“you don’t need one.”

“i have my superstitions.”

“oh really? do you have a couple marbles in your pockets?”

jeonghan’s cleats meet the pavement, and he waits for you before heading toward the main campus.

“i didn’t think about that.”

“i guess all the marbles are in your schedule…. probably wouldn’t do you any good to keep more in your pocket.”

“mmm, i think you’re on to something.”

“and i guess if i keep coming…”

“if you keep coming, we’ll keep winning, and eventually i’ll ask you to go on a date with me.”

“but you’re going to keep it open— unknown and leave me with anticipation.”

jeonghan laughs— no, it’s more like a giggle that penetrates your skin and finds the shelter where your heart lives, shining the most light it’s seen since you experienced the ocean three years ago.

“i’m not going to leave it open.”

he stops beneath the streetlamp. you’re in front of snow hall, where this all started.

“saturday night, can i take you on a date?”

his eyes are sparkling, and this man has far more than sunbeams. he has stars too.

“yes, of course you can.”

“as long as you’re alright with comedy shows.”

“i’ve never been.”

the look in his eyes is intriguing, and you have no doubt you’re about to be introduced to something magical.

“boo seungkwan knows how to put on a show, and i cannot wait to take you.”

his gaze shifts to the bow on your jacket, and you swear his expression melts. sore muscles are easy to ignore when you’re in front of him with exciting possibilities existing in your eyes and smile.

he’ll certainly fall in love with you.

#seventeen scenarios #seventeen fluff #seventeen imagines #seventeen fic #seventeen drabbles #jeonghan scenarios #jeonghan au #jeonghan fluff #jeonghan imagines #jeonghan fic #jeonghan x reader #jeonghan drabble

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punkshort · 9 months

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Chapter warnings: language, violence, angst

A/N: I have very little knowledge of the NYC subway system, or the NYC landscape, really (I've only been there once). Just use your imagination lol it's fiction!

Chapter Nine

Pairing: Joel x F!Reader, pre-outbreak and post outbreak

AU (the only thing I kept was the outbreak, Joel, and Tommy's characters. Joel's backstory is different, and the way he finds Jackson is different. I may include Ellie one day, I just haven't planned that far)

Fic Summary: You worked for Joel and Tommy a few months before the outbreak. The outbreak happens, and you and Joel get stuck traveling the country and keeping each other safe. Neither of you spoke about the feelings you had for one another pre-outbreak, and in a post-apocalyptic world, it seems like survival should be your only focus. But feelings can't be ignored forever.

Fic tags: Explicit Smut (18+ MDNI), Smut, Language, Canon-Typical Violence, Alcohol Use, Age Difference (Reader is 10 years younger than Joel), slow burn, mutual pining, angst, trauma, SA referencing later but I will put a big warning on those chapters

You sat perched on a couch in the living room while Joel tended to the body in the kitchen, but only after he confirmed you were alone. You felt numb, like there was an aching hole in your chest about to destroy you. Staring at the ground with your jaw slack, you rocked back and forth with your knees pressed to your chest, reliving the murder you just committed. His blood was warm and sticky over your face and chest as you drove the heavy statue into his skull repeatedly, brain matter spattering out on the floor. You remembered slipping in the blood when you had to shift your weight and get better leverage. You remembered the helpless moans and gurgles the man made in the beginning, before the fourth or fifth strike put an end to him. But you had kept going, kept crushing his face until he was unrecognizable. You had no idea you could do something so savage, so brutally unhinged, and you were terrified. The only other time you could recall feeling that type of rage was in Joel’s office a week ago. But even then, you were just mad. This was different. This was violent and sick. You felt your stomach churn and you glanced around frantically under the light of a lantern to find a receptacle. You spotted a garbage can under a desk at the side of the room, and you made it just in time, kneeling on the floor and heaving into the basket.

Hearing the noises from the kitchen, Joel reappeared in the living room, quickly wiping his hands of blood before you saw. Once you had stopped and leaned back, Joel took a few tentative steps forward. “You alright?” he asked, fully aware how ridiculous the question was, but he didn’t know what else to say.

All you could do was shake your head, then you buried your face in your hands, trying to hold back the next wave of tears. Joel picked up your canteen from the side of the couch and brought it over. You took a small sip before screwing the lid back on. You couldn’t bring yourself to look at him.

“I’m going to jail,” you whispered, your voice shaky. “What am I going to do, Joel?”

He shook his head, sitting down on the floor next to you. “You ain’t goin’ to jail. I don’t think that’s the world we live in anymore.” He finally got a good look at you for the first time. You were covered in blood, your clothes were ruined, your face only clean where your tears washed away the carnage. He stood up and headed back to the pantry, which now was home to two dead bodies shoved against the far wall under a sheet. He reached down to the packs of unopened water bottles and grabbed as many as he could carry. Joel stood up and was about to exit when he remembered the gun. He put the water bottles on the kitchen island and dug the gun out from under the groceries on the floor. He opened the chamber and confirmed it was fully loaded before tucking it into the back of his pants.

He returned to you with the bottles of water in his arms. "Why don't you go wash up and change your clothes? I got some water here, and I'll get you some towels, then you should really try to get some sleep."

You didn't feel like moving, but Joel was right. Smelling the coppery blood and feeling how tight it made your skin as it dried was a sensory nightmare. You stood up wordlessly and headed back towards his bedroom, while Joel followed behind you with the water. You walked into the bathroom and stood in the middle of the huge room you once envied, but now you were struggling to feel anything at all. Joel brought the lanterns in for you and opened the shower door, setting the water bottles down on a bench. He turned around and opened the linen closet, pulling out a few towels, wash cloths and a basin. He set all the supplies on the counter and faced you, still standing and staring.

"Do you," he cleared his throat, "do you need help, or...?" He trailed off, unsure what to do for you. He just hoped getting clean and some sleep will help.

You shook your head, but before he left you asked quietly, "Can you bring my pack in here? My clothes-"

"Right, 'course, yeah, hold on," he hurried out to the bedroom and brought your pack to you. "Holler if you need anythin'." And he shut the door behind him.

You sighed, dragging your weakened form over to the basin, grabbing it along with the washcloths and putting them alongside the water in the walk-in shower. You peeled your shirt off, soaked in so much blood that it made a wet noise as it lifted from your skin. You weren't sure where to put your clothes, so you balled them up and put them in one of the two sinks. You stepped into the shower and filled the basin with a few bottles of water, deciding to dip your hair in first to scrub the dried blood out. You reached up and grabbed Joel's shampoo that smelled clean and fresh, like oranges. The scent lifted your spirits a small fraction until you moved one of the lanterns over to the basin of dirty water and saw just how red it was. You felt your stomach roll again, but this time you held it together and moved the light away, dumping the water down the drain and refilled it to rinse your hair.

You completed this process as you made your way down, scrubbing your face and ears until you felt raw, then your arms, chest and hands. Your lower half wasn't in bad shape, but your fingernails were the worst part. You did your best, but there was still a little bit of blood stuck under them when you had finished.

You wrapped your hair up in one of the big towels Joel gave you and wrapped the other around your body. You stood there for a few moments, staring at yourself in the mirror under the light of the lanterns, feeling numb and tired. You didn't think you would be able to sleep earlier, but it turned out your body was exhausted. You felt weak as you picked some clothes out of your pack and pulled them on, quickly drying your hair and hanging the towels up before opening the bathroom door.

Joel was waiting at attention on the other side of the door the entire time you cleaned up, in case you needed something. He stood when you opened the door, pleased to see you had scrubbed all the blood off and looked more like yourself, but when his eyes met yours, he didn't see the light in them anymore. His chest tightened, hating himself for putting you through this. You stood before him, unsure of yourself, glancing around the room.

"Let's sleep in the living room, would that make you feel better?" he asked you. You nodded, and he grabbed the pillows and blankets off the bed before heading down the hall back to the couches. He made a makeshift bed on a couch for each of you, and you eagerly buried yourself under the blanket, your eyelids getting heavy. Before you fell asleep, you remembered your clothes in the bathroom.

"Joel?" you whispered, your voice crackling from disuse. He immediately sat up from the couch across from you.

"What d'you need?" he asked.

"My clothes, they're in your sink, I wasn't sure what to do with them."

"Oh, right, I'll get rid of 'em, you go to sleep I'll be right back."

You didn't have to be told twice, sliding your eyes shut as a restless sleep overtook you. Joel got a trash bag and a few more bottles of water from the pantry. He got to work bagging up the empty bottles of water and your bloodied clothes, then did his best to wash the shower and sink of any remaining blood so you didn't have to see it in the morning. When he returned, after throwing the bag of garbage in the pantry with the dead bodies, you were fast asleep.

He laid on his couch, berating himself over and over for letting this happen. Had he not been so goddamn distracted with thoughts of fucking you, he would have heard the intruders and maybe got the jump on them before you even woke up. Or maybe his distracted thoughts keeping him awake was what saved you both. He would never know, but what he did know was you were put in that position because he wasn't careful. He should have been quieter, he should have grabbed the gun, he should have expected a second intruder. When he inspected the apartment after he calmed you down, he saw they had jimmied open the lock on his door. He had no idea how they did it so quietly. Maybe had he gone right to bed, he wouldn't have heard anything, and you would both be dead.

He rubbed his hands up and down his face roughly, agitated, feeling helpless and riddled with guilt. These feelings for you had to stop. Tonight was a close call, and he wasn't going to risk anything happening again. His sole focus had to be just on your safety and survival going forward.

He shut his eyes, desperately trying to get a few hours of sleep before another long day tomorrow.

Both of you woke up a little later than you had intended, but given the events from last night, Joel figured you both could have used the sleep. You still weren't saying much, but your face looked like it had a little bit more color to it, and he hoped that meant you were coming around. Joel grabbed another armful of water bottles from the pantry, the smell of the bodies beginning to fester in the closed room, and used them to refill your canteens and wash up once more before your long journey. He unpacked the clothes he had stolen from your neighbors and repacked clothes that he picked out of his closet, in the process also grabbing a few smaller t-shirts that didn't quite fit him anymore to offer to you, since you had to get rid of one of your own. When he walked back into his living room, he saw you leaning over and examining some framed photos on a sofa table against the wall, running your finger over the frames and faces in the photos.

Joel cleared his throat to announce his presence, and you jumped back guiltily, spinning around to face him.

"Those are all old pictures, like I said before, I'm terrible at changing 'em out," Joel said, trying to draw you out more. You gave him a weak smile.

"You and Tommy looked so young in some of these."

He smiled, pleased that you were warming up a bit, and walked over to look at the pictures. He frowned slightly when he saw the same picture from the rodeo that he had hanging in his office, completely forgetting he still had it out. But you pointed to an older portrait instead.

"Are these your parents?"

Joel nodded and picked the picture up to look at it more closely. It was his parents on their wedding day. The picture was faded but he could still see the warmth and happiness in their eyes.

"They passed some years ago," he said, placing the picture down gently, "heart attack and lung cancer. Within a year of each other," Joel said softly.

You hummed apologetically, your eyes glancing over the rest of the frames before landing on the one at the rodeo. You opened your mouth to ask but remembered what Colleen had mentioned about an ex-fiancée, so you stopped yourself, but Joel saw where your gaze landed. He picked up the picture and looked at it wistfully.

"That was a fun night, rodeo up in Dallas. Tommy got so drunk we had to keep him from goin' down in the ring and jumpin' on one of those bulls himself," Joel chuckled.

You smiled, and still avoided bringing up the third person in the picture, but he answered the question for you anyway.

"That's Amy," he began, smile faded from his face, "we, uh, we were engaged. Didn't work out. Caught her cheatin' on me." He placed the picture back on the table.

"I'm sorry, Joel," you whispered, genuinely apologetic for feeling like he had to share that with you. He shook his head and turned back to the kitchen.

"Let me get you somethin' to eat before we head out, I'll bring out different things to pick from," he said.

Joel headed towards the kitchen, not realizing you were on his heels. He did his best to clean up the blood from the night before, but it was dark, and his resources were limited. There were still some stains in the grout of the tile and on the oak cabinet. You balked when you entered the room, somehow momentarily forgetting you killed a person less than 12 hours ago.

"I'm sorry, I did the best I could. Go back in the living room, I'll bring you somethin' to eat." Joel said, turning you away by the shoulders and giving you a gentle push in the opposite direction.

"Don't be sorry, Joel. You saved us last night," you said over your shoulder.

He paused, not sure how to approach the topic with you for the first time, worried he would upset you further.

"No, you saved us, and you shouldn't've had to do that," he said firmly.

You turned back around to face him, this time unphased by the blood stains he had tried to hide, looked him right in the eye.

"Us or them, remember?"

The two of you stared at each other for a minute, something shifting. There was a mutual understanding before, but now it had been solidified with your actions. It was one thing to say the words, but another to follow through. You had both killed somebody yesterday in order to save the other.

You each ate handfuls of trail mix, peanut butter crackers, and dry cereal before Joel restocked your packs with whatever food could fit, making sure to jam in a couple cans of Beefaroni in his own pack. Before hitting the road, he went to the spare closet where he kept his gun safe. You hadn't noticed it in the dark when you arrived the night before. He unlocked the safe, and pulled out a rifle, a shotgun, and a small handgun, the latter of which he handed to you. You offered to hold one of the long guns as well, not wanting Joel to be burdened, and he reluctantly agreed, handing you the rifle. When he leaned forward into the safe you saw he already had a revolver tucked into the back of his pants. You almost asked him about it but figured it out on your own: the men you killed must have been armed.

"I didn't realize you were a hunter," you said, shouldering the rifle on your back.

"I'm not. Well, not really. Some of the clients Tommy signed tended to be more the "outdoorsy" type, so we would take 'em on hunting trips or shoot skeet," Joel explained, pulling the shotgun over his shoulder before adding, "Didn't bother me much, I'd rather shoot than play golf."

Joel didn't have much ammo, but he packed whatever he had into both of your packs, which were now filled to the brim. Grateful he was able to trade out his borrowed sneakers for his own boots, he laced them up as you slid your hiking boots back on and headed out towards the stairwell on your journey.

The pair of you made your way back down into the subway without any issue, feeling a bit more confident now that you were armed. You stopped for just a few minutes to check in with Josie and Peter's group. They were happy to see you had made it. Neither of you mentioned the events that took place the night before, both eager to put it behind you.

It took you a few hours to walk all the way to the end of the subway, as far as it would take you this time so that when you emerged, you wouldn't be on the streets for too long. You didn't speak much, and Joel was becoming a little worried, but he wasn't sure if there was anything he could do to fix it. He just kept trying to pull you out of your thoughts, asking you a question here or there, but your replies were quiet and short.

You decided to take a break before emerging from the tunnel and sat to eat on the last platform. You kept your eyes glued to the grimy subway tile floor as you munched slowly on a protein bar and some dried fruit. Joel sat next to you watching your unwavering gaze and mechanical movements while you ate, and he couldn't take it anymore. He dusted his hands on the side of his pants and sighed, getting your attention briefly before you returned to your food.

"I think we should talk about it," Joel said, and you paused your chewing, considering a response before ultimately deciding to ignore him.

"Listen," he sighed, leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees. "I'm not gonna sugarcoat this for you. Once we get out there, it's only gonna get worse. I can't promise somethin' like that won't happen again, but I'll do my best to keep you safe and get you to your parents."

You weren't sure why that angered you so much. It was probably all the pent-up emotions from the past several hours that boiled over, but you didn't care, so you shot your eyes up to glare at him.

"You think I don't know it's going to be worse, Joel? I'm not stupid," you snapped, furrowing your brow. "It doesn't mean I'm going to be okay with killing people."

"And you think I'm feelin' good about it?" he shouted, making you jump. "This ain't exactly what I had in mind a week ago."

He stood, his jaw clenched and his hands combing roughly through his hair as he paced around the platform. You stood up now, too. You realized the anger coursing through you had replaced the sadness, and in an effort to keep it at bay, chose to keep spurring Joel on.

"Don't put words in my mouth, that's not what I said!" you yelled back at him, finally feeling a spark breaking through the numbness inside, like ice being cracked. "No one appointed you to be my guardian, I can take care of myself. You think I don't know you're just helping me because you feel bad? I don't need your fucking pity, Joel, I can do this myself!"

You could feel your heart pounding in your chest and your hands began to shake, but most importantly the numbness inside was breaking up. Your face felt hot with anger, and you trained your gaze onto his when he whipped around to glare at you as you continued to shout.

"You have no obligation to me; we hardly even know each other!" Your breathing was picking up and you watched him flinch at your words, then his eyes flashed with fury, and he scowled at you.

"Oh, I think we know each other a little better than that," he shot back heatedly, nostrils flared. You gasped in shock, glaring at him, trying to come up with a good response to his vague reference to your kiss a week ago. You didn't think he would ever bring it up again.

He looked at you smugly now, crossing his arms over his chest. He was still pissed, but he was pleased to see you were at a loss for words. He was about to put an end to the argument and suggest you get moving when you charged right up to him and gave him a hard shove against his shoulders, making him stumble backwards.

"What the fuck?!" Joel uttered in surprise, swinging his arms out to his sides to regain his balance. You ignored him and shoved him again, this time only causing him to stumble back a little bit. He was about to reach out and grab your arms to stop you when it dawned on him. You needed this. You needed to yell and scream and push. He could see in your eyes that you were less distant, even though they were still filled with anger, you were looking more like yourself again. So, when you leaned forward to shove him a third time, he let you, standing strong and tall with his arms resting at his sides as you shoved him again and again. He would stumble back a little each time, but he kept his gaze pinned on your eyes, watching how they would soften and clear with each push to his chest.

You finally grew tired of shoving him, so you stood there, trying to catch your breath. You could feel your body again, the numbness that overtook your body last night finally was floating away, like taking your anger out on Joel was what made it crack and melt, like thick ice over a pond on the first warm day of sprng. You tilted your head back and sighed, wondering why Joel was the only person who managed to bring out this side of you. Last week in his office, you told him off without shedding a tear. That was so unlike you, you had never acted like that before. Then last night you had killed somebody to save him, and not just killed him but savagely and relentlessly bashed his skull in. And now today, he figured out how to draw you out and heal you. He was safe, he made you feel safe.

You brought your head forward to look at him, seeing the heat and intensity behind his eyes. He didn’t look mad anymore, but he regarded you questioningly, desperately trying to see underneath the veil, imploring you to take what you needed from him so you would be yourself again.

You felt this inexplicable surge of warmth and desire, your gaze darkened, and you licked your lips. You didn't know why, but you felt like he would do anything for you at that moment, so long as it made you forget the horrors you went through. You took one step forward hesitantly, keeping your eyes locked on his, and you reached out to run your hand up and down his arm, feeling his muscles jump under your gentle touch.

“I’m sorry, Joel,” you murmured, taking another small step forward. “I didn’t mean any of that, I’m sorry.”

He gulped and let his gaze flick down to your hand rubbing his arm. When you stepped forward, he saw the look in your eyes, and his breath hitched. What were you doing? He shook his head and stepped back.

"It’s alright. We should get a move on, we gotta find somewhere safe for the night," he said, clearing his throat.

“Why don’t we just stay here?” you asked.

It was an innocent enough question, but the way you said it and the way you were looking at him said otherwise. He was struggling to keep up with your mood swings. "We got a lotta ground to cover, and there’s still daylight left, we shouldn’t waste it.”

He told himself his feelings for you were done, and he meant it. He had to focus, he had to keep you both safe. You clearly were still processing all your emotions and he couldn’t trust anything you were implying. So, he stepped away from your touch and headed for the stairs that led up to the street. You halfheartedly followed behind him, feeling more like yourself again, but also feeling something different, like this world was beginning to change you. You weren’t sure if it was for better or worse, but you knew you had at least come around to adapting to your environment. You killed somebody to save Joel’s life. You rose to the occasion, and you did what you had to do, and you didn't hesitate. You no longer felt like you were useless, and as fucked up as that sounded, it made you feel good.

You spent the rest of the afternoon trapsing through fields and forests on the outskirts of the city, trying to stay out of sight and quiet, taking very few breaks. Joel wanted to cover as much ground as possible and get far away from the city. You were still reeling from your argument, or whatever it was, in the subway. You weren’t sure what would have happened if he had leaned into your advances, but as more time passed, you knew it was for the best that he rebuffed you. You couldn’t remember if you were about to get your period, or maybe this was a normal reaction to murdering someone, but your emotions were all over the place. The longer you walked, the more at peace you felt with what happened. Joel was right – things were not going to get better, you had to toughen up, or else.

The sun was getting low, and Joel still hadn’t found a good place to set up camp. You kept walking as the evening turned to dusk, your eyes squinting in the small forest when Joel let out a frustrated groan. You looked up at him curiously.

“This is a good spot, there’s a stream nearby and it’s quiet but there’s not enough coverage. I don’t like how thin these trees are,” he explained, motioning to the young, skinny oak trees surrounding you. You sighed and sat down against one of the trees to take a break, opening your canteen as Joel remained standing and looking around as he considered building up some fallen tree limbs into a makeshift shelter.

You tipped your head back to drink, and that’s when you saw it: a treehouse, at least 40 feet above the ground, right above you. You stopped drinking and stood quickly to grab Joel’s arm, pointing up towards the top of the tree. He chuckled when he saw it, a smile spilling across his face.

“Yeah, that’ll do,” he said, turning to look at you happily.

You smiled at him, then looked back up at the treehouse above you. It wasn’t very big, but it was enough for the two of you and it had a roof. It was better than the alternative.

You went around the other side of the trunk where the ladder had been nailed into the wood and climbed up. Once you got to the top, Joel did a full sweep of the area surrounding you, confirming that no infected or people were nearby. He could see the stream from about 20 yards away. He couldn’t contain his smile again; this was perfect.

The contactor in him reviewed the construction of the treehouse to make sure that it would be sturdy enough to sustain two adults. He walked around to each corner, hunched over because the roof was maybe 5 feet from the floor, and gave the walls a firm shake to test their strength. There were three small windows sawed into each wall, the door being on the last wall, which meant Joel had a full view of your surroundings. The windows and door did not have any coverings, so it would be cold, but the waterproof sleeping bags you had should be able to keep you warm. He turned back to you, satisfied you'd be safe for the night.

"I think this used to be a hunting stand, then some kids turned it into a treehouse. See how the wood looks older in this part, and some of the roof is made from different material?" he said, pointing around to the spots in the shelter. "They added the walls themselves, matches the rest of the wood on the floor," he mused out loud. You had stopped rolling out your bag to listen to him and found it kind of amusing he was discussing construction with you after the last few days you've had, as if the world wasn't ending and it was just another day.

"Do you think we'll be safe here?" you asked, sliding your boots off and setting them next to your bed. Joel unrolled his bag on the other side of the treehouse, the side closest to the door. Without looking up at you, he nodded.

"As safe as we can get, yeah."

You couldn't shake the guilt for the way you treated him earlier. What you said was exactly right: he had no obligation to you, but he stayed by your side anyway, and saved you a handful of times. You had already apologized, but the way you went about it didn't come across as sincere. You had nearly thrown yourself at him, completely confusing you both, so you wanted to try again.

"Hey, listen, about earlier," you began, making him pause from rooting around in his pack, but still didn't look up at you. "I really am sorry. I didn't mean it. Any of it. I think I was still in shock; I don't know what came over me." You took a moment to let your words settle before continuing. "I'm really grateful for everything you're doing, I would already be dead if it wasn't for you." You held your breath, hoping you came across as genuine as you felt.

Joel tried to hide his disappointment. It was hard to hear you didn't mean any of it. He knew you didn't mean what you said, but he couldn't help but wish you had meant the way you looked at him in the subway, with a heat behind your gaze he never expected to see again after the way he treated you. But maybe that was what he needed to hear so it would help put a stop to the overwhelming feelings he was struggling to contain on his own.

He brought his gaze up to finally meet yours, trying to hide the sadness as he gave you a warm smile.

"I know, you don't got to apologize, it's alright," he said quietly.

You looked at his face closely. You didn't fully believe it, you could tell something still bothered him, but you chose to let it go.

After you had settled in for the night, each of you tucked into your sleeping bags, you whispered out into the darkness.

"Us or them, right?"

You thought maybe he had already fallen asleep since you were met with silence, until you heard his voice, thick with emotion, reply.

"Us or them."

Chapter Ten

Taglist: @chiogarza

#joel miller fanfiction #joel miller #joel miller smut #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller fic #joel the last of us #tlou hbo #the last of us hbo #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller x female reader #joel miller series #joel x reader #joel x reader smut #joel miller angst #joel miller fluff #the last of us fanfiction #the last of us game #the way we were joel miller fic

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slightlyrebelliouswriter23 · 1 year

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Theory: Eldred is not Cardan's father

Listen. I don’t know if anyone has said this before, but I’ve been mulling this over for a while now, so I’m going to throw it to the void before The Stolen Heir comes out, for posterity.

Buckle up, folks and Folk. I’m monologuing.

(PLEASE DO NOT INCLUDE TSH SPOILERS IN THE COMMENTS/REBLOGS/TAGS AS I HAVE NOT READ IT, AND WILL NOT BE ABLE TO READ IT UNTIL 8th JAN 2023!)

A big caveat of this theory is that I have basically no solid evidence for this apart from a few faint dots vaguely connected through a strange fog. But I am nothing if not someone who will scrounge around in the dirt for answers. So let’s get some filth under our fingernails.

(I promise it will maybe make sense. Eventually)

I. EPISTOLARY SEMANTICS

Much of this theory centres around the note Jude steals for Dain from Hollow Hall in The Cruel Prince. It reads:

“I know the provenance of the blusher mushroom that you ask after, but what you do with it must not be tied to me. After this, I consider my debt paid. Let my name be stricken from your lips.” (TCP, p.115)

There are so many layers to this note, but I’ll start on the surface level before digging deeper.

When Jude gives the note to Dain, he reads it, then says, “So he’s blackmailing Queen Orlagh” (TCP, p.123). During a first read, one would think Dain is implying that Balekin is blackmailing Orlagh, since Jude stole the note from Balekin’s study, and that Orlagh is the one who wrote the letter to the eldest Greenbriar child.

And no one questions it, because Jude even makes this supposition herself.

But my question is this: Why would Balekin be blackmailing Orlagh? We learn in The Wicked King that they are very much allies, and as far as I’m aware, blackmailing isn’t something you typically do to your allies.

My other question is: Why do we assume that Orlagh is the one that wrote the letter? Because Dain said so? We know him to be unreliable at best, manipulator at worst.

During a second read, one might realise that Dain is in fact being tricky here. He knows exactly who and what this note is referring to. But he’s deliberately trying to lead the Court of Shadows to the wrong conclusion, because the right one would reveal his guilt, as shown in the latter part of The Cruel Prince when Jude figures out Dain poisoned Liriope with blusher mushroom.

The way Dain is able to lead us off track without lying is through implication alone. This is why he’s not specific about who is blackmailing Orlagh. He just says someone is (a likely statement, considering Orlagh’s title) and that someone might be a man (plausible enough).

Thus, the sentence “He’s blackmailing Orlagh” can still be a perceived truth, and we are only ascribing it to the note because it is the closest context.

But we find out later that Dain’s statement has nothing to do with the note, since the note is about Liriope’s poisoning.

After having read TCP [redacted] times, one might begin to think: Is Orlagh even the sender of this correspondence? And if not, who is? And what does the note mean if we’re giving it a different context/sender?

For this, we have to peruse the parts of the sentences written in the note.

A. “Provenance”

For me, this phrase has always seemed a bit strange when referring to blusher mushrooms.

The word “provenance”, as most people recognise it, is used to describe the place from which a particular thing or subset of things comes from (i.e. the provenance of “Champagne” is Champagne, France, and the provenance of “Iranian rugs” is Iran, etc.).

So when we put it in the context of blusher mushrooms, as the note does, it seems to be saying there is a particular place where one can find blusher mushrooms, and the recipient is trying to acquire them for one reason or another.

But Jude, when first dabbling in mithridatism, describes picking blusher mushroom in the palace gardens (p.148-150, TCP). So if Balekin was planning on acquiring the poison, he needn’t look farther than the palace itself.

Which says, to me, that acquiring blusher mushroom for his own purposes wasn’t the subject of Balekin’s original inquiry, since it is common enough for a seventeen-year-old girl to find on her walk to school.

Additionally, the sender says “the provenance of the blusher mushroom”, when “the provenance of blusher mushroom” would be more grammatically correct if the sender was indeed informing Balekin about where he could get the poison.

Implying that they are referring to a single specific blusher mushroom. Perhaps, the very one which poisoned Liriope.

Which means, “provenance”, as it is used in the note, could be referring to the less common definition: “record of ownership”.

My guess is, Balekin asked the sender of the note if they knew who killed Liriope with blusher mushroom. The sender, wanting to remain cryptic in case the message was intercepted, phrased their confirmation so only the person who knew the full context of the message would be able to understand it.

Leading me to believe the sender may be saying, “I know who owned/used the blusher mushroom that you’re asking about”.

B. “It”

Here’s another tricky thing about English grammar: sometimes the subject that “it” refers to can be a group of things.

We might assume right off the bat that “What you do with it” means “What you do with the blusher mushroom”. But, given the previous specification, our sender might actually just mean “What you do with this information must not be tied back to me.”

Essentially, “Don’t tell anyone I told you this but I know who Liriope’s murderer is.”

C. “Let my name be stricken from your lips.”

To me, this last sentence of the note wreaks of faerie bargain.

The sender mentioned they had a debt to pay Balekin, and after divulging who poisoned Liriope, they would consider that debt paid.

But why not just leave the message at that? They already basically said, “Don’t tell anyone I told you this”, so this sentence seems redundant if not included for an ulterior purpose.

It could be a dramatic sign off. More likely, though, it’s a final clause of some bargain made previous to this message. Such as, “You owe me. Tell me who poisoned Liriope and I’ll never speak your name again.”

Either way, it sounds like the sender does not want to be tied to Balekin in any way (understandable tbh).

***This line is important for later, so remember this.***

~~~

So, after these specifications have been made, the note reads:

“I know who owned/used the blusher mushroom to poison Liriope, but what you do with this information must not be traced back to me. After this, I consider my debt paid. As per our bargain, you’re not to speak of me again.”

II. THE SENDER OF THE LETTER

There are many people who could’ve sent this letter. So let’s narrow it down.

Since the letter is in Balekin’s study, we could surmise that it is something Balekin has written and plans on sending. But Jude describes it as being written in “an elegant, feminine hand” (TCP, p.115).

Which doesn’t necessarily rule Balekin out as the sender, but I’m thinking it is much more likely he is the recipient, and that the sender is a woman.

The sender also knows who killed Liriope, so they probably know why Liriope was poisoned, as well. Meaning, they would have had to have ties to her—whether in proximity or in intimacy.

Oriana mentions in TCP that she and Liriope were close friends. She also tells Jude that she knew about Liriope and Dain’s affair.

However, in this same conversation, Jude asks Oriana if she knew Dain was the one who poisoned Liriope, and this is her response:

“Oriana shakes her head. ‘Not for a long time. It could have been another of Eldred’s lovers. Or Balekin—there were rumours he was the one responsible. I even wondered if it could have been Eldred, if he had poisoned her for dallying with his son. But then Madoc discovered Dain had obtained the blusher mushroom. He insisted I never let Oak be anywhere near the prince.’ ”(TCP, pp. 294-295)

Since faeries cannot lie, the truth must be that Oriana is not the one that knew who poisoned Liriope.

And since the letter is left unsigned, Dain attributes its origins to the Queen of the Undersea.

Here’s why I don’t think Orlagh sent this message:

Orlagh is seen in cahoots with Balekin plenty throughout the series. Yet, the sender of this message implies they want nothing to do with the eldest prince, and furthermore explicitly tells Balekin to never speak their name again. If Orlagh were the sender of this note, we would not have much of the scenes which take place in the Undersea during Jude’s kidnapping in The Wicked King.

Orlagh is the Queen of the Undersea. Why would she know or care about the details of a murder of one of the High King of Elfhame’s lovers?

Orlagh also has no ties to Liriope, or Dain for that matter, so why would Balekin go to Orlagh for information regarding Liriope’s murder?

But do you know who does have ties to Liriope, who might also have reason not to want Balekin to speak their name ever again?

Lady Asha.

So how exactly does Lady Asha have ties to Liriope?

It is common knowledge that they were both lovers of the High King. Asha could’ve known of Liriope’s affair with Dain because of their proximity at court. She was also known for being a lover of gossip and secrets. It’s not too surprising that she might know of Liriope’s secret.

But how does Lady Asha know that Dain specifically poisoned Liriope? And why might she want to sever her ties with Balekin?

Let me back track for a moment.

III. EMERALDS FOR HEIRS?

In the prologue of The Queen of Nothing, Lady Asha receives a heavy necklace of emeralds for her “contribution to the Greenbriar line”.

In The Cruel Prince, when Jude is dressing in Liriope’s clothes for the party at Locke’s estate, Locke offers her his mother’s jewels, specifically a heavy necklace made of emeralds (TCP, p. 168).

At first, when I noticed this connection, I thought emeralds must be Eldred’s standard gift given to any mother who births a Greenbriar heir.

But if you recall, Locke wasn’t born to Eldred, and Liriope would have had to receive the necklace while she was still alive, meaning Oak had not yet been born.

It is significant that both of these women have necklaces of emeralds, for the meaning of emeralds—amongst loyalty, love, and strength—is truth.

“A revealer of truths, emerald reputedly could cut through all illusions and spells, including the truth or falsity of a lover’s oath.” (International Gem Society)

Indeed, it’s curious that the only other person known to possess a string of emeralds similar to the one Lady Asha receives in QON, is Liriope.

Liriope, who, to common knowledge, never had a royal child with the High King. Liriope, who, through the events of TCP, we know to have been having an affair with Dain while still in the High King’s favour.

Liriope, who, like Lady Asha, met an unfortunate fate.

If emeralds represent the falsity of a lover’s oath, and Liriope possessed such a necklace before her passing, it could be that the emeralds Asha received were less a gift as much as they were a warning.

One that Asha was either too arrogant or too oblivious to figure out when she first received them, but that she might've pieces together after Liriope's death.

IV. PUNISHMENT BY PROXY

In the prologue of Queen of Nothing, the narrator informs us that Cardan’s punishment for “killing” a mortal man was that his mother was locked in the Tower of Forgetting.

It’s unsurprising that a mother should shoulder the blame for the crimes of her royal son, but this seems like a steep price to pay for the death of someone only tangentially related to the High King’s concerns.

It wasn’t even a lover of Eldred’s own who was killed. It was the lover of his lover/seneschal.

Incarcerating Asha because her son allegedly killed the lover of the High King’s lover feels like an overreaction. Why not simply cast Asha from the court? Or send her to the mortal lands?

Unless…

The High King suspected (or knew) that Lady Asha had committed some other serious offense against him, but had no sufficient evidence to lock her away. Or perhaps he did not want to risk the humiliation that would ensue if everyone at court found out that Lady Asha had been dallying with his son at the same time as she was his own lover.

And, to give her what he thought she deserved without inciting speculation from the court, used the excuse of Cardan killing the mortal to finally serve justice.

Furthermore, we know Cardan and his mother were not close. We know Asha did not raise Cardan as normal mothers do. Why is sending Cardan’s mother to prison a punishment to him?

Other than a small blot on his reputation (upon which, there are many, much larger blots), Asha’s punishment by proxy largely shouldn’t effect Cardan.

It seems as if Cardan’s true punishment was being virtually disowned by his father, and banished from living in the Palace of Elfhame.

Meaning, Asha’s punishment wasn’t really Cardan’s, but her own.

V. THE DEBT

In the letter Jude stole from Balekin’s desk, a “debt”, which has been paid through the information provided, is mentioned. If Asha sent this letter, what debt could she possibly owe Balekin?

Well, for starters, he did raise her son when no one else would.

Though, it’s unclear to me when in the timeline Asha wrote the letter and when she was imprisoned, if this is the aforementioned debt, Asha would’ve had to have written the letter after she’d been sent to the Tower of Forgetting. Because her being sent to the Tower was the catalyst for Balekin raising Cardan.

This debt also begs the question: Why would Balekin offer to raise Cardan?

Surely having Lady Asha, an incarcerated ex-lover of the High King, in his debt isn’t so valuable as the immense responsibility of raising a child he has no obligation to.

Which points to a motive that indicates perhaps Balekin does have an obligation to this child.

When Madoc kills Eva and Justin in the prologue of TCP, he takes Jude and Taryn in, claiming it as his “duty” after he rendered them parentless. We know the fae value their honour, and so even someone as opprobrius as Balekin might be subject to upholding duty in the face of a faerie child’s mother being sent to prison.

But as we know, he did not cause Lady Asha’s detainment (Dain did). So where is this sudden sense of duty coming from? None of the other Greenbriar siblings seemed to have the same moral inclination.

Balekin taking Cardan in could be purely out of selfish motives. Such as, being able to shape Cardan to his will, which he might then use in a potential coup.

But it could be that, through everything, Balekin has an inkling of an idea that Cardan might not be his brother, but his son.

There is another debt which is possible in relation to the letter if it was sent prior to Lady Asha’s imprisonment. But for this, we must consider why Lady Asha would want her name to be stricken from Balekin’s lips in the first place.

The most obvious answer to this which I could think of is that Lady Asha knows she has committed treason by sleeping with Balekin, the High King’s son, and claiming their child as one of the High King’s own, staking her place at court as higher than is deserved, while also playing the High King for a fool.

So the debt could simply be that Lady Asha, seeing what happened to Liriope and knowing what happens to lovers of the High King after being found adulterous, wanted Balekin to never be able to speak of their affair ever again.

Balekin, not being of the sort to do things for other people without a price, might have said that he’d agree to this if she offered him information that he wanted. After she gave it to him, their bargain would be complete, and Balekin would henceforth never be able to speak Lady Asha’s name.

Regardless of which debt is the truth, indeed, I do believe we do not hear Balekin utter Asha’s name once throughout the course of the series. Despite the fact that it is almost certain they knew each other before.

VI. PRIOR ENTANGLEMENT

How do we know that Asha and Balekin knew each other well enough to be sending letters like this back and forth to each other, if we are not yet certain that they had an affair?

In the prologue of TCP, Madoc states that he didn’t believe it when Balekin told him his wife and child were not dead, but living in the mortal world. This indicates that Balekin had knowledge of how Eva faked her death.

Now, we could owe this to the presence of spies at court. It’s likely that Balekin has his own hoard of spies, as do most of the prominent figures in Eflhame.

Or we could consider that perhaps Lady Asha, who is the other person confirmed to have known that Eva faked her death (TWK, p.129), was Balekin’s informant on this matter.

After receiving this information, he was then able to pass it on to Madoc in order to gain his trust (with the ulterior motive that Madoc might trust him enough to help him with his coup).

But then, we must also consider why Lady Asha would tell the eldest prince of her friend’s plan in the first place.

One thought I had was that perhaps Balekin, having a slew of mortal servants under his roof, was the person who offered Eva the unidentifiable mortals left in Madoc’s house as “proof” of their death.

He’d have to have motive to do this, however. Which indicates he either had some sort of attachment to Asha, who was trying to help her friend escape Faerie, or Balekin valued the knowledge of their plan enough to help them carry it out.

Another less complicated motive for Lady Asha telling Balekin of Eva’s escape would be that Asha and Balekin had a history of being in cahoots with one another, which would point to a connection deeper than a passing acquaintanceship due to proximity at court.

VII. AN UNCANNY LIKENESS

It is a truth in The Folk of the Air series that children look very much like their biological parents.

Oak, biological son of Dain, looks an awful lot like Dain:

Oak is described as having deer legs, little horns on his head, and brown hair with streaks of gold.

Dain, in turn, is described as having deer legs, little horns, and golden curls.

This striking resemblance is what initially got me thinking on Cardan’s parentage. And it is further backed by the many other child-parent resemblances in the series:

Vivi is described as having inherited her father’s golden cat eyes and fur-tipped ears.

Locke has obviously inherited his mother’s “sunrise hair”.

And it could be argued that Oak inherited Liriope’s “starlit eyes”, as his are an amber-gold colour that might resemble an old star.

Lady Asha even states that Jude resembles both Eva and Justin greatly (TCP, p.129).

And in kind, Jude thinks that Lady Asha and Cardan look very alike, though she does not admit to this out loud.

These likenesses do not necessarily indicate anything other than a pattern, which could be total coincidence. But it does mean that we could reasonably conclude that faeries, as with humans, often take on characteristics of their parents.

Balekin is described as having black hair, pale skin, and silver eyes.

Cardan’s description in the series is quite similar:

He is said to have black curls, pale skin, and metallic-rimmed black irises.

When we compare that to Eldred’s description—golden hair and bronze owl-like eyes—it doesn’t seem like Cardan inherited many traits from the High King at all.

Now, this could be because Lady Asha’s characteristics were more dominant in Cardan’s inherited genes.

She is described as being pale, with raven hair, and black eyes. She also clearly passed her tail on to her son.

But the similarities between Cardan and Balekin go beyond the obvious. When Jude is hiding under a chair in Balekin’s study, she notices the following:

“In two strides, Balekin is in front of his brother. They look so alike standing close. Same inky hair, matching sneers, devouring eyes.” (TCP, p.119)

Indeed, this resemblance is echoed across the series. In The Wicked King, when Jude goes to visit Balekin in the Tower of Forgetting, she states:

“As I ascend, I glance back at Balekin’s face, severe in the green torchlight. He resembles Cardan too much for my comfort.” (TWK, p. 26)

And again, in the Undersea, when Balekin comes to interrogate her, Jude thinks:

“They have the same black hair. The same cheekbones.” (TWK, p. 240)

There is also the matter of Cardan’s name, which bears resemblance to Balekin’s physicality.

Balekin is described as having thorns on his forearms. Cardan is a name which is derived from Cardon, which means thistle. Thistles are a prickly flower that grow from stems of thorns.

We know Holly Black is very intentional with her descriptions and words. My question is, why would she go out of her way to draw these physical comparisons, to echo the sentiment that the two are strikingly similar, if Cardan and Balekin were merely brothers?

She could have said that Cardan, being raised in Balekin's household for much of his formative years, was moulded to adopt his brother's mannerisms and propensity for cruelty. She could have said the way that they talk, walk, carry themselves, etc. were extremely reminiscent of one another, and we as readers would've gotten the point: that Jude thinks Cardan and Balekin are alike in many ways.

But this isn't what Holly Black does. Which leads me to believe there is something else to the constant parallels she chooses to include.

VIII. IN CONCLUSION

I’m aware this entire post reads like a conspiracy theory. So to those of you who stuck it out this far, congratulations and welcome to the circus.

I’ll be the first to admit that it is a big reach to say that this is fact rather than the speculation that it is. There are a lot of holes, which I can only hope might be filled in the coming duology.

That being said, this theory brings many questions to light.

How would Balekin know of Eva’s escape without having a more intimate relationship with her friend than previously thought?

Why would Lady Asha want her name stricken from Balekin’s lips so desperately as to make a bargain with him?

How could Lady Asha possibly be indebted to Balekin?

Why would Liriope and Asha be the only two characters with heavy necklaces of emeralds on their person if it didn’t mean they shared a similar history with the High King?

Why would Holly Black continuously compare Balekin and Cardan, indirectly pointing out that neither look much like their father or other siblings, but look undeniably like each other, if not to draw a deeper connection between the two?

And finally, and perhaps most importantly, if Lady Asha’s dalliance with Eldred was so brief—as is confirmed by Oriana in chapter 12 of QON— how did she come to be pregnant by him? We know faerie menstrual cycles don’t happen as often as mortals’.

Is this as simple as good luck, or does it speak to an affair no one knew was happening?

–Em 🖤🗡

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