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foreverdolly · 1 month

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ೃ࿔ SAVAGE BONDS part 2 『 feyd rautha x atreides!reader 』

summary: destined to one another since conception, your very life belongs to feyd rautha. as a token of good will you are sent to the strange planet of giedi prime a week before your wedding ceremony, only to learn that it is far more hostile than you imagined it would be. a failed assassination attempt has tempers flaring and sparks flying when it is decided to be safer to sleep alongside feyd. you hate to admit it, but he has played the part of a "protector" better than the guards who were tasked to watch over you. whilst you have been dreading this union all of your life, feyd has been anticipating it. meeting you as children had left him awe-struck. . . and a bit obsessed.

warnings: !SMUT HEAVY IN FUTURE PARTS!, feyd is super overprotective in this fic and kills multiple people in your honor, blood and gore, it's a dark romance folks, political marriage, forced proximity, temporary unrequited love, a lil dubious consent in some scenes, there's a lot of talk about breeding, enemies to lovers (in your mind, not his), there's a "who did this to you" scene, knife play, blood kink, breeding kink heavy, lots of scent marking/marking.

word count: 4.5k

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Legs tangled in gray sheets. The lightning-quick flash of a silver dagger, held by a pale hand.

The images in the dream are more like fragments- impossible to discern and decipher. On the bed, asleep and vulnerable. . .

There’s you.

And then Feyd wakes up, heart hammering in his chest so hard he can feel it in his throat. Slowly his fingers crawl up, up, up the expanse of the bed in search of something. In search of warmth, of you. Nothing. He’s just as alone in his room as he was when he drifted off into sleep. He lays awake the rest of the night, tossing and turning with worry.

This dream felt more like a warning than just another disjointed nightmare. It felt real. He was used to having dreams every now and again which clearly depicted a future outcome. He saw you in his dreams quite often, more so once he was no longer a boy-child.

If someone thought to hurt you… he’d just have to hurt them first.

The customs you and your people practiced were completely different to those that were normal on Geidi Prime. You watched one of your ladies-in-waiting as she brought over another small bowl of sweet smelling bath salts, dumping it in and using her hand to properly dissolve them. For a moment you felt self conscious, running your fingers through your hair as you looked at their perfect complexions and shaved heads. What did they see when they looked at you? Someone beautiful and strange. . . or an alien?

Still, you would eventually have to disrobe and bathe. Pressing your luck and refusing their help would only solidify your place as an outsider. You were sure that whispers of your arrival were already spreading like wildfire, and it was almost guaranteed that no one was happy about it. An Atreides amongst Harkonnen’s? You were nothing more than a pariah on their industrial wasteland of a planet.

The air was even more acrid in your lungs than it had been the night before, and while the smell of the rose body oils and salts were thick and hazy in your room, you could still catch the scent of pollution. Already you missed the cool, crisp air of Caladan. You missed your horses, your parents and your brother to the point of pain. This was not where you belonged. Not here in Geidi Prime. Not here with Feyd-Rautha.

The urge to cry yourself hoarse was practically undeniable, and yet you somehow managed to resist. You were late to breakfast already, and surely the Baron was making some unsavory comments about your family and their taught “manners”. So you untied the front of your nightdress and shimmied out of it, letting the soft cotton pool at the ground beneath your feet. The women couldn’t help but gawk at the tiny imperfections they saw there- a beauty mark you’d had since you were a child, a scar you’d received while training with Gurney. You weren’t used to feeling so self conscious, and so you were quick to grab one of the women’s extended hands so that you could sit down in the murky bath water.

They rubbed floral smelling soaps into your hair and on your skin, making sure to handle you as though you were as fragile as porcelain. You wished they would scrub you raw. Even then they wouldn’t be able to cleanse you of your fears. You were in the hands of the Harkonnen’s now.

No one could save you.

“We are not very used to styling hair, my lady. It might not be to your liking.” One of the women said anxiously. The way that her hands shook as she gripped the hairbrush was not lost on you.

How cruelly were they treated here? Or even worse- what did she think of the Atreides family? What lies had they poisoned these people’s impressionable minds with? You didn’t care to dwell too much on such thoughts. Reaching out you gently removed the brush from her hands, flashing her the kindest smile you could muster before shaking your head.

“Leave this to me then. Why don’t you pick something for me to wear from my things?” Your bags were still packed, lying exactly where a few servants had laid them last night. You had denied every offer to have them unpacked for you.

Denial. You refused to believe that you were actually stuck here. This would never be your home. It couldn’t be.

“He’s not here,” Feyd was sitting at a long, slate-gray table by himself. The food on his plate had barely been touched, but he had busied himself with chopping the meat up into miniscule pieces, too small to even fit on the prongs of his fork. “If you were planning on trying to make a good impression, you can forget about it. He always has his food sent to his quarters.”

You thanked the two ladies that had shown you through the colorless halls under your breath, moving to sit on the other side of the table. At least eight chairs separated you from the Na-baron and it still wasn’t enough. You wished you were on an entirely different planet, lightyears away from the Harkonnen scum.

The room was practically empty aside from the large dining room table. No art decorated the walls or rugs to cover the floor. It was all cold, black marble with white accents.

“I don’t care, actually.” And you were being truthful. You didn’t care about getting on the Baron’s good side any more than you cared about getting on Feyd’s.

He smiled then, staring at you long and hard before licking one of his black painted canines. He was amused by the blase way you brushed off his uncle so easily. Indifference wasn’t something he was used to, especially not when everyone in the galaxy had tried so hard to get on their good sides. People tended to tread lightly as far as the Harkonnens were concerned. They were as wealthy as they were cunning.

“Be careful, little Atreides. Saying things like that might get you hurt around here.” His gruff voice was but a whisper now, and suddenly you felt as though there weren’t twelve feet of dead-air separating the two of you.

You had picked up your fork, ready to eat whatever bland food had been prepared for you, but froze at his words. Heat rose to your cheeks and you were quick to lean back in the ornate high-backed chair, the cool iron seeping into your back through your clothes.

“Do you mean to threaten me?” Your words were icy, tongue sharp and ready to give him a proper lashing.

“It’s not a threat, darling.” He was practically purring, reveling in the joy of referring to you whilst using a pet name. It suddenly looked as though a switch had been turned on, his eyes narrowing on you. “I know him far better than you do. He’s killed people for far less. Be careful.” There seemed to be something he wasn’t telling you. There was genuine warning in his tone.

A pause.

“Please.” And then he went back to eating.

So were you supposed to act gutted at his uncle’s absence? You picked up the fork and took a bite of whatever had been put on your plate. It wasn’t at all what you were used to. Even the food tasted. . . fake. The meat tasted like it had been pumped full of chemicals and was mealy in your mouth, like sand. Still, you swallowed despite your distaste and shoved the plate away from you.

“Who have you assigned to be my sparring partner? I’m sure that my father made your uncle aware that I train daily, correct?” If you didn’t physically exert yourself and blow off some steam then you were bound to get no sleep tonight.

Last night you had tossed and turned, unable to stay asleep when your body was constantly alerting you to possible dangers. Even now you were on high alert, eyes locked on the knife that sat on the right side of Feyd’s plate. Your own fingers danced towards yours it you watched. Waited. Worried.

“Training?” He tilted his head again, eyes narrowed in disbelief. You could almost see the cogs turning as he mulled over your words. “What good would training do you now? If there are any threats then I am here to protect you- that’s my duty as your husband.”

Ah, yes. Why would a woman train when she could just sit back and play the part of a perfect little wife instead? You could spit.

“Would you rather I just hunt down one of your servants and kill him for sport?” You hated that he was so good at getting a reaction out of you. Maybe you were acting too much like a brat, but you wanted to see him squirm. Seeing him mad must be better than seeing him. . . like this.

For a second he sat there, arms perched nonchalantly over the armrests of his chair, staring at you with a crooked smile. You jumped in surprise when a chuckle escaped him, the act itself so out of place, so surprising that all you could do was stare in horror. The chuckles soon morphed into frenzied laughter, and he was quick to lean back in his seat so that he could place a hand on his chest.

“Was that funny to you?” You spoke through gritted teeth.

He watched the muscle in your jaw clench and unclench with wild eyes, sucking in a deep breath in the hopes of calming himself. Still, to hear such a beautiful woman speak such hideous words. . . it was wonderful, bordering on perverted.

“If you do kill a servant, please make sure I’m there to watch.”

He was too busy watching your face to notice the knife that you slid into the sleeve of your dress. With a huff you stood up, your skirts dryly brushing along the ground as you started to make your way out of the large room.

“I require a trainer.” You tried to mimic your mother’s tone, straightening your shoulders as you turned to look at him.

Lady Jessica always had a way of commanding a room. She was powerful, your mother. You needed to channel that same power now.

“You’ll train with me then,” He stood up from the table, the height and build of him alone nearly causing you to take a step back. You’d forgotten how large he was. How formidable. “Consider it a wedding gift.”

This had you balking, mouth opening and closing as you tried to think of some way to refuse. He was already stalking past you though, ignoring whatever retorts you were bound to make.

“I recommend getting changed. . . Unless you want me to tear that dress to shreds.”

That awful, ugly, no good-

“Bastard!” You whispered under your breath, wadding up your dress just to angrily toss it onto your bed.

You sank to your knees, braiding your fingers into your hair so that you could give it a few good yanks. He was doing this to fuck with your head. All of this was calculated on his part, it had to be. Was it all just to get a rise out of you? Or did he truly want to try and hurt you? You couldn’t figure him out, and that boiled your blood. All Harkonnens were cunning, blood thirsty schemers. You wouldn’t put it past him to be unhappy with the marriage arrangement, choosing to resort to violence in order to end things.

‘Now. Now is the time to strike.’

You’d already hidden the blade under the mattress of the bed. The Baron wouldn’t allow you to live if you killed his precious nephew, but you’d much rather put up some sort of a fight than be put down like a dog. After taking a few steadying breaths you somehow managed to pull on your trousers and shirt, your mind plagued with dangerous, dangerous thoughts. If the moment called for it you were certain that you could not kill Feyd in hand to hand combat. His skills with a blade was well known across the galaxy, and while you were more than able to defend yourself, you weren’t delusional enough to think that you could manage to beat him without using underhanded tactics.

You’d have to wait until his guard was lowered.

“Do all women take this long to get ready?”

You hadn’t heard the door open, nor his footsteps approaching. Who knew how long he had been watching you. The intrusion was an unwelcome one. You looked up to glare at him, trying hard not to balk at his appearance. The clothes he wore were skin tight, a black material that caught the dim lighting- like it was made of pitch black oil. His pants were tucked into big black boots, laced up high on his calf.

He stretched his arms up, leaning against the doorframe so that he could continue his awkward staring.

He did a lot of that it would seem. Any time you turned your head to face him you found that he was already looking in your direction. It was odd. . . off putting to say the least. Of course you couldn’t know that he was currently tracing the lines of your face with his eyes, committing every detail to memory. You were so different when he compared you to the females that he was used to seeing. You were all soft lines, long lashes and doe eyes. He found it impossible not to look at you. Gorgeous… you were gorgeous.

“It took me a while to get out of my dress on my own.”You shoved your way past him in the doorway, his chest warm under your palms.

You were quick to jerk away, startled by the fact that this was the first time that you’d touched him since the two of you had reunited.

You didn’t hate the feel of him, but you should have.

“Then you should have asked for some help.” He said, reaching out to grab you by the back of your shirt when you started to walk off in the wrong direction.

Feyd pulled you along like he would a pet on a leash through the triangular halls, ignoring your mumbled curses as you tried swatting him away.

The shield vibrated in your ears as you switched on the button, enveloping you in its warmth.

You used to find it uncomfortable as a child, the tight, foreign warmth triggering a mild case of claustrophobia. You were used to it now, wearing it like a second skin. You waited for Feyd to turn his on as well, the blade clutched tight in your palm.

You waited. And waited. And waited.

“Where’s your shield?” You asked him, motioning towards his hip with your free hand.

There it was, that crooked smile again. He was laughing at you. Was he trying to infer that you were weak? Was he so confident in his skills that he didn’t even see you as a threat?

“I don’t see the nee-” He didn’t get very far.

You kicked your leg out, catching the back of his right knee. His legs buckled, and he was quick to adjust himself, his left arm flying up to catch your wrist before you could sink the blade home. For a split second the two of you just stared at each other. Mild shock in his eyes, your own alight with an anger so consuming that you feared you might be burnt up with it. He gave your arm a sharp tug, hard enough that the joint rolled uncomfortably in its socket.

You kicked your leg out before he could throw you over his shoulder, landing a sharp blow to his ribs. You heard him let out a pained moan before you hit the ground. Using your weight to your advantage, you tucked your body in, rolling to the side so that you could easily stand up to your knees, blade poised at your side and ready for an attack.

“You fight well, Atreides.” Feyd purred, spinning his blade between two fingers before letting it fall back into his pale palm.

“Turn on your shield.” You growled, rising to your full height so that you could begin circling him, a panther ready to pounce.

“Was it Duke Leto that trained you?” Still, he was ignoring your statement.

“No.”

“No, of course it wasn’t him,” He took a step closer to you, eyeing you down. No one had looked at you like that before. . . and it made your skin crawl. You didn’t want to be desired by this man, the thought alone was miserable enough to have bile rising in your throat. “Your father is too weak-spirited to ever train you himself, lest he accidentally harm you.”

Your heart was beginning to pound in your ears now, vision tunneling. All you could see was Feyd. All you could imagine was the blade that you were currently white-knuckling sunk hilt deep into his chest.

“How horrible it must be for Caladan to have a Duke so. . . spineless.”

You bared your teeth, and for a second you were sure that you would snap the hilt in half with how hard you were gripping your blade. You demanded blood for such an insult. How dare he. How dare he.

“I should cut out your tongue!” You screamed, pointed the blade at him.

‘Don’t come any closer’ you urged with your eyes, feeling the angry tears causing your vision to fog. A Harkonnen was insulting your father. He was insulting your family and now he was smiling at you. The bastard had the gall to smile and this time all of his teeth were showing. Wide, unabashed in his joy. He was terrifying. So much so that you felt your legs begin to shake underneath you.

“But you’ll want to put this tongue to good use eventually.” His gravelly voice purred.

“Silence!” And before you could even control yourself you were using the Voice.

You might not be as talented as your brother when it came to hand to hand combat, but your mother had taken the time to teach you well. Feyd’s mouth snapped shut so hard that you heard his teeth clatter together.

“One more word and I will gut you.” Your voice shook and before you could rethink your actions you were lunging forward, the blade cutting through the air. . .

Aimed at his throat.

He was quick to push your arm away with his forearm, and even with the shield up you could feel the bone shattering pressure he put behind the movement. He was stronger than Paul- stronger than even Gurney. He took advantage of the fact that you were put off balance and grabbed a fist full of hair, the shield around you flashing red as he pressed his blade as close as he could to the base of your throat. Your scalp exploded in pain, eyes watering as he gripped harder to yank your head back so that you were staring directly into his eyes. They held no malice towards you, even despite the fact that you were obviously trying to maim him.

And then he leaned in closer. And closer.

“If I didn’t know any better then I would think that you were actually trying to kill me.” He whispered against the shell of your ear. You could practically feel the warmth of his lips against your skin as he spoke, your heart roaring in your ribcage. With your chests practically touching like this you could smell him.

You’d only caught the scent of spice once in your life- and it was akin to bitter cinnamon. There was something else though, something more complex to it. Aromatic spices you couldn’t quite put your fingers on and. . . the natural musk of his skin.

“So you can speak again?” You managed to tease him through your pain, wincing as he brought you even closer against his chest. The blade that you clutched in your hand was now pressing against his side, the pointed edge digging into his skin.

He didn’t wince, even when you put more pressure against it.

“You think it wise to use the Voice on me in my own home, little girl?” He hissed as he pulled away from your ear, and the fire that was in your eyes was now mirrored in his own.

Slowly you moved the blade away from him, the metallic clanging echoing around the room as you let it fall to the floor. Your palm hurt from the vice-like grip you had been holding it in.

“Release me now.” You didn’t shy away from staring into his eyes, unwavering even when he pressed the blade even tighter, the shield vibrating louder and louder around you.

He leaned in, even when your hands moved to press against his chest, willing him to give you space. You could barely breathe with him this close to you. His own knife clattered to the ground, and using his free hand he ripped the shield from off of your hip. The gasp that escaped your lips was uncontrollable. You could feel his breath on your lips as his eyes continued to swallow you up whole.

They looked even bluer when you were up close like this, framed by long black lashes. For a split second you wondered what had become of that beautiful little boy you had met. Had Baron Vladmir beaten the beauty out of him? Or perhaps it had never truly been there to begin with.

When Feyd looked at you, up close like this, all he saw was the object of his ever-present affections. Something yawned to life in his chest- the need to protect. All at once he felt wrong, disgusting and horrible for causing you any sort of pain.

But you looked so lovely with those tears in your eyes. So much so that he gave your hair another small yank, a shuddered breath escaping his lips as you yelped in pain. He saw the hate in your eyes and he detested it.

‘Fear me’ he silently urged. ‘Love me, do as I say and I will become your slave.’

His lips brushed against yours, achingly slow- painfully soft.

“I yield.” You were quick to say, pulling as far back as you could even with the grip he had on your hair.

Fire. Your scalp felt like it was on fire.

And then he released you, taking a step back with a heaving chest. The spell now broken, it felt like the world around you suddenly resumed its orbit. Wordlessly he pressed a hand to his side- the side that you had pressed the knife- and when he pulled it away you could see that it was stained with blood.

“Didn’t you say that you were going to gut me?” There was no hint of humor in his voice now.

“I wanted to.” You conceded.

“Then you should have tried harder.”

Again you lay in bed awake, unable to fall asleep. You told yourself that it was just homesickness that had you clinging to the blankets, but you knew better. What had happened today left you rattled and confused.

There were a hundred times today that Feyd could have killed you. Everything that Gurney had ever taught you had disappeared like smoke in the wind the second that your father was mentioned. You had acted on instinct alone.

And if it was an actual fight to the death then you would have lost. Miserably.

There was something strange about it though. It never once felt like an actual training session. He taught you nothing and gave you no feedback. Not only that but. . . it never felt like he actually wanted to damage your pride. He didn’t turn on his shield before and after taunting you, almost as though he actually wanted one of your attacks to land.

He had allowed you to get everything out of your system. You hated that it had worked. It wasn’t helping you to sleep tonight though. No, you had other things on your mind now.

Like the fact that he had almost kissed you.

Your knowledge was limited where men were concerned, but you were nearly positive that there was something sexual about the way that he had treated you. It was like he didn’t want to actually hurt you, but still went out of his way to touch you.

You’d be sure to ask for someone that might be willing to train you again tomorrow over breakfast. Someone who wasn’t Feyd, preferably. Lunch and dinner had been spent in silence on your part tonight. He had tried to strike up conversation a few times, even baiting you in ways that might warrant annoyance and anger. You didn’t budge. Why? Because you hated how nervous you felt in his presence now.

Was it because you were afraid of him? That had to be it. Hearing about his proficiency in fighting and seeing it first hand were two different things. He had practically swung you around like a ragdoll. It was absolutely humiliating.

Yes, that had to be it. . . well, you hoped.

“Atreides.”

The sound of your name had you bolting up into a sitting position, willing your eyes to adjust to the non-existent lighting in the room. The sound of footsteps had your heart jumping up into your throat, adrenaline flooding your system once you realized that it wasn’t a voice that you recognized.

No one had entered the room since you’d gotten back from dinner, which meant. . .

Whoever this was had been hiding, waiting until you completely lowered your guard. You were in danger. Horrible, horrible danger.

‘Be careful. Please.’ You remembered Feyd’s words from earlier.

He had been trying to warn you.

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ೃ࿔ savage bonds taglist:

@elf-punk @shitfuckeryclownverse @mydarlingelvis @heartarianagran @ohdearmaggie @chalametism @killingboredom @obsessedvibee @avidreader73 @softboo @tedcruzumakii @luminnara @narniansmagic @torchbearerkyle @ziggy-stardust-world @tian-monique @adoxra @zz-snow-zz @tiredsleepyhead @icontrolthespice @itsparksjoyhuh @verveta345 @shegatsby @zae5 @ertepla @my-soulmate-is-mycroft @lotus-888 @meetmeatyourworst @moonchild-artemisdaughter @abswifey @flower-frog @auroranodyssey @forgedfromthestars @moony-artemis @juliskopf @moonsoulk @serrendiipty @atrxidxs @the-ruler-of-death @mintoblobo @just-pure-trash @randominterwebthings @springholland @so-dramatic1 @ashy-kit @aslutforscarletwitch99 @sofia-013 @gamorxa @ricecakeslove @alexandrainlove @selfishlittlebeing @ceres27

the wonderful line “fear me, love me. do as i say and i will become your slave” is from the movie “the labyrinth”!

#feyd rautha #feyd x reader #feyd x you #feyd rautha x reader #feyd rautha x you #dune part 2 #dune #austin butler #austin butler x reader #smut #dune smut #feyd rautha smut #feyd rautha harkonnen #dune x reader #dune x you #dune fanfiction #feyd rautha fic #austin butler fic

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deeisace · 11 months

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#dream about domestically chopping mushrooms and spinach #as apparently older mellow draco malfoys kinda soux sou uhhh second chef #for a giant dinner party of all of our friends on a farm with horses #and watercolour paintings. and someone came up and tried to seriously stab harry potter with a butter knife through the serving hatch #and no one bothered going after the stabby guy everyone was just like ??? oh haha how silly #at the time i was like :) this is all so nice :)#and now ive woke up like ???? draco malfoy???#im so confused why #can't it have been like a normal dream dinner party with a cast of strangers/people i know?#why was malfoy there. going on a smiling-at-himself tirade against processed food. and praising potters herb choices.#so weird #anyway. i am awake now. im gonna ignore that dream. and/or pretend it was a different fictional blond man.

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tightjeansjavi · 4 months

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Hi!! Love your writing!! Can you write a cowboy fetish joel miller with boot riding 🥺🥺

Hi nonnie! Thank you for sending this in! It scratched my brain just ✨right✨ and I hope it does the same for you! I couldn’t just do some boot ridin’ without some plot ;) enjoy 🤠

Dinner & Diatribes

~word count: 3.7k~

Pairing | Cowboy/bounty hunter! Joel Miller x f!reader

Summary: you’re the kind of love that Joel Miller has been dreaming of all his life

Warnings: smut,fluff, angst, cowboy in shining armor vibes, unprotected piv, boot ridin! dick slingin, mutual masturbation, voyeurism, implied age gap, dom/sub vibes, sir/mister kink, implied abuse (not by Joel) Joel is a bounty hunter during the Wild West, reader is a runaway bride wanted for murdering three men, filthy language, pining, protective! Joel, assumed unrequited love, swearing, AU that might not 100% be historically accurate but I tried! reader has no physical descriptions such a skin tone or body type, readers nickname is Chickadee, +18 minors dni! Let me know if I missed anything!

Joel Miller knows that keeping a bounty for himself ain’t the way to go about things..he knows that there’s consequences for his actions, an imminent problem would surely arise if he didn’t bring you back to the town you fled from. Wanted for the murders of three men. A wild untamable thing on the run is how the sheriff described you to Joel. And the most important detail of all; I don’t care if you bring her back alive, or in pieces.

And then Joel found you, tracked your trails for miles and miles through the barren rough terrain of the Wild West. You didn’t even put up a fight when you heard the distinct sound of thundering hooves drawing nearer and nearer. You were exhausted, dehydrated, and on the verge of collapsing to the dusty earth while vultures circled ahead.

This didn’t mean you gave up entirely when Joel Miller had you circled, cornered and lasso at the ready. That’s when he took notice of your state, your attire. A once glittering wedding dress now hanging on by threads of shredded fabric. The bottom tooled fabric was now a dirty sand color, blending in with the dirt. Remnants of your eye makeup cracked and stained beneath your eyes and cheekbones that were once painted in a pretty pigment.

He watched from the saddle of his horse as you sank down to your knees, awaiting your inevitable fate to be delivered. “Have you come to turn me in, Mister?”

His head cocked to the side, eyes studying your vulnerable form intently. You couldn’t see his face as it was obstructed from your view with a tied bandana, but even from where you sat on your knees, you could see that his eyes were a deep shade of brown, dark and mysterious.

He dismounted his horse swiftly, silently, boots tearing up dusty patches of earth with each heavy step he took. The spurs on the back of his boots chimed through the air as he stopped in front of you. His broad frame casted a shadow over your kneeling form. His hands were encased in worn leather, and he smelled of tobacco smoke, saddle soap, and musk.

He crouched down, hat tipping forward while one leather clad hand reached for your jaw, thumb brushing across your skin as he tilted it upwards, forcing you to look into his eyes. He saw your grime and dried blood stained face up close. Your eyes flickered nervously as he turned your head to the side.

“Ain’t you gonna get on with it and turn me in? What’re you draggin’ this out for, huh? You caught me, mister. Go and collect your fuckin’ reward.” You spat defiantly into the dirt, a glob of salvia landing on the toe of his boot.

His grip tightened around your chin, jaw ticking sharp like a knife, eyes narrowing in on your face and the subtle wobble of your severely cracked and dry lower lip.

“What happened to you?” He finally spoke. His voice reminded you of fire crackling, ominous thunder and heavy rain. Thick, gravelly, deeper than the Grand Canyon itself.

“What’s it matter if I tell ya, huh? You gonna take pity on me or somethin’ mister?”

He was silent again, appearing deep in thought as he continued to study your face, searching through the grime and dirt for any clues..then, he saw it; The eyes of someone that suffered abuse. His grip around your chin softened

“Stand up.” He commanded.

You struggled to your feet, confusion etched in your features, the obvious sway in your step before two strong hands grabbed your shoulders to steady you.

“We’ll have to move fast.”

“What’re you—” You were still confused, head spinning from his words and malnourishment.

“I don’t turn in folks that killed outta self defense, Chickadee. And certainly not a woman that killed her abusers.” He gave you a curt, tight nod. “Better you than I cause I woulda tied those sons a bitches up and dragged them through the fuckin’ desert.” He rasped.

“You’re..not turnin’ me in?”

“No. Ain’t morally right for me t’do so.” He said softly.

And that’s how you ended up riding through the countryside with Joel Miller to protect you. You’d patch up his shiners, his wounds, keep his belly full with hearty stews that kept him strong and alert. You’d clean his gun, shine his leather till you could see your reflection in the fabric. And in return, he protected you. He never asked for any sexual favors, or for your hand. He viewed you as his equal, his partner.

It hurt sometimes, to flirt with the man you owed your life to and for him to brush your attempts off everytime. As if you were a pesky horsefly, or insignificant gnat. Yet, you couldn’t help it. Joel was handsome, ruggedly so and you’d often find yourself fantasizing about kissing him, feeling his fingers touch you in places you craved to be touched in. To feel his caress on your skin, the bite of his leather, the scrape of his scruffy beard. The stretch of his cock inside of your wet cunt.

You were driving yourself mad with want for a man that didn’t want you back, or so you assumed that was to be the case.

That couldn’t have been further from the truth.

Joel Miller was on the edge to finally just give in when he caught you one night with your skirts hiked above your thighs with your boot clad feet firmly planted in the dirt. Under the pale glow of the moonlight above, and the glittery shining stars, he could see your hand between your thighs, touching yourself and moaning his name.

It felt wrong to watch you, to invade your privacy and your modesty. But he’d be damned if he’d go another night without feeling the hug of your pussy around his aching cock. Or to feel the taste of your kissable lips on his tongue. Damned. Damned. Damned. Fuck, he couldn’t survive another second without knowing what it was like to be loved by you.

For years he had pushed you away despite knowing the pain it caused both you and him. A man could only last so long pretending to not love a woman that he’d throw his life down for in a heartbeat. That’s the kinda love Joel Miller had been dreaming of all his life.

Your head snapped at the sound of a twig snapping behind you as your hand stilled between your thighs. Your heartbeat rattled wildly in your rib cage at the fear and excitement of being caught.

Oh, please. Please let tonight be the night.

“Don’t stop on my account, Chickadee.” He drawled deeply before stepping closer to where you sat.

The heat rushed to your cheeks like a wildfire spreading, your stomach clenched inwards as you began to touch yourself once more, eyes staying locked on his own.

When he was close enough, you used his shins for support as you rubbed your swollen clit in tight, fast circles.

“No.” He shook his head. “Slower. Take your time, darlin.’ There ain’t no rush. Let me see you.” He rasped, before slowly sinking into the dirt behind you. His strong thighs corralled your own almost possessively as his hands gently grasped the hem of your skirts, pulling them up higher. You felt the brush of his beard against your cheek when his chin came to rest along your shoulder. “Nice and slow for me.”

“I’m—sorry, Joel.” You whispered ashamedly through the cool darkness of the desert night. You slowed your fingers, dragging them through the building slick that pooled between the seam of your cunt.

“Sorry for what, Chickadee? Sorry for touchin’ yourself? For moanin’ my name? Why would you be sorry for that?..” His deep tone sent sparks flying through your body as you leaned back into his strong chest.

“Because—you don’t want me, and this is wrong for me to do. To touch myself and moan a man’s name that doesn’t desire me the way I desire him.” A whimper was clawing up your throat, begging to be released, but you wouldn’t allow it.

He dropped the fabric of your skirts briefly only to dip his hand between your thighs and place his massive palm over the top of your hand, guiding your fingers over your clit once more. “This man desires you plenty, Chickadee. I was only tryin’ to protect your modesty..and our hearts.” He whispered against your ear, lips ghosting across your exposed skin. “Been wantin’ to love you all these years we’ve spent together.” He admitted. “I’m a terrible, rotten man for keepin’ you starved this long..” he trailed off, pressing open mouthed kisses at the spot where your jaw met your neck. “M’sorry.”

Those were the last words you ever expected a fucking bounty hunter to whisper..let alone to you?

A shuddered breath slipped past your parted lips, just for him. Your head lolled to the side, granting him easier access as your lashes fluttered shut. “I’ve felt like..such a fool, Joel. A dirty little fool for a bounty hunter.” You took your lower lip between your teeth, biting down harshly and drawing blood to the surface. You let him take full control of your hand, letting him guide and manipulate your fingers to play with yourself just right.

“Shh..I know now, Chickadee. M’sorry, truly. But I’m here now, ain’t I? M’here. Here forever if you’ll have me. I understand if I've bruised and neglected your heart far too many times..I can accept your rejection if it is coming.”

You could detect the edge of sadness in his tone, the acceptance already settling into his bones and heart.

“Joel, please kiss me.” You nearly begged him, dying to finally know what his lips would feel like on your own.

“Why didn’t ya just say that sooner, Chickadee.” He chuckled. “I wish ya woulda just grabbed me by the breeches years ago and knocked some sense into my thick skull. Woulda taken your ache away a long time ago, darlin.’” He said in a hushed whisper. “But I know you were afraid..can’t blame ya for that. Not really. ‘Specially since I ain’t the nicest of men to come by.”

He was taking too long, and you were an impatient woman.

“Joel.” You huffed, fighting the urge to curse him out before you decided to take matters into your own hands, finally. Tomorrow was never promised, not when you and Joel were constantly on the run.

He kept rambling on until he felt the soft touch of your fingertips brushing against the patches in his scruffy beard and the magnetic pull drawing him in closer, closer till he could taste your mingled breath on his lips.

Here in the middle of the desert, with nothing but the moon and stars as a source of light, you finally knew what it was like to kiss Joel Miller. You learned his lips quickly, liking that they were both soft and a bit chapped. As you licked slowly into one another’s mouths you could taste the faint remnants of tobacco on his tongue. It was a bruising kiss, one that both ignited the fire deep within you, and sent a delicious tingle curving down your spine.

So, this is what the girls back home were all talking about. Being kissed by a real man.

And then you found yourself straddling him in the dirt, saying fuck all to your modesty because you had never wanted a man more than you did now. And you wished that your mother could see you now. To see what her perfect little daughter had turned into.

Fuck you, mother. Fuck you for forcing me to marry that monster.

Joel brought you back down to earth with both his lips and his words tattooed on your skin. He caged you with his body, acting as a shield from the chilly night ear that sent goosebumps rising.

He worked your blouse open, growing more frustrated by the minute when the clasps wouldn’t automatically give. He was desperate to feel more of you, all of you because he knew then that you were his, and he was yours. And if you’d end up being the death of him, so be it. At least he could go out being loved rather than unloved.

“You gonna fuck me now, mister? Gonna take what belongs to you, Joel?” You mumbled against his lips in a chasing kiss, growing more desperate as the seconds ticked by.

“Gonna do more than that, Chickadee.” He rasped. This was a promise, and a man such as Joel always kept his promises.

The howl of a Coyote far off in the distant sent uneasy nerves rolling through you, because the realization hit you then that you and Joel were out in the fucking wilderness, and you suddenly felt bare and exposed.

“Jus’ a coyote, doll. He’s singin’ to the moon. We’re safe here, I promise. Ain’t ever gonna let somethin’ happen to you again, Chickadee.” His strong calloused, yet gentle hands came to cup for your face. His deep brown eyes met yours through the pale glow of the moonlight casted over your faces. “I swear on my life, you will always be safe with me.”

and while the lone coyote sang his song to the moon, Joel Miller had you singing your own song, just for his ears too.

After that night spent together, you never had a night where you slept alone. Joel was always there. Holding you, kissing you, fucking you into a blissful state.

He still feared for your safety, and you feared for his. This would never change, but you refused to live in fear for the rest of your life.

It was a boiling hot day under the blazing desert sun. You and Joel were moving west towards California. Hearing about the gold rush there sounded like as good of an opportunity as any. Not even just for the gold, but the prospects of a new life. Joel had dreams of owning a ranch, sheep specifically and living out his days with you by his side.

“Come join me for a swim, cowboy.” You were sitting side by side under the one single tree along the river's edge. Your two horses were drinking their fill after traveling for days in these conditions.

Your cowboy had his arms crossed behind his head, biceps bulging under the thin fabric of his shirt. His hat was tipped down over his head. You only witnessed Joel being fully relaxed on a few occasions where he would let his guard down for just mere minutes.

“Mmm. That’s alright, doll. Y’go on and enjoy yourself.” He said with a lazy sigh.

“Just a quick one together? Please?” You reached over and gently lifted the brim of his hat just enough so you could see his closed eyes.”

“Chickadee..” he said in a low warning tone, peeking one eye open to look up at you before he shut it once more.

“You’re no fun.” You huffed while releasing your gentle grip on his hat.

“M’plenty fun, doll. I gotta keep watch, anyway. Can’t do that if I’m stark naked in the river with ya. What if someone tries to sneak up? Won’t have my gun at arms reach.” He sighed.

“I know, Joel.”

Maybe when we get to California..he won’t have to worry about all of that.

He sat up turning his body to face you before his palm came to rest upon your cheek in a gentle caress. His thumb brushed across your lower lip, tugging it down gently before he leaned in and kissed you sweetly. “Now go on and cool off, Chickadee.”

You kissed him back with the same amount of sweetness before you pulled away and gave his nose a light boop. His face scrunched inwards before he reached around and gave your ass a light and playful swat that sent you giggling as you rose to your feet.

You shot him a seductive wink before you raced down to the river's edge, kicking up a cloud of dirt with your boots.

Joel watched from afar with a hooded gaze as you stripped down from your skirts and blouse followed by your unlaced boots. He couldn’t help but chuckle to himself when your one boot wouldn’t give right away and you nearly tripped before finally getting it off. He kept watch as you dove into the crystal clear waters and reameraged moments later.

He reached into his pack, pulling out an apple and pocket knife while you splashed around like a kid on Christmas. He cut off a small slice before biting it off on the edge of the knife, chewing thoughtfully as he leaned back against the sturdy tree.

When we get to California..I’m going to marry her.

He didn’t want to end your fun so soon..but it was time to get moving again. He brought his thumb and forefinger into his mouth, whistling to let you know that it was time to pack up.

You had been floating peacefully on your back with your eyes closed when you heard his whistle that immediately tore you from your daydream state.

He was just about to stand up from where he was resting against the tree when you emerged from the river. You reminded him of a goddess. Bare, beautiful, skin sprinkled in water droplets that were kissed by the sun. You looked unreal, and he was the luckiest man alive.

“C’mon, Chickadee. We gotta head out.” He called for you when you were within earshot.

“I’m coming!” You bent down to gather up your clothes before the idea struck you. “Can I dry off first, please?”

He let out a grumbled sigh before he ultimately nodded his head in agreement. A few more minutes couldn’t hurt..

“Jus’ till ya dry off, doll.”

With your clothes and boots gathered up in your bare arms, you approached him casually, setting everything down on your nearby saddle while he watched you with piqued curiosity.

“I was thinking about you out there..laying on my back and feeling the warmth of the sun on my skin..” you trailed off.

“Is that so? Hmm..what were you thinkin’ about, Chickadee?” His eyes slowly trailed down your bare body. From the swell of your breasts, down your tummy and thighs and what lay between them.

“Want to take a guess, cowboy?” You asked teasingly.

His brow raised as a grin tugged along the corner of his lips. A game is what you were playing, and he was the willing participant.

“Based on your tone, I’m gonna guess it’s got somethin’ to do with..my cock?” He wiggled his eyebrows in a suggestive manner while his hand casually came to rest between his own thighs. Oh, he was playing alright.

“Mmm..perhaps I was thinkin’ of ridin’ your cock right under the shade of this tree..but that would be too obvious, Joel.” Your eyes drifted down to where his hand was before the traveled down the expanse of his strong thighs and ending at the toe of his leather boots.

He caught onto your drift almost immediately and you saw his pupils begin to darken. “Y’wanna ride my boot? Is’that it? Well, ain’t you a filthy thing, Chickadee. You wanna get ‘em all shined up for me? Drag that sweet cunt of yours over them?”

His eyes stayed locked on yours in a challenging stare while he palmed himself through his pants to relieve the growing tension.

“I do, sir. I really, really, really want to ride your boot.” You could feel the heat rise to your cheeks because never in your wildest dreams did you expect to take part in debauchery such as this.

“On your knees then, girl. Kiss ‘em for me.” He fell right into character with a flip of a switch.

You found yourself lowering onto your knees without a care in the world about the dirt while you bent down over his boots, pressing a kiss to the leather, dragging your tongue down the stitched seam.

“That’s it, doll. Get ‘em nice and shined up for me.” He said while popping the button on his pants open and pulling his cock free from the confines.

“You gonna touch yourself while I ride your boot, mister?” You were sitting upright again before you crawled closer, letting your hands rest along his thighs as you positioned yourself right above his left boot. The imprint of your kiss had already begun to dry from the scorching heat.

“Yeah, doll. I’m gonna fist my cock while you ride my boot like the dirty Chickadee that you are.” He spat into his palm before he wrapped his fist around the base of his cock just as you lowered yourself over the expanse of his boot, taking your lip between your teeth when you dragged your clit right across the smooth leather.

“Fuuck me. Ain’t that a sight. Look at you, fuckin’ filthy girl. S’feel good, Chickadee?”

You rolled your hips forward slowly at the rate that he was pumping his fist. A soft whimper slipped past your lips while your eyes stayed locked on his.

“Feels so good, mister. So—so good.” You moaned freely with each steady roll of your hips, chasing that high. Nothing would ever compare to Joel’s cock. You knew this, he knew this, and you also were aware that this little game would only last so long.

And then he watched you lose yourself completely on his boot with each roll and grind of your hips against the dampened leather. Crying out his name, nails digging into his covered thighs, head thrown back, tears nearly flooding your eyes.

He had the same sense of urgency and realization that nothing would ever compare to the warm hug of your pussy around his cock. That’s when the game ended as his strong arms came to lift you into his lap by your thighs. His lips met yours in a bruising kiss filled with intermingled moans and teeth clashing together when he finally slipped into your warmth.

California could wait a little longer, he wanted to savor this moment for as long as it lasted because now he had the love that he had been dreaming of all his life. Right here in his arms, cock buried to the hilt under the shade of this very tree. Right here with his Chickadee.

That’s the kinda love I’ve been dreaming of

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kneelingshadowsalome · 9 months

Note

Quick! Info dump about your favorite blorbo!

König headcanons

NSFW content below the cut, 18 + only (These apply to yandere König as well, the toxic stuff is marked with a red flag 🚩)

Does like 50 crunches and 50 pushups first thing in the morning when he wakes up, as he has done since he was a teenager.

Will fix everything from cars to furniture. If the door is creaking he will oil the hinges immediately. Actually, he will treat every single thing in life as a problem... A problem he will fix.

He's great at math and physics and has vast amounts of knowledge about mechanics, thermodynamics, even things like quantum theory and other complex astronomy stuff.

He's completely clueless when it comes to following trends and memes. You have to explain every other tiktok to him. He rarely uses emojis but when he does, it's awkward and slightly intimidating because König doesn't know the hidden meanings behind them. If you send him an eggplant or peach emoji he asks if you need veggies from the store.

Loves your cooking (even if it's just microwaved mac and cheese). If you start to feed this man, you'll never get rid of him.

This is your classic mama’s boy who never had to learn how to cook and then went to the army and got used to the facility taking care of him so… yeah. Doesn't know how to cook but will try to help in any way he can! König is very excited to see you’re making food and wanders into the kitchen like “What are we making today?” You can try and give him a chopping board, an onion and a knife, but this poor man doesn't even peel the onion unless you tell him he has to remove the outer layer first...

Eats like a horse. Is secretly afraid that you run out of food. Goes to the fridge and if it's half full, he will not take the snack he was supposed to have, only comments: "The fridge looks empty." (It's not a passive aggressive statement, he's just worried.)

Also: everytime there's a crisis somewhere – he follows the news neurotically – König starts to prep. There's a month's worth of food stashed in one of the cupboards at all times. He also preps fuel, propane, medicine and the like.

Ruins all the fun when you're playing board games because he fusses about the rules so much. König holds the rulebook in his hand through the whole game and double-checks every single thing.

He's very clumsy, sometimes hits his head on the door frame when he's in a hurry or visiting a new place. He can't stay still either, always shakes his leg when he’s sitting. König needs a lot of exercise when he's not deployed to get all that energy and frustration out.

This has been discussed earlier but yeah, König even drops his mags sometimes in the field because he's too excited. He's a very capable martial artist though. Has done Savate, Escrima and Pekiti-Tirsia Kali and is very agile and precise with the double kali sticks he carries to field sometimes. Suddenly his clumsiness disappears when he has to knife someone, kick someone in the head or beat them to death with those sticks.

This is the reason König fucked up his sniper dreams too: having to control his breath, lie still for long amounts of time, then take aim and shoot a rifle vs. aiming during an adrenaline high, giving a tight spurt or two with his SMG… The latter just comes naturally to him! If you ask him how he managed to take down a human trafficking cell all alone König will say he simply "got carried away."

König goes to the gym a lot. Gets back super pumped and with an urgent need to make love. But not before he's had a cold shower! It's almost like a ritual: he has to torture himself with weights and cold water first before he can have his prize (= access to a woman)

Wakes you up in the middle of the night because he started to worry about petty, stupid things and then got a lil horny. Humps your leg or your back very, very slowly while grunting in your ear: "Hey... Hey. Are you sleeping…?" (Like. Yes, König, I was but I'm not anymore, thanks for asking)

Asks what kind of fantasies you have all of a sudden while you two are cuddling. Asks very detailed questions about them too. If you ask him what kind of fantasies he has in return, König will tense up and then say he doesn't really know, perhaps something like… a blowjob in the forest… And somehow you just know that his real fantasies are so perverse you don't even want to know more about them.

If you "nag" or yell at him, he might get a boner.

If you notice and get offended, ask: "Are you even listening to what I'm saying?!' König will freeze and look at you with a bewildered, obsessed stare and go: "Ja..?" while the boner situation in his pants gets visibly worse.

🚩 Would never go to bed before you've settled your argument. The problem is that it's very difficult for König to apologize because he always thinks he's in the right and that you simply need some time to come to that conclusion too. If you give him the silent treatment he will eventually come to you, gets all touchy and asks surprisingly demurely: "Are you still angry with me?"

🚩 The minute you forgive him or decide it was a stupid argument anyways, the demure puppy act disappears. König thinks he won and that it's time for some makeup sex ❤️

Has like the longest cock known to man. He has actual trouble finding comfortable underwear to fit that beast into. It's beautiful but intimidating, uncut, smooth and sleek. Not too thick but certainly not thin either. He likes to keep himself tidy down there too so the lack of hair makes this murder weapon look even bigger.

You two occasionally break furniture while having sex. It's mainly his fault (he gets carried away). He's very upset about it afterwards though, looks at the destruction he caused, muttering "Scheisse…" while rubbing the back of his neck. Then he tries to fix it while you're still there with your legs shaking and in need of aftercare.

If you remind him that he has other duties first, perhaps whimper his name in frustration, König will apologize and carry you to bed. He gives you that precious aftercare with unwavering passion and attention every time you ask for it ❤️ He's just a little clueless sometimes (König is also neuroatypical, either has AD/HD or falls somewhere in the autism spectrum)

🚩 Hates condoms with an intense passion. You're practically forced to take birth control pills or whatever so that he can cum inside you. This man's whining will ultimately gain a level that's absolutely ridiculous if you don't.

The first time you do it without the rubber, he sounds like he's about to cry. He tells you a hundred times how good it feels, and won't pull out until he grows soft and is kind of forced to do so. For a man who's never even heard of a breeding kink, he seems vehement about keeping his load inside you.

🚩Grunts and whispers loving but obsessive things in your ear while making love to you. You're mine, Say it, Promise that you're mine, I don't want to live without you, Why do you feel so good? at first… but as he approaches his peak, König switches to German. You have no clue what he’s saying, but from the way he spits those sentences through gritted teeth you get the feeling that it must be something desperate and that perhaps it's a blessing you don't understand his native tongue...

🚩🚩If you leave your phone on the table he tries to stalk it and check the notifications. He's so jealous it's unreal, if he sees you receive a message from some other guy König will start a circus. He needs to know all about your connection with this man. After that, he wants you to go through your contacts and show him how many guys there are and tell him what your affiliations are with them. If you're on social media König wants to go through your friends/those you follow. You have to give an account who they are and why you follow them.

🚩🚩🚩 You get a feeling he's forming a list of people he has to kill if you don't tell him they're just a cousin or something 💀

#answered #könig headcanons #könig x you #könig mw2 #its not quick but its an infodump

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costelloschoice · 3 months

Text

"Nice Riding, Girl"

-Mizu x fem! cowgirl! reader

-warnings: nsfw, fingering, pet names, praise, riding ofc, sub! Mizu, dom! reader

-minors dni or ill steal your family’s pet

-it’s my world and you all are just living it in. I’m bringing back cowgirl reader cause this is my dream right here

-!this is inspired by this post by @roninzuzu!

This scene felt familiar to Mizu.

Here she was again, living a domestic life in the mountains far away from society. Only this time, she wasn't arranged to meet someone. Mizu had met you on her own and fell in love with you, a foreign cowgirl who managed to sweep her off her feet.

You were such a hard worker. And you never wanted Mizu to help since ‘a pretty girl shouldn’t get her hands dirty’, but she still helps feeding the chickens and sheep, and brushing the horses. Sometimes she’d pretend to come outside for some important reason just to see you move heavy stacks of hay, wrestling the chickens to get them out of the coop for you to clean, or, her favorite, watching you chop wood.

Mizu loves how you always managed to make her smile, even with the little things. When you managed to convince her to get a dog so you can have ‘someone to protect the sheep at night’, but Mizu loved watching you play fetch with the dog. Hell, you built the dog its own home off the side of your house. You loved the dog so much and she named the dog, "Kai".

She couldn’t be happier with anyone else. She slowly stopped wearing her masculine clothing around the house and wore typical kimonos. Mizu also loved how you would come up behind her while cooking just hold her waist and kiss her neck…before you had to take over the cooking since she’s not the best at it. But she loved it this way and so did you.

It was late afternoon when you decided to take a horse ride. Mizu never refused riding her horse with yours, wanting to share as many memories possible. She was impressed how you never used a saddle to ride, you told her that you grew up learning to ride without one and kept it that way. But Mizu also love how you always helped her up on her horse, even though she more than capable of doing it herself.

As you two rode your horses fast, your giggles and laughs were heard by the trees around you. She smiled as she saw you ahead of her, “Slow down!” then you would laugh and yell, “Well keep up better, darlin’!” you smiled and turned your head forward to keep riding steady and fast. Your hand resting on top of your cowgirl hat she grew to love as you and your horse 'Slowdancer' were ahead of her.

Once you two finally find a spot by an orange tree, Mizu goes to lay under the tree, using a small knife to peel her own orange while you collected some for home, "You know something baby doll, I haven't had an orange since I was home in America," you said, jumping to grab an orange from a branch. You instantly started to peel an orange to eat it, smiling as you recognize the sweet taste of the fruit.

She giggled as you ate the fruit sloppily, seeing how happy it made you. The sweet juice of the fruit ran down your chin and throat. The site of you devouring the fruit made her remember how you devour her at night...

As you finished and wipe your face, turned to her eating the fruit slice by slice. Smiling and feeling giddy, you sit next to her, wrapping an arm around her, "Taste good?" you asked. She nodded, looking up at you as she ate the citrus fruit. Once she finished, she tossed the orange rime to the side, taking in your warmth instead.

After a while of just sitting and talking, you get the bright idea of rough housing. You were a tough girl, and she knew it, seeing you fight in battle was one of the ways she knew. They way you handled your pistol and how you fight fought them was extraordinary to her. You softly tackle her to the ground, giving her what you called a "noogie", rubbing your knuckles on top of her head. She laughed out and tried to push your hand away, "Stop! Please!" she laughed, managing to flip you over on your back, sitting in your lap.

You looked up at her, eyes wide. She looked so beautiful on top of you. You smirked flipping her over, you can play this game as well. Mizu knew this meant war...figuratively speaking. The both of you stood up to start play wrestling with each other. Your combined laughs and giggles filled the air, the pink and orange hues in the sky creating such a beautiful core moment for the both of you in your relationship.

You smiled as you picked her up, spinning her around as she laughed loudly. The wind blowing their direction made her feel like a princess, "Put me down!" she smiled, her hands resting on your shoulders. Wrapping her legs around your waist, humming happily as you put your hands on her ass to keep her up and support her.

"You look beautiful, baby doll...You should wear your hair down more often," You smiled, kissing her cheek. The samurai blushed, holding your cheek as you kissed her, “I just might now that you mention it..” she says, returning the favor and kissing yours. She hold on tightly as you sat down with her still in your arms.

She smiled resting in you lap, hands rubbing from your shoulders to your chest. She pays attention to little details on your buttoned up shirt. How the floral designs are put in stitch by stitch, the use of different fabrics, and the small stars on your buttons. Mizu felt your hand creeping up her exposed leg, “Mmm…darlin’…Your skin is so smooth,” You praised, moving to kiss her exposed neck, slowly moving your lips.

Mizu rested a hand on the back of your head, keeping you close. The soft breeze makes her shiver slightly, so you held her closer. It was only you two in on these mountains, no one else in sight. Even if there were, you don’t care, you wanted to make love to your woman.

Before she could say your name, you pulled her hips close to yours. Mizu could feel something hard in your pants, “Are you…wearing it?” she asked, making you nod as you kiss her neck. Now the situation got hotter and heavier.

“Grind down, girl…” You instructed, making her nod and listen to you. But she also had a surprise for you since she wasn’t wearing underwear underneath her kimono. She closed her eyes, enjoying the sensation of your kissing her neck and grinding down on your strap that was in your pants. Her moans were soft and light, body shuttering at the feeling of your lips and your strap.

Your hands got curious and moved the top of her kimono, wanting to see her breast. You pulled away from her neck, the wet spot from your mouth shining in the light from the sunset. Your mouth gravitated to her breast, lightly sucking her left breast. Mizu moaned accordingly, trying to undo the buttons to your shirt. She fiddled with the buttons, stopping her grinding monetarily to try and free your breast.

But you lightly smack her hands away, groaning as you flick her nipple with your tongue. Your hand sneaked down to move her kimono, exposing the fact she wasn't wearing panties. You tsked, "Naught, naughty..." you whispered, your middle finger rubbing along her slit.

Biting her bottom lip, she looked down to watch your hand. You always had a way with her body that no one else could match up with. Was it because you were also a woman and knew the sweet spots? Or were you just a sex god? Either way she didn't care, she loved it.

Your middle finger slipped in, curling to hit her sweet spot. The warmth around your finger felt like home, hitting that sweet little button inside to make her louder. Mizu clutched your shoulders, heavily panting and her moans were higher pitched, "F-Fuck..!"

You then added another finger, smiling at her moans and reactions. Wanting more, you moved your fingers faster. You wanted nothing more than to make her feel good, "Look at you, taking it all so well.." you mumbled, fumbling to open the button of your pants and zipper. You pulled out your strap, stroking it as if it was your own cock.

You leaned down to dribble your own spit on the fake dick, your hand coating it with your own saliva. Mizu blushes at it, it felt so dirty...But so hot. Your fingers continued to work her cunt and your fake cock, smiling up at her, "Wanna ride your cowgirl, baby?" you asked, a smug look on your face and she nodded rapidly. You couldn't help your heart skip a beat as she looked at your with her lust-filled blue eyes.

You leaned back on your left forearm, taking your fingers out of her to grab your strap, "Ride it, girl.." you said, watching her nod and move her hips up on the dildo. She moaned as she moved down on the cock, groaning at the feeling of being full.

You laid all of the on your back, looking up at her. Her breast were out, bouncing as she moved up and down, her kimono opened to show her pussy taking your strap. Her eyes were closed as she bounced, moaning loudly. Mizu's sounds were swallowed by the trees and you, but unlike the trees, you listened and enjoyed them.

"Nice ridin' girl...You look so beautiful bouncing up and down like that," you praised, rubbing her hips. The scene in front of you was better than any other view before this one. She looked so beautiful bouncing and grinding against you, the orange tree's branches behind her moving to the wind.

You let Mizu take her pleasure from you. She shouted your name, her hands now resting on your breast, squeezing roughly as you were generous enough to thrust your hips up into her. "Fuck yes! You feel...s-so good. Ah..! Thank you my love..!" She groaned, earning herself a slap on the ass, "Good girl...Thankin' me without havin' to be told to do it.."

Your hips thrusting to match hers was making her movements weak as you took the reins. Mizu leaned forward, receiving kisses on her cheek as you thrusted into her at a fast pace, "Good girls take cock so well....You a good girl?" you asked, breathing heavy as your thrusts weakened her, "Yes! Yes!" she moaned resting her head in the crook of your next as you thrusted.

Her hands rested on yours, grabbing your wrists as she felt close. Her stomach felt like it was doing cartwheels, you knew how to fuck her good and she loved it. "I'm coming, fuck! I-" she moaned, trying to focus on the treatment you are giving her.

Her mouth opened wide but nothing coming out. Then she let a finally moan, grabbing his wrist tightly as she came. You stopped your movements, not wanting to overstimulate her...at least not this time.

You kissed her forehead and moved your hands on her back, "You did so well, baby girl...You know how to ride don't you?" you asked, making her nod. She lifted herself up, making eye contact with you, Before you she could say anything, she felt an orange drop from branch and hit her on the head.

You gasped then started to laugh, rubbing her head, "Are you okay?!" you laughed, her nodding and giggling, "Yes...I'm fine..." she hummed, before smiling at you. She then leaned down and kiss you, enjoying the rest of the sun set with you.

"I just noticed something..."

"What is it, darlin'?"

"...You kept that stupid hat on the entire time.."

#bes mizu #bes #mizu x reader #mizu blue eye samurai #mizu #blue eye samurai #mizu x you #blue eye samurai x reader #wlw #blue eye samurai x you #mizu my love #mizu smut

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twola · 5 months

Note

idk if this is too vague, but arthur/f!reader in the classic trope of, oh my god I can't believe we both almost just died sex? did they both almost drown? Was there a fire? did he save her life? who knows! i feel like arthur would sees the woman he loves almost die and immediately fuck about it

Okay this has been in my asks for WAY too long and it’s such a good one and I wanted to do it justice.

Left Unsaid

Arthur Morgan x F!Reader Smut (18+), MDNI

➵ Fic Masterlist ➵ AO3 Link

When he think's he's almost lost you in a run-in with a rival gang, Arthur quickly gets over his nervousness in approaching you.

The bloodcurdling scream jolts him from sleep, making him stumble up from where he was sitting on a rickety chair in the main room of the old cabin. At first, he thinks it's a dream, but when the sound of breaking glass pierces the night, Arthur shoots up; the chair falling to the ground in a clatter as he quickly shakes the vestiges of sleep from his mind.

This abandoned cabin off of Eris Field seemed the perfect place to spend the night instead of making the trek all the way back to Shady Belle tonight - your yawning from behind him on his horse had him chuckling as he made the decision to stay - doing the gentlemanly thing and giving you the bedroom with the old single bed. As much as he’d like to be sharing it with you - he remained externally aloof - proclaiming that he’d sleep on the chair in the main room. He certainly did not dare to ask to share your bed - not now, probably not ever.

But the rustling and thumping behind the door where you sleep has his heart racing - his hand flies to his revolver as he readies himself to throw his shoulder into the door and shoot whatever it is that is making that noise, but the door bursts open before he gets the chance.

A man stands on the threshold - dirty, and grimy, with a faded gray woolen military uniform and a yellow bandana around his neck.

Of course, goddamn Lemoyne Raiders.

The raider holds up his knife in front of him, and in the din of movement and chaos around them, Arthur can see the liquid sheen over the steel in the man’s hand.

The knife, dripping with blood. The man, seemingly unharmed. The door, slightly ajar, to the bedroom where you slept.

A cold stone settles in Arthur’s gut as he puts the pieces together. In an instant, he snarls, diving toward the man with little regard for his own person, tackling him to the ground and ready to rip him apart with his bare hands for what he’s done to you. As Arthur mounts himself on the man’s chest and begins to strangle him, the movement knocks the oil lantern off the table, crashing to the wooden floor and immediately bursting into flame.

The man’s neck snaps between Arthur’s hands and he immediately leaps up, moving toward the bedroom where you were sleeping.

Another body crashes into him, a Lemoyne Raider dressed like he is straight out of a Civil War battle tackles Arthur to the ground, the two of them tumbling along the floor and breaking through the rickety door to the porch. Arthur rolls backward, unsheathing his hunting knife as he grits his teeth, ready to slice this damn bastard into shreds.

Of course, the wannabe soldier is no match for the hardened outlaw. They sure as hell don’t make them like they used to. Arthur easily dodges a swing of the man’s fist and throws his weight forward. He sinks his knife into the raider’s gut, and immediately shoves him to the ground. He gurgles blood from his mouth as Arthur rushes over him, back toward the house.

The flames burst out the windows as he barrels back toward the door, grabbing at the handle and cursing aloud as it burns him.

The constriction in his chest has settled into a churning in his gut as he prepared to kick the door in. At this point would he be finding your charred, lifeless body, having bled out on the floor because he couldn’t protect you?

“Arthur-!”

He steps off the porch, not sure if he is lightheaded or hallucinating, but you move toward him, hitching your skirts, blood covering your blouse, your hair wild.

“Jesus-” He crashes into you, having nearly leaped the final few steps, crushing you into his chest, nearly causing you to stumble.

He yanks you back, large hands on your shoulders, and looks you up and down, eyeing the blood patch on your blouse.

“N-not mine.” You breathe, but he does not move his hand from your ribcage. It presses inward, against the wet cotton, splaying across your side as if he did not believe you, checking for where the knife would have marred your flesh.

“Arthur-” You whisper, your hands tight on his biceps, “I’m alright.”

His eyes dart back up to yours, searching, pupils dilated, breathing heavily.

“Ar-”

You’re cut off completely as he pulls you against him and presses his lips desperately against yours, muffling your surprised yelp as his tongue demands entrance into your mouth. After a moment of shock, you melt into his embrace, fingers tightening on his shirt sleeves as you open your mouth to him.

He kisses you like you are the air he breathes. Like you are some kind of salvation… like he thought he almost lost something.

Arthur pulls back, breathing heavily, a flush having taken over his face, “Christ-” he goes to unwind his arms from you, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have-”

It’s his turn to be cut off as your hands immediately travel to the collar of his shirt and you pull him down to your lips to kiss him again, needy as you moan into his mouth.

His arms immediately recircle you, hands moving down from your ribs, down, down to your waist, your hips, your rear. Hooking his arms around the back of your thighs, you’re lifted up, squealing in surprise into his mouth as you wrap your legs around his waist.

Continuing to press into each other's mouths, you barely notice him walking the two of you back, further from the flaming cabin, into the woodline, and finally against a tree trunk a safe distance away. He pulls back, panting as you recline against it, his arms tight under your thighs.

He gazes upon your kiss-swollen lips; your heaving chest as you breathe heavily, your pupils blown wide in arousal. Arthur takes the opportunity to roll his hips once, his hardening cock pressing against your cunt, and your eyes flutter closed as a needy, breathy whine escapes your lips.

“Arthur-”

He does it again, maybe for his sake as much as your own, the blood rushing to his groin and filling his cock properly. He grits his teeth as the rolling becomes rutting, your gasps driving him insane.

Before he gets to the point of no return, he slows his hips and leans over to recapture your lips in another kiss. As he pulls his

“Thinkin’ you was dead back there-” He pushes his lips to yours again, “Christ- I… I never told you-”

One of his hands leaves your thighs, but you have no fear he’s going to drop you. He buries it in layers of cotton, pulling at your skirts to move them from his way, reaching your bloomers and pressing against your cunt, watching your face intently as you moan, the cotton separating you quickly dampening against his fingers.

He leans in again and groans against your neck. Grabbing the cotton tightly, he yanks until he feels the seams give way, the tearing sound ringing in his ears as he delves within the ruined fabric to your soaking folds. You jolt against him and whine loudly as he slides his fingers along the seam of your body.

Arthur covers your mouth with his own as he sinks his fingers into you, working you open as you clutch desperately at his shoulders.

After you’ve cried out several times in the night, his hand leaves you and you sigh at the loss, he shushes you gently as he works at the buttons of his trousers, finally freeing his cock from his pants after moments of fiddling. His hand returns to your thigh as he adjusts you in his arms. The head of his cock presses gently against the rim of your cunt.

Your hands move from his shoulders to cup his face, your thumb tracing his lower lip gently before he sucks the tip into his mouth, his eyes trained on yours.

He pulses his hips and his cockhead slips inside you. Your brows crinkle with the first vestiges of the ache of penetration, and he leans forward again to press his lips upon your forehead.

“What did you never tell me?” You whisper as he holds you on the cusp of joining, the precipice of sheathing himself into you.

One of his hands leaves your thigh, though you are completely unafraid of falling with your legs wrapped around him and the strength of his other arm. His fingers brush back a strand of your hair from your forehead, tucking it gently behind your ear before his rough and calloused palm rests on your cheek.

“You’d have died and I woulda never told you I’m in love with you.”

Your eyebrows raise in shock as you clutch at him, and while you remain silent, after a moment, you pull him closer with your legs, nudging his back with your ankles, and he slowly slides himself inside you, inch by inch, until your hips touch and you mewl with the stretch. He hums softly before slowly, gently, rocking his hips, starting a slow rhythm as you get used to him.

His powerful arms keep you suspended against the tree trunk with each roll of his hips, each glide of the inches of him in and out of you, well glossed and hot with your slick.

Arthur’s lips press to yours incessantly, muffling your gasps and whines as he presses into you. After one particularly deep thrust, you throw your head back in ecstasy, bumping against the trunk of the tree.

“Careful there, darlin’,” Arthur slows his hips, and tightening his grip on your thighs, he pulls you away from the tree, you yelp and tighten your legs around his hips. He chuckles softly as he walks you, still joined, a few steps from the tree and slowly lowers the both of you to the ground on a patch of grass. Spreading himself out over you, he buries his head against your neck as he lets go of your thighs, his forearms on either side of your shoulders, rocking his hips into yours again.

The staccato whine of the syllables of his name escapes you as you hook your ankles around each other over his back. Carding your hands through his hair, your fingers interweave between his honeyed strands, his hat long gone in your desperation to join yourselves.

He presses himself up above you as his thrusts become more erratic, his breathing loud and heavy as he pounds you into the ground.

“God-” you cry out as your hands grasp his shirt, “Arthur, yes-”

He squeezes his eyes shut tightly, looming over you as he careens toward completion.

You arch your back, your thighs wrapping tighter around him as you begin to babble - “Yes- Arthur… I love you too-”, another gasp as he hits that spot within you, “God - I love you so much-”

That’s it. There it is, stripped bare and bleeding out like an open wound, his heart catching in his chest at your confession, and his amazement leaves him speechless as he thrusts into you once more, holding himself as deep as he can possibly get into you, feeling you pulse and clutch around him, wailing your pleasure into the night. It’s only a moment more before he has the wherewithal to yank himself from you, in the nick of time as he spurts his seed over your cunt, dripping white into the dark curls at the joining of your legs.

He’s gasping, you’re gasping, and he groans as he settles himself to the side of you, barely able to hold himself up with the exertion. Your legs hang open as you pant, flushed from your cheeks down your neck.

One of his large hands spreads out over your chest, against your racing heart, and you turn your head toward him, breathing out through your nose as a smile graces your lips.

“Probably should get outta here before any more stragglers find us.” He says, out of breath as he removes his hand to tuck himself back into his trousers. You nod and sit up, pulling your skirts down over your legs.

“D’ya think…” you trail off as you watch him rebutton his pants before he pushes himself to stand. His hair is ridiculously ruffled from the amount of times you've run your fingers through it.

“Mm?” He holds out his hand to you to help you up.

You take it, and he pulls you up into his embrace, his hand secure on your lower back.

“Was wondering if we could spend the rest of the night in Rhodes or somewhere instead of heading all the way back to camp…” You ask as you lay a hand on his chest.

He squeezes you closer to him.

“Sounds mighty nice… certainly wouldn't mind a stay in a hotel room tonight.”

#red dead redemption 2 #arthur morgan #rdr2 #red dead fanfic #red dead redemption #arthur morgan smut #arthur morgan x female reader #arthur morgan x reader #twolafic #prompt request #red dead fandom #rdr2 fanfic

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amielot · 7 months

Text

Horse Girl AU Master Post

just in case, my art tag

Everything else under the cut. I will be updating this constantly.

Horse Girl AU (HGAU)! In which Hob busts a wild and abused centaur by the name of Dream out of the circus and attempts to earn that horse's trust. This is difficult since Dream hates humans and wants nothing to do with them. The two go on an adventure.

I post the comics in somewhat chronological order. On occasion I will jump back to add a new beat or scene I wasn't motivated to do at the time so this master post is nice for me to flesh out previous scenes or moments while still letting everyone read things sequentially. ENJOY!

PSA: longer comics are best viewed on desktop so they can be clicked through like an animatic.

Miscellaneous comics

Height chart

A guide to centaur ears

Satellite dishes

Horse Girl AU vs Centaur AU!

Apples ( This has a nebulous location in the AU timeline. It's the first comic I did of them and it helped me establish their character dynamic <3 )

Receipt

Spoil that horse

Spoon

In the Circus

Posters

Manticori

Jailbreak!

On the Run

Don't know I'm here

Rainfall

The barn

Broom system

Tarp

Warmth

Thank fuck he's eating

Horn

Knife system

Two hearts

One pair of lungs

Bray

Ears

Preferences

Dreams

Animal magnetism

Maintenance

Don't hurt yourself ( Brushing pt.1)

Hasn't been brushed in awhile (Brushing pt.2)

Hot bath

Touch starved

Nightmares

Kick

Expectations

I don't understand

Herd

Neighbor

Convo

Fey

Morning

Dont make me regret this >:(

Gift

Uno Reverse

The Herd

Desire and Death

Foals

Destruction and more foal sketches

The HGAU ask tag

I sometimes drop lore here and I tag it when I do.

Fanart inspired by the AU

I'm gonna fuck that horse by @fishfingersandscarves

Dream horn art by @teejaystumbles

Manticori by @cloudsofcondensation

Horse girl au nsfw by @teejaystumbles

Saddle by @yellobb

Dream Circus Poster by @rexwrendraws

Dream poster embroidery by @embroiderling

Fics inspired by the AU

Old Town Road (AKA The "Hob is a Horse Girl" Fic) by @arialerendeair

Soft Hands by @delta-pavonis

Deep Seat by @delta-pavonis

Levade by @delta-pavonis

Lessons in Not Getting Caught with Your Trou Down by @sleepsonfutons

The Rope by @shadowpuppet-storyteller

All Wound Up by @seiya-starsniper

#pinning this #horse girl au #stabby horse #<-#that's Dream #foolish human #->#that's Hob #housekeeping #it's probably good that I made this

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blingblong55 · 6 months

Text

You're trouble- Simon 'Ghost' Riley NSFW

A/N: I desperately need to ride.....his face

Based on a request:

PLS MOTHER FEED ME WTH GUNSLINGER GHOST WERE TALKING HIM CHASING A FEMALE READER HE USES HIS POWER (EVERYONE IN TOWN IS AFRAID OF HIM) TO FUCK THE NOT SO INNOCENT BANDIT OR OUTLAW READER. SO BASICLY POWER PLAY AND KNIFE PLAY WHERE HE TEARS OUR SKIRT OFF:( AND FUCKS HIS FINGERS INTO US>:) --- F!Reader, smut, MDNI, 18+, knife!play, power!play, oral!sex, dub-con, rough!sex, gunslinger!Ghost, outlaw!reader ---

You and your people ran the town, that was until a gunslinger came in, desert tension grew, and he killed your men and allies and left you to fight for yourself. It was like the typical cowboy film, except in this one, he had more than malicious intents. As you ran away from his blazing gun, your horse came to a halt, you turned your gaze to the man chasing you, daring him for another move. "Don't you be coming 'ere!" You pointed your gun at him. "Darling don't you know who I am? Those aren't even threats," he chuckles.

He spins his gun in his hand, "Now, come with me I'll make sure to fuck that shit attitude from you." The masked man commanded but you denied his request by spitting on the ground. "Over my dead body, Ghost." He shook his head, what a terrible mistake you made. Two moves were all it took for you to be thrown on his shoulder like some damsel in distress. "Why don't I make you pay for this?" As he rode his horse whilst you sat on his lap tied, the townspeople stayed inside out of fear.

Word got around mean ol'Ghost found a new prey. You made a move, falling on your arse and stood up slowly, the tape broken when you began to run. His lasso, like all men do, swung it in the air, and gave you a taste of what was about to come. "Come 'ere you bitch," the rope perfectly caught you, pulling you back to him like a defenceless prey. "Don't go about breaking my rule, for this is my town now, R/N," he threatened and pulls you back on his lap.

Inside his rusty old home, he tied you to his bed and it'd be clear you were to stay there. The skirt which you wore, ripped from the waist to the hem. The fabric is cut by his trusted knife, "Girls like you deserve to learn lessons," his buckle hitting your bare thighs. "Didn't they tell you I don't take women like you so softly?" A grin on him. A newfound slut he could play with when angry, what a great day for him. He kisses your neck, "Taste so sweet huh," he whispers. You try to push him away but part of you wanted this. You had heard stories of the other women, how much of a good night this man gave, and needed to prove this theory for yourself.

His hands groped your thighs, lips kissing yours and you found yourself kissing him back. What an easy criminal, he thought. Your legs are wide open for him as he moves your panties aside. Thick calloused fingers rubbing your clit, he smirks at your reaction. "So wet already?" he taunts and slaps your clit with his belt. You mewl and he slaps your face, "Keep fucking quiet, slut."

He was gentle with the other women but you were the exception, maybe if he didn't dream of wank off to the thought of you, you wouldn't be in this place. Tears run down your face but he continues to slap you, "Look. At. Me." he gives you one final slap. Your gaze on his as he kneels down and begins to lick your cunt. "I said, fucking cry!" he slaps your cunt, your tears run down as you whimper. He looks at you, "Now you're learning." His deepesy fantasies all being played on you, well some, after all a man like him must save some for marriage.

His belt is now on the floor as he picks up his knife, the handle pushing into your tight cunt. He watches in amusement, you squirm and try to close your legs. He gives you one bite on the tight to which you cried about. Perfect mark for the perfect fuck toy. You clench around the handle, he licks the blood coming off the bite mark and looks up at you. A pouty lip which he loves. "Ghost~" you moan. He doesn't listen, all he does is push the handle further in and then pull it out. The sharp surface leaves small and thin marks on your chest and thighs. "Want to be a good girl?" he says between tongue flickers. to your wet pusssy.

He watches you grind on his tongue, pushes your tummy down and grins on how much that affected you. The thin blood trails were proof he was here and meant to be here. Your hands bruised up from how much you kept moving in the restraints. Your abused clit not being able to handle more, makes you push your pussy onto his face, grinding like you had no other purpose. You watch him beg for you to come, after all only good girls come for him. He kisses, sucks and fingers your clit until you cry from overstimulation.

He lets your juices get him drunk, drinking them like they were water from the gods. Your hips trying to move away from his mouth but not having much of a win. You look at him and he smirks just like the devil he is.

Days after that evening, you grew needy of him for the third time that week. "Darlin' what's the matter?" His voice worried, he had to admit he fell in love with corruption and the outlaw that he kept fucking at every one of her demands. "I miss you, come over~" your voice soft yet filled with seduction. "Darlin' i saw you this morning," he chiuckles over the phone. "Can't we have rounf three already?"

"Better be on your knees when I get there or else," a promise he made you understand ever since that night. "Yes, sir," you respond. "You're nothin' but trouble love. Just like I like 'em." He hangs up

Tags: @katz-chow @liyanahelena @bloodyquillink-blog @karurururu @creamy-dreamy-69 @clear-your-mind-and-dream

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mothfables · 28 days

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The Chain Sleeping Headcanons

i figured why the hell not haha

Time -this man snores like a goddamned horse -often the last to sleep, makes sure everyone else is doing alright first -would be the first to rise if not for Wild getting up to make breakfast -takes watch often. he’s been chewed out by Wars + the others for not waking whoever’s next many times -very rarely sleeps in

Legend -refuses to sleep on his back unless he absolutely has to (i.e. severely ill or injured) -prefers to sleep on his side, usually curled up, but will lie on his stomach if he feels safe enough -sleeps better with at least one other person with him, but is bad at asking for it -if he’s with Ravio there’s a chance he may sleep on his back, as he knows he’s safe with him -will drop off in a few minutes if his hair is played with -sleeps best curled against someone’s chest with his face tucked in their neck. it helps him feel safe

Twilight -either sleeps sprawled flat on his back or curled up like a wolf. no inbetween -has a habit of getting up and patrolling the camp/immediate area at random points during the night. does not matter if he’s in wolf or hylian form -also snores. usually in the ear of whoever’s closest to him

Sky -he’s never had the best relationship with sleep. this has been something he’s dealt with his entire life -it was bad enough as a kid but it’s only gotten worse the older he gets -some of it is prophetic dreams or other hero shit, the rest is good old sleep disorder -naps when he can get them -chronic sleep cuddler. once he has someone in his grasp he is not letting go. no one is sure if he’s even aware he does this. good for getting Legend to sleep

Warriors -can sleep anywhere, anytime, in any position thanks to his time in the army -quick to sleep, quick to rise -usually sleeps flat on his back or curled around the nearest small body (or Time) -always has a weapon nearby

Wind -this kid alternates between alarmingly accurate starfish + octopus imitations -forming a habit of snoring. the prime suspect is Twilight -keeps a knife under his pillow

Hyrule -he sleeps best hidden away, like in a tree or cave -always has his sword nearby -he’s slowly learning to sleep with others nearby/trust others with keeping him safe as he sleeps

Wild -can go without sleep for days. this does not mean it’s healthy -if he goes long enough without sleep he crashes hard as soon as it’s safe to do so -rests best at a campfire or wherever there’s a bed. this doesn’t mean he can’t or won’t pass out anywhere -ready to get up and go whenever -tends to get up early to make breakfast

Four -either sleeps completely silently or says the weirdest shit. often sounds like fractured conversations between multiple people -similar to Wind in that he’ll wrap himself around the nearest person or contort himself into the weirdest positions. his blankets are never where they started in the morning -has occasionally been found on the opposite side of camp from where he went to sleep

#linked universe #lu the chain #linked universe headcanons #lu time #lu legend #lu twilight #lu sky #lu warriors #lu wind #lu hyrule #lu wild #lu four

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apoemaday · 11 months

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So Mexicans Are Taking Jobs from Americans

by Jimmy Santiago Baca

O Yes? Do they come on horses with rifles, and say, Ese gringo, gimmee your job? And do you, gringo, take off your ring, drop your wallet into a blanket spread over the ground, and walk away?

I hear Mexicans are taking your jobs away. Do they sneak into town at night, and as you’re walking home with a whore, do they mug you, a knife at your throat, saying, I want your job? Even on TV, an asthmatic leader crawls turtle heavy, leaning on an assistant, and from a nest of wrinkles on his face, a tongue paddles through flashing waves of lightbulbs, of cameramen, rasping “They’re taking our jobs away.” Well, I’ve gone about trying to find them, asking just where the hell are these fighters.

The rifles I hear sound in the night are white farmers shooting blacks and browns whose ribs I see jutting out and starving children, I see the poor marching for a little work, I see small white farmers selling out to clean-suited farmers living in New York, who’ve never been on a farm, don’t know the look of a hoof or a the smell of a woman’s body bending all day long in fields. I see this, and I hear only a few people got all the money in this world, the rest count their pennies to buy bread and butter.

Below that cool green sea of money, millions and millions of people fight to live, search for pearls in the darkest depths of their dreams, hold their breath for years trying to cross poverty to just having something. The children are dead already. We are killing them, that is what America should be saying; on TV, in the streets, in offices, should be saying, “We aren’t giving the children a chance to live.” Mexicans are taking our jobs, they say instead. What they really say is, let them die, and the children too.

#poetry #jimmy santiago baca #so mexicans are taking jobs from americans

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everythingelseisextra · 9 months

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Lingering In Doorways

Part Nine: First Time

Description: After a week of recovering from your confession, you return to see Tommy. Warnings: References to rape and trafficking, language, brief mention of self harm Word Count: 2565 Tag List: @babayaga67 @theshelbyslimited @ttaechi @weaponizedvirtue @majesticcmey @optimisticsandwichgladiator @zablife @princesssterek @shelbydelrey @globetrotter28 @look-at-the-soul

Talking about it awakens something in you, something that had been hibernating for years. A stagnate, deep-rooted fear raises its ancient head in you, and, for once, you don’t know what to do to quiet it. You push it away, shove it into the corner of your mind, and it creeps back within minutes. You’re feeding the horses and there are hands on your body, running down your hips, touching your breasts, feeling you. You’re trying to sleep and you’re back in those grimey hotel rooms, lying in bed while a client drips out of you, tears in your bleary eyes. You’re getting up in the morning to face the gray on your own, and the horses look at you with their empathic, liquid eyes, and you know that they know. They’re particularly gentle with you these days. Even the newer ones don’t bolt wildly the way they used to.

The part of you that’s hurt is young, and so you want comfort, want to be held and coddled and told it was all just a bad dream. You want to be told why it happened, that there’s some larger meaning to it all. There isn’t. Nothing bad comes with a greater meaning, you have to make it yourself. And, for you, your meaning is the horses, those half-feral freaks of nature you so adore.

Some nights, when it’s particularly bad and you’re shaking in the darkness of the cold kitchen, tears squeezed from your eyes and fingernails tearing into your own skin, you wrap his coat around you. It’s warm, and it smells of whiskey and cigarettes and some other scent that’s unique to him, clean and vaguely sweet. And you stare at the phone and remember the night he called you for help, and you wonder what he’d do if you did the same, looking for a reason.

You get to know your own heartbeat these days. You learn how it skips a beat before you fall into the chasm of your own mind. You learn how to slow it down, burying your face in a horse’s mane and breathing deeply, the scent grounding, bringing you out of the world that lives in your memories, grungy and shadowed. Hands shaking, eyes a little puffier than before, you relearn to master your own fear, to coax it back to softness like you do with the horses.

A week later, when you’re ready, you go to see him again. There’s no guilt in you as you make your drive. You didn’t abandon him. You needed to rest, to withdraw back into the quiet nothing that keeps you safe, and then you could face the world again. A knife sits heavy in your pocket, your assurance that you will fight back, that you will not lie there and let it happen like you used to. Your body is worth fighting for.

You walk down the hallway of the hospital alone, watching the doors until you come to his. One of your hands stays in your pocket around the hilt of your knife, the other is wrapped around your abdomen. Cold air washes over you. You sigh, and feel the familiar jolt of your heart, a precursor. You stand in front of his door and breathe, leaning your head against the chilled door, the hand that rests on your belly feeling the rise and fall. Chasing off your demons with even breathing seems too simple to you, but, inevitably and with patience, it works.

You lift your head and knock on the door. A muffled call to come in responds, and with a trembling hand, you push it open and step inside, closing the door behind you. .

His cool, clear eyes flick over you and he stands from his bed, his expression unreadable. Arms crossed against his chest, head tilted slightly, he appears defensive, as if ready for an attack. You stare back, unwilling to remove your hand from your pocket. You are armed, and you want him to know it, just in case. You stand in silence for a moment, considering each other, mirror images distorted.

He breaks first. “You decided to come back.”

“I said I would.” You refuse to wrench your eyes from him, refuse to be the one to shatter the contact between you.

“And it took you a week.”

“Yes. I needed time.”

“While you took your time, I relearned how to walk and sat in this room while my fucking family went on without me.” His voice threatens to boil over from the usual even, steady tone.

“I couldn’t have come. I wanted to, I did, but I couldn’t. I don’t always have the easiest time, Thomas.” Your hand tightens over the grip of the knife.

“No.” His voice softens slightly, though his shoulders remain drawn back, his eyes unbroken from yours. “You don’t.”

You release a slow breath, trying to relax yourself. Your grip stays taught. “The horses are done. I can stay as long as you like tonight.”

His brow furrows and he says nothing, his eyes moving over your face, trying to read you as you are him. Something about his expression, the way his head tilts, maybe, or how he looks at you with such a light touch that you’ve never seen before, makes your jaw tighten.

“What?” You step forward. “Talk, Shelby.”

“You’re brave, coming back here.”

You scoff. “Is that a threat?”

“No.” He straightens, eyes narrowing a moment.

“Stop looking at me like that.” Your voice hardens. You take another step towards him, trying to balance out the amount of space you take up, the scales shifting in his direction even with him standing still.

“How am I looking at you?”

“Like I’m some kind of tragedy. Like you’ll break me if you look too hard.” You drop the arm you have wrapped around yourself to gesture meaninglessly. “You can’t break me and you promised not to treat me different. You promised.”

He’s quiet for a moment before he speaks. “You told me, and it took a week away.”

“What’re you, worried we’re gonna run out of time?” Your demeanor softens slightly, dismay replaced with a kind of saddened curiosity.

“I had the rest of my life with Grace.” For the first time, your eyes break away from each other, and he looks up at the ceiling, fighting with something. “Until I didn’t.”

“I can’t make you any promises, but—”

“You can.” It’s the first time he’s interrupted you, the first time he’s butted in on your thoughts halfway through. He huffs out a breath. “You can promise me to linger in the doorways and keep— keep my coat in your house so I have an excuse.”

You’re at a loss for words. He’s earnest. Asking you for something small that means something much, much larger. Something long-dead in you flickers back to life.

“Okay,” you say quietly. “I promise to hesitate when we say goodbye, and I promise I’ll use what you’ve given me to fight off the cold.”

He nods once, and the earnestness is gone, his eyes back on you, bold and bright and challenging. “You’ll stay the night here, then?”

“Yes.” Your words come slightly hoarse. “Yes, I’ll stay.”

“Good.” He sits back down on his bed, and you wander over to the wooden chair. “How’s Draco?”

“He’s good.”

The night dissolves into quiet conversation, small-talk and faint laughter. You’re calm, for the first time in a week. Having someone like him by your side, knowing that he wants you there, that he worries about losing you, gives you a sense of protection, like only around him can you let your guard down completely. He has your back. He has your back in a way that no one has since you were a kid, and this time, your bond has been built not out of fear and necessity, but out of mutual respect, and, to be honest, out of loneliness. He knows who you are and has not looked away, has not faltered in his treatment of you.

You look at him and you see the part of yourself you always wished you could be; brazzen and bold, strong and solid, a fighter. And, undoubtedly, you see an echo of the trauma you’ve endured, buried somewhere in him. Like yours, his mind wanders on the edge, on a precipice of sand and insane, a sublime image of self-destruction and anxious megalomania combined. You don’t know him the way he knows you. You won’t force it out of him. But you meet his eyes while you talk, and you catch bits and pieces of who he is.

Freezing night air fills the room. The moon is high in the sky, and you’re still talking about nothing, still trying to burn the darkness away. You discuss methods of training horses, the complexities of their psychology, the fear that runs through every racehorse that they’ll be forced yet again to be pushed beyond what their bodies are capable of. You talk about his son, about how raising a child really isn’t all that different from horses, how Charlie has his father’s intelligence but his late mother’s reserve. You gently breach the subject of Grace, asking who she was, and you get a short but informative response.

“She was a spy who forgot which side she was on.”

You don’t ask about her again.

As the night settles over you and exhaustion hits, you begin to shiver, your body on the wooden chair unable to keep itself warm. You pull your knees up to your chest and wrap your arms around them, trying to bundle into yourself. Tommy, laying back in his bed, turns his head to raise an eyebrow at you.

“I’ll have them bring you a cot.” He starts to sit up, but you stop him.

“Used to sleep on a hard wooden floor, this isn’t bad.” You roll your sore shoulders. “Just… kind of cold.”

“It is.” He glances down at the bed he lays in, then starts to remove the only blanket. “Here.”

“I don’t need…” You sigh and take it. “Now you’ll be cold. All you’ve got is a sheet.”

“I’ll ask for more.”

“No, it’s the middle of the night.”

“Nurses work nights.”

“I know. I just—” You shake your head and hand him back the blanket. “Take it. I’ll survive.”

His eyes flick over you, that discerning look that’s trying to measure his chances. “I can take the chair.”

“Shut up, you have a fractured skull.”

His lips twitch up. “You could have a cot and blankets, and you insist on the wooden chair.”

“I’m a masochist. It’s in my nature,” you deadpan, staring him dead in the eye. Betraying you, your lips echo his, twitching into a small smile, then a big one. “I just would hate to take their attention away from people who really need it.”

His eyes travel away from you to the bed he lays on.It’s not large, but it’s not small, either, made to have space for someone to maneuver a broken body on. He stares at it, then looks back at you.

“No.” You follow his thought process.

“Why not?”

“Because.” You look away, your heart jolting.

“Not a good answer.”

“Because what if I wake up and you’re—” You swallow hard. “I don’t trust you for that.”

He blinks, and out of the edge of your vision, you see him sit up to look at you. The hair on the back of your neck stands up and chills run down your spine, making you clutch the edge of the seat you sit on, looking for balance and security and grounding. He’s waiting for you to look back at him, and you can’t, so he speaks.

“I can’t convince you, can I?”

You don’t respond, closing your eyes, head still turned away from him. You shiver, half from cold, half from the flooding of old memories cascading back into your mind. Men rutting on you, fingers gripping your hair and holding you back, your young body pushed to the furthest extent.

“You know what I used to do with Grace?”

You shake your head, eyes still closed.

“I’d keep my foot on her through the night. If she moved, I’d feel it. So I always knew if she got up, if she needed something.”

You take a deep breath. “I don’t know. I haven’t been touched by someone in… years. Not even in the sexual sense, just in general. It always leads to something I don’t want. Always.”

His voice is gentle. “I will do you no harm, love.”

You look back at him, trying to keep your words steady. “I have a knife in my pocket. If… if you move towards me, if you do anything, I will fucking use it. I spent too long not defending myself.”

He nods thoughtfully, sitting up and moving back in the bed, allowing you space. You stand up and sit on the edge, looking over at him, thinking.

“I want you facing away from me.”

He complies.

You hesitate, then, slowly, lower yourself onto the bed. There’s less than a foot of space between you. You lie with your knife in your hand, held out loosely in the middle of you and him, facing him. Your breath shudders in your chest and you can’t find a way to close your eyes, can’t steady yourself, can’t stop your heart from pounding.

“Would it help if I gave you my gun?”

“Do you… do you sleep with a loaded gun?”

“Under the pillow.”

“Jesus.”

“He has nothing to do with it.”

You manage a weak smile. “Yes. That would make me feel better.”

He sits up and lifts his pillow, revealing a sleek black weapon underneath. He twists to slide it over to you.

You let out a slow breath. The last time you had a gun was when you were young, terrified, trying desperately to protect yourself.

“Don’t fucking shoot it. Put it under your pillow.”

“I won’t kill you on accident, I promise.” You move it under your pillow as he asks and lay back down. “I know how to use a gun. The safety is on?”

“Yes.”

You nod, closing your eyes only to have your heart jump into your throat. You open them. Tommy still faces away from you. You can feel the warmth of him, see the outline of his skin underneath the pale white shirt he wears. Breathe, you think to yourself. Be brave.

It takes you several hours to fall asleep. Tommy stays silent and still, and you can’t tell whether he’s awake or not. But, eventually, you can’t help but slip off. The night air is cool on your body, but you’re warmed by his closeness, soothed by the steadiness of his breathing.

It’s a fight to trust. You have to choose with every moment that passes not to flinch away, but stay steady in the face of your past, refusing to allow it to hold you back. You have to choose to believe him when he says he will not harm you. You have to choose to step forward, to tell the stories that hurt you, even if you have to get drunk to do so. And, inevitably, you have to choose to let go of the knife.

It has been a beautiful fight.

#peaky blinders #tommy shelby #peaky blinders x reader #thomas shelby #tommy shelby x reader #peaky blinders imagine #thomas shelby x reader #tommy shelby imagine #peaky blinder imagine #peaker blinders fandom #tommy shelby fanfic #thomas shelby x y/n #thomas shelby imagine #thomas shelby fanfic #peaky fucking blinders #peaky blinders fanfic

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five-and-dimes · 1 year

Text

Sloom

AO3

In many ways, Dream feels inferior to the rest of his family. Which means he struggles when Hob asks to meet them.

Well this took a million years longer to finish than I expected and as usual I struggled with the ending but we gotta call it done at some point, lads, so here we are.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dream tries not to think about it too much, because it makes something in his heart ache when he does.

How he was made wrong.

He doesn't understand it- he was born the same way as his siblings, and yet somehow he is the only one… lacking. Everyone else understands humanity, everyone else understands themselves, everyone else doesn't struggle to connect, to speak, to share, to exist in a way that doesn't hurt.

Even Desire, whom he despises so much for all the games they play to torment him…

But then, Desire is only so cruel to him. Maybe that, too, is his fault.

He had thought it was enough to do his job well - to protect the dreamers and his realm and all the power it contains. He can withstand being a bad sibling, a bad friend, a bad husband, father, lover, person (he can withstand it, he can) as long as he is good at his job. He doesn't play games, he doesn't let himself get distracted, he fulfills his purpose, he is good at his job, and that is enough. It has to be.

(And then he fails at that, too.)

(He had made himself good for one thing. Now he is good for nothing.)

He walks with Death, and his elder sister lovingly twists the knife. She reminds him of all the ways he got it wrong, got all of it wrong, and he wonders if she would have bothered to come if he had called at Fawny Rig.

(He wonders if she would have come if one of their other siblings had been captured.)

(He wonders if they all aid each other when he's not looking.)

(He doesn't look.)

She tells him to visit Hob Gadling and it feels like an execution. He feels like he’s bleeding, like he’s being sentenced to a slow death, like all of his wounds are on display for anyone to dig their fingers into.

He feels like he deserves it.

And so he drags his feet, first to the hollowed out husk of the White Horse, and then following a bright line to someplace new, someplace glowing with life and possibility and when he crosses the threshold he feels like a weed. He is too dark for this place, too cold, and when he sees Hob he expects to be kicked out like a stray dog.

Hob smiles at him. Smiles, and Dream feels a little less cold.

“You’re late.”

No condemnation. No cruelty. No accusation or malice or brutality.

Dream is breathless with it.

“It seems I owe you an apology. I’ve always heard it impolite to keep one’s friends waiting.”

Somehow, Hob’s smile brightens. When Dream sits across from him, he feels, for the first time since 1916- no, since long, long before then- that he is welcome and wanted.

When he came here Dream had braced himself for punishment. Instead, they sit and talk long into the evening. Soft and hesitant, Dream gives Hob his name, and Hob glows like he’s been given the answers to the universe. Bright and enthusiastic, Hob speaks of all he has done in the past century, and Dream listens and lets himself sink comfortably into the warmth of companionship.

Eventually, Dream knows he must return to his responsibilities. It aches to think of leaving this soothing place, but he feels as though a balm has been spread on his wounds. Still hurting and aching, but less so than before.

Before he stands to depart, Hob places a hesitant hand on his wrist.

“Feel free to drop by before 2089, yeah? Anytime.”

There is a long pause while Dream considers that. Despite how kind he had been, it feels inconceivable that Hob would want to see Dream more than he has to. But he cannot deny the way his chest clenches with hope at the idea of feeling this warmth again so soon.

Perhaps it is selfish.

But Dream agrees.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The first time it comes up is on their third meeting in as many weeks.

They are sitting together on a comfortably worn couch in Hob’s flat above the New Inn, next to each other but still with a respectable distance between them. Dream is trying very, very hard not to misstep in his friendship with Hob. And a part of that, he understands, means sharing the information Hob has asked for for so long.

It is a deeply uncomfortable experience for Dream. A part of him (the part that is still, in some way, shivering deep in the Burgess basement) cries that his secrecy is all that has protected him. That Hob, in his human greed and longing, will turn into Roderick the moment he realizes what Dream is, what he could get from him, what he could take from him.

(That same part of him, curled up the cold glass orb of his heart, cries that it’s better to just give it to him.)

And yet, in all that Dream tells him, Hob never turns cruel. He explains his function, his creation and rule over dreams and nightmares, and Hob’s eyes alight with wonder. He describes his realm, his subjects and landscapes and the Sea of Dreams, and Hob leans forward like an excited child.

And, when he stiltedly explains the nature of the Endless, Hob laughs fondly.

“You know, that actually explains so much.”

Dream tilted his head in confusion, “How do you mean?”

Hob waved his hand vaguely, leaning back in his seat, “Well, all your cute little quirks,” Dream resolutely ignores the warmth in his face from being called cute, “how formally you speak, and all the human things that seem to go over your head. Of course human social niceties aren’t natural to you, not only are you not human, you’re as old as the universe.”

Frowning, Dream looks down at his hands in his lap. He thinks, as he often does, of Death. Of her easy mingling with humans, her casual conversation, the way people smile at her. He thinks of his own shy smile and how all it does is make people walk away faster.

He doesn’t think being Endless explains anything about him, actually.

(It occurs to him, suddenly, that maybe it is not that he wishes to be unmade. He simply wishes he had been made right.)

(Or, perhaps, never made at all.)

“Hey.”

A warm hand covers his, and he looks up to find Hob leaning into his space, shooting him a small smile despite the concern in his eyes, “I’m not criticizing. It’s endearing,” he laces their fingers together, soft and gentle, “I like your quirks.”

That word again. Dream swallows, feels the words build at the base of his throat, they are flaws, they are faults, do not be fooled, do not show me mercy I do not deserve.

But before he gets a chance to explain, to warn him, Hob leans in closer, “I like you.”

The kiss is hesitant, he can taste the anxiety on Hob’s lips, the way he clutches his hand a little harder as though bracing to be pushed away. Dream does not have the strength to push him away. It takes every ounce of effort he has just to keep his tears from falling as he melts against Hob, pressing closer and drinking in Hob’s sigh of relief.

Dream stays long into the night, until Hob drifts to sleep in the circle of his arms. He never corrects Hob’s assumption on his nature, the words still stuck in his throat. Choking him.

But not enough to open his mouth.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"So," Hob drawled, putting his arm around Dream's shoulders in a way that was clearly trying to be casual and not succeeding even a little, "When do I get to meet your family?"

Several months have passed (several months of opportunities to tell the truth, to be honest, to crack his ribs open and show Hob everything wrong with him-) and their relationship has grown like a blooming flower. Dream feels warm with Hob, and Hob smiles easily whenever he visits.

Dream does not want it to end.

He hums in consideration, even as his entire body tenses against his will. He has told Hob about his family, though not extensively. He has told him their names, and the order of their birth, but not the intricacies of his relationships with them.

(He has not, even once, mentioned his parents. Hob hasn’t asked.)

(One of the first nightmares he ever crafted was that of a child crying for a parent who refuses to turn around.)

Beside him, Hob shifts a little uncomfortably, rubbing the back of his neck as he rambles, “I know it’s one of those silly human things, the whole ‘meet the fam’ part of a relationship, but well, y’know me, always curious about your life.”

Hob does that fairly frequently, explaining “human mysteries” or sometimes laughing fondly as he guides his “silly Endless” through whatever social mishap he’s found himself in. Always explaining away Dream’s stumbles with his inhumanity.

And now, he wants to meet his family, and Dream’s chest tightens at the thought of Hob expecting to meet more cold and aloof entities who don’t know where to put their hands and instead being met with Endless who are so much better.

“I… understand,” His speech is as faltering as the rest of him. “If you would like. To meet one of them. I can arrange a meeting.”

Pulling him closer against his side, Hob’s eyes brighten with excitement, even as he checks, “Are you sure?”

Dream nods, barely feeling the kiss on his cheek as he thinks of each of his siblings in relation to Hob.

Delirium and Hob would likely find each other a delight (an irony which does not escape him), both so vivid and full of life, always looking at things in new ways. They are both so bright, so colorful in their own ways. So jarring next to Dream's darkness.

(He pictures Delirium questioning why someone as nice as Hob is with her mean older brother.)

(He pictures Hob realizing he doesn't have an answer.)

He does not think he could bring himself to call Destruction, if he would even answer, but he thinks he and Hob would make fine friends- both turning away from the violence of their pasts, searching instead for ways to grow and nurture.

(Dream had to be punished into changing. Had to be tortured in order to grow.)

(He thinks he grew like a weed. Or perhaps an infection. Just because he is more does not mean he is good.)

If he's honest with himself, he thinks Hob and Desire would get along as well. Hob would probably be good for his sibling in a similar way that he was for Dream, able to understand the soft parts that Desire hides, and them able to share in the joys that life has to offer in a way Dream struggles to, so accustomed to denying his own wants.

(Desire hurt him. Desire hurt him.)

(He has been told that he is worse.)

Thinking about it, he thinks Despair would like Hob. He had the unique ability to truly appreciate despair and understand its value, and Despair had an appreciation for life that Hob could relate to.

(What does it say about him, he wonders, that Despair wants to live more than Dream does?)

Destiny would almost certainly decline any offer to meet, and Dream doesn’t know that he and Hob would be friends, per say, but…

(He imagines Destiny standing before the immortal, forgoing any small talk and telling Hob bluntly that he is destined for things far greater than his broken little brother.)

But, in the end, he knows there was always one person Dream wanted Hob to meet, even if it makes him lose him. So he steels himself and forces the words out.

"Hob, would you like to meet my elder sister, the one who gave you your immortality?"

“Death?” Hob goes a little wide eyed, “Is that- I mean, I can meet her without, y’know…” he makes a crude slashing motion across his throat.

“Of course,” Dream answers steadily, “She can be present among mortals without bestowing her gift upon them. She will not take you. Unless. You ask.”

“No, no, not planning that anytime soon,” Hob is quick to reassure, “Or ever, really,” he tacks on with a smirk and a wink.

Nodding, Dream allows himself to reach out and take Hob’s hand. He will miss this warmth. “I will speak with her, then. And arrange a meeting.”

Hob’s grin is wide and bright, and Dream can feel it as Hob presses a kiss to the sharp edge of his cheek bone, “Excellent! This will be fun, Love! I’ll pick up some of that wine that you liked enough to actually drink- or, would you rather we meet in the Dreaming?”

Dream only barely manages to suppress a cringe, but even so he bows his head, as if he could somehow hide within his own curled spine.

“I would. Prefer to let you meet on your own.”

Hob's smile falters, "What? Why?"

Because I do not want you to see us side by side. Because I do not want to make my lacking more obvious than it already will be. Because I won't survive seeing the moment your eyes turn cold. Because I'm scared.

"I merely wish you to get to know each other without my influence."

He can see so clearly in his mind’s eye, Hob glancing back and forth between the two siblings, one so charming and kind and good, and the other… lesser. Lacking. Dream does not wish to be present for that realization.

Recovering his grin, Hob laughed lightly, "Ballsy of you. Most folks I know wouldn't have the guts to leave their siblings and their partners alone together," he leans forward to play with Dream's hair teasingly, "What if we exchange secrets, eh?"

I'm a liar, I lied to you, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry-

“That is within your right.”

Hob laughs, startled, and pulls Dream flush against his side, “What a fair ruler you are,” he says jokingly, “Well, I can’t wait. It’ll be endlessly fun,” he winks, trying to get a rise out of Dream.

Dream smiles back. But it’s a little weaker than usual.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dream stares at the ankh for a long time before he picks it up. A childish part of him wants to leave the gallery and feed Hob lies and excuses. Death is very busy, she could not make the time, I called and she didn’t answer, she didn’t answer, it has happened before-

But. What would that accomplish besides delaying the inevitable?

He cradles the ankh in his hands, “Death. I stand in my gallery and I hold your sigil.”

“Dream!” He can hear the smile in Death’s voice, “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I wish to discuss. A personal matter. Would you care to join me?”

Death steps beside him almost before he can finish speaking, "Of course! What can I do for you?"

She's so casual and easygoing, but a part of Dream can't help but search for any lingering anger or resentment from their last talk. He wonders if she's forgiven him.

(He wonders if he's worth forgiving.)

Straightening, he explains flatly, "Hob Gadling wishes to meet you," he pauses before adding, "In a nonprofessional manner."

Snorting, Death replied, "Well, I could have guessed that," she grinned, "But you're finally letting me meet your little project?"

"He has become. Far more than a project."

"I know, I'm teasing, silly," she shoved his shoulder playfully, "I'd love to meet him! Just tell me when and where and I'll make some time."

Nodding, he considers his options. He is torn between stretching out his time with Hob and simply getting it over with. In the end, he chooses what he feels is a polite and reasonable timeframe.

“One week from tomorrow, in the afternoon. At the New Inn.”

“I’ll be there,” grinning, Death linked their arms together, “I can’t wait, I bet you two are sickeningly adorable together.”

A bitter part of him thinks Death would just be sad to see someone like Hob shackled to Dream.

“I will not be present. This meeting is for you and Hob.”

Death pulls back to look at Dream’s face, frowning in confusion. For a moment she seems to consider her words, before settling on a question, “What’s going on in that head of yours, little brother?”

Dream meets her gaze and answers flatly, “Nothing of importance.”

There is exasperation in her voice as she huffs, “I hate that you really believe that.”

He loves his sister so very much. And he does not have the strength to be yelled at right now.

So he straightens his spine and keeps his voice even, “I will let Hob know of the time of your appointment,” he allows himself to soften, just slightly, “He is looking forward to meeting you.”

“I look forward to meeting him, as well.” Death knows she has been dismissed, and so she gives Dream one final squeeze on his arm before departing back to her duties, a gentle rustle of feathers echoing through the gallery.

For a long moment, Dream stands in his gallery alone, gazing at the sigils of his siblings.

He will go and tell Hob of his upcoming meeting with Dream’s sister. And if he stays longer than strictly necessary, if he presses a little closer than he usually does, he if stares too long at Hob’s face in an attempt to commit his smile to memory, Hob is nice enough not to comment.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It is not raining in the Dreaming.

Dream does not feel that kind of sadness. There is grief, for certain but… it is a grief he believes he has no right to feel. This is not sorrow, it is justice, a loss of something that was never his to have. He cannot cry, he cannot mourn, he can't, he can't, he just-

The Dreaming is covered in a thick layer of fog.

A white mist, so thick it feels like you could move it with your hands, wade through it, drown in it. Dream is in one of the gardens surrounding the palace, grinding his teeth and trying desperately to make it go away. He had hoped that going outside would at least help clear the fog that had permeated the palace halls. Matthew had flown into a wall twice before resigning himself to perching on Lucienne’s shoulder until the hallways were visible again, and Dream does not think he could survive if another raven was injured due to his weakness.

The week had passed too quickly for his liking, time showing him no mercy. He had visited Hob each day, an unusual occurrence that Hob had raised an eyebrow at but otherwise not commented on. And in all that time, Dream had still not told him the truth. He did not explain that the Endless he was to meet would be nothing like Dream because Dream was nothing like the other Endless, did not confess to having cheated more time with Hob by misleading him about his nature. And now, it was too late. Hob would leave, and Dream would always be a liar.

Sighing, he leans against the tree behind him, looking up and frowning as the fog hides even the leaves above him. Sometimes he wishes he had more control over his connection to the Dreaming. More control over himself. He wonders if this is how humans feel when they wish mastery over their own bodies, their organs, their blood.

The fog is getting thicker.

Growling deep in his throat, Dream presses the tips of his fingers against his temples. There is no reason for him to feel so… lost. He has existed and survived before Hob, and he will continue to do so after. Happiness is not necessary. And besides, he has wanted to be a better person, and would a better person not prioritize their loved one’s happiness over their own? It is an irrefutable fact that Hob deserves better than Dream is capable of, so it is the least Dream can do to not stand in his way.

Pulling his knees to his chest, he wraps his arms loosely around them, feeling as bare and exposed as he had in Fawney Rig, suddenly thankful for the cover of fog. Perhaps, he could allow himself this respite. A moment of selfishness, and then he would pull himself together. Just one night to grieve where no one could see him. Just one night to hide-

“There you are!”

Dream’s head snaps up, eyes wide with a shock he could not hope to conceal.

Because Hob is here.

The immortal is smiling, like he has every other time he’s seen Dream, stumbling slightly through the fog before plopping himself down to sit pressed against Dream’s side. This close, he can see the spark of concern in his eyes even as he throws an arm around his shoulders to pull him closer.

“Well this is a bit different. You know I saw Merv actually sweeping the fog? What’s crazier is it was working, swept it into a big pile and then pushed it out the front door. I know anything is possible here, but I will admit I did spend a few minutes just staring at that spectacle.”

Throughout his rambling, Dream is aware that he is staring. A quick assessment of his own body alerts him to the fact that his mouth is parted, and he is literally gaping at Hob. How unbecoming.

When he fails to respond to his story, Hob’s smile dims, and the concern in his eyes amplifies, “Hey… is everything alright?”

No. Nothing makes sense. He feels more lost than before. He thinks the fog is getting thicker, heavier, colder.

“You…” He clears his throat, trying to compose himself even a little, “You were. Supposed to meet Death today. Did. Did that. Not happen?” That is the only logical explanation.

But Hob shakes his head, “No, we did, got back a couple hours ago, just took me a bit to fall asleep,” he chuckles a bit to himself, “She’s a riot, honestly, nothing at all like all the skull and crossbones nonsense.” He gives Dream a warm smile, “I can see why you two get along so well.”

Dream is. Dream is-

He opens his mouth, and all that comes out is fog.

“Woah, okay,” Hob jumps a little, but doesn’t pull away. If anything, his grip around Dream’s shoulders tightens.

Fog is drifting from the corners of Dream’s eyes.

He can’t see. He can’t breathe. He feels so lost-

“Alright, hey, hey,” Hob pulls him closer, wrapping him in a firm embrace, “Love, I think we should go to the Waking, okay? Is that alright?”

Dream forces himself to nod against Hob’s chest. His body is no more bound in the Waking than it is in the Dreaming, but sometimes the distance makes it… easier, if only a little, to keep his shape. As opposed to here, where the edges of Dream and the Dreaming often blur together. Like now.

Hob kisses the crown of his head, and Dream can feel him pulling away, waking up, and Dream follows the pull. In the space between realms, he forces his form together, like holding a door shut, like clenching a fist. When he arrives, he is laying on top of Hob, who is splayed out on his couch. Some hysterical part of him wants to scold Hob for not settling in his bed to sleep.

As Hob fully awakens, his arms reach up to embrace Dream, and Dream can’t help but curl his hands in Hob’s shirt. Slow and gentle, Hob maneuvers them to sit up, and when he pulls back, Dream cannot look him in the eye.

“Hey…” Hob cups his face with both hands, rubbing his thumbs in gentle circles on the hinge of Dream’s jaw, and Dream realizes for the first time that he is clenching his teeth together hard enough to crack human bone. He fears what will come out if he opens his mouth.

“You’re alright, dove,” Hob whispers, still trying to coax Dream into relaxing his jaw, “Everything is alright, I’m right here, sweetheart, I’ve got you my love.”

It takes a few minutes, just Hob whispering softly and soothing his fingers over Dream’s skin, but eventually Dream musters the courage to let his teeth separate, parting his lips just slightly. He sags with relief when all that escapes him is a shaky breath.

“There you are,” Hob presses a kiss to Dream’s forehead before tucking his head beneath his chin and pulling him into a hug, rubbing a hand up and down his back.

Ever patient, he waits until Dream is breathing evenly to question him, “What’s going on, dearheart?” He rocks them back and forth as he speaks, “You’ve been off all week. I should have said something sooner, but I thought you were just nervous about me meeting your sister.”

Swallowing thickly, Dream forces himself to answer, “I was.”

Hob pulled back, brows furrowed in confusion, “Okay, but everything went fine? I told you, we got along great.”

“But…”

“Did you think we wouldn’t?”

Dream feels as lost now as he did in the Dreaming. How does he explain this to Hob? How does he explain it without drawing Hob’s attention to that which he somehow missed? He should be grateful that Hob is still here, how is he supposed to tell him this truth without making him leave?

Is he destined to make him leave no matter what?

Belatedly, he realizes he is still clutching Hob’s shirt.

He lets him go.

“I did believe. That you would enjoy each others’ company,” he explains resignedly, “And I assumed that in your meeting, I would. Lose your favor.”

Had he been looking, he would have seen Hob’s eyebrows shoot up to his hairline, “You thought I would like her more than you?” His voice is heavy with disbelief.

“In a sense…” He had not considered Hob finding romantic interest in Death, as Hob seems to think, “I merely thought that. In meeting her, you would realize…”

(Death never struggled with her words the way Dream, the Prince of Stories, always seemed to.)

Taking a deep breath, he tries again, “We are both Endless. And yet. She is…”

“Different?”

“Better.”

Hob sucks in a breath as though he’s been slapped, “Dream-”

“You think that all the things wrong with me are due to my nature as an Endless,” Dream interrupts, the dam broken as he spills out everything he has been holding back for months, “and I let you believe that. But the truth is, my siblings are not like me. They do not struggle with humanity as I do, nor do they share my penchant for arrogance and cruelty. Death is older than I, and yet you saw her- she is kind, and she speaks normally, and she understands-” His voice cracks, and he has to pause, closing his eyes and forcing his molecules to stay solid. To stay here.

“The problem is not that I am Endless,” he confesses in a whisper, “The problem is that I am… me.”

Dream keeps his eyes downcast, fixated on the texture of the couch in the space between them. He wonders if Hob will chastise him for his deceit or simply tell him to leave, wonders if he will demand punishment or repayment.

One hand laces their fingers together, as the other gently cups Dream’s cheek. Hob does not try to tilt Dream’s face or make him meet his eyes. He just holds him.

“I happen to like ‘you’ very much, actually.”

Hob’s voice is soft as a breath, quiet despite the devastation and sorrow painting each word. Dream closes his eyes as Hob leans forward to brush their foreheads together.

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” he states firmly, confidently, “You’re not perfect, I know that, the same way you know that I’m not either. But there’s nothing wrong with you.”

The conviction in his voice gives Dream just enough courage to open his eyes. Hob’s eyes are filled with tears and shining with so much love it takes Dream’s breath away. When their eyes meet, Hob gives him a sad smile and brushes his thumb along his cheekbone.

“I’m sorry. For ever making you think you needed to explain away parts of yourself,” He brings Dream’s hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to his trembling knuckles, “I don’t love you in spite of anything. I just love you.”

Dream wants to argue. He wants to give every example from his long, long life that he is wrong, that Dream is defective and unworthy and unlovable.

But when Hob kisses him, whispers “I love you” against his lips, he finds himself… hoping. That maybe Hob is right. That maybe this is another bet he would lose to the strength that is Hob Gadling’s love.

Later, after Hob has held him long enough that he does not feel like he may fall apart, he will give his arguments. Later he will state his case and Hob will not hesitate in debating right back, punctuating his points with soft kisses and fond smiles. And it will not fix everything right away, as much as they both wish it would. But it will feel like a start, like adding support beams to a faulty foundation, like strengthening the parts of Dream that always felt a breeze away from buckling.

But for now, Hob holds him tight and whispers against his hair, “You want to hear a secret?”

When Dream hums questioningly against his neck, he presses a kiss to his temple, “Death isn’t perfect either.”

Dream lets out a barking laugh, and then another, and another, and then he is sobbing and holding Hob like he is the only thing keeping him together because he is, and maybe this outburst is just another flaw of his.

Regardless. Hob still holds him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A month later, Hob and Dream invite Death over for drinks. Three very different people sit in hob’s living room, and they drink wine, and laugh, and Hob occasionally scolds Death when he feels Dream stiffen at some of her teasing.

Before she leaves, Death pulls Dream into a hug, patting his back even as he stands stiffly in the circle of her arms, “I was right. Sickeningly adorable, both of you.”

Dream huffs, but feels no real offense or embarrassment at her words. It is still hard to trust that this is real, sometimes. But all night he had searched Hob’s eyes, and even when Death made him laugh or understood some human reference, he still turned to look at Dream with love and joy.

As hard as it is to believe, the truth is that Hob sat with both of them, and when he grew tired he asked Death to leave.

But he asked Dream to stay.

#the sandman #dreamling #dreamling fic #my writing #projecting on characters in the club tonight

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saint-siren · 5 months

Text

A World For Her Alone | Ptolemaea

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15

cw (chapter specific): pregnancy, childbirth, dubcon, death, the aftermath of severe abuse, slavery, derealization (?), the general ennui of noble marriage

pairing: claude x fem!reader

summary: Men! Don't they always think of "the one that got away"?

author's note: Girlfail Barbie and Catholic guilt ken or whatever the kids are saying idk.

When he returned to life again, he was haunted by a fervor to change things. He was a desperate animal caught in a trap, biting his own limb in a bid to escape. He’d languished too long in the inevitable misery that befell him again and again and again. This time, he told himself again, it would be different. He considered readying a horse to come and warn you about this thing that had overtaken him but there were obvious flaws in the plan such as; what if he saw Diana and was besotted again before he had the chance to tell you everything? Even if he succeeded what was he to say to you? What would you be able to do that you had not already attempted? How could you break this hold? What would your knowledge of his predicament mean against something that felt so primordial, something that compelled him to kill you?

What measure could be taken to change this? The last few minutes before he would have to bring himself to truly live this life, he spent at his desk, resigned to writing a missive.

For some reason, this life’s distinctions were more prominent. Firstly, it felt like reality was itself melting, sliding off its center to be remolded around him in the blink of an eye like candle wax. There were times where he forgot that his body wasn’t his own, that he identified with that darkness that puppeteered his body with grotesque ease. Things in that life had an unreal quality to them as if a fever dream he’d soon wake from. The horror of this life was softer, it was brighter, sweeter. He no longer begged for mercy, he only phased into the void that had become him deeper and deeper until he could no longer claim the pain he experienced as his own. He fell in love with Diana again, everything was wrong but he gave himself to the faltering, glitching reality that provided his distraction.

Had he only imagined it or had you become close with your sister in this life? It was unthinkable to him that you would, remembering all the pain she had caused you, still seem to love and look after her. It was a gesture that horrified him, the depths of your magnanimity, your forgiveness were hard for him to handle. Where was the rage you were due? Where was the lady he’d known before? Where had that livid and mournful glint in your eyes, like the silver pommel of the kitchen knife he’d nearly stabbed you with, that had appeared the life after your daughter had been born? Its sudden disappearance was an omen, he was convinced. Now, your eyes were soft as a saint’s, it was a sweet look of righteous suffering. Yours was the look of a martyr.

He was too late to save you, that look told him as much. You were a woman going to into the flame, worn and deprived of her fight; of the vicious urge for retribution. You were the dregs of a woman, bent to the shape of the realities you’d inhabited. Bent partial to Diana. This peace between sisters had come at a cost he would only live to know in your next life.

You tutored Diana, persistently, pushing her to learn more always. You two spent a great deal at each other’s sides and Claude was aware that even though in previous lives, you’d suffered criticism for not being close enough with your sister; now you were seen as an overbearing older sister pushing her poor, helpless little sister to always do more. He could not really grasp at reality strong enough to muster more outrage at the world which now seemed to be a mindless chorus, for their hypocrisy. Curiously, though, his greater self was pleased at your conduct and ignored the slanderous chatter. The darkness was sated by your concern for your sister and it thanked you by not making efforts to exclude you, he was still flirting with Diana quite openly, to be sure, but it was much less careless. It felt more as if the two of them were not hiding, not rebelliously defying, but expressing themselves easily before you, knowing that your bite had gone soft, your eyes like that of the rest of their world; understanding how important Diana was.

As the date of your wedding approached, something bad was going to happen. He felt it or perhaps he heard it whispered in the static of a reality which was falling down on top of him all the time. It sat in the pit of his stomach, an anxious ache that never soothed, a wound he could feel festering even when the rush of love for Diana flooded his careworn mind.

Days before your wedding, he was informed that you’d run away. A strange sort of grief did come over him by way of his false heart, his greater self almost seemed to mourn you. To him, and the distinction between his two selves in that moment had never been clearer, it felt as though you’d betrayed him. You’d made him care for you, if only in the slightest and most shallow way possible and then you vanished. You promised to marry him, to make a good wife to him, marchioness to his people and mother to his children. You smiled in his face each time you met and spoke to him with clear affection but you abandoned the future the two of you had painstakingly prepared with years of effort. Like he was nothing. Like the unspoken understanding, the ease that had been built was nothing at all. It disoriented this vast, arrogant creature, it felt to this monstrous part of him like trickery, like deprivation.

His true self knew that this was not the bad thing he’d anticipated. If it were, the seed of anxiety planted in his mind would have finally given way to the deeper misery he knew was to follow and set him free of his fearful, agonizing waiting. But he was still wound tightly, still waiting for the other shoe to drop. You running away from him was not the bad thing; what fate would make you pay for it, was. He had seen this part before, he knew it ended in blood. So he hoped, at least, you got to run quite far before it did. Before reality closed around its status quo again.

Out of obligation and the longtime investment made from his family to yours, he needed to marry a lady of your house. Since you were gone, it fell to Diana to fulfill this duty. This life, Diana had been educated suitably enough to be a marchioness, for theirs not to be an ill-fated marriage for the territory. Claude realized that this must have been by design, it was your insistent effort that led to her being educated so efficiently. He’d heard talk of you seeming to bully her with how much you pushed her to learn. This was your design. You had always planned to run and leave the two of them to what the fates clearly wanted to happen. Although it was an ache in his chest that you were gone, the more pressing feeling was a forlorn emptiness at the fact that he knew how it would end and he could do nothing to stop it.

On the day he married Diana, it was bright and cloudless, surely indicative of the sort of marriage he was to have with her. Her cheeks were flushed with the enduring surprise of being able to marry him but also with surpassing happiness. But did he only hallucinate a crow flying swiftly across the pale morning sky, casting a shadow on them briefly? He could not know. He retained little of his wedding to Diana. After all, it was a frightening thing, this end. This thing he’d been fighting for so long had caught up to him, it had won, or it would in time. It felt like he was further trapped in a labyrinth where before he could at least the see the sky above, now he was completely hidden in the belly of the beast with no end in sight. Everything was Diana. Everything always would be.

The defiling of his will and dignity would be ritual, it would dutiful and nightly. It would loving and soft. It would give him the very precious heirs his people counted on him to provide. It would make a mother of Diana, something she had so desperately wanted as he recalled. In time, he was sure to soften to the ordeal, his despair would only be monotonous, dull, unable to rip open any wounds due to the scar tissue of all his lives prior. This was marriage, he kept telling himself. This was marriage.

Even so, a peculiar thing did happen: Claude had a group of his knights search for you for as long as fiscally reasonable. For two years, he had his knights span out following possible traces of your existence. It was not his own will, his own words that left his mouth but it was so different from everything this thing that puppeteered him had done before. It had showed you sparse concern even when it was in regards to his heir, the thing that should have come before anything. But now, he found that he demanded his knights search for your whereabouts with ease long after your family gave up the pretense. He did so not out of a fervent desire for revenge, the fury of one who had been robbed of something, it was done out of a sort of grief. A sort of desperation to hold to a woman who disappeared into thin air, to reach through the distance and claim the answers you denied.

Claude’s marriage to Diana in the meantime, was not as he imagined the fates would have it be. Of course there was love and affection, of course there was even a constructed desire within him and of course he suffered it inwardly. But there was something that haunted both of them too, a ghost slipped between them always. A ghost who functioned like a scary story for children, whose name being spoken accidentally was just enough to breathe life back into her, just enough to allow her to haunt them. At first, Diana told him that perhaps you had someone you ran away to be with and even his body in the cold hands of his greater self, rejected the notion. He wondered what could ever have given her such an idea, that a woman so meek and truly devoted would have been having an affair. Even that time you left with your knight he didn’t truly believe there was anything between you, it was a desperate measure to escape just like this time. He almost seemed to recoil from her when she spoke of it, it was nothing more than a subtle shift in the air, in his expression but for the first time, Diana seemed to have noticed it even if she did not acknowledge it with words. The message was clear from his expression, the change in tone and the sudden tepidness between them; your escape was to be a sore subject.

It changed the dynamic between them a bit but being married had also done that well enough. Diana was a marchioness who had a certain countenance to keep up, work to do and places to go. She was no longer the vulnerable, tender, helplessly ill girl who begged him to be her reason for continuing on. She now had purpose of her own. None of this displeased his greater self too severely but it did change things between them. No longer were they truly knight and princess. They lived in the real world now as Marquis and Marchioness. It was not like it was with you but it was…changed. A sense of duty settled within her, he got the feeling. She walked with her head higher, her emotions that were once vibrant and expressive on her face were dimmed to a polite mask of a half smile. It was bizarre to see her so grown up.

The ritual degrading practice of lovingly bedding the wife who shouldn’t have been his, seemed to have an odd effect on him this time around. Where before he was able to separate himself, he felt this time he fell deeper into the reality of his situation the longer he was married to Diana. Each time he lay back onto the bed, skin tacky with both their sweat, he was able to physically feel the horror that came with the long line of years that would stretch out between them. Each time he returned to reality enough to feel the result of having just been inside her, he was hit with dread as if time could never dull it. Where before he could only consider the implications of the freshly committed betrayal of you and of his own mind, now he could see a greater picture being painted. This was to be his life from then on, laying back onto his side of the bed with a relieved sigh and cuddling her close speaking of children to be born. While inside, he ceaselessly clawed at the walls, a mad prisoner no longer considering freedom an option, desiring death.

And in those moments, he also thought of you. He thought of where you’d gone. A long time had passed and a long time would pass before you’d see him again. He wondered whether you were living happily somewhere, could it be? Could it really not be that you were somewhere happily living even if just until the blade swinging deftly above your head finally fell? He was the most desperate of men and he imagined it as if a fairytale, a lullaby to take him into a fitful sleep before he would wake and live a life circling around the very tarnishment of both your souls.

At some point he had slipped somewhere. His manner with Diana, although loving to be sure, was whetted to a slight sharpness. It was a strange nuance that he had only realized after years of marriage passed by with him gone inward to your memory. A chill had come to the marquisate that no fire would warm. It started in a small way, in your name slipping out every so often when he spoke of Diana whilst she was not in his presence. It was forgivable, no one spoke ill. But…it progressed to thoughts of you that were shared with his greater mind. A peculiar thing that shook him free of the derealization that came with this sort of monotony in misery. He realized that his thoughts came in one stream, instead of parallel and distinctive. He realized that above his own heart aching, the one that beat for Diana stung for…for something he had once and now could have no more.

Diana seemed to know. Your ghost was no longer benign, you were an active member of the household. Everyday, at some point as he and Diana spoke, he got the sense that she wanted to broach a topic but couldn’t, out of some fear that even speaking of it would harden it to truth. Some insecurity she desperately wanted him to soothe was instead locked away, tamed in fear that it could only be confirmed. It was as if mentioning you at all was a taboo. Claude parsed the difference between this Diana and the ones who came before when he was about the enter the library but heard voices.

“Madame, is it really okay to leave things like this?,” sounded the voice of one of Diana’s servants. The woman had a habit of forming such inappropriate bonds, the two became friends when Diana entered the marquisate as its new mistress. She would have known such a friendship would be unseemly but even so, it was hard for a woman such as Diana to live as a marchioness, beneath a mask as all noblewomen did, without someone she needn’t bother using it with. Claude had not been able to deny her that much.

Claude had paused in the hall when he heard the voice of Diana. He knew why he’d done so, for once, his minds were in tentative agreement. He had come there to think, to be alone with your memory. That day was the anniversary of your disappearance and he wanted to ask the definitive question again and again, until he could put it to rest for the next time. Diana could not be there for his mourning, he did not want her there, more than that. His still heart did love Diana very much, such had not changed, but this time, you were not so easily forgotten. A stain on his heart that should not be there…he knew his wife would see it in his demeanor, his brooding expression and no matter how many times she’d tried to ignore the poignance of the date, it always revealed itself to be stark and imposing.

Diana replied to the servant in a rather genuine tone, “He is a wonderful husband. He has done nothing worthy of reproach.”

Something kept him listening, he could not parse what because his greater self was too busy considering the words that had been, were being and would be spoken between the two women.

“It is…unseemly, for a married man to cling so much to a memory.” The maid sounded as if she wanted to use a word more derogatory than just “unseemly,”

“It cannot be helped,” Diana sighed. “She was his fiancee for much of his life, of course he is still devastated, compared to how long they’ve known each other, the wound is still fresh.”

“Even so, he has you, Madame. Why does he sulk and think of a woman who left him, ran out on him days before their wedding when he has a woman who has loved him faithfully?”

“Don’t ever speak that way, Maude. She is my sister, she is not some random noble you can insult carelessly,” Diana said, with as much sharpness as her voice could carry. “In any case…it is not so simple.”

“Forgive me for speaking out of turn but I fail to understand why it is not simple.”

“It cannot be simple. He is grieving. He and I wed so soon after, before he was able to gather his bearings, even. He may love me more than he ever loved my sister but it is still a loss of something I cannot replace. Who I am as his wife is entwined with that grief as a matter of course, it is simply the star our marriage fell under.”

“Have you ever considered confronting the lord, Madame? Forgive me again for saying so, but I just…after what you found, I don’t believe this is as it seems.”

He could hear the weak smile in Diana’s voice, the suddenly infused lightheartedness. “Oh, I could never do that. Then he’d known I was poking my nose where I shouldn’t have been and even so, I still don’t completely understand what it could mean. Whether a confession or something else, I don’t understand what his intentions were. I…I’m comfortable with never understanding if it means I never have the chance of finding a more unsettling thought beneath.”

“Madame…,” The maid’s voice sounded helpless and full of pity which struck an odd chord within him. A hatefulness unearned, small and weak to be sure but definitely present. At the same time, his heart sunk. He knew all at once exactly what she’d found, what gave her this wariness aside from his small actions. A fractured piece of reality appeared again as if it had never been missing, with the seamlessness of a dream. The letter…it seemed worlds away, it genuinely shocked him to hear what he thought was a reference to it. It hit him as if he’d heard her casually mention she’d been killed a few times over. And there was that pinprick of anger toward her for even knowing about such a thing, from both parts of him for different reasons. For telling her maid and garnering pity that should by rights go to the lost sister whose family had not even looked for her for longer than a month. In his greater self’s mind, for tainting the relief he was capable of feeling when he looked to her even more than it already had been with this. He could not even remember what he’d said but he knew it was something she should not know, it felt so viscerally wrong for her to have read words meant for your eyes. And undoubtedly, though he knew not what words he wrote, he cursed his love her in some manner.

But he took a deep breath and walked away before she could find him eavesdropping and bring it up to him. Something had….changed, he felt. Irreparably so. There was a certain synchrony between his two selves in a way there had never been before and something between he and Diana had shifted because of it. More noticeably this time, there was distance.

Diana found that she was pregnant with their first child soon after and there was as much apprehension in him as there was joy. Reality glitched all the time for him during the pregnancy, memories of you, of her, of previous lives intruded on his senses. Something about her being with child frightened him. His vision was often intercut with visions of the past, of your body, slowly seeping blood and still warm while the wails of your daughter fell on deaf ears. He heard Diana’s anguished crying, giving birth to a son who wasn’t certain to live. This foreboding and regret did not extend to his greater self who found other reasons to feel a note of fear at the thought of having a child with Diana. There was a desperation in that part of him, to make things right again, to make them what they’d been before when they were only illicit, courtly lovers. And even still, he knew it would not be. He could pray as much as he liked, he knew that for however loved and wanting this child would be, he would still be reminded of a future he’d lost with you.

Why was he still so concerned about you when you were not the woman he loved? He could not shut the door on your memory not matter how much he wanted to. Was it as Diana said? Was it because he’d known you so longer? He couldn’t think so. It was not like him to be sentimental because of time. Perhaps, he thought, it could be because of how you behaved in the year before you ran away. You treated Diana with a special kindness, you turned a blind eye to the obvious love between them and you ran away just short of your own wedding knowing that she’d…she’d had to marry him in your stead…You had done it on purpose. You had primed her to wed him, you knew what they had and you made it possible by abandoning your whole life. That revelation filled him with some unknown mixture of feelings that he could not stand. It was always to be a thorn in his heart, he would always remember who he owed this life to. And how could he be happy with that as he should be? How could he be happy not knowing why you allowed it to be and where you had gone now? How could you grant such an act of selflessness and disappear? You clearly didn’t want to be found. Why?

The more he thought of you, the more ennui he felt with his life with Diana. Their marriage was haunted by the shadow of your sacrifice. The day his child was born, a daughter, it was a night just like the one where your parents informed him you’d run away. Again his apprehension surpassed his joy when Diana went into labor, he’d paced anxiously outside in the hall listening to her sounds of pain while he looked out the window at the moon which hung in the sky like a being in its own right, watching him apathetically. He tried to get your memory out of his system before his daughter came into the world. He just…he just wished for that moment to be theirs alone. When their daughter was born, healthy and crying loudly from the terrible newness of the world, Diana held her to her chest, crying soft tears of her own at the newness of motherhood. Although his happiness was great, it was edged in something that could not be ignored, something which he felt tainted the moment in some way. He thought again on the night you disappeared and again asked himself where you could be, what you could be doing, did you have children of your own now? Somehow, he hoped you did. It would hurt him badly to know you had children with another man, love or no love between he and you, but he still wanted you to have that much. But that wasn’t the thought that truly cemented the fact that he and Diana would never have a moment that belonged to them again. It was actually the fact that when he first set eyes on his daughter, he looked for your face in hers.

He was glad Diana had been looking down at their daughter at that moment, perhaps if she’d looked up just then, she’d have caught a glimpse of that yearning in his eyes. He cried and thanked her for giving him a child, making him a father and it was genuine gratitude but the tears, the tears were for what was lost and what was left of you which endured. And inside, he dwelled in anguish because what remained of his true self was further broken, disillusioned by the fact that this child that he so pitifully wanted to avoid, had been born. She would live, her name written in his family registry, raised with careful hands and more love than most. She would live well and your child, he one who knew she’d lost you and had the only sensible reaction to it, her name was yet unknown.

As the years passed, Claude and Diana settled into life as parents. He realized that what Diana expected of him as a father simply didn’t come naturally, he was not an overtly affectionate person in general for anyone but Diana. This did not compute to her, and of course it didn’t, with her having your parents excessive favor and then with the underlying hair thin cracks in their marriage. She required his gestures to be grander, she required more assurance of his love. So, he got more comfortable with it for her sake, he made his affection more theatrical for her, though it felt more like wearing a different mask more than it felt like actually changing who he was. He didn’t exactly know how to be a father, his own wasn’t much of an example, he felt awkward and clumsy with it on his own but he knew how to emulate with the best of them. As was necessary for life as an aristocrat. This had the inadvertent effect of raising his daughter feeling less personal, less of a bond. It felt more like everything else in his life as a nobleman did, false and procedural. And there was the fact that both his selves were reminded of you when they looked at her, inevitably, even if only for a split second each time. One side reminded of what once was and one side reminded of what could have been.

Luckily, the child was much like her mother and did not comprehend the difference. She was young yet, and still he feared she would not go to him, that she’d cry and fuss in his arms, rejecting him instinctively. Sometimes, Claude felt worried that one day when she was older, she’d look to him for comfort, so he would put forth his best image but she’d see something in him that would tell her how false he was. But it never happened, the child slept easy in his arms and though Diana pouted a bit, she was amused her daughter was a daddy’s girl just as she was. Everything was alright, especially compared to some very frigid noble marriages he’d hear gossip about before. It seemed that the two of them had reached a mutual, unspoken agreement. They’d never talk about what they lacked, they’d take consolation in what they had managed to keep even if it wasn’t what it used to be.

They went on like that. The time passed quickly, reality seemed to melt, not with hard glitches but the lines blurred together. It got to the point where he felt that the date of your disappearance was not years past but minutes ago. He felt as though he were in the night trailing after you, shouting your name just as much as he felt like an ordinary father with the wife he coveted for so long. His body vibrated with a dull hum and at night when he laid beside Diana to sleep, lights flashed beneath his eyelids as if a candle were lit before him. He would come home and hold his daughter in his arms and still feel as though his breath would come out in a puff from the cold, feel as though something had only just been taken. Every so often the child he held felt foreign to him. He could not even recognize which side of him the feeling belonged to, he was not sure it mattered now. Perhaps this was the real end. Maybe you’d gotten away happily and it was his punishment this time to never feel what he should even when he had what he wanted. He could accept that much, he thought with more peace than he deserved in the delusion.

Of course it was when he accepted the idea of living without you that he came back. A messenger was sent, hesitant to relay the information that Felix and a few of his comrades had been tracking your whereabouts independently from the orders of your parents. You’d been found, barely alive, trapped in an establishment of very ill repute, worked as a slave.

This news was enough to devastate and selfishly relieve him. You were alive. You had been worked nearly to death. You were supposed to have lived well enough, perhaps a simple, rustic life as a merchant’s wife with children born of love always at your skirts. “Will she live?” His voice broke.

The messenger shook his head. “We don’t know, my lord. We only know that the count and countess are receiving her soon.”

Claude almost didn’t bother telling Diana, rushing to find a servant to have a horse prepared so that he could ride there and see you for himself. Until he was met with Diana who entered the room, seeing her family’s sigil on the sleeve of the messenger and he had to tell her. Yes, that was right…It was Diana who’d lost more than he had when you left. Of course it was necessary to tell her first. Somehow, it disappointed him to not be able to see you alone. To know that inevitably, Diana would want to see you and she’d bring along their daughter whom she couldn’t be without. All manner of frenzied feelings were passing through his greater self but prominently, there was a distinct, selfish desire to see you again. A thought that perhaps it would fix everything that has been wrong with him since you ran away. And concurrently ran the sharp anguish of his inner self which had awakened from its comfortable misery. Again in this life, you had suffered for his sake. He could not seem to stop stealing your life again and again and again. What had been done to you? What had you suffered while he raised a child that wasn’t yours? Deprived of your status and kept as a slave; oh, the image his mind had painted from what he knew of such things from his knighthood was a grotesque one. You, who had already been stripped of everything several times over, deprived even of the safety in your noble status. The only thing that made being born to such a family as yours, tied to such a fate as his more bearable, that you’d not be subject to all the cruelties of the world, only the ones he could inflict.

Diana’s eyes grew large and clouded over as he told her what news had arrived. He stiffened at this, hypocritically suspicious of her concern. He felt a pinprick of annoyance at her, remembering now, the time she’d suggested you’d have been the type to run away with a lover. He felt the briefest urge to shame her, he hoped for a second that she’d remember it too as he had and be ashamed. It faded quickly and it stung but he couldn’t be bothered to scold himself for it. The more important issue at hand was your life. Diana spluttered, “My sister has been found? Where is she now?” She, perhaps not the most dutiful sister, did show at least this much love for you. In her eyes, he could see the resolve to see you again despite a slight troubled look in them. She was ready to go wherever you had. Claude’s careworn, lovesick heart softened some and instead of answering her, he simply called out to a passing servant to ready the carriage, for they were going to the manor of his in-laws right away.

Diana woke up their daughter from her nap and the three of them made their way your parents’ manor where they awaited your return after so many years. Your parents tried to take pains to greet him formally, to reach for their grandchild but he waved them off rudely. “Where is she?”

Your mother flinched, pulling away, embarrassed to have been snubbed so brashly by him. “She’s being brought here by the knights, they’ve not yet arrived but they should return shortly.”

Diana’s brow furrowed at her mother’s disposition. Something about the situation had apparently unsettled her but she said nothing in regards to it. Claude had the urge to tell her, “Look closely at the woman you know to be your mother, does she look worried at all about your sister? Look at your father, too. Does he seem as you imagine we would if we located the dying body of our daughter after she’d been missing nearly a decade?” He wanted her to see them as they were even if it were too late for it to matter. He wanted her to see who favored her, what sort of people loved her, a wretched murderer, a philanderer, a careless woman. He wanted her to wonder what it said about her that she’d be loved by them.

You arrived shortly as your parents probably prayed so that they’d not have to deal with more questions and the suspicious look in their only true daughter’s eyes, the disillusionment. Felix brought you up your old bedroom, he’d gone up to have the servants ready it for your arrival, overseeing their work anxiously to make sure it was made comfortable enough for a woman of an unknown level of severe illness and injury. Diana had wanted to follow him up to help but he’d, gently as he was capable of in such a situation, had her wait downstairs under some thin guise in relation to their daughter. He’d not wanted to be around them then, as the time grew nearer to seeing you again.

When Felix brought you upstairs, he stood at attention from the corner where he sat anxiously looking about your room. You had large bruises up and down your body, you were filthy with blood caked under your nails and on the side of your head clinging to brittle hair, you were bandaged here and there in haste. He made a small sound of anguish and surprise, for it was one thing to be told you were near death, another thing to see it, smell it, feel it radiate off of your body. You were decaying even as you drew breath. Felix’s gaze lifted to Claude unabashedly hateful for a moment as he realized he was in the room but quickly flickered back down to you. Claude pulled back the covers on the bed for Felix to set you down and called for the doctor in a voice that betrayed a stifled sob.

The doctor did as he could for you under the somber watch of Claude but even so, you remained unconscious. He didn’t leave your side, praying for you to open your eyes at least, even if just briefly. Even if just to damn him. Even if you were doomed as the doctor seemed to believe. He’d said you were almost certain to die, that it was a matter of making you comfortable, an offense which had gotten him a verbal lashing from Claude even though he knew it was most likely the truth. Diana hesitated to bring their daughter up the room, knowing your body’s fragile condition and the very apparent air of death that surrounded had already frightened her, she came to see you later when she put their daughter down.

She loomed over your body, trying to find somewhere to touch you, to let you know she was here with you but everywhere was marred and she drew her hand back with a horrified look from seeing you up close, teary eyed. A strange marriage of anger, pity and love did come over him when he saw that. He wanted her to leave him be with you, he wanted to condemn her for even wanting to see you when the reason you were dying was because you made a sacrifice for your sake. But how could he? They were both guilty of the same sin, same measure. Their union was only made possible through their selfish brandishing of their love so how could he turn his back on her so belatedly? How could he deny her for this when he’d been the one to gain the most from their union? For shame or for pride, she was his wife. They were too closely entwined for him to become a hypocrite just now. Though, that hardly meant he wanted to see her healthy, well and with their child while the woman who was deprived of everything lay dying.

He sent Diana from the room, again under the guise of their daughter, “assuring” her that he’d stay at your side all night. Diana’s expression shifted slightly, revealing a hint of the girl she used to be, unpolished and genuine, unable to help showing all her emotions on her face. She looked…wounded but he must have looked very devastated because when he turned to face her fully, her expression slackened slightly and she did not argue. She only sighed and said, “I hope you won’t make yourself ill doing that. I’ll be in my old room, send for me straight away if you feel tired or unwell at all. I love you.” She said her ‘I love you’ like a plea, like she was near begging for his reassurance again. But Claude was simply not in the frame of mind to be declaring his love her even as it still ruled him. He simply nodded at her and looked back at you. Diana stayed still for a few seconds, he felt her eyes on him, felt that he’d hurt her in his denial. Then, she left the room swiftly.

A day later, his whole body hurt, he had not slept and his mind had gone numb. He could no longer consider very much of the future, he waded through the past. “I wonder…” he began in a tone loud enough to hear through the door. “Are you still out there?”

Felix entered the room. He’d been guarding your door since you returned home. He had not left or giving up the task to another knight for long enough to sleep. He had stood there obstinately without saying a word as if he’d never stopped being your knight. “You called for me, My Lord?” His voice was flat and very hardly concealing a certain amount of disdain.

“You searched for my- for the lady independently, if I understand correctly.”

“Indeed,” Felix answered simply.

“Diana and I owe you our gratitude for doing so, for not giving up on her so easily.”

“Oh, I could not abide you being in debt to me, Lord Claude. All that I did, I did for the lady’s sake alone.” A clear message in that, Claude’s lips almost curled into a bitter smile.

“Very good. You may rest now, the lady is in no further danger.”

“I’m afraid I would hardly be a knight if I were only devoted to looking after her when I felt there were further dangers imminent, My Lord.”

“What is it that you’re concerned about? I am at her side, a knight in my own right. I will not leave her.”

Felix only smiled, a hateful, spiteful smile. “Nor will I, My Lord. I hope you understand.”

Oh, Claude understood. Both the voices inside did, in their own manner. An odd similarity had struck between them, as close as they ever had been to being as one. “Very well,” He sighed, unduly frustrated. “You may return.” He did not even know why he’d desired for Felix to leave so much. Was it that he wanted, even if only once, to be the man who put himself aside for you? Was it that Felix’s very existence condemned his own, with his above dutiful knightly devotion to you contrasting the easy manner in which Claude had been willing to trade you for Diana? He felt guilt when he heard that it was Felix who’d found you, who’d never stopped looking and then an ounce of envy. He knew it was arrogant but if there was nothing else he could do to make up for what had been done, he wanted to be the one who rescued you.

It was a bitter pill to swallow, realizing there was no grand redemption for what had been done just as there was nothing that could ever fill the hole of your absence. He had left you to die as he wed the love of his life and made a very beloved child with her. He had taken your sacrifice into his hands easily and enjoyed a peaceful life because of it without even being able to imagine that you’d never get the same. His obliviousness to how you must have been seeing he and Diana, pushed you into thinking you needed to sacrifice for their sakes or else simply needed to escape a marriage to a man who loved your little sister. You were responsible for all that he had now. And what would he do if you never again opened your eyes? What would he do if you went to your grave thinking you meant so little to him that he’d not even done the smallest thing for you?

Fortunately, your condition had gotten slightly better by the next evening. You had brief bouts of consciousness after a long stretch of unresponsiveness. You had a fever and the doctor was doing all he could with his remedies to break it but it didn’t seem to be working. There was only so much that could be done with your body in such a condition. There was hardly anything that could be administered to you to rid you of any pain though the doctor mentioned there was a chance you weren’t feeling anything at all for you did not attempt to speak when you woke and slipped quite easily back out of consciousness. A prospect which was morbidly comforting. If you were to die, all the better for you to do so peacefully. But because the chance that you were indeed suffering from the high fever wreaking havoc on your body, he gently laid a cool cloth against your forehead.

Seconds later, your eyes opened, slowly blinking as your lips parted in an attempt to take air into your lungs more easily. He pulled his hand away as soon as he saw your eyes open, as if he’d been caught doing something unseemly. Your chest rose and fell rapidly as you returned to consciousness, your eyes bleary and hollow. You gazed at him as if seeing past him, as if seeing the figments of him that had failed you before. The cowardly part of him that lay hidden behind worthless flesh wanted simply to tell you that…well, he didn’t actually know what he should say if he were given the chance. At one time, he imagined he’d tell you he loved you but what use was his love to you anymore? In every life he had loved and in every life someone bled for it. What comfort could it possibly bring? As much comfort as a curse which grows into you with time. The constance of misfortune and the certainty that it would become both of you, that was his love.

It hardly mattered what he wanted to say anyway. His was not the voice that left his lips, it was mimicry from a force that had grown oddly similar to him in this life. “I remember the day they told me you’d run away…all this time, I have thought of that day.” He did not flinch at the words that came from his lips, for once; the fever had probably made you too delirious to understand him.

“Every moment I had to myself, I asked why you left. Diana told me you probably had somebody. But somehow I didn’t believe that, to my perspective, you really weren’t like that. So why? Why did you leave and why did I look for you even after…” He paused, finding himself so overly emotional talking to a woman that couldn’t even hear him, who was probably in a waking dream more than in her old bedroom with her old fiancé. He must be a stranger to her now. So why was he pouring out the things he would not even confess to his wife as if you were responsible? As if you could answer to the melancholy he already knew very well the source of. His two selves still had the obvious rift between them even as his greater self morphed more into a pale approximation of what his true self used to be. They were two jagged shards of a vase knocked from your dining table. This unearthly force that had taken him over, which had control over him still, was a creature yet unknown to him. He would do well to remember that much.

“Even now I am denied the reason why.” Even so, he had spent too many lives with the greater voice inside that ran thousands of thoughts through his very being not to feel as though he understood something about it when it spoke through him then. “When I should have rejoiced, when I should have been glad, always, always, it was you, like an ghost in my periphery.”

“Now you’re back and it feels like the end,” He spoke the words prophetically, it was the end. You were dipping back into unconsciousness again. “This isn’t the way I’m supposed to feel,” He said, tucking your blanket up to your chin, sending you off for what he felt would be the final time. He felt it, he knew it. His chest welled up with that feeling again, the dread he felt the day you’d run away. This time, he wondered what would happen if he stayed here in the version of reality he’d grown accustomed to. Would it free you if he stayed in the version of the world which had what the greater self sought to carry out? If he gave in to a will greater than his own?

At some point during the night, your fever broke and when it did, he found himself freed. His body delivered back to him at a very strange point this time. Never had there been a moment where you’d been alive that he’d also been able to speak freely. It felt like an anomaly, a shared fever dream or the view of earth from his first life the day before he met Diana. In any case, he didn’t feel very much about his own autonomy being returned to him, time enough to consider it later and the rest of his life to mourn. That morning, all he wanted to do was stay at your side, as himself through and through. He knew you were not on the same earthly plane as he was anymore even if you were not yet dead. You would not hear what he’d say, nor see what he’d do or feel his presence. Even so, he took your hand in his and he spoke.

“I have loved you for each and every one of our lives. I am sorry,” He drew in a breath. “Don’t forgive me. I will always be sorry. I am sorry for whatever this is, this part of myself so sharply cleaved out of me every time that I cannot stop killing you. I know it means nothing but I have never spoken it and I must. If this is not the real end, in our next life, kill me yourself. It must end. It must end with my blood, how long can we– how long can we suffer this way? There must be something, there must be something…” His speech, intended to be cathartic in some way, broke off and descended into inarticulate blubbering, his tears dripping onto your hand. He could speak no more then. Could stand the sound of his voice begging the empty air no longer.

He stayed at your side until the very end. Until he could no longer feel your pulse, the beats of your heart slow and faint. He could swear he felt the moment of your death as deeply as he felt the reach of this primordial thing that seemed to take more of him than he could have imagined there was with each life.

tags: @kage-tobiuo@kreishin @rosephantomhive@yeahdrarry@splaterparty0-0 @dear-dairiesss @qluvrv @hafsuhhh @eissaaaa @ayolk @doan-19 @fourcefulcupid@ariachaos@cerisearan@irisspade@yaesflorist@jcrml@xiaosprettygf@yevenly@amaris08atoshi012022 @obsessed-with-a-fictional-man @softbummiee@cassanderasblog @waka-babe @bananatwirl@s1mp69 @mitsuyamistress @hottiewifeyyyy @reiko69 @syyyy4ever @pinkpastel-l @dododododooosworld @gwyneveire @mvoonxlightv @noisyenthusiastface @gwyneveire

#claude x reader #wmmap x reader #claude de alger x reader #claude de alger obelia x reader

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