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darklordofthesimp · 1 year

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Ipseity (Simon 'Ghost' Riley x Reader)

Part of the "Anything" verse, can be read as a standalone.

Summary: When the 141 has to make a choice between saving you or a fellow sniper, you know that your time has come to an end.

A/N: This was meant to be a short filler and now it's like 4.5k long. Hope you're all happy.

Category: Angst || Hurt/Comfort

Warnings: Graphic Language | Graphic Violence | Gun Violence | Graphic Description of Injury

The ringing in your ears woke you up.

It was a high-pitched squeal that scrambled your thoughts and made your head pound. You couldn't think straight, you couldn't get past the overwhelming dizziness whenever you tried to raise your chin.

Blood stung your eyes. Your chest burned. You hadn’t been in this much pain in years, every pinch of your nerves prodded at long-forgotten childhood memories. They were things that had been left behind from before you enlisted, things that no longer mattered. What mattered was that you were tied to a chair and barely breathing.

You were going to die here.

And nobody was coming to save you.

"Oh,” someone crooned from behind your seat. You didn’t have the strength to turn your neck and you thanked whatever cruel deity was listening that you hadn’t flinched. The least you could do was fake some courage for what was to come.

“Come back for more?” Your mouth was dry, wretchedly so. You wanted to gag and spit, but there was no moisture in your mouth- it was like sandpaper.

“There’s not much left in you for me to take, Sol,” Valeria said, her fingers trailing the length of your shoulder. Your body shivered beneath her touch as she slowly circled your chair, a cruel smile tugging at the corner of her lips.

“Oh, I’ve always got something left for you, gorgeous,” you chuckled, flashing the drug lord a weak grin.

She snorted, the harsh light of the overhead lamp illuminating the edges of her features. She was a sharp woman, Valeria, somebody that you secretly admired. Not for her deeds or the atrocities she’d committed, but for her tenacity and her ambition- there was no stopping her.

“You’ve always been my favourite sniper, you know,” Valeria mused, pulling her hand from your skin to inspect it. Your blood stained her fingers, thick and warm from where it had oozed from your wounds.

“You usually kill your favourite snipers?” You tried to raise your eyebrow but sharp pain ripped through your face, you realized dimly that the skin of your forehead had been split.

“Only when they steal things that belong to me, Luz,” Valeria whispered, pressing her hands against the armrests and leaning in. “Then, I kill them.”

“We didn’t do it,” you met her gaze evenly, the false claim falling easily from your lips.

“You’d die a liar to protect your friends,” she nodded thoughtfully. “It’s unfortunate that they have chosen not to give you the same courtesy.”

You frowned, taken aback by the statement. You suspected that the 141 wouldn’t be there in time, you’d come to terms with the fact that your journey might end here. But, the way she’d said it… it was as if you were missing something.

Valeria’s brows raised, eyes wide as she mocked your surprise with a gasp. “Oh, I must have forgotten to mention it earlier.”

“Mention what?” You ground out through your teeth.

The drug lord huffed a laugh, pushing off from your seat and standing upright. Sweat began to form in a thin sheen across your skin, anxiety running rampant through your system.

What did she mean?

Valeria’s eyes hardened as she tutted under her breath, pulling the blade on her thigh from its sheath. When her attention turned back to you, the malice in her gaze made your spine straighten.

“What you stole from me,” she began, pointing the knife towards your face, “got someone very close to me killed.”

You swallowed thickly, your throat like gravel and your tongue like concrete.

The woman was seething now, the cool facade that she’d worn had melted into pure vitriol and hatred. It was an expression you’d never seen on her but on so many others throughout the years, it was the stare of someone who blamed you for their loss.

“So, as penance,” Valeria pressed the tip of the blade to rest against your chest, “your Task Force will have to lose one of their own- even after they bring me the information.”

“What-”

“We have the other sniper,” the drug lord shrugged. “The little broken one.”

Your heart stalled in your chest, fear dousing your body like a bucket of ice water. Blood rushed through your ears, loud and roaring and all-consuming with the sound. You couldn’t think straight, the image of your colleague being tortured flashed across your vision like a spotlight.

“Birdy.” You whispered the name but it sounded like a plea rather than a statement. Valeria must have heard the begging in your voice because she only smiled.

“Birdy,” she confirmed, with a smug tilt of her head.

God, please no.

“Let them go!” You lurched against your restraints.

The latina's eyes were like stone, hard and unyielding. She was in pain, she was hurting and now it was her chance to hurt you all for what you’d done.

“I will,” she nodded her head soothingly, fingers coming to trace your trembling jaw. You snatched your face from her touch and she raised a brow. When she leaned back with a sigh, you knew what was coming.

Valeria struck you hard.

The wounds on your face screamed and it felt like someone was making you gargle molten lava. Your eyes watered but you made no sound, you gave her nothing to indicate that she’d hurt you.

“The 141 will bring me what they stole,” Valeria sucked in a breath, watching you from beneath her lashes. “But they can only save one of you.”

Your eyes widened.

They can only save one of you.

You knew then that you were going to die here.

“What’s the matter, pequeño sol?” Valeria spoke with a mocking lilt. Your body trembled. “You don’t think they will come for you?”

“No.”

The word was soft and broken and you wondered if the drug lord had even heard it. The way that her smile wavered implied that she did.

“No,” she nodded, standing straight. “Neither do I.”

If you hadn’t been so shattered, you would have seen the glimmer of pity pass over her features.

You took in a deep breath in an attempt to calm yourself, "will you keep your word?"

"What?"

"Will you keep your word?" You repeated firmly. No one was stupid enough to trust the word of a drug lord but right there and then you would take it as law. If you were going to die you needed to know that Birdy would be safe.

Your eyes bore into hers. Valeria swallowed and you could see her hesitation, the desire to spit on the dying flame in your chest and put it out.

Instead, the woman only nodded.

"I will."

Instantly, you relaxed in your seat and leaned your head back with a sigh. You closed your eyes, fighting the tears that had gathered along your lashes.

This was it.

This was the end of it.

You weren't stupid enough to expect anyone to come save you, not when Birdy's life hung in the balance. There was never a doubt about who was more valued on the team, despite your skills you'd never be able to contend with Birdy's spot on the team.

It wasn't about who was better, it was about who was loved.

And nobody in the 141 loved you more than they loved Birdy.

No one.

Your lips trembled and you fury rose like a volcanic eruption from within your chest. You would not die crying. You would not die without dignity.

"I'll be leaving to retrieve my package," Valeria sighed, sheathing her knife. "Once the handover is made, my men will put you down."

You grinned.

"After all we've been through," you feigned hurt. "I thought you'd want to do the honors, gorgeous."

But Valeria didn't bite. She didn't laugh nor did she retaliate, the woman only watched you with an unreadable expression.

"We are the same, me and you, Sunshine." The drug lord stood tall, "Deberías haber sido valorado. Morir con orgullo."

You blinked dumbly. "I don't know what the fuck you said but I'm going to assume you think I'm hot and that you regret not sleeping with me before I die."

Valeria rolled her eyes and turned away.

"You act tough, Sol. Don't die thinking this is anything but a betrayal."

Betrayal.

You offered nothing but a snort, laughing the chill of her words off your spine.

The woman left the room and immediately the silence was overwhelming. There was no one to lie to now, no one to throw your facade at. You found yourself almost asking her to stay as she closed the door behind her, biting your tongue to reserve your dignity. But, you didn't want to be alone, not when the end was approaching so quickly.

Though, you guess you'd done this to yourself.

Always good, but never enough. König was your best friend, but you knew he'd leave you in a heartbeat to save the sniper he truly loved- you couldn't ask any differently from him.

After all, if it had been between him and Ghost, you were sure you'd make the same decision.

A pathetic tragedy in itself considering the feeling wasn't mutual.

Simon Riley loved Birdy, just as the rest of them did.

You would never compare, you'd never come close, not with your ambitious demeanor- not with your shitty attitude. You'd never allowed yourself to view them as family and when they'd tried to include you, you hadn't let them in.

If your own family had wronged you, your own flesh and blood, what would the 141 do any differently?

By the looks of the situation: nothing.

No one was coming to save you.

The burning beneath your lids became so aggressive you wanted to tear the skin from your face. You wanted to gouge out your eyes, just so that the only thing dripping would be blood- not tears.

Never tears.

You were not Birdy, you did not cry.

You were not Birdy.

You'd never be Birdy.

The pressure in your chest grew and swelled and suffocated, extinguishing the fire you'd kept burning for years. Through everything, you'd held strong. Through hellfire and brimstone, you'd crawled your way across death and misfortune to emerge from the ashes stronger.

You did not break. Not until now.

A scream ripped from your chest, unrecognizable. It wasn't you who wailed, it was the child inside who mourned their life. It was the adult who'd never been loved the way they'd prayed for in the dead of the night.

Never enough.

Never enough for König, the man who always found himself by Birdy's side, chasing for the crumbs of their attention.

Never enough for Simon Riley, who'd taken your heart and crushed it every time he watched you with distaste- with disappointment.

You were never the priority.

Never his priority.

You'd never be anything to Ghost, not the way Birdy was.

But you were not Birdy and you'd not die wishing that you were.

You pulled at your restraints, thrashing in your chair with renewed energy. While you knew it was unlikely you'd escape, at least you'd be put down fighting.

"Hey!" One of Valeria's henchmen shouted.

You struggled harder, the skin of your wrists ripping from beneath the ties. Fresh blood trailed down your fingers and you smeared it wherever you could reach, wetting the braided rope until it was slick with crimson rage.

Your heart jumped as your hands slipped through the restraints, the gory lubrication helping you pull your crumpled fingers free.

"Stop!" The cool metal of a barrel pressed against your forehead, putting an instant halt on your plans.

You glared up at the man before you, his eyes were hard but his hand trembled, the weapon jittering against your skull.

"I will fucking paint this room with your brains," he hissed, the cigarette in his mouth jolting with each word. "Try me, I dare you."

"If the 141 comes with the package and I'm dead, Valeria will butcher your entire family, cabrón." You were careful as you spoke, enunciating each word as clearly as you could muster.

The butt of his weapon struck your cheek hard enough to send stars skittering across your vision.

"I speak," the man hissed, "not you."

"I'm trying to warn you-"

He hit you again, this time harder. You felt your teeth dislodge from in your mouth and panic gripped your heart as they slid down your throat.

"I said don't speak!" He shouted, the words warbled as your vision spun. Your head lolled to the side, gagging as you choked on your own bones. Bile speared through your chest as a combination of blood and stomach acid hit the floor weakly. Your teeth clattered across the ground, like dice rolling across the board.

"Ricky!" The man called over his shoulder. "Alguna palabra sobre el paquete?

"Aún nada, hermano."

"Mierda! ¿Por qué tarda tanto?"

The conversation fell on deaf ears as you fought to keep yourself conscious. Your hands were freed but now the element of surprise was lost and there was a barrel pressed against your face.

"I should kill you right now," the man spat in English. "You fucking murdered my brothers like a coward."

"They should learn to duck," you shrugged weakly.

This time when he hit you, it threw your seat backward. You hadn't been able to move your hands in time before the weight of your body and the steel spines of the chair slammed against your forearms.

A sickening crunch reverberated through the room, echoing like the toll of a church bell and while that was loud, your scream was deafening.

"Let's be honest with ourselves, Sunshine," the man laughed, watching you as you writhed and sobbed. "Nobody is coming to save you."

He cocked the weapon slowly, leaning down to press the barrel against your forehead once again. You couldn't even keep your eyes open as you struggled for breath, choking on your own spit and blood as you shrieked. You wanted to watch him, you wanted to go down with defiance- but fear gripped your throat so tightly you were choking on it.

You weren't going to die fighting.

You were going to die suffering.

When the gunshot came, your body recoiled so hard that your head smashed the concrete beneath you. In that horrible moment of silence that followed, you wondered if there was no peace even in death. Agony ripped through your nervous system, every inch of your body screamed for relief.

If this was death, then you were in hell.

"Think again, cunt."

The distinct cockney accent had your spine straightening and your eyes snapping open.

The gun clattered beside your head, unfired.

You weren't dead.

"Sunshine!"

You were being saved.

"Talk to me, Sunshine!"

The voice was so far away, he was too far away, he wasn't going to make it. You weren't going to make it. The man on the floor next to you must have sat back up because you could feel his hands gripping your shoulders, the gun rattling in your ears.

Fingers gripped your face, jostling you from your semi-conscious state. Your vision was blurred by your own blood and tears, the figure before you a mess of shadows. You screamed, trying to pull your broken arms from beneath the chair to defend yourself until help got to you.

Searing hot pain ran up the lengths of your arms and stabbed into your neck. You gagged, a low bellow wrenching from your throat as you heaved.

"Stop! Stop! Don't move!"

"Get away from me!" You wailed, voice shrill and unhinged. You tugged again and this time his hands came down on your shoulders.

"SUNSHINE!"

The roar of your name made your entire body freeze, clutching you by the throat with the desperation behind the callsign. You closed your eyes, a whimper falling from your lips to taint your dignity.

"Jesus." He sounded like Ghost. It couldn't have been him but, God, you wished it was. "Come on, Sweetheart. Look at me."

"I can't see," you wept.

His thumbs swept over your face, gloves wiping the blood from where it had settled on your lids and lashes. You tried again, blinking the crimson liquid from your eyes as best you could. You imagined that you looked a sight, the whites of your eyes a deep red, stained with evidence of your injuries. Finally, your vision settled.

Simon stared back at you, eyes wide.

You gasped.

"Simon?" You slurred, his name broken on your lips.

"Yeah, Sunshine. S'me." He murmured distractedly. His fingers were twitching on your neck, scanning the rest of your body for injuries.

Your heart was beating against your ribs, sudden anxiety flooding your being. If he was here it meant that they'd brought the package to you rather than to Birdy.

That meant…

"No, no, no," you whispered as the Lieutenant lifted the chair with one hand, pulling your broken hands from behind your back. "No, no, Simon, what're you doing here?"

Ghost recoiled slightly, a frown overtaking his features. "The fuck do you mean?"

"Birdy," you rasped, a sob building in your chest. "You need to get Birdy. What about Birdy?"

"Birdy's-"

You fought to stand up, pushing him out of the way as you stumbled to your feet. Your body swayed side to side as your vision swam, but you weren't going down- not again.

"Need a gat. Need Birdy- we can't lose Birdy. Everybody needs Birdy-"

"Sunshine."

"I can't lose Birdy!" You snapped, reeling on your superior with a broken gaze.

For a moment, he stood frozen, speechless. You'd never recover if they killed the other sniper, no one would. Everyone would blame you, it'd be your fault.

"König's got Birdy," Ghost said slowly, straightening to stand to his full height. "I've got you, Sunshine."

You gawked at him as though you hadn't understood a single word he'd said. Realistically, you truly hadn't. They'd come for you, knowing that it would put everyone at risk.

Simon had come for you, leaving Birdy to a man that he hated with every ounce of his being.

Simon had come for you, not Birdy.

"You're here?" You whispered and although it sounded fucking stupid, Ghost only nodded. He knew what you were really asking.

"Of course," he said. "Of course, I am."

"You came for me?" Your voice broke.

The soldier shuffled on his feet, shaking his head as though he thought it was obvious.

"I'd follow you anywhere. We both know it," he huffed, that dark gaze pinning your soul to your chest.

You rocked forward at the words, knees buckling from beneath you. Simon shot forward instantly, his arms looping around your waist and hauling you upward. His hand came to grip your chin, fingers slapping your cheek lightly as your eyes rolled backward.

"Come on, Sweetheart. Stay with it, it's nothin'," he growled, jostling your body to keep you conscious. Your head fell forward to rest against his shoulder, ears ringing and your mind shattered. "Sunshine, stay awake for me."

You couldn't any longer, you couldn't listen to him. He should have been used to it by now, you'd always been the troublesome one for him. Never directly disobeying him but never doing it the way he asked, always driving him bat-shit fucking crazy- always under his skin.

But, if Simon couldn't save you, you'd die happy knowing that he'd even tried.

You'd die happy knowing that somebody loved you.

—

When you thought of dying, you always had such a visceral image of what would happen. You'd be the last one on your line, and the rest of your unit would be shot down; you'd make a stand on a hill and wipe out the enemy until you were out of ammo. Then, you would fight until you were overwhelmed.

That was the death you'd imagined.

Not abandoned and left alone in a warehouse in a sick game of "pick the sniper you like more."

"They'll fully recover physically," someone sighed from above your head. "Mentally, though…"

"They'll be right," Simon finished.

"That's what they said about Birdy," the doctor muttered. "We all know how that ended."

"Doc-"

"Saint."

Simon cleared his throat.

"Saint," the callsign foreign on his tongue, "Sunshine's not Birdy."

To hear it from Simon Riley himself was all the validation you needed.

You stirred in the bed and immediately all conversation fell quiet, the both of them waiting for you to fully awaken.

You knew you were in the hospital before your eyes opened. You recognised the doctor who was talking, a medic who had yelled at you often for ‘being reckless.’ The smell of antiseptic was near seared into your memory and the sound of the monitor beeping was too familiar.

However, the room was brighter than you’d anticipated and you cringed into your pillow with a moan. The overhead light stung your eyes, searing your retinas and making it near impossible for you to think.

“Get the lights,” Saint ordered, realizing what the issue was.

The room fell dim, enough for you to finally pry your lids open and have a look around. Your jaw felt heavy like there was cotton in your mouth. As you probed with your tongue, you realised with a pitted stomach that there actually was something stuffed between your teeth.

You moaned, reaching upward to pull it out.

It was as though you’d set off a bomb with the movement. Both Simon and Saint immediately shot forward, hands on your arms to rest them by your side gently. They stood on either side of your bed, like two sentries, one dark and one light.

“Gonna need you to just relax a second for me, spitfire,” Saint chuckled.

You huffed, fighting the urge to gag on the material in your mouth. Your tongue ran over it, moving to dislodge it from where it had been wedged between your teeth.

“Now,” the doctor leaned over to adjust your drip. “Do you remember your name and what happened?”

Rather than respond, you opted to slowly let the gauze fall out of your mouth and onto your chest. Saint watched you with a deadpan expression as you fought with your facial injuries to perform this feat.

At the end of it, you offered a weak smile.

A long moment of silence ensued before the doctor sighed, staring at the lumps of bloody fabric sitting on the gown.

“I’m gonna go grab some shit,” they said. “Maybe a fuckin’ whiskey.”

They disappeared from the room swiftly, leaving you alone with the Grim Reaper himself. With a harsh sigh through his nose, the Lieutenant reached over and scooped up the gauze, dropping them into the bin.

“You couldn’t just answer the question?” He muttered, moving to crouch by your head. He wore only his balaclava, his hoodie down for once.

“Not with that in my mouth,” you rasped, words thick and sickly.

Simon snorted softly but he said nothing, opting to watch you instead. His gaze ran from your hair to your neck, over and over as if he were committing you to memory. His expression was gentle but there was something hidden that made you think that, at that moment, he was extremely vulnerable.

Anything you said from this point on would determine the relationship between you both. You remembered what he’d confessed when he found you beaten and bloody on the floor. It was clear as day and imprinted on your brain as though it had been branded on the inside of your skull.

“I would follow you anywhere. We both know it.”

You’d both reached the point of no return, no more smoke and mirrors, no more half-truths. Neither of you could get away with hiding your feelings behind hatred anymore.

Not after he’d chosen you.

“You came for me,” you whispered. A statement, not a question this time.

“Of course,” he said again, just as he had before.

You hadn’t realised you were crying until his hand cupped your cheek, his thumb wiping the tears from your cheeks ever so gently. As much as you hated it, as much as you wanted to stop, you couldn’t hold them back.

The relief was palpable, the understanding that you were valued was freeing.

Simon Riley knew the kind of person you were, right at your very core, and he still chose to love you. He still chose to hold your hand and dry your tears with nothing but pure reverence in his gaze.

You realized then and there, that you were valued.

You were enough.

#simon ghost riley #simon ghost riley x reader #simon riley x reader #simon riley #modern warfare 2 #cod mw2 x reader #cod mw2 ghost #cod x reader #cod mw2 #modern warfare #call of duty #call of duty x reader #call of duty mw2 #cod ghost

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ozzgin · 5 days

Note

I'm the anon who asked if your requests are open and i got busy assignments + presentations that i almost forgot about the request but now i remembered and it's based on my dream i saw that night..

How about a vampire who lost his relic (presumably a ring) and reader happens find it and tries it on, now the vampire is all panicking because guess what? That was a betrothal relic and it has binded the vampire's soul with the one of reader. They can't pull it out/take it of.. oh well, now they are stuck and obviously the vampire hates the idea of being stuck with a pesky human but hey they are kinda stupid..? How tf they tripped on thin air? Or how they are still alive even after being food poisoned 5 times a month? Vampire is now babysitter for his human *sighs * what has he gotten himself in..

(Please add yandere elements later on, my brain stoopid but i want a hot Victorian era vampire being obsessed with me ^^ muah!)

(I'm sorry this is so lengthy TT)

Yandere! Vampire x Reader

Featuring a ridiculously lucky Reader who constantly manages to escape a Vampire's assassination attempts. Did someone order a supernatural edition of enemies to lovers?

Content: gender neutral reader, obsessive behavior, mentions of stalking, romcom

[Monster masterlist] [Original works masterlist]

"Are you alright, (Y/N)?" your friends gasp in unison, eyes fixated on the fallen ceramic pot that scarcely missed you, now laying shattered at your feet. You laugh reassuringly and wave your hand in dismissal. "It's the fifth time it happens today. Maybe there's a storm coming?"

From within the shadows, menacing eyes glowing red follow your movements. "Damn it!" The mysterious man curses under his breath. He stares enviously at the bulky ring on your finger. The ring bearing his Family signet, where part of his very soul resides. It has stayed with him for centuries, and somehow, to his utmost shame, he lost it. By the time he rushed back to retrieve it, you were carelessly sliding it down your finger. He wanted to strangle the life out of you right then and there, but he felt it: the immediate surge of contractual power, dominating his will and holding him back from breaking your bones. "It's a little tacky, isn't it?" your friend remarked. You nodded in agreement and tried to remove it, but the metal band tightened around your skin, painfully constricting your digit. It was stuck. It was too late.

Now he has to rely on cheap trickeries like this one. Sure, he may not be able to directly plunge his fangs into your neck, but the bonding curse does not shield you from "accidents", you see. It would be a real shame if that flower pot was to land straight into your head, ending you instantly and thus breaking the connection with him. Except you simply refuse to die. A mystery, a paradox, one that enrages him to no end. It's almost as if the ring is bringing you fortune at the cost of his misery.

"Have you had any luck removing that ugly thing?" the person standing next to you mentions. The vampire lord grits his teeth at the blasphemous words. This is what's become of him: a deceitful buffoon, having to sit and listen to his inheritance being mocked relentlessly. He holds back the urge of shouting that thousands have bled to death in order to forge that magnificence. "Not at all", you respond idly. "I tried taking it to a jeweler, and she said she could try to cut it, but she ended up having a heart attack right in the middle of it. She didn't even look that old, maybe it runs in her family?"

Unbelievable. The thought of reclaiming his relic haunts every second of his day, to the point he's become your shadow. Stalking your every move, your every breath, observing his prey and waiting for an opportunity to strike. He can already picture that pathetic face of yours, twisting in pain, begging for-...huh. Well, look at that, you're reading one of his favorite books. Perhaps you do have a little taste, after all. It won't save you from your terrible fate, but he might skip the prolonged torture.

There's plenty of quotes out there about knowing your enemy in order to guarantee your victory, though one might wonder where the limit of such knowledge resides. Or what counts as useful to begin with. The vampire lord is presently wondering about this very aspect, as he mouths your coffee order from a distance. Less sugar, huh? You did mention losing your sweet tooth. He shakes his head indignantly. Absolutely not! The throb of his heart is fueled by raw hatred and nothing else. One of days he will savour your demise.

Your ridiculous luck might just end today. You've taken a shortcut on your way back home, and didn't expect a shady, burly man to block your exit. A perverted grin stains his face as he approaches you, twiddling with his pocket knife. "Alone at this hour?" You frown and try to find a way out, but the man suddenly begins to heave and convulse before your eyes, grasping at his chest as the skin shrivels and dries. He collapses at your feet, body wilted as if it's been emptied of its vitality. The Vampire Lord clicks his tongue.

To think he'd rush to rescue his sworn enemy, a pitiful mortal like you. He didn't even get the chance to consider the aftermath. You stare at the stranger, confused but observant. Pale skin, crimson eyes, unnaturally sharp canines...and the fact he just drained a living being into a bloodless corpse: everything hints to one possibility. "Are you by any chance a vampire?" you find yourself mumbling. "You must've graduated from Harvard with those deduction skills", he responds sarcastically.

Everything else unfolds in a haze. Wasn't he planning to kill you and retrieve his ring? When the hell did he offer to walk you home to avoid more creeps? Why is he twirling his hair sheepishly whenever you praise his demonic powers? Oh, but it gets worse: why did he suddenly feel the urge to kiss you before returning to his cursed lair? Why did he accept your invitation to spend the night at your place instead? One moment ago, he was doing his best to curse you off this Earth. Now he's tugging stray strands of hair away from your blushing, whining face, asking you if it hurts. Damned human.

"How did you know I like this? Have you been stalking me?" you joke, nudging your undead boyfriend and setting the gift aside. "More or less", he confesses with a yawn. He recalls all that time spent dutifully spying on your oblivious self. "You know, a human like you shouldn't be able to dodge death like that." He turns to you and scans your features. Then, abruptly embarrassed, he ruffles your hair to block you from noticing his blush. "I suppose my failure was the better outcome. It's not too bad, having you around."

#yandere #yandere x reader #yandere x you #yandere x darling #male yandere x reader #yandere vampire #vampire x reader #yandere monster #yandere monster x reader #monster x reader #yandere headcanons #yandere imagines #yandere scenarios #yandere oc #yandere oc x reader #monster x human #monster boyfriend

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azsazz · 3 months

Text

With Me

Eris x Rhysand's Sister!Reader

Summary: Anon Req: I know your request are closed but still writing. In the future could you do something with Eris x rhys sister?

Warnings: Graphic depictions of canon violence

Word Count: 1,520

_________________________________________

It had been on a wisp of an autumn breeze that Eris found out.

Found out about the plans of the High Lord of Spring, how he and his sons planned an ambush on the wife and daughter of the High Lord of Night on their travels to the Illyrian mountains for a visit with her son.

He had been on his horse, red as the leaves on the trees, scouting the borders between Autumn and Spring. The wind ruffled his hair and tickled his pointed ears with the whispers of scheming sons. Eris had stilled the mare beneath him and urged the current with a touch of magic to enhance the conversation.

That High Lord will pay for everything he’s tried to do to ours.

He won’t even know what’s coming. And neither will those little bitches.

Dibs on the older one.

It had eaten Eris throughout the day. Across the rest of his round on the border, during battle strategy, between sword fighting with his younger brothers. Lucien was learning quickly how to play his brothers against each other, and even scored a hit on Eris while his mind had been run through with worry.

He is a smart male but the thought of going to his father with this news didn’t feel right, but keeping it to himself felt even worse. So, after a family dinner that he loathed, Eris put on his emerald robes and marched into the Night Court territory.

He was too late.

Eris caught the scent of your blood on a tornado of wind that carried the harrowing cries of you and your mothers downfall. You had been brutally attacked by the Spring Court sons and their father, and as Eris crept closer he saw blood coated flowers sprouting from the ground. The High Lord’s magic, a love note to the High Lord of Night.

A soft gurgle caught his attention as he stepped into the clearing washed in moonlight. The sight before him was harrowing; your carriage door ripped off its hinges, the windows blown out. Even the large, black steeds that had been pulling the wagon had been slaughtered, their entrails long lines in the white snow.

A wet cough, one with the whisper of death accompanying it drew his attention. Eris didn’t hesitate to locate you, his breath catching in his throat at the sight of you curled beneath your slain mother, her arms still wrapped around you protectively.

Your eyes were wide with fear, mouth gaping like a fish. Blood of both yours and your mothers surrounded you, leaking from your lips, from between the hands you had pressed weakly to your stomach.

Falling to his knees, Eris reached a hand out but halted when your eyes met his. His mind was reeling, a young warrior with little battlefield experience before a female struggling through her thinning breaths.

Something stirred deeply within him, something he knew but couldn’t say, wouldn’t admit out loud until years later.

You had enough strength to shift your hand in the snow, reaching towards him, eyes screaming a plea for help from the handsome son of Autumn.

And he did. He held your organs in his hands as he winnowed you from Night into his own territory, right into the hands of his mother.

Amaretto stood with a start, the book in her hands falling loudly to the floor. There were no sounds in the room, not even the crackling of the fires raging in the hearths. She kept it this way so she could hear the sounds of her husband's footsteps when he walked down the marble halls of the Woodland House, each echo a shot to her confidence.

“Eris,” she gasps at her son, who looks over at her with wide, pleading, auburn eyes. She halts in her tracks, that look in his eyes, the sheer terror on his face. Her own eyes softened with a knowing look, and she uttered, “Oh, Eris.”

He and his mother worked in tandem all through the night. And when Beron’s footsteps began to sound down the hall Eris had been the one to distract him, goad him. He didn’t care about the bruises and pain inflicted by his father’s hand because it was nothing to the pain he could feel from you, through the thread of the bond that had appeared at the sight of you.

His mother saved your life with the little trickle of healing magic she had left. Always hidden from Beron, but would use it to save her son’s mate’s life. Two gentle souls that deserved much better hands that you had been dealt in the world.

Eris stayed by your side when you had been moved to a guest room. You hadn’t woken for days and he couldn’t figure out a way to hide you from his father who would surely use you against the Night Court, who were mourning the news of their felled female family members.

Word had come of the slaying of the Spring Court High Lord and the two eldest sons, leaving young Tamlin to take his place. In the fray, the High Lord of Night had been murdered as well, with Rhysand taking the chair of rule.

It was all very confusing times.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

“Eris,” you plead, tears staining your eyes. He can feel the cracking in your chest even though you’re trying to hide it from him. You’ve never been good at blocking your feelings from your loving mate, but the thought of returning home was all too much. Eris wasn’t understanding your fear, your need to go home to the Night Court after so long away, after Amarantha’s reign of terror has finally ended. “I need to see my brother.”

Eris had hidden you from the wretched female while he and all of the other citizens of the Autumn Court had been forced beneath the mountain. It had been a long, lonely fifty years of trying to find a way to get back to Velaris, to get inside of the barriers that had been protected with an extra boost of Rhysand’s power before he became trapped.

“I can’t lose you,” he whispers, hugging you closely. The both of you are laid up in his bed, days of reacquainting each other with the other’s body after so long away. Your mate had all but fallen apart in your arms, and you in his, the loneliness of your years spent wondering how your mate fared against the powerful female set to ruin your world.

“Come with me,” you beg wetly, clutching to his clothes. He had winnowed right back into your arms as soon as he was able, and he hasn’t let you go since. You hadn’t wanted him to. “Let’s run away from Autumn, together.”

Just like Lucien had done, chased away from the Court he knew as home while their awful brothers hunted him down. It had been another harrowing night for Eris, one you held him through.

Only the knowledge that his brother was safe in the Spring Court had kept him from completely falling apart.

“I can’t just leave like this, fawn,” he answers wetly, stroking your hair back from your face. You’re as beautiful as the day you woke up, when your eyes landed on his and the bond made itself known to you. He has spent every day since thanking the Mother for this time with you, for sparing you that winter night, for keeping you safe when he was trapped under the mountain with no way out. “Not yet.”

Your voice breaks and hot tears stream down your face, throat tightening to the point where no words could break if you tried. You want Eris to come with you, you need Eris to come with you. You’ve only just gotten him back and it cannot be time to give him up already.

“It’s okay, fawn,” Eris consoles sadly. He will keep you in his arms tonight and tomorrow, up until he escorts you to your brother’s land and makes sure that you are safe with them. He has been a selfish male for so many years, falling headfirst into the mating bond. He’d fallen into you completely and without any remorse, the same way you had found yourself falling into him. “You need to do this. And I will be here, fighting for a better life for us until we can be together, freely.”

Eris and Amaretto had come up with an elaborate plan to tell the rest of the family. That Eris would hide you until you healed, and found his mate at the Autumnal Equinox balls. It would ensure your safety, being classed as a High Fae, but also being Eris’ mate. You had learned to deal with Beron and Eris’ insufferable brothers for years.

You love Eris with every fiber of your being, and the thought of parting with him so soon after getting him back tears your heart to shreds, but you need to go, especially after everything Eris had told you happened down there.

“I love you, Eris.”

“I love you too, fawn.”

#eris x reader #eris/reader #acotar #azsazz #acomaf #acowar #acosf #eris #eris vanserra

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aliaology · 4 months

Text

WORK SONG

summary: jacks mind runs constantly, and you’re the reason

small a/n: per usual, readers looks wont be described, so reader can look however you want ♡ , does get slightly sensual! not tagging ppl for this one bc i forgot my taglist and im sleepy

pairings: jack hughes x fem!reader

not doing my tags bc im too lazy for this rn

boys workin’ on empty, is that the kinda way to face the burning heat? i just think about my baby. im so full of love i could barely eat

being in love was a full time job, and jack had no complaints. he loved being in love because it meant waking up next to you. it meant he was able to touch you, to feel you, to be with you. oh— how he loved it. he didn’t care if he was at practice, just thinking about you, because you were his motivator. he didn’t need drinks or food or sleep to play, just you.

you brought him the strength he craved, you were his number one fan. the one who supported him through thick and thin even when he was wrong. the one who held their hand out, so he could grab it and begin to climb. you were such an angel.

there’s nothing sweeter than my baby. i’d never want once from the cherry tree. ‘cause my baby’s sweet as can be. she’d give me toothaches just from kissin’ me.

your kisses were sweet. the way you’d pepper them against his skin, over and over and over again, made him fall deeply. you were his muse and your sound was so pretty. the way your mouth would drop open, noises escaping it. oh how you were so beautiful.

your lips tasted like cherries, a favorite fruit that he began liking the second his tongue met with the flavor of you. the flavor would linger, no matter what lips he kissed.

the feeling of your fingers on his face, or his lips, anywhere on his body, was like heaven. giving into you like a drug— he was addicted. he loved your touch, no matter if it was gentle, or the scratches you’d leave on his back. he yearned for more.

and i was burning up a fever. i didn’t care much how long i lived. i swear i thought i dreamed her. she never asked me once about the wrong i did.

jack hated being sick just because of the feeling. the feeling of a stuffy nose, a headache, the cough. all of it. but you somehow made it good. the way you would take care of him, pressing a cold cloth to his forehead when he had a fever. or when you’d make soup from scratch, your grandmas recipe that you keep a secret.

you were too good to be true. you were the embodiment of perfect in jacks eyes. everything about you. from how you spoke and how your tone was always gentle — to how you felt inside and out. every time you grip jacks hand hard— he swears he’s dreaming. you can’t be real. you were ethereal.

my babe would never fret none, about what my hands and my body done. if the lord dont forgive me, i’d still have my baby and my babe would have me.

jack didn’t like you worrying. he hated it, hated how you would get so scared that he would leave to go back to an ex. how you thought you were nothing compared to them— but you were so much more. you were his everything. the one who kept him going. you were his sun, he revolved around you. he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“baby— what if they ever want you back? they’re so pretty.”

“oh baby, they could never compare to you.”

he didn’t care what he’d have to do, but he’d do it all for you to stay happy. in his eyes, you hung the universe. you were his universe.

when i was kissing on my baby, and she put her love down soft and sweet. in the low lamp light i was free. heaven and hell were words to me.

being able to press slow kisses to your neck and shoulders were his favorite things to do. or watching your soft body rock gently with his as your sweet love lit him up. you made jack forget everything in the world no matter where you were. you made jack forget everything else just by talking to him.

skin on skin, heavy breathing, sloppy kisses, it was all sweet. it was all you, you and your love. no time with him was for the hell of it. all of it was love, pure and desirable.

when my time comes around, lay me gently in the cold, dark earth. no grave can hold my body down, ill crawl home to her.

love. jack loved being in love. he hated the saying ‘til death do us part’ and it wasn’t because he didn’t believe it. he hated it because it would never apply to him. he wanted a saying that would be one he could hold onto forever, just like your hand. he wouldn’t part ways with you once death decided to take over.

no— he’d hold you the entire time. he’d be with you no matter where you were. he’d wait until you two met again— and then he’d take you to another universe because in every one of them, you were soulmates.

jack would not let a grave, or death, part you two. he would hold onto you whether it be with one hand, or with his heart.

#hockey #jack hughes #nhl #nhl imagine #nhl hockey #new jersey #new jersey devils #jack hughes x reader #jack hughes x y/n #jack hughes x you #jack hughes imagine #jh86 #jhughes #jhugh #jhugh86 #hughes

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nothankyoudear · 1 year

Text

Ever since Merlin was a small child, Hunith had always bombarded him with loving touches. She carried him whenever she could, and when he grew too big to be carried, she left him with warm hugs and soft touches on his cheeks. She wiped his tears when he cried, and intertwined their fingers on cold nights as they slept.

Arthur, on the other hand, could not remember the last time he was touched by his father in any way other than a firm clasp on the shoulder. All his life, he's known nothing but side glances and firm remarks. No one was there to wipe his tears away when he cried, and certainly no one was there to hold him on cold nights as he slept.

He was the prince of Camelot, after all, and everyone knew that princes cannot be soft.

Which was why, the first time that Merlin went in for a hug, Arthur immediately flinched back.

They stood in silence for a few moments before Arthur left, unable to stand the tension in the air. Not thinking much about it, he had rendered it just another one of those awkward little moments with Merlin that would soon dissipate from his memory.

Oh, how wrong he was.

Arthur found himself unable to move on from it. He spent that night turning in his bed, wondering what it would've been like if he accepted Merlin's hug - The warmth and comfort that he had only ever seen given to others. He fell asleep wondering what it would feel like to be embraced by another.

Merlin doesn't do it again, at least not for a while. It was understandable, especially after Arthur reacted so drastically at his first attempt at closeness, but Arthur still couldn't help but spend another few sleepless nights regretting his reaction.

Because he was the prince of Camelot, and if Merlin - irresponsible, reckless, sarcastic Merlin - wasn't willing to touch him, then no one was.

So when the second time came - when Merlin, most likely without thinking ("when does he ever think?"), went in for a hug, Arthur hugged back.

He wrapped Merlin in his arms, and oh, it was bliss. The warmth and the comfort and the closeness that he had heard so much about were all real. He couldn't help but tighten his arms around the other boy's thin body and lean in, rendered helpless by a sense of aching intimacy.

Questions immediately appeared in Arthur's mind: How had he survived up until then without touches like these? If Merlin had never been assigned as his manservant, would he have gone his whole life without experiencing this? And now that he's finally experienced this, how could he go without it for the rest of his life?

The thought pained Arthur, so he squeezed even harder.

They didn't talk about it afterwards, but Arthur knew that Merlin knew. Arthur had exposed the softness underneath his hard exterior, and now Merlin knew.

And lord, was it great.

Their previously rare touches turned more and more common. Soon, putting on Armour turned into lingering touches on Arthur's body, and training sessions turned into Merlin haphazardly wiping the sweat from Arthur's forehead as he leaned into the cooling touch on his skin.

Sometimes, if Arthur was feeling brave, he’d even initiate some of these touches.

He’d hook his finger with Merlin’s as they walked to the stables, running his thumb against whatever skin he could reach. He’d warm Merlin’s seemingly forever cold hands by gently pulling them into his own bigger ones. He’d walk up silently behind Merlin as he’s softly humming a song while polishing Arthur’s armour, and wrap his arms around his waist, burying his head into the crook of Merlin’s shoulder.

It was like Arthur's mind was trying to reclaim all touches lost to the years. He craved skin - Merlin's skin - on his. He craved the way Merlin's fingers ran over his muscles. He craved these moments of intimacy where he wasn't Arthur Pendragon, the prince of Camelot, and he was just Arthur.

And somehow Merlin knew of this insatiable craving of his, because he was always giving and giving and giving. Arthur never openly asked for the tender touches and the soft trails of fingertips against his stomach, but Merlin - lovely, gorgeous, beautiful Merlin - was always there to give.

The love in Merlin was overflowing, and Arthur was there to catch every last drop of it.

And as Arthur was still human (despite how hard he tried), there were times when he wept.

Arthur cried the same way he cried when he was a child - with his shoulder shaking, his eyes shut, and his hands trembling. He also used to sob with his mouth open and with his grief audible like any other child, but that had long been scolded and beaten out of him.

However, despite the habits that he brought into adulthood, the nights when he cried were no longer like the lonely nights that he suffered through as a child - There was no ache in his chest as tears ran down his cheeks. No biting the collar of his shirt as he attempted to stay quiet. No harsh words to keep him silent.

There were, in their place, gentle caresses to his forehead as Merlin smoothed back his hair, murmuring words of comfort under his breath. A warm shoulder to lean on as he cried quietly. Thumbs that wiped under his lashes and nimble fingers that caressed his cheeks.

A voice that cooed and replied, “I'm here, darling” when Arthur whispered, “Merlin, Merlin, Merlin” through his tears. Lips that pressed against his as another sob seeped out. Arms that wrapped around Arthur, and gentle hands that ran themselves comfortingly over the expanse of his back until they both fell asleep.

And what a joy it was, to have someone who wiped his tears away when he cried, and someone to hold him on cold nights as he slept. To be touched and held and loved.

What a joy Merlin was.

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biibini · 4 months

Note

Its okay if you dont wanna do this but i really wanna know what you think mizu would do when reader gets her period

modern!mizu x reader gets her period (request)

tags: period, cuddling, fluff, kissing, modern au, modern mizu, mizu being best girl

a/n: ok midterms r coming up so soon HAHAHAHAH (im so nervous)

modern!mizu would def have the supplies

but i’d feel like she’d carry the lighter, smaller pads

but on most days, mizu would be a tampon used

to ur surprise, she typically uses panty liners for the majority of her period

and even if she does get a heavy period, she can handle it on most days

(yeah im fucking jealous i wish that was me)

like perfect silky hair and thin pads???

mizu my girl

hand those genes over

anyways

she would have aspirin and a hot pack on hand if u need it

when she was growing up, they used to be super heavy but now they've become lighter

if ur a heavy flow typa gal,

oh lord its extra packs for mizu to buy

at first, she would be rlly confused at the sizing and the number of flaps/extensions the pads would have

and what specific color to buy

(iykyk my heavy flow girls will know)

but she doesnt mind, u need them

as long as her girl is covered and safe and sound

if ur a tampon girl, mizu would double check to make sure she got ur brand when she goes shopping

modern!mizu would notice ur cycles, especially the week beforehand when ur rlly moody

whether its u being acting more impatient or upset than usual

she checks and makes sure that she has the necessities at hand

if she doesnt, she’ll say she’s just gonna run some errands

technically its not a lie

she does go to the closest convenience store

but the errands in question: pads/tampons and something sweet

(personally im a chocolate sweets girlie)

she’ll get u a lil sweet treat that’ll last u for a week or two

modern!mizu would also pour an extra cup of tea for u before bed

she just wants u to be as comfortable as u can be during ur period

and if u guys are cuddling and watching something before bed

she’ll make sure to keep u comfortable

“Mizu, pleaseeee. Just one more episode?”, you plead. You guys had just finished the second to last episode of the show. Sure, you felt a little tired. But the thought of moving and crawling off of Mizu’s chest didn’t outweigh the comfort of the couch.

Mizu sighs.

“You always do this and then you end up falling asleep.”, Mizu states as she grabs the remote control.

“Not necessarily-“, you rebute. Technically, she wasn’t wrong with your history of falling asleep. But not this time.

“Mmhmm. Right…”, she responds, a little sass in her tone.

You pout. “Please. I promise, I’ll stay up.”

You place your warm cup of tea aside, allowing you to wrap your arms around Mizu’s neck. You feel the heat of her neck against your forearms.

“Besides, it’s the final episode.”, you smile. You look at Mizu for sign of defeat.

“Ok fineeee,” she clicks on the next episode button, “Stay awake now. I’m not summarizing it this time.”

You plant a kiss on her cheek, pulling her closer to your body. She places her mug next to yours and letting her arms wrap around your body. You feel the warmth of her hands press against your body, almost burning from the hot tea.

“I promise I won’t.”, you assure as you sit back against Mizu’s chest again. You feel Mizu’s arms relax and allow you to prep yourself before watching the finale.

Mizu smiles as she felt your body lay back on hers. Your weight alongside the blanket you’re sharing relaxes her. You feel her arms gently wrap around you again as you hear the intro to the episode play.

Her hands start to drag along your sides to your stomach. You feel her burning palm place itself on the top of your lower stomach. Its presence shared a similarity to a heat pad.

You hum in response. While her right hand is busy drawing attention to your lower stomach, you feel her other hand wrap around you and pull you closer. You feel her lips lightly graze your shoulder.

“Mizu, it feels good but-”, you say as her right hand starts to gently massage your stomach.

Fuck. That feels so nice.

You hold back a groan. “Not here, hon.”, you say as you nod your head towards Ringo’s bedroom door.

“I know, don’t worry.”, Mizu responds as she places a soft kiss near your neck. “I just want you to feel comfortable now. You’re on your period, right?”

You nod in response.

“So c’mere. I’ll keep you nice and warm.”

modern!mizu would put ur towel in the dryer while u shower

ik its oddly specific

but i feel like she would make sure to make u feel warm in any way possible

with or without heat pad

same concept applies for the blanket

shes always so thankful her and ringo got an apartment with an in-unit washer dryer

when ur washing up, she’ll typically be doing some light studying with some tea before bed

a break inbetween would be the pop the towel in the dryer

next break is swapping out the towel for the blanket

final break is bringing back the blanket right before u get into bed

its a strange strategy but it helps her stay focused and paces herself while synonymously taking care of u

modern!mizu would make sure she’s wrapping her arms around ur lower stomach when ur cuddling at night

the heating pad gets annoying to sleep with

especially if u tend to toss and turn at night

but having her hands warm u helps u relax at night

when ur trying to sleep, she’ll gently caress and massage ur stomach to help release any tension

at first, u thought it wouldnt have an effect on u

but the more she did it, the more relieved u felt at night

mizu would also feel relaxed knowing that u r relaxed as well

when she heard ur snores, she knows shes done a job well done

#mizu blue eye samurai #mizu bes #mizu x reader #blue eye samurai #bes mizu #blue eye samurai mizu #mizu headcanons #mizu x y/n #mizu x you #modern mizu #mizu #modern mizu headcanons #modern au blue eye samurai #modern au mizu #modern mizu x reader

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gubbles-owo · 2 months

Note

For the tail rating: Asbestos (arknights), Ho'oleyak (arknights) and W (arknights)

HEAVY HITTERS RIGHT AWAY, HUH??

okay, so like. i want to be fair, right? i'm less interested in ranking tails *against* each other so much as I am in appreciating the variety of them. but like. if i had to choose the best tail in arknights. IF WE'RE ALL BEING HONEST HERE,,, yeahhh Asbestie would win this one absolutely no fucking contest. It's long. It's got volume. It's dexterous. It's WET. if you try getting your grubby little paws on the thing she will bear no hesitation in kicking your fucking teeth in for even thinking about it, so on top of all these amazing qualities it is also FORBIDDEN. lord knows there is only one person on terra who knows how it tastes, and I bet she's addicted to it. Asbestos tail rating: i need to choke on it Next up is- wait oh my fucking god jesus fuck. ign christ holy shit.

sorry to be such a lesbian but. god. fuck. focus here gubby. okay like i said i'm not really ranking tails against one another here, but ho'ol would certainly give asbestos a run for her money. it definitely would win out in the length department, because christ look at this thing

hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh it's long as fuck. it's swift and silent, imbued with terrible strength. in her spoken voicelines she DIRECTLY references the doctor (u) choking on her tail. not from her tail or otherwise implying some kind of choke-hold, nonono. ON. this thing is going down your fucking throat and you are going to like it. ...i wonder what it tastes like. admittedly i did not finish lone trail before the event closed, but even from what i saw, the written descriptions of ho'ol's tail. some lucky tail enthusiast had a field day describing how her tail moves about in detail so intricate i can only describe it as fetishistic. and that is a COMPLIMENT goddammit. if this tail does nothing for you then i am sorry bb but there's no saving you. Ho'olheyak tail rating: i need to choke on it. and i suppose with that it's time to bring things back down to earth, because, okay if i'm being honest w's tail is. fine? but like. man given the previous two this just doesn't hit the same way...

The barbed shape is kinda neat, but in general this thing is pretttttty thin. If you know me at all then you know where i stand on the whole thin vs. phat tail debate, so I can't say W's tail impresses me all that much. Very thin, but very light and I imagine pretty quick. I wonder how sharp the end of that thing really is, but I'd guess that's it's likely safe to touch. I'm still in chapter 6 and admittedly don't know much about W as a character yet, but I imagine she'd either cause petty mischief with it in some way or alternatively get all embarrassed pissed if it's accidentally touched. I wonder what it tastes like. W tail rating: i am probably going to step on it (by accident)

#hi this took me over an hour to write #and i have none regrets #...but i forgot to take sleep meds wHOOPSIE #gubbles' official tail ratings #asbestos arknights #ho'olheyak #w #arknights

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aemonds-sapphire · 1 year

Text

Sabotage

Summary: Aemond scares off another one of his daughter’s suitors… yet again.

Pairing: Aemond Targaryen x fem!reader

Warnings: Fluff. Protective dad Aemond.

Word count: 700

“Lord Lannister isn’t pleased at all,” one maid whispered.

The other one nodded. “I think Prince Aemond might have gone too far… sending the dragon after the lordling…”

Cold sweat prickled through your skin as you watched the two girls stride off along the hall before disappearing around the corner.

Usually, you’d interrupt and demand clarification as to what could your husband possibility have done that would warrant such reaction.

But you didn’t need to be told.

You knew.

Inwardly cursing, you paced hurriedly in the direction of the training grounds, already preparing yourself for what was to come.

The piercing sound of metal hitting metal rang in your ears and you looked down from the balcony as Aemond sparred with his daughter of ten.

“Move your feet.”

She clumsily tried to keep up with her vastly more experienced and agile father, only to trip and nearly lose balance.

“Cole told me I don’t move my feet enough,” she huffed in annoyance, her patience running thin.

Aemond’s steps came to a halt, sheathing his sword. “Cole taught me everything I know about swordsmanship. You’d do well to consider his advice.”

She twirled her sword lazily before nodding and approaching her father.

“Yes, kepa…” her voice filled with resignation as she bumped into his side in sheer affection after sheathing her own sword.

Aemond ruffled her hair with a mischievous smile curling his lips, earning a complaint from the younger Targaryen.

You were tempted to let the matter at hands slide, but logic urged you to pace down the staircases to meet them.

“Aemond… we need to talk.”

He turned to you and welcomed the kiss you planted on his cheek, lacing one arm around your waist and pulling you into him.

Your daughter glared at you with wide eyes. “What is it, mother?”

“Let me speak to your father.”

The fiercest scowl twisted her face. “This is about me, isn’t it?”

“Let us have a word,” Aemond interjected, giving her shoulder a faint squeeze. “Kesi ȳdragon tolī.”

But she didn’t want to talk later and a dragon should not be easily crossed. Aemond, best of all, should know this. She was perceptive enough to know that you only request her absence when the issue concerned her. While it used to be no issue a few years ago, she wasn’t as easily dissuaded now.

Her lilac eyes narrowed defiantly. “If it’s about me, then I want to know.”

Aemond heaved a deep sigh before pressing a kiss to your forehead.

Clearing your throat, you locked eyes with him. “You cannot keep chasing away potential suitors.”

“Oh? Who was it this time?” she giggled, smile wide on her lips.

She was still a child at heart, finding amusement in her father’s antics. But you didn’t share the sentiment. Otto Hightower had been insistent that an adequate suitor would be found, strengthening the bonds between houses.

But you cared not for the wants and needs of lords, especially when it came to your daughter. What you did care about was how Aemond kept on finding more and more creative — and dangerous — ways to postpone the inevitable, even if that meant…

“Vhagar,” you said in a serious tone. “Your father is resorting to Vhagar now.”

Aemond’s face remained as impassive as ever. “No harm came to him. She was merely hovering.”

Your daughter broke into a laughter instead. “The Lannister boy?”

“Lord Lannister is furious,” you said, furrowing your brows at him, hoping he’d take you seriously.

He merely shrugged, eye on yours with a faint smile. “Vhagar is protective of her.”

You rolled your eyes as he tightened his grip on you playfully.

“She is protective, because you are protective.”

“Tell me something, lady wife,” Aemond said, his other arm resting protectively on his daughter’s shoulder. “He did flee, didn’t he?”

“He’s four-and-ten, Aemond!”

He scoffed. “I am sure we can agree he’s bound to face much more dangerous things than a protective father,” he said nonchalantly as his daughter cheered him on. “If he ran away, then he’s not worthy.”

“You sent the biggest dragon in the world after him… you would have run, too.”

As soon as your words left your mouth, you realised how ridiculous your statement was, especially when he rose an eyebrow.

“Father bonded with Vhagar when he was my age,” your daughter chimed in, not able to hide the pride in her voice.

He gave her a tender smile, running his fingers teasingly through her silver hair once more.

You sighed heavily, fully realising this to be a lost cause. He was set on having the matters of her courtship on his hands and no one across the seven kingdoms would have his mind changed.

“He’s the third one in two months,” you tried to reason with him again. “One day you’ll have to cave in.��

This time, your daughter spoke, “We have an agreement. Father will let me choose my suitor.”

You narrowed your eyes. “You are far too young.”

Aemond nodded. “That is why I shall act on her interests until she is of age.”

You were completely dumbfounded. The bond the two of them shared had evolved into something you had never witnessed before. The level of complicity and union had allowed you to see sides of Aemond Targaryen you had never thought existed.

“But father… I think there is someone I like,” you daughter said all of a sudden.

In an instant, you watched Aemond’s face drop and his fingers duh into your waist. “Who?”

You had to hold back a chuckle. “The Baratheon boy?”

Her face lit up as she nodded, looking expectantly at her father.

“Well, I’m sure your father will have no problem with that,” you said, patting his chest lightly. “Since he’s of your choosing.”

The look Aemond exchanged with you might have frightened the bravest Westerosi men, but you didn’t waver, bringing your lips to his.

“Hmm.”

#aemond targaryen x reader #aemond fluff #aemond x reader #aemond x you #aemond imagine #dad aemond

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illyrian-dreamer · 8 months

Text

Our girl – Part 5

Azriel x Cassian x fem reader angst

Summary: You wake after succumbing to the mating bond.

Word count: 5.1k

<<< Part 4

Strands of hair tickled your cheeks, a warm, gentle breeze kissing your face as you groggily blinked awake.

A spring breeze.

You jolted upright, urgently scanning around you. It was a lavash guest room, soft white sheets settled over your body, lush pillows piled to have cradled your head. You had no idea who's clothes you wore, but you knew you were at the Spring Manor.

As if on queue, a house maid opened the doors to your room, behind her a healer. It was the same perky house maid that had greeted you when you first visited Tamlin.

“Oh good, you’re awake, she pepped. The healer wordlessly approached you, pressing her thumb to your wrist. She gave the maid a quick nod before leaving the room, without having spoken a word.

“She’s mute,” the maid explained.

Oh. You stared back at her. So were you, it seemed.

“The High Lord will be eager to hear you are awake. Will you take his visit?”

You nodded silently, unable to form the thousands of questions as your brain came to wake.

Tamlin was in your room in no less than a few minutes.

“How are you feeling?”

You blinked. You hadn't really thought about that. Looking within yourself, you felt it there, a swollen heart, alive and beating and thriving, but also aching from a deep wound. You were nautious and weak and so gods damned angry. How could the Mother be so cruel?

“How long was I asleep?”

“Just a day.”

You nodded, running your hand through your hair. “And we’re in Spring?”

Tamlin nodded. “Feyre and Rhys winnowed us here.”

You were too tired to gawk, so you blinked instead. “Pardon me?”

“And your… Azriel and Cassian are still here, waiting for you to wake.”

You must still be dreaming. “You opened your home to them?” you croaked.

Tamlin shrugged. “We wanted to bring you to your Uncle’s, but you could see to a healer faster here. Besides, there was no fitting five fae in that cabin, especially two Illyrians.”

“They could have slept outside,” you ground out, and Tamlin chuckled.

“You do… remember what unfolded at the wedding, don’t you? That Azriel and Cassian are your mates?”

“Do not call them that.” Taming the bite in your tone was beyond you, even for your friend. You had to clench your eyes shut to stop the reel in your vision, your whole body clenching as you remembered that awful, fated moment.

Tamlin didn't falter. Instead he dropped his eyes before reaching for your hand and squeezing it sympathetically. “Are you in any pain?”

“Yes. No. I don't know,” you said plainly, pinching at your nose. It did hurt, this unwanted binding to the two beings you resented most in this world. It hurt to resist them, to resist it. As if there was a home, beckoning you inside to warmth and food and comfort, and instead you stood outside in the hail and cold, despising it for ever being built.

Tamlin’s eyes were soft as he watched you shift uncomfortably. You hated that look too, as if he was sad for you, as if this bond was your fate and you had no say in the matter.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?” he blinked.

“As if I’m some mindless female destined to forget and forgive and go running back with a kiss to each of their cheeks.”

“I don’t think that–”

“Because I’m not, and I won’t. I still have my head, and my senses, and some gods-damned self respect.”

Tamlin sighed then. “No one can force you to do anything you don’t want to Y/N. I won't allow it.”

You cast your eyes to the roof then, blinking away the sting of tears. “And what of us, Tamlin? Suppose I was free to explore a future with you?”

Tamlin moved to hold your one hands in his, running a thumb in your palm. “You are free, sweetheart.”

“And you would court me, knowing I’m cauldron-bound to not just one, but two others?”

His thumb stopped rubbing then, and his lips pressed to a thin line.

You stared hard at Tamlin, eyes piercing. Don’t lie - that look said - we do not lie to each other.

And as Tamlin raised green eyes to yours, in their softness you had your answer.

“Your silence is answer enough,” you bit, letting out a sharp breath as tears slid down your cheeks, snatching your hand from his.

It had started – your choices, your freedom – fading away already. Curse the Mother.

“Come now Y/N, I will always love you, and we will always have each other, however our relationship might change.”

“Lies, Tamlin. Fucking lies,” your voice broke as tears streamed down your cheeks. You were flushed with anger then, kicking off the sheets that were now too hot, your skin beginning to tingle. Gods, not now you begged, holding your breath to stifle the sting at your fingertips.

“I do not lie to you, Y/N.” Tamlin said sternly.

You swung your legs from your bed, standing in a hurry as blood rushed to your head. “You’re just another disappointment,” you said coldly, pacing as you shook your hands to rid of your power.

Pain flashed in his eyes, and he recoiled slightly before straightening, his eyes hardening. “You’re being unfair.”

“You males are all the same! You treat females as if they are objects, owned by one male and therefore not to be touched by another. An unspoken exchange, as if I were cattle and not an actual fucking being.”

Tamlin pinched his nose then, his jaw tightening. “That is not what is happening here. You cannot punish me for not wanting to entangle myself in your mateship, not when I’m doing it out of respect for you.”

You were being unfair, and quite unforgiving, but your words were as unstoppable as your power in this moment, zapping and dancing at your skin.

“Is that what you define as respect, High Lord? Because despite a year of friendship, all it took was one gods-foresaken moment for you to side with what they want, and start dismissing me. You believe in the bond, and you respect Azriel and Cassian enough to house them, and agree that you won't so much as look at me again. You have chosen them over me, plain and simple.”

Tamlin’s face was grave, and you knew you were twisting an old wound of his. And perhaps you were being rash, but you didn't care. You would shut him out, or anyone who thought they knew what was best for you.

“I thought I was helping you by allowing them here,” he said defensively. “I thought perhaps you’d feel safe here, but would still want them close, to be able to talk to them.”

Your eyes narrowed. “You’re gods-damned right I want to talk to them! I’ll tell them exactly what I think of this couldren-made-shackle, of what I think of the Mother if they think for one second they can–” You swayed on the spot as you spat a string of curses, vision blurring slightly.

Despite the cruel words you had cast his way, Tamlin approached, steadying you by your shoulder’s, biting down on the pain that stung him at his touch.

“I understand your anger, Y/N, I do. But you’re still unwell, you should rest now and–”

Tamlin should have know better than to test your stubbornness.

So you marched for the door, flinging it open as you stormed through the manor, using that tether you so loathed to cast out your mates. Tamlin was on your tail, trying to reason to take a moment or calm yourself before doing anything rash. But you didn't turn once as you found the room that beheld your mates, ripping the doors open without so much as a knock.

They knew you were coming of course. Azriel stood near the bed, and Cassian had just risen from the armchair he sat on in the opposite corner – their faces grave, worried, with a sickening kind of longing.

It was as if the flesh between your bones went soft, your body begging to give out or give in and relish in the proximity of being close to your mates. But you forced yourself to stay stiff, holding a glare that could cut glass.

“Wipe those looks off your faces,” you bit, stalking into the room.

Azriel cast his eyes to Tamlin who held a look that said I tried to stop her. He knew better than to linger, pulling the doors closed behind you.

“How are you fee–?” Cassian tried, but you raised a hand to silence him.

They waited in silence, and you darted your eyes between them.

“You think this means I forgive you?”

They knew better than to answer that.

“You think this means you can have me, because the Mother wishes to see us mated?” you continued, your voice laced with ice. “Well it doesn’t. I will not head to fate and forsake myself, not even for the cauldron.”

Azriel sighed then, moving to sit at the edge of the bed. “Of course you won’t,” he said plainly.

You scowled. “Is that sarcasm?” you bit, even though you felt his sincerity creeping through the tether.

“No. It’s knowing.”

You blinked.

“We know you doll,” Cassian said as he too sat back in the chair, running a strong hand through his hair – a tell sign of stress. “Not because of the bond. But because we’ve loved you for almost a decade now. We know there is not a thing that can set you apart from your principles.”

“And we would never ask that of you,” Azriel added.

You shuffled, your arms crossing defensively. “You won't try to convince me to go back with you?” you asked stiffly.

Cassian shook his head. “No, it was wrong for us to ask that of you in the first place.”

Azriel stood then, moving closer to a settee in the centre of the room. “We do ask that you might let us explain. We have so much we've wanted to tell you, even before you left Velaris. And there is a lot of truth we’ve withheld, things you deserve to know.” He slid his hands behind his back, waiting at the seats – a silent offering to join them, to hear them out.

It was a temptation you couldn't deny yourself. You moved swiftly, sitting on one side, a low reading table separating you as Cassian took a place next to Azriel.

“We had suspicions of the bond from when we first began to court you.” Azriel began. “It was so rare for us to long for the same female, but the true hint was in the lack of jealousy we felt between each other.”

Cassian nodded. “We agreed to court you as, well, as partners. It wasn't anything we had explored in our 500 years, but with you, it felt so natural.”

“And your ease too, that was a big sign,” Azriel added. “We half expected you to flee, or never speak to us again.”

“But you were so comfortable, you made it feel… right.”

You were frowning slightly. You didn't remember feeling natural or at ease at all, in fact you were sick to your stomach with nerves when you first began dating. But perhaps they had a point, exploring your first relationship with two males hadn’t added any more challenge than regular dating for you. You had put that down to your friendship of many years.

“Over the period we dated, and as we fell in love with you, we learned to love each other too. We were brothers, but you showed us how to be more than that, igniting something not even they Cauldron dared show us.”

“We wanted to tell you of our suspicions, but it didn’t feel like the right time. You were so focused on your work, so determined to do well. And I suppose we thought it was a hopeless dream – it didn't feel right to distract you with that.” Cassian explained, leaning into his elbows that rested on his knees.

You weighed up their words, eyes darting between the males. It had never occurred to you that a mating bond was at play. You would have never believed yourself to be cauldron-blessed if they had suggested it – or cauldron-cursed rather.

Azriel cleared his throat, cutting through the silence. “It wasn't until the moment that I killed Alvar, that I felt the bond snap,” he breathed out, his voice husky and his hazel eyes cast downward, grimacing as he recalled the difficult memory. “I watched the life leave his body, and then I heard a snap, a force so strong it made me falter. I was reborn in that moment, my new purpose to solely fill your needs, to care for you, protect you. I could feel your desires overriding mine, and in that your determination and hunger to avenge your sister. And I knew then, that I had made the biggest mistake of my life.”

There was a downward tug of your lips, your face muscles jerking involuntarily as you tried not to cry, imagining that moment that changed everything for the worse.

“I have dreams of Alvar, still alive and at the mercy of Trutheller. I dream that I sheath my sword and step away, returning to a world where you are waiting for me at our home. And your embrace is warm and true, because you love us, and we never did a thing to ruin it.” Azriel’s voice broke as he flashed those hazel eyes, lined with tears.

Two silent tears slid down your cheeks, your chest tight with the shallows breaths you kept to keep yourself from crumbling. You didn't respond – what could you say? Instead, you cleared your throat, grasping the arms of your chair even tighter. “And what of you?” you asked Cassian.

“It snapped for me in that same moment. But I was journeying home from the northern training camps in Illyria.”

You blinked in shock. The bond had snapped for the both of them, with that greater distance between them while Azriel was across the sea?

“As I was flying back to Velaris, and I heard the snap in my ears before I felt it course through my veins and wounding my heart. That realisation, that same pain that Azriel described, the devastation at what we had done… it sent me crashing into the thick of forest.”

You closed your eyes as you imagined the great War General, bought to his knees by such a thing.

“It seems none of us have been welcomed to this mateship gently,” you said tightly. Why had the Mother forsaken so much pain?

“I could hear Az then, speak to him through the bond in the same way Rhys and Feyre speak in our minds. I could feel his panic too, his fear of having to tell you, to break you in such a way. I calmed him down as best I could, and reassured him that we would do it together, as soon as he returned.”

Your eyes turned cold again. “But that isn’t what happened.”

“It was a cowards choice to ask Rhys to be the one tell you, we know,” Azriel said with dismay. “But the concept of hurting you, of wounding our mate so deeply? It was unfathomable.”

“Its not an excuse,” Cassian added. “But we hope you can understand, there is an instinct there that twists our concept of what is wrong and right. Rhys understood that, it was the same instinct that kept him from telling Feyre about the risk of birthing Nyx. I think that’s why he volunteered to tell you, to protect us from something that would wound us so deeply.”

“We are learning, Y/N, and we are so sorry that we hurt you,” Azriel said, hazel eyes pinning you with their intensity. “But we are trying, and we will do better by you.”

You looked between the two of them, pulling your hands to your lap as your fingers trembled. It was just all so much.

Closing your eyes, you imagined what it would be like to say those words – I forgive you.

You could see it, relief flooding the bond and breaking those solemn gazes, their embrace and warmth and scent surrounding you, fulfilling your primal desire. Their lips on yours, their hands on your body, yours on theirs, puling each other in and never letting go. There was a thrumming in your heart, a pulsing through your veins. It felt so right.

But then you thought of the life you had made, the path you were forced to walk by yourself after what they had done. They had broken you completely, and you had put yourself back together, now stronger than ever. Your mission work, your life in Spring, the pain you endured and the scars that remained from doing it alone – it was a part of you now, and you could never let that go.

You were at a cross roads – one path leading to the overwhelming promise of unconditional love that tempted your heart, the other promising freedom and choice and sense, tempting your head.

“What are you thinking?” Cassian asked, his voice soft from where he still sat, anxiously fidgeting with his hands.

You took a deep breath. “That I am overwhelmed.”

Cassian nodded, and Azriel watched you before speaking softly. “That is understandable.”

You didn't have an answer for them, not even for yourself.

“I don't know what to do,” you whispered.

Cassian continued to nod, casting his eyes down sadly. “Whatever you decide, Y/N, we will do right by you.”

“Of course we dream of you accepting the bond, of becoming our mate, we won't deny that. But we want you to want it,” Azriel added.

You gulped, anticipating the pain that would come from your next words. “And what if I decide to break the bond?”

Cassian’s head dropped as he let out a wrangled sob. Azriel’s shadows recoiled so fast they disappeared entirely. The latter gripped the chair, his knuckles white as he slipped into that place he so often had to as the Spy Master – a place where nothing could hurt him. “The choice is yours.”

“Please,” Cassian breathed out, tears streaming down his face. It was a plea, even the thought of the bond breaking unbearable to him.

It unbearable for you too, and fresh tears slid down your face as your arms coiled tighter around the ache in your stomach. It would sicken you, perhaps almost kill the three of you. But it was what they deserved.

You were exhausted, and keeping that wall up through the bond, stopping their emotions from tampering with your own – that alone had you begging for your bed.

“I’m not trying to hurt you,” you said with a broken voice, guilt slipping through at the sight of the General sobbing before you.

Azriel put an arm around his brother, comforting him as best he could. “We know that, sweetheart. Of course we know that.”

You cast your eyes sideways as you blinked through more tears. “But I don't have an answer for you.”

Cassian nodded, running his hands over his face as he tried to collect himself. “Take your time,” he said after a few moments, his voice shaky and breaths forced. “We will wait for you, no matter how long it takes.”

“And you don't need any more bargains from Rhys or Feyre,” Azriel added. “We will respect your privacy Y/N, any and all distance you might need. Let us prove that to you.”

You nodded then, forcing yourself to your knees despite the scream of protests in all of your muscles and joints. Gods, is this how the rest of your life would be, forever fighting a higher cause? Perhaps you’d go mad before you could ever hope to forgive them.

“I will…,” you trailed off, not knowing what to say. “Good bye, Cassian and Azriel,” you forced out, your voice thick from the cry that begged at your throat.

Cassian’s lip wobbled, and Azriel’s brow broke upwards as he spoke. “Take good care of yourself, Y/N.”

Cassian’s head felt to his hands, and you forced yourself to close the doors behind you, quieting the sound of his cries.

————

You spent three weeks at your Uncle’s cabin – mostly in bed and unspeaking, even to Finbark. He dotted over you, trying to pry you from your room to spend some time outside or eat a full meal. But that familiar pain had returned, that same weight that kept you bed bound for days in your old apartment. It was grief, in all shapes and kinds.

You hadn't broken the bond, but it was rejected good and proper for now. And it hurt so gods damned much. Your waking moments were consumed with the tug and pull of what was right, a constant reeling battle that exhausted you to every extent.

The mission aid work carried on without you – you had a competent team of friends that you trusted to continue to provide care across Spring Court. You were grateful for their passion and dedication – while your desire to help others was unreachable in those moments, and you felt completely numb to what you once had thought was your life’s calling. You despised the bond for changing you so.

You wondered of the wild Geranium, if it had been harvested yet and if Tamlin or your team had made any progress on bottling its healing pigment.

And there was pain and guilt when you thought of Tamlin too. You had hurt him – you were malicious in your anger and said so many things you hadn't meant. You weren't angry at him, not really. Your anger lied with the Mother and your mates, and you could not fault him for not wanting to complicate relations and involve himself where he knew he shouldn’t. He was true to his word – he was open and honest with you – and you had punished him for it.

Tamlin hadn’t sent word, and you knew he was respecting the distance you sought, perhaps even licking his own wounds. So you would start there, apologise to him, and help just one person hurt less from the recoil of your poisonous mating bond.

You sent word to his Manor, asking him to meet you in three days time.

————

Tamlin was at the stables, brushing down his steed when you trotted up on Podie.

He wore his riding pants again, boots to his knees, a shirt tucked in at his tight abdomen, strong forearms moving the brush gently across the horses back. You cursed the Mother that the sight of him didn't have the same effect on you as it had a few months prior – the bond chipping away at what you had once known to desire.

Your heart did clench at the sight of him in a sorry way, his blond hair pulled back as he worked humbly. You had missed your friend dearly, and even the Mother could not stop you from feeling that.

Tamlin turned, his face neutral as he watched you approach, neither of you speaking. Green eyes followed your dismount, and you lingered for a moment before you rushed at him, wrapping your arms at his waist and burying your face into his chest. The scent of mountain dew and fresh cut grass filled your nose – gods you had missed that.

“I’m sorry,” you croaked before sobs overtook, muffled by his clothing.

Tamlins arms were still in the air, shocked by your approach. But he loosed a breath, bringing them to hug you, rubbing soft circles on your back.

Relief found you then, and you melted further into his touch. A sign of truce. “I’m so so sorry Tamlin.”

“Shhh, it’s alright Y/N. It’s alright.”

You shook your head, pulling away and looking up at him. “You were only trying to help, and I was so cruel. The things I said, I–”

Tamlin shook his head gently, hushing you. “I don't understand the instincts of a mating bond, but I do know what it is to say things out of anger.”

“I didn't mean them,” you swallowed with guilt.

He smiled softly. “I know.”

You took a deep breath. “Please forgive me.”

Tamlin rolled his eyes playfully then, a smirk now on his lips. “I already had.”

You tried to smile back, but it came out all wobbly, so Tamlin pulled you in again, swaying in a hug as he kissed the top of your head.

After some lunch and a stroll through the gardens, he watched your carefully as you fingered the roses.

“Do you know what you’ll do of the bond?”

You stiffened, your eyes not leaving the row of flowers before you. “No, I really don’t,” you said sadly. It was true, you hadn't a clue what to do next.

Tamlin nodded.

After a deep sigh, you forced yourself to meet his gaze. “But I do know what I want for my life. I want to continue my mission work, expand my horizons and work across Prythian. I suppose I need to approach the other High Lords, and harvest the Geranium if you’re still willing?”

Tamlin smiled, his eyes warm as he seemed to find relief. “It’s all yours.”

You nodded, smiling back. There was relief for you too – you recognised your old self in those words. Your passion to help others was still alive and strong – and that meant the cauldron hadn’t changed you beyond recognition, and if you fought hard enough, it couldn't if it tried.

“I’m so grateful to have you in my life, Tam,” you confessed, your chest swelling with sincerity.

Tamlin raised his brows in question.

You gave a half smile. “You make me feel… like myself. No matter the circumstance.”

Tamlin’s face softened in a way that made you wonder how long it was since he was shown a genuine kind of love – especially after what happened with Hybern.

“You are wonderfully you, Y/N, with or without my help.”

“Always the humble High Lord,” you teased, rolling your eyes. “But I would not have made it this far without you. You’re my dearest friend.”

Tamlin reached and squeezed your hand. “You’re dear to me too, Y/N.”

You squeezed back, and you swore to yourself that the bond would not interfere in this friendship ever again.

————

6 months later

The High Lords meeting was held in Dawn, in an impressive wide cast room, marble sprawled from floor to ceiling, glassless windows arched at every wall. All seven High lords and one High Lady seated at a wide-spanning table, a cartographic map of Prythian etched within the wood.

Fingers tingling as you shook them out, and skirts kicking at your feet, you paced anxiously on the other side of the double doors to the meeting hall.

Today was the day you would propose your mission to expand refuge aid across the whole of Prythian, asking the High Lords to consider opening their borders and contributing resources and volunteers of their own.

Your team had worked tirelessly to get to this point – the wild Geranium was now harvested and a new batch was already seeding, and you had worked for months on your proposal, researching natural resources, writing guidance sheets on how to train volunteers, identifying what each court had to contribute and when.

The challenge that lay ahead of you now was to appeal to spectrum of powerful leaders waiting on the other side of those doors. You knew of their egos, of the rivalry and sensitivities between courts – this was no easy task.

“Tamlin must certainly be a terrible lover if this is how wound up he leaves you.”

You threw a scowl over your shoulder, knowing that voice and whitewood scent.

“And what of you, Eris? Waiting for daddy to finish his meeting like the good dog you are?”

Eris gave a half grin, one that didn't reach his eyes. He strolled over, leaning against the wall as he watched you try to calm yourself, delighting in your nerves. “Speaking of dogs, I heard your mates are cooped up at Night Court, the both of them suffering from wounded hearts.”

Your bared your teeth before you could think twice. Eris knowing that both Cassian and Azriel were your mates was dangerous, but the primal snarl had escaped you for that insult alone.

Eris’s eyes danced with satisfaction. “Oh, don't go feral on me now, Y/N. From what I hear, you haven't so much a secured the bond with a fuck.”

“I will–“ your hands curled into fists as you stalked up to the male, overcome with a shaking rage.

But Eris stayed leaning, cleaning his nails with arrogant nonchalance as he cut you off. “I suppose they’ll have to satisfy each other instead, how sad.”

Your hand was raised, ready to strike, and fire glowed in Eris’s eyes.

“Try that, girl, and your pathetic mission turns to dust. You can forget any allegiance from Autumn, and it’s likely others will back out too.”

You faltered, your arm swaying slightly. He was right – the prick. A sounding slap was not the way to heed your proposal.

He grinned with smug satisfaction as you lowered your arm and turned away. “Such a violent response from someone who preaches to only want to help others. Perhaps you’re not the peaceful messiah you claim to be, Y/N.”

“I’ve never had a problem defending what is mine,” you threw over your shoulder. “And my aid is offered to those in need, not to arrogant princelings, or lapdogs and the likes.”

A snarl tickled at Eris’s lips, and you were glad to have landed at least one blow, be it verbal.

“You consider those overgrown bats yours?” he asked with distaste. “So it’s true then, about the bond?”

Blinking, you played back the words that had found you so naturally. Was that how you felt?

Chewing on your lip, you decided to ignore Eris’s question. You would think of that later – you had a meeting to focus on, and you’d be damned if either the mating bond or Eris distracted you from it.

You didn’t have time to throw a final insult his way before Thesan pulled the double doors open, eight pairs of eyes now set on you, and Eris no where in sight.

“Y/N, we are ready for you,” Thesan said with a soft smile.

You gulped before straightening yourself, stepping into the room and facing the most important moment of your entire existence, whether you were ready or not.

--------

Part 6>>>

AN: SURPRISE guest appearance by Eris ;) ;) ;) Hello hello lovelies, thank you so much for your patience on this part, I know it took a while ❤️ I am so so excited to finally explore a bit of Cazriel's perspective, and get their side to the story. I hope I've done all the characters justice so far! And there's still so much to explore – I am very keen to share the next part and see how this High Lords meeting goes down (let's face it, there will be TEA). As always, I LOVE hearing your thoughts and opinions on the fic, so pretty please drop me a comment or ask anytime! Hope you're all well and are taking care of yourselves too. MWAH! ❤️ ❤️ ❤️

814 notes · View notes

barleyo · 9 months

Text

Hybrid.

Recom! Miles Quaritch X Fem! Reader (smut)

A/N: Hey, guys! I'm back from hiatus, sorry, I've been gone for so long. I got this idea while listening to one of my favorite nsfw asmr creators (feelgoodfilth, please go check him out y’all). Love you all, thanks for reading!

Tags: breeding kink, medical fetish, p in v, handjobs, fingering, unprotected sex, creampies

Wordcount: 1.7K

“Colonel Quaritch?”

“Hm, yeah?”

The woman walked into the small waiting room, taking only a few steps while clutching a clipboard to her chest.

“I’m ready to run your tests. Would you follow me to the back office?” Her lips pressed into an awkward line, the pissed look on Quaritch’s face telling her that he wasn’t in the mood for a smile.

He stood up, head leaning down uncomfortably in the room. The ceilings got a bit higher when they turned the corner to her office, allowing him to reach closer to his full height. An examining table sat in the middle of the office, and an overhead light stood above it.

“Do I–?” Miles’ hand loosely pointed over to the table.

“Oh, yes, please. Careful of the light, Colonel.” The woman took her seat on a spinning chair, scooting it toward the table with her wheels. “Careful– careful now,” she said, holding her arms out as he roughly sat on the table, trying to protect his large body, as if catching him would have done any good.

He snorted, lip pulling into a bored, fixed snarl. “Yeah, so sorry, miss,” he said, voice anything but apologetic.

She gave a small nod, eyeing her papers clipped to her board, scanning over them quickly.

“Ah– no matter. So, Colonel Quaritch, I have to run a few simple tests and check-ups before we start the extraction process. Please, hold still.”

Extraction.

“Lord, this damn thing couldn’t take any longer, could it? Fucking Christ,” he snapped, patience thinning by the minute.

The RDA just wanted to piss him off at this point, he thought. The whole situation left a bad taste in his mouth, from start to finish. Creating recoms with lab grown Na’vi bodies was getting too expensive, so this was the alternative. Why make them from the government and taxpayers’ money when they had all they really needed: a few female recoms, a few male recoms and a way for them to mix.

“I know, I’m sorry– I know this can’t be pleasant for you,” she said. She was trying to be as sympathetic as possible, but it wasn’t a great process for her to deal with either, especially when the medical wing was understaffed.

“You have no idea, girl.” Miles groaned impatiently and spread his legs out, trying to work out the stress and kinks from his joints. “Can we just get this over with?”

The nurse nodded and scrambled over to her desk, pulling out an otoscope. She ushered him to lower his head to her level, having already pumped her chair up to its maximum height. “Hey, hey, hold still,” she inserted the tool, holding his blue ear to stop it from flicking as she looked through the lens. “Okay, all good.”

“What’s even the point of this? Can’t I just jizz in a fucking cup and leave?” He took a deep breath and his nose twitched in irritation.

“That– that comes later,” she said, face warm at his vulgar language, “just a few more tests, I promise. Now,” she pointed at her mouth, “open up, I need to take a look at your teeth.”

“What? Why?” Miles drew his eyebrows together, looking her up and down.

“I’ve got to make sure your teeth are healthy, and strong before we pass your DNA down to our other soldiers,” she said while still pointing her fingers at her mouth. “C’mon, show me that handsome smile, eh, Colonel?”

A sigh escaped his muscled chest, stripes seemingly shaking as he breathed.

“Fine.”

She brought a small light to his mouth, lifting her head up high to see all of his teeth. They were sharp and barred at her, shining in the reflection of her light.

A few other meaningless tests were performed, each draining Quaritch of his patience more and more. If he had to do one more fucking thing, he was going to—!

“Here you are. Now just take this and, uhm, you know,” she said, passing him a sterile cup to fill. “Fill it to the top, if you can.”

She looked away and started to turn to her desk before she heard a zipper. Her head snapped over to the table to see Miles removing his heavy cock from his cargos, giving it lazy pumps.

“No, there’s– there’s a bathroom for that…!”

“It’ll take like two seconds,” he muttered through gritted teeth, “not leaving just to blow a load.”

She barely heard his response as she watched. She was too busy feeling her grip on the corner of her chair tighten, eyes hooked on the sight of his pretty, blue cock growing in his fist.

“I, uhm, I think,” she paused, still watching as her voice trailed off.

“Huh? You think what?” He looked at her, smirking at her knuckles going white as she held onto the chair. “I think, little miss, that you want to come help me with this. Am I right?”

“That’s not professional,” she coughed out, turning her head away from him, arms going up to cover her chest.

“Oh, come on. Don’t you want to help a patient in need? Don’t leave me here to suffer,” Quaritch teased, feeling his impatience being replaced by smugness.

She bit her lip, eyes squinting as she thought.

“Oh, nurse,” he called, voice smothered with satisfaction, “I need your help.” He let go of his dick, feeling it spring back to hit his clothed abdomen. A string of precum stuck to his shirt as his cock twitched.

She walked over to him, pushing the wheeled chair to the corner of the room and out of her way. Taking his cock into her hand, she looked up to meet his blown, amber eyes. “Just to help? T-to hurry the process, right?”

“Mhm,” he hummed, “but, I wouldn’t mind if you took your time.”

Giving a few, testing strokes, she held as much of his cock that she could manage in her small fist. She went slow, from tip to base. Miles shuttered a bit, hips threatening to snap up into her hand.

“You’re a little fuckin’ tease, aren’t you? Gonna– fuck,” he clenched his jaw, “gonna actually take your time, huh? Ain’t know you’d listen t’me.”

Taking her other hand, she takes her fingers and traces around his tip, collecting the slick and rubbing it in. She felt it kick in her hands, and gave it a sharp squeeze.

“God, just– let go, c’mon.”

She let go quickly. “Did I do something wrong? I didn’t mean to!”

Quaritch took a breath through his nose and patted his lap. “Come here, come on. That’s right.”

She sat, facing him. Her blue scrubs made euphoric friction against his cock, gliding across the length as she got comfortable.

“I’ve gotten a taste of you, darlin’,” he started, “I won’t be able to hold back. Can’t cum inside that fuckin’ cup.”

“What do you mean?” She asked, mouth parting slightly as she felt his hands reach under her shirt. “Colonel?”

“Ain’t no point in growing another recom in a lab with my DNA,” he started, leaning to her neck, letting the warmth of his breath hit the exposed skin, “when I could put my DNA inside of you. Gonna let me breed you? Huh?”

He held onto the swell of her breast under the shirt, running a thumb over her hard nipple.

“Gonna let me fuck a hybrid into you?”

Her mouth hung open for a second, unanswering. “Colonel….”

“Answer me, missy. Gonna do it? Let me fill you up with a fuckin’ alien baby.”

A slow nod was all he needed to see. In a swift movement, she felt her body turned and pushed, her back on the table.

“Careful, please,” she mumbled, lips raw from her chewing them nervously.

“No time for ‘careful,’ honey, I gotta take you nice and rough.” Quaritch pulled her pants and panties down, balling the fabric up and tossing them into a corner in the office. He brought his fingers to her cunt, collecting the slick leaking from her hole. “Worked up, huh?”

He placed one hand over her thigh, pulling her legs apart. She instinctively tried to close them back, unsuccessfully.

“Keep ‘em open, I need to get you prepped for me.” He took one finger and rocked it into her, reaching to the far back of her walls. “All this talk got you wet already,” he said, feeling his finger slip in and out with ease.

“Wait, I’m close, really close,” she said, legs starting to shake.

A dry chuckle left Quaritch’s mouth. “Yeah? I won’t stop you. Cum.” His fingers curled into the gummy spot in her, abusing the sensitive area. A soft clenching trapped the digit, tightening over him for a few moments. “There, there you go.”

“Thank you, yes– fuck!”

“One load ain’t enough for you, huh?” His eyes were completely blown and lust-filled. “God– your greedy little cunt, milkin’ me dry.”

“Please, one more time– one more. Want your babies so bad!” she moaned, voice completely punched out. Her whines were breathless, and broken.

Quaritch gave a soft hum as he continued at the same pace, slotting his hips between hers roughly. The squelches of her messy, wet cunt filled his ears and egged him on further. Dribbles of his cum from earlier dripped out of her with each of his thrusts.

“I’m just gonna seed you, girl. Spill my fuckin’ cum all in you for second time so it takes.”

Her walls clenched around his cock at his words, a soft moan escaping her lips.

“You like that, yeah?”

“Yes, yes—”

“Keep clenching on me, keep me nice and hard,” he growled into her ear gently licking the shell of it after he finished talking, “God– you got me right on the edge.”

“Don’t make me wait,” she sobbed, feeling herself go blind from pleasure.

“So greedy, so– so impatient.” Quaritch held onto her hips, using her hips for further leverage as he fucked her into the table.

“Cum– cum in me, please, Colonel, one more time.”

Her begging threw him over the edge, and he spilled his second load into her, his cock kicking as he did.

“Fuck, sweet girl, there you go. Not even gonna pull out of you, gotta keep you plugged up.” He sat up, pulling her on his lap, dick still inside.

“Do you think I’ll actually, uhm, you know?” she sighed, looking a bit concerned.

“Get pregnant? I don’t know, girl. Maybe not. Or maybe you will, and you’ll get full with some little recom soldier babies.” He ran his hand over her cheek before speaking again, “Maybe I should fill you up again. Third time’s a charm.”

#barleyxnighteye #fanfiction #smutfic #smut #avatar way of water #avatar 2 #recom quaritch #recombinant #james cameron avatar #miles quaritch x reader #miles quaritch #atwow quaritch #colonel quaritch #avatar twow #miles quaritch x y/n #avatar x reader

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readychilledwine · 7 months

Note

Hello. Hope u r feeling good. I was wondering if u could write something again. This one is particularly personal to me. Picture it. Reader is daughter of any one of the bat boys. If cass Or az then single dad. She has been bullied since the day she started school as a child because she has a problem when it comes to studying. As she grows it's her looks. The ic, notices her behavior is starnge. Like, snapping at small things, crying when they correct her or raise their voice. She has never told anyone because she doesn't want them to stress out and the bullies said that she was so worthless because she keeps running to her father for everything. Her dad finds out soon. U can decide the ending.

Oh my love 💜 all three of our boys got you.

Head Held High

Summary - After being born with Feyre's looks, but illyrian wings, Rhysand and Feyre's daughter faces challenges wherever she goes.

Warnings - bullying, signs of low self-worth, anger, inferred adhd or other learning issues, older brother coming in to do the older brother thing while protective dad does the dad thing

You had him wrapped around your finger the second you came into the world.

His beautiful baby girl, wide eyed and filled with curiosity and happiness.

You truly were a stunning little thing, but how couldn't you have been with parents like Rhysand and Feyre? He loved you even more for being the small version of your stunning mother. Her nose, her lips, her hair. The only piece of you that screamed you were his were those star flecked eyes.

Your childhood was filled with love and joy. With you constantly praised for your looks, for your smarts, or your imagination. Rhys and Feyre never thought anything of your wild mind. They loved it. They loved how sporadic you were, how one thing was never enough for you to stay focused on. They loved your random outlook on the world.

To Rhys, Feyre, and your significantly older brother Nyx, you were the world. They sheltered and loved you, thick and thin, protecting you from darkness and meaness at every turn.

It wasn't until you began lessons that you truly saw how unkind fae, especially those your own age could be.

You hated school and struggled to focus during lessons. You were busy, you told yourself in your little mind. Busy day dreaming of far away places, daring sword fights, a knight just like daddy or Uncle Az and Cass, mainly Uncle Az if you were honest with yourself, rescuing you from enemies.

Your grades reflected that. As did how your peers treated you.

"Silly y/n," one girl giggled when she thought you couldn't hear. "It's a good thing she's pretty, 'cause she's dumb."

"Her mommy couldn't read either. Maybe that's why."

In class the jabs were subtle enough that your teacher didn't notice, and when they did, nothing was done.

No one at home noticed either. No one noticed when you began to hide away more, when you stopped playing with your big brother after school. No one noticed when you weren't dreaming about being rescued anymore, but instead dreamed of running away.

Things did not get better when you were sent to Illyria, Uncle Cass and Aunt Nesta in tow, to begin training. You knew comments about your intelligence would be coming. You'd never expected comments about your looks, though.

"Imagine looking like your mom and trying to pass as an Illyrian."

"Her mom isn't even that pretty."

"Never said she was either."

You'd hide behind your wings constantly in public. You'd started eating alone. Stopped talking at home.

Cassian had tried asking what was wrong one night. His large hand running up and down your back as he spoke gently enough to you to shatter your aching heart a little more. "Just leave me alone!" You finally screamed at him. "I just want to be alone."

He wrote it off as homesickness, calling for Rhys and asking the High Lord to come visit you.

Rhys noticed it then.

He noticed the way you tucked behind your wings in shame. He noticed you eating alone. He noticed you never had a training partner.

He noticed your loveliness.

"Darling," a soft knock came at your door. "We need to talk." You curled further into your bed, your father refusing to enter or leave without your permission.

"Little love, please," his voice was pleading with you. "Let me in. Let me help you." You felt the gentle claws on your mind and blocked him out harder.

"Y/n, please. Don't shut me out." You'd never heard his voice break like this. The Crack that indicated he was about to cry. "I know what it's like to feel like you're the outsider here. I know what being this lonely feels like and how it eats away at you."

You heard something soft hit the door. "Babygirl, please. Let me come talk to you. Let me settle any feelings you're having. Let me help you. Please don't make me force myself in."

Shadows appeared in the corner, blue reflecting in them every so often. "I have her, Rhys. I'll come get you in a second." Your father yielded then. Yielded you to the arms of the Shadowsinger. "I've been watching for a little while." He admitted, "we've been worried for a few weeks."

He sat down on the bed next to you. "You stopped writing all of us. I know I violated your privacy and independence, but we all know how being out here can be. We all knew there was a risk of you being targeted the way we all were and the way Nyx was."

Azriel placed a hand on your back, rubbing small circles. "Your dad is the most worried. He did not want to send you here. He wants to bring you home."

You sniffled hard, finally lifting your body and shifting to sit next to him. "It's not any better there. I'm stupid in Velaris. I'm ugly here."

Azriel's jaw tightened. "Let me go get Rhys." Your uncle stood, walking to the doorway and leaving it open as he spoke softly down the hall.

Your dad was a mess when he entered. His hair was sticking different directions from how frequently he was running his hands through it. His face was tear stained. His shoulder slumped in defeat as he practically dragged his feet.

Azriel motioned for him to sit next to you, shutting the door so the three of you were alone and pulling a chair from across the room to sit in front of you. "Tell him what you just told me, little bat."

Your breath hitched as your hands began to shake. You could feel your eyes watering as you looked down to your unkept nails. "Taking me home won't make a difference."

Your dad pulled you close to him. "It would make all the difference, darling. We'd just send you back to regular-" Azriel shook his head at his brother, silencing him.

"Tell him the rest of what you said, y/n."

"I get made fun of in Velaris for being stupid, I get made fun of here for being ugly. It wouldn't make a difference."

Your father's world shattered then and there. Azriel stood, leaving the room to allow you to time alone now that the truth was out. Silence hung in the room. Interrupted every so often by your soft sniffles.

"How long," your father's voice broke again. "How long have you been getting picked on?"

You shrugged. "Since you started sending me to lessons."

He nodded, looking up. "I'm sorry I didn't notice, darling."

You didn't respond, only holding yourself tighter. He started. "I learned around your age, that holding my head high and not letting others see how much their cruelty hurt me tended to lead to it ending, but There is no merit in either of those statements"

He pulled you close to him, resting your head on his shoulder. "Are you easily distracted in school? Yes. Uncle Lucien always pushed us to teach you outdoors in a less formal environment with private help. You would have thrived in that setting. That is on me, y/n. I picked a public lesson setting so you could socialize." He paused. His jaw twitching. "You are not stupid in any sense, though, y/n." He motioned to the countless books stacked on your dresser. "Those are all educational texts or intense world building fantasies that you have taken the time to notate in a color system with separate journals filled with notes. That is not the action of someone who is stupid."

He tilted your face to him. "And you are not ugly. There is not a single court or location in this world where you do not meet or exceed their beauty standards. Anyone who says otherwise is either in denial of their attraction to you or blind. I never want to hear you say you are ugly ever again, darling."

A loud slam interrupted the heartfelt talk as your other brother entered the room followed by your cousins. "This is nice and all pops, really it is. Touching." Nyx walked to you, getting on his knees in front of you. "Their names, sis."

Rhys hid his smirk. "I never said your uncles and I weren't also going to do this, Nyx."

The heir rolled his eyes. "You can have their piece of shit fathers. I get the ones my age." Nyx grabbed your chin forcing you to look into his eyes. "Their names, y/n."

You gave them to him without hesitation. "Be nice," you said softly.

Nyx froze in the doorway. "You have mom's heart, y/n. I have dad's. You handle it with kindness and grace, I'm going to handle it with my fists and intimidation."

Your father pulled you close to him again. "Never change anything about you, little love." He stood moving in front of you and tilting your head up by your chin. "Just hold your head high, y/n. Hold your head high, walk away, and let dad and Nyx take care of the rest." He placed a kiss on your forehead. "Now, if you excuse me, I have a camp leader to beat the shit out of."

He paused at the doorway, turning to you. "I'll be right back. I promise. Maybe you could make us some hot chocolate and we can have a cuddle date like we used to?"

Your eyes lit up for the first time in years, making him smile and laugh. "There you are, darling. My beautiful girl."

#acotar #acotar x reader #dad!rhysand #dad!rhysandxdaughter!reader #rhys fic #rhysand acotar #rhysand fic

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bloodredfountainpen · 13 days

Text

Human Packbonding: Spontaneous Adoption

One of my favorite of the HASO tropes (specifically a sub trope of the human packbonding trope) is humans as the ultimate parents, specifically humans having the propensity to adopt random kids from bad situations. I love me some found family, sue me. Here’s a little three part (maybe more) diddy I wrote a while ago with this trope as the base.

Merc and Floof

Six months. I’ve been on this Odin-forsaken planet for six fucking months. It is a miserable existence, hunting monsters in the desert wasteland with no gratitude from the locals. The lords who hired me think their pitiful pay thanks enough, and the common folk resent me for being on the lord’s payroll. Not to mention the sandy terrain, beating heat, and oh yeah, the fucking monsters I’m killing. Once my contract is up, credits be damned, I’m getting out of here. I’d rather sleep on the streets than stay here any longer than physically possible.

… or at least that’s what I’d say if I didn’t have a husband and son to provide for. My mercenary work is the only thing keeping them fed, and as much as I’d like to go home to be with them, I know they can’t live off his teacher’s salary alone. Sometimes I think about abandoning my post and taking the next shuttle off planet, but those are just my intrusive thought speaking. Realistically, I’ll be staying on this planet for a few more years at least. Jesus titty fucking christ, If hell exists I am in it. Now, I know this sounds like I’m throwing myself a pity party here, but I assure you I’m not. I’m just telling it how it is.

The brooding mercenary was roused from his trance when a young Lycan tugged at his cloak. She was small, thin, and would be dangerously fluffy if not for the grime and sand caked into her fur. She was wearing what to any Terran would be easily identified as a potato sack but to the Lycan was a passable dress. She was shivering in the nighttime cold, breath nearly forming into steam before her, and yet, in perfect Terra Communis, she spoke.

“Um, ahem. My master, Lord Mokta, would like to formally invite you and a guest of your choice to dine with him and his wife in his estate in an hour. If you’ll please let me know your plan I’ll run it back to his lordship.”

“Master huh? What are you, some kind of slave?”

“Um no, not really. I’m an indentured servant for his lordship, my parents made the contract. I’ll be free once I can pay out the contract value or when I come of age, which ever comes first.”

“And how much do you get paid?”

“I don’t, I rely on the kindness of strangers like you.”

“That sounds a lot like slavery to me… So then, what’s the contract value?”

At this point, the mercenary’s interest had been piqued. He scarcely knew what he would with the information he would obtain, he only knew that his ravenous curiosity would be stated only once he knew.

“… it’s 50 credits sir.”

50 credits? Did he hear that right? Only 50 measly credits could buy this sweet girl’s freedom? He could afford to not eat for a few days if it meant this girl, whose name he didn’t even know, would get to go free. He pulled out a 50 cred stick and pressed it into the girl’s paws.

“That should cover it then, now how would you like to be my guest to Mokta’s dinner?”

Instead of simply accepting like the stoic mercenary expected, the girl burst into tears and fell to the ground. She sat there on her knees, hyperventilating, sobbing, and thanking the bewildered mercenary profusely. It was a sight to behold, and the mercenary was finding himself increasingly uncomfortable. He tried, unsuccessfully, to use words to quell the girl’s tears. This effort only exacerbated the storm of emotion and in the end, the mercenary wrapped the girl in his arms and let his heartbeat and breathing steady her own. Once she had calmed enough to be spoken to, the mercenary did so.

“So then, what is your answer? Will you or will you not accompany me? If we don’t get going now, we’ll be late.”

“Yes, I’d love to go with you! But are you sure my dress is ok?”

“If it’s good enough for his messenger, it’s good enough for his guest. Let’s get on then.”

It was quite the upset when the cloaked mercenary, sword at waist and ragged girl in tow, strode into the banquet hall. The Lycan with the fanciest robe, Lord Mokta the mercenary assumed, was especially outraged. He shouted to the mercenary.

“Human! Why aren’t you dressed properly?! This kind of disrespect would have you beheaded if you were my subject!”

“Good thing I’m not your subject then. I don’t own one of your fancy robes, nor any Terran formal wear. It was either my day cloak and ceremonial sword or my power armor and machine gun, which would you prefer?”

“I…, you…” he sputtered, “all right, just take your seat here. Messenger girl, get back to the quarters!”

“Wait now, she’s my guest. You did say I could have one guest, right?“

“Guest?! She’s my indenture and she will obey my commands!”

The mercenary patted the girl on her shoulder, encouraging her foreword.”

“Lord Mokta, this is a fifty credit stick.” She held it up to him, “as such, my contract is paid off and I don’t have to do what you say anymore.“

The mercenary cracked a small grin, a rarity for him on this hell world.

“That’s right, and as a free person I’ve chosen her as my guest. Now then, please make a place for my darling girl.”

It was just then that his holo pad pinged with a job offer in his home system for ten times the pay, and he knew everything would be alright.

This girl must be some kind of lucky charm, I should thank her, and probably learn her name as well.

As the unlikely pair strolled through the moonlight, the girl, now well fed, began to shiver again. Taking his responsibility as her father, the mercenary passed her his own cloak.

I’m a hardened soldier, and she’s just a little girl, after all. She needs it much more than I do.

The girl, for her part, began to tear up again and the mercenary knew he needed to nip that in the bud. A constantly crying wolf girl would not fly on earth, he’d be lucky not to find himself in jail. He spoke to the girl, keeping his tone even but serious.

“Hey, is the cloak ok? Are you still cold?”

“N-no I’m warm now. Th-thank y-you so much, f-for everything! For the f-food and for p-paying off-f my contract. I was w-wondering what happens to me now? I mean, I can’t go back to his lordship’s house and I w-wouldn’t want to impose on you b-but…”

“Oh I thought that was obvious, I’m taking you back to my planet and adopting you… That is if you want to of course. I have a husband who will love you, and a son about your age who would be thrilled to have a sister.”

“You’re adopting me?! That’s awesome! And I get two dads and a brother, frick yeah!”

“That’s good, some enthusiasm will serve you well. Oh I’ve been meaning to ask, what’s your name?”

“… I don’t have one. A name is something to be earned when you pay off your contract or come of age. But I didn’t pay off my own contract, you paid it for me. I guess, if I have to have a name, could you maybe pick one for me?”

“Very well…” The mercenary became pensive, mentally going through a list of names, but none fit the fluffy anomaly at his side. Eventually, his thoughts turned back to the job offer that had came in earlier. Of course he had accepted, he’d be insane not to. Ten times the wages, and within a day’s commute of his family… a true miracle. He knew what name to give her.

“How does Fortuna sound to you? It means good luck where I come from.”

“I love it, cause I’m the luckiest girl alive!”

“No, I am the luckiest man for finding you.”

Merc and Floof: The Gaurdian

I hate spaceports. Between the long lines, the crowds, and always being on security’s radar, they are the worst place ever. That’s what I would say before I traveled with Fortuna anyway. I officially apologize to all parents who travel with kids, my condolences. This is a whole other layer of hell. I have been awake for nearly twenty four hours straight and our flight leaves in two, my daughter is terrified that someone will take her away from me and so she won’t let go of my cloak, and I almost got into a fight with a security agent because the moron tried to take my sacred sword. Do these blockheads not understand the concept of a ceremonial weapon? It hasn’t left the sheath in years and I have proper documentation for it. But no, they had to try to put it in a ‘travel case’ and store in in the plane. Well, the tenets of my oath dictate that my weapon shall not leave my side and so I was prepared to duel for my honor. Luckily, the guy backed off and got his supervisor, who worked everything out, and we got to our flight on time. Gods, I hate spaceports.

The exhausted mercenary was roused from his near coma by his daughter tapping on his shoulder. Towering above him stood two bovid security guards, one tapping his foot impatiently.

“Huh? Oh yes, what seems to be the problem?”

“Sir, we’re going to need to ask this girl some questions. We’ll be just over there, now come with us little girl.” At this, the already quite diminutive lycan shrank back and clung desperately to her father’s cloak. This set off the mercenary’s paternal instincts, who first glared to the security guards, then comforted his daughter.

“It’s ok sweetie, just tell the truth and there shouldn’t be any issues. I’ll be keeping my eyes on you too, so if anything goes wrong I’ll be right here.” With a reassuring headpat, the girl was sent off. The human watched the three like a predator waiting to strike. He gripped his sword so tightly his knuckles ached, ready to launch into a fight at a moment’s notice. Going to jail would be a small price to pay for defending his daughter.

After what seemed like an eternity, but in actuality was only about five minutes, the now teary eyed lycan came scampering back to her father, immediately gripping her tiny paws back onto the mercenary’s cloak. Seeing her distress, the now furious human looked the bovids in the eye and spoke, his voice chilling the room.

“Why is my daughter crying? If you hurt her I will pay you back ten times over.” The guards, in spite of their clear physical advantage, backed down.

“No sir, she was just eager to get back to you. You two are fine, thank you for your patience.”

The mercenary sighed, this was not an uncommon occurrence. At the last spaceport, they’d been stopped no less than three times, each time eager to find some reason to take his daughter away from him. He looked around as he cared for his little girl, acknowledging the disgusted looks from the rest of the people waiting at the gate. Thankfully this was the last leg of their journey, they’d soon be on earth. He couldn’t wait to see the rest of his family again.

Merc and Floof: The Dichotomy of Man

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt

splat

Ka-plunk

boom

“Two down, three to go.”

The mercenary whispered under his breath as he loaded up another shell into his shoulder mounted artillery. Part of him felt good having his power armor on after four days of travel, but the other, much louder part, was getting impatient. All he had to do was kill three more of these buggers and he could get back to the barracks for a video call home. He was anxious to see how Fortuna was adapting to life on Earth, and how his husband and son were adapting to the surprise adoption. He hadn’t exactly had time to call back and check with Elliot and Grayson before bringing home another kid, so when he showed back up out of the blue with a random new daughter in tow, there were shocked looks all around.

Unfortunately for the mercenary, he didn’t exactly have the luxury of time to get everyone used to the new situation, as he had to catch a shuttle to Mars the next morning. He knew that Elliot would never throw Fortuna out, and that Grayson was a good kid who wouldn’t even think of bullying anyone. Still, his upcoming call home would tell him if he’d made a mistake in unilaterally adding Fortuna to the household. He hoped not, but he wasn’t the one who took care of the kids most of the time.

Skreee

“Oh shit!”

The mercenary’s thoughts had wandered, and the last bugger, a massive mantis looking fucker, had managed to sneak up behind him and was now trying to melt his power armor off with its acid spit. The mercenary, liking his power armor unmelted thank you very much, grabbed the bugger by its spikes and ripped it straight in half.

“Well, that’s going to take some buffing out.”

He sighed as he signaled for the cleanup team and began to make his way back to the transport. Soon enough, a smile creeped its way up his lips as he looked forward to his rapidly approaching call home.

… … …

The mercenary, now changed out of his power armor, tapped his foot as he waited for the call to connect. Waiting just seconds was now taking a greater toll than the week of waiting that preceded it.

da-ding!

In an instant, all of the mercenary’s stress melted away as the image of his loved ones sitting together on their familiar blue couch appeared on the screen. As soon as the kids saw their dad, they began to smile, and the mercenary knew everything would be alright.

“Daddy!”

The young kids shouted out in unison, the young wolf girl’s tail smacking against the couch. The simple, oversized clothes scrounged up by the mercenary before their flight from her homeworld had been replaced by a comfy set of pink pajamas.

“Hey kiddos, have you two been good while I’ve been gone?”

The mercenary wasn’t really asking, he knew that his children had been on their best behavior. He just wanted to hear them talk about how they’d been doing, their voices like water to a man dying of thirst.

The young boy spoke first, “Yeah, we’ve been good! I taught Fortuna howda play connect four, she’s really good at it, she even beat me two times inna row.” He mumbled out the last phrase, indignant embarrassment painted in his body language.

“Really? Grayson Constanza, the connect four champion of the world, lost to a newbie?”

The wolf girl piped up, puffing out her chest in pride. “Heck yeah! I beat him good!”

The mercenary smiled with contentment, he’d be home with them next week. All he had to do was wait.

After chatting with the kids for about fifteen minutes, the little ones were sent off to bed and he was alone with his husband.

“Bruno, how have you been? How’s the new job?”

“I’m doing better now that I’ve seen you and the kids. The new job’s alright, much better than the last one, but I can’t wait to come home.”

“And I can’t wait to have you here. I have to admit, I was about ready to pummel you into the ground when you showed up with a random kid, but you made a good choice. Fortuna opened up to me about what she went through growing up on Lycaeus, and it wasn’t pretty. Grayson loves his new sister, even the neighbors think she’s a sweetheart.”

“I’m glad to hear that, and I really am sorry about not being able to be there for you. I miss you guys.”

“I miss you too, love.”

#humans are space orcs #humans are weird #original story #humanity fuck yeah #humans are awesome

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sourprada · 3 months

Note

mommy wanda dominating a reader taller than her please 😭🙏🙏

Oh, reader would be a menace because of that.

Wanda had faced many challenges in her life, especially as an avenger, but tossing orders at someone who she’d have to look up to give, was not in her plans. Your presence seemed to envelop her. Yet, she felt a sense of dominance course through her. With all that, you would still take advantage of your hight.

Kissing you would only be possible if you bent down, fucking you? Not so much. It all started when you heard Wanda huff from a distance, carefully, you made you way towards her. Wanda huffed in frustration as she stared up at the tantalizing item perched on the top shelf of her kitchen cabinet. Despite her best efforts, her stature proved no match for the unreachable height.

“Having troubles?” The smirk was undeniable on your face. “Stop tormenting me and help”. Wanda hated your constant teasing, it was something she saw as a bratty misbehave.

“Yes, lord farquaad” you reached for the ladle and handed to her, but she made no motion to grab the utensil from you. Reaching for her eyes, you were only met with fury. “I was kidding, wanda. I’m sorry”

In one quick motion the ladle swung from your hand, cladding against the floor, emitting a sharp, metallic clang that reverberated through the room, punctuating the silence with an abrupt disruption. The witch’s eyes glowed red at you while red strings disappeared from her fingers. “Your lucky I won’t be using that ladle to spank you ass raw” she preached coming closer and closer but your form still towered over hers, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t all the power over you. The room fell silent, the only sounds coming from you gulping and ragged breathing.

“Kneel” Wanda’s eyes blazed with intensity as she stood before you, her voice carrying a commanding tone. “What? B- but… why?”. The witch’s patient was running thin, your questioning and stuttering wasn’t helpful either. Wanda, grabbed you by the shoulders forcing you to your knees, painfully hitting your kneecaps against the hardwood. Quickly she unbuttoned her pants making sure her gaze never left your pliable one. “See, baby? I can tower over you anytime I want, but since you wanna be so mouthy about it how about we put that bratty mouth to good use, huh?” Her red strap sprung free from its confines almost hitting your blushed cheek. Your eyes went wide at the size, your resolve quickly dissipating as you looked up at her in a silent plea for mercy, a stark contrast to Wanda’s unwavering presence, not granting you one.

“What? I thought inches wasn’t a problem for you.”

Stained black fingers running through your head in a soothing manner, enticing a faux sense of security that was swiftly replaced as she yanked you head back by your hair

“Now open wide”

#wanda maximoff x reader #mommy wanda #wanda maximoff #wanda maximoff imagines #wanda x reader #wanda x you #drabble #ineedherusingmymouth

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tired-biscuit · 1 year

Note

stepdad!kirishima who’s so cuddly and sweet <33

fat breeding kink too ofc :p

18+ fem!reader // cw: stepcest, infidelity

oh, goodness; now i’m just imagining him taking you on little ‘daddy-daughter’ dates even if you’re over twenty and he’s nowhere near at being your real dad.

he wakes you up early in the morning, only mere minutes after your mom leaves for work, and tells you to get dressed so that you can start your day together by what he calls the ‘right’ way. breakfast awaits you when you finally sort yourself out and go trudging down the stairs, still so sleepy and with your mind terribly hazy from said slumber.

the second you enter the kitchen, kirishima works hard to impress you, the vast variety of exceptionally-prepared breakfast foods that sits on the kitchen counter makes that evidently clear for you. unlike yourself, he’s chatty and bubbly even if the hour is early; he’s just so nice. he talks to you with a subtle, albeit genuine, smile plastered on his handsome face as you indulge in the perfect little stack of pancakes he’s whipped up for you, and keeps grinning even as you finish drinking the homemade orange juice that he’s also prepared all by himself.

he’s definitely a morning person.

amongst other things.

wiping your mouth with the back of your hand, you realize you’re not all that used to being alone in the house with another person, let alone him. back in the day, every morning used to be just you and your mom or just you whilst she was away at work, so this entire thing is just so new; the terrain is left untrekked. so it’s no wonder why your eyelids, despite the fact that they still feel so very heavy, blink profusely each time he establishes eye contact with you and keeps it there. why your pulse sort of speeds up when he leans in to take away your plate and utensils and you can smell just the faintest hint of his bodywash.

inhaling the slightly piney smell, you try not to pay any mind to either of those things because the thoughts to riddle you at the whiff of the scent are stupid anyway, they’re as silly as the girl he probably sees you as. but goddammit; as he turns away from you to face the sink so that he can quickly wash the dishes and leave them out to dry, his back muscles turn prominent underneath the thin white t-shirt he wears, and you can’t help but feel just the tiniest amount of jealousy for your own mother start to plague your mind.

after all, her new husband — your new stepdad, remember that — is just so dreamy. his shoulders are broad, his smile is big and kind. you already know how strong he is, you’ve seen him work out in the basement and come home all sweaty and buzzing with energy after the longest run you’d personally never be able to finish. the life that burns in his eyes makes him look so young, and when he leaves his hair down like this… good lord.

you try to push away the filth that continues to swirl in your head even as you finish up with breakfast and he leads you to his car. the drive is nice, he lets you pick the music and even compliments your taste. you try not to stare at him too much but you simply can’t resist a couple of glances here and there.

he’s a good driver, he knows his road manners well. the third time you look at him from the corner of your eye, he catches you but says nothing. instead, all he does is tap his fingers against the steering wheel in a way you’d almost call impatient. the corner of his mouth keeps kicking upwards. who knows what he’s thinking about.

when you arrive to your first destination, he takes you shopping and lets you buy whatever you want just so that he can make a good, hopefully lasting, impression on you that will make you like him even more than you secretly already do. he’s your new stepdad — your attractive, buff, so big that he could probably toss you over his shoulder with absolutely no trouble — stepdad. you’re still a bit wary around him; eyeing him from the side and acting so adorably bashful as you ask him if it’s all right to buy a new skirt you particularly like.

and oddly enough, he tells you that he likes it as well.

you spend the entire day together by going out and about in the city, not just the mall. he buys you both ice cream and doesn’t mind at all when you ask if you can try the flavour he picked, too. with each hour that you pass in each other’s company, you grow closer. you realize that you get along super well, but it doesn’t come as a surprise because he truly is a people kind of person. so charming.

by the time it gets dark out, he drags you to a diner that’s situated close to the highway that will otherwise take you to your new home. it’s almost along the way, he reassures you. the food is so good apparently — him and his best friend bakugou always grab a bite there. you believe him, of course.

the place is nearly deserted, it’s a monday evening and he’s only off work because he made arrangements specifically to spend it with you, but the food indeed is insanely good; just like he’d promised. you keep chatting as you eat in your secluded booth, still having so many subjects to cover; you never seem to run out of them when you’re with him. he listens intently to whatever you have to say, about how it feels somewhat bitter-sweet that you’ll be finishing your last year of college soon, how you’ll miss your roommates, how you need to start job hunting soon.

his foot keeps bumping against your own underneath the table as you talk, talk, talk, and you try to pretend that the — probably accidental — touch doesn’t faze you, but the icy coke you drink certainly becomes extremely helpful when it comes to cooling down the heat that kindles within you all of a sudden. the ice melts on the flat of your tongue so fast.

what it doesn’t help you with, however, is when it comes to enduring the burn of the stretch that his cock provokes inside your pussy the moment he persuades you to join him in the backseat of his car as soon as you exit the diner. but it’s not like it took much persuading to begin with.

the parking lot is abandoned, dark, sketchy. there are no people nearby besides you and him, but there are shadows that twist and dance all over the concrete. it’s nothing like the radiant, sweet man, who you now clumsily exchange kisses with as a means to quiet down the moan that bubbles up your throat as soon as you start to rock your hips against his own whilst sitting on his lap.

his hands are rough to the touch, calloused from years of hard work, as he grabs handfuls of your ass and pushes you further down so that you can at least try and take him entirely. his cock is as big as the rest of him is and once more you’re not surprised by it, even if you are baffled by the fact that he actually enabled you to learn that particular piece of information in the first place.

so yes, you’re fucking your new stepfather. he’s all deep groans and softly-whispered praises as he fills your belly with not just food, but the girth of his dick as well. you try and ride him just like you rode all your previous boyfriends, but it proves to be unsatisfactory because he’s not your boyfriend, is he? he’s your daddy.

and your daddy reminds you of his role when your mother calls, asking him where you’re at, that it’s getting late. biting back a grunt, he has to pretend that he’s driving you both home instead of watching his stepdaughter ride his cock in the backseat of his SUV. that he’s not listening to the quiet little gasps that you keep letting out as he smears your slick and circles your clit with his thumb. that he’s not making you cum just by bucking his hips upward every so often and kissing you so deep that you’re pretty sure you’ll taste him inside your mouth for ages to come.

and he seems to be a nasty motherfucker just like you are, because the moment he hangs up, he makes you quicken your pace and ride him even harder. you need to get home, both of you do, so he tells you he’ll breed you real quick, that he’ll fill you up just because it’ll make you feel so good. that you’ll feel so complete when a part of him reaches so deep into you that you’ll be branded by him forever.

and he’s right, he makes you gush and tighten around him one last time with that promise before he grabs you by the hips and fills you up to the fucking brim. the ropes of white that paint your velvety walls after a couple more of deep, satisfying thrusts feel so warm; they make his cock twitch and his lips quiver before they spill all the praise you’re hastily growing addicted to hearing again and again and again.

“good lil’ girl… fuck, you’re such a good girl for daddy.”

and that’s that and it’s more than enough. by the time you finally arrive home, most of his cum is leaking from your abused hole; dribbling right down the inner side of your thigh. he can see the droplet of milky white glimmering on your skin when he bends down to take his shoes off in the hallway. it makes him smile so sweetly up at you that it causes you to start thinking that you might have just imagined the entire thing.

nonetheless, you can barely wait for your next daddy-daughter date.

who knows what he’ll come up with next time?

#cw stepcest #kirishima x reader #kirishima smut #biscuit drabbles #cw infidelity

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see-arcane · 1 month

Text

Blood of My Blood: Something to Cry About

Consider this a spinoff of a spinoff. Based on @ibrithir-was-here's Blood of My Blood and directly jumping off of @bluecatwriter's chapter, Overindulgence.

In which the Master of the castle runs into an unexpected concern regarding his dear vassal and being the monster in the picture is not quite as fun as he recalls.

(Warnings for suicidal ideation and domestic abuse.)

His eyes were shut, but he wasn’t sleeping.

It was not the first time his friend had greeted him so. Back in that first private summer there had been something of a game made from it. Whenever his friend was caught supine in bed or on a couch without the will to drag himself to consciousness and perform for his Master, the latter would sometimes test the limits of the act. A hand on his throat. Another under the shirt and over the drumming heart. That had been back when only one of them carried a chill.

What a distant thing that season was now. The dark-haired youth had only been able to hide his expression because fatigue still left its miserable countenance stamped on him. He had not been able to fully hide his shudders then; not when the hands began to move. Now here was his friend just shy of the full metamorphosis, human by the thinnest wisp of definition, a marble statue in his bed.

Stained marble. He was so drained as to nearly match the silver-white corona of hair on the pillow. There were the usual shadows under the eyes and the mottling spots that showed where his family nursed at throat and wrist. But the palette broke anew along one side. Even if it was to allow space for the bandages.

Bandages that had started white but now flared in spots of scarlet. Rings, rather.

Bites.

Ah, he had indulged deeply.

Enough to sand the years away to those earliest days when he himself had been a youth peddling soul and sacrifices away beneath the Mountain. Amusing as it was, and infinitely worth the woman’s face upon seeing the full claim of her husband in action, he did catch himself counting the hours until this whipcord stage would fade out of him. It would be a pain in and of itself for bone and beard and build to all even out again into full manhood. Just having his own voice in his ears would be a relief in itself. Unquestioned as his rule was, even he could not play deaf to the absurdity of the lord of the castle sounding a year short of his first shave.

He could almost fool himself into thinking dear Jonathan was playing ignorant because he did not recognize his Master’s voice. Almost.

“She wrapped it poorly,” he hummed. He sat at the faux dreamer’s hip. “The stain should not be visible.”

Jonathan’s eyes stayed shut. His breathing did not change, thin as it was. Perhaps the woman was in his head, whispering behind his back. But a simple check showed otherwise.

Mother and child were both out from underfoot for the moment, amusing themselves with animals. The boy maintained the wolves as his most cherished creatures, as was right, but the other beasts in the dark had hooked his eye as well. Bat and rat, owl and fox. The latter had scared him once, hearing it scream for the first time—a human shriek from an inhuman throat. The woman was out with another of her husband’s doting gifts, a book of fauna with all the airy definitions and dissections that mortal science had seen fit to cage the local range of species in. It was something to keep them busy and another little facet to add to the boy’s knowledge.

The woman felt him prying and a reflexive response tried to leap back at him. He shut her out before she could know where he was. Not that it would matter. He could revoke her meager privilege with his friend as he liked. But this was not for others to intrude on. Supposing Jonathan dropped his act sometime this decade.

“Oh, dear. I had not realized you were so depleted. Perhaps I should fetch some donors from the village and have them pipe their veins into yours. It worked so artfully for other patients. Or,” he made a show of slitting open a wrist to let the dark vein ooze, knowing the gesture was sensed even behind closed eyes, “since you are so set on the repose of death, we could go ahead and rescind all the playacting and reach denouement early. It would surely save much in time and tears and—,”

Jonathan’s eyes were open. Not looking at him. The pale hands remained folded atop the sheets. One was limp. The other was lax only from the effort to avoid becoming a fist.

“There you are. Ah, and there is the opportunity gone.”

His wrist was already healed. Sealed shut almost the instant it was cut. Even two nights on, he was swollen with his friend’s draught. He had to admire the vitality required for such a task. Poor Lucy would have wilted at the first two bites, with or without her impotent ring of suitors dumping their blood into her to drag out the inevitable. In truth, he had half-hoped that the sweet diversion of the Lesson would end with Jonathan’s heart stopping altogether. The feeding of blood was only a requirement if the transformation was intended to be a slower process, as it had been meted out to the woman.

Had Jonathan died, he would be undead within the same night. Perhaps even the same hour. Being siphoned for almost half a decade by three vampires would leave no room for the process to drag its heels. What a treat it might have been to see the woman realize what she’d done. All her beloved’s sacrifice thrown away because she’d grasped beyond what was hers. And better still to have the weight of the farce finally shrugged from his shoulders as it was ripped from Jonathan’s. The boy would have cheered, he knew, to see his Papa finally in their ranks completely.

And then would come their first hunt…

But he was woolgathering. And, in the fashion of a youth, chasing mere impulse when he knew the fruits were not yet ripe. Let the game play out, young man. He would have his way by the end, do not throw the foreplay away now.

Jonathan still did not look at him.

“You seem unable to turn your head, my friend. Did I truly spend so long with your neck? Memory does not lie and I can see myself that the shoulder received far more attention.”

Jonathan did turn his head—to face the wall. The ghost-light eyes hovered on the calendar, brow furrowed in reading the weeks. His lips moved in silent muttering.

A clawed finger reached out, hooking the pallid chin until Jonathan turned to him. There was a genuine wince as he did so. He had bitten deep and not with the usual set of teeth. He’d called upon the Wolf’s rows to be sure of strength and for the demonstration made before his greedy audience. But even with the heady extra helping of blood, even with the Lesson successfully taught, there was no sidestepping the fact of the method’s sloppiness. Intentional in the moment, yes, but…

But what? He will heal. And if he doesn’t, he will die and do better than heal. Call it a Lesson for him too. Such is the lot of one who clings to the role of livestock. Really, it is probably a boon to his penitent soul. A belated lashing for what he still considers his sins.

“Does it hurt?” he asked aloud.

Jonathan did not answer. Only stared at him. There was no fear there, nor even that constant element of melancholy. There was only a queer flatness. It might nearly be mistaken for the same glaze of placidity the woman tried to hide her rages with. But no, it was not even anger. What, then?

“Have you lost the use of your tongue as well?” The question came with a flicker of mesmer. It hooked the root of Jonathan’s tongue and yanked.

“No,” Jonathan offered blandly. And no more than that. As if there were truly no other words he had to spare for his Master.

“I had not realized you stored your vocabulary in your arteries.”

“Even if it were otherwise, I imagine I’d have little to say worth sharing.”

My friend, is this you sulking? It has been years!

Years since that last pregnant silence as he showed Mr. Harker the wolves at the door. Since he watched the young man sit and stew and struggle against tears before ascending wordlessly to his room. What a raw little thing he’d been then.

But the thing staring back at him was not raw. It was something leaden and tired and…bored? Was that it? Something near to that, perhaps, but sharper.

“Now, there is no need to pout. You know I have never ceased to cherish our little talks. But I do see you are making do with only water and bread. Dear Mina has left you like a lame pet up here.” In reality the water was fresh and the bread, baked the day before, was joined by what non-perishable goods the woman had scrounged by way of a breakfast. Even the boy had left him with what he considered a treasure by way of a bowl brimming with wild berries he’d picked himself around the castle. All this had been sampled, if thinly. “Yours is the only tongue here left to appreciate a vintage in its original state rather than filtered through a vein. Shall you have a claret or something stronger?”

“Neither. Thank you.”

Flat as a skipping stone. He did not even reach for the old half-joking insistence that he did not dare risk an overindulgence of wine or liquor as, quote, ‘If I drank every time I felt I needed it, I would be an alcoholic within a week.’ Instead, the stare. Still ongoing. Seeming to realize this, Jonathan made himself blink before trying to turn his head away. Back to the calendar.

His Master locked a full hand around his jaw and twisted him back. Another wince.

No fear. No sorrow. No anything. Just that blunt void of acknowledgment. That unknown thing hovering between ire and lethargy.

“Might I ask what it is that so fascinates you about the date? It must be some worthy holiday to outweigh your Master’s presence.”

“Not a holiday,” Jonathan allowed. “Though I suppose I should mark down the evening three nights prior as a milestone. Something to keep on record.” Three nights prior. When the Lesson was taught. “Your first bout of physical abuse on me. I had thought you couldn’t hold out beyond two years. Most of you don’t even make it past the first two months. Yet you are patient, so I figured there would be an insulation period.”

It was his turn to stare back. Jonathan waited as he did, seeming oddly like he was itching for a pocket watch to tally how many minutes he was wasting breath on this exchange. His Master’s hand moved from the pale chin to the bandaged shoulder.

“Most of who?”

The hand squeezed. Jonathan grimaced, but didn’t blink.

“The demographic of men I had hoped you were better than. There was evidence enough to suggest it. At least a ratio of odds that favored something less predictable. Despite what proofs there are to the contrary, you are not a violent man, Sir. Not when you can happily do worse than violence. Certainly not when the prelude to it provides better results and entertainment. Why else would you take such care to drag out a season of captivity or play your games on the Demeter? Why feed on a victim by drops rather than ravage outright but for the joy of watching their comprehension of the inevitable? The only instances in which you resort to straight aggression are when you want something over with.

“A mother eaten by wolves. Sacks of children thrown like scraps. Your own aide waiting ashore, slaughtered and stuffed in a stone wall to muddy your trail. Quick, quick, quick. Violence bores you in the same way doing linens bores a laundress. If it must be done, fine, let it be over with—but it is no more or less than something to scrape from the schedule. At a guess, that night’s violence was for Mina’s sake. I had not changed anything in my routine. Quincey had done no ill. Mina, I suspect…what? Blinked incorrectly? Asked to see me for a heartbeat beyond the scheduled feeding? Dared to request a moment of make-believe where you do not own us all, as if the very act of imagination equated a challenge to you?

“But that is all beside the point. You have stepped fully into the cliché. And I had accounted for that. The first round tallied. Fine. The issue comes with the timing. Your insistence on who else ought to be in the audience.” In his lap, one hand finally lost the fight and hardened into a fist. The other, attached to the bitten arm, only twitched. “Mina was the point of the show. But our son? Was he part of the Lesson too? Did you order him to stay as yet another hoop for her to jump through, to make her act and lie beyond all extremes? No, I should not ask. Of course he was.”

The ghost-light eyes burned.

“This, when he loves you as his Father. When the entire point of all this is giving him a life he can trust in. You saw him smile for you in this room. He held you and beamed and heard your stories. And then what? What did he ask before you left him in his coffin?”

The woman had not been in his mind at the time to overhear. She could not know. She could not have told her husband what the boy asked.

The boy, his smile fading, his eyes sunset-bright and wondering, blankets fidgeting in his hands.

‘Are you sure Papa is alright? He looked really tired…’

His Father had told him yes, of course, but Papa had been so enchanting that night that Father had not been able to help himself. Not to worry, his Mum would take care of him as she always did. All’s well, diavol. And the boy had tried to smile. Tried to believe him.

And couldn’t.

“He turns five next year. Five. And you are already blasting holes in the foundation of his faith in you. In what we have been building out of debris to produce a happy reality for him, in which his parents are not monsters.” Now a note of true venom slipped through his voice, the hollow-burning eyes narrowed to cold angles, and at last the feeling was recognized for what it was, and it was... “In which he does not have to be yet another actor for your benefit.”

…Disappointment.

Cold and grey and coarse with recognition. With experience.

“All of that being said, Sir, if you feel you must make another show of the obvious,” the fist uncurled to gesture at the mauled shoulder, “I ask that you reserve it strictly for the adults.” Finally the lambent gaze skidded away, looking not at Master or calendar, but at his still-resting hand on the covers. The fingers still hadn’t curled further than halfway to his palm. “Perhaps I’ll blame it on a doorknob next time.” Then, as if the entire topic were dismissed, he reached across to the nightstand. A notebook sat beside the dish of food. Not another diary, but a weighty planner. Jonathan folded it open to the latest page. The fountain pen’s cap was worked off with some difficulty by wedging it between the fingers of the lax hand. “Most of the itinerary was cleared a week ahead. The triplicates will take a little longer than I’d hoped, but they should still be ready within the month.” The nib poised on the page. “Was there anything else that needed attention, Sir?”

Besides you? said the ghost-light eyes.

His Master regarded him for a moment. Another. A third. As he regarded him, a clawed hand floated out and pinched the book out of Jonathan’s hold. The book flew like a discus into the furthest wall. Outside, a summer storm grumbled. He felt a distant twitch of his senses as the woman and the boy both prickled with worry. Storms were never just storms around the castle.

Jonathan capped the pen and waited. Even devoid of a psychic voice, his eyes spoke with an articulation so clear he might have talked aloud:

Go on. The moment fits the criteria. We are our only witnesses. Fetch a switch off a tree or a broken bottle while you’re at it. Really round out the scene.

“I came here,” his Master grated with rigid courtesy, “to offer some manner of respite. Perhaps even a token of reward for so expertly assisting in a much-needed Lesson. But I see I was mistaken. If I had known you were in such an ungrateful state, I would have waited. As it stands, it appears you need educating of your own. Poor Mina, she will be so disappointed to learn that her dearly-bought visits are now revoked.” He feigned his own interest in the calendar. Then at the vast window that looked out on the plummeting height of the tower and the half-moon squinting through the thunderhead’s cracks. “Our son’s as well, I think. He really is so spoiled in his free time. Bothering his poor beset Papa night and day when he has so much to do…

“Ah, but then, perhaps this is remiss of me too. I am no child despite my current face. I have run the entirety of this castle and its domain singlehandedly for centuries, all without any novice solicitors to flutter around my office. Likewise for the tending of the castle itself. Really, my friend, what reason is there for you to be so abused as to leave this room at all? To be bothered by maintaining the performance for mother and child? Such a labor, such a trial.

“Well, no more of it! You can stay here, they can stay without, and whenever it comes time to feed, you may empty your veins into a cup. Far tidier that way, and so much closer to the human façade besides! You do want the boy to learn how to pantomime humanity in full, yes? Of course you do. So that is how it shall be from here out. You in your tower, they in the crypt, and I shall endeavor to play go-between for all to the best of my ability. How does that suit you?”

He bared his teeth to the gums with his grin. Waiting for the tears. For the shattering of the dull mask. For the bribe, the plea, the grovel. He did all quite beautifully when the occasion called for it over the years. His wife did well enough, especially for one grappling with the impulse-weight of the Vampire, but Jonathan had it down to an artform. Indeed, he saw the first shine of dew come over the brilliant white-blue of the eyes, the quirk and twitch of his face into a grimace—

No. No, not a grimace.

A rictus.

The corners flinched up before Jonathan could hide it behind his hand. By then it was too late. Assuming the man could’ve stopped himself. A noise that tried to be a sob leapt through his teeth. It came out as a laugh. As did all the sounds that followed. A long hideous string of giggles boiling over into a cackle that brought rivers of tears to his shining eyes. It was not a man’s sound, but the mock-laughter of hyenas, the baying racket of jackals.

Unbidden, he leaned an inch away from his friend. Several inches. The movement snapped Jonathan’s eyes back to him, wide and wild and blazing and for one lunatic instant they seemed to brand the afterimage of the house in Piccadilly on the room, that surreal moment in which he first saw the uncanny Thing that wore his dear friend’s skin; a Thing that could and would kill him with his steel or his own hands. Even in a crowded street.

But that moment passed—long, long ago now, back before the insurance of the woman and her collared will were his precious cudgel—and Jonathan himself seemed wholly oblivious to the recollection. In his face there was only a madness of such profound despair and scorn that the effect dizzied.

“You do not understand. You really truly don’t, do you?” The words were cracked and brittle, barely holding an intelligible shape. “You talk of tokens and punishments. As if I have ever dared to hope, to even think of wanting anything for myself, since that night in October. As if I have not already imagined and lived, expected and met every possible nightmare that God could throw in my path and hers. I lived the first twenty years of a pointless joke of a life already under every bootheel the civilized human world had to offer, as did she. We grasped at crumbs of joy, of hope, of respite from the reality of our lots. This we could do because we had each other and our faith. Faith that for all the ills that humanity dealt out with the good, there was at least a chance for us. There was, we prayed, something better waiting on the other end of life. If we were good. If we did good.

“But then you had to prove it all wrong. To burst the lie. Not that God is not real. He so very clearly is. But you—all that you are, all that you’ve done, all you will continue to do without so much as a slap on the wrist from the divine Powers that Be—proved that He is fickle. That His love and protection is wholly conditional. That someone as good, as pure, as blisteringly virtuous as Mina could be burned by the Son for another’s sin, abandoned and denied like a used rag for the crime of someone else’s violation. All to have the ransom of her humanity dangled over our heads to spur a handful of strangers onto the hunt after…what? Four centuries’ worth of you owning these mountains and its people, all of them dutifully cowering and dying behind their own half-helpful crucifixes?

“But oh no! Too late! Complications abound! The mother is with child and it does not matter to the good men who swore to slaughter her! And God must have declared them good men, for they did so good with Lucy. Lucy, who has surely gone to Heaven with her slaying…or not. What proof is there? What guarantee is there that anyone with your poison in them can hope for salvation, alive or dead? They saw her corpse and nothing else. They choked on hope and called it evidence that this was the right thing to do. God’s will be done.

“I have already murdered to go against His will. I slew those good men to keep them from making an Isaac and a slaughtered lamb of my Loves. I damned myself then as I had been preparing to damn myself since the moment I woke to her screams and your work. Do you understand?”

Despite the sultry rainstorm air trying to bleed in through the window, the room was cold. Somehow it had grown outright frigid around the bed and the Thing hunching out of his sheets.

“I have nothing. Nothing at all but purpose. Nothing I would dare to want, knowing it will be lost. Nothing I have left to lose, having ceased to believe the lie that I have any potential for joy beyond a reflection of my Loves’ peace. Nothing resembling anything so laughable as respite on any level. I am reduced to a talking trough for the sake of a family who deserves worlds beyond the stain you and I would leave on them without supreme effort. So, go ahead. Play jailor. Play glutton. Play king of the castle and lord above all and whatever else you stopped being able to play with your last captive audience once they were worn down to cackling husks that only had room in themselves for hunger and jeering, knowing that you had no more to threaten them with after taking all that they had.

“In fact? Here. Since I still have some feeling in my left hand. Wouldn’t want you giving me a holiday from work without due reason, and it shall save you the trouble of inventing an excuse to maim the rest.”

As he spoke, Jonathan tore at the bandages. They fell away in grisly ribbons to reveal a far grimmer map of injury than expected. It was worse still when Jonathan twisted to show his back. Bites and bruises patterned him like gruesome puzzle pieces. There were stitches closing two flaps of skin together. In one portion there were small chunks of flesh entirely gone where the teeth had torn them loose.

“Go on. Get on with it. Or would it be better for you if I threw in a scream and a plea to top things off? Pick a script, Sir, let me know.”

Jonathan kept his back to his Master. His Master only stared. Then, with a hand laid gentle as a feather on the ruined shoulder:

“I believe you were right at the start. You do have little to say worth sharing.”

The hand traced the first of the marks. A broad bite clamped along the carotid; the kind that could have torn the entire throat out, Adam’s apple and all. If its maker were not cautious. It was only the ensuing that had been ragged, tearing at muscle more than vein. To make a necessary a point.

As if his friend cared. As if he should care whether his friend cared.

His thumb brushed over a small crater where a canine had torn away so thickly that the flesh dimpled.

Jonathan waited for it to be joined by others like it.

Waited. Waited.

It was almost a full minute before he realized the light touch on him was no touch at all. He turned to see his Master was gone. If he’d had the energy to leave the bed, he might have gone to the door. His Master was on the other side, turning the key over in his hand. As he lingered, a bat summoned to the window. Beady borrowed eyes peered through the glass, waiting for Jonathan to rise, to go to the door and see if it was open.

Should he lock it as he rose? As he tried to turn the knob? Or did he skip the key entirely and simply hold the door shut to watch him scrabble one-handed at it?

The bat watched Jonathan hobble from the bed and to the chair of the writing desk. He dragged the chair to the window. Sat. Stared out through the glass at the moon.

His Master willed the clouds to cover it.

Jonathan stared still.

Still.

His good hand was the only part that moved. There was something white being fidgeted with. A stick of chalk.

It was only when he felt the woman and the boy heading for the tower that the key was pocketed unused and its owner drifted as a mist through another window. The bat watched as Jonathan pocketed his chalk and stood from his chair upon hearing the child’s chirruping voice echoing up the stairs. Papa-Papa-Papa-are-you-up? Papa hid the bandages and donned a robe before grabbing a book at random for his lap while his good hand pinched cold food from his plate. The boy bounded in, mother in tow, Papa, Papa, look-look-look. Jonathan looked dutifully at the new drawings he’d made, including one done from life of a red fox that let them get this close before running off. Jonathan was duly impressed. His weak hand was in his woman’s fingers, gently held, more gently curling and testing the limp knuckles.

Their Master did not linger long enough to know whether Jonathan would tell her of their visit now or later. It was moot. The scene cloyed.

The bat flew and the mist sank away.

He couldn’t recall the last time he’d been in his women’s chambers. Even the sole woman left in the castle hardly bothered with them. Antique treasures were buried under the modern trappings he’d tossed their way in preparation for England. They would have been with him once he set the groundwork in London. Them and his good friend.

All dust now.

Like the dust now glazing so much of the old rooms. Jonathan had taken a Herculean task upon himself some years prior to try and chip at the disuse and damage of a room at a time between his usual work. The paperwork, the horses, the errands, the cautious playing of mouthpiece and shield between Master and subjects. Between all that, he set himself to the tidying of this hall or that chamber. It was as impressive as it was embarrassing to note whenever his Master passed by one of these rooms in a state of surprise. He’d half-forgotten most of them existed, let alone what they had looked like before the ennui set in. Even the tarnish on the fixtures and doorknobs was cleaned away.

‘Perhaps I’ll blame it on a doorknob next time.’

He curled his lip and shoved the thought away. Then shoved over a bookcase for good measure. Novels in half a dozen languages went tumbling alongside a few expensive baubles. Old gold bookends, glass statues, cut gems so large and hollowed they could hold a wealth of rings and bracelets. All to pair with the tailoring of the wardrobes. These stood at attention beside abandoned easels, instruments, and myriad other distractions. All things given to be taken away. Only as was merited, of course. Such lazy mincing things, his old Loves. Coaxing anything but bile or idleness from them was like convincing a snail to run.

And most of what was goaded had been—

‘You yourself never loved. You never loved!’

—not a fraction of what they had given at the start. Not even their beginnings had amounted to much after the consummation. Stolen or bartered or lured, his Loves had lapsed so quickly into backhanded camaraderie. They had made cats of themselves, knowing they were craved simply for the fact of their presence and it gave them as close to free reign as their Master would ever give. Not enemies, but pets. Pretty faces and musical laughter to populate the nights with more than his own echoes.

For there had been laughter. With him. At him. Sometimes he had even let them claw or snap at him just for the excuse of the punishment he would inflict after. Really, for the sake of something to actually do with them beyond their nightly sniping.

He left the chambers and frowned down the hall. Moonlight fell through the nearest southward chamber, the window clean for the first time in ages, the interior righted and swept. It held books he had read two centuries ago, an old chessboard he had lost a century before that, now with its polished crystal men standing at attention, fallen curtains beaten from their dust and hung anew, paintings and an elderly world map peppered with monsters reframed and set upon the walls. The latter had been drawn to his attention by Jonathan himself, smiling with the boy in his lap, mentioning idly that he had found a map of fascinating creatures he had no name for, might Father know them..?

Father had, of course. The boy had been enraptured for nights with his definitions, with the monsters proven wholly imaginary or simply animals or, he knew from experience, terribly real. Tales he had relayed giddily at the next family meal, his Papa wasted but smiling on between him and his mother who had already heard her dose of legendry down in the crypt. Holding his Loves with two good hands.

He knocked a dresser over as well.

What did he care? What did he possibly care whether his dear friend took some overdue recompense for his betrayal? For upending meticulous plans and striking a scar into his Master’s brow and daring to haggle for the chance to squat here, under his lenient aegis rather than order the woman to tear into him and their brat and bash her own skull to gruel? Really, his friend was lucky to have such a meager toll to pay.

Other than vassalage. Other than slaughtering in Love’s name over God’s and sending the hunting party’s scraps limping away. Other than complaining of his mangling only because it upset the child; because the child had to hide that he was upset, just like Mum and Papa hide from Father. Other than actively laying foundations for a second invasion of England once the boy is grown, selling himself further down the layers of Hell, for Love’s sake. Other than this, yes, most meager. Practically nothing. You are many things, old devil, but the least you can be is honest with yourself. Or are you not still preening to yourself even now at your bargain?

Your losses: A scratch on the head. A two-decade wait. A handful of women.

Your gains: Your mind. Your future no longer being a mere checklist. Your Harkers.

Your friend.

Draga ta.

He first bristled, then sighed. His mind was walled off. There was no spying. He could admit the obvious to himself.

Not now, not tomorrow, but eventually. No need to fret over it. Time is the sea that eats away all stone, however stubborn. He will break given ages enough. It took the weight of the Mountain and its Lessons, but you broke too. And you were better for it. This sour period will pass. They will all break and learn and be pieced into proper shape.

Obvious, obvious. Of course.

His feet took him to the southward room. Map, art, chess, books. One of many rooms with forgotten treasures. Converted and cleaned and left like little oases. For the boy, for the woman, for his Master.

And yet Jonathan’s own room remained bare.

There was a little bookcase, he knew. But was it used? Was there anything else in the man’s room but a bed, clothes, and a desk? Memory ticked back along his mind. All the visits made to drink or talk or, in his friend’s sleep, simply to watch. What was there to that room that was not already waiting for him when his Master first ordered him in?

Sometimes there were drawings or wild bouquets from the boy. Food from the woman whenever he worked into one of those stupors that made him forget his meals. No more than that. Almost five years under the castle’s roof, diving in and out of the place’s uncounted rooms, going to and from the towns or ordering from afar, and there was not a single thing within his personal four walls to suggest it. And was that not strange in itself? True, he might occasionally be locked inside the tower, but not as a constant.

If the point of giving something was to have it taken away, the reverse held true too. He did let his friend roam where he may more often than not. And his friend did make use of it and his limited access to his Master’s coffers.

For anyone other than himself.

Yes, well. He does have his chair and his window. If he has gone so long without need of more, so much the better. Far easier upkeep than some hangers-on you could mention.

The thought failed to raise a smile on him.

He gripped the bookcase before him—jammed end to end with hardcovers of multiple eras, not a volume out of place—and thought for several minutes of tipping it over. Perhaps throwing it into the courtyard. Instead, he walked his fingers along until they landed on a history text. Written in the native tongue, it was one of the less maddeningly misinformed volumes of the late 17th century. Even the illustrations were passable. Jonathan must have overlooked it. He had been as adamant as their son once upon a time when it came to unearthing old histories. More, he was making more than fair leaps with his practice in the different languages of the mountains.

The book left the room with him.

The book stayed with him for the rest of the night and all of the day.

His eyes were sent elsewhere.

The bats slept, but the rats were busy. Or they would be, if he’d had need of more than one left loitering in the shade under Jonathan’s wardrobe. Animal-fear waned to animal-confusion waned to animal-annoyance as hours ticked by and its verminous little belly went empty as it continued to keep watch for its Master. Eventually it was swapped for another, this one peeking through a crack near the roof. Fear-confusion-annoyance under his thrall again. The same went for a third and fourth rat. Their eyes all showed the same tedium.

Jonathan Harker only ever allowed himself leisure when he had no choice. He only had no choice when he was recuperating from exsanguination. It turned out that his idea of this amounted to either laying in bed or shuffling to the chair to look out the window. Sometimes he even stood and gripped the windowsill. And once, just once, he undid the latch and swung the pane open.

Looking out. Looking down.

His good hand moved on the windowsill as he stared. The chalk had returned. Scratch, scratch, scratch it went, all the way along the stone, like a student writing out a long verse. It was the damned shorthand, of course. Yet it couldn’t be a message for the woman. Her mind was sunk deep in the torpor. Deep enough that her Master could filter into her unnoticed. There was hardly anything worth digging for beyond the usual infantile fantasies of his brutal demise and carrying her Loves off into the sunset. All he needed was at the surface.

Just a few notes. Just enough to make sense of the arcane little dashes.

Scratch, scratch, scratch, Jonathan wrote.

His Master angled the latest rat so he could read it all and filter it through the woman’s knowledge. The rat squealed and flinched away into its hole as its Master’s own shock prodded its speck of a mind.

Scratch, scratch, scratch.

DO NOT DO IT DO NOT DO IT DO NOT DO IT DO NOT DO IT

FOR THEM FOR THEM FOR THEM FOR THEM FOR THEM FOR THEM

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE

He twitched in his coffin, almost rising wholly from the anchor of the death-sleep.

But then Jonathan sighed and closed the pane. The chalk was erased. A return to the chair, a return to the stare. This time with new tears tracking down his cheeks. He didn’t move again until his stomach snarled. The doorknob was checked—unlocked—and he took himself away to eat. His Master’s borrowed eyes followed him all the way down, watching him cook and carve a fish without relish. Watched him try and fail to open the office door—locked—before idling down one of the in-progress halls. He worked in the dust and the decrepit furnishings for a few hours before marching back up to the tower. His hands were empty despite having handled an array of oddments and literature and art.

Up. Chair. Stare. Bed. Wait.

It is nothing but a recent spell. He has been here almost half a decade. He’s not spent his time only in his little labors and bloodletting. Who could? Perhaps he dwells on the pending retribution for his outburst. Waiting for the sword to fall.

And what of the threadbare room? What of the trips that brought home nothing but sustenance to let him feed his family, give or take a new treat for them bartered from what allowance was spared for him?

What of it?

He did not answer himself. Only waited until the woman made her exit to the tower. The boy was called to under the level of her psychic awareness.

Come here, child. I have an important task for you.

The boy was still in his coffin, reading in the heap of blankets and fairy books. He poked his head up over the rim with a look that balanced between worry and curiosity.

A Lesson?

Not at the moment. Unless you wish for a Lesson on why not to keep your Father waiting.

But the boy was already scurrying out of his box and up the steps of the tomb. He paused to look up in wonder at his Father.

“Your face is coming back.”

So it was. Finally. He felt the itch along his cheek and jaw which told him adolescence was waning finally back to his prime, just as the shiver of bone announced the return to full stature. There was a reason he rarely drank this deep.

“It is. The body prefers its natural shape even after an indulgence too far. It may only be another night before I am myself again. But that is too long a wait for this. Here.” He passed the history text down into the boy’s small hands. “Be mindful of not turning to the wrong page. There are sights inside that your poor parents would not approve of.”

An easy bait, that. The boy’s eyes glittered like a little Pandora’s. For an instant. But then a cherubic moue passed over him as he mouthed out the title. What little blood he had in him flamed up to his cheek.

“I don’t think I can read this yet, Father.” The boy admitted as much as though it were a crime.

“I would be stunned if you could, child. No, this is something to bring to your Papa. He is a fiend as much for history as the trudge of modernity and I know he is as eager as you to master all tongues in the mountains. This shall be a fine practice for him as your little tales are for you. Come, I shall walk you up.” He reached to tuck the boy under his arm in the usual way only for the child to shrivel under his hand. His gaze had flicked away from his Father in the same moment as his buzzing little mind tried clumsily to bury something. “Diavol. Is there something you wish to tell me?”

The boy started to shake his head, knew better, and simply shrank deeper into himself. His eyes were nailed firmly to the hardcover. He hugged the volume like a paltry shield.

“Child.”

The lips trembled and cracked at the same time those brilliant ruby eyes rolled up to him. Fear hovered there, but it was not quite of his Father. It was the kind of fear a Father was meant to dispel.

“Are you and Papa fighting?”

“Where would get such an idea?”

His hand reached out again. The boy still cringed, but did not shrink from him. They walked from the tomb and on toward the stairs.

“Since our last meal he hasn’t talked how he used to.”

“Oh, dear. He has gone mute?”

“No. No, he talks. Only he skips over things now. Things he used to bring up all on his own.”

“We are not playing a guessing game, diavol. Speak plainly.”

They had made it to the floors aboveground now. The boy paused mid-step to look up at his Father, his face turned pale as ivory in a window’s moonlight.

“He has not talked about you, Father. Before he brought you up at least once whenever we were together. Asking what you taught me last. Sometimes he’d bring things up like you do. Little hints and edges of things I would have to go to you or Mum to ask about. Papa was the one who brought up journalism—the power that records the world—and told me to ask Mum about it. And he told me that you knew how to find buried treasure on a magic night, that everyone else was too scared to try. And…” His narrow throat worked with a strain. “And he told stories about before me. About how you and Mum and him all came together.”

A crest of the innate fondness rose and fell in the boy’s look at that. He was ever a fiend for the romance of his parents’ history before they came to live in the castle. The romance as their Master had scripted it.

Yet the child’s cheer over it blew out like a candle.

“He won’t talk about you at all now.” The ruby stare flicked up at him. “Not since we ate.”

Not since you tore at Papa like a wolf with a rabbit, Father.

“It has been less than a week, child. For all that I am an occasional favored subject,” he failed to ignore how something twisted in his chest at that, “it is nonsense to expect he keep a checklist of things to speak of. He is recuperating and things will slip a hazy mind. But, to answer your question, no, Papa and I are not fighting.”

The boy did not look away. Even the expected smile could not follow the rules.

And since when does he have rules of acting to follow?

“Was there something else?”

The fear was back. Redoubled. Not the kind dispelled by a Father.

“Father, are you the one who’s been making him sit?”

They had been walking again. Halfway to the tower. Now it was Father’s turn to freeze. Even to gawk.

“What?” The boy shivered at his tone, half-hiding behind the history book. He winced as the white hand at his shoulder grew out its claws. A long breath was forced. The claws retracted an increment. Then, again, “What do you mean ‘making him sit,’ child?”

“Do you remember when I had the Lesson about trancing?”

The one in which mother, child, and Master sank their psychic teeth in dear Jonathan’s mind and almost tore it three ways down the center with their mesmeric quibbling? Yes, vaguely.

“I recall.”

Now the boy looked away entirely. Facing the tower’s direction. Dread came off him like a perfume.

“Do you remember the sharp thoughts in Papa’s head?”

“…I do.”

“Mum said before—,” another lurch of the little throat, almost choking, “before we all jumped in him, when the Lesson started, that she could make him do things. Things people aren’t supposed to do to themselves. Like walk in a fire or make him stay in one place for hours and hours, not doing anything. No sleep or food or anything that keeps Papa alive. She could do that. But she didn’t. She hasn’t been. Papa would know and he’d not be so mad at her that time when she used him in the Lesson.” The child rattled where he stood, intent on the shadows that led up to the tower. “He was sitting at the window before that night. Lots of nights. And days. The first couple times, I thought he was waiting for me. Back when I first learned to do climbing. I snuck up to his door to surprise him. Watching in the keyhole.

“And he sat and sat and sat there, looking out the window. Sometimes he stood up to look closer, sometimes he scratched something out on the stone and wiped it off. Then he’d go back to sitting. It was strange. I didn’t know what it was. But then the Lesson happened and I saw—I saw him—,”

He could not finish and did not need to. His Father remembered.

Vision of a daylit escape. Rising from the chair. No message written on the sill. Just the open pane, his feet on the ledge, and a tipping over into gravity’s arms. Down, down, down. Gone. Among other methods by rope or steel. But the fall came first and crispest to his flailing mind.

Before. He was thinking of it even before that night. Since the boy started climbing. At least two years. And that was just when it was noticed.

The boy was making noise at him again. Accusing.

“Are you the one doing it, Father?”

He would have been mad if it was Mum. We all know no one is allowed to be mad at you. Right, Father?

He struggled with a sudden urge to snatch the child up by his scruff and drag him the rest of the way up to the tower. To hurl him squealing into the room where the loving couple roosted, watching their faces drop slack with horror, and then—

And then..?

Then his mind fell into a red haze. A livid shapeless blank where something like release from the growing storm behind his temples would finally come.

“No, child. I am not responsible.” He stole his hand back with a twitch. “Go the rest of the way yourself. There is something I must see to first.” The boy peered up at him. Doubt in miniature. “Do I need to tell you twice?”

The boy fled. Not walked, not ran, not ambled. Fled. From him.

What of it, old devil? Is this not the proper way? Your adversaries and their spawn cringing and scrambling from you at every turn, quailing under your thumb? This is victory at its height. Is it not so?

He thought of three harpies who mocked and robbed and tittered as he piled their centuries up with gifts and weeping sweetmeat.

He thought of the spur of a delightfully infuriating woman and the admiration of an impossible child.

He thought of his friend, red-handed with the enemies slain for his wife and his Master, slipping silently into servitude and his tithes of blood and obedience, the quiet misery free of charge, Sir.

He thought of his friend, sweeping dust from his mind as blithely as he banished it from his forsaken rooms, varnishing and whetting his nights to an edge finer than a surrendered kukri.

He thought of his friend, who had begun as a mere pending addition to his colony and was now evolved into a thing worth bartering for, worth sheltering and hoarding and honing despite a betrayal paid triply in death and deeds on his Master’s behalf.

He thought of his friend, screaming in his jaws. Clawing his way towards a laugh, look, son, see, son, it’s alright. No, Mina, no, let it be, let him do it, please, Mina, don’t, Mina, do not risk yourself, our boy, please, please.

He thought of his friend, mauled for another’s Lesson, half-dead, streaked in gore and sweat and tears, patched together with inexpert hands.

He thought of his friend in his desolate box of a room, staring out the window with a piece of chalk as the only barrier between life and death.

He thought of all these things and many more. He went on thinking them as he stalked away to his own room and went to work.

An hour had come and gone since he finished what was needed.

An hour and fifteen minutes since he masked himself from their senses and planted himself outside Jonathan’s door. He listened to the cadence of them as one might strain for snatches of birdsong. Only Jonathan and the boy were audible, but even the woman’s mental chatter carried a bristle on the air. His Harkers made such a warm sound all together.

The sound stopped as he turned the knob.

Three heads lifted like a trio of deer hearing a huntsman’s boot disturbing the grass.

They were huddled together on the bed, as always. The woman guarded her husband’s wounded side. The boy sat under his Papa’s good arm with two books open across their laps. Here was the history book and one of the fairy tale collections. They had been taking their turns reading a page apiece, son reading meticulously through a moment of fantasy in Hungarian while his Papa overdid a silly dull drone in the same tongue over the drudgery of an overpacked page for the child to groan at. Mum would cap the whole act by way of glancing at the page and then thinking a flash of knowledge into their heads. There, done. Thank you, Mum. Laughter abounded.

Until now.

“Goodness, such a hush. Do I interrupt?”

Jonathan, the immaculate actor, smiled and shook his head.

“Nothing that did not want interrupting. For some reason I’m failing to win any appreciation for the recital of 200-year-old politics across the Carpathians. Perhaps it’s my delivery.” The latter was directed half to his Master, half to the boy. He even cupped the child’s shoulder. Hinting. The boy offered him a smile in return.

And tried, “They didn’t make it like a story. Just a lot of, ‘This happened and then this and then this and then this.’ You and Mum could write it better.”

The woman offered a sing-song rebuttal of, Or you could, Dearest. It would make for very thorough writing practice.

The boy made a face of dismay and denial, pretending to take cover behind his book of fables. Cute. Precious, even. The whole charade was. Their Master felt his own grin strain to hold in place as he strolled to the bed. Anxiety thick enough to gag floated on the air.

“I leave such judgment to mother and son. For now, Papa and I must speak in private.” He set his gaze level with Jonathan’s. “There is something I require your assistance with, my friend.” His hand uncurled to take. “Come.”

“Of course,” from Jonathan. Not so much as a tremor. He turned to the woman as his good hand gave the boy a parting hug, then raised it to set in his Master’s palm. “I’m afraid you must take up the mantle of inflicting ancient territory disputes on him—,” But then found his good hand was trapped. By the boy. The woman tensed. Jonathan froze. “Sweetheart…”

“Papa, don’t go. Please don’t go.” The boy held fast around his Papa’s hand and half his arm, a feeble anchor whose attention jumped fitfully among his parents; not including his Father. “Mum, tell him not to. Please?” A hesitant thread of mesmer squirmed in his voice. His Father could have rolled his eyes. This tug-of-war again? Was the child dense? “He’s going to do it again.”

The room chilled.

Jonathan flicked a frantic gaze to his wife, blasting silent urgency through his thoughts. The woman fought an enormous urge of her own to spare her Master a glower before addressing her son:

Dearest. You know that night was only an accident. We are a long way from another meal besides.

Then, thrumming with the weight of a lie:

It’s alright.

But the boy would not swallow it this time. He was an amateur at playing pretend in the way of his parents. A child fed on blood and fairy tales full of monsters who lived in the house as much as without. The boy held onto his Papa and shook his head. Fear crashed up against sorrow and sorrow up against anger.

“It isn’t! You all keep saying it is, and it isn’t! Papa, he hurt you and he did it on purpose! He didn’t kiss you at all! It was just tearing and hurting and—,” a word stuck, choked, flew, “—and lying. He says you aren’t fighting, but you are, or he wouldn’t hurt you and make you sit and be sad and sharp all the time and…and…” His eyes were close to running now, the words melting into a hiccough. “…and he never even said sorry…” The boy forewent his Papa’s arm and clamped around his middle instead, hugging tight and hiding his face in the man’s side. “Papa, don’t go with him…”

Him, him, him.

Was he not even Father anymore?

“Quincey, I promise you we aren’t fighting. Even grownups make mistakes. That’s all that night was.” Then, silk-smooth, “Father apologized already.” He turned to the woman, expecting reinforcements, “Mina, you remember—,” But the woman was looking through him and into the boy. The boy, who had peeked up enough from his sniveling to think out at her, showing the little chat shared between Father and son on the way to the tower. Inhaling it, she looked to her husband with renewed alarm, reflecting their child’s tattling into Jonathan’s mind.

Jonathan lost another shade in his pallor. He turned all but snowy as his wife turned her attention to their Master. A blazing thing, all horror and hate and, surprised that she could still feel it, a new level of shocked disgust.

Even this is not beneath you?

‘This’ being the vision scraped from her son’s spying through the keyhole. Hours and nights and days’ worth of the sight of Jonathan Harker mesmerized by his window.

Her hands had drifted by reflex to grasp her husband, her position shifted in paltry protection of her prize. Likewise for the boy who now clung wholly around his Papa’s waist. Jonathan, meanwhile, appeared truly and entirely terrified to a degree his Master hadn’t seen since their last nights together in that long-ago summer. Afraid for them.

He held them each as best he could before lifting his good hand again—

“My Loves, it’s alright, I promise, I—,”

—and having it caught in his Master’s.

His Master, roiling with ire, pulled him forward. His kin, roiling with fear-hate-love, pulled back. Three iron grips all working against each other.

And what was begun in a battleground of the psyche not so long ago was made flesh upon the bed. Briefly. Just before they heard the pop.

A muffled sound, almost comical. Wet and cracking and quick.

Pop went Papa’s shoulder.

Papa made his own noise to go with it.

The iron grips turned to jelly, their owners flinching back as one. Jonathan caught himself on his working elbow and fought down another agonized note as its own pain throbbed up to the mangled shoulder. This he tried to turn into another smile as his breath came in a huffed stutter of a laugh.

“Oops,” he panted, wavering up on his knees. His only hand went to the sagging shoulder, the hold still too weak to hoist it. “See? Accidents happen.” A hoarse noise, fighting not to be a sob. “Darling, could you..?”

But she was already on him, aligning shoulder to socket, bracing, shoving—

Pop!

—the arm back in place. Another noise from Papa, this time through locked teeth.

“Thank you. See?” The fingers of his right hand flexed experimentally. Weak, but functional. “It’s fine, Sweetheart, it’s fine, you didn’t mean it, no one did, it’s alright…”

But the boy was past mere sniffling. Now he bawled. Red rivers of tears emptied from his eyes, turning his little face wax-white as he scrambled to his Papa, blubbering fragments of apology, of denial, of no no no, Papa, it isn’t alright, no no no. The woman’s eyes were running too. Shame and rage and pain streaked her face like a mask of grief as she wrapped herself around her husband, her mind a litany as garbled as her son’s.

Jonathan Jonathan sorry so sorry Darling my Love sorry sorry sorry sorrysorrysorrysosorry—

“It’s alright,” Jonathan echoed mindlessly back, the most he could do by way of dialogue through pain and panic. “It’s alright,” as his arms, now both water-weak and crippled, folded around wife and child. His back to his Master as if he might shield them.

His Master felt somehow as if he had ceased to be in the room. Now he was watching a lackluster play unfold. See here, the poor little family menaced and ravaged by the monster. The monster looms over them, gloating over the injuries left, waiting to strike again as they weep. The boy cries, the woman cries, Jonathan cries. And why not? The monster gives them something to cry about. As monsters should. As is right. The family belongs to the monster, not the reverse. The monster has no place within the family. Fragile and grating little thing that it is.

See how easily it’s wounded? How quickly it turns on the monster for a mistake? Not even his own! Not entirely his own, at least.

This time.

So. You can admit it.

The boy, the woman, Jonathan, all crying. All huddling against him. Away from him.

As if any of them can spare the loss of blood. As if they expect him to open his veins and refill them to make up for their own idiot blubbering. As if he can waste more of himself on their fumbling and failures. As if he has not hollowed himself of everything, feeding his blood and his time and his toil and his soul until he has only a husk left for himself, picture of the good husband and father, give give give, work work work, feed feed feed, and all they offer him is more need, more pain, more excuses, sorry, sorry, I did not mean it, Papa, I did not mean it, Darling—

He watched Jonathan raise his head enough to look over the heads of his Loves. A single pining glance at the window.

I did not mean it, draga mea.

“Enough.” It was not the bark he wished it to be. He was not even sure if his Harkers heard him. But they didn’t need to. Within a heartbeat he had shot forward snaked his arm around Jonathan’s middle. He hoisted the man like a doll, shock alone making him flinch and scrabble at the hold. The child keened piercingly and the mother’s mind erupted with hate-panic. Her Master flung an order out.

Hold the boy. Do not follow.

The woman spasmed against the order until every cord of muscle stood out from her like wire. Then she was giving a mute howl as she fell upon her son, snatching him up and trapping him in her arms. The boy shrilled deafeningly and fought his mother in a blur of little limbs, tugging, reaching, kicking, begging.

“Let go! Mum, let go! Papa! Papa!”

The boy’s face was a horror of running blood, his eyes turned to marbles of red glass.

Jonathan was little better. His Master had not allowed him to stand. He would waste time if he had; would have tried to dawdle, to scramble back and soothe the tantrum away, to trap himself and his Master another endless minute in this squalling hell of a room. So his Master had hoisted him up first as a farmer might trap an errant lamb under his arm, then threw him over his shoulder.

Then moved to the window.

The boy shrieked.

“Papa! Papa! No, let him go! Papa!”

“Please,” Jonathan’s voice was a hoarse whisper. His hands clung without strength to his Master’s back, trying to drag himself loose, straining towards mother and child like a dying flower bowing toward the sun. “Please, Sir, not like this. I have to go to them, have to explain things, I have to—,”

SLEEP.

Jonathan became a dead weight over his shoulder. The window was opened. Another scream from the boy, this one so great it turned into a nigh rupturing cough.

“Papa,” a reedy sound, “Papa, wake up, Papa..!”

Out the window they went.

Mid-descent, monster turned to mist, carrying his prey like a leaf in a breeze. Down and away and around the castle’s side. Finding the way back in that no eye or mind within the castle could discover.

Jonathan woke half an hour later.

He did so with a surprising lack of pain. As sleep melted off, he became aware of new wrappings layered on both shoulders. The left’s ragged side was plastered with a cooling sleeve of linen strips. His right was bound with something that felt like a fuzzing velvet numbness trapped under its bandages. Each side ate away their respective aches.

“Alchemy as men know it never did manage to turn iron to gold. But it bridged many gaps between simple medicine and magic’s bending of bodily law.”

Jonathan raised his head enough to see his Master sat at the opposite end of the bed. If one considered it a bed. They were in a nest of blankets and cushions that had been layered into a den of alien stonework. While not musty in the way of other ancient bedding strewn around the castle, they carried the spiced stamp of aromas from the work that was done in the adjoining room. Over his Master’s shoulder he could see a heavy oaken door left a crack open. A lamp glowed there, highlighting glass and clay vessels arranged on a far worktable. Some smoked. Some glowed. Some seemed to look back at him.

“Nature would have you heal over the course of weeks. Likely months. Supernature,” his Master gestured at the bandaged shoulders, “will see you healed within the next two nights at the latest. Of course, this will hardly matter if you decide to forsake your little chalk notes and throw yourself from the window.” Jonathan held his tongue as his Master sunk both eyes into him like brands. “The boy did not catch what you wrote on the windowsill, if it’s any consolation. You could let them go on believing I have been so monstrous as to force my poor friend, poor Papa, poor Darling, to sit dull and dead before the window for hours upon hours whenever he does not work or sleep or bleed. I am so suddenly the only monster under this roof as well as Master.”

Jonathan swallowed. Once, twice.

“Apologies. I shall—I shall explain things to them. Please, forgive me, Sir.”

“No.” Jonathan stared at him. Worry and confusion clashed and crumbled into each other behind the ghost-light eyes. “No,” his Master echoed, “this is not something that is forgiven any more than it is forgotten.” His hands clenched to white stones in his lap. “How long have you been like this, Jonathan?”

Do not lie.

Jonathan twitched but failed to catch his tongue in time.

“The first time was in mid-May. Back when I first started to suspect you. The prospect rose and fell in me more than once until the end of June. If it were not for the chance of seeing Mina again, I would have walked into the wolves on that last night together. I was still thinking of cliffs and wolves the day I escaped, prepared to take that route rather than have the Weird Sisters’ teeth pin me here forever. But those thoughts came and went.

“It wasn’t until October 3rd that the urge came back and never left. That was when I stopped being sure whether or not Mina would heed the threat of death potentially leading to undeath. I know she still thought of high buildings. Of train tracks. Fires. So I started thinking of them too. Just in case. After November, after the killing, I just kept thinking it. Whenever I was not busy or seen or sleeping. I have heard that suicides are damned outright. Murderers of good men too. I have thought sometimes that I could take that leap and die, but I would not know the difference once I woke to Hell. Sometimes I think I jumped an eternity ago and just can’t remember.

“I know I cannot risk it, of course. It would risk them too and leave them hurting besides. All it amounts to now is a sort of meditation. And I do appreciate the view. It is no more than that, I swear.”

“You swear,” his Master nodded. “You swear in this particular moment. Just as, not so long ago, caught in a snare, you thought of taking yourself away in earnest. The leap or the rope or the knife reached for in full daylight. A most effective slap to rouse your greedy little family from their play. But it does not bode well for this, your current oath. Only a thought, only a meditation. Not to worry. This is what you would have me believe?”

“Thought is not action, Sir. I would not still be here if it was.”

“Indeed, you are here. And doing what? Ah, let me specify. Doing what, besides working and bleeding?”

Jonathan frowned at him.

“Raising my family.”

“Which falls under work.”

A deeper frown, almost stormy.

“It hardly feels so, Sir. My Loves are not the burden you would paint them as.”

“Even if I believed you, you still have not answered my question. What are you doing, Jonathan Harker? What are you doing solely for yourself? You stare out a window that you must convince yourself every day not to leap from. You clear dust away from every room in the castle but your own. You touch a book only when you must be seen reading, you sing only when there is an ear besides yours to hear it, you wear your smiles the same way a maid dons her uniform. You do not answer me because you have no answer to give.” Lantern eyes burned. “In the five years since you have been here, you have done nothing but hollow yourself of everything. Blood and fealty and life and love. Yes, true, you live. Because that too is in your itinerary. Just another chore of maintenance.”

Jonathan sat up fully now.

“And?” A whisper. A thing of lead. “What does it matter?”

Why do you care?

“It matters because, even without a stomach, I am not immune to nausea. Call it secondhand indignation if you like. I have made deals with many devils and played pupil to the best of them. You see what bounty such Lessons have afforded me compared to,” he waved a clawed hand in Jonathan’s direction, “the usual lot of misery that comes to the would-be hero and the practicing martyr. If I should ever get around to some dire retribution from kismet, it will only be after nigh half a millennium of unchecked power and slaughter with nary an angel flying by to chide me for my play. Even Faustus got to have his allotment of pleasure before Mephistopheles tore him to shreds and flung his soul to Hell. But you? You spoke the truth before.

“You have nothing. You began with scarcely more than that. A narrow starving life with only the distraction of a woman who hardly merited the pedestal you lifted her on for playing nursemaid and starring, as so many muses do, within a theatre of high romance you painted around her; she, a soul as commonplace as a grain of sand in a desert. For her, you damn yourself. Her and the unholy miracle of the boy. You started with crumbs and gave away all you had and more, gaining nothing but the safeguarding of others’ fortune. Others’ lives. While you whore your life and veins away and tell yourself a chair and a window are sufficient for the last dregs of self you permit to exist.

“Do not mistake me. It is hilarious in the abstract. I would laugh if you were on a stage. But you are here and real and proving insufferable with your insistence on denying yourself any opportunity to do something other than play the role of grist in a mill.” He bared his teeth. It was not a grin. “But I waste my time telling you what you already know, yes? You have clearly made peace with this Spartan half-life. You did not even bat a lash at the prospect of mother and child’s visits being stripped away.” Jonathan’s breath stopped as his Master looked down on him. Lantern eyes now infernos. “Until tonight. There is a crack in the performance now. Father is suddenly a monster and he has stolen poor Papa away.

“And here, in this space, Papa can never be found. Not even by his wife’s prying mind.” White knuckles rapped against the strange black stonework. “It was not easy making this place. A genius loci can only flex so much. But the Scholomance exists in a space that is not possible and it was with brick from that Mountain that I formed these walls. A little sanctum away from Earthly meddling. Back before my condition required the grave soil. How nice to know it will not go to waste.”

Jonathan’s face fell as his Master stood. In less than a blink his Master was at the door, then through it, filling up the threshold. Perhaps too late it occurred to him that the nest of a room had no light lit in it. Not so much as a candle. The only illumination left was the faint glow at his Master’s back and the fires that were his Master’s eyes.

“You have a new task before you, my friend. Something to meditate on without distraction. No work. No window. No wife or child. The task is this: Think of something to do, to be, to want, that serves only you. An addition to your life that you can drop into the raw pit you have carved out of yourself to feed the clamoring maws of your dear family.”

His hand curled around the handle.

Jonathan’s eyes were wide and bright as stars.

“Wait—,”

“In the meantime, for as long as you fail in this endeavor, you will be here. To the boy and his mother, you will be a ghost. Undetectable by mind or sound or scent. They will only know you live by the taste of you in the cup. But do not rush yourself. Take however many nights or years you need.”

Jonathan fought his way out of the tangle of covers.

“Please, wait—,”

“I’m certain they will take it well.”

The door shut and bolted. A moment later there was a hammering in the dark interior, fists drumming against the thick oak. From the exterior it sounded barely louder than the patter of rain. The shouting only the buzz of an insect. Rain and insect grew slightly louder when the laboratory’s light was put out, erasing even the outline of the door. All was dark. Hammer, patter, shout, buzz.

Silently, the Master of the castle sighed.

He just as silently took a seat outside the door. His eyes were their own strange points of light in the pitch and they glanced down into the open face of his pocket watch. It stood out clearly enough to him. One hour. Two. Three. His friend carried on at intervals through them all. Shouts or sobs, pleas or pounding.

Out in the castle, mother and child were hunting. Father and Papa were nowhere to be found. They threw out the feelers of their psyche as far as they could go, scented the air, raced and called to each other on every floor and through every room. Nothing, nothing. The woman even dared to breach her Master’s bedroom.

Ah, close! So close! Did she detect her husband there? An echo of his presence?

Of course she did.

Her husband was the only one other than her Master to be allowed in that room, and then only with their Master’s beckoning. Even if she had no reason to doubt the freshness of the hint, there was still no following. Not into this space that only a student of the Mountain could detect, let alone enter. She came and went within walking distance of her beloved. All as he screamed out for her. For their boy. For their Master.

By the fourth hour the room had quieted.

He held his ear to the crack:

“Please…” came a croak almost too thin to count as a voice. “Please, I don’t understand this. What do you want from me? What am I supposed to say? Just tell me, please…”

I did. I did and you still cannot make sense of it. Draga mea, has this been you your whole life?

He wanted to laugh.

A curse was mouthed instead.

He stood, relit the lamp, unbolted the door, and found his arms suddenly full of his friend. The bandaged arms clung to him while a face streaked in tears and sweat ground into his chest, eyes somehow still running. He made a note to force a carafe down the man’s throat before he passed out. For now, he let his friend hold to him, shaking.

“Sir, Master, I’m sorry, I’m sorry for angering you. I only want to understand what has to be done to mend this. Please.”

He held his friend in turn, stroking through the white cloud of hair.

“That you say this means you have not taken the order to heart. How is it such a trial to want something? Whether you fear it being taken or not, how is it you cannot even name a thing you desire?”

“I don’t know.” The words left his friend like millstones. He seemed almost to deflate in his Master’s arms. “I don’t know.”

“You could not have been so before you were here. Before you were mine. Even the destitute will dream. Did you not want for anything then, however meager?”

Quiet unspooled for almost a minute. There was a small breath. He waited.

“…Wanting gets conditioned out of some lives,” was his friend’s answer. “Need comes first. Need is always there, taking up your mind and your time. Urgency. Efficiency. Every cent and minute hoarded. Books were a luxury. Second and thirdhand purchases, the rest from the library. Theatre was a treat to reserve once a season at most. No concerts, no revelries, no records playing in the apartment on a phonograph never afforded. The first time we did not know need was after the man I considered a father died and left the gift of his will behind. A house and a business and a bank account that finally did not sting to look at, traded into our hands at the loss of another precious life.

“Between Lucy and Hawkins, there was not even a heartbeat in which to be more than performative in appreciating our changed fortune. Not before the trap of you sprang again. Van Helsing’s call to arms. You know the rest. Even Mina, even the blessing of our child, those priceless wants above all others, were made into another thunderbolt from Fate. Another proof that some people are just not meant to want, let alone have. No matter how great or small a treasure. I learned that Lesson well enough even before you. And so I have schooled myself out of it. Wanting.

“The part of a mind that craves for itself has been atrophied and beaten into dust in me. But if you say I must want, I can perform otherwise. Tell me I am sick of the window and I shall board it up. Tell me to read, I will read. Or sing a song. Or dig up old recipes to enjoy even when I am not cooking to flavor myself. Or whatever else. Even while you all sleep. Even with no one looking.” Jonathan pulled his face away from his Master’s heart and turned bleary eyes up to him. Blue ringed in rose. “Whatever fixes this. Please.”

Throw him back in. He will do better in a week. A month at most. Do it.

He sensed mother and child outside the castle now. Running, circling. They had taken clothes from Jonathan’s wardrobe and, against the Lesson so gravely taught, son watched mother order the wolves to her, demanding they take her husband’s scent and search, go! The wolves would lead them to the usual route Jonathan took to the towns, no more. But they were desperate. Still weeping. Bloodless and starving for grief.

Do it.

Jonathan stared at him. Waiting for another blow. For a laugh, a sneer. A cold hand tossing him back into the dark. The dog laying before his Master’s rising boot, knowing the fine quarry brought home was no excuse for not wagging his tail as he did so.

A fine dragon you are, old devil. Are you so soft now? You laid out the terms. He has not satisfied them. Do it. Do it!

“Fifteen years. That is how long the boy has left to nurse from you if you have your way. Fifteen more years until he is a man, innocent of taking a single life. Likewise for his mother. Because you feed us all. Wasting and wasting until that final night. Do you expect to die and remain dead at that hour? Do you think I would lose you, even if Mephistopheles himself came up to collect?”

“No,” barely a breath. Jonathan seemed to wilt another inch as it left him.

“No. The wait ends. Your unlife begins. Which means what?”

Jonathan could not bring himself to speak. Only looked away. His Master thumbed away another tear.

“Eternity in potentia,” he answered himself. “Centuries. Longer. We both know the Vampire is made of its wants before anything else. Such is our nature. I will give credit to dear Mina for her control. She has far more cause for loathing me than her Sisters did and she does admirably against her own desires. Even if she only has as much will as my own allows, it is a thing of iron in itself. But what of you, draga mea?”

Recognition pinched Jonathan upright again. The ghost-light eyes gaped with what was uncertainty or else the wish to be uncertain.

“You will no longer be as you are. No more playing vassal. No more wearing the yoke of mere servility. No more stalling in your martyr’s Pit. You will be Vampire, you will be want. And what will you do if there is nothing of the latter there to catch you? What shall you do with infinity? Will you only be as my missing shadow? Only your woman’s faithful dog? Will you still have the boy, grown and whole, pulling at your apron strings? A servant, forever caught between bowing to others or laying as a corpse in the moonlight for lack of anyone to serve. That you would be for eternity?”

The hand that wiped the tear moved to Jonathan’s jaw. It held like a strut against his attempt to turn away.

“I always kill my pests. I may torture an enemy before his end. But I would ultimately be rid of them, not leave them to such a Hell as the one you seem so dedicated to crafting for yourself.”

The hand was a snare and it kept Jonathan facing forward. Straight into the basilisk gaze and the mesmer at its heart. An order that was a plea.

“Think. Think of one single thing you want for yourself tonight. Just one.”

The trance worked deep. Snapping at the heels of Jonathan’s mind like a hound after a fox. Further, further, down, down, through a pinhole of a tunnel into the abandoned gloom where the carcasses of hope and yearning had been thrown away. The trance dug. The trance prodded. The trance found a coin’s worth of treasure, like dead men’s gold hidden under a blue flame.

Here was another view from another window. After the departure of a captor. Before the arrival of the hypnotic mists and their hungry smiles. Sweetly in-between, here was the sight of the moonlit world back when it had been a beautiful balm. A sole comfort in his terror but a heartbeat from being spoiled by his hostesses’ threat.

Jonathan Harker had seen small shapes moving on the wind. An owl soaring far below. Moths fluttering past like living petals. So high, so close to the peaks and stars, a needle of nostalgia had found him. The boy within the young man who had wished with the hopeless fantasy of all hungry children looking up from their sparse plates and miserable families and through tatty curtains at the open and untouchable sky. Wished with sweet-somber futility for escape. For…for…

Jonathan spoke the wish aloud. A last wet trail fell from his bloodshot stare. His Master wiped this too.

And found Jonathan’s mouth with his before willing him back to sleep.

Mother and child were returning from the road. She had taken the boy up in her arms again, cursing as she half-ran, half-flew. The child had ceased sobbing, at last, but he rattled in her embrace. This had never happened before. They had not thought such a thing could happen. That anyone, let alone Papa and Father, could simply disappear. Especially from her senses. It was impossible to lose track of them. She always knew where they were. Always.

And now…

“Mum?” She had stopped. Her head cocked like a wolf’s, ears pricked high, eyes flaring. “Mum, what is it?”

There. They’re right there. How?

“Where, Mum? Are they close?”

She didn’t answer. Only took off at another rush, firing herself and her son like a spectral bullet through the forest. Perhaps the boy would have been more stunned than afraid that his mother could be such a blur if not for his worry. His senses were smaller than hers, still reaching and searching for whatever it was she’d found. It wasn’t until the outline of the castle came into view that he skimmed the presence of his fathers on the air. They were at the castle, but not within it.

Two frantic sets of eyes hunted around the grounds, trying to make sense of how the mingled presences could be so near and invisible at once. Closer. Closer.

Up.

They craned their heads until the moon met their gaze. That and the two shapes against the sky.

Jonathan was held close in his Master’s arms. The two of them were a speck against the stars. A moment more and they were drifting down to the ground. Jonathan was set lightly on his feet and almost knocked off them as his son clamped around his waist. His wife almost finished the job by locking her arms about his mending shoulders. Their Master watched on at a careful distance; no sudden moves to alert the herd.

The next hour was devoted to running both men’s tongues ragged.

Yes, diavol, he had lied. There had been a fight and he was embarrassed for it. But it was not what caused his Father’s tearing at Papa. That was his Father forgetting himself, forgetting how easy Papa was to break. Father grew angry at himself first for the mistake, then again when Papa was upset for frightening their son, and then most of all when, old man that his Father was, he had forgotten a remedy he had once known to cure away the injury and make Papa well again. It made him stormy, as all saw. He hated having a solution just out of reach.

But he had remembered at last. That was why he had come to take Papa away that evening. To put his mistake right. But then had come all the hurtful words from their harsh-tongued child, the tears, the fretting, and then that nasty surprise of a second mistake. Again, poor Papa was forced to pay the price for an unruly family. And Father had snatched him away before more pains could add up.

He had gone to a place that, he will be honest, did not exist properly inside the castle. Like a ballroom tucked into a woodshed. It was where his older magic was stored, back before Father was all that he was, back when he had need to worry about skin and bone. There he took Papa to heal. And to talk.

About his sitting and staring. About how he did this for lack of joy alone. Papa made himself so busy and tired that there was nothing left in him to play or take pleasure all on his own.

Was it the sharp thoughts again, Papa?

A tremor here from the boy. Begging, but bracing.

No, son, only absurd ones. The kind that grownups do not like to admit out loud because they do not wish to seem foolish or idle. Other things too. Little things that would need asking for. But your Papa hates to ask for anything, and so he hid all that in his head too, so he would not ask at all.

Yet Father had made him talk and ask and it turned out it really wasn’t such an absurd thing at all.

“I asked to fly.”

“Like us?”

“Like you. Isn’t that silly?”

“It’s silly that you didn’t ask! I always wanted to fly too, seeing Mum and Father do it so easy.” The boy held tight to him again, grinding the coagulation of old tears against his Papa’s neck. In a small voice he shuddered, “I thought you wanted to do something else. I thought…”

“I know, Sweetheart. I’m sorry for scaring you all before. I would never listen to the sharp thoughts like that. It’s just a sour part of imagination. That’s all.” He rested his chin atop the boy’s head. One hand cupped him close. The other looped around the woman’s shoulders, the ease of the gesture proving the strength of the medicine. Her eyes dug in his. Knowing and shelving the truth for later. “I promise,” Jonathan breathed.

…Do you still want to fly?

“Once you have another meal in you, Darling. I think we are all too worn out for now.”

“No,” the Master intoned from the castle’s shadow, “You need not soften it. You are worn out, all of you. I remain the only one overfed and hale. I shall still be so once you are ready to feed again.” He waved his hand. “I shall skip my helping at the next feeding, lest I burst like a tick.” The boy perked up in his Papa’s lap while his mother narrowed her eyes. Father never skipped his taste of Papa. Not ever. Father only grinned. “But before Papa plays family dinner again, it must be agreed that he needs a holiday. I believe he had some ideas he wished to share with you.” His gaze flicked to Jonathan. “Is it not so, draga mea?”

Mother and child each recognized the term as it hit the air.

The woman was considerably less enthused than her son, who knew the words from the fairy tales. The magic words between one true love and another.

Jonathan distracted them both with the first small thing: A phonograph and new music to play on it. Perhaps even sheet music of their own, if any of them would dare to risk each others’ ears with the practice.

What was a phonograph, Papa? Was that like the music boxes he’d brought home for them?

Something like that…

Chatter carried on under the moon until Jonathan’s stomach growled. The woman stopped just short of carrying him off to the kitchen. Master and child dawdled behind. The latter pretended interest in a moth that had landed first on a flower, then a stone, and then up on his Father’s shoulder like a great grim tree.

But the moth flew off and still he did not look away.

“…Yes, child?”

“I’m sorry, Father.” Thank every god below the Earth, he did not bring himself to tears as he said it. Though he looked close. “I should never have thought you’d hurt Papa.”

“Ah, but I did hurt him. We all did. By accident, with carelessness, without ill intent, still he was hurt. We are fortunate that he is so forgiving a soul and strong enough to weather us. Such men as him are rare. I do not think I have met another like him in four hundred years.” The child’s eyes shined just short of another bloody tide he could not afford to lose. Sensing this, he snuffled and squinted and fought the weeping back. Good boy. “He will be alright. Amends will be made and we shall not repeat our mistakes with him. Papa does so much out of love for us. We will do the same, yes?”

He held out his hand. The boy forsook it to duck wholly under his arm in his accustomed spot, huddled close as a pup to his kin. The open hand drifted down to stroke his hair.

“Yes,” the boy nodded against him, scrubbing the last dry tracks of tears away on his suit. “Promise.”

“Good. No more tears tonight, diavol. There is nothing to cry about.”

#I promise I'm working on the Dracula Daily-inspiration ref post #but my internet has been patchy as hell and I couldn't get some of the ref links and images I needed #it'll be up soon #but in the meantime enjoy this lovely terrible Text Brick #-throws it through Blood of My Blood's window and runs-#jonathan harker #mina harker #quincey harker #dracula #dracula bad ending #blood of my blood #horror #my writing

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