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#YES. YES. YOU UNDERSTAND HOW I'VE BEEN HAUNTED
thearcanecat · 1 day
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do you happen to have any fic recs that you're comfortable sharing?
Yes! I went a little wild on this one. It’s long. These are all Hatchetfield, because that’s what I've been reading. 
Holloweane (95% of what I read is Holloweane so have a whole section about it)
The whole Heya, Darling series by warriorblood1: These are some of the first Holloduke/Holloweane fics ever written and they’re really good. They played a large part in getting me into this ship. 
Pretending by memoriesaremine: They are both self sacrificing idiots who don’t understand how much the other one loves them. 
50 First Dates (Give or Take) by coldairballoons: Duke keeps forgetting but they keep getting together. 
Who Are You, Miss Holliday by Maybelifeistooshort: This person Duke’s just met seems to know everything about him. 
Miss Holloway Was No Stranger to Loss, But Duke Was Full of surprises by Maybelifeistooshort: Duke’s a little magic too. 
I’ll Carry A Torch For Us Both by blue_skies_and_starry_nights: Killer Track with inner dialogue. 
mine, all mine series by tapestryoftrauma: All very cute.
Smashed glass by Zoya113: Derealization. How much has Holloway forgotten? 
i love you (please let me go) by TisBee: They kinda go on a date but Duke keeps forgetting things.
not-so-subtle reminders by dirtygirlsoup: Holloway trying to get Duke to remember. 
bittersweet by dirtygirlsoup: They go on a road trip and Holloway is very in love. 
To Strangers Again by ToxicLatteHottie (Aya_Chioo7): Make me cry about Holloweane in 200 words speedrun
We’ll Keep Running Home by shell_manatee550: Holloway loves him but doesn’t want to hurt him because he’ll just forget her. 
In Your Eyes I See Constellations by shell_manatee550: Duke can’t sleep so they talk about constellations with Holloway. 
I’ll Be Home For Christmas by SonnetSterling: Holloway visits Duke in a dream.
How we go round again by holloways: Holloway runs a record store and Duke stops by. 
If I loved you, would you know it? by taldorei_pixtor: The Lords mess with Holloweane. Only 2 chapters out but really fun. 
and with that, the cycle begins by shell_manatee550: Holloway, Duke and Wilbur help a child with nightmares. Holloway is pining after Duke every other scene I love them. 
More Than You Could Ever Know by PawPunk: Duke as a all santa. Holloweane flirts so much Lex kicks them out. 
you’ve left me haunted by MidnightNautilus and SnarkyWallflower: Sad memory angst
Holloway/Wiley Swap AU (Miss Holly’s Toys AU) by LoganSchwartzandGrubinierre and Party_Poison_05: Evil Holloway. She can be a little evil, as a treat. 
i’ll see you again, the next life around by Novelsinourheads: Beautifully poetic. Nails the confusion and forgetfulness. 
warm familiarity by eggsandxmen: t4t Holloweane my beloved. 
no, i’m not afraid to disappear by constellama: Holloway and Duke dying together. 
And They Were Roommates by imtryingokay: The town thinks Holloway’s dead so she says with Duke. The cat gets them together. 
Empty Bed by Paranormaltheatrekid: Duke dreams of a woman he can’t remember. 
It’s On Me by PawPunk: Duke keeps coming to Miss Retro’s and asks her on a date. 
My fics for Holloweane Week series by Paranormaltheatrekid and We sing it anyways by chaoscomeswithin: Both written for Holloweane week. 
All my blossoms that I have waited to fall by z3n1gt4t: Duke forgets Holloway’s birthday. 
‘Cause I’m No Good On My Own Anymore by PawPunk: Duke dies and Holloway mourns. 
Bye-ya, Darlin’ by SerpentCountess: Swap au. Duke is magic but no one can remember him. Very good go read. Good characterization. 
6,582 Years by Paranormaltheatrekid: cw suicide, Holloway’s thoughts on death and immortality. 
Heya, Holiday by Frog_With_A_Mushroom: Duke has a dream and Hoilday freaks out. Good underlying angst. 
The Hole in my Heart by Tossed_Salads: Duke mourning Holloway and then meeting Holiday. 
Read it and Weep by thebrokenkindle: Duke reads the letter and waits. 
It got so long tumblr is mad at me so I'll put more in the reblogs.
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mcflymemes · 1 month
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THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT - THE ANTHOLOGY BY TAYLOR SWIFT PROMPT LIST *  assorted lyrics from the album, some lines slightly adapted for meme purposes but feel free to adjust as necessary
even if it's handcuffed, i'm leaving here with you.
trust me. i can handle a dangerous man.
i love you. it's ruining my life.
does it feel all right to not know me?
i am who i am 'cause you trained me.
quick. tell me something awful.
i loved you the way that you were.
we were just kids, babe.
i can fix him.
you and i go from one kiss to getting married.
you said i'm the love of your life.
way up there, i actually love it.
i just don't understand how you don't miss me.
do you hate me?
did you think i had it in me?
what if i told you i'm back?
i still miss the smoke.
i'm not trying to exaggerate, but i think i might die if it happened.
you look like stevie nicks.
it's hell on earth to be heavenly.
i still can't believe it.
this happens once every few lifetimes.
didn't you hear? they called it all off.
it's happening again.
my friends say it isn't right to be scared.
i might just die.
fuck you if i can't have us.
tell me about the first time you saw me.
are you gonna marry, kiss, or kill me?
no one's ever had me... not like you.
stay away from her.
there wouldn't be this if there hadn't been you.
i don't think you've changed much.
that's where i was when i lost it all.
life was always easier on you than it was on me.
i hoped you'd return.
do you believe me now?
what if your eyes looked up and met mine one more time?
what are the chances you'd be downtown?
is it something i did?
oh, we must stop meeting like this.
they say what doesn't kill you makes you aware.
i'm not a donor, but i'd give you my heart if you needed it.
looking backwards might be the only way to move forwards.
the story isn't mine anymore.
what a charming saturday!
none of it is changing.
wild winds are death to the candle.
one bad seed kills the garden.
i'm bitter, but i swear i'm fine.
this place made me feel worthless.
i didn't want to come down.
everything had been above board.
blood's thick, but nothing like a payroll.
you can mark my words that i said it first.
the professor said to write what you know.
all of this to say, i hope you're okay.
your words are still just ringing in my head.
i built a legacy which you can't undo.
who do i have to speak to to change the prophecy?
the effects were temporary.
no, i'm not coming to my senses.
babe, you gotta fake it 'til you make it.
you know you're good when you can even do it with a broken heart.
i guess a lesser woman would've lost hope.
thought of calling you, but you won't pick up.
you're a professional.
long may you reign.
you're an animal. you are bloodthirsty.
now i seem to be scared to go outside.
i don't believe in good luck.
i hate it here.
if i'd been there, i'd hate it.
only the gentle survived.
i'm lonely, but i'm good.
you have no room in your dreams for regrets.
i thought it was just goodbye for now.
are you still a mind reader?
let it once be me.
i haven't decided yet.
i still dream of him.
i'm so afraid i sealed my fate.
it was always the same searing pain.
i can't forgive the way you made me feel.
it wasn't a fair fight or a clean kill.
she used to say she wished that you were dead.
tell me all your secrets.
they tried to warn you about me.
you're in terrible danger.
i'm the life you chose.
yes, i'm haunted, but i'm feeling just fine.
no one asks any questions here.
tell me i'm despicable. say it's unforgivable.
i'm running back home to you.
you should see your faces.
you knew the price going in.
was any of it true?
who the fuck was that guy?
i don't ever want you back.
did you sleep with a gun underneath our bed?
you don't get to tell me you feel bad.
you wouldn't last an hour in the asylum where they raised me.
am i allowed to cry?
there's no such thing as bad thoughts. only your actions talk.
they're going to crucify me anyway.
i know i'm just repeating myself.
that's the closest i've come to my heart exploding.
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evertomorrowart · 5 months
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Best of YouTube 2023
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Yes, I did spend the first week and change of January on this. I wish I could have had it done for New Years, but too many people came out with incredible work in December, so waiting turned out for the best.
What these creators do are a huge influence on my life, I would honestly have difficulty doing what I do without them. That isn't to say that my favorites of the year are *only* on this image--It was almost impossible to narrow down my favorites. Many creators I wanted to include couldn't fit on a single page, and too many of them made more than one video I wished I could draw too!
But, to all of you, thank you for what you do. You're an inspiration.
For those who don't know, further is an explanation.
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At the bottom center is an artistic masterpiece by Defunctland: "Journey to EPCOT Center: A Symphonic History." Over the last several years, Defunctland has risen from delightfully-entertaining commentary on decommissioned theme park attractions to occasionally dropping profound statements on the creation of art itself. "Journey to EPCOT Center: A Symphonic History" is worth treating like the cinematic experience it is: No second screen, you sit your ass down in front of a TV, set down the phone, and then you *watch it.* Any Disney, theme park, or independent film fan needs to pay attention to this one.
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Bottom left is Caelan Conrad with their piece "Drop the T - The Deadly Consequences of Gay Respectability Politics." While I do think they've done more visually or artistically-daring pieces before, "Drop the T" is one of the most important videos released on YouTube in today's current climate of hate. We as queer folk (and our allies) need to understand how integral every identity of the queer experience has been since the start of the Civil Rights movement (and before!). While we are not identical, we *are* inseparable, and we deserve having our real history easily accessible.
TERFs and other conservative mouthpieces need not reply. Your opinions are trash. 😘
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I cannot stop watching and rewatching this video by @patricia-taxxon, "On the Ethics of Boinking Animal People." It's not just a defense of furry fandom and its eccentricities, it's a thoughtful and passionate analysis of what the artform achieves that purely human representation can't. Patricia goes outside of her usual essay format to directly speak to the viewer about the elements that define furry media (the most succinct definition I've ever heard) and just how *human* an act loving animal cartoons really is.
As an artist who can draw furry characters, but never really got into erotic furry art, this video is a treasure. Why did I choose to have her drawn as a Ghibli character, hanging out with one of the tanukis from "Pom Poko?" Guess you'll have to watch, bruh.
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Philosophy Tube continuously puts out videos that I would put on this list--I'm not even sure that "A Man Plagiarised my Work: Women, Money, and the Nation" is the best work she released in 2023. However, this video got many conversations going between myself and my partner, and the twist on the tail end of the video shocked us both to such a degree that I had no choice.
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At the very tail end of the year, Big Joel released "Fear of Death." On his Little Joel channel, he described it as the singularly best video he's ever done, and I'm inclined to agree. However, for this illustration, I ended up repeatedly going back to a mini-series he did earlier in the year: "Three Stories at the End of the World." All three videos are deeply moving and haunting, and I was brought to tears by "We Must Destroy What the Bomb Cannot." While it may be relatively-common knowledge that the original Gojira (Godzilla) film is horror grappling with the devastation America's rush to atomic dominance inflicted on Japan, Big Joel still manages to bring new words to the discussion. Please watch all three of the videos, but if, for some reason, you must have only one, let it be "We Must Destroy What the Bomb Cannot."
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Y'all. Let me confess something. I hate football. I hate watching it, I associate seeing it from the stadiums with some of my worst childhood experiences, I despise collegiate and professional football (as institutions that destroy bodies and offer up children at the feet of its alter as a pillar of American culture)--
I. L o a t h e. Football.
But.
F.D. Signifier could get me to watch an entire hour-plus essay on why I should at least give a passing care. AND HE DID IT. I might think "F*ck the Police," the two-parter on Black conservatism, or his essay on Black men's connection to anime might be "better" videos, but this writer did the impossible and held my limited attention span towards football long enough to make a sincere case for NFL players--and reminds us that millionaires can *in fact* be workers. That alone is testament to his skill.
Sit down and watch "The REAL Reason NFL Running Backs Aren't Getting Paid." Any good anti-capitalist owes it to themselves.
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CJ the X continuously puts out stunning, emotional videos, and can do it with the most seemingly-inconsequential starting points. A 30 second song? An incestuous commercial? Five minutes of Tangled? Sure, why not. Go destroy yourself emotionally by watching them. I'm serious. Do it.
Their video Stranger Things and the Meaning of Life manages to to remind us all why the way we react to media does, in fact, matter. Yes, even nostalgia-driven, mass-media schlock. Yes, how we interact with media matters, what it says about us matters, and we all deserve to seek out the whys.
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Folding Ideas has spent the last few years articulating exactly why so much of our modern world feels broken, and because of that his voice continuously lives rent-free in my brain. While the tricks that scam artists and grifters use to try to swindle us are never new, the advancement of technology changes the aesthetics of their performances. Portions of Folding Ideas' explanations might seem dry when going into detail of how stocks work in This is Financial Advice, but every bit of it is necessary to peel back the layers of techno-babble and jargon and make sense of the results of "Meme Stocks."
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Jessie Gender puts out nothing but bangers, her absolute unit of a video about Star Wars might be my new favorite thing ever, but none of her work hit so profoundly in 2023 than the two-parter "The Myth of 'Male Socialization'" and "The Trauma of Masculinity." There's so much about modern life that isolates and traumatizes us, and so much of it is just shrugged off as "normal." We owe it to ourselves to see the world in more vivid a color palette than we're initially given.
Panels drawn after Kate Beaton and "Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands."
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"This is Not a Video Essay" is one of the most intense and beautiful pieces of art I've ever put into my eyeballs. Why do we create? What drives us to connect?
I don't even know what else to say about the Leftist Cooks' work, it repeatedly transcends the medium and platform. Watch every single one of their videos, but especially this one.
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The likelihood you are terminally online and yet haven't heard of Hbomberguy's yearly forrays into destroying the careers of awful people is pretty slim. Just because it has millions of views doesn't mean that Hbomberguy's "Plagiarism and You(Tube)" isn't worth the hype. Too long? Shut up, it has chapters and YouTube holds your place, anyway. You think a deep dive into a handful of creators is only meaningless drama? Well, you're wrong, you wrong-opinion-haver. Plagiarism is an *everyone* problem because of the actual harm it creates--the history it erases, the labor it devalues, the art it marginalizes--which you would know if you watched "Plagiarism and You(Tube)".
Watch. The damn. Video.
In fact, watch all of them!
Thanks for reading this if you did.
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blingblong55 · 8 months
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Scream it-Simon 'Ghost' Riley NSFW
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A/N: I missed doing Monster AU's tbh, so thank you for this request<3
Based on a request:
Love your work! If you’re still taking requests for Kinktober, would love to see Ghost with F!Reader for 5 (breeding) and/or 25 (monster AU). --- F!reader, smut, MDNI, 18+, breeding kink, monster au, unprotected!sex, Dub-Con?, rough!sex, light!degradation, light!slapping, P-in-V (I've been forgetting to add this one lol), oral!sex ---
You were walking back home late at night, your shift at work was horrendous and now as the cold weather fell upon your skin, you felt as if you were being watched. A pocket knife fisted between your hand and chest. As you walked home, the steps got closer and in a not-so-smart moment, you took left, taking the shortcut home through the small part of the woods. The footsteps stopped and you sighed in relief. "A few more minutes and I'll be home," you reminded yourself. As soon as that relief came, the bushes began to rustle, something usual this time of year.
It was always said to believe your town was filled with creatures that humans couldn't and wouldn't be able to fully comprehend. You heard more rustling and then slightly tripped on a tree branch that was sticking out, a light gasp left your lips. "Idiot," you whisper to yourself. For a moment, as you regained composure you swore you had seen a tall dark figure. "Nope, not doing this," you began to walk faster, that was until you saw the same shadow stand in your way. "I'm going crazy," you shut your eyes but the figure is still there once you open them back up. "You're not darling~" the beast speaks and you stand frozen from fear. "What's the matter, cat got your tongue?" he chuckles and his hand goes to your chin, forcing you to make eye contact.
You recognise those eyes. Had seen them multiple times before, shit, it was your goddamn neighbour, the man with the mask. He grins and seems to understand you finally figured out who he is. "Well, hello, darling," his breath hot against your skin. This was odd, how did he turn into this? You back up, only to have him wrap his fingers around you, "Don't you know a little thing like you walking alone is a dangerous thing?" His hand travel your body. Yes, in his human form he was the man you fancy but this, this is something else. "Why don't I take you home. I promise to keep you safe~" his voice almost haunting.
If you said no, what sick thing would he do? If you said, yes, what twisted idea would he come up with? The way he said he would take you home was not an ask but rather a demand. He grabs your hand, guiding you back out the woods and to the road. Did he not care if anyone saw him this way? His eyes would travel your body, unclothing you with them as he imagined the ways he would have you scream his name for all to hear that he has claimed you. No other man or monster can have what his hands, heart and dick can give you.
As soon as you got inside your flat, he walked inside, "Why don't I show you how good I can make you feel?" his hands wandering your soft skin. "I don't think-" You were cut off by his lips on yours. A hunger coming from his mouth as you tried to understand what was going on. "Oh, darling you will have me," he kisses your neck. "Fuck, aren't you a little treat," his lips never leaving your warm skin. You push him away but he gets a hold of you, his hold rough. "You think I can't tell you have been touching yourself? That you rub that clit of yours when you watch me work out through my window? hm?" he makes your hands remain behind your back. "I've heard you moan my name, sweet girl." with one hand holding both your wrists and the other on your neck, he kisses you aggressively.
"I know you fuck your fingers into your cunt whilst dreaming of me," he then lets go of your hands. "Get on your fucking knees like the whore you are," he demands with a growl. No longer was he the sweet neighbour you knew. You remain standing and then he slaps your face, "Don't you want to please me, slut?" he slaps you again but harder this time. A sadistic smile on him. As you get on your knees, your eyes get filled with tears, ready to be spilt out. "Take it out, like the fucking whore you are and suck me," he slaps you again. Your hands undo the belt and zipper of his trousers. "Oh, aren't you being so obedient, didn't take long for your needy ass to get down." His hands grab a fist of your hair, you lick the tip and without warning he slips his entire fat cock into your mouth.
You tried your best to take it all, it was not only big in length but in thickness. You try to speak but your throat gets more stuffed with his cock. You close your eyes, trying to concentrate on breathing and taking him full. He slaps you again, making your tears fall down, "look at me," he commands but you were too drunk on his cock to comprehend what he has asked of you. "I said look at me, bitch!" he slaps you again and you finally make eye contact. Your tears fall down, drool fills your mouth and gags making you get slapped more when you would close your eyes. He pulled his dick out and your droll comes falling down your mouth. "Look at you," he slaps his dick on your mouth and cheeks, "what a fucking whore." he spits out.
"Get up," he commands once more and you do so quickly. He pushes you against your sofa and with his sharp claws, rips your jeans off. Your wet cunt coating your knickers, he takes slaps your cunt through them and then slaps your face. "Beg me to fill you," he cups your face with one hand. You almost began to plead to be let go but knew that it wasn't an option this time. "I said beg," he growls and rips your top, your tits falling out as your brassiere gets ripped from your chest. "fill me...fill me," your voice small. He rubs his cock against your slit, the tip making your clit yearn for more. He chuckles as you begin to grind your hips, wanting to get any sort of relief from him. He slaps his cock on your pussy and his length splits your hole open.
You let out a whimper but he slaps your ass, "Don't you fucking make a noise. You only do that when I tell you to," he fingers your clit, and then smirks as he watches your face twist when you try to contain your whimpers and moans. "You're such a fucking dumb slut," he slaps your ass again and then thrusts himself into you. "Scream, I need you to scream," he slaps your pussy and then your tits. Your eyes fill with tears as he continues to slap and pin you to the couch. He leaves a scratch on your thigh and tit. His sharp teeth leave a mark on your neck.
His thrust is animalistic, he growls and his hands fly to your hips, thrusting his cock inside of you, your cunt red and marked by him. "I'm going to fill you up, fuck kids into you and watch as I fill you with my pups," he groans and smirks. Your tits bounce with each thrust he gives you, "what a cum slut you are, you bitch," he slaps the side of your thigh. His pre-cum leaking into you. "Look at you, moaning as I fuck my cum into you, filling every bit of your sweet pussy," he pinches and pulls with your nipples. You buck your hips, legs by his side as his moans get louder, he goes faster on your cock, and you roll your eyes back. "Scream like the slut you are," he slaps your ass. "Ghost,...fuck...Ghost!" your eyes shut and you bite your lip down.
His claws mark your body, his scent being rubbed all over your body. "You won't come, I won't let you, slut." he moans out as his thrusts begin to get slower, his seed leaking into you. He rubs your tummy, "Look at you, getting filled with my pups." He kisses your hand and pulls out, his cum dripping down your legs and his own shaft. Your walls are painted by him, he leans forward and kisses your neck, "Say what you are, tell me," he touches your tits again. "A slut... I..I'm a slut~" you say between moans and pants. He grins and kisses your lips. --- Tags: @chibijusstuff @liyanahelena @greatstormcat @ramblingsofachaoticthinker @illumisgirlfriend @amygaster004 @johfaam @montenegroisr @proxysgurl @actorryswife
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hyypnotix-writes · 9 months
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Part 2
~ hiya! I'm really nervous about posting this, but I couldn't not at least try to give you a second part after the response the last one got! ~
~ I really appreciate everyone reading it and enjoying it as much as you did ..I hope this one doesn't ruin it for you! ~
~ I think this one's around 13k words. so again ..it's a long one, if you have nothing else to do! ~
~ there’s quite a lot of story before Alexia makes an appearance, sorry ..but she does eventually show up! ~
~ I promise to put more of her in the next part if any of you end up wanting one ~
~ I’m really worried this will disappoint a lot of you, but at least you still have the first part to go back to, if nothing else! ~
~ I really hope you're able to enjoy it even just a little bit, and thanks again for loving the first part so much! the response was very overwhelming and I've loved you all reaching out to tell me that you liked it ~
~ good luck! good bye xx ~
~ Part 1 ~
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One night.  
One perfect night.  
That’s all it took.  
One perfect night to throw your whole damn life into disarray.  
One perfect night, that’s lead to endless subsequent nights, spent tossing and turning on your own, replaying the memory over on a loop in your mind. It’s only been about a month, but it feels like an eternity.  
A never-ending, exhausting cycle of yearning and confusion.  
It was the most welcome distraction from your ex-boyfriend’s evil escapades, you’ve not really thought about him at all since. 
It should have set you free, broken you out of the chains of mundanity. It showed you a whole new world, a world of women. It gave you a new perspective on life. Unlocked a realm of brand-new possibilities all ready and waiting for you to venture, and yet, you don’t want to explore any of them.  
It's not that you haven’t tried.  
You’d have been an idiot to assume that it’s only her that can make you feel like this. That would be giving her an awful lot of credit. Yes, she was your first woman, but that didn’t mean that she needed to be your last. The way your mind and body reacted to her, maybe you could have been slightly gayer than you thought, but it doesn’t really look to be the case.  
A pair of lesbian sisters always seemed incredibly unlikely to you, and your sister’s already called dibs on the label. Maybe it’s the mere existence of your younger sister that eradicates the possibility of any real queerness in yourself. That’s probably how the handing out of sexualities works, right? 
It’s a working theory, and one that you seem to be proving the accuracy of.  
You’ve been to a few more clubs since your entanglement with the Spanish mystery. Only returning back to that specific one, once. It gave you a headache just stepping through the door. She was still everywhere in the room, her spirit living in the walls. You barely managed to stay inside for even a second before it became too much for you, sending your heart and mind racing.  
You took yourself back home, reminiscing every single kiss you’d shared with her on that fanciful journey back to her hotel together. Looking up at the floor she had been staying on, as you hastily walked past it on your own.  
Even the nightclubs that aren’t haunted by her ghost, haven’t yielded much greater success with you. 
You paid a visit to a smaller bar, a fair few nights after your perfect one, and had found a woman interested in you. More than interested. She was pretty, and friendly enough. She was flirty and bought you a few drinks. She didn’t try to play it weird by aiding you in your consumption of alcohol. There was no intriguing salt and lime foreplay. She was far more straightforward, far less irritating.  
Maybe that’s why it didn’t work. Maybe she was too plain. Maybe she was too simple and easy for you to understand. Or maybe it’s the fact that when she pressed herself against you in search of a kiss, an alarm bell rang out inside of your head. You suddenly found yourself all too aware that she was a woman, and you simply no longer wanted to follow through with your curiosities.  
It doesn’t help in your confusion, why the femininity of one woman can leave you feeling more certain of your straightness, while another’s femininity has you still helplessly pining after her.  
It’s not like you were under any illusion with the Spanish woman. You were entirely aware that she was also a woman, and it wasn’t off putting to you at all. You enjoyed her being a woman. She smelt nice, she tasted nice. Her body was beautiful, and her lips were soft, and it doesn’t make any sense that she’s allowed to put a yearning in you that no other woman is able to satisfy.  
That does seem very typical of her, though. She really was very cocky and frustrating.ᅠᅠ
Until she wasn’t, of course.  
Then, she was just sweet and considerate. Cautious and careful. Flirty and undemanding. She took you back to hers and she still had no expectations from you. She was still willing to let you walk away. Maybe you should have.ᅠᅠ
You knew even then that you should have.  
It was daft of you to follow after her. Foolish to lose yourself with her, spending the night together, giggling under the sheets. Sharing kisses as you drowned yourselves in each other. Learning her body, every mark, scar and freckle, and committing them all to your memory. Tracing her curves and her tattoos and discovering what it is that makes her tick.ᅠ
She was patient, and understanding, she wasn’t in a rush with you. She spent the whole night exploring with you. Studying your body, wanting to learn all the things you liked her doing, and the things you really liked her doing. She turned what could have been a terrifying, embarrassing, disaster of an experience, into the most incredible encounter of your life.  
She brought you more pleasure than your pathetic ex-boyfriend had ever managed to give you in your whole 5-year relationship, in less than 5 minutes of her having your clothes off. She had the most unholy of noises spilling from your lips with her fingers and tongue inside of you, and she wasn’t exactly quiet herself, in letting you know when you were doing the right thing with her.  
She was intoxicating, exhilarating. She was life-affirming.  
She’s a far more dangerous addiction to you than alcohol could ever manage to be. You’ve never been tempted by drugs before, but you can’t even imagine the high from them being able to compete against what she’s done to you.  
It was just one night.  
It was one perfect night.  
________________
Living back with your younger sister isn’t exactly where you saw yourself being at 26. Your London flat had started feeling a little too big for you, without a traitorous arsehole of a man invading your space. So, you invited her to move in with you, not wanting to have to give up your dream property just because he had decided to try ruining your life. You needed help with the rent, and she had gratefully accepted.  
You didn’t necessarily expect her to also invite her idiot new girlfriend into your home with her. That wasn’t really part of the deal, though you didn’t explicitly tell her that she couldn’t. You can’t really blame her. If you were able to spend every waking moment of your life with ‘A’ right beside you, you’d jump at the opportunity headfirst.   
It still doesn’t aid in the dispelling of your confusion. There’s no jealousy when you see them together. Her girlfriend does nothing for you, none of her girlfriends ever have. You both have decidedly different tastes in women. Your sister’s taste is entirely questionable, yours is perfection.  
You haven’t mentioned your Spanish predicament to your sister. She’d probably laugh at you for it, call you tragic, and embarrassing. Tell you everything you’ve already been telling yourself on repeat in your head. She wouldn’t be very helpful; she very rarely is. She’s your very annoying, smart-arse of a little sister, who couldn’t possibly give you any decent advice. She’s 2 years younger than you and she's an idiot.  
She’s not the one who’s still hung up on a stranger after over a month, though. It’s rarely taken her longer than 24 hours to get over someone she’s been with. She’s not the one who’s been questioning herself every night. She’s never questioned herself at all. You’re fairly certain her very first thought, straight out of the womb was about another woman.  
She didn’t really have to come out to the family at any point, she kissed her first girl when she was 8. Always been a bit of a Casanova, your sister. A walking stereotype of a lesbian. Short, brightly coloured, undercut hair, quite a few piercings, heavily tattooed. She’s obsessed with women’s football, always watching re-runs of ‘The L Word,’ and overwhelmingly insistent in trying to prove to you that Taylor Swift is also secretly gay.  
Your sister’s certainty in her own sexual identity isn’t something that’s ever irritated you before. Not when you were always so sure of yourself, too. You appreciated her confidence. It was admirable, given the way people can be with her. She’s your self-assured little sister, who isn’t great at confrontation. So, you support her whenever anyone tries to tear her down.  
Now, however, this too-late-in-life existential crisis you’re struggling with, has you wishing she’d try to be a little bit more questioning herself. Her surety and cockiness about her sexuality is suddenly the most prominent attribute of her personality, and it’s really starting to drive you up the wall.  
It’s a rare evening where it’s only the two of you at home together. You don’t really know where her girlfriend is, and you don’t much care. You only feel responsible for one annoying lesbian, the one who shares your surname.  
She’s being rather antisocial with you, playing video games alone in her bedroom, and you’ve just finished tidying up the dining table after sharing the dinner you cooked for you both. You’re not exactly sure how you’ve found yourself solo parenting your stroppy little sibling when you’re really not much older than her yourself, but there you go.  
Maybe you should try speaking to her. See what she can possibly offer you by way of sapphic guidance. If she’s going to continue having her nuisance girlfriend living here rent-free, she should at least try giving you something to make it worth your while.  
You walk straight through to her bedroom and collapse your head onto her stomach on the bed. Making sure to do so with just enough force behind it to ensure you manage to leave her winded and interrupt her gaming. She grunts under you, and you earn an overly aggressive smack to your shoulder for achieving your goal. As, whatever other little child she’s playing her game against, has just managed to score past her.  
“You’re a twat!” She scolds, and you backhand her face to shut her up. She raises her fist above your stomach, and you flinch, bracing for impact.  
“I have a question!” You shout, before she has chance to attack.  
She pauses her lifted fist above you, and reluctantly agrees to a truce, providing your question is of interest to her. “What?” She groans, and you fiddle with your fingers, trying to find the right wording.  
“Why do you like women?” You ask, your face grimacing as you await her response.  
It isn’t your smoothest ever phrasing, not your wittiest form of delivery. It’s honestly, rather annoyingly, not the most subtle line of questioning. Despite it not being entirely to the point, your sister isn’t stupid.  
“What?” 
Oh ..maybe she is! 
That’s not going to be super helpful with your impending interrogation.  
“Why not men?” You suggest, still trying not to be too blatant. “How did you know you liked women?” 
“I looked at one.” She tells you, like it’s the most obvious answer in the world. “Why?” 
“Do you find every woman attractive?” 
“No, but I find enough of them attractive to sense a pattern.” She explains. “Why?” 
“And you’ve never been attracted to a man? Not even tempted?” 
“No. Not once. Why?” 
“Never ever?” 
“Y/N!” 
“I was just wondering.” You tell her quickly, drumming your fingers on top of your stomach.  
“About women?” She queries. 
“About ..why women. What it is about them.” 
“Aside from the obvious?” She snickers, nudging your arm.  
You quickly bounce your head back against her stomach winding her again.  
“Stop doing that!” 
“Stop being annoying!” You warn her. Your frustration at yourself getting the better of you.
She tries to push you off of her, but you mess with the analogue sticks on her controller, and she turns her focus back to salvaging her match. “You really are a twat! Get out!” 
“I need your help.” 
“I don’t care!” 
“..I’m sorry.” You mumble, and she scoffs at you, pushing you off of her bed unceremoniously.  
You can’t say you blame her, you’re a constant threat to her in that position, it’s too big of a risk. You enjoy bouncing your head and ruining her childish little game far too much.  
“Why do you like men?” She counters, and you find yourself stuck for words as you sit on her floor.  
It’s the question that’s been floating around your own head for a little while now. You’d never thought about it before. You just were. You had crushes on them all throughout your childhood, you’d had meaningless boyfriends in your teens, you met your bastard ex at university and figured that was it.  
You didn’t need to question why you were attracted to them, it just always made sense.  
“I don’t know.” You answer honestly, letting out a groan as you grab one of her pillows and bury your head into it.  
“What’s going on?” She asks, as she prods at your shoulder with her foot.  
“Nothing. I was just—” 
“Thinking about women?” 
“No!”  
It isn’t really a lie, you’re not thinking about women, just the one. The one woman who’s been invading all of your thoughts for the past 30 something days. The one who won’t let you sleep properly at night, who won’t let you focus completely at work.  
The one woman who refuses to leave your head for even a second just to let you rest, to let you breathe, to let you remember what life was like, prior to her entering it and recklessly setting fire to everything, before she ran away from you and disappeared into thin air.ᅠᅠ
“I kissed one.” You confess, trying to suffocate yourself with her pillow.  
This really does take her by surprise. You can hear her movements on top of the mattress as she turns her game off and pulls her pillow from you with a rather startling urgency. There’s great confusion on her face as she looks at you. She really must think you’re very boring if that’s enough to render her speechless. Imagine her reaction if you admitted to all the other things you did to the Spanish enigma.  
“You kissed a woman?” She asks, frowning at you.  
You’re not entirely sure why she looks quite so cross about it. You’re not trying to steal her thunder here. You’re not about to start trying to catch up with her numerous exploits of female companions.  
“Mhmm.” You mumble in reply, smoothing your hair back from over your face.  
“Why? For a man?” 
“No! I just wanted to ..I thought it’d be fun.” 
“..and ..was it?” 
“Mhmm.” 
She looks at you with a very distinct air of incredulity. It’s a rather annoying look, weirdly condescending. She doesn’t believe you. Why she thinks you’d bother lying about it, you really do not know. You’re not that desperate for a story to tell her.  
It’s almost offensive that she thinks you’re so incapable. You didn’t just kiss a woman. You went down on one, you had your fingers inside of her. You evoked moans from her, she scratched her nails down your back. You’re not some virginal prude. You’re not inept. It can’t be that shocking and inconceivable that you could share a single kiss with someone of the same sex.  
You were right, telling your sister was pointless. She’s offered you no assistance and no support. She’s a useless little waste of space and her horrible girlfriend is an advantage-taking little freeloader.  
“Thanks, very much! This was really helpful!”  
Your words are laced in sarcasm as you slide yourself up away from her bed with a sigh, throwing your middle finger up back in her direction as you exit the room, and slam her bedroom door shut behind you.   
You slam your own bedroom door shut behind you too, just in case she hadn’t picked up on how pissed off you are.  
You’re not really pissed off with her. She doesn’t know what’s going on inside of your head. You’re pissed off with yourself, for still being all entirely far too consumed with a woman whose name you do not know. Who wouldn’t even bother sharing her profession with you. It isn’t fair.  
You collapse headfirst onto your bed and let out a rather guttural groan into your duvet. You’re very frustrated. Your brain’s a mess, your sexuality’s up in the air, and you allowed yourself to picture, far too clearly, your memories of having sex with the gorgeous Spanish woman and now that ache that she’d put inside of you is back.  
There’s a knock at your door, and you’re not in the mood. You grab your duvet and burrito yourself in it down to the foot of your bed.  
“Y/N?”  
You don’t even grace your sister with a response. She doesn’t deserve it. She’s a swine.  
No, but she really is a swine, as you can hear her turning the doorknob and just walking right into your bedroom anyway. She’s really, unbelievably terrible at reading social cues.  
“Do you want to come to Spain with me next week?” 
See what I mean? What the hell?  
That’s a very serendipitous little offer, though. You didn’t even mention to her that the woman that you kissed was Spanish.  
Did you?  
She can’t have worked that out by herself. That would be insane. She’s already proved herself to not be the sharpest tool in the shed. That wouldn’t make any sense. What an intriguing little invitation.  
It’s very embarrassing that just the mention of the country sends a shiver down the back of your neck. All this instant adrenaline running through you, as if she’ll just be waiting for you there as soon as you land down in a random Spanish airport. Yeah, that seems likely!  
Spain’s not the biggest country in the world, but it certainly isn’t small. You’re not going to accidentally stumble into her again on the beach, or in a marketplace. She’s definitely not going to be staying in the same hotel that you’d be in.  
It shouldn’t have your heart racing like this. The chances of finding her again are so infinitesimally small, so extremely impossible, so overwhelmingly unlikely ..but you do stand a better chance, if you’re in the right country.  
“Next week?” You mumble under the sheets, playing it incredibly cool, as you try to ignore the way your heart’s started thumping at a thousand beats per minute.  
“Yeah.” 
“I thought you were going away with your girlfriend?” 
“..we broke up.” 
Shit. She would make this all about herself.  
You wiggle yourself free of your duvet cocoon and open up your arms for her to crash into you. She might be a useless little swine, but she’s your useless little swine. “Are you okay?”  
“Mhmm.” She grumbles, as she starfishes herself on top of you.  
“I’m sorry.” 
“No, you’re not. You never liked her.” 
“That’s not true.” You protest half-heartedly, kissing the side of her head.  
“I am fine ..I broke up with her.” 
“Well, thank fuck for that!” 
“See!” She laughs, rolling off the side of you. “You hated her!” 
“She was horrible!” 
“You could’ve said.” 
“You wouldn’t have left her if I told you to. You’d be getting bloody married to the girl. Twat.” She giggles defencelessly next to you on the bed, because you’re absolutely right. She has always been a contrarian little thing. “Are you sure you’re okay?” 
“Yeah. I’ll find someone else tomorrow.” 
“Unbelievable.” You chuckle, shaking your head as you push her away. “You can’t just give me her ticket. Did she not pay for it?” 
The embarrassed little look on your sister’s face is all the wordless response you need. Her girlfriend never paid for anything. She really was an advantage-taking little freeloader.  
“Where are you going in Spain?” 
“Barcelona.” 
“Why?” 
“Football.” 
“Oh! Give me a break!” You exclaim and roll down away from her back to the foot of the bed. “Why are you going all the way to Spain just to watch some football? You can bloody watch it here.” 
“It’s the Champions League!” She informs you excitedly, and you can’t even pretend to match her enthusiasm. “Chelsea’s playing Barcelona.” 
“Woo.” You respond flatly, rolling your eyes with a shake of your head. “You watched them play together today, didn’t you? Why are they so bloody obsessed with each other? Even I know there’s more teams than that.” 
“It’s the second leg..” She starts explaining, but none of it means anything to you, and you really just can’t bring yourself to care.  
Going all the way out to Spain to be stuck inside a stadium with thousands of screaming fans? What sort of holiday is that? You don’t care about Chelsea’s success or failure. Your sister’s dirty crush on their star-striker is just another one of her many celebrity infatuations that you can’t make any sense of.  
You don’t want to sit next to her as she gets herself all hot and bothered watching women run around a football pitch. You don’t even enjoy watching men do it, you have no interest in watching women.  
“No. I’m good, thanks.” You tell her, dismissively.  
“Please? We can do more than just watch the football.” She offers, pouting pathetically. “You have to come with me! I’ve just been dumped!”  
“No, you haven’t!” You remind her, laughing at her useless attempt at guilt tripping. “And you haven’t really left me much time to negotiate with work.” 
“You work too hard and you’re due some time off! Your boss isn’t going to refuse you, just bat your eyelashes at him. The filthy pervert.” 
“Hm.” You mumble, drumming your fingers over your stomach as you think.  
She isn’t wrong, about you working hard, at least. You do like to bury yourself in your work. You enjoy your job, and the harder you work, the more you earn. You haven’t had time off in a while, and your boss is unlikely to say no to you, you are his favourite employee. You don’t agree that it’s because he has a crush on you, you get good results for the company, and attract lucrative clientele.  
If batting your eyelashes could get you back in the arms of your Spanish one-night stand more easily, though, you’re not above flirting with him to get you there. You could take a few days of leave, go off to Spain, and possibly run into the woman who’s been living inside of your head.  
It’s such an incredibly remote possibility. An absolute stab in the dark chance of finding her. She probably isn’t even in Barcelona. You’re not cultured enough to be able to pin her accent to a specific city. She’s just Spanish. There’s much more places in Spain than just Barcelona. Barcelona isn’t even the capital. Maybe she’s in Madrid, Valencia, Marbella. She could be a party girl living on the island of Ibiza, you had originally found her in a bar. You don’t get a body like hers drinking yourself senseless every night, though.  
What if you do find her, and she wants nothing to do with you? There was only ever the promise of one night together. You already pushed your luck by spending the rest of the morning with each other, she doesn’t owe you anything more. It’s unlikely that she’s been spiralling quite as pathetically as you have. She’s not going to be fending off a sexuality migraine.  
You undoubtedly won’t have been the absolutely mind-blowing experience to her, that she was to you. She’ll have had sex with countless women. She definitely enjoyed herself with you, that much you’re certainly sure of. You can’t fake every bodily reaction to someone, but the rest of it could have been for show. The display of heartbreak afterwards.  
So, maybe she’s an actress, that would certainly make sense. It would explain why she had money, and why she had a company paying for her hotel. Maybe that was her little ‘business trip’. Perhaps she was in London promoting a Spanish movie. Maybe the entire thing was all a performance, and you fell for it. Hook, line, and sinker.  
Either way, stalking her in Spain would be far too pathetic. Even if she does want you to find her, it’s so desperate and needy of you to go all that way, and if she doesn’t want you to find her, you end up looking insane. Travelling to Spain, to possibly just show up right there on her doorstep? What a terrifying thing for you to do to the woman.  
But what if it’s a sign? 
Your clueless little sister, inviting you all the way to Spain, with absolutely no idea that the woman you’re harbouring all of these confusing emotions for, lives there? Maybe it’s fate. Maybe it’s the universe trying to get you back together. Maybe she didn’t fake it, she does feel the same, you’ll find her in Spain and spend the rest of your lives together.  
Please. Behave and be so goddamn serious with yourself. You sweet and simple, delusional little fool.  
“The woman I kissed was from Spain.” You inform your sister thoughtfully, and she sits herself up on your bed to frown at you.  
“You’re still going with that?” 
“Why don’t you believe me?” 
“You’re straight. Straight straight straight.” She points out, with such an incredibly annoying inflection to her voice, it makes you want to bang your head against the wall. “You’re also 26. You were in love with an ugly bastard for 5 years and you’ve never shown an interest in a woman before.” 
“I hadn’t met her before.” 
“Gayyy!” She giggles, and you give her an almighty clack on her arm with the back of your hand, to wipe the smug little smile from off her face.  
“Go with the woman you’re hooking up with tomorrow.” You instruct her. “I’d be a nightmare to watch football with, you’d have to keep explaining things to me.” 
“I don’t mind doing that.” 
“Do you have no other friends to go with you?” You laugh and she pouts dramatically again, shaking her head. “You’re a lonely little loser!” You tell her with a smile.  
“Is that a ‘yes’?” She asks, rolling her eyes at you.  
You take in a deep breath and let out a very heavy sigh. 
What’s the worst that can happen?  
She’s already completely upturned your life. It couldn’t make things any worse for you. Whether you’re able to bump into her or not. You’ll either find yourself some peace, lounging in the Spanish sun, or you’ll be left in exactly the same position you’re in now, but with a much healthier glow to your skin.  
You could even find yourself a Spanish man while you’re out there.  
Mm.  
It’s really not a good sign for your heterosexuality, that that’s no longer an appealing option to you.  
“If I can sort it with work,” you reason, “yes. I’ll come to Barcelona with you.”  
She lets out an embarrassingly girly squeal and crashes her head against your stomach, with just enough force behind it to manage to leave you winded.  
“Twat! I’m making no promises about going to the game, mind. I’m just coming for the tan.” 
“Maybe your ‘Spanish lesbian’ is also a fan of football.” She encourages  
“Mhmm. I’m pretty sure she is.” You admit contemplatively. “Is that an entry-level of requirement for lesbianism, then?” You ask, rolling your eyes. “Because if that’s the case, I really can stop questioning myself.” 
________________
Booking time off work really is as easy as your sister thought it would be. Maybe your boss does have an inappropriate crush on you like she suspects. 
She’s very excited about having you for company, and she tries to educate you on all of Chelsea’s history, the players’ statistics, and their personal lives, all before you go on your little trip together. It really does just go right in one ear, and straight back out of the other. You’re not fussed on the facts and figures; it’s not why you’re going.  
There’s not enough room in your brain to care about the ins and outs of Sam Kerr and Kristie Mewis’ relationship. You’re not interested in the fact that Chelsea currently have 6 WSL titles, and are going for their fifth-straight one, and you really aren’t bothered that the semifinal’s first leg match against Barcelona ended in a draw.  
That is a fair amount of information for you to have retained already despite not being interested. Your sister really has been going on at you, you’re almost a footballing expert.  
Touching down late in the morning in Barcelona, you can’t pretend there isn’t a tiny part of you that’s letting yourself get a little carried away with dreaming. You’ve played through enough countless scenarios in your head of running into the Spanish wonder again back in London, of course your mind’s racing with the possibilities in Spain.  
You drop your bags off at the hotel your sister’s booked for you both, with the intention of heading back out to explore the city together. It’s a peculiar looking building, bright red, oddly shaped. She really never has been one for subtlety, it’s the perfect sort of accommodation for her.  
She insists on wanting to have a look at the Olympic Stadium before the big match, as well as seeing the state of Camp Nou’s renovations, and you really can’t indulge her any more than you already have. You probably will end up joining her for the game tomorrow, but you’re absolutely not walking around the outside of football grounds for fun.  
You’ve seen the exterior of Stamford Bridge more than your fair share of times, Wembley, the Emirates. There’s not that much difference between the lot of them, and they’ve never really been your favourite form of modern architecture.  
So, you agree to go your separate ways for your first afternoon in the city, you’ll meet back up with each other tonight.  
Playing tourist around the streets of Barcelona on your own, is quite an exciting little experience for you. You’re not very worried about getting lost, despite not speaking too much Spanish beyond the basics. Your hotel’s a distinctive looking building, it’s not going to be super difficult to find your own way back to it.  
You get a taxi further into the main hub of town and you’re able to mosey about with a rather unrestrained confidence, turning down tight alleyways and strolling aimlessly along multiple cobbled streets. You manage to find yourself being comfortably led astray, by allowing nothing more than just the warm gentle breeze to guide you as it blows against your body.  
It turns into a more casual exploration of the more authentic side of Barcelona away from most of the tourist hotspots. You have no real idea where you are, and you’re quite enjoying the small rush of adventure.  
A coffee is what you start craving, and you’re not exactly limited by options. Every other building on the peacefully quiet backstreet you’ve found yourself on, seems to be a tiny café. You could start ip dip doo-ing all the individual offerings, but that’s putting far too much consideration into it. You decide to go for the smallest one, the most unassuming. The best coffees always come from the places that aren’t trying to market themselves to any foreign tourists.  
A little bell rings out as you step through the door and the barista almost jumps out of his skin at the sight of you, he clearly isn’t used to getting anyone other than his regular patrons. You offer up your friendliest of smiles and a quick ‘hola’ to show him that you mean no harm, and you tap your finger gently on the countertop as you inspect the board behind his head.  
Choosing the littlest coffee shop might have been a tiny mistake because absolutely everything on the menu is written in what you can only assume, is a rather confusing variation of Spanish. You can’t back out now, the barista already has an adorably excited look on his face at having someone new in his little shop, you can’t break his heart like that.  
You study the chalk written on the board for entirely far too long, in the hope that the words will slowly start translating themselves for you. It doesn’t work, obviously. So, you take a punt at a random one of them, with the rather daring assumption that you haven’t just ordered yourself a troubling batch of Spanish poison.  
“¡Dos, por favor!” Comes a call from behind you, from a woman you surely do not know. It’s recognisably ballsy of her, almost rude.
Her words echo in your ears, as time stands still around you. You’d recognise that voice anywhere, with that unmistakable, and entirely enchanting, cocky little tone to it.  
You can’t really have found her so easily. Life’s never been that kind.  
You can feel your heart clattering around in your chest instantly. Like it’s trying to escape from your ribs, to go off and say hello to hers, all by itself. Your chest’s rising and falling intensely as your breathing shallows and picks up pace.  
It can’t be her; it can’t be. This city’s just absolutely full of Spanish women.
She holds out her card right over you to pay, gently resting her arm down onto your shoulder, and you’ve definitely seen that tattoo before. The ‘11’ printed on her wrist.  
She’d refused to explain the meaning when you’d asked her about it. She wouldn’t give you the backstory behind any of her tattoos. It was too personal; you weren’t allowed to know.  
She thought you might have really fallen for each other if you both started sharing too much information about yourselves, and you only had the single night to spend together.  
“It would be too painful.” She had reasoned with you.
That was very clever thinking on her part. She absolutely managed to prevent you from having an awful lot of heartache and suffering about the whole thing, by letting you know absolutely nothing about her..ᅠ
You still can’t bring yourself to turn around and look. Even though you know it must be her. It can’t be likely that there’s multiple Spanish women that have branded themselves with that specific number on that specific part of their body. Surely to god.  
“..gracias.” You manage to choke out very shakily, in little more than a whisper, still facing forward.  
You have to turn around at some point. You can’t very well drink your coffee on the tiny little counter right in front of the barista when you can’t even have a conversation with him. Just staring at him, silently, neither of you able to speak each other’s language? That would freak him out! You’ll find yourself back on a plane headed for England before you know it, with a restraining order hanging over your head.  
Grow up and turn around. Just turn around.  
It’s her. It has to be her.  
The barista accepts the woman’s payment method with a familiar little smile back at her, and she carefully retracts her arm from over your shoulder slowly. You can smell her perfume on her wrist as it wafts back past the side your face. You recognise the scent, and you find yourself following it round you like a lost little puppy, your knees almost giving way beneath you.  
You didn’t accidentally stumble upon her at the beach. It’s not a Spanish marketplace. She definitely isn’t staying at the same hotel that you’re in.  
You’ve found her, while getting yourself lost. In the tiniest little café, on an unnamed, tumbleweed backstreet, right in the very heart of Barcelona.  
There’s a wide smile of disbelief on her face. Which is hopefully an indication, that she isn’t terrified of you being here, she hadn’t faked her feelings, and she, much like you are with her, is a little overwhelmed to see you.  
“Hi.” Is all that drops out of your mouth, as your mind goes blank at the sight of her.  
“Hi.” She says back, with the exact same breathlessness as you, her voice cracking ever so slightly.  
“….Hi.” 
“You’ve already said that.” She reminds you, and she’s clearly able to bring herself back to her senses far more quickly than you are, because there’s that charming little smirk tugging at the corner of her lips again.  
You’re not really sure which one of you instigated it, you both just sort of ended up colliding into each other, gripping at the material of each other’s clothes. It’s a very desperate hug. Even more so than the one you shared outside of the hotel elevator. You melt into each other, merging yourselves together like two corresponding puzzle pieces.  
It’s an embrace, holding not just the 12 hours of curious devotion between you, but over 30 days' worth of frenzied yearning. It has you both clinging to each other with everything you have, as it defies everything you came to accept as truly achievable, that heartbreaking belief in you, that this reunion would never really happen.  
It’s an impossible hug, and it’s one that neither of you want to pull away from. 
“What are you doing here?” You mumble against her, clinging to her shirt as she buries her head in the crook of your neck.  
“I think it should be me asking that question.” She tells you, chuckling. “I have far more right to be in Barcelona than you do.” 
“This is where you live?” You ask. “You’re from Barcelona?” 
“Mhmm.” She murmurs. “Mollet del Vallès.” 
There’s really no reason for that to be the most beautiful thing you’ve ever heard. It’s only a place name. It’s a good job she didn’t spend much time speaking Spanish to you back in London, you really would have been like putty in her hands.  
“What are you doing here?” She questions.  
“I thought you might want your sweatshirt back.” You joke casually, and she loosens her grip on you slightly so she can face you.  
“Do you not want it anymore?” She asks, furrowing her brow as she studies your face. 
There’s a clear look of uncertainty in her eyes, a small sense of worry, and you do feel mildly guilty for teasing her. “I was hoping ..maybe I could swap it for another.” You smile. “It doesn’t really smell like you anymore.”
She doesn’t allow you to feel guilty for too long. That small air of arrogance that’s always threatening to escape her, does so, in a predictable little smirk at the implication.  
“You’ve been wearing it that much?” She asks you proudly, and you push your tongue against the inside of your mouth as you roll your eyes at her typical display of cockiness. She carefully closes the small distance between you both again, gently pressing herself flush against you. “Does it smell of you?” She whispers in your ear, sending a ripple of goosebumps down the side of your neck. 
“Mhmm.” 
“Mm. Maybe I could be persuaded to make a trade, then.” 
She’s impossible for you to resist when she’s like this. It’s still an intriguing talent she has, evoking such a physical reaction from you, by doing hardly anything at all. A quiet little whisper in your ear and your body’s immediately burning up next to her? You’re still so incredibly tragic.  
You might no longer be certain of your sexuality, but maybe it really doesn’t matter. Why do you need to understand it? Why does it need an explanation? No one else in the world is important at all when she’s standing here in front of you. No one else would ever really stand a chance. How could you ever be interested in anyone else, when you know that this woman right here exists? How could any other person ever truly compare? 
There’s a desire in you that’s clearly also felt in her, when she moves herself to look at you. It’s written all over her face, the twinkle in her beautiful eyes, and the fact that her lips are so incredibly close to yours.  
You lean in, and so does she, but it’s like something quickly shoots through her body, as though she’s suddenly being brought back into the room. She does a quick scan of the café, and she collects herself before she lets you both get carried away.  
“We can’t kiss in here.” She tells you quietly, and you frown at her as you pull yourself back.  
“Why not?” You ask, doing your own quick search to try and find what she saw to put her off.  
No one seems too interested in you, though there’s admittedly a couple of people discreetly watching her. She is very beautiful, so it’s not surprising, but you do sort of wish they’d stop their gawking. This gorgeous woman is here with you, and you’re not really in the mood for sharing.
“There’s not another bloody homophobe about, is there?” 
“No!” She laughs, shaking her head. “Well, I don’t know, actually. I haven’t asked around, but we just ..can’t kiss in here.” 
It’s curious. She didn’t have any issues kissing you in front of people before. Spanish people are very famously more physically affectionate with each other than British people are. So, it seems unlikely that the two of you would turn too many heads just by kissing.  
“Okay..” you accept reluctantly, pouting a little at the rejection, “so ..should we just quickly nip outside to do it then, or?” You joke cheekily, pointing to the door with your thumb.
She chuckles with you, resting her forehead to your shoulder. “You’re still as straight as ever!” She grins, as she wraps you back up in her arms.  
It’s quite nice just losing yourself in her embrace. Burying your head in her neck and holding her tight against you. Having her arms back around you, her perfume overwhelming your senses. The rest of the coffee shop fades into a blur with her in your arms. She’s comforting, reassuring. She’s real, and she’s here.  
“Ale!” Is called out by the barista not a minute later, and you’d have very happily paid it no attention at all. The immediate flinch from the woman that you’re holding, in response to it, however, tells you that you might have just found out a very valuable piece of information indeed.  
You repeat it under your breath, as she pulls away from you and goes to collect your coffees from the counter.  
She says a quiet ‘moltes gràcies’ to the barista, and she narrows her eyes with a small grimace as she returns to you. There’s still a clear reluctance in her to give too much away, she’s not entirely grateful to her little coffee friend for unknowingly revealing slightly more to you than just her first initial.  
Ale. It must still be short for something, you figure. You start reeling off name possibilities at her in quick succession. Alessia, Alex, Alexis, Alexa. You’re like a dog with a bone, because she makes it clear that you’re getting closer, but she still shakes her head at every guess.  
It’s very frustrating, as she offers you absolutely no assistance with your guessing, but it can’t be as convoluted a mission as trying to discover Rumpelstiltskin’s ridiculous name. Thankfully, it isn’t. It’s on only your 5th attempt that you cause the same small flinch in her, and she smiles softly at you before looking down very quickly. You’ve struck gold.  
Alexia. 
It’s a beautiful name. Your favourite name, you’ve decided. It rolls off your tongue with so much ease, you want to repeat it again and again. 
“Now you know too much.” She sighs whimsically, handing you your coffee as she walks past you to collect her bag from the table she was previously sitting at.  
She gestures for you to follow her and leads you to a quieter area away from the other customers right at the back of the shop. She pulls out your chair for you to sit down, and you can’t not smile at the tiny act of chivalry. She really is very sweet. It’s a shame that she won’t let you kiss her.  
You reveal your own name to her, as she joins you on the other side of the table and she repeats it back to you quietly. Whether it’s the sexy Spanish accent, or just the fact that it’s her saying it to you for the first time, you’re not entirely sure, but your heart skips a few beats after hearing it. 
“Now we both know too much.” She tells you, and she takes a small sip of her coffee.  
There’s the tiniest level of nervousness, that blankets itself over you both as you sit together. It’s a little absurd, you’ve seen this woman naked. She’s seen you naked. It isn’t technically a first date between you, neither of you asked the other to be here, but you both clearly have the little jitters of being on one, coursing through your bodies.  
You find yourself just watching her a few times as you talk over your drinks together. You still can’t really believe you found her so quickly. So, you don’t want to risk taking your eyes off of her for too long, in case she just disappears into thin air while you’re not looking.  
She’s also the most beautiful sight in the café. So, why would you want to waste your time looking at anything else? 
You’re not being very discreet about your staring at all, and neither is she, really. You keep exchanging shy smiles over your cups as you catch each other looking. Both of you blushing and quickly averting your eyes as they meet, and then gradually repeating the whole thing all over again. You’ve definitely caught her gazing a few more times than she’s caught you. So, maybe she’s even more tragic than you are.  
The little coffee you ordered by chance, is Alexia’s usual order, so she tells you. It’s not the most life-changing piece of information for her to share with you, but it’s something else for you to know about her, and you’re absolutely sure to make a note of it. It probably keeps you on an even tally too, she already knows that you enjoy drinking a tequila.  
You’re still not allowed to kiss each other, for whatever obscure reason, but she has reached for you hand under the table. Interlacing your fingers together isn’t a new thing between you both, and neither are those tingles that immediately shoot up through your arm at even the most innocent of touches from her. She really does have an incredible effect on you, it should probably be more terrifying to you than it is.
“Why are you really here?” She asks after a moment, as she strokes her thumb over your knuckles.  
“My sister dragged me here.” You answer. “It’s a very important football match tomorrow, apparently.” 
“The one against Chelsea?” She asks, with an unmistakable look of interest in her eyes, that has you rolling your own lightly back at her.  
“I think she’d say against Barcelona,” you point out with a sigh, “but yeah, that one.” 
You had managed to work out that Alexia was probably a bit of a football fan. She has a little stick figure tattoo of a footballer on her leg, the outline of a baby being given a ball on her back, and you have exceptional detective skills. It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out.  
So, it isn’t a surprise that she’d be excited by your footballing interests, but it is unfortunate that you really don’t share the same passion for it as her.  
“Unless you’re a very daring rebel,” you start, “I assume you’ll be supporting Barcelona tomorrow?” 
“Mhmm,” she murmurs, with a small twinkle in her eye, “and you’ll be supporting Chelsea?” 
“Not emphatically,” you admit with a smile, “but I’ll be in that section of the crowd, yeah.”  
“You don’t really care about football at all, do you?” She asks knowingly, with an edge to her smirk that’s intriguing, as you shake your head at her in apology. “Maybe you should introduce me to your sister instead, then!” She winks, and you very quickly remove your hand back out of her hold.  
“Don’t.” You tell her. “Please. Don’t even joke about it.” 
It’s admittedly a little cute that she finds herself quite so hilarious for her disgusting little joke, but you are very unamused by the idea. If the childish look of mischief on her face wasn’t so entirely endearing to you, you may very well have got up and left her right then and there.  
She rests the back of her hand on your thigh with her palm outstretched, and you roll your eyes at her before placing your own hand back into it. She raises it to her lips to place a lingering kiss to your fingers, leaving you with the faintest of blushes across your cheeks. So, maybe you can find it in yourself to forgive her just this once.  
“I have a sister.” She reveals. “Her name's Alba. She’s a few years younger than me. I’m the older sibling, like you are.”  
“Uh oh!” 
“What?” 
“Well, now I really do know too much.” You tell her with a wink.
“My sister’s Emily.” You inform her rebalancing the tally of facts you keep sharing with each other. “Though she’d kill you for calling her that. I think she’d change her name completely if she didn’t think it would upset our Dad so much. She just goes by Em these days ..so ..she probably would have enjoyed your silly little initial idea, actually,” you admit thoughtfully, frowning a little at the realisation, “maybe I really should introduce you to her instead..” 
“Por favor.” She says quietly, quickly shaking her head at you and raising your hand to her lips once again. “Don’t even joke about it.” 
“Will you be going to the game tomorrow?” You ask, a not-so-subtle attempt at finding out if you might be getting to see each other again so soon. “We’d be like star-crossed lovers in the stands. Very Romeo and Juliet of us!” 
“I don’t know that we want to be comparing ourselves to those two! I don’t remember it ending very well for them.” She reminds you, narrowing her eyes at you as her intriguing little smirk returns to her face. “And no. I’m working tomorrow, I won’t be in the stands.” 
“Boo. You can’t be that big of a fan, then!” You tut in disappointment. “I’ve come all this way to support my team!” 
“Your team!” She chuckles. “Will you be there in a Chelsea shirt?” 
“Absolutely not. I’ll be in very neutral colours.” 
She smiles, nibbling at the inside of her mouth as she lowers her eyes to look at the table. She knocks her hand gently on it a few times before turning her attention back to you. It’s impossible to know what she’s thinking, but she’s definitely debating something silently in her head.  
“I could give you a Barcelona one?” She suggests a little cautiously, and you have to smile at the idea. Your sister would certainly disown you if you took one of those back home with you. It’d be worth it, just to see the look on her face.
“You have a very weird habit of offering me your clothes.” You tell her slyly.  
“Mhmm. I really like seeing you in them.” She admits sultrily, and your breath catches as her eyes darken looking at you. “I think I have one in my bag, if you want it.” 
It’s a surprisingly sexy little offer, and you do quite like having her clothes on your body. It’s hard not to laugh at her peculiarity, though, even your sister isn’t that crazy of a football fan.  
“You just ..carry it around with you at all times?” You ask, furrowing your brow as you chuckle at her. “That’s really weird of you! Do you sell them? You go round offering them to unsuspecting tourists? Is that your job? Is it a fake? Are yo—”
“You need to stop trying to know things about me.” She interrupts softly, shaking her head as she chuckles.  
“And just ..blindly accept that you always have a football shirt on you?” 
“Mhmm.” She giggles, and you narrow your eyes at her.
She really is very curious.  
She pulls it out from her little duffle bag from under the table and hands it to you with a gleam in her eye as you take it from her. You push your empty coffee cup to the side and spread the shirt out over the table to study it.  
They’re not exactly your colours, but you can probably make them work. You hold it up against you to check that it will suit, and she bites her lip as she watches you. There’s a name printed on the back of it, you realise, and you smile a little as you read it in your head.  
“Don’t most adults keep it blank? Or just go for their favourite player?” You ask smirking. You turn the shirt around and rest it over yourself, and she gently bites at the skin around her fingernail as you trace the lettering over your chest. “I thought it was just little kids that got their own name on the back. Do you quite like pretending you’re also on the team?” 
“Mhmm ..maybe.” She mumbles, stifling a giggle as she rests her head in her hand. She smiles at you fondly, as she continues gazing at your little shirt inspection.  
“That’s really very cute of you.” You tell her, placing the shirt back on the table and leaning over it as you trace your fingers over the number. “Why ‘11’?” 
“Hm?” 
“11. You have it tattooed on you. You’ve chosen it for your shirt.” You point out. “Is it your birthday? You were born on the 11th? You were born in November? Born on New Year’s Day? Is it just your lucky number? Is it—” 
“Stop, trying to know things about me.” She interrupts again quietly, reaching for your hand and meeting you across the table to rest her forehead to yours.  
“But I want to know things about you.” You whisper. “I want to know when your birthday is. I’d like to know your surname. I want to know what you do for a living, how you got those scars on your knee, how much you weighed when you were born. The name of your first crush, where you went to school, the meaning behind your tattoos. I want to know each and every incredible milestone you’ve ever achieved, and all the unfathomably boring things that you got up to in between each of them. I want to know every single detail about you, and your life, Alexia. I really, really want to know you.”   
It’s quite the thing for you to confess to the poor woman after only meeting her on two separate occasions, but the way her grip on your hand kept tightening as you spoke, the slight clenching of her jaw, and the fact that her lips are dangerously close to yours once again, probably means you haven’t just completely scared her off with it.  
“We’d have to spend a lifetime together, trying to learn all of that about each other.” She whispers to you, her lips lightly brushing against yours.  
“Is that a proposal?” You chuckle, gently bumping your nose to hers. Your eyes trail to her lips, and it’s really very hard to not act on your impulses. “Am I really not allowed to kiss you in h—“ 
It seems that you are allowed to kiss her in here, when it’s right at the back where no one’s watching. Or she’s allowed to kiss you, at least, because there's no doubt which one of you instigated this. Her lips move against yours, and your pulse reacts to her immediately.
It's a kiss harbouring an awful lot of emotion, for two people who still hardly know each other. It's slow, passionate, careful, and every confusing little worry that's been plaguing your brain since the last time you kissed, instantly melts away into nothing as her tongue slips back into your mouth. You're the only two people in the world when her hand's pulling you in by the back of your neck, and you’re tugging her closer by grabbing at her shirt.
It’s probably a good job she did decide to take you further away from everybody else, because it doesn’t stay an entirely family-friendly kiss for very long. It’s not wildly inappropriate, you’re not animals, and the bastard table’s in the way of you doing too much with each other. Thank goodness it is, because it’s been over a month, after all, and you’re both clearly quite a bit needy. You really can’t be doing that in public.  
“I’ve missed you.” She murmurs against your lips, pulling you impossibly further into her.  
“I really missed you too.” 
Hours feel like minutes, in Alexia’s company, as you spend the afternoon roaming Barcelona together. She still refuses to tell you everything about herself. You don’t learn her surname, and she still won’t tell you what she does for a living, but you do both share other things about yourselves with each other. 
It doesn’t matter how insignificant any of the details probably are. Every single one of them still feels important to you, because it’s another little glimpse into her. Every single fact, story and secret that she shares, is what makes Alexia, who she is, and she was absolutely right, you do find yourself falling more for her, with all of the little things you keep discovering.  
She eventually agrees to tell you her birthday. Which makes the whole ‘11’ obsession even more intriguing to you, because the 4th of February ’94 does absolutely nothing to clear that little mystery up. It does tell you that the man in his twenties that you were looking for the night you first met, didn’t even turn out to be a woman in her twenties at all. She turned 30 nearly 3 months ago. She’s absolutely decrepit! 
She gives you a tiny tour on your stroll together, bringing some clarity to the Catalonian streets you’ve been carelessly walking down. Explaining the extra confusing writing on the menu board, and casually revealing to you that she can speak 3 different languages. So, your drunken boast about your GCSE level German, probably wasn’t very impressive to her at all.  
You’re both approached a fair few times by people asking for directions. You can never understand what it is that they’re saying, and you're not really of much use to them just standing there being awkward. So, you hang off a little to the side taking in your surroundings, waiting for her to help them out, before she excitedly returns back to you. You’re not at all bothered by the interruptions. Your patience with it keeps earning you a quick discreet kiss from her as she wraps her arms around your waist, and you return the same display of affection, for her unrelenting kindness to strangers.
Alexia insists that she isn’t a tour-guide, and she’s also not an actress. So, you are very slowly whittling down the options of what it is she could possibly do for a living. She asks you about your own career, which is incredibly cheeky of her, considering. So, you simply refuse to tell her.
Maybe it’s that competitive streak in you, but if she wants to play it secretive, you can absolutely match her for it. You only agree to give her the corresponding facts to the one’s she’s willing to give to you. That way, if she’s falling for you with each new piece of information the same way that you’re doing for her, at least you’re both crashing down for each other, at exactly the same speed.
There’s slightly less careless abandon with being too physical with each other, walking hand in hand around Barcelona. It’s arguably tame compared to how you both were back in London. Whether it’s the lack of alcohol that’s keeping her more reserved, or maybe just because it isn’t yet nighttime, you’re not entirely sure.  
You’re still stealing kisses as you waltz along the streets, but you’re not pushing each other up against the walls of buildings out in the open. Maybe that would be a little indecent of you both. You’re pulling each other down quiet alleyways, instead, pressing yourselves together in secret coves.  
It doesn’t feel entirely necessary, the streets you’re exploring aren’t particularly packed with people, but you don’t question it too much. You’ve really just missed having her lips on yours, and whatever capacity she feels comfortable doing it in, you’re more than willing to oblige.  
You couldn’t really care less who sees you kissing her. You all but forget that they exist when she's pulling you into her and leaving her mark on you. It is arguably far more exciting, however, trying to be sneaky about it with each other. You're both almost actively searching for places that you're unlikely to get caught in. Finding hidden areas and seeing how much you can get away with together.
Your hands find their way under her shirt on more than one occasion. She really does have the most beautiful body. She jokingly reprimands you for it each time, but she doesn’t really discourage you from doing it. She does continually tease you, for your ever-decreasing signs of straightness, though.
Each newly shared kiss with Alexia, is somehow even better than the last. Whether she’s passionately throwing caution to the wind with you, by kissing down your neck, or trapping your bottom lip between her teeth. Even when she’s just being painfully frustrating, by giving you the quickest of pecks before skipping away. Every single one of them still sets your soul on fire, and they still manage to pull all the air right out from your lungs, every single time.
Alexia waits with you, as it turns to evening, on a bench by the road for your taxi back to your hotel. You try not to let the mild burning in your eyes ruin your final moments with her, but you can feel yourself starting to break.
She pulls out the football shirt from her bag again and holds it out for you to take with a shy smile. “I really hope you enjoy the game tomorrow.” She says, and you try to allow yourself to chuckle a little while nodding your head. 
“Mhmm. Thank you, I’ll try.” You tell her, throwing her shirt over your shoulder and quickly rubbing the corner of your eyes. “I’ll have to get Em’s permission to wear this, first. She’ll be very unimpressed with me.” 
“Just don’t let her burn it!”  
“I won't.” You promise, interlacing your fingers with hers and placing a kiss to the back of her hand. “The other fans might throw tomatoes at it, mind!” 
She chuckles, pressing a kiss to your temple, and there’s that familiar sense of dread in your stomach, as you watch the road, knowing your time together is quickly running out again.
You catch her gazing at you as you turn to her, and maybe there’s a little butterfly or two in your stomach as well, at the way her eyes are watching over you. “Are you okay?” You ask.
“Mhmm. You haven’t even gone yet,” she tells you smiling, tucking your hair back behind your ear, “and I already can’t wait to see you again.” 
“You’re really that certain that you will? You’re still sure you don’t want us to swap numbers?”  
“We’ve already bumped into each other a couple of times now. I have no doubt we’ll manage it again.”
It’s nowhere near as reassuring to you as it seems to be to her, but there’s a certain level of romance in her conviction in fortuity. Maybe you are beginning to believe in the possible existence of fate, though you're not completely enamoured by continuing to leave your encounters with Alexia, entirely up to chance. She cradles your head in her hands and gently wipes the tears that are threatening to spill from your eyes with her thumbs.
"I'll never forgive you," you warn her weakly, "if this ends up being it for us."
"Trust me." Is all she asks of you, and she pulls you back into her, resting her head against yours as she runs her fingers over your back.
It feels like an unspoken promise from her, to keep at least trying to find you, and there's a power in her certainty that has you desperate to believe in it too.
It’s still a little hard for you both to say goodbye to each other, but she’s already told you she has a busy day tomorrow, and you can’t really bring her back to your hotel when your sister’s already sharing the bed with you. You share another long hug, and a few more secret kisses before your taxi pulls up, and you finally hesitantly agree to part ways. She places a kiss to your cheek, by way of goodbye as you clamber yourself into the back of the car, setting off without her once again.  
You try to reassure yourself, on the taxi ride back to your hotel. You've ran into each other twice, in two separate countries, by pure dumb luck. It can't be impossible for it to happen again. Maybe there’s something connecting you both, an invisible string, an intangible little bungee cord, that's making sure that neither of you is ever able to truly stray too far away from the other. Alexia has ‘no doubt’ that you’ll manage another meeting again, and you take some comfort in knowing, that you still have 2 days left in the city, to do exactly that.
________________
Collapsing back down to lay on the bed in your hotel room, you have a sneaking suspicion, that you’ll have a far better night’s sleep than you’ve managed to have in a long time, tonight. Your mind isn’t spiralling with confusion anymore, and there’s no longer a gaping hole inside of your chest.  
There’s an excitement in you, a warmth. An encouraging little hope that you really have found something special. Someone special. That once-in-a-lifetime connection with another person who’s also trapped in this world along with you.  
It definitely isn’t the someone you expected to intertwine your soul with. Any younger version of yourself would be very confused about where she’s ended up. It isn’t a connection you want to keep questioning either. It’s not one you really have any doubts on the existence of at all. She’s just it for you, and maybe it’s okay that that’s all you can say to justify it.   
You don’t need to be attracted to other women; you don’t really care about your weakening attraction to men. It just makes sense when you’re together with her. There’s no confusion, no uncertainty, there’s no warning alarms ringing out in your head. There’s just Alexia, and the existence of anything and anybody else, will always pale in comparison to her. 
Your sister arrives a little after you, plodding back into the hotel room, clearly wiped from whatever individual Spanish adventure she got up to today, and she flops herself into one of the armchairs with a very heavy sigh.  
“Long day?” You ask. 
“Mhmm.” She mumbles, frowning at you suspiciously. “You look very happy?” 
“I am very happy!” You tell her with a smile. You excitedly roll over and reach down the side of the bed to retrieve your souvenir of the day from its hiding spot. You launch it right into your sister’s face and she grunts a little under the impact. “Will you hate me, if I wear that tomorrow?” You ask, trying to contain your newfound enthusiasm. 
She pulls it off from where it’s wrapped itself around her head, and she gives you a very unimpressed look. “You bought a Barcelona shirt?” She asks, clearly disgusted with your choice of fashion.  
“I was given it.” 
“By?” 
“..a woman.” You tell her, gently biting your bottom lip as you smile up at the ceiling.  
“Mm.” She mutters with a sigh, moving to join you over on the bed. She thwacks the shirt down over your stomach and lets out a huff next to you. “Well, at least she has good taste.” She tells you. “Or she’s just a bit basic.” 
That’s a little rude ..and very confusing.  
“What do you mean?” 
“Going for the best player on the team.” 
That’s less rude ..but even more confusing.  
“..What do you mean?” 
“Are you joking?” She asks, with a very clear tone of annoyance to her voice. She grabs the shirt and thwacks you with it again. “A woman gives you a shirt with a name on the back, and you don’t even care enough to ask who the bloody player is?”   
Maybe your head is racing again. That’s incredibly confusing. It really doesn’t make any sense. It’s her name, not a player’s name. Maybe they just share a name. It’s not an incredibly rare name, that’s not impossible. 
Your Alexia has a mild interest in football, she’s not playing it professionally. Who would keep that a secret? She’s reticent with sharing information, that’s for certain, but she’s not a bloody liar, and she told you she wouldn’t even be there tomorrow.  
No.  
She said that she was working tomorrow, and that she wouldn’t be in the stands with you. 
Your mind has started racing, and so has your little heart.  
“What. do. you. mean?” You repeat slowly, trying to keep yourself calm.  
“Alexia Putellas.” She tells you, very nonchalantly, and your brain all but short circuits at the name.  
“Who is Alexia Putellas?” 
She thwacks you again with your shirt in dismay, and you’ve really had just about enough of being treated like a piñata. You sit up, pull it from her hands and thwack it across her face as you ask her to explain herself.  
“She’s a footballer, for fuck’s sake!” She shouts, rubbing the palm of her hand against her eyelid. “She’s Spanish. She plays for Barcelona!” She pulls out her phone, to search for her Instagram and bonks you on the head with it. “That’s Alexia Putellas, you twat.” 
You look at the profile, and the hotel room blurs around you. You can feel your heart thumping in your chest, hear the blood pumping around in your ears.  
Your Alexia, is Alexia Putellas.  
She doesn’t sell shirts for a living, she’s not an actress nor a tour-guide, she really isn’t even a spy. Though she’d probably make a pretty good one, the way she never gave this piece of information away.  
Your unexplainable connection with another human being, and she plays football for a living? Clearly very well too, as 2 of her pinned photos have her holding a massive award for it right next to her face. Every other post on her page is about football. She’s Barcelona, through and through.  
She’s verified, she has over 3 million followers. She’s been out here, existing on the world’s stage, all this time, without you ever knowing. Your own sister’s been privy to more information about her than you have.  
She was in London a month ago for football, according to her Instagram posts. The cryptic little ‘business trip’ she was on, was a quarter-final match against Arsenal. An embarrassingly easy win for Barcelona, she must have been out celebrating it when she found you in that club.  
She was back in London again last week for football. You could have seen her then. You missed a chance at an earlier reunion with her, because you refused to go with your little sister to watch her in the first leg against Chelsea.  
Your breathing’s very shallow as you scroll through the endless stream of photos. Your mind is absolutely spinning. It’s all a bit much to take in. You lock your sister’s phone and place it back on her chest as you try to collect yourself. You really don’t want to risk learning too much about her. You want her to tell you everything, you don’t want to find it all out behind her back.  
You’ve been waiting with bated breath all afternoon, savouring every little piece of information she’s given you, and your smart-arse little sister could probably tell you loads about her if you asked. Lots of the details you’re so desperate to know about Alexia are probably only a quick google search away, but you feel guilty enough just knowing her surname without her having been the one to tell it to you.  
She hadn’t been super willing to even give you her first, and no wonder! It’s the single name that’s plastered on her shirt, it’s the name she’s known mononymously as. She’s women’s football’s answer to Beyoncé, Adele. 
Of course, she didn’t want to kiss you in front of people in the café, out there on the streets. It’ll be why she only kissed your cheek in front of the taxi driver. She probably is a little liar, because she almost certainly wasn’t giving directions to people when they approached you both. She presumably isn’t old friends with the two men who wanted a photo with her. They all just know who she is. The whole damn city of Barcelona knows exactly who she is.  
Maybe she was testing you, waiting for you to crack, to confess to knowing everything about her. How couldn’t you know about her? How unbelievably rude of you.  
She’s a celebrity footballer, and you’ve treated her like she’s one of the most normal people in the world. You’ve flirted with her, teased her, kissed her, slept with her, and she’s welcomed it all with that adorable little smirk.  
So, maybe she’s liked that you didn’t know, that you really had no idea about who she was at all. You can’t have had any preconceived thoughts about the woman when you’ve had no prior knowledge about her. Perhaps it’s been part of the fun for her, just being with someone who really couldn’t care about the noise surrounding her. Maybe that’s the reason she didn’t really want you knowing about it. Her fame could have changed things, pushed you away.  
It wouldn’t have. She’d have to do something intrinsically evil to frighten you off. Especially now, after the afternoon you’ve just spent together, learning more, and falling deeper for her. She’s still just the woman that baffled you with a lime in a nightclub, wound you up by kissing someone else. Rescued you from a night of undeniable regret, and turned it into the start of something magical.
She’s your once-in-a-lifetime connection, your confusing, and frustrating, perfect one-night stand companion. She’s the woman that's turned your whole world on its head, and it just turns out, that she quite likes to kick a ball around, with a bunch of other women for a living, and people from all over the world, have been watching her excel at it for years.
She has to know that you’ll have found out already, you’ve told her your sister’s football obsessed. Even if your sister didn’t know who she is, there’s bound to be other people wearing her name on their backs tomorrow. Probably not many of them were given their shirts by the woman herself. There’ll be even less of them with one of her sweatshirts in their bag.  
Maybe she’s excited for you to connect all the pieces together. Giving you her shirt was far too bold a move for her to still not want you to know. She’d have just talked you out of going to the game, if that was the case.  
She wants you there, being a very daring rebel, with her name boldly resting between your shoulder blades, rooting for her and Barcelona, right in the middle of the Chelsea fans. You’ll probably stand out like a sore thumb with your red stripes in the sea of blue you’ll be standing in, and maybe that’s exactly what she’s hoping for. She had ‘no doubt’ that you'd see each other again, after all. 
“She’s the best player on the team?” You ask your sister dreamily, collapsing back down on the bed and clinging to the shirt in your hand as you hold it against your body.  
“Mhmm. Best in the world.” She tells you, and there’s that exhilarating little thrill shooting right up through your body.  
“Oof. I’ll tell Sam Kerr you said that!”  
She scoffs to the side of you and flicks your forehead playfully. You lift Alexia’s shirt, holding it out in between your fingers to study her name again in disbelief.  
You're falling in love, with the ‘best in the world,’ and she seems to be falling for you, too. A little nobody from London, who’s spent the past month pining after who she thought, was a little nobody from Spain. She’s once again turned your whole damn world on its head.  
She really is absolutely everything.  
“I will hate you if you wear that thing tomorrow.” Your sister warns you, as she hits the shirt with the back of her hand. “I offered you a Chelsea shirt and you gagged at it!” 
“I’ve not gagged at this one.” You point out with a grin. “It’s a shame you won’t be friends with me tomorrow.” You tell her, resting the shirt back out over your torso.  
“You can’t wear it!” 
“I bloody can, and I very much will.” You inform her. “You should rethink wearing a Chelsea shirt. You’ll be very disappointed when we beat you tomorrow.” 
“‘We?’ You really are a twat. You’re Barcelona’s biggest fan all of a sudden?” 
“Too bloody right, I am!” You tell her decidedly, hugging the shirt against you. “I’ve always loved football, me.” 
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whaledenwtf · 5 months
Note
Can I request headcanons for Astarion, Gale, Wyll, and Halsin react to Karlach telling him that his gn crush likes him too but they're too shy to confess?
YES!!! I'm sorry this took so long, but its been in queue this whole time Love this idea!!
REQUEST HERE BG3 Masterlist
Headcannons: Astarion, Gale, Wyll and Halsin reacting to Karlach telling him that gn!reader likes them back but they are too shy
Warnings: None. This is just fluff and cuteness
I tried to write as much as possible but the way Halsin as a character is... I wrote it shorter considering he seeks you out in game, and wouldn't hesitate to do so in this case either. First time I write Wyll too, so I hope I gave his character justice 💞
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Astarion
He felt frustrated for the longest time. How can his flirting not get to you?
He's been trying so hard to get you under his thumb.
Gods why aren't you being seduced
He sees those little blushes and rapid heartbeat so he knows it affects you.
Admittedly, he started falling for you because you weren't jumping his bones.
This man is broken, but with you he feels mendable.
He begins to slow down with the flirting, but his gazes went from calculating to longing.
Its so embarrassing that Karlach speaks up
"When will you realize they like you? Aren't you supposed to have sharp senses? Some kind of vampire you are..." She tells him one day, while they were at camp.
He drops his dagger, almost stabbing his foot.
"I'll choose to ignore that last part. Repeat what you said." He asks her again.
"They. Like. You. Too." She told him, grinning. His eyes widen at the revelation.
"I couldn't wait anymore. I feel so much better now that I've gotten that out of my system. I hate keeping secrets." She turns around, speaking to no one in particular as she walks away.
He felt... elated. You like him back!
He considers what this means for his future.
On the one hand, you could be by his side. On the other, he feels this sense of worry. Between his undead nature, and your very much not undead nature, what will that mean for you both.
He cards a hand through his curls, sighing.
He might be getting ahead of himself! After all, you still don't know that he knows that you like him.
Maybe he should say something?
He ponders what to do for the rest of the day, distracted.
Gale
Oh gods, he was so nervous around you
He tried flirting, but the things he said were so embarrassing
He still can't believe he said he likes your musk
That one-liner haunts his dreams- well nightmares
He sees how easily you flirt back with Astarion and it makes him feel... insecure (much more than he currently is)
Everytime he tries to convey his adoration for you, he says something awkward and all you can do is blush
He thought you liked what he was saying, but you haven't responded to any of his adoration
Oh Mystra, what if you blush because you're embarrassed of him
He is trailing behind the group by a couple paces, clenching and unclenching his fists with a frown on his face
"What's the problem?" Karlach whispers into his ear.
He jumps in fear, snapping out of his sad thoughts.
"Oh, Karlach! Just pondering some things..." He can't help but look at your back longingly. Karlach hums, grinning.
"Do your problems involve a special leader of ours?" She says normally. The distance has grown enough between the two and the rest of your group, but it doesn't help Gale's anxieties.
"Keep your voice down! Please." He whisper shouts. Karlach raises her hands in the air, surrendering.
"I don't understand why you're so worried Gale, they like you too." His head snaps to Karlach, his eyes searching for any deceit in her words.
"I'm sorry?" Karlach furrows her brows.
"You're forgiven?" He shakes his head.
"I was asking you to repeat yourself." He says tiredly. Her eyebrows raise.
"Oh! Well, (Y/N) likes you too."
"And how do you know this?" Karlach rubs the back of her neck.
"A birdie told me."
"A birdie." He says, deadpanned.
"Fine. It was (Y/N)." She says quietly.
Truth! And from the source, no less!
Oh gods, he was elated! Maybe he should think of other things to say to you.
Karlach leaves him be as he goes back to pondering what he should say to you.
"Your musk reminds me of home" He thinks this one's good. Until he remembers he lives next to the ocean.
I don't think they would like to be compared to fish...
Back to square one
Wyll
He really tried, the poor thing
He compares you to the most wonderful of things
The sun, the moon, the warm summer air, the cool nights filled with music and soft spoken words
He himself said he'd like to take things slow, and he is.
He'd just appreciate knowing if you felt the same way.
Today you were all traversing the woods surrounding the Emerald Grove, trying to find answers to the worms inside your skulls.
He was walking alongside Karlach, a companionable silence between them.
"You know... there's been some romances in our group recently." His ears perk at her words.
"Oh really?" He couldn't help being curious. Romance is such a beautiful thing, especially in perilous times like these.
"Shadowheart and Lae'zel... Astarion and Halsin. There's also (Y/N)-" She cuts herself off, throwing her hand over her mouth to stop talking. His head snaps to her, looking at her.
"Our leader has found romance?" He tries to ask coolly, but he can't help but feel slightly hurt.
"Well- I mean... They have a crush on someone." Wyll's heart clenches at the thought. Was it Gale? Maybe it's Karlach-
"That's... good." Karlach bites her lip.
"They told me, and now I feel like a bad friend for spilling their secret..." He furrows his brows, thinking about who you may have a crush on. What if it was on Astarion? Or Halsin... He couldn't compete with all that muscle-
"At least I didn't say they had a crush on you-" Karlach says, trying to calm herself down. When she realizes what she said, she slaps her hand over her mouth again. Wyll's eyes widen.
"They do?" He feels hopeful, for the first time in a long time.
She nods, hand still covering her mouth.
Wyll looks around, making sure no one is listening, before whispering to Karlach.
"I like them too." She squeals into her hand, jumping up and down in excitement.
He walks around with a newfound confidence, and makes sure to stay close to you and talk.
He never realized how much you blushed when he spoke to you, and it was adorable.
Halsin
He tried to be so delicate with you since he knew he was.. a lot
He may be an animal to some extent but he saw how delicate you were
He'd call you his little flower, and you'd always blush
Your shy nature made him unsure if you liked him
He was confident, sometimes stupidly so, as evident from his scars
He really should have known about bear mating season
He spent most of time in camp pacing back and forth, thinking
Despite the Shadowcurse taking up most of his headspace, like Selune, you were a guiding light in his thoughts
He loved your laugh, the crinkles by your eyes, the face you make when you're pondering something.
He would always stare and watch you in amazement.
Apparently his affections were too noticeable, considering Karlach of all people came up to him.
"Gods, I can't believe I have to be a messenger" was the first thing he heard, with the crunch of her boots on fallen foliage.
She walks into his view and waves at him.
"Hello-"
"They like you too." She said before walking away.
His eyes widen at her, before he processes the words.
They... like him too
Nobody has ever seen the gargantuan elf run so quickly in their time together.
He picks you up and spins you around, laughing loudly.
"They didn't ask you to tell him, did they?" Shadowheart whispers to Karlach as they watch them spinning and laughing loudly.
"No. I was just tired of the longing looks." Karlach tells her, smiling at her skillful execution as Cupid.
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fayes-fics · 1 year
Text
Lessons in Breeding
Lessons Masterpost PREV | NEXT
Pairings: Anthony Bridgerton x fem!reader, Benedict Bridgerton x fem!reader (threesome)
Summary: Fifth story in the Regency Lessons series and it's time-jump time. Things have progressed with our throuple and the Bridgerton Bros are in a race to impregnate their lady…
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Warnings: 18+ smut, minors DNI, MMF threesome, BREEDING KINK off the bloody charts, pregnancy kink, dirty talk, oral sex (m to f), light bondage, filthy baby-making vaginal sex, dom/sub dynamics. Emotions, talk of marriages, established throuple dynamics.
Word Count: 5.4k
Authors Note: This is set in Lessons universe, but at least a year after the previous instalment. If pregnancy or babymaking isn't your thing, please don't read this. This is a very belated birthday request fill for @iboopedyournose. I hope you like the way I've interpreted your request for breeding kink threesome with bondage. Thanks to @colettebronte and @chaoticcalzoneranchsports for betaing. Enjoy! <3
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You pause in front of the portrait of a naked pregnant woman, taking a sip of your champagne. The intimate parts of her are mostly obscured behind translucent silks. Her pregnant belly is bare as she cradles it proudly, her skin glowing; everything about her looks almost ethereal yet so earthy and powerful. It is such a provocative piece you can understand why it is only being shown at private parties such as this one, hosted by Mr Granville.
“Like what you see?” the dusky voice suddenly at your right ear asks.
You inhale sharply, instantly responding to the mere sound of his voice, something very Pavlovian in it. “Yes, I think she looks beautiful,” you reply quietly, tamping down your need to throw yourself into him, begging for his fingers in your mouth.
“She does indeed,” he is standing so close behind you can feel the heat radiating off him through his shirt. “Would you like to look like that? Swollen so beautifully with a baby?”
It's not something you have thought about much beyond the abstract idea that you wish for children someday. But then, so many things in your life are about to change, and this could be one.
“Maybe,” you deflect.
Large hands encircle your waist. “Mmm, just imagine,” he begins, his chest pressing warm on your spine. “How beautiful you would look, your belly all rounded,” his hands slide up and cup your chest as you moan lightly. “Your breasts so full, and oh gosh,” one hand slides down to the apex of your thighs, cradling it through your dress, “the smell and taste of you, so ripe, so juicy. You would be divine,” he assures.
“Stop,” you scold gently, but it's too breathy, the carnal images he so easily paints with his words haunting you as you rock in his arms.
“Would you like me to impregnate you, my darling?” he murmurs, his teeth pulling at your earlobe. “I could fuck you so hard and deep and leave my seed inside you. Over and over. And you know my brother would do the same in a heartbeat.”
Your breath quickens at the thought. They have always been careful to ensure they do not release inside you; it's a strict pact you have in place that they have always respected and obeyed. But perhaps that may change with what is impending.
“My husband-to-be, you mean,” your eyes cut sideways, and he stiffens.
“Yes, of course, I sometimes forget you are soon to be the Viscountess,” he bows his head, a flare of something in his eyes you know is jealousy.
“Benedict…” you sigh, sensing he needs reassurance; you pull him into a quiet alcove. “You know this is the only way the three of us can be together, for always. I love you just as much,” you vow quietly, touching his cheek. “But you know well I cannot marry you both, at least not in the eyes of the law. There would be many questions if Anthony were to remain unwed much longer. You know it is much easier for you to live with us as an apparent bachelor at Aubrey Hall than any other arrangement.”
All the facts you lay out, well known to you both, don’t stop the imploring look he gives you. 
“I will marry you symbolically in a ceremony in the woods, down by the lake,” you whisper, appealing to his bohemian romantic side. “I will wear your ring proudly, too,” you promise. “I am as much yours as I am his. And always will be. I cannot be without either of you.”
He beams and crowds into you, sliding his lips down your neck.
“And yes, I will bear your children, my love,” you sigh as his actions make you pliant in his hands, as they always do. You grab his face to ensure he meets your gaze, his eyes dancing. “Nothing would make me prouder than bearing both of your babies, so yes, my love, the answer is yes.”
You moan gently as he kisses fire across your skin, and your eyes drift back to the painting, the idea of being fertile, ripe, burgeoning with life somehow suddenly so alluring. 
——
“Anthony…” you call, but he does not respond; he probably cannot hear you above the whirlwind of activity around him. “ANTHONY!” you repeat, raising your voice, and suddenly, the hubbub of movement and noise in the room ceases.
His eyes meet yours and flash. “Everyone leave the room at once,” he orders to the hordes of people doing god knows what, “my fiancee wishes to speak with me.”
You watch as all the people scurry from the room as if burned.
“There was no need to send them away quite so abruptly, my love,” you state gently.
“Is this not an occasion where you wish me to throw you upon my desk and rut you so hard you scream?” he flirts outrageously.
“For once,” you respond airily, “it is not.”
“Tis a pity,” he smirks, then perches against the desk, crossing his legs and arms. “Then what can I do for you, my love?”
“I want you to make me with child,” you just go straight to the point. He usually appreciates bluntness.
He drops the heavy accounts ledger he is holding, and it slams to the ground with an echoing thump.
“Correction, I want you AND Benedict to make me with child,” you amend.
“What on earth brought this on?” his tone warm but intrigued, ignoring the ledger completely.
“That art party we went to last night?” you offer casually. “There was a scandalous but beautiful portrait of a pregnant naked woman.”
“Did he fuck you in front of it and give you some ideas?” Anthony sighs with fond exasperation.
“No,” you giggle, “for once, he did not.”
“But Tuesday is your night alone together?” Anthony frowns. “Don’t tell me he shirked his duty? I am his older brother. I can have words….”
“Oh, he more than performed his duty, just not in front of the painting,” you clarify.
“In front of one of his paintings, then?” Anthony guesses.
And you giggle again. “Carriage, on the way home.”
“Figures,” Anthony rolls his eyes, “does he ever do it in a bed?”
“Not if he can help it,” you wink, and he laughs.
Then schools his face more serious. “So you want a baby?”
“I want both of your babies. I’d certainly be open to us all getting some good practice in tomorrow,” you shrug playfully.
“I have absolutely no problem with that,” his voice drops low as he raises a sultry eyebrow. “And the desk offer still stands if you want a warm-up?” he concludes, breaking into a handsome smirk.
“It’s Wednesday, our rest day; I have dinner plans with my dear friend Lady Eleanor,” you shake your head fondly. “Plus, I cannot give you a head start, darling; that wouldn’t be fair to Benedict,” you tease. “You can sort it out between yourselves for tomorrow.”
“Why do we have a rest day?” he pouts.
“You know full well, with three people, it is much easier to schedule around six days. I can go one day without either of you, you know,” rolling your eyes lovingly.
“Such a pity,” he sighs in mock annoyance.
“It is just for today, darling, and tomorrow you may complete inside me, so there’s that to look forward to…” and you breeze out of the room, blowing him a kiss.
——
Thursday night is one of your two nights a week with both of your wonderful men. 
You spend the early evening bathing in luxury soaps with your favourite scents, readying yourself for a night of untold pleasures. Sometimes you all meet in the bedroom, sometimes in the blue room, and other times, like tonight, you agree to al fresco. You cannot wait to play by the lake under the mid-summer moonlight.
You slip on an ivory silk robe and nothing else except the lariat body chains they each gave you. Dainty gold chains with their initials that wrap around your waist, the A and B matching charms hanging low over your belly, grazing your thatch of hair below—a secret you wear every day unseen beneath your usual clothing.
It’s a balmy evening as you approach the water's edge. There is already a soft blanket laid out and a decanter of brandy with three glasses—Anthony has ensured the staff have prepared for the evening. But neither man is to be seen yet. You settle on the blanket and pour yourself a snifter, enjoying the gentle roar of oil lantern flames dancing in the breeze set out on surrounding stakes.
This evening will be a first, letting them both leave their seed within you. Even though you have been together as a threesome for more than a year and done countless wonderful sensual things together, this is a huge step towards something new. You don’t expect to get pregnant on this first attempt, but the idea is beguiling nonetheless.
You pull open your robe and massage your as-yet-empty belly. Running your hands in swirls, imagining what it might be like to watch it grow and swell with a child—the ability to bring life into the world something so elemental and heavenly all at once. To sustain life through the wonder of your body swirls in your mind as you untie your robe and grab your breasts. 
“I see someone started the party already, brother,” a familiar silky voice rings out, and your eyes pop open to see both of them standing there, watching you lasciviously. They are shirtless and only wear britches slung low around their hips, acres of lithe muscle and supple skin.
“Is that not our job, darling?” Anthony chimes in after his brother, already unbuttoning.
“Not that we aren’t enjoying the show,” Benedict adds pointedly, nudging Anthony as if to shut him up, and follows suit, removing his trousers.
When they both let their britches fall to the ground, you moan, seeing them both in all their resplendent naked glory, already half hard and looking so utterly delicious part of you wants to get on your knees and take them into your mouths. You go to crawl towards them, but Antony holds up a halting hand. 
“Stay right where you are, lay back; tonight is about your pleasure, darling,” he practically purrs. 
Your eyes flash with desire, and you do as told, removing your robe and laying back again, fully nude, running fingertips down the centre line of your torso, fingers playing with their jewelled charms that rest atop your lower belly.
“Then get down here,” you exhale, knowing their gaze is locked on your fingers as you slip them between your thighs.
They drop onto the blanket with you, the light breeze ruffling their chestnut locks. Both are so achingly beautiful with those strong Bridgerton genes. You can’t wait to bear a baby, babies, that look just like them.
They exchange a glance, and it’s their shorthand again—where they silently communicate how they will destroy you masterfully moment by moment. Benedict surges up and captures your lips in a passionate all-consuming kiss as Anthony slips between your legs, pulling your hand away and throwing your feet over his shoulders. Forcing your legs out wide, he laps a determined, deep plough of tongue all the way from the base of your slit up to your pulsing clit. It has you calling loudly into his brother's mouth.
“You taste fertile, my darling wife-to-be,” Anthony groans lewdly and pointedly, and you can’t help but giggle across Benedict’s lips. 
“I am certain he is right,” Benedict smiles affectionately, swallowing your noises. “I swear I can smell the difference when you are ripe for us. Your scent is just a little headier, muskier; it makes my cock even harder than normal,” he ponders, kissing across your face as he utters his trademark filth. He knows just a few choice words can have you ready for him—every single damn time. 
Anthony’s hand strays up to play with your belly charms as his tongue unfurls its magic. It doesn’t matter that you are with these two men, individually and together, multiple times a week; they never fail to arouse you to the point of aching with just a few expertly deployed moves. Their tongues, whether talking dirty or teasing your body, are your favourite part of them. Benedict shuffles lower and sucks one of your nipples into his mouth. Oh god, yes, it’s definitely their tongues. 
“Darling, are we playing tonight, or are we just us?” Benedict asks, looking up from your chest with gentle eyes. Sometimes you like to play with your power dynamic and use your titles, other times since you have grown closer, you are just yourselves, no masks, no games, just you, Ant and Ben, your affectionate shortened names for them.
You stop Anthony’s ministrations between your legs with a tap on his shoulder, wanting his full attention on this question that Benedict poses.
“What would you prefer, my loves?” You ask them, ruffling Benedict's hair, enjoying the feel of its thickness running between your fingers and squeezing Anthony’s shoulder lovingly.
“I want to be Ben, just your husband-to-be,” Benedict says quietly, and you can’t help the little smile that breaks out. “This is where we will get married,” he asserts, looking around, “under the stars, just like this.”
“Yes, my darling,” you confirm happily, “I want that.”
“How about you, Ant, my love? Would you like to be you, or perhaps my lord or my beautiful boy?” you inquire.
“I want to be Ant, your fiancé,” he nods in agreement with Benedict’s idea. “Tonight, my darling wife-to-be, the only lesson is how to breed you like the wondrous Bridgerton you are about to become.”
“Breed me?” You inhale, wanting to be insulted by the term but finding it makes your clit burn hot.
“Oh yes,” Benedict chimes in, “we are going to breed you, darling. You will sire a whole house of Bridgertons. You will never be without our seed—it will be dripping from you every day.”
“Ben,” you stutter, grabbing his bicep as your whole cunt is suddenly slick and pulsing at his crude language. “Tell me more.” 
His responding grin is predatory as Anthony chuckles and slinks back between your legs.
“Do you know how many bedrooms there are in Aubrey Hall?” Benedict’s voice is a gentle tease as his nose runs teasing patterns over the swell of your breast.
“I don’t,” you admit, honestly.
“Twenty-four,” Anthony answers for you from between your thighs as he sucks a line down from your inner knee.
“Even with all of our siblings and their future children visiting, that still leaves at least, hmm, twelve bedrooms just going to waste. Until we fill them with our little brood.” 
“Benedict, I am not birthing twelve children,” you gasp, half in shock at the very thought, half because Anthony’s tongue curls rough around your clit. 
“Maybe not,” he admits, kissing across to your other breast, “but I think we should at least try….”
“Six each, brother?” Anthony chuckles, joining in,  lifting his head and resting his chin on your pubic hair, shooting a killer smile.
“Get back there. Have you not heard that female pleasure aids conception?” you challenge, raising an eyebrow.
“Then we will have to make you come at least twice tonight; ‘tis the most prudent path to double our chances,” Anthony retorts with a wink sinking down with a devilish look on his face before his tongue makes you cry out, and Benedict's teeth graze over your nipple, making you cant up into his mouth.
“You’ll have to carry me all the way back to the house if I have many more than that, remember,” you warn, bemused.
“Darling, I would carry you to the ends of the earth and back,” Benedict pledges, the romantic poetry just pouring from him as he surges up and kisses your lips, plundering your mouth with his tongue. “You have bewitched me. Since that very first day in my brother's study, I have been yours.”
Benedict is always more emotional and partial to declarations of love than his brother, whose feelings run just as deep but does not effuse about it so openly—preferring to express his adoration privately and through beautiful, thoughtful gifts.
“Save it for your individual days, brother,” Anthony hums drolly over your flesh. “We have a very special job to do tonight.”
“Indeed we do,” Benedict concurs, picking up one of your hands and entwining your fingers with his.
Then their efforts become more focussed as Anthony sucks your engorged nub deep into his mouth, moans vibrating your sensitive bud as Benedict bites your nipple in just that way you like—an insistent suckling hold that pulls your skin taunt and is a line right down to your throbbing clit being so utterly wrecked by Anthony.
It always stuns you how quickly these two, working in tandem, can rocket you so high, so dizzyingly fast. You are vaguely aware your hands are in both of their hair as you climb so high. Eyes screwed shut as they both mouth filthy encouragements into your skin.
“Come on, darling,” Anthony pleads, “I want to feel you drench my face.”
“Do not stop,” you chant repeatedly, twisting luscious strands of chestnut locks around your fingers.
Benedict’s lips are hot on your ear, biting the lobe as he senses you are so close. “Break for him,” he breathes, “come on, my love, give him that sweet nectar to drink.” 
The filthy poet never fails to give you that extra nudge, and sure enough, with a staccato of breaths, they have to hold you down as you fight to buck against the convulsions deep inside.
Anthony growls at you to stay still, even though you know he loves it when you writhe over his face, his jaw clamped hard between your spasming thighs.
“Does that feel so good?” Benedict’s silky voice vibrates your ear.
“Yes, oh god, I need one of you inside me, please,” you twist to look into his face as beseeching as you can, still flushed and mindless from your orgasm. “But please tie my hands first,” you stutter breathlessly, offering your wrists up to him, pressed together. “Above my head.”
“I thought we were not playing tonight?” Anthony says quietly as he lands on the blanket beside you, his face shining with your juices.
“Please, just, please,” you beg, turning to him, “I need it. Use your chains.”
As they flank your body, both of them make a low noise at the idea of binding your hands with your golden chains that bear their initials. 
Benedict’s large hand slides down your dewy torso and into your thatch of hair. Then slowly, while you pant lightly and keep your eyes locked on Anthony’s intense stare, Benefict unhooks one chain and tugs it gently from around the dip of your waist.
“Your turn,” he says quietly to Anthony, and you realise they are removing their own chains. Somehow that choice makes you burn even hotter for them, squirming slightly. 
Anthony’s hand follows the same path as you breath heavy and hold Benedict’s gaze this time as Anthony unhooks the chain with the A charm and drags it up along your skin, a corner of the letter scraping gently over your flesh, catching your nipple as you gasp.
Then they take an arm each, raising them above your head. Both then bind your wrists as your gaze flits between them, watching their handsome faces.
“Thank you,” your murmur reverential, testing the hold and feeling the precious metal bite into your flesh as they both dive in for a heated kiss, Anthony reaching you first and Benedict settling on your neck until they can swap positions. It’s a deep kiss that is musky and sweet with the taste and scent of your climax.
“Who gets the privilege of being first, my love?” Benedict asks silkily.
“You do, Ben,” you whisper, and his whole face lights up. So often used to being second.
You turn to Anthony as Benedict shifts to lay between your legs. “Thank you, my darling Ant, for my wonderful orgasm,” you compliment and watch as his face turns boyish with pride.
You cry out as Benedict spears into you, splitting your open, causing the gentle ripples of your orgasm to flare again, and he drops his head onto your breastbone.
“Christ, there is nothing like your little fluttering cunt is there?” he groans into your flesh.
“Give it to me, Ben,” you twist from kissing Anthony to declare. Then turn back, desperate for more hot kisses.
His tip feels somehow harsher than normal, a hot spike as he begins to move, your walls clinging to him almost vice-like. It feels so good your eyes roll, and your mouth goes slack against Anthony’s. 
He brushes a gentle hand through your hair, watching you through hooded eyes, gently murmuring praise and compliments as you take Benedict's hard thrusts.
“We will plant our seeds, darling, deep in here,” Anthony breathes, a hand sliding down to your belly just above where Benedict’s body meets yours as he surges into you. “Do you want that?”
“Yess,” you hiss, mesmerised, fingers twirling in your own hair, “please.”
“Oh, our perfect little broodmare,” Anthony exhales shakily, surging his leaking cock against the hip he holds open for his little brother, who now curls down over you, biting a nipple. “Do you know how proud we will be? Making your beautiful body swell, your breasts growing so large and sensitive, your belly growing round. With our baby. A little Bridgerton. Or maybe more. We want to plant you with two babies right now, one for me and one for my little brother. Can you do that, darling, for us? Take our seed so good?”
“Yes, Anthony,” you pant, utterly enthralled by his filthy talk. That is usually the expertise of the man now biting your nipples and growling as he fucks you so harshly that your body jerks on the cotton blanket you lay on.
“Let him,” Anthony continues with slightly gritted teeth, “let him fuck you harder than he ever has before.”
“Yes, my lord,” you answer, under his spell, and his nostrils flare as you use the title you call him in play.
He curses, then grabs one of your chain-bound wrists above your head, fingers sliding possessively between yours and forcing the back of your hand down onto the ground. 
“Yes, that's it, do as you are told, little one,” he growls through clenched teeth. 
And you feel a frisson of something frantic, like you all need something with a little edge. A gust of breeze flutters over your skin and leaves quiver on the trees around you. 
“Fuck her harder, brother,” Anthony orders into your clavicle, and you feel it buzz into your bones.
Benedict growls in response and hooks the leg, not being held by Anthony over his flexed forearm. Pulling you open more, feeling so vulnerable, your hands bound, your legs held obscenely wide open by each. 
Suddenly the moment feels charged as Benedict snaps his hips so forcefully that you whimper on every stroke, revelling in the sweat splashing from his damp forehead curls onto your breasts. Anthony is sucking on your neck with almost painful intensity as Benedict drops down and bites your flesh over your tricep, making you writhe and call his name. The gold chains binding your wrists dig into your flesh as you move, bringing an edge that just pushes you higher.
You encourage him, calling him sir, begging for more, squeezing his cock with your pelvic muscles as he pounds into you mercilessly. And that constriction is the catalyst he needs. He curses long and low, feeling huge as he spears so deep he nudges your hilt, and you sense a change in him that usually signals his withdrawal. This time his eyes fly open, pupils blown, and expression wild as he grabs your jaw firmly.
“Are you ready?” He barks possessively. 
“Yes,” you hiss, realising he is going to climax without waiting for you.
His last few hot desperate thrusts are so harsh your whole insides feel rearranged. Then he stills, and for the first time, you hear that guttural groan right into your ear as he begins to spill inside you, a hot wave that blooms deep inside, feeling like so much more than he has ever come before. It’s a new sensation and feels just wonderful.
“Yes, take it all, my darling girl,” he shudders, and that gravelly tone pulls you over a small edge, you clamping down on his spurting cock as he groans and spasms into you some more, hipbones digging into your inner thighs. His weight is almost crushing as he becomes motionless, your thighs burning from the stretch.
“That’s it,” Anthony whispers against your temple, “lay still and open, darling, let his seed into your womb.” 
Those words echo drowsily in your head as you feel Benedict’s cock gradually soften inside you, and he slips out slowly with a slick tide of juices that run down over your bottom cheeks.
“Fucking babies into you is my new favourite thing. Do you have any idea how exquisite it is to come inside you? Fill you up? I never want to come anywhere else ever again.” Benedict gusts as he falls to one side of you, still breathing heavily, and you realise it's a novel experience for him too. “God, I love you,” he admits shakily, landing a kiss on your cheek.
“I love you too. Thank you for my baby Benedict,” you nuzzle his face and kiss him sweetly as his body relaxes, utterly spent.
You twist to look at Anthony, and his eyes sparkle as he climbs between your legs, his cock hard, glistening, and leaking in his fist. “Are you ready?” 
“Yes, my lord,” you answer.
He thrusts into your soaking cunt, still leaking profusely from Benedict. He feels even larger and harsher somehow too, and on reflex, you clench around the invasion, feeling the verdant earth beneath your bottom and shoulder blades softened slightly by the blanket.
“My darling girl,” his voice ragged, broken. “You are so exquisitely puffy and swollen. That was quite the mounting you got, wasn’t it? Are you ready for more?”
You croak your assent, and then he begins to move. He isn’t slow. In fact, he starts pounding so hard you gasp, the sensation almost too much, and Benedict's hand slides into your hair, over your bound hands, and you clutch it as he rolls closer, nuzzling your face.
“Feel it all, my darling girl,” Benedict rumbles.
“I am, sir,” you nod and bite your lip. “I can even feel your seed inside me still,” you add with a moan, the chains on your wrist abraiding your skin, leaving marks.
“Good,” he gusts drowsily and warmly in your ear, a hand swirling patterns on your hip. “Let it in, darling, all the way in.”
As a cloud clears the moon, the atmosphere feels softer again, the frantic moment of before ebbing into something more profound; even as Anthony takes you hard, it’s more in an undulating wave, hitting your hilt with a rhythm that feels hypnotic, your cunt clinging to him like a glove, as Benedict's sonorous voice is back at your ear.
“That’s right, get ready, darling girl. We need you to keep this line going. In your belly, you will grow the next viscount. You will bare the heirs of this family. Just you, my wonderful wife-to-be.”
“I want all of your babies too, Benedict,” you breathe as Anthony ploughs on. “I want to give the world more like you. Talented creative, empathetic, loving souls who bring joy to every room.”
His eyes mist over as you declare your truth. “I love you so much it hurts,” he murmurs into your cheek, voice thick with emotion.
“I love you too,” you want to grab his face but can’t; instead, you seal your pact with a sweet, almost chaste kiss filled with affection; even as Anthony takes you towards a big blissful moment, you hope you will hit together.
“Now declare your love to him too,” Benedict orders softly, “you know he needs to hear it, maybe even more than me.”
You nod and turn all of your attention and heart to the Viscount. Still holding Benedict’s hand tangled in your hair, not wanting either to feel left out on this momentous night.
“Viscount Anthony Bridgerton,” you use his title and full name, your pleading tone making his eyes bore into yours. “I love you so much, my lord, my husband,” you state categorically.
He groans and falls over your body, covering you, his scent and heat all-encompassing.
“Darling darling wife, my Viscountess,” he exhales over your lips, his thrusts turning slow and languid, his hands grasping your thighs and pulling your legs up and out, utterly under his command, pinned. “I love you so much,” he sounds almost choked with emotion, and part of you wishes you had your hands to hold him to you.
“Do you want to be freed, my love?” Benedict asks softly, always seemingly able to intuit your needs before you even articulate them.
“Please,” you request, turning to give him a grateful peck as he reaches up and loosens both chains, leaving one delicately but loosely wrapped around each forearm, your wrists pulsing mildly as they are freed.
Instantly you move your arms, wrapping one around Anthony’s back, your nails and the gold chain scraping down his skin as your other hand rounds Benedict's shoulder and into his hair, stroking and petting.
Your hand sliding down, mapping his contours, over the swell of his muscular bottom makes Anthony groan and bite your neck, spearing deep into you as your nails dig in, tilting your pelvis and rocking him deeper into you until you feel that ache so far inside. 
Then he pushes up onto his hands and thrusts hard, setting a punishing pace. Every fibre of your being wants this, ratcheting high and fast as each stroke crushes your clit into your frame. Unable to form words except to curse and babble mindlessly. You feel your whole body tense, a release so imminent you grit your teeth and chase it hard.
“That’s it darling, come for me, milk me,” Antony commands, flicking a thumb over your clit, and you are gone.
Yelling and screaming as his cock is the solid mass you convulse around, your entire being spasming, and you feel Benedict’s firm grip, holding you down with a knee and large hands. Making you orgasm hard, entirely still, unable to writhe, all the sensation concentrated on where Anthony’s cock spears you open.
As the blood rushes in your ears, his teeth are biting on the cord of your neck, and with a few pumps, he releases with a throaty whine, pushing the deepest he has ever been, feeling like he piercing through your hilt.
He curses long, low guttural and again there is that bloom of viscous heat inside as he spills all his seed.
“Yes, my darling girl,” he slurs, “stay down, take it all,”
You cry out, and your instinct is to move, but both of them hold you down, so your fingers dig into flesh, and your toes curl as your body is thwarted from its shakes and shudders. Anthony’s weight is upon you as he recovers his breath, feeling even heavier than Benedict as he slumps,, panting into your neck.
“I understand what you mean now, brother,” his tone almost wonderous. “I do not wish to leave my seed anywhere else either, dear god; that was exquisite.” Delicately he pulls backwards so his softening cock slips out of your body, and you groan at the sensation, flopping your head blissfully on the blanket as he falls to your other side. 
The gentle sounds of nocturnal nature around you fill your ears as it is just your joint breathing, soothing hands running over you, soft kisses and little intimate moments where you whisper to both of your boys.
“We may have made a baby tonight, my darling husbands,” you murmur.
The look they both give you is brimming with love and appreciation as you curl into both, taking a hand from each of them and placing them over your heart as you drift to sleep, cocooned in their safe embrace.
Your boys. Forever, your boys.
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Anthony & Benedict taglists: @makaylan @foreverlonginguniverse @iboopedyournose @colettebronte @aintnuthinbutahounddog @severewobblerlightdragon @margofiore @writergirl-2001 @heeyyyou @enichole445 @enchantedbytomandhenry @ambitionspassionscoffee @chaoticcalzoneranchsports @nikaprincessofkattegat @baebee35 @crowleysqueenofhell @bridgertontess @queenofmean14 @fiction-is-life @lilacbeesworld @angels17324 @broooookiecrisp @queen-of-the-misfit-toys @eleanor-bradstreet @divaanya @musicismyoxygen84 @benedictspaintbrush @miindfucked @sorryallonsy @lilithseve @cayt0123 @hottytoddyhistory @elizah99 @truly-dionysus @fictionalmenloversblog @debheart @zinzysstuff @malpalgalz @amanda08319 @panhoeofmanyfandoms
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gingiesworld · 9 months
Text
I'll Never Leave You
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Requested
Wanda Maximoff x GN! Reader
Warnings: Fluff. Angst.
18+ MINORS DNI
Wanda remembers getting the phone call like it was yesterday. Although Vision had passed away almost seven years ago and she was now engaged. Moving forward with her life, she was happy. Although her past with her dead spouse haunted her.
Although Y/N was patient during the days that she still grieved the loss of her husband. They were slowly digging themselves deeper into a rut. Although Wanda and the twins had moved in with Y/N, they felt like an intruder in their own home.
Especially when they had tried to help Tommy when he got stuck with his Calculus homework.
"You're not my dad!" He yelled at them as their eyes widened. "You never will be and I hate you. I wish he was here and you died."
Y/N was shocked to say the least, instead of speaking with Tommy, they decided to go to their garage. They made themselves a make shift office their for their projects. Even sending an email to their boss to see if they were needed on an upcoming project soon. Knowing it would take more time away from home, if they can even call it that.
"Where are the twins?" Nat questioned as the two sat down for coffee.
"With Vis." She stated until she realised her mistake. "Y/N. They're with Y/N."
"Wanda, do you love them?" Nat questioned as Wanda just nodded.
"Of course I do." She stated. "I just still miss Vis sometimes and it hurts because the twins have had to grow up without their father too."
"I just, maybe this is unfair on Y/N." She reasoned as Wanda chuckled dryly.
"What do you mean?" She questioned her friend.
"I mean, Y/N is very understanding of the pain you've been through since losing Vision, but you're living in the past Wanda and it's not fair on them." Nat told her friend sternly.
"I'm not living in the past Natasha. Y/N and I are getting married." Wanda stated as Nat raised her brow.
"When?" She queried as Wanda came up empty. Since the moment she said yes, she hadn't even bothered to plan the wedding. "See? This isn't fair on them. I've seen how the twins treat them Wanda. They treat Y/N like dirt and I can see the toll it is taking on them."
"They would tell me." Wanda stated as Nat just laughed.
"No they wouldn't. They love you too much to upset you, but you don't love them enough." Nat told her as she looked at the time. "I have to get back to work but I will see you soon Wanda."
All Wanda could do was sit and think before she headed home. Although she loved Vision, she had a whole past with him before he was ripped away from her. But then she found Y/N when she never knew she needed someone, they were her light in the darkness. She was too afraid to let go of Vision and embrace the future she could have with Y/N.
"Where are you going?" She asked Y/N as she entered their shared room after seeing the twins on the sofa watching TV.
"I have a business trip." They told her as they packed their shirts. "I have been asked to consult on a project."
"How long for?" She questioned as Y/N shrugged.
"I am not sure. The project is only just starting and it is a pretty big one so I need to be in LA." They told her as she sighed sadly. She could see the walls they've put up to guard themselves as they spoke.
"We'll miss you." Wanda told them as they chuckled.
"I'll miss you." They kissed her softly before they headed to the bathroom for their toiletries. "But I know the twins won't bat an eyelid with me being gone." With that they bid their goodbye as Wanda remained in her spot. Wondering what they had meant by that. Looking around their shared room, smiling at a picture of the two of them last christmas at Nat's party. Pietro had had the twins so she and Y/N could have time to unwind.
It wasn't until she walked through the halls and noticed all of the photos that occupied the frames were of Vision, herself and the twins. None of Y/N. It seemed like they didn't even live there. Wanda also wanted to know what had happened to their photos so she went straight to the twins.
"Where are all of Y/N's photos?" She questioned the two 12 year olds.
"Dunno." Tommy remarked as Billy remained frozen in his spot.
"Tell me the truth because I had all of our photos packed away in albums other than a couple of the four of us together." Wanda told them as she turned off the television.
"They're not our dad!" Tommy yelled at her as Wanda's eyes widened at his outburst. "And they never will replace him."
"They don't want to replace him." Wanda told him softly. "They just want to be there for you both. Be someone that you can turn to for help. They don't intend to replace your memory of your father."
"But." Billy whispered as Tommy cried.
"I miss him." He sobbed as Wanda opened her arms for him.
"I know sweetie." She whispered as she gestured for Billy to join her. "But Y/N has tried their best to make this a home for all of us. They have tried so hard to be patient with the three of us, but it has been almost seven years since he died and I know it doesn't go away, but it does get easier."
"When is Y/N coming home?" Billy asked as Wanda shrugged.
"I don't know." She whispered as the two hugged her. "So please put their photos back in their frames."
"When can we apologise to them." Tommy questioned as Wanda gave him a smile.
"When they come home." She whispered. As the night went on, the photos were replaced as Wanda was also waiting on a call from Y/N. Wanting to know if they had gotten there safely.
Although Y/N had had the flight to LA booked, they still remained in their car in the car park. Watching as their flight soon took off as thet cried silently. They wanted so much to leave, drown themselves in work but they also loved Wanda so much, and her boys. They were the family they never really had and they are afraid to lose it.
So they sent a quick text to their boss, saying they were running late and needed to catch a later flight because of a family emergency. Then they drove as fast as they could home. Only Wanda and the boys on their mind. That was when everything happened so fast on the freeway.
It was early hours in the morning, Wanda was woken by a phone call. Her heart dropping at the deja vu.
"Hello." She answered wearily.
"Is this Wanda Maximoff?" They questioned.
"Yes." She whispered as she knew in some sense what this phone call could be.
"We have you listed as the emergency contact of Y/N Y/L/N. It appears they have been in a pile up on the freeway. They are currently in surgery right now." They informed her.
"What hospital are they in?" She asked as she started to get herself ready.
"New York Pres." They told her.
"I'll be there shortly." Wanda stated before hanging up and calling her brother. "How fast can you get here?"
"In 20 minutes." He answered tiredly. "Why?"
"Y/N has been in an accident." Wanda told him as she put her shoes on.
"Wanda." She could hear shuffling on the line.
"I'll be there as soon as I can." He told her. She sent a quick text to Nat, informing her of the situation. It didn't take long for both Pietro and Nat to arrive.
"I came as soon as I got the text." She told her as Pietro took his place on the sofa.
"Call me and let me know how they are." He told his twin as Nat ushered her out of the door.
"Are you ok?" Nat questioned as she drove.
"I don't know." She answered honestly. "That phone call brought back everything from Vis and I don't think I can go through that again."
"You won't." Nat told her sternly. "They are strong and I doubt an accident can take them down."
"I hope you're right." She whispered as she watched the buildings go by. As they parked in the hospital parking lot, the two quickly ran out of the car and to the reception. "Hi, we're here for Y/N Y/L/N, they were in a car accident."
"Ahh yes, they have just been put in their own room." The receptionist told them "They had just gotten out of surgery and the doctor will be able to tell you more. He will be here shortly."
"Ms Maximoff?" The doctor called out as Wanda nodded, stepping closer with Nat on her heels.
"Is Y/N going to be ok?" She asked him as he gave her a smile.
"They will be perfectly fine." He started to lead them to their room. "They had endured numerous superficial injuries and internal bleeding so we had to stop that. They also have a broken femur and will need intense physio once it is fully healed."
"When will they wake up?" Wanda questioned as the doctor smiled looking through the door.
"Take a look yourself." He opened the door allowing Wanda to walk inside. She gasped with tears in her eyes as her smile grew.
"You're alive." She whispered as she cupped their cheek hesitantly. "I was so scared. I thought I lost you. I can't lose you Y/N." She told them shakily as they smiled gently at her. Kissing her palm.
"I'll never leave you Wanda." They told her with certainty. "I love you so much."
"I love you too. So much." She pressed a kiss to their lips as her tears flowed freely. A weight had been relieved from her chest as she could breathe. Y/N is still here with her.
As the week went by, Pietro had been with the twins. Trying to keep them from making their own way to the hospital. That was until he got tired of it and ushered them into his car.
"Boys, what are you doing here?" Wanda questioned as the twins burst through the door.
"They wanted to see Y/N and quite frankly, I was getting sick of them." Pietro smirked as Wanda chuckled.
"We're so sorry for how we have been over the years Y/N." Billy told them as the two boys had tears in their eyes.
"Can you forgive us?" Tommy asked them as they just smiled at the twins.
"Of course." They smiled at the two. "I know I will never be your dad. I don't intend to replace him, but what I do intend to do is be there for you. The way he would want someone to be their for his family." They held Wanda's hand in their's as they continued. "I love this little family we have here, yeah all of those words hurt me. I am not going to lie there but I love your mom. I am in love with her and I know she may never love me the same as she did your dad but that's ok. I know that we love each other and we are willing to make this work. I don't want you to hide all of the pictures of your dad away. Maybe have one or two of him on the mantel and maybe make some room for new memories. The memories we will make together."
"That sounds perfect." Wanda whispered as Y/N smiled at her. The twins started to talk more with Y/N and they just listened to them. A silly smile on their face as they felt the love of their family around them.
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doe-eyed-fool · 3 months
Text
The Other Woman
Lucifer x Reader
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Warning(s): Suggestive themes, cheating, angst, very little comfort, bittersweet ending
It was a mistake. That's what he told himself. It was a mistake he'd never make again. It was stupid of him, and he never felt more guilty. He loved her, and that woman...
What happened between them, meant nothing. That night, it all happened so fast. It was in the heat of the moment, and he regretted first thing in the morning.
He couldn't bring himself to tell his love of what he's done. How he's betrayed her. And surely, if he were to tell her, she would leave him. And he would not have that.
So, that woman, he made her swear to keep that night a secret. She agreed, and for years the two never spoke of it.
Even when he married the love of his life, even when they eventually had a child together, he kept quiet. There were times, he'd forget it all together. But it would always come back, to remind him of what he's done eventually.
In the late hours of the night, when everything was quiet. That night would haunt him for all eternity.
He wished he could take it back. It meant nothing.
But if it meant nothing...why did he long to see her once more?
They were friends for the longest time. Perhaps that was why he missed her like he does...
And if it truly meant nothing to him, it did mean something to her. That woman. She could never forget that night, even if she wanted to. She held that memory with her for so many years.
Wishing then, that he would have chose her instead.
He tried to forget, but the way his name would come from her in heavy breaths and soft sighs...
The way she looked that night, the way her skin felt against his own...
It was still so fresh in his mind, making it that much harder to forget. Sometimes he'd wonder, if a part of him even wanted to forget. That somewhere deep down, he didn't regret that night.
But he would quickly dismiss the thought. Of course he regretted it. He didn't love her, like he did his wife. That woman meant nothing, nothing to him at all...
So, when the day came where she would once again be apart of his life, how would he feel about her then?
The reunion should have been a happy one, they hadn't seen each other for many years after all. And yet, when they met face to face, it couldn't have been more...empty.
They each had something, so many things to say. But neither of them could bring themself to speak their minds.
When the silence became too much, that woman finally spoke...
"I've missed you, Lucifer."
Lucifer felt something within him spark to life at those words.
"I missed you too, Y/n."
The same with her. Though, she could tell he wasn't entirely truthful. Yes, he did miss her. But he did not miss the feeling he'd give her, that she gave him then...
"I heard about Lilith...I'm so sorry. Did she find out?"
"No..." Lucifer muttered. "She just...left."
Y/n wanted nothing more than to embrace him then. How could Lilith leave him like that? Yes, he made a mistake, but as far as anyone knew, Lilith was unaware. Lucifer was a wonderful man. Lilith would be so lucky to have someone like him...
All these years, for nothing. Had Y/n known, it'd end like this between them. She would have tried harder to keep Lucifer for herself.
"Is that why you came back?" There was a slight bitterness in Lucifer's voice. "Because her and I are no longer together? You think this is your chance?"
Y/n would be a liar, if she said no. She didn't like seeing Lucifer like this. Clearly he loved Lilith with all of his heart. And as much as it pained Y/n to know that, she was not happy that she left him.
"I'm not looking to replace her, Y/n. I hope you understand that."
"Yes. I understand. But..."
But, what? What could she have said in this moment? 'But I wanted to see if I had even the tiniest chance to call you mine after thousands of years?'
No. She couldn't. As much as she wanted to. She couldn't.
"I just...really missed you. I couldn't go another year without seeing you, even if just for a little while. And I know you might not feel the same, but I wanted to see you way back then. I had hoped there would be a way for us to still be friends...But I understand that what we did...there's no taking it back. And I am sorry that I was the reason you had to lie for so long. But I'm not sorry for wanting you."
"Wanting me?" Lucifer began, a weak laugh left him. "And what now? You still want me now? Even when I didn't want you then? Even after all this time? Even knowing I still love Lilith?"
"I do." Y/n said simply. "You don't have to want me. But please...don't leave me again...I missed you more than anything Lucifer."
It still hurt, to know he still doesn't want her. That he still loves his ex wife. But she couldn't help the way she felt.
Lucifer sighed, moving his hand to his head. Y/n didn't miss the ring he still wore.
"I've lived for so long feeling guilty about what I've done. Not only that, but I was haunted by memories of that night. I can remember all of it, and I've never been more conflicted in my life. I missed you, I really did...more than I should have."
He continued.
"I felt guilty for lying to my wife...my daughter...yes, because I was disloyal. But more than that...I felt guilty for wanting to see you again, guilty for never truly regretting my choice." His gaze fell onto her. "There was nothing keeping me from not thinking right. I knew what was happening, and so did you...And I hate myself for it. Because...I didn't stop it, I didn't want to stop it from happening..."
Tears began to fill his eyes. "Y/n...I feel awful."
Y/n couldn't stand it, she brought Lucifer into a warm embrace. Lucifer didn't hesitate to return the embrace, his shoulders shook as he sniveled.
Y/n loved Lucifer, which is why it killed her to see him like this. And she was the cause of it all.
If she caused this turmoil, then she would make up for it. She would stay by Lucifer's side, trying to make up for all the pain she's caused.
So long as Y/n was there, she would remind him of how deep her love was for him.
She would never leave him. Even if Lucifer struggled to let himself give into those feelings he kept buried deep down. He might someday move on.
But he would never truly move on.
The ring he still wore was proof enough.
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eddiesxangel · 4 months
Text
Me and You? Together? | Eddie Munson x Best friend Reader
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Eddie Munson + You = BFFLS that’s all you’ll ever be… unless?
Cw: Angst? Small fluff, Queer!Eddie, reader uses she/her pronouns, open ending? One mention of the upside down (ikr who am I?)
wc:1.7k
I think the story needs more pages, yes I've been in love with her for ages 🎶
"Oh, you two are just the cutest couple in here." the older waitress with the retro yellow diner dress and apron with a name tag that read Judy, fawned over you and Eddie. However, you were quick to correct her.
"Oh no, no, just best friends," you lightheartedly giggle.
This stung Eddie. Friends. Best Friends. Two decades worth of friendship, and it haunts Eddie. That is all you'll ever be... Best Friends.
Not once had you shown an ounce of interest in being anything more, but Eddie, on the other hand, fell in love with you in stages throughout his life.
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When you were three years old, you moved to the trailer park where Eddie and his family lived. Being the only two kids, you were immediately drawn to one another. Eddie remembers that summer, the scorching summer sun beat down mercilessly on the trailer park as you both ran around in your underwear, laughing and shrieking, under the cool spray of the garden hose.
When you were both five, you had a "wedding" and promised one another vows. Eddie always remembered his promise to be your best friend and to always be your best friend. He told you he loved you, and you told him you loved him and sealed it with a small kiss and a slew of giggles. Your parents gushed about how adorable it was and how they couldn't wait for the real thing. Too bad Eddie's parents never would make it to the real thing.
As you both got a little older, around ten years old, you huddled together in your sleeping bags, whispering secrets and sharing stories that only best friends could tell. The sound of your laughter would fill the air, mingling with the chirping of the crickets and the rustling of the leaves. Your makeshift tent made out of bed sheets and sticks would only last so long as a barrier before you got scared of bats and earwigs, but Eddie promised to never let anything hurt you. He held your hand until you fell asleep.
When you and Eddie were twelve, and he struggled with his parents, you lent him your unwavering support and helped him weather the storm. You were his rock, his confidant, his best friend.
Eddie's world had begun to feel unfamiliar and uncertain during that period. Puberty had started to alter his body and yours, for that matter. Eddie saw the changes happening within you and within himself... He noticed how you got more attention from boys as your chest started blossoming and how he also longed for that attention. An ugly feeling would bloom in Eddie's gut and he hated it when the boys would stare at you or talk to you.
But you would never stray too far. Even with your first boyfriend, Eddie didn't understand why he hated the guy so much. He was a nice boy and never picked on Eddie like the others, but for the life of him, Eddie hated his guts. Especially when he would watch him hold your hand or kiss you on the cheek. He wanted that with you, but he also wanted to be you? He was so confused. He, too, wanted to hold your boyfriend’s hand and have him kiss him on the cheek, and that scared him.
Both your emotions lead to changes in the dynamics of your friendship, such as sleepovers. Previously, a fun and carefree activity had become different since it was now mandatory to sleep in separate rooms, a rule both your parents and Eddie's Uncle Wayne agreed upon. Yet, through the difficult times of teenage angst, you both powered through and came out stronger than ever.
When all the shit happened with the upsidedown a little over two years ago, you were at his bedside every day until the visiting hours were over, and the hospital had to physically kick you out; you would be back the second they started up again the next day. That was the last straw for Eddie. He could no longer deny his feelings for you anymore. He was in love with his best friend.
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"Oh well, that's too bad; if you ever change your mind, invite me to the wedding, okay?" She smiles and takes your orders to the kitchen.
When the waitress left, Eddie saw his window of opportunity.
"Hey, uh, what if I took you out?" Eddie fiddles with the paper straw wrapper.
"We are out, Stupid." You laugh.
"No, no, I mean, can I take you for a drink?" Eddie was never this anxious around you, and you noticed. Like something in the air had shifted.
"Like a drink?" you raise your brows.
"Uh... yeah." You had never seen Eddie so nervous with you before. Where was this coming from?
"Oh God, I'll have to think... We're friends, Eddie, I don't know? It-it doesn't feel right." This had caught you so off guard.
"It's cool... no, yeah,- I-I was just messin'," he waves off, and your heart alleviates.
"God Eddie! You really had me there." you laugh and Eddie's heart sinks, and you can see him slouch back into the booth. His body language completely shifted.
Fuck, how he hated this; you were the only one who ever made him feel right. You were it for him.
No matter how hard he tried, his mind would always wander back to the same vision of a future with you. He saw the two of you building a beautiful life together in his dreams. He imagined the joy of raising children with you, cooking together in the kitchen, and sharing parenting responsibilities. He could picture himself changing their diapers while you watched with a warm smile.
Visions of you going to the Winter Fair, which was not the most exciting event; he envisioned you, him and your hypothetical child going there every year, enjoying the festivities and watching the colourful lights glow in your eyes. These thoughts filled him with happiness, and he couldn't wait for them to become a reality.
Unfortunately, you have shot down any possibility of being more than friends with Eddie, not to hurt him but because you only see him as a friend. Never once had it ever crossed your mind to see Eddie as anything more. Honestly, you questioned his sexuality over the years.
One memory, in particular, flashed in your brain as you pondered on the possibility of Eddie being serious or just taking the piss?
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"Eddie, what are you doing?" You walked into your bedroom to see Eddie standing in the middle of your room, facing your full-length mirror.
"Oh, me? I liked your dress and wanted to see what it would look like on me? Kinda badass, no? Some may even say... metal?"
You can't help but laugh.
“Ed’s, you can’t even do it up; you’re going to rip it!”
“You’re being a hater… Imagine! Me on stage shredding to Ozzy in this?" He gestures to your floral church dress, which he’s paired with his black Converse all-stars. He’s always been flamboyant.
You can't help but roll your eyes. Your mom just bought you this dress.
“What, Sunshine?” He smirks.
“Ed’s, are you?-Is there something you want to tell me?” You bite your lip, not wanting him to freak out.
“You know me, sunshine! I’m just me,” he twirled and showed off his boxers.
“Okay, but if you ever wanna tell me anything, I’ll be here for you.”
“I know.” He smiled.
Sometimes, you wondered about Eddie... He never fully came out to you, and you never pressured him to do so because you loved him regardless. You wouldn’t ever have a chance with him; he’s your platonic soul mate. Sure, he’s handsome if you like that bad boy-leather-metalhead thing, but who’s to say you were even his type? You were a girl.
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When Eddie asked you out just now, you had no idea how to take it? He’s him, and you are you… you’ve been attached at the hip forever, but never did you think you’d cross the threshold? Did he want to cross it? Did you want to cross it?
He was so nervous as he asked you. His hands wouldn’t stop fiddling, and he fumbled his words. His breath got all gaspy, like when he was trying to brush off something that bothered him. Maybe he was being serious?
“Ed’s?”
“Yea?” You saw a glimmer of hope behind his eyes.
“Don’t you like… boys? I’ve never seen you-“
“It’s okay- lots of people think I’m gay, but it’s cool, right? We’re friends! Why would it not be?”
“No, no, of course, but you’ve-you’ve never been with a girl or at least that I know of? So I never thought… Really? Me and you? Together?”
“No, you wouldn’t have thought.” He bit back bitterly. “I know, I’m queer; you know I’ve always been different.”
“Ed’s, I’m sorry I just- I never thought of you like that because I’m a girl…”
“Ask me, Sunshine.”
“Ask you what?”
“You know.”
“Do you like girls?” You spit out.
“No, sunshine, I like you.”
“But you-"
“I know how I am!” He raised his voice. He never raised his voice. Not at you. “I don’t like conformity and social norms, and sure, I like men, and sure, I like to dress up in your clothes and like to put on your makeup, but fuck, I especially like it because that stuff belongs to you, I do it because I love you.” There he said it, finally he felt like the 100lb weight had been lifted off of his chest.
“Ed’s-“
“No! I love you, and I do it because I like it and to be close to you because you’re my whole world, sunshine, and if I can’t have you, I don’t know what I will do.” He reached out for your hand across the table, and you let him take it. Your fingers intertwine.
It was quiet for a moment. You needed to process. Things between you won’t be the same after this.
“Talk to me, Sunshine?”
“I just never thought this was an option between us, Eddie. I need time.
“I’ll wait for you; I’ve waited this long.”
You only stay in silence for a moment before Judy comes back around.
“Okay, kiddos, 2 burgers and fries, enjoy.” The waitress smiles and places your meal in front of you.
“Excuse me, Judy?” you call out.
“Yes, darling?” She turns back with a smile
“Can we see the drink menu?” You chide
“Coming right up”
218 notes · View notes
teyamsatan · 11 months
Text
𝕄𝕠𝕟𝕤𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝕀𝕟 𝕄𝕖 | ℂ𝕙𝕒𝕡𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝕍: 𝕋𝕙𝕚𝕤 𝕊𝕥𝕦𝕡𝕚𝕕 𝕋𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕘 ℂ𝕒𝕝𝕝𝕖𝕕 𝕃𝕠𝕧𝕖
Pairing: Neteyam x (f)Omaticaya!Reader
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synopsis: Memories flood Neteyam's mind as he deals with your accident, making him relieve your history and all the reasons he can't shake you from his life, no matter how hard he tries.
warnings: 18+ minors DNI, aged-up! Neteyam/Reader, enemies-to-lovers, angst (mentions of violence, battle, blood, death)
wc: 5.1k words
a/n: I'm actually really nervous about this chapter, because while I love it, it's different than any other Monster in Me chapter so far. This is also the only chapter I've ever written entirely from the MMC's POV, and I hope you enjoy finally finding out why Neteyam's been acting the way he has, and why he's so adamant in his quest for vengeance. As always, thank you for asking to be tagged, I'd love to hear your feedback, your replies and asks and reblogs make my life, so thank you! Thank you to @cinetrix for her amazing Neteyam art, ilysm bestie x and thank you to @draiochtwrites for listening to me talk about my stupid ideas for hours every day, i love you x
na'vi compendium: txepvi  - spark, ite - daughter, srane - yes, Olo'eykte - female Olo'eyktan, tam-tam - calm, oare - moon, tewng - loincloth, torukspxam - octoshroom, ngaytxoa - I'm sorry, 'itan - son, angtsìk - Hammerhead Titanothere, yarik - herbivore, ftang - stop, tsantu - good guy, tsìltsan 'eve - good girl, kali'weya - arachnoid used in Uniltaron
: ̗̀➛ previous chapter (x) : ̗̀➛ series masterlist (x) : ̗̀➛ series playlist (x)
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And maybe in another life We fight all day, kiss all night But I don't wanna break your heart You keep yours, I'll keep mine
Neteyam, for the first time in his life, couldn’t have cared less if he tried that there was a battle underway, that there were humans screaming and charging at the Na’vi around him, that the explosions happening every time a helicopter went down in flames deafened his ears - none of it mattered anymore, not as he heard the screech of an ikran he knew all too well, that he loved, that was now lifelessly falling towards the ground, taking the woman of his worst nightmares and biggest fantasies along, not when, with every second passing where he ignored the rest of his surroundings and dove as fast as his own ikran could possibly fly in order to make it to you in time, another memory flashed across his mind, so many memories he thought he left behind, so many memories that would haunt his every waking moment if he wouldn’t catch you, if he was too late. 
“Teyam, do you trust me?” 
“What kind of question is that? You’re my best friend. Of course I trust you.” 
Your mischievous smile, although more devious than Neteyam liked, always had power to put his heart to ease… after all, it was you. You, his best friend, the girl who knew everything about him, that helped him withstand every challenge life threw at him, just a couple 11 year olds who had gone through more than most adults do, who have been forced to grow up a lot faster than any kid their own age should ever do. But Neteyam didn’t mind. Maybe he used to, back when he was young and naive. Back then, he cried a lot, each morning a dreaded reminder of the pain and ache that awaited him each day, all for a purpose he couldn’t quite understand yet, that made no sense in a child’s mind, that had no way of truly understanding the concept of a future littered with war and loss, a future where he would carry the burden of being the next leader of his clan, the eldest son of the mighty, revered Toruk Makto and Palulukan Makto, the grandson of brave, respected leaders, the next in line of a ruling dynasty filled with great people he had to follow and to live up to. 
Now, he no longer cried, because no matter how hard life got, he was never alone. Because, even though you didn’t have quite the same pressure on your shoulders, you carried your own burdens and a sadness deeper than Neteyam could ever imagine or could ever want to. In his mind, the sting from a few bloodied gashes and the headaches that tried him each night were a small inconvenience compared to the pain that you struggled with and braved every moment since your parents died. When his father told him that you would be joining him for training in the weeks after the accident, Neteyam didn’t know what to expect. But day after day, you managed to blow not only his expectations, but his entire family’s out of the water, each day just another opportunity for you to prove to everyone that your future would be as bright as all the stars in the night combined, that you were special and unique, that you were a talent that only comes once in a few lifetimes.
Now, years later, Neteyam still found it hard to believe how strong you were, how capable and skilled and fearless. Whereas he’s always been more withdrawn and temperate, your fire burned strong and untamed, and you always managed to get both of you in trouble - if he were to be honest with himself, though, he would never mind, not with you. 
“Good. Then let’s go.” 
You didn’t bother looking behind you as you started sprinting, your flowy top and tewng, always one-of-a-kind, undulating in the wind, making Neteyam’s heart flutter in his chest. You were so beautiful. The most beautiful. A purple flush rising in his cheeks was all that was needed for Neteyam to be grateful for the way you always ran ahead of him, too impatient to wait for a boy that liked to take his time and enjoy the moments few and in between in which life didn’t have to go too fast for his comfort. 
"Where are we going, Vi?"
"Shhh, more walking, less talking, 'Teyam. You need to learn to embrace the unknown." you chuckled as you stopped and waited for him to catch up, before taking him by the hand and pulling him until he stumbled softly onto you and you both fell, him on top of you, with a gasp that turned into loud giggles from your side and unflinching groans from his.
"Vi..."
"The mighty warriors have fallen, what will the clan do without us?"
He couldn't help his own exasperated chuckle and the roll of his eyes as he spoke.
"I don't think we're quite there yet."
You shrugged, sure of yourself as always, a trait Neteyam admired and tried to emulate, to little avail most days.
"Soon. Your dad's already talking about the Iknimaya. We're almost ready, Teyam. And if we do it soon, we'll be the youngest Na'vi to ever do it. You and me."
Before he could say anything, you reached for him until your lips made contact with his cheeks, and it didn't help his blush, that was now deep periwinkle and burning his skin from the inside out, like a fire that wanted to escape his body, too powerful to be contained inside it.
"And just like today, if you ever fall, I'll always be there to catch you. You and I, we're meant to fall and rise together."
Those words rang painfully in Neteyam's ears as his ikran dove at full speed towards the ground, as his open, stretched out hand was just outside of your reach, as he watched your body disappear through the trees, where it would inevitably crash, where it might be lost forever.
His heart, that was going as fast as his ikran was, watching your unconscious form collect deep, bleeding scars like Kiri collected pebbles in the woods with every hard branch your body made contact with, stopped racing in his chest as, by the grace of Eywa, your fall was broken by the plush, attenuating force of a torukspxam right before you hit the ground. Despite the fear, so deeply embedded in him, it was impossible to know if he would ever be able to fully detach himself from it again, a seed of hope bloomed in him that maybe he wasn't too late. That maybe, despite not being able to catch you, not now nor for the past 7 years in which he's left built up resentment prevent him from wanting to, maybe he wasn't too late.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck!"
He didn't wait for Seze to land before he jumped and approached you, pushing with all his might against the drag of his own heavy body that felt like it was experiencing the world in slow motion, until one of his hands found the back of your neck, propping you up gently and his other hand placed two fingers on your pulse point, trying to feel for a heartbeat that would either calm his own or stop it altogether.
"Please, Txepvi. Please..."
When the small, barely-felt flutters registered in him, he let out a breath he didn't even realise he was holding and wasted no time in picking you up bridal-style and running back to his beautiful ikran. He had no time to dwell on the cracks deepening in his heart as he watched Seze bumping her snout on the side of Oare's lifeless face, sorrowful trills filling his ears, no time to dwell on the red liquid spilling out from multiple points in your body, dripping down his body and onto the ground, no time to stop yet another memory fighting to come to the forefront of his mind.
Fickle as you are That's exactly why I keep on running back 'Cause I'm brittle at the parts Where I wish I was strong
“I can walk, Teyam.” 
Neteyam decided to ignore you as he grabbed you by the back of your knees and carried you back to the village, the gash in your leg large enough to have hit a couple veins and stain your thigh red, but not deep enough to make it life-threatening - still, Neteyam wouldn’t take any chances. Taking chances… that was the reason for keeping you so close to him, your face buried in the crook of his neck… that was the only reason. 
“Can you, Vi? Isn’t that how this happened in the first place?” He chuckled, yelping a little when your fist made contact with his chest. 
“It was an accident, you know that.”
“Yeah, well, you have a lot of accidents. And so close to the Iknimaya, too…” the shake of his head was mostly a teasing one, and although he tried to push away the nagging fear eating away at him, the one that told him you might not be able to take it with him, the one that screamed he’d be all alone once more, like he was before you, the one that urged bad memories and ugly scenarios into his mind, the one whose ugly head appeared as though from around the corner, staring intently to see if he’ll allow it to approach or banish it from existence. He couldn't decide yet.
He couldn’t do this without you. He needed you to be his first flight. Like you told him last year, and like it’s been solidified in his soul every day since, you and him were meant to rise and fall together. You were meant to fly together, to soar together. And that couldn’t happen if a tiny accident delayed your progress. 
“Aw, it’s sweet you’re worried, although I think it’s mostly selfish and you’re just too scared to do the Iknimaya by yourself.”
The tinge in his cheeks is enough validation for you to start laughing at him, your head thrown so far back, he had to readjust his grip on you, so that you wouldn’t fall out of his arms. 
“I knew it! You scaredy-cat. Why would you be scared, Teyam? Out of everyone here, everyone who’s gonna do this next, out of all of us, you are the best. You’ve always been the best.” 
“No. You’re the best." As much wasn't up for discussion to him, and never will be. "And you promised.” 
Your smile softened taking him in, the little pout he tried his best to conceal, the little scrunch of his nose, the way his ears twitched in slight annoyance and slight embarrassment… he couldn’t tell for sure, but he thought you found it… endearing? 
“I know what I promised. And I intend to keep my promise. You don’t have to worry, Teyam. You and I have always been two sides of the same coin. And as long as you want me by your side, nothing could ever pry me away.” 
"Just hang on, please. Shit. Please don't die. Please don't die."
And maybe when you need my help I like myself when it's over But later in the light, you go Dark and rogue, and I need closure
“Ma ‘ite, you have to be more careful.” The quiet, teasing admonishments of his grandmother do little do deter you, although you keep your eyes on the ground, slight embarrassment visible in the swish of your tail and the flatness of your ears.
“Srane, ma Tsa’hik. Ngaytxoa.”
The thick cream paste made its way from Mo’at’s fingers to your thigh, where it was spread in a hefty layer until the cut was no longer visible. You winced as it made contact with your skin, but said nothing as you accepted the help, and Neteyam saw his grandmother nod in approval at your bravery and inclination to suffer in silence, to not let anyone know you’re in pain at any point. Strong heart. Him, on the other hand, wished you were a bit more forthcoming, wished you didn’t feel the need to go through suffering alone. With a pat on your head and a soft smile, the Tsa’hik raised from her spot on the floor and turned her back on you both.
“You’re all done. It’s just a scratch, this time. I feel like I always have to have extra healing salve at the ready just for you. Now go, and be careful. Your Iknimaya is soon and my grandson would never forgive you if you missed it.” 
“Neteyam, quick, put her on the mat. I need all the help I can get, now! Go get all the healers in training, we don’t have a lot of time.” The barking of orders did little to ease Neteyam’s fear, as he very rarely has ever seen his grandmother this agitated. After sending away the trainees, she turned to her grandson and took a deep breath, to calm herself. As serious her voice was, as rushed and violent the atmosphere around them, she still found the second to put her hand on her grandson’s chest, feeling the erratic, loud, trepidous heartbeat that refused to settle in him. 
“Ma ‘itan, she’s very weak. I know you haven’t been close in a long time, but she is your intended mate. I need you to prepare yourself for the worst. Now go back to the battle.” 
“No. I’m staying here.”
Neteyam didn’t get scared often. A whole lifetime of being raised like a soldier made his skin as thick as an 'angtsìk’s, and little ever managed to get under it. You did. You had unmatched prowess to make him feel so many things, too many things, all too intense, all too powerful, all too overbearing. When he was young, all of them were good and pure, all exciting and hopeful - love. It was love. Now, he feels anger and resentment, vengeful spite and deep arousal, all of which poison his mind and make him a version of himself he hates. Hate. That’s it. It’s all hate, isn’t it? So if it is… why are his limbs trembling and eyes watering, why is his mind jumbled with all these memories, why has the blood coursing through his veins been irreparably polluted with so much deep, earth-shattering terror and grief at the thought of losing you? Why was there a crater in his chest where his heart usually resided when he imagined his life without you in it?
Maybe it's because, for better or for worse, you were a constant in his life. From the second your presence made its way to him, you never left. There hasn't been a day that he hasn't seen you, that he hasn't been in your vicinity, not a day in which you haven't trained together, side by side, friends before, enemies after, but always together. Your words, that he drowned for years, came back like an undying echo ringing in his ears.
"You and I, we're meant to fall and rise together..."
I don't need a reason to keep on dreamin' That we don't lose, yeah, what's the use?
More and more, it felt like you had been right all along. He didn't think about it for so long, so desperate in his attempts to hurt you like you had hurt him, to sour your life like how you soiled his most precious memories, all of you and him, all of a childhood long left behind, all of fantasies he's harboured at the time that long dissipated from the version of future he used to dream about. Nothing about his life now was how he once envisioned, and that was because of you. He would never forgive you, but he couldn't let you go, either. No matter how the visions differed from his current reality, he couldn't shake you, couldn't let you go. Because despite it all, he couldn't part with the girl that used to be his partner in crime, his training buddy, his best friend, his first flight.
"Are you ready?"
Neteyam watched in awe as you confidently nodded at his father, smiling as if the hardest challenge an Omaticaya Na'vi would ever undertake, one that most people did when they were much, much older, was nothing to you, like it was just another yarik hunt that you've done a thousand times before. You turned to him and the smile you gave him dazzled him, left him breathless, not a good thing for the trek he was about to undertake, but still, not something he would could ever find it in himself to be upset about. You turned your attention momentarily to the bowl of paint in your hands before you brought a finger to his face, completing the pattern that was the same as the one you were adorning, one that he painted on you.
You both took turns saying goodbye to everyone, paying special attention to the little bundle in Neytiri's arms. Neteyam couldn't believe this was his little sister, and couldn't believe how attentive you were with her, how careful and loving. Some of his personality must be rubbing off on you, because to the Sully family's surprise, you didn't drop Tuk once in the year she's been born. In fact, you haven’t dropped anything in the last couple of months, including yourself from high places, which used to be one of your favourite past times, and Neteyam couldn't help blush at the thought that he was the reason you were being a little more careful.
As expected, the climb was the hardest thing Neteyam ever put his body through, and he felt suddenly grateful for all the years of torturous training that now felt like a peaceful breeze of the wind in an otherwise unyielding hurricane. Still, seeing you in front of him, not once complaining, not in front of the multiple 15 to 19 year olds that were also taking their rite of passage today, not in front of your Olo'eyktan, made him push through, too. If you could do it, so could he. Because you would do it, so would he.
The rookery was hidden behind a waterfall, and Neteyam watched as one by one, the few Na'vi joining you both either failed or succeeded, and with each attempt, his fear grew stronger, his mind more restless. Eventually, it was his turn, and with a deep breath, he started walking towards the slippery ledge that would lead him to his fate. A hand on his chest not only stopped him in his tracks, but also stopped his heart momentarily, just momentarily, because before he knew it, it started booming again with enough intensity to dizzy him.
"Ma tsantu... you got this. Remember, you and I, we're meant t-"
"-to fall and rise together, I know." you smile, your fingers smoothing the deep frown that gave Neteyam a headache without even realising and he sighed, trying to calm his mind and soul, focusing on you and only you.
"Exactly. So you can't fall, because if you do, I'll have to follow you... and I don't intend to fall yet, Teyam. Not yet."
"How did this happen?"
"Oare... got shot. She's dead. She... fell. I couldn't catch her." I couldn't catch her...
Neteyam couldn't bear to look at the way his grandmother was ripping you apart, although he knew it was all with the purpose of putting you back together again. Her trainees, all girls he knew, some girls he knew more intimately than others, all flocked around you, with wet cloths and trays of balms and powders, of plants and tinctures, and it all hurt, the guilt of knowing to some extent, to a large extent, this was all his fault. This ongoing war between you, never-ending and harrowing, reached a nadir that resulted in the death of your ikran, in your accident, and indirectly, because of your removal and his from the battlefield, might result in the deaths of good na'vi men and women, all of whom had families and a life, and a future they would be robbed of.
Neteyam couldn't leave you and go back. If he did, he knew that much like you, he wouldn't be able to focus enough to matter, and the thought of his mother, of his father, losing one more loved one was too much to bear. Neteyam couldn't leave you, but he couldn't stay here either. It hurt, being here, watching flashes of the girl he hates intertwined with the girl he loved more than anything else in the world, it hurt, having to deal with feelings he buried deep down and memories that came to him like summer rain, uninterrupted and warm, but powerful enough to flood and leave damage their wake.
With one last look at your unconscious form, Neteyam left the village on the back of his Ikran, knowing there was one thing he needed to do, he had to do. His mind was overcome with agonising sorrow as Seze's mourning was felt through his entire being, and the full weight of what transpired came crashing down on him like a tidal wave he could do little to stop, but had to power through, hoping that by the end there was something left of his heart to go on. Oare, much like Seze, has been in his life every day for the last 7 years, and he loved her. She was playful and sweet, and she always played with him when he snuck out at night to give her pets and treats, refusing to let your declining relationship affect their bond. Oare was Seze's best friend, her companion and life partner, and Neteyam knew her death would affect his ikran for a long time, perhaps forever.
With a squeal that matched the banshee, Neteyam watched from the air, on the back of his new mount, his new friend, his new spirit sister, as you made Tsaheylu, and his heart, that has been barely beating in anxious fear, felt finally awake again.
"Ftang! Tam tam, tsìltsan 'eve." your smile was wide and relieved as your eyes searched the sky until they found his, and he swore he never knew it was possible to love someone so much, to feel so connected to a soul, so much so it felt like he could hear you, your heartbeat and your mind, like tsaheylu would have been redundant because he knew. He just knew.
"I did it, Teyam!"
"Yes, you did, Vi! Come, first flight seals the bond."
That day was Neteyam's happiest day. That memory is still something that he cherishes deeply, that he'll never be able to shake, that haunts him at night, that shakes his resolve whenever he's thinking of a new way to make you pay. That memory is still untarnished in his mind, and it will always remain so, especially today, as he's fastening Oare's lifeless form onto Seze, petting her one last time, allowing the tears he's been stubbornly pushing back this entire day to finally fall from his cheeks onto her face, almost like she was the one crying, one last time.
"I'm sorry, girl. I'm so sorry."
"I'm sorry that I beat you... again. You're gonna have to do much better than this to beat me, Teyam."
The floating rock you landed on, hours after you finished your Iknimaya, was alit with biofluorescence, the colours reflecting in your eyes and on your shiny skin, covered in a light layer of sweat from the flight.
"Give me a break, Vi. It's my first time doing this."
"Yeah, cause I've been doing it for ages." you say, chuckling and rolling your eyes. You prop your body on your elbows and point to the two banshees playing in the air with each other, a mass of ravelling green and purple, so beautiful, and so, so free.
"I can't take all the credit. She did most of the work. I love her already, Teyam. Do you have a name in mind for yours?"
Neteyam didn't have to think about it too much. Ever since he's first found out about the Iknimaya, a story told to him by his mother consolidated a name in his memory that he's never been able to forget.
"Seze. Like my mother's ikran that bravely gave her life in the war against the Sky People."
"That's pretty. And fitting. She's a beautiful flower."
"What about you?"
"Oare."
"Why?"
"I used to look at the moons every night and think I'm so far away from this, from my destiny, from who I've always known I was meant to be, the Iknimaya might as well have been the moon - unreachable, untouchable, a world away. And now, I'm here, with you, way past curfew, and we're gonna get in so much trouble and I couldn't care less because I did it, I reached the moon. And I did it with the only person I ever wanted to. So.. Oare."
"Thank you, Teyam. I learnt a lot from you in these years. Ever since I met you, I knew you were special. And I think, even without realising, I wanted to be more like you. I've looked up to you for so long, I don't even remember my life before the Sullys took me in. If I'm here today, it's because of you. You helped me become more temperate and understand the weight of my talent and my power, and that I have a responsibility to the clan, that this is bigger than me, and my life."
Neteyam was taken aback at your words. You were never this forthcoming with your feelings normally, but he couldn't say he wasn't happy about it. He was so happy.
"I love you, Vi. I may have made you more responsible, but you made me better. Braver. More creative, more inventive. I almost couldn't finish the Iknimaya today, and then one of your crazy ideas popped in my head, and it worked. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't have done this without you, without your influence in my life. Thank you."
You smiled softly, and put your head on his chest, just watching the dance of the banshees, and he prayed that this moment would never end.
"I guess we really are meant to be together then, huh?"
"Yeah. I guess we are."
Neteyam placed Oare in the village, where the elders and Tsa'hik would be able to perform Eywa's funeral rituals, before making his way back to the tent. He couldn't help the gasp that escaped him as he was met with your drowsy, blood-shot eyes, so much sadness in them, it broke him. They were so different then the ones that have haunted Neteyam's mind today, so devoid of the innocence and love he remembered, so filled with anger and spite and hurt, so much like his own, such a bitter reminder that the past was only that, the past, and there was nothing left of you, or of him, of the love you shared and the future he envisioned. With one last memory, Neteyam felt the walls surrounding his heart, thick and unflinching, growing harder with every year since the Iknimaya, fortify yet again, as one last memory emerged uninvited and reminded him of why, despite your history, Neteyam would never look at you the same way again.
And I know whatever this is ain't love So I'm goin' I'm gonna let you go, let you go
"I'm going to go back to my tent. I had too much of a good day to spoil it by Jake yelling at me for 2 hours straight. I'd rather save the pleasure for tomorrow."
"That's so unfair, why do I have to suffer by myself?"
A shrug was all the answer you felt was necessary to give him, and he felt his heart drop at the notion of going to his family's tent so late, so far past curfew, without your much more argumentative presence, that his father could never resist. He walked cautiously, silently, praying that his family would be asleep so he could just sneak in and postpone the yelling until tomorrow. To his surprise, he heard whispered voices coming from right outside the tent, whispers he quickly recognised as his father and grandmother's.
"... that it should be her. She should be the next Olo'eykte. That she is the most deserving of it, has been since she was young. It took a long time to see it for myself, but... I don't know. Maybe he.."
...Olo'eykte? You? Neteyam couldn't believe his ears. He couldn't believe how quickly his father was willing to replace him, how quickly he considered you better and more worthy of the title than his own son, than the rightful heir. You were both 12, for Eywa's sake. How could a decision be made so early? Neteyam felt tears gather in his eyes, the betrayal's sting more painful than a kali'weya's, and yet, still, a part of him knew this already. A part of him couldn't find it in him to be upset, because you were better. And you deserved to lead, you deserved to fulfil your destiny, that was made for greatness, made for the songs and the ballads, made for history.
"It's Neteyam's birthright, Jakesulli. It wouldn't be right, no matter how worthy the girl is. What about a mateship? They have been inseparable for years anyhow."
"Ah, she would never want to be Tsa'hik. And she wouldn't be good at it anyway. Besides..." the silence felt like it dragged on forever, and he clung on to it, afraid of what was waiting for him at the end of it.
"I mentioned it to her. She said she... doesn't want to mate with Neteyam. That she couldn't ever love him the way a mate would. She was... very adamant about it."
As Neteyam looked into your eyes, those words forever embedded in his psyche, playing in his ears like a cacophony of sounds that rattled him every time he saw you, even so many years later, solidified in him by all the times you continued to hurt him, continued flaunting your relationships and skills to him, your connection and closeness to his own family, that sometimes he felt like he didn't belong in anymore, like he was the adoptive one... he was reminded that every time, it hurt, every day, it broke him further, and those eyes that were once his guidepost and the reason he got up in the morning, were now empty and bleak, and enough to make anger bubble in his soul once more, until it drowned everything else, until it was all that was left.
I don't need a reason to keep on dreamin' That we don't lose, yeah what's the use? I don't need a reason to keep on dreamin' That I can win this stupid thing called love
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Can you write HC about bill kaulitz dating a fem reader with daddy issues? ( sorry guys, it’s my dads fault ) thank you! 💗🙏
(I've been trying to post this but it souldnt let me 😭)
Seven
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And I've Been Meaning To Tell You, I think Your House Is Haunted
"(Name), you have to understand!" Bill tried to reason with you as he followed after you.
"Understand what?! That you think my dad's a bad guy?!" You whipped back around, yelling back like Bill was crazed for even having the thought.
"How is he not?!" Bill exclaimed, yelling as he tried to get his own point of view across to you.
"Because! He's my dad! You don't have a right to say that!" You stated, poking Bill in the chest as you yelled, fed up and wanting to hear none of it.
"Seriously, after everything he's put you through you're gonna defend him! He's not a good dad!" Bill has enough, grabbing your wrist gently not to hurt you but to stop you from poking him.
"Yes, he is!" You denied, tugging back your hand from his as you refused to acknowledge what was in front of you.
"How can you say that?!"
"Because, Bill! He's my dad!" You yelled back, your voice cracking as your eyes filled with tears.
"He's my dad. He- he just gets angry sometimes. It's not his fault, it's mine." You stated, sniffling as a sob broke through and you wiped your tears.
Bill's expression softened as he saw you trying to hug yourself, shelving the argument for now.
Bill took your arms from around yourself, replacing them around his waist as he held the back of your head and hugged you.
"He's not a bad guy…he's my dad. I love my dad…" you mumbled into his shoulder through your tears and sobs, clinging to Bill's shirt.
"I know, I know you do." Bill nodded, kissing the side of your head as he held you.
"He loves me too, right? He has to." You almost begged, looking up at Bill for an answer as you did your best to remain intact and keep the image of how the little kid you used to be looked at her dad.
Your Dad's Always Mad And That Must Be Why
Bill was woken up abruptly, barely past two AM before he sat up in bed, rubbing the sleep away from his eyes.
He looked over to the window, the source of the intense tapping. He was about to freak, or yell for them to go away before he paused, seeing your apologetic and sheepish smile in his window.
Bill sighed, giving you a small and reassuring smile as he threw his legs over the bed, his feet hitting the cold floor as he went to open it.
"Sorry…" you mumbled, slipping through as Bill held your hand and helped you.
"It's fine." Bill smiled teasingly, using his hand that held yours to tug you into a hug, knowing you needed it more than him.
He kissed your forehead, feeling the way your fingers idly messed with the fabric of his shirt before he pulled away, watching as you guided yourself to his bed
"What happened now?" Bill asked, sitting on the edge as you slid into the covers. He watched the light happiness you held drain from your eyes, replaced with a frown.
Bill's own frown made its way, he tapped your chin for you to look at him as he saw you look away.
"Your dad?" He asked, hearing your silence and the way you looked away, and knowing his answer now.
Bill sighed, moving to sit next to you, sliding into the comforter himself as he laid down, immediately feeling the weight of your head on his chest as his fingers raked through your hair.
"Same old. He got mad…mama and him argued. I left." You mumbled out, eyes almost closed as you held onto Bill's side like it was your lifeline.
"It's okay." Bill said once more, having to say it more to you than anyone else in his life, but he was okay with that.
"It'll be over as soon as it starts. Don't gotta worry. You can stay with me…" Bill said, feeling you nod against his chest as he looked down to see your tired eyes.
Bill laughed softly, running his nails softly against your back and under your shirt, kissing your head once more as your eyes shut.
He couldn't help but wonder though. What did you do to deserve defending someone even if they didn't deserve it?
And I Think You Should Come Live With Me
"Live with you?" You asked, smiling and almost laughing with the suggestion.
"Why not?" Bill asked, head in your lap as you threaded your fingers through his rarely, gel free hair.
"You know I can't." You mumbled, shaking your head as Bill sighed, using his hand to knit his fingers with yours that was thrown over his stomach.
"You can…you don't need to feel guilty." Bill answered, kissing your knuckles as you frowned, looking away from his eyes as he tried to look into yours.
"My siblings need me and so does my dad…I'm sorry." You ended, sighing as you shook off the tears that almost fought through, wanting nothing more than to just do it.
But you couldn't.
Bill sighed as well, putting the conversation away for the next time as he chose to look up at you from your lap, placing his palm to your cheek as he ran his thumb over your cheek.
You smiled as he did so, and Bill mimicked it.
At least now he had you, right?
And We Can Be Pirates
"I'll save you, (Name)!" An eight year old Bill cried, a fake goatee on his chin along with a made up pirate costume, wielding a plastic sword.
"You won't get through me!" Tom said, fake fighting back his brother onto the ground.
"Noo! I must save them!" Bill cried dramatically, tackled by Tom onto his back as he reached out, you sitting on the grass completely undisturbed.
"I kinda like it here." You shrugged, picking at the flowers.
"That's not the line, (Name)!" Bill and Tom broke character, causing you to roll your eyes before you dramatically put the back of your hand to your forehead.
"Oh, no! Somebody help me!" You cried out in a high pitched voice.
"I will!" Bill tried, only to hear the snap of plastic.
"I think your sword broke..."
"Tom!"
Then You Won't Have To Cry
Bill sat across from you, using his thumb once more to wipe the tears caused by someone who should be wiping them.
Your dad.
"This is so pathetic, I mean, why am I crying?" You laughed at yourself, doing your best to wipe your own tears so as to not show Bill you actually had the ability to cry.
Crying in front of someone was foreign, something you learned to never do unless you wanted something to cry about.
Something you learned from your dad.
"You have a right to cry. Your dad wasn't right in what he said…" Bill reassured, finishing his job as he moved to sit next to you, moving to fiddle with your fingers.
"Well, that's my dad for you." You faked enthusiasm, fake jazz hands and you laughed softly once more, but Bill could hear the sniffles in your tone.
Bill sighed, leaning to kiss the side of your head.
You said nothing more, comforted by the silence.
Bill knew that you meant well, for everyone, at least. Everyone but yourself.
Bill tried to get you to be able to treat yourself better, to be selfish and leave and be with him and actually happy, away from your dad's ways.
But Bill couldn't do it anymore, you wouldn't even accept it.
So Bill would just sit there, a comforting hand and shoulder as he tried to get through.
And Bill would always be there, until he did get through.
Or Hide In The Closet
Bill leaned against the closet door, having snuck in through the open window as he actively ignored the yelling of your parents.
He knocked thrice with his knuckles before softly tapping once, a small little indication it was him.
No words came from inside, but Bill stepped back as he felt the soft knock back, your foot opening one door quickly before it diverted back.
"Hi..." Bill mumbled, a bare smile on his face as he slipped in. You glanced up at him, pressed up against the wall with your knees to your chest.
Bill frowned at your silence, but knowing he wouldn't get much more, he sat next to you. Shoulder to shoulder, back to the wall.
He could only revel in the silence, frowning more so at your sniffles but reveling in the fact you called him, not anyone else.
He also reveled in how you put your head on his shoulder and let him wrap an arm around yours, letting you breath in the cologne you got him.
And just like a corny love song or folk song, the boy sat with the girl for however long she needed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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shadowshrike · 5 months
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The Curious Case of Halsin and Astarion's Ascension
For anyone who's occasionally poked around my stuff, you probably know that I found my Evil run of Baldur's Gate 3 (by which I mean my selfish run where I tried to gain as much power, wealth, and companion trust as I could) to be my most satisfying thus far. Part of that was the unique experience of having Halsin ask to join Tav and Astarion's relationship post-Ascension.
At the time, I said yes because it made sense for my character to "collect" an Archdruid. Out of character, I was tickled by the idea that Halsin confessed after Astarion became the new biggest bad in the land. Halsin was supposed to be a Good guy. Surely, either a possessive Astarion would be spitting mad about the arrangement, or Halsin would have second thoughts about Mr. Vampire Ascendent once he got a taste. I was ready for the drama.
It never came. In fact, the glimpses of their dynamic were so comfortable and playful that I was shocked.
Since then I've been doing a lot of thinking about Halsin and why he might act how he does throughout the Ascension storyline. I realize most of this can be handwaved with 'fanservicey romance writing.' That's true for parts of all romance paths, honestly, and I don't consider it a wholly bad thing given the game's goal to make you its center. However, I think being dismissive of the writing is not as much fun as building headcanons that work with any set of behaviors or lines you get.
So enjoy some theories pulled from datamined dialogue and my personal games. As always, this is completely hypothetical - I encourage everyone to write 'canon' in their personal playthroughs however they prefer.
Note: it's impossible to get all these lines in a single run due to some hinging on Astarion leaving and some may be bugged or near impossible to trigger. They're just being used to explore a character and dynamic that I don't see much of around fan spaces.
Halsin on the value of lives
To briefly set the stage, it's important to understand how Halsin views life and justice. He spells it out rather clearly if Kagha kills Arabella and her parents are also dead.
Halsin doesn't consider himself to be an arbiter of good and evil, only a steward of nature and its Balance. He highly values life. However, it's not him, the leader of the Grove, who is ultimately responsible for deciding Kagha's fate; it's the wronged parties or, barring that, nature itself who should decide her true punishment.
Halsin: As for the idol? It's nothing compared to a life. A mere object, next to one of nature's creations. I cannot absolve you, even if you are repentant. The girl's parents should have decided your fate, but they perished. Instead, nature will judge you. You are banished from this place - banished from everywhere the Oak Father's creations thrive.
But valuing the sanctity of life doesn't mean he doesn't also understand the importance of sacrifice. For example, if Wyll chooses his freedom over his father, Halsin counsels that it's a necessity to sacrifice to grow at times, no matter how unpleasant.
Halsin: You made a hard choice, Wyll. But not one that is unknown in nature. At times, a seedling must strangle the very tree that bore it, if it is to survive.
The price of 7000
So, Halsin's not a big fan of sacrificing life, yet understands that sometimes, people need to die for others to thrive.
But what about 7000 lives? A whole village worth?
That level of sacrifice sounds an awful lot like the day his life was destroyed by Ketheric and the Shadow Curse. A horrible event that haunted his every thought and deed for the next 100 years.
Within this context, it makes sense that all of his responses during the Ascension, whether Astarion does it or not, are focused on the price being paid. He usually emphasizes the sheer number of people affected and never discusses Astarion's potential evil (more on that later) or the undead nature of those lives.
Halsin: Stay your hand, Astarion. To sacrifice so many is a tyrant's ambition.
Halsin: All those lives snuffed out, just to grasp some power. That was craven - unnatural.
Halsin: Astarion resisted the allure of Cazador's would-be powers - and I am glad of it. Whatever he would have gained would have come at a great price.
The interesting part about this is, as an Archdruid of Silvanus, those undead lives should be considered an abomination. The Oath of Ancients oath break if you free the spawn reminds us of this. So Halsin's advice to save the spawn is not necessarily druidic advice - it is a personal opinion wrapped in flimsy druidic justifications.
He even recognizes undead as unnatural when you enter Cazador's home:
Halsin: A lair of undeath - most unnatural. We must tread carefully.
Yet about the spawn, who are undead and an intimate part of that unnaturalness, he says this about releasing them:
Halsin: Good - they deserve a chance at life. Nature will handle their fates from here.
Mercy for all monsters?
This is interesting to compare to another encounter with a smaller version of an eerily similar choice in Act III. The mindflayer in the Windmill - a person turned into a monster, much like a spawn. Allow it to live, and it may devour a family. In that case, Halsin says:
Halsin: We allowed this unnatural thing to live - now a whole family's worth of blood is on our hands.
He joins a host of other Good companions who curse themselves for showing mercy where it wasn't warranted. These are largely the same companions who would also save the spawn.
Karlach: This is our fault. These people died because of us. What were we thinking?
Wyll: Justice does not entail granting mercy to monsters. We should not have let this abomination go free.
Gale: A cruel conclusion to the mercy we showed, but hardly an unpredictable one. As long as it lives, so will its appetite.
The contradictory perspective taken during these two storylines shows the importance of emotional context in how we make decisions. For most, their traveling companion, who also has a tadpole, is the first vampire spawn they've ever met, while mindflayers have generally been the big evil this entire time. This could lead them to feel as though a horde of spawn may have enough humanity to need a chance, while a newborn Mindflayer should be exterminated on sight. Also, most of the other Good companions are relatively young and idealistic, so it makes sense that some may make foolhardy, heroic decisions.
But this encounter also begs the question: if these heroes are so distraught by having the blood of one family on their hands due to a single hungry mindflayer they saved, how could they justify letting 7000 starving monsters with unquenchable bloodlust free? Are they simply kind-hearted and short-sighted? Or maybe they're only optimistic about the hunger of vampire spawn, despite having personal examples of both a spawn and a mindflayer who manage their hunger equally ethically - by feeding on enemies and criminals.
Their naivety is driven home by Jaheira not being moved by the mindflayer or the spawn due to her extensive life experience. She believes in both cases that the greater mercy is to kill the creatures now.
(About the spawn) Jaheira: And what of the living they'll feast on, should they not prove as admirable as Astarion? They deserve a chance, too.
(About mindflayer) Jaheira: Look well. Our stupidity. Our price to pay.
Halsin is even older. He's a devout druid. He recognizes undead as unnatural. By all accounts, he should be on the same page as Jaheira to preserve the Balance. Yet in the face of that, he still advises to give the spawn a chance to live free, likely wreaking havoc wherever they need to feed.
I like to think this strange blind spot in his doctrine is due to a combination of Astarion's presence humanizing the unknown spawn, therefore making their unlives worthy of protection, and his own history as a genocide survivor creating an emotional reaction strong enough to override his usual wisdom. The price of a village is simply too devastating and personal for him to condone. No matter what letting 7000 ravenous undead free may mean.
Making the price worth it
Once you've ascended Astarion, you may be surprised that Halsin - generally a good man - is now steadfastly on Astarion's side. His reactions to the Gur conflict highlight this. If you side with Astarion against them, he's not happy, but resolute.
Halsin: An unfortunate battle... but I must stand by those I count as allies.
And if you decide Astarion is evil now and side with the Gur, Halsin doesn't seem to care about what Astarion has become, only that you allowed the sacrifice to happen and then let it go to waste:
Halsin: We allowed Astarion to sacrifice so many, only to just turn on him soon after? We should have stopped him sooner.
In contrast, many other companions call Ascended Astarion a monster, evil, or maniacal if you turn on him. They believe killing him at that point was the only right answer.
Karlach: It's done. It had to be done. Astarion was... out of control. Gods dammit. Look, he was an evil leech, but he was ours. I thought he'd changed. I was wrong. I always am these days.
Minsc: Do not mourn Astarion. The Gur are known to be a just and righteous people among the Rashemaar. They named Astarion monster, and so monster he was. Yes, Boo - even if he sometimes seemed a friend.
Gale: That's one scourge eliminated. A vampire with that much power would be a death sentence for this city. A pity Astarion didn't understand that. Or rather, didn't care.
Lae'zel: Astarion proved himself no less maniacal than his master. His death was a favour - to him, to us, and to the city.
Wyll: Hunt the monsters of the Sword Coast, protect the people - that was my promise. Killing Astarion was the right thing to do. I have to believe that. But I'm not proud of it. Not after... all this.
Ignoring Astarion's evil and telling you that you shouldn't have betrayed him may seem odd for a character who usually has a strong moral compass. Especially since Halsin doesn't tell you that you shouldn't have betrayed Shadowheart if you choose that path, though he's wary of that decision since you're handing her over to Sharrans. However, if Halsin's focus is on the 7000 lives and not on Astarion's personal kindness or cruelty, it makes more sense.
The people are gone. There is no taking back all those lost. So he's left with the need to make their sacrifice something other than a meaningless slaughter. The power for his companion must be worth it.
Halsin on Evil Astarion
You may be thinking, "Okay, but even if it's all about the mass sacrifice mimicking his own horrific past, shouldn't he still care about Astarion being Evil? He doesn't like evil acts at all!"
That's mostly true. Halsin certainly hates Shar for personal reasons and can get upset when you do cruel things. However, he's also potentially had a bit of a soft spot for Astarion since Act I, when you can decide the vampire spawn is evil and kill him or kick him out of camp.
His lines for this are actually shared with Karlach, Wyll, and Jaheira, according to the data. The uniqueness is primarily in his distraught line delivery.
If you kill Astarion, Halsin admits that he liked the guy even though he was a killer:
Halsin: Rest in peace, Astarion. You may have been a blood-thirsty murderer, but I liked you all the same.
And if you send him away, Halsin says this about Astarion being alone in the woods:
Halsin: He's someone else's problem now, anyway. Woods are full of boars. Maybe he'll learn his lesson and start hunting something that won't miss him when he goes.
His camp reactions immediately after Ascension mirror this attitude of concern rather than condemnation of evil. If Halsin speaks directly to Astarion, he sounds exasperated (the way Halsin says his name always makes me snicker) while Halsin once again brings up the idea of the price being paid.
Halsin: Astarion... you have ascended amongst the ranks of the undead. I can only hope that you do not come to regret the price that you paid.
However, the almost identical line if he's talking to another player character is delivered differently, particularly in how he says Astarion's name. It's more concerned than judgmental, implying that his frustration with Astarion is coming from a place of worry rather than pure anger.
Halsin: Astarion... he has ascended amongst the ranks of the undead. I can only hope that he does not come to regret the price that he paid.
This is particularly notable because it's in contrast to Shadowheart, who has a very similar line after her evil choice, but the emotion behind both sounds more similar to my ear.
After that initial comment, Halsin can banter with Ascended Astarion about how he's turned the player into a vampire spawn if there's a player romance. Unlike most of the other companions who can comment, such as Wyll and Gale, he expresses worry for both of them, not just the player. He also explicitly explains he has no intention of kink-shaming them, just warns about how dangerous having a master/thrall relationship can be if made real.
Halsin: To give oneself wholly, and to have a lover totally in your thrall...? A harmless game, until it becomes real. I worry for the two of you, Astarion. For your sake, I hope some of it is just a fantasy, deep in your heart.
But perhaps the most blatantly accepting we see him of Ascended Astarion is if they go to the Drow twins together. There are always some playful lines with one another if they're both present, but one is unique to Ascension if the player bites Halsin as a spawn during the scene. Halsin's response is light and delighted, acknowledging Astarion's role as not just a vampire, but the lead in your new relationship.
Halsin: Ha - tickles. See what a bad influence you are, Astarion?
Combine with Halsin's direct propositioning of Astarion if Astarion teases him about his night with the player, and there's a case for long-held attraction as well, regardless of alignment.
Astarion: I hear things got wild between you two. I hope no one was too badly mauled. Halsin: We're all in one piece. Perhaps you'll join us next time. Astarion: It's bad enough having one person with fangs trying to keep control of themselves. Two of us could be dangerous.
All these lines, taken together during times when others label Astarion a monster, suggest that Halsin accepts Astarion as a whole. He doesn't believe in trying to change people's nature, so maybe he sees any distasteful deeds as part of Astarion's, the same as an owlbear cub eating its mother might disgust some though it is completely natural.
It makes sense, then, that Halsin might be proud of Astarion for choosing morality or personal growth, but he isn't too bothered if that doesn't happen either. What line Astarion would have to cross to earn Halsin's true ire is unknown. The reverse is a much more complicated question (mostly because it's plausible that many of Astarion's lines are rooted in deception) that I may delve into another time.
Is this whole relationship a little ironic given that Halsin is The Selfless Good Druid and Astarion is The Selfish Evil Undead? Absolutely. But that's the fun of it, in my opinion. It adds depth to these characters in ways that rarely shine through during a singular playthrough, especially since very few will do the crazy thing I did with an Ascended Astarion + Halsin romance.
It sure makes for narrative fun, though.
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akunoniwa · 12 days
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Knife Prty
AN: gang. I've not published anything in like. Three months. For me, this ""piece"" is more of a way to break the ice of my mind that's since frozen over. Overall, I am very reluctant to write, let alone publish, Astarion for various reasons, but I was listening to Deftones one day and was feeling devious.
Synopsis: In which you hold the memory of your first encounter with him very near and dear... He uses it to his tactical advantage...
Pairing: Astarion x fem!reader/tav
Warnings: MDNI, knife play, most definitely would not recommend fucking or getting fucked with a knife handle, sorry it sounded hot,
WC: ~2.3k
A knife balanced against your neck, a familiar blade, increasingly warm with your heat. It was a grave distraction as it teetered threateningly along the grain of your skin, but you’d made a purposeful mistake of telling Astarion how nice it felt to be not just beneath him, but his dagger. It was objectively dangerous, the feeling wasn’t conveniently replicated, thus it felt… real this way, vital. His hand had an instinctual way of slotting itself between your thighs, the heart of his palm blanketing your blooming clit. Two fingers coaxing slick sweetness and moans from your body that twined around him.
“Is this…” Your hand searched behind you to grab at his right upper thigh, pulling him into your backside, “...What you needed, my love?” His words, shrouded in his misty tone, implored you in tandem with his hand.
He was in too many lovely places at once, your muscles slacking in unison as you both stood bare in the middle of the large bath in the vacant House of Hope. Fresh killers you were, in need of a cleanse in every sense, but something about finally taking out Raphael and his accessories had you both at peculiar odds. Astarion was made to witness your vulnerabilities to Haarlep, and despite knowing you well at this point, he found he was unable to accept that you were actually susceptible to its charm. Even if that weren’t the case, he wasn’t about to say he was basking happily in the image of you being ridden by an incubus who ought to just be Raphael himself. The more he was made to think about it after the fact– fighting beasts to save Hope, slashing down Raphael himself… His mind deviated drunkenly back to your body… You. With someone… Something else. 
He decided he’d have you in that very spot, right in the Hells where his heat in this moment would make even the waters here boil over.
You two haven't really spoken about what happened in the graveyard, perhaps enough had already been said and done. It’d been weeks since, and no matter how paramount it was to you both, in different respects, Cazador had virtually nothing to do with the looming Elder Brain.
But Astarion’s declaration of his new ‘life’, or an amendment of his living death, still prevailed. This revitalization of sorts stood prominently, following him decisively like a shadow he didn’t have. Constant proof of him as him.
The sharpened metal at your throat was an afterthought to you at the time, but a thought nonetheless– one Astarion had hung onto dearly. Ever since you’d told him in a passing moment that you found your first encounter with him haunting your more unsavory moments, he couldn’t rid himself of the reminders.
“Gods, yes…” You shamelessly ground your hips into his beckoning hand, requiring his attention like nothing else. He was, needless to say, extremely turned on by you in any case, but here… Like this, adorned with his blade that had just slain that imbecilic devil, in addition to his enslaver just weeks prior. He could hardly allow his mind to wander trying to understand, but here his knife somehow signified something of untouchable worth. Trust… A morbid reenactment, sure, but how he adored you so, obsessed with how he was able to thrill you in such an asinine way.
You could feel him straining against you, that familiar sensation of his needing you… Though, he enthusiastically opted to see how long he could play with you, guiding your orgasm through the thickets of his teasing maze.
“Sick little love… I can feel you pulsing against my fingers, so fucking hot and wet.” His remark was serpentine and crude, hips rutting his cock ever so slightly between the swells of your perched ass, “How many times have you thought about this…?” He needed to sift through your tainted mind, needed to hear of your hunger, starvation, for him, as much as he tries to pretend he doesn’t love the assurance. Does your mind, too, think of him like he does of you? Remind me… He’d think– You must keep reminding him of how he tears your sanity to such decadent shreds.
His pace slowed only to allow for precision, his middle and ring finger hooked inside you knowingly as he worked at your left shoulder with his tongue.
“Fuck…” Your small, overwhelmed squeak indicated he was doing exactly as he should, rubbing the velvety spot just past the threshold of your cunt that made you shudder in his embrace, “I don’t even know…” He felt your head fall back on his right shoulder in blissful dejection, “It was more than a few.”
“My routine of devouring you isn’t enough, hm?” His fine-pointed fangs indented your skin on cue, not yet drawing blood.
You let out a breathy laugh, “Admittedly… I was nervous about the pain at first, but… You always manage to make such reckless things feel so good…”
“You drive me insane, darling. Utterly insane. Especially when you say deranged things like that…” Still hooked, his fingers sped up with dedicated intent to make you cum, skin sticky with sweat as you were sealed against his front, “A knife to your sweet neck is all it takes to make you drip down my hand?” You made him feel murderous, vulturine… Alive? Your adorable reactions picked at all the right places within him like crows.
You hummed a dizzied whine in time with his firm pace, a rush of everything creating a cyclone deep within your core, “But, you’re holding it…”
“That I am, dear. Watching you fucking lose yourself like this is truly a sight to behold.” The knife pressed its taunts as he fucked into you while you tried to keep steady.
“Don’t stop…”  You couldn’t and didn’t want to fixate on anything else but the pleasure he was giving you, “Please…” Your free hand subconsciously rushed to blanket the one that worked at your beckoning hole, making him gleam beneath your needy touch. His precum began to gradually garnish your backside– Why in the Hells would he stop now?
He need not hide his satisfaction, never with you, a grin causing his words to fray upward with lust, “Pretty, pretty thing… Cum for me.” He sprinkled your shoulder with nipping kisses once more, “ Give it all to me…” He crooned right into your center, his tone broad and smoky.
Hardly needing much past a syllable, your violent shakes when you cum were one of his favorite things to witness, let alone cause. His hand was caught in a vice grip between the tide of your plush thighs as he continued to press into that perfect spot as you came, your moans resonating through his cock. He loved the way your nails dug into the back of his thigh to bring him impossibly close, the other hand around his wrist… Holding onto him for all that you were worth in this moment.
“So divine…” He dragged the knife torturously down your chest, its fine point flicking just barely at your nipples, circling them, “I know how much you like when I tease here…”
You wanted to cry out, every nerve ablaze after your orgasm as you warmed his coated fingers. Instead, you gnawed on another dulled groan in your mouth as the metal tip tickled your areola.
“Let me hear you, darling… There’s no one around.” His voice enveloped your mind like a lecherous fog, words enunciated as they cut into you, “I’d almost say that’s a shame, as I can’t decide if I’d want everyone in all the Hells and beyond to hear your little noises, or have you all to myself.”
“Astarion…” He was breaking you, collecting your pieces, and puzzling your lust-drunk self back together as he pleased.
It seems everyone at camp has been reaching the apex of their struggles at once, especially since reaching Baldur’s Gate– seeing an unwanted face or two is inevitable. It’s been a smothered blur, and to put it more plainly, you and Astarion have not really been afforded time together. It was absurd, fighting almost toe to steel toe beside him, but this was the case day in, day out, everything else had to wait. You’d begun to miss him… You’d tried to brush it off, perhaps it was just you and some arrangement of irrational justifications. His biting quips seemed more distant, even when he held you after a long outing, he felt… Far. And the only reason for this was the non-squirmy affliction you both shared for each other. Of course, he missed you dreadfully. Hence his body currently being superimposed onto yours, an eclipse of raw, splitting desire.
“Give me more… Say it again.” He urged feverishly as your hips still twitched here and there, your movements waking through him.
“Astarion.” You trailed a caressing hand up the arm he latched around your front, just listening to what little was left in your mind. You found the hilt of his dagger gripped in his other hand, guiding it so the fuller would rest on your flattened tongue. Licking a careful stripe towards the tip, he watched in an attentive daze, your projections onto the knife translating to his groin just as you’d hoped.
“Yes, darling…” He finally pulled his fingers from you, experimentally wiping your slick onto the knife. You could feel his smirk radiating beside your cheek as he tugged the blade to his lips. Making sure to secure your eyes, you watched as he tasted your sweet mixed with metallic, making you writhe beneath the image before you.
Swiftly, as he does, he flipped the dagger to lead the rounded pommel down over your stomach, slowly flowing over your pelvis, ultimately pressing down on your clit. He managed to grip it in a way so as to avoid cutting his own hand, running the ball between your swollen folds.
“Mm, I wanna touch you…” You whined pitifully as you writhed, wanting to make him feel as good as he was making you feel, lavish him in pleasure as you’d been ceaselessly imagining.
The moonlight was damn near blinding that night on the overgrown plot of his not-so-restful place… How he pushed you back, fiercely, claiming everything as his own– most importantly, himself. You almost giggle at your spontaneous recollections, how forceful yet tediously careful his movements were as he made it no secret that he’d take you then and there. How his knee swiftly presented you to him, his relentless, passionate kisses…–
“Perhaps I want to be sure that we are on the same page…” The pommel grazed your quivering center, rolling your arousal to a fro, insinuating his intent, “Do you think I enjoyed watching you moan beneath that infernal wretch?”
“I was truly trying to sort out the hammer business… I can’t say I was willingly enthused, he had to charm me just to get me to consider taking my clothes off.”
“It was certainly a… production… But I must be frank, it was not something I ever dreamed of being made to see. How that… Thing nearly made you succumb to its little tricks.” He angled the dagger so as to push it inside you, just a bit, dragging out another melodious moan from you.
He chuckled at this, deciding to drop the matter for the moment, “My filthy darling… You wouldn’t cum around my dagger, would you?” He chided, knowing full well that he’d see to that being the case, “It seems… You just need to be fucked, no matter how.”
The hilt was thick, stretching you generously as its smooth leather pushed further into you. He gripped the guard to avoid splitting his hand, but the risk of a small injury paled in comparison to this, “Maybe there’s something about Avernus, this house… I just feel… Hot,” You debated momentarily, wondering if it’d be more of a burden to speak from what little of your mind remained, “...And I didn’t want to bother you by telling you that I missed you. In any capacity… I’ve missed all of you.” You forced coherence despite him establishing a cyclic rhythm.
He kissed your cheek a few times in response, though found himself quickly perplexed, “Bother me– Darling, never. You’ve… Missed me?”
“It’s been fighting nonstop for weeks, and save for… A few instances, the last few months. All I’ve wanted was to just be able to relax with you, to truly just be.”
“You’re going to tell me this as I’ve buried a dagger handle inside you? You’ve got peculiar timing, my sweet.” His movements subconsciously stilled as he was looking to you for an unknown kind of answer.
“Gods–” You clenched as he kissed your neck this time, allowing his fangs to indent just enough to make themselves known again, “I’m sorry… I guess I could’ve said it any time… I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“No, no, no– love, so could I,” He opted to always shower you with every pet name he could recite, perhaps as a habitual hedge, perhaps to drown you in his doting, “I’ve most certainly missed you, too.” He could feel you attempting to move onto the dagger, sending his body and estranged soul into a frenzy, “So, so much…” He found he just wanted to make you scream, in this particular instance. He’d been rearranging the meaning of intimacy in his mind slowly but steadily alongside you. While harrowing associations would inevitably remain attached to the act, he wanted to overwrite as much of that as he could with images of you. Of true rejoice, pleasure. He swore, his cock twitched upon reminding himself just how good you make him feel, body and beyond.
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utterlyotterlyx · 1 month
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A Fate Inked In Starlight
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Part Seven
Eris x Fem!Reader x Azriel
Series Summary - After crashing into the Autumn Court with no idea who you are, where you are, or how you got there, Eris takes it upon himself to hide you and care for you with the help of the Night Court. That is until souls from other walks of life infiltrate Prythian searching for you.
Warnings - angst, fluff, swearing, memory loss, memory finding
Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five Part Six
(I haven't fully edited this yet, I've been rushing to get this out with the burst of inspo I had for this fic lol)
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"I can't concentrate when you look at me like that," Tia rolled her eyes at you, her large violet eyes that were enough to ward off even the most vile of creatures brimming with unbothered sass and boredom.
Tia craned her long graceful neck, curling it around her claws as she rested it on the ground and huffed, You haven't been able to concentrate all week.
The breeze whistled through the skies, skies of pale blue littered with the fluffiest clouds you'd ever seen, the ocean lapped onto the shores and the grass bristled in anticipation.
That was how the last seven days had gone. Unable to figure out how to return to Velaris, to Eris and Azriel and the people you had come to adore in their own unique ways, you decided that if you were to be stuck in the universe you had created, then you might as well figure a way to break out of it. It was harder than it seemed though, and every day that passed was another day of head splitting agony that threatened to consume you whole.
Of course you couldn't concentrate. Not when the look in Azriel's eyes haunted every step you took, he was so close, so close to grabbing you a risking hurtling himself into the world where you stood without a guarantee he would ever make it back to Velaris. Salt tainted the air and you shivered, wanting nothing more to be back in Autumn without your memories plaguing you with Duke curled up in your lap and your feet atop Eris' thighs.
The memories were there, just in reach for you to beckon from the wide open doors in your mind, but you weren't ready. Even the flurry of jolting images was too much for you to handle, they were all disjointed, none of them made sense really, but you knew that you had gone through an unimaginable loss, a loss that led you to where you were.
Selene and Danika had been nothing short of lovely and understanding toward you, Danika was trying to find out if Bryce was alright, and Selene was focused on you, on listening to the stories of your time in Prythian as they fell from your lips. It was saddening to see her violet eyes glazed over, the desire but bubbling happiness within them as you told her of Nyx, the nephew that she'd never get to meet.
"Yes, well it's because you won't leave me alone," you threw your hands up, exasperated, tendrils of your hair danced in the wind and you felt tired, it had been a long week of trying to summon your power to little avail, only the ocean reacted to you, rushing up the sandbank and flowing up your limbs..
Tia had been pushing you each day, ordering you to pluck the memories from that rippling ocean of starlight in your mind, promising that your power would awaken for it, but you couldn't. Part of you didn't wish to know where you'd come from, and you were fine with that.
Your power won't fully return until you embrace your past, y/n.
The flickering images were enough to convince you that you certainly did not want to know, there would be no embracing anything unless it was totally necessary.
"I can't, Tia," you told the beast, kicking idly at the sand hill in front of you and looking outward to the ocean.
There must have been a reason why the world you had supposedly created felt so serene, safe and guarded, an impenetrable fortress locked away in a far enough place that no one could ever reach.
"Is there more to this place? Are there cities and villages," you glanced about, "Or is it just this?"
You were well aware of how abundant your powers must have been to create a whole other dimension and to be able to pull travelling souls into it, but it seemed less impressive when you thought of how a beach with a pretty house was all that you could do.
You say that as if this isn't enough.
Tia's feline orbs narrowed on you, her body took up half of the shore and her breath was causing your hair to dance more than the wind was. In what world did you ever own her? In what world was the other half of your soul a fucking dragon?
Scales shimmering in the sunlight, Tia's slender neck stretched, her face hovering before your own, you a mere speck in the sand compared to it, "Is it enough?"
Cities, towns and villages exist here, Tia admitted softly, her voice in your mind was a stoic thing of deep feminine beauty, Those who are loved with the purest form adoration come here, to the world you built, a haven for lost and broken souls. Don't ever doubt your abilities again unless you'd like me to burn you.
"You wouldn't dare," you bit as though the words she had just spoken didn't make you want to curl into a ball and cry.
Don't tempt me, Princess.
The resolve that was folded neatly into your consciousness broke, you glanced to your hands and saw the flickers of blood, of bloody hands against a white stone floor, of mangled bodies and lifeless eyes staring up at you. Blinking hard, you drowned out the gargled screams that had forced their way into your head, inhaling shakily and flexing your fingers as the sound subsided.
"Fine. Just one."
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Nesta clutched onto a book, she held it close to her chest and inhaled your scent that still lingered on the pages.
The sunken hollows beneath her eyes were begging for life, for rest, but she refused to give it to them, not until she figured out a way to get to you. There was a moment of pause, a moment where she had found herself curled up in the place where you used to sit in the library, hoping that your lingering aura would tell her what to do, that some part of you left in Prythian would guide her to the answer she sought.
Amren hadn't found anything either, much to Rhys' blaring anger, part of his was ready to denounce his second for what she had done, and Nesta knew that no one would stop him from doing so, your void was impossible to fill.
The shadows around Azriel slumped against him, withering in the pain caused by your disappearance, they were reaching for you too that night and your fingers had almost grazing them, your warmth a sweet melody against their overcast sonnet. Their owner wasn't doing much better, neither was Eris who had no choice but to return to Autumn and face whatever questions posed by Beron.
Visions kept on taking control of Elain leaving her fitting and shuddering, her eyes rolled back into her head and turned milky white more than their usual hue, and all she did was mutter your name as Lucien braced her body against him so that she wouldn't hurt herself.
Prythian had felt lifeless, like you leaving had opened the gates to hell and the most vile beasts were ready to crawl through. The skies were grey, the birds didn't dare to sing, and the world felt as though it had stopped turning.
Then there was the disappearances. Fae males, females and children of all ages vanishing from sight, Cassian was monitoring the situation, he was trying to figure it all out with Rhys and the limited capability of Azriel. They couldn't find anything, nothing that would lead them to the culprit. No bodies. No blood. Nothing.
The House of Wind groaned in the whipping wind, so fierce that it would leave your cheeks red and eyes watering, and Nesta sat there with your favourite book clasped loosely in her fingers, the one you carried with you always decorated in gold foreign markings that held a story of a land that may have existed once but hadn't been whispered of in thousands of years.
Nesta had been looking at the cover of the book for a long few minutes, admiring the hunter green cover and the faded golden scratches.
Scratches.
Nesta frowned, her fingers ghosting over the symbol with her eyebrows stitching themselves together. Flicking through the book, she found more of the intricate markings, ones that mirrored some of the more notable scars on your skin and her breath caught in her throat once she realised what you had done.
Some part of you knew what they meant.
It was clearly your writing, an angelic compilation of curved letters and question marks, and tears formed in her eyes as she spied the markings that would lead her to you.
Nesta rushed about the library, shoving furniture aside as close as it could be against the walls, she threw the woven rug across the room and gazed down at the bare floor like she could already see it opening up beneath her feet. The door opened, hitting against the arm of the chair, and Rhys stood their with Azriel and Cassian peering over his shoulder at her; she guessed that she looked crazy, with the swollen eyes and pale skin, with the hair falling from her coronet, but she didn't care.
"I need paint, something that I can draw with," the book was open in her hands and she knelt on the ground, Rhys must have mentally called for Feyre, because none of the males went to fulfil her request and instead stepped into the room and asked the eldest Archeron sister what she had found. Nesta offered the book to them, the one with your markings and writing etched around the words printed on the page, "They're her markings, she drew them, she wrote what they meant. I think I can use them to find her."
Again, the door swung open to reveal Feyre stood there, looking as exhausted as they all did, with a bucket of onyx paint wrapped in her fingers. Feyre had busied herself with Elain, she was trying to help Lucien care for her whilst also keeping a very close eye on Nyx who slept in the same bed as his parents these days.
The paint sloshed in the container, and Feyre placed it before Nesta who looked to the substance and then back to the pages. She dipped to fingers into the liquid, and her toes curled at the wetness of it, how it seeped into her nailbed and stained her digits.
Nesta carefully copied the markings you had jotted down in the margins of the book, markings of the eight-pointed star, the marking you had written to mean portal, and the one that you had said meant lost, and then she sat back.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then, something did.
It was faint at first, a soft glow that they all would have missed if it didn't grow stronger by the second. The onyx paint glowed with veins of emerald green and the candlelight cowered at the pulsating power of it. Black mist drifted upward like a waterfall, splitting and rising, curving like a dome and attaching to the nearest particle until darkness consumed it, the green glow flickering inside of it until that too vanished.
Cassian moved to Nesta's side, his hand latched onto her shoulder just in case he needed to project her away from whatever she had opened on the floor of the library. Chills trickled down their collective spine and that's when Nesta knew that she hadn't opened a portal to you at all.
The soft clicking of heels sounded against the ground, echoing around them, the darkness parted like a curtain and faint white pulsing light flickered in the void, "Well, well. Look who's opened the door this time."
Rhys tensed and bared his teeth, snapping his head to Nesta with a seething breath. Out of the void walked Bryce, eyes cold and distant, a smirk playing on her plump lips, and she leaned against the threshold of the darkness with her arms folded over her chest and red wine hair pooling over her shoulders.
"What are you doing here?"
Bryce smirked, picking a loose thread from the stitching of her leather jacket as her gaze wandered about the room, "Don't ask me what I'm doing here. walked through an open door," her attention fell to Nesta, "I knew you had it in you," her eyes sparkled and fell to the book resting in Nesta's lap, she looked displaced, surprised by it, like it had been lost and now found, "Where did you get that?"
Confused, Nesta looked at the book littered in your scribe, allowing her mind to cast itself back to when you had first formed the attachment with it. It had spoke to you, you had told her, on a level deeper that spiritual.
"That's not your story to hold," Bryce growled, throwing her hand and beckoning for the bundle of pages, "It's the only thing that remains of her, give it to me."
Nesta rose to her feet and found herself needing to know why Bryce was so intent in taking the worn out thing from her grip, why tears were brimming in the corners of her eyes and desperation was bubbling within her, "Of who?"
"Y/N."
Nesta snapped her gaze to Rhys whose gaze softened at the name, his guard dropping if only slightly, "How do you know her?" Azriel asked, his voice low and hoarse, like he had cried his throat raw.
"How do I- What? She's my friend, she helped us defeat the most inhuman thing you could ever imagine and dragged it through a portal. I tried to find her, but I couldn't. She was just, gone."
The cogs began to turn.
That day Eris had found you, he said you were covered in blood, wearing a foreign armour and had talons sharp enough to tear flesh upon your fingers; he had said it looked as though you had stumbled right into Autumn from the battlefield. It was because you had, and you had brought something with you.
The claws scraping across Prythian belonged to whatever you had dragged with you, to the thing that had laid dormant to not alert you to its presence, but now that you were gone. Gods.
"When you say that this," Nesta held up the book, "Is the only thing left of her. What does that mean?"
Bryce blinked hard, her whisky amber eyes blazing in their sockets, "That's her story, someone alive during the time of the collapse of her empire wrote of it, of her and everything she lost. Give it to me, she'd want me to protect it."
It was clear that Bryce was unaware that you were still alive, maybe, and even Rhys felt a pang of sympathy for the whimpering girl before his eyes, "Y/N isn't dead. A week ago she was here, with us. Now she's gone."
"She was here?"
Azriel hummed, "Yes. She had no memory of who she was, we called her Flora. As soft as a petal in the rain at Spring."
Bryce scoffed in disbelief, "If she fell here then that means,” she trailed off with widened eyes that moved to gaze beyond the window to the dark clouds clinging to the skies, “It means he’s here too.”
The roomed dimmed, the sound of Bryce’s rushed breaths swelled inside of the four walls protecting them from the evil lurking beyond, it was watching them inquisitively, awaiting to see their next move. Azriel took a step forward, head tilted to the side and examining the girl before him, “Who?”
“Cados. Her brother,” wind rattled against the windows at the name like it was a forbidden thing, that to speak it meant death; branches scratched against the panes, “We have to find her. You don't know what he can do, she's the only one who can stop him."
"We're trying," Nesta's voice was quiet and wavering, she sounded as defeated as she looked as she held that book close to her chest.
Bryce's gaze softened, the portal rippled behind her in question, and then Bryce saw just how badly they were handling your disappearance. It reminded her of the time when you had sacrificed yourself for them, when she and Ruhn and Hunt had to watch hopelessly from the torched battleground as you tumbled through the sky wrapped around Cados' body, pulling him through one of your portals.
Bryce had waited weeks for you to come back until she succumbed to the gut wrenching realisation that you may not have made it.
There was no one as fierce as you, no one as cocky and intelligent, no one who had planned everything so meticulously that everyone around you would unknowingly follow each turn in the story. If you wanted someone to do something, they would, whether they knew it or not.
They called you Flora. You would have howled at the name, the pretty floral note that was stark in its difference to how Lunathion knew you.
"Do you have something of hers? When I landed here it was because the Starsword had called to Truthteller, like calls to like. If you do then perhaps we can use it to find her," Bryce motioned between herself and Nesta.
Rhys shuffled on his feet, "Her armour is here, would that suffice?"
The red wine haired girl nodded gently, the gears in her mind churning, "It would," she visibly winced like she had just realised something, pinching the bridge of her nose and exhaling through it, "I'll have to bring my clan through. Maybe try not to maim them Mr High Lord."
Nesta smirked, forgetting how much she loved the sarcasm and wit that consumed Bryce, and when Nesta thought of it, it made complete sense that she would be your friend. She could almost see it, the fleeting image of you in a tight dress swaying to the horrid music that had sang from that odd device in the cave that day. It seemed as though you were some kind of traveller of sorts.
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One memory.
One tiny little memory.
But which one?
Orbs of frosted glass glowed in the open doorway that you had been avoiding, hovering at different heights and previewing images playing on the surface, and each one emitted its own soft audio, a glimpse into what you once were.
Standing in the centre of the pitch black pit, you struggled to choose one.
The ground rippled like when a pebble dropped into a shallow lake, flowing outward in a circular formation with every step you took. A thin black gown hung from your shoulders, there was no form to it, and the hem was damp from kissing the ground.
The spheres bobbed along like apples in a barrel at a fair, floating in front of your face. War. Love. Sex. Heartache. Friendships. It was all there in front of you, your story, but you didn't know where to start.
One of the orbs glowed brighter than the rest, it held an electric blue hue to it, the searing heat of it forcing smoke to rise and dance upward into the non-existent atmosphere, a house without shelter. The air shifted, it grew heavy and dense with desire, and you knew that orb of blue fire was the one.
Fire exploded around you, coating the walls and slithering along the ground, but not touching you, not harming you in any way. There was a woman, gold hair and blue eyes that matched your own, they even held the same currents of gold as yours did; she was regal, a queen if you'd ever seen one, and you were a ghost in the memory.
A version of you walked with her, arm in arm, through an all too familiar forest, turrets loomed overhead but not in a threatening way. There was a certain pity in her eyes that stirred a familiar pain in your gut, this version of you didn't look like you at all, she was a shell, young, pale and cowering, skin clear compared to what you now wore.
How old was this memory?
Words were muffled, and you had to to take a step forward to follow the flurry of words, to follow where the woman was taking you, ducking under arched branches and feeling peace with the trickle of the babbling brooks. It was a magical place, so magical that you felt your own magic swim inside of you.
The woman was so familiar, you found yourself examining her face, always floating back to those eyes, she didn't look much older than you but you weren't sure if that was due to the fae aging that clearly dwelt within her.
Her words was simple and soft, she was sorry, she would avenge your pain, she would make sure your home lay with her always, she would always stand with you, she would never allow you to feel alone and forgotten.
To whatever end.
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Authors Note
It's finally hereeeeeee x
I know it's been ages, I'm so sorry! I kind of got into a writing slump with this fic as I started other projects :(
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lixzey · 7 months
Text
Letters.
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The Tenth Letter.
warnings: mentions of depression
Timothée was about to open the tenth letter, when he heard the sound of pattering on the roof and the sound of thunder roaring in the distance. He chuckled, another rainy day in New York. 
Maybe it was instinct that he wanted to protect this girl—or maybe it was something else. Maybe he was falling? Maybe he was actually falling for this mysterious girl. Timothée sighed, before opening the tenth letter, dated July 31st.
Dear Timothée, 
It's raining.
It's the kind of rain that makes you think of flash floods and Noah's ark. The kind that makes you want to wear your fluffiest sweater and socks and crawl into bed under the sheets where it's warm and safe. It calms me, it makes me feel safe and sound. The way the lighting comes after the booming thunder, little kids would get scared—fearing that they'd get struck by lightning—but for me, it's relaxing. 
What about you? Are you scared of thunder?
Timothée chuckled. What are the odds of reading the letter in the same weather? The probability of it was impossible, but here he was, reading the letter while the rain poured outside. 
The chances of getting struck by lightning are one to a million. That's the sort of thing that you'd hear on the news and you'd thank God that it wasn't you, but at the same time you'd feel bad.
Kind of like depression, really. You'd never expect it to be you. No one does. But the ugly truth is, a lot of people suffer from it and the majority of us are blissfully ignorant about it. When a person says they're depressed, they'd tell that person to suck it up and just move on—that there are people suffering worse than you. Invalidating their feelings, they bottle it up. Until one day, they explode. And at the end, when all is said and done, they're gonna be sorry because they didn't listen. People are treating depression like some sort of joke. Even when there's the Mental Health awareness, people look at depressed people like clowns. 
It's a chain reaction, really. Sharp words like knives cutting a person down, not thinking if that person is hurting, and all ending with a heart full of hatred against the world. And then what? That person feels unworthy—a waste of space, which ends up in doing things one shouldn't. 
“It's not your fault, none of it is.” 
But why does it feel like it is? Like I'm the catalyst for all the bullshit. The weight of it all is crushing me.
I'm haunted by the past, present, and future. I want to tell you, but I'm afraid someone else could read it. If you could just look into my mind, Timothée. 
You would see how the world treated me like shit. You would see every fucking thing that made me like this. 
Every night, I'd write a letter to you. Wondering if you'd ever get any of my letters. If you're listening, if you understand me. You said in an interview, “Love yourself for who you are and whoever you are, I'm gonna love you too. And when you suffer in life, suffer appropriately. And if you feel bad, that's fine! Just don't beat yourself up for feeling bad.” 
Am I delusional for thinking you'll love me? Based on what you said? Who am I kidding? I don't love myself. 
You're not going to love me. 
I've been suffering for too long and I've been feeling bad for half my life—beating myself up for it. 
If by some miracle, the pain goes away…..
Joke's on me. 
It's supposed to be fun, turning twenty one. 
All my love,
Y/N. 
Timothée felt an unsettling pit in his stomach. He prayed that Y/N was okay, and whatever she planned—he wished she didn't do. 
Suddenly, his phone rang. It was the private investigator he hired. Timothée sighed, hoping for good news. “Yes?” 
“I have a lead on the girl you're looking for, Mr. Chalamet. An address.”
The young actor nearly jumped on his bed in excitement. Timothée finally had an address. He could finally look for Y/N. Timothée quickly scrambled around his room, packing clothes and basic necessities—money, cards, and his passport—along with Y/N's letters. 
All eighteen letters. Ten opened, eight still sealed.  
Timothée stared at the photo in his wallet—the beautiful girl who he wanted so much to find. 
“I'm on my way, Y/N. Hold on, I'm coming.” 
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