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utterlyotterlyx · 30 days

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The Fox and The Fawn

High Lord Eris x Rhys!Sister!Reader x Azriel

Part Three

Summary - After Azriel and Nesta return from their mission you find them being as watchful as ever, and it turns out that celebrations weren’t always destined to be joyous.

Warnings - angst, fluff, flirting, slight suggestive tones

Part One Part Two

Sunlight curled around your forearm, tugging you and willing you to step outside and bask in her glory.

Ignoring her, you again focused on the matter that held your attention.

“Say it with me, Nyx,” your hands were delicately placed under his arms, holding him in place on your lap. Nyx looked at you with wide eyes and blushed chubby cheeks, dark hair weeping from sleep, his little wings flapping behind him and small digits reaching to furl into your hair, “Auntie y/n is the most powerful.”

Nyx babbled incoherently and you shrugged, cuddling him into your chest and inhaling that smell that made your heart clench with want. It was so fresh, a perfect amalgamation of Rhys and Feyre but also something utterly pure and unique to him, “Close enough, I suppose.”

A certain type of ferocity had consumed you the moment Nyx had been born, there was no one that could guard him better than you. Perhaps that was why Rhys rarely cared when you would pick up the child and whisk him away in on one of your adventures, that being you’d walk him around the city and take him for ice cream all whilst trying (and failing) to ensure that the first thing to fall from his lips would be your name.

Sunlight speckled through the stained glass panes of the library, it was sometime around noon, and you had swooped Nyx from his cot that morning before Feyre or Rhys could realise it. No one would dare to meddle with your time with your nephew.

Three days had passed since Azriel had left you with nothing but a whisper of a kiss on your brow, it had been three days of silence, three days of Rhys acting as your shadow and you letting him believe that you didn't notice his intense gaze settled upon you whenever you entered the room. The Circle had been suspicious, whispering in corners and sparing you the odd sidelong glance before resuming their hushed bickering, even Feyre, who you believed wouldn't be one of those people, was also taking part.

It seemed as though Lucien was your only friend, he actively sought you out, he had noticed your reluctance and need to hide yourself away so distracted your mind by asking about Eris, about what you spoke of. Of course Lucien knew you wouldn't divulge any details, but seeing your eyes sparkle and a soft smile form on your lips was enough to make him believe that you at least had one good thing occupying your mind these days.

A sonnet of brisk air alerted you to another presence slipping through the library doors, Nyx perked up in your arms, and you knew instantly from that and the scent of night-kissed air that Rhys was stood somewhere behind you. Your nerves stood on end as he rounded where you both sat, casting his shadow over your forms, "You stole him again," Rhys' voice was cold and distant, but he cocked his head to the side and grinned at his son, placing his finger in Nyx's hand and shaking it gently.

"Is it so terrible of me to want to spend some time with my nephew?" Rhys hummed and reached for the child, you went to shield him from your brother but relented when Rhys' gaze set alight in warning and gave in, relaxing your grip and feeling that pained void when the wriggling child was snatched from you.

Rhys settled Nyx into his chest, resting his chin atop the crown of his head and looked down on you with his usual wariness, "We have been invited to the Day Court this evening. Helion has requested your presence."

Narrowing your eyes at him, you surveyed his face for any signs of deception, "What's the occasion?" Rhys turned his back to you, sweeping Nyx from your sight, muttering something about a birthday.

It was too odd. First Azriel and Nesta being sent away, the entire family being odd and secretive, then being beckoned to the Day Court? Something wasn't right, and you certainly did not want to spend your evening watching Helion beg Azriel and Cassian for some kind of soul-enlightening orgy.

Once Rhys had stepped out of the room, you threw up your shield and floated toward the desk, once again ignoring the sun beckoning you outside and finding an odd scrap of parchment to scribe upon, scratching your message out and letting it devour itself into ash and float away.

I need your opinion on something.

A minute passed and you spied an autumn-scented piece of cream tinged paper wedged beneath an old leather bound book.

Is that all you need from me?

Smirking, you replied with a matching amount of seductiveness. That was how your conversations had been going, light and always full of mischief, but Eris was always poised to listen to your words, he was always ready to help you if you even thought of asking him for it.

For now.

Tell me what's on your mind, Fawn.

Hesitating, your quill hovered over the paper as you debated whether or not to tell him what the past three days had been like without Azriel and Nesta. The hushed words and glares, your loneliness and desire to lock yourself away. Was it divulging Night Court secrets or just your own?

I feel out of place here. I feel like I'm being punished for helping you. Rhys sent Azriel and Nesta away, and the rest of them are avoiding me more than usual. Cassian hasn't invited me to training, Mor hasn't come to my rooms to gossip, even Rhys took Nyx from my arms only a few minutes ago. It's like I'm poison that they need to dispel from their lives and I just want to lock myself away and disappear.

Watching the clock, you counted down the seconds until another note found its way to you.

I know Rhys sent them away because I found them poking around my boarders the evening before last. And, you're not poison, Little Fawn, locking yourself away only means that they win, and you're far too important to let the infantile actions of your family diminish everything that you are. Don't forget that. No one controls you but you, y/n, the world is yours if you would only ask for it.

Would you give me the world if I asked for it?

I would burn the world to ash if you asked me to. There is nothing that I would not give you.

Heart fluttering in your chest, you slumped back into the comfort of the antique armchair that you had told Cassian off more times than not for using it as a stool for his feet.

Will you be there tonight? At the Day Court?

I will.

Will you find me?

Always.

The shield around you pulsated with force and you furrowed your brow at the shimmering ripples that swam across its surface. Dull thumps echoed within your bubble, and a muffled voice called out to you. Glancing down at the note in your fingers, you turned it into black mist that curled around your fingers and danced upward to the sky and lowered the guard.

You could have cried with relief. Azriel stood before you, still clad in his second skin, blue siphons glowing like he had entered just entered Velaris and had immediately sought you out before reporting to Rhys. Azriel knew what was more important.

"You're back," you breathed as you walked into his awaiting arms, arms that wrapped around your waist and fingers that raked through your hair with a hint of desperation.

Your heart seized in your chest, needing to feel at home and at peace. But it didn't. A lump formed in your throat and a pit opened in your stomach and pooled with unease.

Azriel pulled away from you, his hazel eyes scoured your face but they held something awoken in them, like he saw you differently. His fingers floated over the surface of your skin, up the inky bargain that encased your upper arm which matched his own and across your collarbone, but he didn't touch you there as though as if he were worried that you would mar his hands further.

You took a step back, "What's wrong?"

He'd found something on his travels, something that was making him look at you differently, in a way he had never looked at you, with fear, with sadness.

Azriel's brows etched together, his eyes flowing up and down your form, noticing something off about you. Your scent. The scent of Autumn, of Eris, lingered on your fingertips, the same fingers that were wrapped around his neck moments ago. You hid your hands behind your back.

"Nothing. I just wanted to see you," even his voice was laced with his deception, his shoulders went rigid like a putrid smell had entered his nose, and he visibly shivered, "I should go and talk to Rhys. I'll find you later?"

Feigning innocence, you called, "Was the mission alright, at least? Where did you end up going?"

Azriel turned back to you, lingering in the doorway before your portrait, "It was fine," he forced a tight lipped smile, it was almost as if he had forgotten how observant you were, and how well you knew him. Still, you kept your eyes full of that doe eyed wonder that threw him off and lured him right into your talons. If he was going to lie to you, then there was no harm in aiding your own agenda, "Rhys sent us to keep an eye on some happenings in Spring. Tamlin has been expanding his armies."

A lie. A blatant attempt of deception. One that didn't stick.

Anger bubbled within you, Azriel had never lied to you, your bond was supposed to be too special for those kind of games. Instead of allowing it to bubble over, you inhaled deeply and kept your hands folded behind your back, "Well, I'm glad you're home. I missed you."

The Shadowsinger relaxed his features and almost looked as though he wanted to move to you, to gather you up in his arms and protect you from whatever was clearly heading your way. But he didn't, instead, he spoke to you softly, "I missed you too, y/n," and disappeared from your view.

A feeling of impending pain, perhaps not physical, lodged itself deep within your soul, almost strong enough to steal the air from your lungs. Clasping you hand around the ledge of the large oak desk, you hunched over and attempted to fill your lungs with oxygen, tears prickled at the corners of your eyes and for the first time in your life, your own sanctuary was suffocating you.

Nesta had greeted you with the same apprehension as Azriel had, although, at least she had made it clear that she didn't want to.

Even the walls were watching you, craning their gaze to follow your figure through the house. The only safe space was your room, so that's where you were, nestled between the cushions and watching the candlelight flicker against the cream coated walls whilst Nesta paced about the space, showing you countless dresses on their hangers since you were making no move to look yourself.

Your friend was dressed in head-to-toe black, a form fitting garment with a long slit up the right side and a neckline so plunging that it left little to the imagination. Her coronet was tightly woven, and two thick strands curled around her jaw to frame her sharp features. Blood red lips, arched brows, eyes full of anticipation.

"You have to choose one, y/n."

Ignoring her command, you turned your head to her and she knew what you wanted to know before you even asked, "Are you going to lie to me too?"

Nesta froze, allowing the hanger to fall at her side along with the silver garment attached to it, "What do you want to know?"

"I want to know why Azriel lied to me about where you both went, and I want to know why all of you are suddenly treating me like a stranger," Nesta exhaled shakily, and it was the first time that you had truly seen her stoic demeanour perish before your eyes; she glanced about the room with worry, like she too could sense the house pressing its ear up against your door, "It's safe to speak. Not even the house can hear us."

The elder Archeron sister perched on the edge of your bed, noting your hunched over figure as you hugged your knees close to your chest, it was clear that your exclusion by everyone was making you feel lesser than. Nesta rested her hand atop the comforter, almost reaching for you, but also not at all; Nesta struggled to find the words, to tell you some form of truth without shattering you, "If it ever comes to it, you know I will protect you, don't you?"

"I used to believe that."

Nesta shuffled up the bed and spoke in a hushed tone, "Rhys has been trying to understand you, where all of your power came from and why he only has a fraction of it. He asked us to go Under The Mountain, to see if Amarantha did something else to you other than take your wings. Males would stop at nothing to harness the power that you have."

Under The Mountain was a hazy memory, one that you'd rather not remember at all. You rolled your shoulders, feeling the marred flesh rippling at the action, "Is that what Rhys wants to do? To harness my power? Is that why I've been so hidden?"

Nesta didn't want to answer, but she couldn't keep it from you, unlike Azriel, Nesta remembered your observance, how nothing got past those fire ringed violet orbs, "I don't know what he wants to do with what he finds," she told you honestly, her stoic hatred for him returning to her features, "I didn't go to aid him, y/n. I went so that I could find whatever he wants to know and give it to you. Protect you."

At least one of them was on your side, and you supposed it would have always been Nesta, Azriel was too loyal to the Night Court, and despite your bargain, he would always protect Velaris first and worry about you later.

"Did you find anything?"

Nesta sighed, "Azriel didn't," but she certainly had, "Not now. Now, you wear the most incredible thing you can find and we go to the Day Court and wear the masks that we have to in order to survive another day."

The dress in her fingers, still on its cushioned pearlescent hanger, was a shade of blue-grey that you rarely wore. The bodice was like armour, perfectly fitted and boned, crystals were embedded into the curve of the breastplate and trickled down the deep seated opening that only met just above the bellybutton, exposing the taut muscle and cleavage beneath. From the point where the fabric met at the lower abdomen, the skirt curved upward over the hips and each ridge of fabric acted as a branch, curving upward and cascading down the back, pooling on the floor. The skirt was frosted, diamonds coated the branches of the skirt and curled around the hem which trailed along the floor, and a long central slit sliced upward, enough to expose the legs you knew most males would crumble for, but also little enough to keep your dignity in tact.

It was a spectacular thing that your mother had made. Perhaps the most.

Nesta helped you into the piece, slithering it up your form and humming in appreciation about how well it fit you. The sleeveless garment was certainly made for you, and she secured a diamond necklace around your neck and rested her hands on your shoulders.

Loose curls bounced with every step, Nesta had braided two thick sections and pinned them upward, pulling the skin of your face backward, and had even gone as far as to bless your face in neutral shimmering cosmetics.

The room fell silent when you stepped into the living area, Cassian's once bellowing laughter turned to molten nothingness, Mor's quips dissipated, Rhys' loving words to Feyre who was entangled in his arms were ash in his mouth, even Azriel couldn't speak as his own eyes poured over you.

Paying little mind to the stares of your family, you turned your attention to Lucien who was stood in the corner leaning against a wooden beam with his arms folded over his chest, smirking, "Shall we? I'd hate to waste an outfit like this on people who couldn't even begin to appreciate it the way it deserves to be."

Lucien bit back his laugh and took your arm after a gentle nod from Elain who knew, and despised, how you were being treated. Under his breath Lucien muttered, "You're playing with fire, y/n."

Leading him from the house and onto the lawn, you turned your gaze upward to him, appreciating his beauty and the tied back hair that Elain had no doubt tailored to him, "Perhaps. But I won't be the one who gets burned."

The Day Court Palace had always had the ability to take your breath away, the home alone was enough to convince you that relocating would be a good idea. Maybe it was the white marble pillars so brilliantly white and tall that they kissed the sky, or maybe it was the cloudless skies that washed you in orange bliss the moment you appeared at the foot of the steps.

Even the breeze was welcoming, dancing around your arms and shoulders before moving onward. A weight had shifted within you, and you realised that it was because the Day Court had no reason to watch you like Velaris did, that for the first time in months you were actually free of eyes constantly watching you.

You didn't look back to see if everyone had landed alright when you began to ascend the steps, completely breaking protocol and sauntering upward to where you could hear music and laughter bubbling. Two familiar presences fell in step with you, Nesta and Lucien, the former to your left and the latter to your right, and you all ignored the claws scraping down the walls of your minds commanding you to return to your positions.

Music swirled around you as you paced down the hallway, being mindful of the multiple pairs of feet scuffling behind you until a hand wrapped around your wrist and tugged you back with force. Rhys loomed over you, eyes ablaze and snarl conformed to his lips, nostrils flaring with each breath, "What do you think you're doing?"

Nesta fell to your side, ready to take down the High Lord by any means necessary, Cassian was glaring at her and moved closer to Rhys, "I think that you're the one who should be answering that question, brother."

The air around you both grew heavy, it pulsated with dark energy that emitted from you both, but yours drowned his own and pierced him with its talons, making him feel weak and weary, "Remove your hand before I make you," and he did, his hand dropped from your wrist, "What a good little High Lord you are, Rhys. Father would be so proud of you."

Unspoken words flew between you, ones that told him that you knew what he was doing, that he was seeking to control you and always had, just as your father did.

Azriel had, unsurprisingly, moved to Rhys' other side, his gaze low and body ready to cut you down, he was blocking Feyre from view but she peeked over his shoulder just as Mor did with Cassian.

Power pulsated around you like a heartbeat, black began to move from your fingertips and tinge your veins with their ink from your fury, and Rhys' faltered at the sight of it, his eyes blew wide open and he found your darkened eyes zoning in on him, the violet had turned almost black and that ring of fire was blazing, "You need to calm down, y/n."

"Don't you dare," Nesta growled, placing her hands on your shoulders and turning you away, whispering to you and soothing you whilst Lucien stood up to Rhys.

Lucien's gaze was cold, his mechanical eye whirred as he took in the scene before him, of the High Lord flanked by his soldiers, needing to protect him from his own flesh and blood, "Tell me, Rhys," he found Rhys' gaze again, that constantly disapproving thing that followed you everywhere, "Tell me how what you're doing to her, to your own sister, is any different than what Tamlin did to Feyre."

Silence.

Bone dry silence consumed them, and when Lucien turned to see where you and Nesta had gone to, he only saw the train of your dress slip around the corner of the door toward the sound of freedom.

The room had turned to you as soon as you had entered with Nesta by your side, and not in a wary on edge way, in one of awe and adoration. Eris lingered by the dais, dressed in dark grey pants and white shirt, grey waistcoat and matching jacket which adorned silver swirls.

All anger evaporated from you as soon as his russet eyes found you, they washed over you with concern, no doubt seeing the blackened fingertips and sadness in your own orbs that had returned to their usual hue. He looked beautiful, more so than you remembered, more beautiful than the version of him that settled within your dreams.

You moved to the dais and greeted Helion, you had gone to bow to him, as custom when visiting other courts, but he didn't let you, "You bow for no one, especially when you look like that," he had always taken every opportunity to flirt with you, and he always held a certain resentment for Rhys for refusing your hand to him.

"Thank you for inviting us, I hope you've had a wonderful birthday," you folded his hands in your own and felt his healing touch worm its way into every negative pocket in your body, feeling lighter, more grounded.

The doors opened again, and you turned to see Rhys stalk up the centre of the hall closely followed by the rest of his Inner Circle. As if sensing your discomfort, Eris took a step up and offered a hand to you, and you gladly took it, stepping down from the foot of the dais to allow Rhys to have his moment with his friend, and not once did Cassian or Azriel's eyes move from you.

Lucien reached his brother and whispered into his ear, "I need to talk to you. Now," Eris frowned and peered to you, noting your fluttering eyelids and the unease that radiated from you and nodded, moving to follow Lucien who sent you a reassuring smile before they exited the hall.

If it weren't for Nesta stood beside you, you surely would have crumbled. She stared down her own mate and friends, head dipped low and staring at them through her brows, anger seethed from her and you knew she was going over the consequences of ending Rhys' existence right there and then in her mind. Nesta was Lady Death and you were the Queen of Darkness.

For the next hour you stuck to the walls of the hall, muttering polite hellos as you did your best to keep a safe distance between you and Rhys.

The architecture was stunning, white marble walls and golden chandeliers, pale wood round tables stacked with sparkling wine flutes and food, long benches full of revellers enjoying the festivities. Artwork delicately hung from the walls, glittering in the crystal tinted glow of the chandeliers, sparkling in the light as the skies grew dark beyond the open arches.

Helion's bellowing laughter floated about the room, and you wondered how a life in Day could have turned out for you. Though, you didn't have long to think of it before a hand curled around your forearm and gently pulled you from the room. Eris was in front of you, gingerly holding your arm in his hand as he led you down a flurry of corridors, peering down each one quickly to ensure it was safe to go there.

The High Lord led you all the way out to a private balcony, where you could hear the waves crashing against the rocks and the breeze flutter around the corner. The torchlight danced in the wind, flickering softly as he turned to you. Breathing in, you felt peace, that autumn pine and orange, wilting leaves and warm autumn rain.

Sighing, you felt tears pool in your vision, turning it slightly blurry as you tried to drink him in, "Lucien told me what happened. Are you alright?"

That singular question broke a little piece of you, you couldn't remember the last time some asked if you were alright and were actually invested in the answer. The concern in his eyes and brows made a soft tug pull at your soul, "I'm suffocating."

Eris waited for you to continue, keeping a distance he thought you'd be comfortable with between you, though all you wanted was to know what his arms around you would feel like, what it would feel like to have his lips pressed to the bare skin of your shoulder.

"They've been lying to me, all of them. Nesta confirmed it. Rhys doesn't understand why he only has a fraction of my power, he sent them Under The Mountain to see if Amarantha did other things to me when she held me hostage in the beginning. I feel like a prisoner in my own home, they're all scared of me, even Azriel," your voice broke, never in a million years, in your existence, did you ever think you'd voice that Azriel was scared of you.

"None of them want to touch me or speak to me. I can't do it anymore. I thought Rhys just wanted to protect me, but now I know it was never about that, it was about keeping me hidden and away from everyone else, he made me a prisoner and I didn't even know it."

Wrapping your arms around yourself, your tears flowed freely down your cheeks and you made no move to wipe them away. Eris took a step closer to you, his shadow waltzing with your own, "Can I touch you?"

It took you a moment, a moment of his russet eyes on you and fingers fidgeting at his side until you nodded softly and he raised his hand. His fingertips lightly dusted up your arms and neck, they curled your hair around them and grazed along your jaw, and you felt electric under his touch that spready across every single part of you. His breath was warm over your face and you took a moment to appreciate him, his godly-crafted cheekbones and jaw, eyes that told a million stories, the golden freckled skin and his curved lips.

"I'm not afraid of you, Little Fawn. Nothing about you scares me," his finger curled under your chin and angled your head upward, "All you need to do is say the words. You are the author of your own story. Tell me what you want."

Rhys had let you believe that you had free will, he had allowed you to be outspoken and poised, he had let you believe that you were nothing more than a scare tactic, and you were too enthralled with your so-called family to realise what he had done. There was nothing free about your life, you weren't allowed to leave Velaris without supervision and even such occasions were rare, you weren't called upon in battle until there was no other choice, you were a pawn to him, one that he had masterfully toyed with.

"I want to go to the Autumn Court. With you. I want to denounce my place in the Night Court and leave Velaris," the words felt like poison in your mouth but your soul was thankful for it, and the storm in your soul had already began to break with golden sunlight.

Eris nodded and took a step toward you, wrapping his arm around your waist and pulling you into his chest, your hands were flat against his waistcoat that had once again matched your own attire perfectly, "Your wish is my command, Little Fawn," and then you both disappeared in a swirl of light, leaving nothing but the joint bliss of your scents behind and dancing away in the night-kissed breeze.

Author's Note

I hope you love this! x

Taglist

@mybestfriendmademe @jesskidding3 @rosewood-cafe @fandomarchiveilyd @brujitafantomatico @crazylokonugget @mai-adaptive-dreams @magicstrengthandcourage @acourtofmoonlightandstars @ysmttty @lilah-asteria @circe143 @xyzmeh @paleidiot @namelesssav @amberlynn98 @acourtofbatboydreams

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sweatervest-obsessed · 5 months

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Violent Delights Have Violent Ends

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Fem!reader

WC: 1.8k

TW: Serial killers, murders, blood, referencing to infidelity,

A/N: This has been something I have been thinking about for a while. I hope y'all enjoy it!

Spencer did not realize that someone could know more about anything intellectual than he did. It honestly baffled him, when Hotch called him into the office, to introduce the two of you.

“Spencer this is Doctor Y/N Y/L/N, Doctor Y/L/N, this is Doctor Spencer Reid.”

He gave you a small smile, and a slightly awkward wave. You were beautiful, there was no doubt about it, an absolute plus to the fact that you were intelligent. He was captivated by your eyes but quickly coughed and looked back at Hotch.

“Doctor Y/L/N—”

“Please Agent, call me by my first name after the initial introductions, Doctor makes me feel a tad bit ridiculous after like the second time.” You couldn’t have been more than twenty four, Reid deduced.

Hotch smiled at you, nodding. “Please, call me Aaron, or Hotch, I feel the same way about agent. Reid,” He turned towards Reid. “Y/N, is going to be a consultant on this next case, and you two will be working closely together.”

Reid was suddenly excited by the prospect of working with a consultant. He usually dreaded them, but something about you made him excited to actually be able to converse intellectually with someone on the team.

But luckily for Morgan, you were not what anyone was expecting. You all had boarded the jet, sitting around and chatting since you had a long flight from DC to Oregon, not really willing to get into the details of the case just yet.

“So, Doctor Y/L/N, what made you choose Shakespeare?”

You rolled your eyes. “Agent Morgan, if you keep using my official title, you’re going to be talking to the wall. Wanna try again?”

His jaw dropped slightly, enjoying the banter you were providing. Derek Morgan was far from ugly, far from it. But he simply wasn’t your type. But that did not mean you couldn’t flirt back.

“Well then, Miss Y/N, why Shakespeare.”

You smiled, “Shakespeare is just another language. And I already speak French, Arabic, Spanish, some Latin, a little Greek, and I’m learning enough Mandarin and Cantonese to get by on my next trip to China. So understanding Shakespeare from a linguistic point, I’ve already got covered. Especially since it was something I could read easily from a young age.”

JJ and Emily had stopped their conversation and turned to face you, eagerly listening in to what you have to say.

“But, from a theatrical point, his writing is so incredibly intricate. There are layers upon layers of text and context and subtext throughout all of his plays and sonnets, not to mention the fact that Shakespeare can be transformed, moved from one thing to another incredibly easily. You have to factor in that he was a misogynist, anti semitic, probably-most-definitely racist, among all of the other things, but adapting his works throughout time is something I have a special interest in, particularly his portrayal of woman and how that has been changed throughout productions over the years, mainly focusing in comedies and this strange need for him to have happy endings end in weddings.”

The jet was all staring at you, while a smirk slowly slid onto Derek’s face. “Looks like you got some competition here, Pretty Boy.”

You shrugged at Derek, and looked back at your phone. “I appreciate competition more than meaningless run-around conversations Derek. If you’re going to profile me, then just profile me. Or google me really. There’s no need to prod and pretend like you’re not trying to find out whether or not I’m single. If you wanted to ask me out, you should just ask me out.”

Jaws on the plane dropped. Derek tried to stutter out a response but was cut off by Emily, smirking over at him. “Besides consulting on murder cases, what do you actually do with a PhD in Shakespeare?”

You looked up at Emily and shrugged. “Whatever I really want to do. It’s just flexible enough that I can bullshit a job I want and take it, excluding present company. Usually I consult in England with the Globe Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company, I also guest lecture Shakespeare for younger audiences, like high schoolers and first years in college because I’m still young enough that I could be considered nerdy by a high schooler, but have college freshmen not be able to talk to me because I’m just good enough to get away with it.”

“What did you get your undergrad in?” Spencer spoke for the first time to you since you met him, you smiled a little bit.

“No one really asks me that.” You looked over at Spencer. “I have a bachelors in Directing with minors in English Literature, French, and Classics, and then I went on and got my Masters in Art History, since the visual aspect of the Arts is what interests me so much.”

Rossi nodded, “Makes sense considering I’ve seen your thesis–very impressive.”

“What did you write about?” JJ looked over at you.

“I–” You started but Rossi interrupted you. “Actually, if any of you had done any research, or were familiar with the Theatrical Arts, you would know that her thesis was an incredibly well-received production of Hamlet that delved into the female psyche and experience.”

Your jaw dropped slightly. “I-I didn’t think you, any of you would have even known that. Let alone had time to go and see my production?”

“Well, I have a fondness for the arts.”

You shook your head. “Or incredible timing.”

“Wha–timing?” JJ scoffed.

“Well,it’s— the program was in London, and it was only running for a few weeks…”

“Rossi when the hell did you go to London?” Derek finally spoke up, slightly captivated by you, but not in the way Reid was. You were something else, something completely new, which meant he could learn, and you were something he wanted to learn everything about.

“Well, right before I rejoined the BAU, I did a lecturing series over at Scotland Yard, and everyone had been discussing this production by the youngest female director to ever direct at the Bridge Theatre. I loved your use of, what were they, silks?”

You nodded, slightly embarrassed, mostly in awe.

“Ah yes, your usage of silks and the columns. I was on the floor, part of the cattle that was moved around. Very innovative use of that space, very impressive.”

“I’d have to agree.” Hotch spoke up, and you turned to look at him, eyes even wider than before. He smiled at the look on your face. “When we got this case, and we were requesting you as a consultant, I watched the recording. Very good work Y/n.”

“W-wow, um, thank you so much Age–Hotch. I really appreciate it–from the both of you.” You smiled at him and Rossi.

“I would love to hear all about this production, if you don’t mind me asking.” Emily slid across the aisle, taking the seat across from you, JJ doing the same, crowding Derek.

“Well, as Rossi said, it was about the female experience, and my Hamlet, was absolutely incredible, really took on the queer aspect of the role since Ophelia was still a woman, and–” You explained the concept, the design, the thought behind all of it. Every single person on the plane was simply obsessed with you by the time you were done, asking questions when they were curious. It confounded Spencer how he had never really paid attention to that section of the world of academia, and he was almost beating himself up over it, because he had missed you this whole time.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

“Eyes look your last, Arms take your—this is Romeo’s death monologue before he stabs himself. And this other one, is ‘Be buried quick with her, and so will I’, which is Hamlet trying to fight Laertes after he learns of Ophelia’s death…And..this is the one from this morning ” You turned to the sheriff who was just trying to make sense of the fact that you just were able to comprehend and relay Shakespearean information after reading the images of the victim's blood used on the walls, so calmly. “Sheriff?”

“Sorry, yes. Yes”

You frowned a bit, “They’re getting more violent. This is Brutus finding out Portia is dead–’with meditating that she must die once, I have the patience to endure it now…”

Reid looked over at you, “All of them are the men’s reactions to the death of their beloved.”

You nodded and sighed. “That means, uh…If he has a list,” You walked over to the white board and started writing the names of the fictional couples on it. “He still has Antony and Cleopatra…Macbeth and Lady Macbeth,,,,and….”

“And what?” The sheriff looked between you and Reid, as you turned a little white. “The um. The last couple dealing with murder/suicide of each other is, uh, Othello.”

Hotch gave you a look. “Explain.”

“What do you know about Othello?”

Hotch furrowed his brow.

You took his silence as permission to ramble. “It’s just a theory but, it’s regarded as not only one of the most tragic endings to lovers, even beyond the stupid miscommunications of Romeo and Juliet, because Othello kills his wife, believing she had cheated on him, suffocating her to death on their marriage bed, and then once he realizes he’s been tricked by Iago, he kills himself next to her body. It’s horrendous.”

“If I had to guess, He’s forcing the husbands to kill their wives, and then he kills them..” Spencer followed up, analyzing the pictures across the tables. “Based on the way they were positioned—he’s setting them up as a series of muder-suicides, just like Shakespeare.”

“Actually.” You picked up one of the pictures and handed it to Hotch. “I think it’s a woman.”

“You just stole Reid’s line.” Derek mused from the doorway, handing you a cup of coffee, which you gratefully accepted.

Reid huffed and rolled his eyes. “It’s not my line.”

“It is.” Hotch said dryly as he analyzed what you had just told him. “Y/n, can you please get me a list of the monologues left, so we can try and figure out who might be his next victims, so we can try and link the victims we do have.”

You nodded and sat down at your laptop. It was bugging you slightly at how much you enjoyed working on this case, working with the BAU, working with Doctor Reid.

This was the most action your PhD had seen since you had written it.

Part 2

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x y/n #x reader #spencer reid x fem!reader #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid x you #spencer reid angst #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid x reader fluff #spencer reid fluff #dr spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x self insert #Spencer reid x y/n angst #Dr Spencer reid x dr!reader

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dilatorywriting · 8 months

Note

Hello! May I request 94. With Rook?

I certainly wouldn't mind the smoot if you think it fits into what you write-

Gender Neutral Reader x Rook Hunt Word Count: 1.2k

Prompt 94: "Don’t act innocent, you had me pinned underneath you 5 minutes ago."

🌶️ Warning for Mild Spice

[EVENT MASTERLIST]

“Just a bit of chase!” he says.

“The thrill of the hunt can be so fun!” he says.

Except now you’re covered in sweat and doubled over panting like you’re going to go into cardiac arrest. Because Rook’s idea of ‘oh, just a little run around, je promets!’ involved nothing less than a full fucking sprint through the wooded areas of the campus—over hill, and under hill, and godyou were so out of shape.

You gasped into your knees, bent over in anticipation of just, I don’t know. Death? Vomit? All of the above?

“Ah, don’t tell me you’ve given up already, mon cher!” the aforementioned demon cooed from somewhere in the trees. In the trees! Like a literal, freaking hunter of old, and not your coddling boyfriend smiling all pretty when he says ‘just a bit.’ Absolute bullshit. You wanted a refund. “We’ve only just begun!”

“It’s been—” you gasped, swiping a furious hand over your dripping brow, “—an hour! You fucking masochist!”

“A true predator knows best that a subtle, steady approach is always the most satisfying, mon petit lapin,” he hummed, voice echoing discordantly over your head. “And how could I not take my time, when the reward is bound to be so sweet, hmm?”

“What reward?” you snapped. “Me doing this at all is the reward!”

The blonde’s trilling laughter curled through the air like the tinkle of a windchime. Light, and airy, and pleasant. Which was deceptive. And entirely unfair.

“Ah, but mon favori. I doubt you could ever say no to a little death, hmm?” he cooed. And the continued, with an air of faux consideration. “A bit for you, and then perhaps a bit for me. And then a bit more for you—”

Fuck his poetry. It was going to be a big death. A literal death. With rigor mortis, and decay, and a bloating corpse if you didn’t have a chance to collapse into a puddle in the next five minutes. Normally Rook’s sweet sonnets and romantic ramblings were something you found quite endearing. But surely anyone would be pushed past their Cutesy Bullshit Tolerance after being chased like a bat out of hell for the past literal hour. You felt woozy, and wrong footed, and like maybe that muffin you’d snagged for breakfast might be in the process of making up its mind to come back up to say hello.

“You have to run, petit lapin,” that chittering voice called again. “That’s the whole point.”

“No!” you snapped, stomping your foot like a toddler. “I give up! I’m a dumb rabbit! A lame rabbit! A rabbit with no legs! Just—get me already!” you shouted into the leafy canopy.

Silence.

You glared up into the kaleidoscope of greens, eyes narrowed as you searched the shadows. Surely he was somewhere. Somewhere close. You just had to—

And then you were crashing forward with an inelegant screech—a familiar, gloved hand pressing into the skin at the back of your neck and the other twisting into your uniform jacket to push you down into the dirt. And then Rook was sitting astride your hips, looking down at you with a sharp, brilliant gleam in his emerald eyes.

“Ah, mon pauvre lapin perdu,” he sighed, all faux sympathy, and shifted to lean forward so that he could grin into your flushed face. “Whatever shall I do with you, hmm? Rolling over to show your belly so readily. Certainly that’s far from safe.”

There was a tight, warm, whoosh in your gut. A twisting thing that you knew far too well at this point. And it spelled nothing but bad things.

You raised your chin as best as you could, meeting that toothy smirk of his head on, and then—

Ah. Nope. That had been the muffin after all.

Your face went green and you rolled onto your side to barf chunks of banana-nut-nonsense all over the grass.

“Mon cher, how can you ever forgive me?” Rook wailed, dabbing a soft, silk cloth against your heated forehead, nearly in tears. “I have failed you so horribly! So completely! I deserve to be cast from your good graces! Cursed to errer seul! Mutilé par des chiens! Jeté en enfer! Forcé de se repentir pour toujours!—”

“Enough, please,” you whined, pinching at the bridge of your nose. “I’d rather you just, I don’t know, got me a glass of water.”

“Right away!” he chirped, shooting to his feet and darting out the door and down the hall. He was back hardly a moment later, depositing a clean cup into your hands and plunking a curling, purple straw into the center of it.

“Thanks,” you mumbled, leaning forward to take a sip.

“Anything at all for you, mon cher!”

This was almost worse somehow.

“Would you cut it out,” you sighed. “It’s fine. Really. Shit happens.”

He stared up at you from where he was kneeled on the floor at your side with the largest, most doleful eyes you’d ever seen. Like a kicked puppy dog had a sad, sad child with, like, an even more pathetic, more kicked, kitten. You jabbed at him with your foot.

“And stop that!”

“Stop what?” he asked, blinking those stupid, stupid green eyes at you.

“Acting all innocent!” you complained. “You literally had me pinned underneath you, like, five minutes ago!”

“I did, didn’t I?” he hummed, sounding almost pensive. He reached up to tap at his chin, like he was chewing over a thought. “And I wasn’t even able to keep my promise, was I?” he lamented, deflating.

“What promise?” you frowned.

“For a bit of mutual demise,” he sighed. “Une petite mort.”

You felt heat crawl up your cheekbones and all the way to the tips of your ears. Because this had been some whole, elaborate setup, hadn’t it? Something that you’d only agreed to because he’d seemed so, ah, enthusiastic. And then you’d gone and barfed up banana chunks and ruined the whole thing.

“Sorry,” you mumbled.

Rook’s head shot up and he reached out to snare your hands in his.

“Non, non, mon cher!” he gasped. “This was hardly your fault to speak of! It is I and my poor planning that ought to make recompence,” he said.

And then, a terribly acute sort of brilliance came over his face. Like a lightbulb went off in his brain. Those green eyes went sharp with focus. He seemed to roll the his words around on his tongue, as if deciding exactly how they ought to taste when he let them fall back out again.

“And recompense I shall make!” he chirped, determined and shifted so his chin was resting in your lap. He sent you a coy little grin that had shivers racing down your spine.

“I literally just threw up,” you complained.

“This will certainly help you feel better,” he offered.

“That’s not the point!” you squawked. “Shouldn’t I—I don’t know—at least brush my teeth or something first?”

“Forgive me, mon petit lapin,” he laughed against your thigh. “But last I checked, I don’t think your mouth has anything do with this. And besides,” he crooned, reaching up to press a firm hand against your shoulder and help ease you down to the mattress below. “That was from overexertion, I’m afraid. Not illness. And I can promise, mon cher, that this time, you won’t have to bother putting any work in at all~”

#4k Event #twisted wonderland imagines #twst x reader #Rook Hunt x Reader #Rook x Reader #Rook Hunt #My Writing #Writing Prompts

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tarotwithavi · 8 months

Text

Some random things your FS will say to you (poetic edition)

How to choose a pile?

Close your eyes and take a deep breath and ask the angels to show you the right pile for you and open your eyes. The first pile that catches your attention is the right pile for you.

Piles : 1-2-3

Masterlist

Paid services

Let's check their poetic rizz 🤪

Pile 1

"Every moment with you feels like a new chapter in our love story."

"You are the poetry my heart never knew it could write."

"In your eyes, I found my forever."

"I'll be your shelter in the storm, your anchor in the chaos."

"Even in a world of millions, my eyes are drawn to you alone."

"Your laughter is the music that fills my soul."

"I'd travel through time and space just to be with you."

"You are the missing piece that completes my puzzle of life."

"Every day with you is an adventure, and I wouldn't have it any other way."

"No matter where life takes us, my love for you will always be a constant."

"Your love is the canvas upon which I paint the masterpiece of my life. And my life is a masterpiece because of you"

"You are the serendipity I never knew I needed."

Pile 2

"In your presence, I find my peace and my passion all at once."

"With you, even ordinary moments become extraordinary memories."

"You are the star that guides me through the darkest nights."

"My love for you is like a fingerprint, unique and indelible."

"In a world of fleeting moments, you are my eternity."

"Like a compass points north, my heart always points to you."

"You're the reason I believe in love stories that last a lifetime."

"With every beat of my heart, I choose you, over and over again."

"You're not just my love; you're my favorite adventure."

"Your laughter is the melody that brightens my darkest days."

"In your eyes, I see a reflection of my best self."

"Loving you is as natural as breathing."

"You're not just a chapter in my life; you're the whole story."

Pile 3

"Your love is a garden, my heart the willing seed."

"In your eyes, I find constellations of dreams."

"Love is the ink, and you are the poetry written on the pages of my soul."

"Your love is the lighthouse that guides my ship through life's turbulent sea."

"In your embrace, I've found the warmth of a thousand suns."

"We are two souls entwined in the delicate dance of love's eternal waltz."

"You are the whispered secret of my heart, the answer to all its questions."

"Every word you speak is a verse in the sonnet of our love."

"In your smile, I see the reflection of a thousand beautiful tomorrows."

"With each sunrise, my love for you blooms like a radiant flower."

"Our love story is written in the stars, a celestial epic of two souls bound by destiny."

"You are the moonlight that guides me through my darkest nights."

"With you, every moment is a stanza in the epic poem of our love."

I made this a long time ago as you can see I don't dress my posts this way anymore lol.

Remember to Reblog lovelies 💗

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sentoooo · 1 month

Text

ᴀʀɢᴇɴᴛɪ ɴꜱꜰᴡ ʀᴀᴍʙʟᴇꜱ

✭ pairing(s): argenti x gn reader

✧ a/n: i thought abt him toooooooo much. too much. just some headcanons..... hrghh

🗒 cw: SMUT, gn reader, praise praise praise, body worship, fingering, oral, mention of facesitting, penetration, switch argenti, cumming untouched, mention of overstim, mention of edging, not proofread

✎ wc: 1.1k

MINORS DNI, 18+ ONLY

Love is of the highest devotion to him. Everything he does for you, from simply holding your hands, to sex, it is all an act of devotion from him. You are equals with Idrila in Argenti’s eyes, and he will make sure to cherish you, and make sure you know just how much he adores you.

So it comes to no surprise that sex is a very, very lengthy activity with him. He wants to– needs to– take his time, he needs to love every inch of your body, worship every inch. He ghosts his fingers over every inch of exposed skin, from forehead to chest, from stomach to your waist, and so forth. Every little shiver and sound from you is like a sweet sonnet, it only adds to his mounting arousal.

It takes at least an hour for Argenti to get to the point. He needs to make sure he’s paid attention to every. single. inch. of you. He’ll go over your body with his hands, whispering all sorts of praises, before going over your skin with his lips. Peppering your body in soft, tender, fleeting kisses. If he can get you to cum without any penetration, then that’s perfect, too.

He doesn’t do this to tease you, of course. As stated before, he simply needs you to know how beautiful he believes you are. No matter how much you beg or whine or plead, he will not stop this routine. Sex just feels incomplete without it.

However, once he’s satisfied with his exploration, he follows your every order obediently. Your pleasure is his pleasure, it does not matter if it doesn’t mean any stimulation for him. As long as he gets to hear you moan, feel your touch, he’s happy. So happy.

On that note, one of his favorite things to do is give you oral. He’ll eat you out until you’re crying if you so wish, suck you off until you beg him to stop. Your taste is divine to him, it’s a true reward, and nothing can compare to it. A lifetime in between your thighs sounds lovely, and if he could, he would. When he can, he does his best to look up at you, his beautiful emerald orbs wide, glossy, studying every little detail in your face. There is no sight more enticing than his handsome face, stained by your slick and your cum.

In fact, Argenti takes such great pleasure in oral, that he tends to cum while giving. Normally, he cums prematurely, enraptured by the sounds you make, the way you taste. Sometimes, you catch him rolling his hips slightly, but other times he is still. Most times he is still fully clothed, there’s a certain pride that bubbles in your chest to know you’ve made him cum untouched.

He loves to finger you or stroke you off, too. His hands, despite being a knight, are very soft. His fingers are long and slender, nails trimmed perfectly. He sits you up on his lap as he starts his ministrations, slow, and hypnotizing. And, of course, he whispers all sorts of saccharine words in your ear. “You’re doing so good”, “You feel so good, my heart…”, “Just once more, hm? Please?”

He will also follow any position you wish. If you want to be on top? Gladly. You want him on top? He’s climbing on top of you with a warm smile. Penetration is one of the highest acts of devotion, he believes. It brings you both closer, metaphorically and physically, and the feeling of his slender cock inside of you never ceases to amaze. Or, the feeling of you within him is enough to make him cum prematurely again.

We’ll get to top Argenti in a bit. When he bottoms, he prefers to ride you. He loves to see you, looking down at you with half-lidded eyes. And Aeons, is the view incredible. His lips parted, his body flush, a blush spread across his cheeks, the tips of his ears, and his shoulders, silky soft hair splayed over his shoulders. It gives him some semblance of control, being able to choose the pace at which he fucks down onto you. However, if you guide him, he doesn’t mind either. Buck your hips up into him, he’ll whimper.

He also likes Missionary when he bottoms and tops, as mentioned previously, he prefers to see you. Hell, a mating press would be just fine to him. Both ways, again. Any way he’d take you, he’d love you to take him. And if you want to ride him, go right ahead! He won’t control the pace, unless you give him permission.

Now, when Argenti tops, he loves missionary and even the mating press. Mirror sex is always on the cards, he will take you any position, as long as he gets to see your beautiful face. But one of his personal favorites is spooning. While he can’t necessarily see your face, it is the closeness that allows him to ignore his own rule. He’ll nuzzle up to your neck, mutter sweet praises, kiss at your skin, and simply enjoy himself. There is no better feeling than his body pressed up against yours, as close as he can possibly be.

He is also vocal! Very, very vocal, but not loud. He moans, whines, whimpers, and even mewls. Doesn’t matter what he’s doing. You could be sitting on his face, and he wouldn’t be able to keep himself from moaning. Little breathy sighs even when he’s feeling you up escape his lips, he’ll moan directly in your ear when he fucks into you, or whine and whimper when you suck him off.

He does exactly as he says he will, and what you allow him to do. Never more, never less. He’s so insanely fair with you, and he lets you be as unfair as you want. Sometimes he can feel a little pent-up and sexually frustrated, but he never asks you for anything, which is… a little unfortunate. He’s good at asking what you want, the communication doesn’t lack there, but he’s very bad at asking about his wants. It’s a guessing game, or more of, he never really has any wants, aside from making you see stars.

Argenti acts like every little service you let him do to you is the most blessed thing. He also has a bad habit of thanking you with every little act you let him do, whether it be eating you out, or you edging him. Going down on you? “Thank you, my love.” running his thumbs over your nipples? Thank you, a million times over, dearest.” Sucking him off to the point of overstimulation? “Thank you, thank you– ngh…– thank you…”

DO NOT REPOST AS YOUR OWN, REPOST ON ANY OTHER PLATFORM, OR USE FOR AI/AI CHATBOTS.

#⁺◟sentooo #argenti x reader #hsr x reader #honkai star rail x reader #hsr smut #honkai star rail smut #argenti x gn reader #argenti smut

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daydreaming-nerd · 2 months

Text

Young Love and Old Money (Cassian x Female! Reader) Part 3

Young Love and Old Money Masterlist

AN: Sorry these are taking longer than normal, after the 25th I'm a free fuckin' agent and if you check my updated masterlist you will see I have so many things in the works.

Summary: She was the most beautiful woman in Prythian, sister to the High Lord of Night, and now she is the soon-to-be wife of Eris Vanserra. Despite her many titles and her aura of unattainability, Cassian can't help but fall deeply in love with the princess of the Night Court. But will it be enough to stop her impending wedding to a man who is sure to destroy her from the inside out?

Warnings: Sexisim, trauma from under the mountain, alcohol, SA

Word Count: 4,189

Another week had come and gone. A week full of tight corsets, uncomfortable shoes, trips to the Autumn Court and of course, snide comments from Eris.

As of late I had begun having nightmares. The kind that left me screaming in bed with no one to hear me. The kind that had me waking up in a pool of my own sweat. It was the same every time, I was the dog in the back of Eris’ kennels. Scared, alone and caged. I would scour the entire cage for a way out, my finger with that giant wedding ring on it scouring the straw covered floors, never once finding an escape. Eris would come in and bend me over like an animal and sometimes I would wake up before he used me and sometimes I would wake up after.

Regardless I was left unable to sleep. So I had taken to my dear brother's liquor cabinet to procure my own sleeping tonic, whiskey. For a few nights it has worked to put me to sleep, but not tonight.

I swirled the last little bit of whiskey around the bottom of the bottle before slugging it all down. I had been slowly nursing the bottle the past two nights knowing that tonight might be my only night to procure a new bottle without anyone seeing. Tonight was boys night at Rita’s meaning that Cassian and Azriel were out with my brother and no one was home to fuss over my new drinking habits.

I toss the empty bottle off the side of my bed and slowly but surely get up, wrapping myself in my silk night robe. My feet wobble beneath me as I make my way to the door, thankfully I know the way to the kitchen like the back of my hand. The only real obstacle being the long dark hallway, but even that’s a straight shot.

I close the door of my bedroom quietly behind me in case there are any maids wandering about the dark hallway that I can’t see. I walk in as straight a line as I can and it isn’t long until I run smack into a wall. When the hell did that get there?

“Princess? ” Cassian hiccuped

It takes me a second to realize the wall I ran into was Cassian, and I start to feel a little better, that is until I start to wobble again.

“Are you drunk?” Cassian hiccups again and I feel his hands on my arms stabilizing me. The smell of cedar, leather and whiskey floating over to me.

“Yeah, but you are too,” I pointed out, pushing a finger into his rock hard chest for emphasis. My eyes adjust to the dark lighting and I can see his face peering down at me. That sculpted, beautiful face that they should really write sonnets about.

“Have to drown my sorrows somehow,” Cassian shrugs, letting go of my arms, stumbling back on his feet.

“Pfft, like you have any sorrows general,” I scoff, starting to move past him. I trip on his foot and nearly fall over, the only thing keeping me from getting an awful rug burn is Cassian catching me by my upper arm.

“Shit princess I can barely walk but let me get you a glass of water,” he says, putting me back on my two feet again.

My heart flutters at his kindness, “You would do that?” I smile drunkenly.

“I’d do anything for you y/n,” Cassian replies and I can tell by the expression on his face that he regrets the words the moment they come out of his drunken mouth. It dawns on me that I’ve never heard Cassian call me by my name before, and I quite like the sound of it.

“W-would you really?” I stumble letting my drunk mind do the talking.

“As long as you’ll let me, I’ll do anything for you princess,” he reiterates and I don’t miss how he switches back to my formal title once more.

“Cassian,” I breathe, unable to say anything more.

“Anything, just tell me what you want,” he says quietly.

My mind swirls with all the things that I want him to do. Get me a glass of water, take me away from here, kiss me. But all those lead to one common bad ending…

“Eris,” I whisper, realizing how close Cassian is to me.

“Don’t marry him,” Cassian slurs, wobbling a bit as he places his hands on my hips. The feeling of his hands on me, and knowing that the only thing separating his skin from mine is a thin silk robe. He seems to realize it too as his glassed over eyes look me up and down. It’s enough to sober up my mind and realize what’s going on.

“You shouldn’t touch me,” I say. “I belong to Eris now.”

“Not yet you don’t,” he hiccups for the third time. “Please, don’t marry him,” he says, getting even closer to me.

I push Cassian off me and he stumbles back, “You’re drunk Cassian and I am too. We should both go to bed, we have a big day tomorrow.” I say stumbling back as best I can towards my bedroom.

The general doesn’t say anything, doesn’t protest or beg and as I step into my bedroom I don’t miss the curse he mutters to himself before waltzing into his own.

The next morning I wake with a raging headache that has me in bed until it’s time for me to attend dinner at the Autumn Court. If it wasn’t for my ladies maids I never would’ve left the warm cocoon of my covers. But I did, and in place of soft sheets was a death grip of a corset and I swore it was tighter than the last one. I looked in the mirror and realized that they had been choosing more and more revealing dresses for me, this one I was sure I had never seen before now.

I made my way into the foyer where I knew Cassian would be waiting dutifully and sure enough the second I walked in his eyes turned to me. I searched for a sign of regret or awkwardness in his eyes given the events of last night, but all I found was Cassian. Handsome, strong, loyal and wonderful Cassian, and a part of me sighed in relief knowing I wouldn’t lose the one life line I had when I was in Eris’ territory.

“You ready to go?” He asks me as he always does.

“I think so,” I answer walking over to him so he can scoop me up.

We take off into the air and the second we are airborne I feel a chill run up my spine. We don’t normally head to the Autumn Court so late in the day, and without the sun to warm my skin the cold seeps in. A cold that has me curling into Cassian more and I swear I feel his arms tighten around me.

“So dinner with the potential, future in-laws tonight?” he asks.

“I suppose so,” I sigh.

“You’ll do great, don't worry,” he smiles trying to lift my mood.

“And what if I don’t want to do great? What if I want things to go so terribly that Eris breaks off the engagement and starts a fight?” I bluster, half joking.

“Then I’ll hold while you punch Princess,” Cassian laughs and the vibrations roll through my body.

“Good dog,” I joke and Cassian erupts in a fit of laughter that warms my soul.

By the time we get there the Autumn Court is lit up with fae lights and the way they illuminate the colors of the autumn trees is breathtaking. Even in the distance I see and feel Eris’ presence like a dark cloud looming over me. Cassian touches down on the front steps and places me on the ground like I’m made of porcelain.

“Good evening my little flame,” Eris greets me, allowing his hands to fall to my waist pulling me in for a kiss. This past week he has gotten more comfortable with affection, but thankfully he had never repeated what happened under the willow tree.

“Good evening Eris,” I give a fake smile as he takes my hands in his. It was my last visit that Eris insisted that I dropped the formalities of calling him Prince Eris, something I felt was off character.

“I have a gift for you,” he smiles, pulling a long black box out from behind his back. He opens it revealing a necklace made up of large rubies. No doubt part of the crown jewels of the Autumn Court.

“Oh Eris! It’s beautiful,” I smile, running my hand over the large gems. I hated to admit it but they were truly breathtaking. Something I would’ve asked my brother to gift me for solstice. “You didn’t have to do that.”

Eris plucks the necklace from the velvet box and motions me to turn around so he can put it on. “I might’ve had ulterior motives,” he smirks, placing the jewels over my neck and clasping them on.

“Well thank you, I really do love it,” I say, running my hands over the large jewels one last time.

It isn’t until I feel the weight of the necklace and hear his words that I realize that ulterior motive. This isn’t just a gift, or a necklace, or even a family heirloom. It's a collar. One meant to show that I belong to him. The weight of it suddenly becomes burdensome and doubles as Eris stands back to admire the necklace now that I’m wearing it.

“It looks perfect on that beautiful little neck,” he smirks, offering me his arm that I take politely. “My family is very eager to meet you. Especially my brothers who have only ever heard stories of your beauty.” he says leading me inside.

“Well I hope that I can live up to my reputation then,” I smile as my heels clack along the marble floors.

“In that dress little flame,” Eris says, looking me up and down, eyes lingering on the cleavage the neckline showed off. “You will be like a walking temptation.”

We make our way to the large dining room and my eyes scan the table. Mounds and mounds of food and wine are littered all over it, enough for the whole court I presume. Everything from duck to boar, no doubt from Eris’ hunts. My mind flashes to the hounds in the kennel and I actively push the thought away.

On one side of the table sits Eris’ six brothers, all of them alike in age. At the head of each end sits Beron Vanserra and his wife. I look for an empty chair, and only find two.

“It’s wonderful to see you again princess,” Beron booms as Eris pulls my chair out for me.

“And you as well High Lord,” I smile bowing to him.

I’m thankful for the chair that now supports me from beneath as I feel my knees start to wobble. I look around at the table once more now that I’m seated, and the plethora of red hair and piercing eyes is enough to make me feel like I’m a lamb shoved in a wolf's den. I feel Cassian taking up space by the door and my heart breaks knowing he must be hungry too.

“Excuse me High Lord,” I ask, pulling Beron’s attention. “But I wonder if you might procure a seat for my guard so that he might enjoy this divine meal as well.”

“Bastards are not allowed to sit at this table,” Beron says with a cool, calm, authority that I almost envy. My blood boils at his words, and tears nearly brim my eyes. Cassian was so much more than a ‘bastard’. Gods, one Cassian was worth more than everyone at this table combined. But to say that would mean my head on a platter.

“Of course my Lord, I don’t know what came over me,” I apologize, bowing my head in submissal.

“Darling you simply must try the wine,” Eris says pouring me a glass.

I swirl the red liquid around and give it a sniff. The strong scent of dark, ripe berries hits my nose. I take a sip and though I hate to admit it, it tastes like heaven. Or perhaps my body is aware that the effects of this wine are the only things that will help me get through this dinner.

“It’s amazing,” I beam looking at my glass. “I love bold reds.”

“From our vineyards here in the Autumn Court,” Beron says proudly. “I’ll be sure to send a case to your brother for you both to enjoy.”

“We would love that, thank you.” I smile while taking another sip.

The table falls into a comfortable conversation and I do my best to keep my head down like Beron's wife, as whatever behavior she portrays will likely be what’s expected of me. So far her etiquette imitates what Eris so crudely said to me just a few days ago…Wives are meant to be seen and not heard, except for in bed of course. Men do love the little whimpers of pain women emit when they are deflowered…

I suppress a shudder at the remembrance of those words, and even though the comment that floats to my ears is another bit of sexist garbage, I’m sadly grateful for the distraction.

“By the gods she is perfect,” one of Eris' brothers says quietly to the other.

I try to hide my blush with another sip of wine, followed by another chunk of potato. Doing everything I can to pretend that I can’t hear the conversation the three brothers in front of me are quietly having.

“Look at her tits,” another one rasps his eyes not so subtly glazing over me, the other brother in the conversation doing the same. I suddenly feel like I’m a piece of livestock up for auction.

“How is it that Eris gets to have the Jewel?” the third one asks quietly, but not quiet enough to escape Eris’ ears.

“Because I am the eldest!” Eris shouts, slamming his fists on the table, and the only person who doesn’t jump from his outburst is Beron. “And you’d do well to hold your tongue in front of the potential mother to the heir of the throne you’ll never inherit.”

I can see the other side of the table debating whether to fight back or not, but it’s Beron who breaks the silence with the ease only a High Lord could do. “I assume that you and your brother will be attending our ball celebrating our fall solstice later this week princess?” Beron asks me.

“Yes of course,” I tell him, setting down my glass of wine.

“Wonderful! We’re quite excited to have you both in attendance. It is our fist ball since our time under the mountain,” he explains.

“Who else will be attending?” I ask, swirling my wine around in its glass.

“All the High Lords and the most trusted members of their courts,” Beron answers and it takes everything in me not to laugh.

My mind flickered back to the months before my family locked me away, months where every High Lord would fall to his feet and beg for my hand in marriage. No doubt Eris would now play the role of fighting them all off and the image of him being an angry and frustrated toddler brought me joy.

“Then I hope your son isn’t a jealous man,” I smile while sipping my wine. “Helion is a good friend, but he’s been asking my brother for my hand for years. Rhys practically had to beat him off with a stick.” I laugh, the effects of the wine taking over.

What’s meant to be a lighthearted joke turns sour as I see the flames dance in Eris’ eyes, “Jealousy is a weak emotion, princess, But rest assured, I have no intention of allowing any man to lay claim to what is rightfully mine,” he starts and leans into my ear so only I can hear him. “And if Helion continues to pursue you, I’ll just have to deflower you right in front of his very eyes.”

I want to come up with a witty response. I want to yell or scream or defend myself for the love of gods, but I can’t. All I can do is swallow the fear within me with another sip of wine and hope this den of wolves doesn't scent my fear.

The rest of dinner is quiet and uneventful, I let the men converse, keeping note of the many glasses of wine Eris consumes. I turn my attention to the only other female at the table and I try to study her every move. Beron's wife says nothing, and I note that it’s my job to do the same. A pretty little wall ornament indeed.

“If you’ll excuse us father,” Eris says standing up. “I would like to take the princess on a little stroll.”

“Very well my son you are excused,” Beron nods to Eris. “I look forward to seeing you later this week my dear.” Beron says to me.

I nod, trying to keep the illusion of submission up and Eris leads me out of the dining hall and down a dark hall. The chattering voices no doubt talking about me drifting off behind us. As we get further and further away from the dining room, I start to feel my stomach drop. Something is wrong, something is terribly wrong. But like usual, I don’t have the voice to say anything. We come across another dark hall, one so pitch black I would think it’s an endless void if it wasn’t for the light at the far end.

“Sit and stay bastard,” Eris growls towards Cassian like he’s one of his hounds. “I require a private moment with the Jewel.”

Cassian grumbles but allows Eris to lead me further into the shadows, the only way he could see us at this point is the faelight at the other end of the hall that would cast our silhouettes onto the floor. I try to throw him a frightened glance, but just like many times before, Eris seems to have found a way to keep me from doing so.

“The general seems quite attached to you, it’s nice to finally have some time alone,” Eris says as he leads me through the long dark hallway. I swear I’d bump into a rouge chaise or grandfather clock lining the wall if it wasn’t his arm in mine.

“Cassian has my best interest at heart, he wants to keep me safe,” I reply, trying to keep my voice from sounding confrontational.

“And he believes that I couldn’t keep you safe?” Eris retorts and I nearly scoff.

“It’s not that, I think he believes you might take certain…shall I say, liberties with me,” I mumble trying to keep my head low.

Eris' body tenses next to mine and I know I’ve made a grave mistake. “You’re mine, I can take whatever liberties I wish to.” he growls and before I know it my back is against a wall. “If he thinks I’ll marry you without trying you out he’s more of a simple minded bastard than I thought.”

“Eris please,” I breathe trying to rip my wrists from his grasp but it’s no use.

“Are you fighting or begging, little flame?” he muses, wine scented breath brushing my neck. “Either way it makes my cock hard.” he smiles, pressing his lips to my neck.

His body is flush to mine and I can feel one hand pinning my wrists to the wall in a way that will leave bruises while the other explores my body. His lips are hot and wet on my neck and chest wandering dangerously low.

“This isn’t proper,” I protest and try to wiggle out of his grasp for emphasis but I only succeed in grinding myself into him more.

“Then I’ll make it fucking proper!” Eris seethes gripping my chin to make my gaze meet his. Those amber eyes are somehow darker and more intimidating in the low light. “Now be a good girl and let me kiss you,” he smirks before pressing his lips to mine.

For what it was worth Eris hadn’t made any advances on me since the first time under the willow. But tonight, with the copious amounts of wine flowing through his veins? Well it must’ve been just enough for his resolve to snap. His lips still taste like venom, everything about him all wrong. It takes everything in me not to get sick all over his perfectly tailored jacket.

“Eris stop it!” I whine pushing him away further.

“I must have you my little flame,” he groans and I feel his hands grip my skirt.

My heart starts to race even more, and if I wasn’t going to be sick before I surely was going to be now. His mouth resumed its assault on my neck, messy and needy just like earlier. Large hands bunch up the layers of fabric and tulle until the cold air hits my bare legs.

“ERIS STOP!” I screamed pushing him off me with all my strength and it was enough to make him stumble.

A dark shadow appears before us as if it was transported there, “Eris that’s enough! It’s time for the princess to go home.” Cassian roars.

“Stay in your place bastard!” Eris seethes. “She belongs to me. I can use her however I like!”

“She belongs to no one! You have no right to compromise her virtue before you wed her. Rhysand won’t allow it.” Cassian continues, the voice of a general coming through. One so demanding even I would lower my weapons for him, apparently not Eris.

“Ha!” Eris laughs, thrusting a hand out to grab me by my neck. His grip is like a vice, a collar that burns hotter than one he already gave me. “Didn’t you hear her little begs? I think she might want to be deflowered before the ceremony. Wouldn’t you pet?”

Cassian’s hand strikes, grabbing Eris’ wrist. The one connected to the hand wrapped around my throat, “All I have to do is squeeze and that hand won’t hold a bow for months and I have the authority to do so. Get your fucking hands off her before I shatter your entire arm,” he growls and even I feel fear from his tone.

The deafening ringing of the clocktower bells chime throughout the palace like the voice of the gods dampening the tension in the air. The seven chimes signal it’s time for me to return home once more. Eris releases me, and against my better judgment Cassian releases Eris. But it doesn’t stop them from staring daggers into one another, if Cassian jumps now it’ll be his head on a pike and I’d rather die than allow that to happen.

“Cassian is right,” I say to Eris standing between the two of them. “It’s better if we wait. If you choose to marry me, imagine how amazing our wedding night will be.” I smile at Eris, pulling him for a passionate kiss, hiding every ounce of disgust I feel.

“That’s more like it, my pet,” he smirks, glancing up at Cassian in a challenge. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Until then,” I smile, letting Cassian lead me away.

The second we are around the corner that shields us from Eris’ view we both begin walking much faster. As if the eldest son of autumn is a monster at our heels and we have limited time to get out of this gods forsaken palace. When the crisp air of Autumn hits my skin Cassian doesn’t even ask if I’m ready before picking me up and shooting me into the sky.

“We need to go talk to Rhys and tell him what happened,” Cassian said, his wings pounding with a new urgency.

“No!” I protest. “We can’t tell him. I don’t want him to have an even more guilty conscience than he has from the last fifty years.”

“Princess you saw what just happened back there! Eris was going to take advantage of you. Rhys deserves to know.” he argues.

“If Rhys knows he’ll call off the courtship and if he calls off the courtship then I can’t marry Eris which means I can’t save my court,” I explain.

“This has gotten out of hand princess, we have to tell your brother,” Cassian grumbles.

“Cassian please, don’t take my choices away from me. I love my court and I love my family. If this is how I can help all of you in the war I want to,” I shrill. “I can take ‘the sky is falling’ from just about everyone but you. I need you to support me Cassian.”

I look into Cassian’s eyes and I can see them still burning with unmatched fury. I let my own eyes plead to his, trying to convey how badly I needed him to stay quiet about what had happened. How badly I needed him to let me do this, to trust me. His eyes softened and his gaze fixed itself on the flight before us.

“Fine,” he shook his head. “But if he pulls a stunt like that again I won’t stand by and watch this time.”

“Of course not general,” I smile, watching the wind whip the stray hairs from his face. “I’ll hold while you punch.”

Though he tries to hide his amusement at my joke, Cassian’s mouth can’t help but turn up into a half smile.

Part 4

Taglist: @crystalferret202 , @nickishadow139 , @graceshifts , @writeroutoftime, @heyyitsnat21, @stinkinstuffie , @lilah-asteria , @12358

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wordsbyrian · 5 months

Text

Short: The Call - USWNT x Reader

Summary: Y/N gets the WWC call up facetime from Vlatko while being weird and it devolves from there.

A/n: One of my silly ideas finally completed. That's 3.75 of 7 fics from this poll completed/posted.

One of the biggest moments of your life and you go and fuck it up by being, well yourself.

It's not like you didn't know to be expecting the call. It's just that you weren't expecting it to be a facetime in the middle of the day on your day off.

Which explains your state of… disarray, so to speak, when you fumble to answer the phone, not looking at the caller ID.

“Hello,” you grunt, placing your phone back on your desk at an angle so you can continue your process.

“Hey, Y/N,” the familiar voice of Andonovski rings out in the room. You can hear him pause and take a deep breath before he speaks again, “What in the world is on your head?”

You all but freeze when you hear him and his question makes you slowly raise your hands and remove the over large mask you're wearing.

When you do, you’re unsurprised to see Vlatko staring at you waiting for an answer.

“It’s a Sontaran head, sir,” you say nervously.

“A Sontaran head?”

“It’s a character from one of my favorite shows,” you explain, “there’s a convention coming up and… that’s not important. Is there a reason you're Facetiming me?”

“Well, I wanted to see the look on your face,” he says.

You’re still holding on to the Sontaran head, clutching it to your chest as you begin to realize what this call could possibly be about.

“I just needed to let you know that you’ve been selected for the World Cup roster.”

You’re sure the look on your face resembles that of a fish, mouth wide and gaping while your eyes stare unblinkingly as you try to process the information you’ve just been given.

You’re going to the World Cup.

You.

The World Cup.

You’re so shocked that you have to double check that he really meant to call you.

“Really? Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” Vlatko says, “Unless you would rather not come along.”

You answer very quickly, a sharp no shooting it’s way out of your mouth.

“No,” you repeat, “I definitely want to come, thank you.”

“Alright then we’ll see you at camp in a few weeks.”

“I’ll be there.”

Vlatko congratulates you once again before saying goodbye and ending the call, leaving you sitting there holding your Sontaran head with only 2 thoughts on your mind.

The first being that you need to call your older sister and tell her.

And the second is that you really hope the facetime wasn’t being recorded by the social media team for one of their weird projects. It seems like the type of thing they would do and if your teammates saw this you would never hear the end of this.

You weren’t so lucky.

Because just over a week later, you’ve been forced into a meeting room with the rest of the girls to watch videos that you now know are of everyone getting called up.

Kristie, Lindsey and surprisingly Kelley cry and Trin looked like she had been in the middle of a run. But there’s nothing as odd as you answering the phone with a glorified potato head on.

And well the teasing has already started.

“So, Y/N,” Kelley sys, sliding up next to you, “When do you plan on having us take you to our leader?”

Before you even really get a chance to respond, Sonnet appears on your other side pulling you into a headlock.

“Before you answer that we need to know the secret to defeating you,” Emily asks.

Rolling your eyes, you pull the older woman’s hands off you while answering, “I could tell you but you would just use that information to bully me.”

“What?! I have never bullied you a day in either of our lives.”

“Well there was that time you convinced her that the bus had left her behind and let her run all the way to the training field,” Kelley says.

“Or the time that you let me believe that,” Sonny cuts you off.

“Ok so maybe I have in the past been a little mean to you,” Emily groans. “But! But, I do actually want to know more about it. You said it’s from your favorite show, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well what kind of friend would I be if I didn’t know about your favorite show?” “Friends don’t need to know everything about each other,” you tell her walking away.

2 weeks later, the day before you’re set to fly out to New Zealand for the World Cup, your nap is interrupted by someone pounding on your room door.

Opening it up, you’re surprised to see Emily and Kelley standing there, a laptop in hand looking distraught.

Before you even have a chance to ask them what's up, Kelley all but shouts in your face.

“Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Uh, what?”

“Why didn’t you tell us that your nerd show makes you fall in love with the characters only to make them leave in the most heartbreaking ways,” Sonny asks, shoving the laptop into your chest. “Everytime you start to like a character, they get rid of them!”

Still shocked, you can barely stutter out a response.

“I genuinely have no clue what you guys are talking about.”

“It’s not right,” Kelley is shouting again,. “Rose, lost in another universe. Martha, just up and left because she couldn’t take almost dying every day. And the Doctor had to wipe Donna’s mind to save her life! It’s not right and it's not fair.”

It finally clicks.

“Oh man, you guys are in deep huh?”

“And we have so many questions.”

“Come on in, nerds.”

#woso imagine #woso fanfics #woso x reader #uswnt fanfic #uswnt x reader #uswnt imagine

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the-californicationist · 5 months

Text

Guile & Guilt (Ch. 07)

Soap/Reader

TW: sex

MDNI/18+

AO3 LINK

I'm so sorry for the wait!! I hope this long chap made up for it. I really appreciate all the comments and reblogs. It really keeps me going. The next chapter is gonna be rough. Hope you're ready for it. I'm not!

CHRISTMAS EVE

The lecture hall slowly began to fill with graduate students and professors. A gaggle of undergrads huddled to the side with their notebooks, surely attending by someone else’s command and not of their own volition. They were all dressed in various layers of warmth. Anoraks and sweaters rustled and stretched in the cloth seats, the odd peacoat was hung carefully over the edge of a chair. It was nice to have a small crowd, but you were sure everyone had somewhere better to be. The only people that would show up to the long-standing tradition of a Christmas Eve colloquium were the die-hard academics and those desperately needing extra credit in their year-long lab classes.

You liked this lecture room the best. The big arching stadium seating made you feel like a surgeon in her theatre, carving up your poems and displaying their abnormalities, arguing in favor of their spectacular forms, illustrating your skills with grace and ease. It was all well and good not to be the patient on the table. Today’s victim would be Sonnet 91.

The projector light blinded you in an unnatural blue, making you turn away from its lens, and you pretended to busy yourself with your notes as you waited for it to warm up. You shuffled the papers again, and you had a sip of water. Just fidgeting. If you stopped moving, you’d think about him, and you didn’t want to think about him.

He’d gotten your message from Gaz, that much was clear. You knew because you started receiving sunrise texts again — just the pictures, though — and when he needed to go out on a mission, you’d get your little promises. You sent him back what you received. If he sent a sunrise picture, you returned it with your own. If he said that he promised, you said it, too. You wanted him to call. You wanted to drag it out, to gut it like a fish, to see all the entrails of your feelings and the bloody evidence of your battle to be together, all of its innards smeared across a cutting board, sterile and measurable.

But, for some reason, you couldn’t do it. You tried to type out what you’d wanted to say, but none of it made sense. It was all just begging and pleading and wishing for things you couldn’t have. So, you stopped. You kept up the replies. You matched his energy. It wasn’t until he sent you a screenshot of his flight itinerary that you started to realize the other shoe was dropping on you very soon.

He was supposed to fly in sometime this very afternoon, but it wouldn’t be only him. You’d heard from Pidge that his whole team was coming with him, eager to meet her and Hamish, apparently. You didn’t know what emotion you felt about that, but its anonymity didn’t stop you from feeling it.

You’d sent him back a Google Maps screenshot of your apartment, since he was supposed to be your ride up to Old Kilpatrick, and he sent you back the thumbs up emoji.

It was embarrassing to you that the slight change in send-reply patterning made your heart race. You felt like your brain could benefit from a hard reset, like an iPhone that had chosen to get stuck on the same application, unable to move forward to the next task.

So, you’d tried to put him out of your mind. When your labmate begged you to take her place at this colloquium, you jumped at the chance. A presentation would take up so much time and energy; surely it would cure you of your obsessive behavior. Unfortunately, Sonnet 91 felt all too timely.

You watched it populate the screen, the first four lines occupying the cold, unembellished center of your slide, professionally stark:

Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,Some in their wealth, some in their body's force,Some in their garments though new-fangled ill;Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse;

You wondered where your glory would come from, if you ever had any. Then, as if to answer your question, the hall door opened and he walked through it, carefully propping it open behind him and letting his three enormous friends through. Johnny was freshly shaven, and his mohawk was back, trimmed on the sides and groomed to stand in a tall, brown shock. You could see the prominent scar on the side of his head, a sharp cross where the hair could no longer grow.

There was an observable air of confidence to his movements, as if this was his hundredth colloquium, as if he attended them every week. His surety silenced you, and you stood staring, rapt.

He met your eyes. The bright, glassy blues found you, set in a pleased way, fully at peace. It was the face made when something lost had been found, when a gift was unwrapped. A knowing gleam.

If you didn’t start talking, people were going to ask you if you were alright. So, you introduced yourself, shakily but smoothing it out as you went,

“Good evening, and thank you for joining us at the 2023 Christmas Eve Colloquium tonight. I love this tradition, and I really appreciate you all being here. If you didn’t get the, uh… the handouts,” you pushed the stack across the desk toward the undergrads who all crowded around them like seagulls with an old French fry, “Okay...”

You pointed up to the sprawling slide,

“In looking at Sonnet 91, most would argue that it is a confession of love. But, it is a tentative one, at best. The speaker claims that despite whatever glory others may have, his glory is found in his lover. We don’t learn until the couplet that his affections are at risk of not being returned.”

You flipped the slide, showing the next four lines:

And every humour hath his adjunct pleasure,Wherein it finds a joy above the rest:But these particulars are not my measure,All these I better in one general best.

It was all very simple. This was an easy sonnet, and there was no real mystery, but as you came to the end, you tried to reiterate your thoughts quickly, feeling the pressure to let people get on with their lives,

“The speaker makes quite a substantial claim here, so much so that the audience may be led to believe that he is being intentionally facetious, especially if one were to consider the content of Sonnet 92.”

“No,” a deep voice from high in the back protested, “I mean, I think I disagree with you, lass.”

The whole room woke up. Everyone turned quietly in their seats, generating a symphony of creaking and rustling of chairs and coats, craning their necks to look at Johnny who, for some reason, had stood up in his aisle.

“Oh, how so?” You said politely, trying to be deferential.

It was more than a little uncomfortable in the room. No one ever asked questions during the colloquium, even though that was its intended purpose, and certainly no one ever stood up when they asked it. Everyone usually just allowed the speaker to drone on and on about whatever topic they were into that week, and there would be polite applause at the end so you could all go home early. Ironically, Johnny had committed an act of rebellion a mere five minutes into your talk.

“Well,” he crossed his huge arms over his chest, shoving his muscles against each other. Amongst the mostly lithe, soft-bodied academic crowd, he and his friends looked out of place. He raised his voice, sending it arching down to you like an arrow, “I’m pretty sure he’s genuine. Look at the next four lines.”

He pointed to the glowing screen. You sighed, flipping slides.

Thy love is better than high birth to me,Richer than wealth, prouder than garments' cost,Of more delight than hawks and horses be;And having thee, of all men's pride I boast:

“Look, bonnie,” Johnny chuckled, “I dunno about you, but if I’m boastin’ about a wee hen who’s more than all that — more than wealth, more than all men’s pride? She must actually be somethin’ to boast about.”

You countered, trying to get the talk back under your control, flipping to the next slide:

Wretched in this alone, that thou mayst takeAll this away, and me most wretched make.

“Then what of his lamentation in the couplet?” You asked pointedly, listening to the sounds of creaking chairs again as everyone turned back to look at you as you responded, “Surely he has some reason to doubt this uniquely prideful love.”

Johnny shrugged,

“He doesnae doubt the love; his life cannae be separated from his love. Love is all there is. Ye ken it from Sonnet 92 when he asks: But what’s so blessed-fair that knows no blot?”

You smiled, slowly, knowingly, and then finished the couplet for him,

“Thou mayst be false, and yet I know it not.”

You were aware of the implication you were wielding like a knife down there in your theatre, staining your hands and hurling your scalpel at him, accusing him through verse of the same sin you’d thrown in his face the last time you spoke to him: of being false, of betraying Pidge.

Johnny shifted his weight, frustrated, but standing his ground,

“It’s not… he doesnae think it’s false, hen. Tha’s not it.”

Were you still arguing about the poem? You couldn’t tell. His face had become serious and a little pleading. So, you responded in verse since it would fit the conversation either way,

“How like Eve’s apple doth thy beauty grow, if thy sweet virtue answer not thy show.”

“And I would bloody eat it anyway, thief. False or no.”

There was an awkward silence and then a short, if a bit unsettled, polite applause. People began to shuffle out, standing, stretching, and chatting with each other as they made their way back into the hallway. A few of your labmates waved at you, and a friend from your cohort wished you a happy Christmas.

Johnny sauntered down the stairs toward you, leaving his friends lounging in their seats, and as he came closer and closer, you felt like you were the one on the slab of your own theatre, open and vulnerable to the empty room, fully at the mercy of your operator.

You thought he might pause, that he may stop walking and stand a few paces away, ready to talk things out, but he didn’t. He didn’t even slow his pace. Johnny grabbed you around your jaw with his enormous hand, his wide palm hot against your chin, and he pulled you into him, your lips sliding into his, pressing together like the last piece of a puzzle, completing a picture.

His body was so warm as you crashed into his arms, and he held you down, pinning you like you would fall away from him if he let go. You couldn’t do much else other than submit to his strength; you didn’t want to do much else. You grabbed him around his waist, feeling him through the thin cotton of his shirt, tumbling into him as he forced your mouth to take his tongue.

Johnny let go of a low moan, a sigh that couldn’t escape, and the hand that had been holding your face was now fisting your hair and running thick fingers through your soft strands.

He pulled back without warning, gasping as he whispered to you, speaking with his forehead resting on yours and his eyes pinched closed,

“Did you mean it, what you told Gaz? Am I right? Is this right?”

You took a deep breath, smelling his soap and his cologne, the scent of his skin so familiar to you it seemed like home. His eyes remained closed, and he wore a mask of pain, holding himself back from truly letting go. You nodded, whispering back to him,

“You were right.”

Then, his eyes shot open, finding yours immediately, looking back and forth to peer into both of them at once, searching for even the slightest hint of deception,

“Are you fallin’ for me, mèirleach? ‘Cause I’m… I cannae go halfway. I’m in, or I’m out.”

“I’m in,” you smiled, laughing a little at your confession. He kissed you again, softly petting your hair, holding you close. But, you paused and looked up at him with a warning glare in your eye, “But, look, she cannot know. Maybe after the wedding, but… she cannot find out.”

“She won’t,” he was smiling back at you, making it look like it would be on his face forever, “I’m a professional spy, lass, or did you forget my wee entourage back there.”

He nodded up to his friends. The captain was asleep with his hat over his eyes, snoring in long, regular rhythms. Ghost was using a datapad, staring intently at the screen, and Gaz was using two hands on his cell phone, tapping vigorously, engrossed in some sort of game.

Johnny whistled, quick and shrill. The men stirred, peering down at him and making their way toward you. When they reached the bottom, they all towered over you, ready for polite introductions.

“John,” the scruffy, bearded one shook your hand first. His fingers were dangerously strong, and it shocked you to feel it against your own palm.

A young man was next. You knew it was Gaz, but you hadn’t seen a photo of him yet.

“I’m Kyle,” he smiled. He was even nicer in person, “We texted, before.”

You nodded, smiling back, and introducing yourself.

Then, it was the big one.

“Simon,” the tall blond shook your hand for a brief moment, just enough to squeeze and release.

“It’s really nice to meet you all,” you said, “I’m glad you made it for the holiday.”

“We try to stick together ‘round this time of year,” Price explained, but you weren’t sure you fully understood his meaning. You just smiled and nodded.

“You ready to head out?” Johnny asked you.

“Yeah, just need to head back to my place and get my bag.”

“Alright, hen,” Johnny smiled, “Lead the way.”

You led them up and out of the building and into the cold night air. Your apartment was only a short walk from this side of campus, so you decided to forego the bus ride.

Johnny had your hand clasped in his so tightly that you wondered if he was alright. You looked up at him, and he smiled. You didn’t know how to say all the things you wanted to say, so you just commented on the most obvious one first,

“Where did you learn Sonnet 91? Or 92 and 93 for that matter?”

Gaz interrupted you, turning his head to talk over his shoulder as you walked behind him,

“Bloody stuck in his Kindle for months, he was. I think he read them all, and then he read them all to us. We’ve had more of the Bard than fuckin’ Lizzy the first.”

You gasped and made a face at Johnny, waiting for him to answer for his actions. He just shrugged, his cheeks flushed either from the embarrassment or the cold.

Price walked up beside him and knocked him a bit on his shoulder, ribbing him along with Gaz,

“Especially that one. What number?”

“Fuckin’ 145,” Ghost groaned.

Then, in unison, the three soldiers all started reciting it aloud, their voices sing-song and purposefully annoying,

“Those lips that Love’s own hand did make breathed forth the sound that said “I hate” to me that languished for her sake…”

Johnny shoved Gaz back to the front of the group with his free hand, laughing it off,

“Alright, alright, you bastards. I may have read it two or three times…”

“Two or three hundred, Sergeant,” Price rolled his eyes.

You grinned up at Johnny, humming your pleasure,

“Wow! I’m impressed. Didn’t know you were such a Shakespeare fan.”

Gaz scoffed,

“It’s not the poems he’s a fan of!”

Price smacked him on his arm, stopping Gaz from being too mean in his playfulness, aware that Johnny had his limits of what he would allow to be said in front of you.

“Mmm,” you answered noncommittally, squeezing Johnny’s hand as it held yours, clutching at you like the end of a rope, holding you like an anchor to his hull.

As you made it to your apartment, you pointed to the small coffee shop on the corner of your block,

“Do you wanna wait somewhere warm? I’ll only be a minute.”

Price snorted, grinning as if he had just remembered a private joke,

“Go help her with her bags, Sergeant. C’mon, lads.”

The trio left you together, and Johnny waited for you to open the door to the lobby. You buzzed in and waited for the elevator in the quiet foyer.

He was silent the whole ride up to your floor. You thought he’d have more to say, especially after just getting back from a tour. You wondered what was keeping him so quiet.

You jiggled your key into the lock and pushed your way inside. Marlowe was on the futon, lounging in her favorite position, but when she saw the strange man in her house, she bristled and fled beneath your bed.

“Marlowe,” Johnny said, recognizing her.

“Yeah,” you smiled, grabbing your vitamins from the kitchen cabinet to put in your bag, “Sorry, she’s afraid of strangers.”

“It’s alright, hen. I love your place. Look at that view. You can see the river and everything. That’s class.”

He was being polite. Johnny was way too big for your apartment. With him in the space, it felt like you may as well have lived in a tent. It was such close quarters that you spent most of the time edging around him to get to your stuff.

“Can I…?” He was pointing down at your bed, asking to sit.

Recognizing your rudeness, you nodded,

“Yes, of course. I’m sorry. Can I get you a water or something? Tea?”

“No, I’m good,” he sat and smiled, still looking around the space, taking it in. To be fair, there wasn’t much to see.

You continued to pack, trying to hurry knowing his friends were downstairs waiting for you.

“Okay, toothbrush… I think I’m all set. Are you ready?”

“No,” he was looking down at the floor, and his tone was so soft that it made you stop your packing whirlwind to listen to him.

The silence deepened between you, and you tried to be patient. Neither of you dared to move, but he met your eyes.

“What is it, Johnny?” You asked, still waiting.

He stood and walked the half step it took to stand before you. His huge shoulders blocked out the light, and you could tell he was chewing on his words, working them over and over to make sure they were right.

“I need to know…” he said quietly, running his fingers through your hair again, “I need to know if you are havin’ any doubts about this, lass. I dinnae want to pressure you, and I know I shouldnae be asking you to lie to her, but I need you, mèirleach. I need to know you’re not still havin’ doubts about the way I feel about you.”

Were you? You weren’t sure. You knew he cared about you, and you didn’t have any evidence that he was playing you, but Pidge’s warning still raged in the back of your mind.

You sighed,

“I don’t doubt that you have feelings for me.”

“But, you think they willnae last?”

“I don’t know, but I want to find out. It’s just hard to have confidence in a secret.”

He furrowed his brow,

“I’d call her and tell her now, if you’d let me. You wanna wait, hen. And I’m fine with that. I am. But, how am I supposed to show you who I am when I’m not supposed to be showin’ you anything at all?”

You didn’t know what to say to him, and it made you feel discouraged. Maybe you were wrong. Perhaps you should have kept your promise after all, and this was just too complicated.

Johnny watched the guilt spread across your face and chased you down with his eyes, his tone laced with dark suggestion,

“Unless you want me to show you now, thief.”

You did. You wanted him to show you everything he was. And, you understood what he was asking you for. The nerves between your legs pulsed, and blood rushed down your arms, excited for whatever he was threatening you with. You wanted him to fuck you right here in your apartment. But, you hesitated, very aware that if you said yes, if you let him show you what he wanted you to see, you wouldn’t be able to come back from that. The guilt would eat you alive.

“Your… friends…” you picked at the zipper of his thick coat, stepping close enough to him that you could feel his heat radiating from inside the fleece lining of it.

“My friends can wait, thief. I can’t.”

“Then don’t.”

The same way a bear trap snapped shut, its teeth digging into the writhing flesh of the creature inside its metal maw, that was how he caught you in that moment. You looked up at him, eyes wide and expectant, and you were greeted with a hunter’s smile. He knew he had you, and he went for the kill, putting you out of your misery. His arms wrapped around your body as he kissed you with a high fever, moving from your mouth to your neck as quickly as he could, devouring your soft flesh there, nipping and sucking at you frenzied and harsh. All of his gentle reservedness was gone, pushed aside in favor of sating his wild craving.

You were on the bed in a second, your back flat, pressed into the mattress by his heavy weight. He didn’t readjust. He allowed his body to pin you down, crushing you beneath him. You tried to rid him of his jacket; there were so many layers between you, and you were eager for there to be none.

He helped you, shucking off his coat and shirt layers quickly before returning to your mouth and throat, breathlessly panting as he kissed and licked your throat. His chest was bare to you then, and the cold metal of his tags stung your chest as they jingled out of his clothes, falling onto you like two silver coins. You rubbed his body down, pressing into the muscles of his neck and back, feeling them jerk and lunge as he moved above you. He kissed your mouth again, moaning through his nose.

Then, he was peeling you apart, taking your clothes and tossing them away, pulling off the tissue from a coveted gift. Johnny didn’t even take time to pause at your bra; he just yanked it over your head with the rest of your clothes, unceremoniously. While you were sucking on his tongue and kissing down the scruff of his jaw, you heard his boots thump onto the floor, one after the other.

All that remained between you were your slacks and his jeans, and he was forced to leave your mouth to deal with the barriers. He made his way to your breasts, sucking on them hungrily, but not playing. He was done playing with you, it seemed.

He popped the button on your pants and tucked both of his hands into the waistband, grabbing your panties along with it, and ripped them down your legs with a deep grunt. You were naked, and the denim of his jeans raked against your sensitive skin. He was grinding his body against you as you were trapped beneath him, and you felt his hips rock back and forth as he rubbed his cock against your core, trying to use the friction inside of his jeans to find some pleasure, returning to your nipples to lick them into stiff peaks.

You wrapped your legs around his hips, your thighs halfway between the skin of his ribs and the bite of his belt, letting him thrust against you.

“Johnny,” you whispered, “Take them off.”

“Not yet, hen.”

You moaned, feeling his crotch pressing hard against yours, but not being able to find any sort of consistency in the texture.

“Why not?” You asked and begged at the same time.

“Because…” He kissed his way down your belly, settling his face between your thighs, “As soon as I do, I’m gonna fuck you, mèirleach. And I’ve not tasted you, yet.”

His mouth was wet and hot and just what you wanted. Johnny ate you like he was on a mission. There was no careful exploration like the first time. It felt like he was eating you to satisfy his own craving, and your enjoyment was merely a fringe benefit.

You keened as loudly as you dared, crying out for him as he lapped at your folds, hunting down your flavor.

Then, he began to speak to you as he sucked on your clit, pausing to say his words before returning to his font to swallow more of you down into his throat.

“Do y’know how long I’ve waited for this, hen?”

Suck, lick, kiss…

“How many nights…”

Suck.

“...in the sand…”

Lick.

“...in the bloody dark…”

Kiss.

“...waiting to have you in my mouth like this.”

Lick. Lick. Liiiickkkk…

“Oh, fuck, Johnny!” You bit down on the back of your hand, reeling from the pressure building in your center, feeling chills on your arms and chest, “Please…”

“And when Gaz told me…”

Suck.

“...I didnae believe him.”

Lick.

“But, I wanted to. I wanted to believe…”

Kiss.

“...that you were really mine…”

Suuuuckkkk.

“...mo mèirleach…”

Liiickkkk.

“...mo ghràdh.”

You started to come, your hips vaulting into his strong jaws, and his eyes found yours, bright and clear, staring at you, watching you fall apart in his mouth. At the last moment, just before you fell over the peak, he wrenched his eyes shut and sucked even harder, yanking you into a furious, crashing orgasm.

Then, desperately scrambling to taste the result, he thrust his tongue deep into your hole, his entire mouth suctioned to your pussy, reaping his soaking reward.

“Johnny,” you sobbed, overwhelmed by the power you felt growing inside of you, bursting across your body like hundreds of little fireworks.

He was back up by your face in a moment, cradling you and kissing you with your come smeared all over his lips and cheeks,

“Shh, shh… it’s alright, lass. I know what you need. It’s what I need, too.”

You heard his zipper and watched him slide out of his jeans, kicking his socks off with them, naked with you once more, and now with full intent. His cock was drooling onto your belly, the precome leaving long, sticky trails as his swollen shaft traced its way up and down through your folds. Johnny’s cock was so hard that it felt like a warm, iron pipe was pressing into you, threatening and dangerous.

You must have worn the concern on your face because he chuckled down at you, kissing your forehead sweetly as he humped himself against you,

“Too much for you, thief?”

You let your hands meet in the middle, holding his dick with one on top of the other, effectively jacking him off as he thrust forward and back, wetting him with his own lubrication, and you watched him throw his head back in sharp need. You smiled up at him,

“Not yet.”

“Jesus Christ,” he paused, holding his position, poised like a viper. Then, he looked down at you, suddenly serene, “Do you need a condom?”

“No, do you?”

“Fuck, no,” he said, and he immediately sank his head into your softness, melting into you with a slick slide, trusting you implicitly, believing you like a disciple.

Your body hadn’t experienced a cock as thick and as hard as his. It wasn’t uncomfortably long, but its upward curve was particularly cruel. It was built to torture the soft pleasure-ladden spot inside of your walls, dragging across it as he fit himself inside of you. It took a few thrusts until you felt his hilt, but you were wet enough that your pussy didn’t need much coaxing. He was sighing above you, audibly and full of relief, his face bent and twisted in a perfect torment.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck… thief, holy fuck. Oh, Christ. I cannae… oh…”

His thrusts were audible. Flesh pounded into flesh, and the wet noises coming from you seemed unreal. Each and every time he entered you, pressing through you and molding you to his shape, you felt sparks of bliss within your belly, expectant and eager.

“Johnny… it feels so good. You feel…”

“You alright, mo ghràdh? Do you… mmmph, fuck… do you need me to slow down?”

You imagined what that would be like, and your pussy railed against it, feral and wanton, fighting any semblance of gentility with sharpened teeth and greedy claws.

“No, please… don’t.” you kissed his cheek as he lay his head into your shoulder, deep in concentration, rolling in his passion.

Your kiss made him turn to face you, kissing your mouth so softly, with loose, relaxed lips, gently sliding his cheek across yours like a huge cat, rubbing himself all over you. He didn’t stop, but he spoke to you darkly,

“I’ll do whatever you want, lass. Tell me, and it’s yours.”

“This,” you sighed, moaning as another wave of pleasure made you clench down around him, gripping him from within you with a fluttering squeeze, “You. Just you, mo chridhe.”

You tested out the nickname you’d used before, hoping to encourage him. You may as well have poured kerosene on a fire. He narrowed his eyes at you in disbelief, obviously hearing it and using it like war paint, covering his body in it, staining himself in it, changing himself from the inside out to fit its definition. He lay his head next to yours as he worked his cock within you, grunting through gritted teeth with each heavy thrust. His body started to tremble, shaking with his need to come, and the low, long whine that came from his throat made it sound like he was boiling over with blinding pleasure.

He took both of his arms and crossed them behind your back, grasping your shoulders from behind in a painfully tight hold. Then, pressed to his chest, he lifted you, settling you in his lap in the lotus position, keeping his cock sheathed deep inside of you. You grabbed onto his neck instinctively, holding him like a lifeline, rocking your hips into him to chase that friction.

Johnny sighed, pressing his forehead to yours,

“Yes, yes, yes, thief. Take it. Fuck yourself on me, hen. Use me. I wanna feel you come, mèirleach…”

He begged so sweetly, and you were happy to oblige. You used his shoulders to brace yourself while you pushed your body down onto him, spearing yourself over and over. At this new angle, his cockhead hit your g-spot every single goddamn time, and you were dizzy from his menacing shape. He snaked his hand between you to press on your clit, not even rubbing it but applying force, giving you something to grind against. The combination of his hand and his cock and his growling whines of struggling for control were enough to do the trick, and you saw white behind your eyes as you fell into a chaotic, plunging orgasm once again.

“Fuuuuckkkk…” He groaned loudly, his voice turning vicious, “You are mine.”

Your body fell back to the bed and he shoved your legs onto one of his shoulders, fucking you as deep as he could go, stretching you as he did, throwing himself into you as you came down from your high. He was shouting, curses and praises, all in a filthy, animalistic snarl. Johnny just kept repeating the same phrase in a cultish chant, mindless and recursive, completely beyond himself, past reality.

“You’re mine, thief. Mine.”

As he came, he searched for your eyes, staring into them, showing you his elation. You ran a hand across his scalp, your fingernails dragging through his mohawk, and you saw the whites of his eyes as he rolled them back into his head involuntarily. You held onto his hair and gave it a little pressure, holding his skull in your hands as he filled you with his spent pleasure, his cock throbbing, pulsing rope after rope of hot come into your belly, frothing and foaming around the base of his shaft as he fucked you through it.

20 MINUTES LATER

You were so worried that his friends would make some sort of comment. As you walked back to the coffee shop, tucked under his heavy arm, you prepared for the playful banter and the jeering. His mohawk was destroyed, and you were both glowing with a sheen of sweat, matching in your states. You knew that they knew. You could also tell that Johnny was bracing himself for the worst, steeling his resolve before entering the cafe. And you thought you would get, at the very least, some mention of how long it had taken to get your bags. But, when you made it to the coffee shop, they didn’t say a word. They smiled, and although they smiled knowingly, there was more affection in it than mischief. It shocked you. After all the ribbing from before, to have none now seemed like some kind of gift. When Johnny realized they were going to let him keep his prize for himself, uncontested, he began to glow with pride as much as pleasure.

The ride was not quiet, though. All of their stories from Urzikstan and its many dangers started to come out. Price told you about how Gaz and Ghost were almost incinerated in a cobalt mine, and Johnny was showing off his newest badge - a retro SAS pin Price had given him for rescuing the other two from said mine. The blue wings and the motto surrounded a bright sword.

“Who dares, wins?” You asked, trying to see the words in the dark backseat.

Ghost, who had needed to sit in the front with Johnny because of his height, nodded, taking the pin back from you to admire it.

“Well deserved,” Price commented beside you.

“Sounds like it,” you agreed.

Johnny had been so sweet to you after his ferocious lovemaking, you thought all the medals in the world might not be enough to thank the man. No one had ever been so kind nor so attentive. Most of the time, you and whatever lad would clean up separately, maybe watch a show or two and then say your goodbyes. Not Johnny. He spent most of his time admiring your body, making sure you were intact and unharmed. Then, after covering you up with your softest throw, he came back with a hot towel and cleaned you up meticulously. He lay beside you until you felt good enough to get dressed, and still as you were putting your hair up, he made you a tea and finished packing your bag with the things you’d forgotten; your vitamins on the counter and your phone charger.

When you came out of the bathroom, he had stripped your sheets and put them in the hamper, and Marlowe’s food timer had been set. Her litter box was clean, and the automated litter keeper was reset. You wondered fleetingly if he had wiped down the counters as well.

The drive felt shorter than usual, especially since your thoughts were on other things. But, when you pulled into Old Kilpatrick, Johnny spoke up to the whole car,

“Look, no one says a fuckin’ thing about us to my sister. To anyone, alright? She’ll find out when she’s bloody meant to.”

The men agreed to keep quiet, but Gaz mouthed off beside you,

“Sure we can keep a secret, Soap, but what about you? I wouldn’t give you a medal for impulse control, mate.”

Johnny eyed him in the rear-view mirror with a stern glare,

“Aye, but then that’s my problem, you daft bastard.”

Gaz rolled his eyes, grinning all the while.

By the time you’d arrived, the only open spot to sleep was a big pallet on the floor of the living room. Hamish was the only one awake to welcome you, and he set you up with pillows and blankets to camp out like a row of sardines.

“Hey, lass,” Hamish told you, “Go sleep with Pigeon. She’d murder me for leaving you on the ground.”

He looked worn out, and although you didn’t mind sleeping on the floor, you didn’t have any real reason to insist. So, you hugged all the boys good night, making sure not to take too long on Johnny’s turn, and retreated to your post.

Pidge was snoring softly as you entered the room, and you got ready for bed as quietly as you could, plugging in your phone to the nightstand. It buzzed, and you saw his message flash up on the screen:

Mo Chridhe: miss you

You: i miss you too

Mo Chridhe: im still in a wee shock

You: why

Mo Chridhe: you. cannae believe youre mine

You: i am. and youre mine johnny mactavish.

Mo Chridhe: promise

You: promise

CHRISTMAS MORNING

Waking up with Johnny and sitting around the tree together with your coffee was every bit like Christmas morning as when you were a child. Instead of presents, you were content to sit as close to him as you dared, pretending to be making room for others by finding spots on the floor beside the gifts and stockings.

All together, it was Johnny, his three soldiers, you, Pidge, Hamish, Hamish’s mum and dad, and Roger. Rodger had crashed on the couch last night, the Hamiltons had taken Johnny’s room, and now you were all crowded up in the small den, passing gifts around and chatting as you opened your presents. There weren’t many, but it was enough to feel like a holiday.

Roger got the Playstation he’d been begging for from his brother, and his parents had bought him the games. Pidge had given Johnny a new set of headphones since his had melted in the cobalt mining fire. She also got him a pound of her shortbread cookies, which he was stuffing into his mouth with absolute abandon. He’d bought her a tea set off her wedding registry, and Hamish had landed a very aggressive knife from him. The professor was already being given a tutorial by Captain Price, and you tried not to laugh as he practiced stabbing the air with him in the kitchen. Price was scary when he did it, but Hamish looked downright silly.

“Okay, alright. My turn. Here,” you gave out your cards to everyone in attendance, but pulled out a box for Pidge.

“What did you do! I told you not to, hen. I am going to give you a laldy, and you’d deserve it!” She hugged you around the neck and jiggled the box.

Satisfied with the rattle, she tore into the paper and gingerly lifted off the lid. Inside, she saw the MacTavish tartan, woven into a full shawl, embroidered with a tiny pigeon in the corner, just for her. She inspected it with wonder, her breath fully stolen away.

“Did you… You made this? Are you doin’ your weavin’ again, babe? I thought you gave it up.”

You shrugged,

“I found a reason to give it one last shot.”

Pidge started to cry real, honest tears, and she reached out for you, clutching the shawl to her chest, sobbing,

“Thank you, hen. Thank you so much. After they buried mum in hers, and I didn’t… I couldn’t touch it anymore, I just…”

You held her and rocked her back and forth, smiling at her outpouring of love,

“I know, babe. I remember you saying so. But, now you’ve got one of your own.”

For a moment, you stole a glance at Johnny. The whole room was a little moved by your gesture, but he looked… unwell. He was standing behind everyone, and you were the only one looking at him. His hand was clasped over his mouth, and he had tears coming from his eyes, unblinking, letting them roll down his cheeks one after the other, staring at you, frozen in place. He was so unsettled that, for a moment, you thought you’d made some error. But, as Pidge recovered, so did he, and he wiped his face to return to normal; putting on a mask of an expression, hiding whatever he had just shown you.

“You’re the best damn friend I’ve ever had, hen. And I love you. Dearly.”

“I love you too, Pidge.”

“Here, here, open mine! It’s not as braw as all tha’ you did, but still.”

You were handed a gift bag, and you peeked inside. You found a book of poetry with some incredible illustrations inside, and a charm necklace with a silver boar hanging from it.

“It’s our wee clan beastie. You may as well be a MacTavish by now, hen. So, I thought you should have it.”

You smiled, letting her put it on you. Then, you hugged her tight,

“You don’t know what that means to me, Pidge.”

Pidge laughed through dried tears, still emotional,

“Ha! Says you, miss weaver. Honestly.”

You let her gush over it a little more before you retreated back to your position beside Johnny. You pulled out the four smaller boxes from your bag and handed them to the soldiers, indiscriminately since they were all alike.

“What did you do, thief?” Johnny’s voice was low, and he was grinning up at you, staring at you through those dark lashes.

“Open them,” you urged him.

They did, and one by one they all pulled out small compasses, made with built-in flint strikers, hanging from tied paracord. It was the most tactical practical thing you could find on such short notice, but they all seemed pleased. Gaz shook it at Price,

“This would’ve been bloody helpful in South Tobraka!”

You laughed,

“Well, I’m sure it’s a little too low-tech for you, but Merry Christmas anyway.”

“It’s bloody perfect,” Gaz smiled, clapping you on the back. Ghost nodded, and Price hooked it to his lanyard without questioning it.

Johnny bent over to whisper to you as discreetly as he could,

“Gotta sneak off to give you mine, lass.”

You smacked him on the arm, whispering back, watching Pidge like a hawk as you did so to make sure she couldn’t see you,

“Don’t be naughty.”

Johnny laughed,

“No, no. I’m serious.”

“Alright!” Hamish clapped his hands, causing you to jump out of your skin, “Who’s ready for crackers?”

CHRISTMAS NIGHT

You and Johnny were curled up on the couch with a steaming cup of sweet wassail, scrolling through the photos you’d taken that night. You popped two crackers together, pulling out your paper crowns, your gold and his blue, snapping selfies and reading the jokes to each other. Everyone was in their crowns by the end of the night, and while Price smoked cigars on the porch with Gaz and Ghost, Pidge and Hamish had driven his parents and brother home.

You were finally alone after having such a full house, and your gift for him was burning a hole in your bag. You were dying to give it to him, but he beat you to the punch.

“Alright, mèirleach, are you ready for your wee gift? It’s probably gonna earn me extra PT for a few months, but it’s worth it.”

“Why?” You asked, setting your cup down on the end table and turning your body towards him.

“‘Cause I’m not even supposed to have these off-duty, much less hand them over to my American lassie.”

Johnny dug into the neckline of his shirt and pulled out the dog tags that you had encountered last night when he took you to bed. The coin jangled on the chain as he pulled it over his head, and like a medal for an award you had not won, he looped it behind your neck, letting the coin fall between your breasts, still warm from his body and now warm from yours.

You pulled it up to read its stamp, staring at the words:

O POS 2073521 MACTAVISH SAS RC

“Wanted you to have it, lass. A wee piece of me to keep safe, if you will.”

It was hard to know why you started crying, but you felt the searing tears fall down your cheeks as you stared at the tag. His blood type was what started it all, and you began to imagine all of the times that this thin coin would have warranted such a label.

“It’s alright, mèirleach, if you dinnae —”

“No,” you raised your hand to his face, closing your other hand around the coin and pulling it in to your chest, eager to keep it safe just as he had asked, “Thank you, Johnny. I love it.”

He turned his face toward your hand as you caressed his scruffy jaw, and kissed your palm, holding your hand with his so you couldn’t escape.

“I got you something, too. But, it’s small, and now I’m afraid you won’t have anything to hang it on.”

You dug in your bag and pulled out a small cardboard box with a thin red string tied around it. There was no card, there was no name printed on it, but he knew it was him nonetheless. He took it from you, almost snatching it, excited and surprised, not waiting for it to be given.

“Thief! You didnae have to do that,” he was grinning, and his eyes gleamed, full of sudden joy.

You’d found an old locket at the charity shop, and your gift had fit inside perfectly. When he opened the clasp, he froze. You’d use a scrap of the shawl that you’d woven for Pidge and cut a little circle from it, embroidering a tiny map of Scotland over the threads, planting a little red heart over what was almost Glasgow.

“Mo mèirleach…”

“Mo chridhe.”

As soon as you said his name, his eyes found yours and he leaned in to kiss you, clutching the locket in his fist, tight, tight, tight.

BEFORE DAWN

That night, in his bed, smelling his oranges and cloves, his scent filling your nose, covering you with his sheets, you lay buried in his chest where his tags used to lie, your cheek now warming the skin beneath. You imagined the compasses that dangled from the four sets of keys strewn across the kitchen counter. You thought about the shawl that was wrapped around his sister as she slept in her bed. Holding his locket in your hand, you ran your fingertips over its tartan, borne of the same threads as hers. You wondered about tomorrow, and the day after that, and the year ahead of you, and you felt a tightness in your own chest as you considered the timeline stretching out before you, woven from the choices you and your lover had made together. It was as if you had altered fate’s plan somehow, shunning your intended path and forging one of your own making. What future had you created? Did you have the guile to craft the right course? You held his hand, his fingers laced between yours, and whichever way you went, you hoped that he would be braving it with you.

#call of duty fanfic #cod mw2 #cod mwii #cod #guile and guilt #soap mactavish #cod soap #john soap mactavish #john soap mctavish x reader #johnny soap mactavish #john mactavish smut #soap mactavish x reader #john mactavish x reader #johnny mactavish

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cinnbar-bun · 4 months

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hi hi this has to be my favorite one piece writing blog, seriously ur writing makes me so happy 😭🖤

not sure if i can request multiple characters but do you mind if i can get general sfw/nsfw headcanons for jinbe and brook?

sorry i really like weird old men (again love your writing and i hope you have a very nice day!!!!!)

A/n: Aw thank you sweetheart. Please enjoy this~! Also, sorry for not posting for a bit, I’ve been exhausted from work and lost some motivation to write oneshots :( but I just love Brook so much so I had to do this.

Brook + Jinbei General SFW + NSFW HCs

Note: separate relationships, reader is GN, smut headcanons inside. Fluffy mmm.

Word Count: 874

Brook

Brook, ever the performer, loves waking you up or lulling you to sleep with his music. Heck, he’ll even burst out into song throughout the day for you if you wish. He’s your 24/7 skeletal radio.

Sometimes he also does freestyle music and makes up lyrics and beats on the spot about whatever you’re doing or how he feels. They’re usually cheesy and not all that serious, but they never fail to lift your spirits up.

Brook likes to be dramatic in your presence to get some attention from you. Sometimes he’s like a spoiled baby but he can’t help it- you’re too amazing!! And he loves you so much!!

If you’re ever feeling too hot, Brook will always put a hand to your head or elsewhere to help you cool down with his devil fruit powers. He’s your not so little walking ice pack.

Brook, while eccentric, is still an old man at heart so he often likes to treat you and spoil you the old-fashioned way. Kneeling on the main deck as you’re on the top deck while he performs you sweet sonnets and ballads he made just for you. Always wanting to keep an arm around your waist. Walking on the street side of the sidewalk. Buying you flowers at any given moment.

He’s a charming gentleman, and it’s very clear when it comes to you.

That being said, he can still be a pervert and it’s full force for you.

He goes gaga over your body! Literally loses his soul when he even gets a peek of you because ??? Hello??? You’re beautiful??

Beyond just sexually, he adores your body. It’s hard for him to explain the feeling but ever since he’s become just a pile of bones, he’s found a greater appreciation for the human body.

When he’s in bed with you, he wants to explore every inch and crevice of your body. Don’t get shy on him now, it’s not like he even has eyes to stare at you, YOHOHOHO!

Kidding, but really, when you two are getting intimate, he focuses on you and your reactions a great deal. He can’t have sex with you the way a human would, so most of his pleasure is derived from your enjoyment- yeah, he’s still got it.

His phalanges are god tier, argue with the wall!!!

Jinbei

Local dad-friend to the crew, loyal husband to you. You might not even be married but you might as well be, that’s just how sweet he is.

He really likes trying new things with you. Even something as small as a new ice cream flavor makes him happy. It’s rather silly and mundane, but something about doing it with you makes it feel wonderful.

“‘Cereal milk’…? There’s really a flavor for that?!”

And alongside new things, he likes to make traditions for the two of you. He’s a very sentimental man, so it can end up being something like eating that one specific dish you two had on your first date, or having a spot on the ship to sit and cuddle.

Jinbei makes sure you get a healthy amount of fruit in you. He will be casually leaving you a plate of freshly cut fruits and a glass of water beside you. He’s not letting you devoid yourself of essential nutrients and hydration. Will force feed you if necessary.

Okay this is just my headcanon but he’s got old man eyes so if something is in smaller fonts he squints and holds the page up to his face to try and read it. It isn’t until you offer to just read it for him that he FINALLY gives in and has you read it for him.

He’s got a great laugh. A hearty, jovial laugh that anyone in the crew can hear from miles away. Honestly, your jokes might not even be that good, but to him, it’s hilarious. Just being so carefree and funny like this is special to him. Your jokes and funny faces seriously make his day, so please never feel embarrassed to tell him one.

I don’t have a segue for this. He is just a big boy.

And yeah, he knows that he’s huge, which is why he takes extra care to make sure you’re properly stretched and ready to take him.

He never really put too much thought into his body beyond his strength, but he has to admit, he loves when you shower attention and compliment his body. Especially in the bedroom, his face just warms up and he gets a bit prideful. It gets him going knowing his body turns you on so much.

Gentle giant. He’s not going to go feral on you, especially not during the first few times you two lay together. He may consider that sort of thing later, alongside many safety measures.

He does enjoy doggy, but also, he finds it so sexy when you ride him. Forward or reverse, it doesn’t matter. It’s also a pretty good compromise because he can let you set a pace while joining with you to get it “rougher” if you so wish.

Lots and lots of praise from Jinbei, all whispered lovingly into your ear as he’s pounding into you <3

#one piece x reader #one piece #one piece smut #one piece hcs #smut #op brook x reader #brook x reader #one piece brook #soul king brook #reader insert #x reader #jinbei x reader #jinbei #jinbe #jinbe x reader

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nebbyy · 1 month

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Lester Papadopoulos/Apollo x reader - It's Over, isn't It?

A/N: okay so a few weeks ago I was listening to the song “It’s Over isn’t it” form the Steven Universe series and this scenario came to my mind, so I thought I’d just make it a fic! For this piece I didn’t see a point in assigning a gender to the reader, so we go with gender neutral all the way😎😎(neither your godly parent is specified since it doesn’t really add anything to the plot, so you can choose whichever you prefer)

PART TWO IS HERE

Warning: insecurity, jealousy, angst (WITH comfort tho), mentions of suggestive activities

Word count: 3209

You kinda hate yourself right now, and you hate yourself because you are so angry right now.

Well maybe angry is an exaggeration, but still, you’re really, really upset.

And you know you should be anything but upset right now. I mean, the love of your life finally has the chance to go back to his home in the Olympus, regain his honor and his status as a god. Those were all good things that you should be ecstatic about, right?

Well, wrong.

Just thinking of it made you feel like you could throw up at any moment. Thinking about the fact that Apollo. Because, what will be of Lester, your Lester?

Your whole relationship had started because he wasn’t Apollo. He wasn’t the tall, tan, handsome and all mighty God of the Sun; he was just a normal teen, whose only things that made him stick out were his acne, his clumsiness and a somewhat nice voice. His mortal condition didn’t even give him a single chance to act in his usual exaggerated, narcissistic self. He had to start off from the start, build a personality that wasn’t based on his godly qualities, but on something more real.

And in that situation he found himself in, with his new eyes he had seen you, and you truly seemed like a deity to him.

How could you be anything less to the rest of the world, he thought. You were your godly parent’s greatest hero, you were liked and admired by most campers both because of your victories and your looks. And he spent oh so many nights fantasizing about taking you back with him in Olympus, giving you the godly status that should be rightfully yours. But hell, with the body he’d found himself in he’d barely the courage to come up to you to talk.

He told you so many times how absolutely surprised he was when he found out that you actually liked him back, even if he looked like any 17 year old loser, his actual words. And you remembered too, how his voice was so shaky as he tried to muster up a coherent sentence, how his cheeks shone a bright red, how his hands were trembling as you took them into yours and his palms sweating. But in your mind, that was more beautiful than any sonnet, any haiku, any poem, any grandiose, Apollo-like gesture. Because that was Lester, not Apollo; and in your eyes, Lester’s awkwardness was what made him stand out, because it was purely genuine.

Now ever so often you wonder, if he used to feel like you’re feeling right now, like you’re no match to the person you love. You look at your reflection in the mirror of the bathroom, and the mean joke that played your mind made you highlight all the flaws you could spot in yourself. All things that a god could never accept in their lover. You feel so wrong, so flawed that you just wish you could turn yourself into mud and reform your appearance completely.

Gods, you’re being ridiculous right now, you think, you just want to slap yourself in the face and yell at your reflection to get a grip goddamnit! You’re one of the greatest heroes of your time, you survived two wars, you can’t possibly draw the line at a failed relationship with a god.

At one point someone might think: but why are you so opposed to the idea that your boyfriend is finally becoming a god once again? How ungrateful can you be??

But the point is, you know damn well that the whole point of the creation of Lester was forcing Apollo into a form that would’ve been the total opposite of who he is.

Because Apollo is naturally flirty and superficial, he loves to love and be loved, and he pursues anything and everything that he finds beautiful. But he got bored easily of his love conquers, hence why he has so many kids. So in your mind, it was only natural that as soon as he was back to normality, he’d grow tired of you and move to the next mortal that piqued his interest, maybe even leaving you a single parent to a new demigod.

That’s why you couldn’t stop that nagging feeling deep into your core, as you walked out of your cabin, hearing all the girls already speculating about how beautiful, handsome, shiny and dashing Apollo will be once he goes back to his form. “And who knows, maybe he’ll set his eyes on some of the friends he made in here” squealed a girl, from which cabin you did not know nor care. Her friend replied: “Yeah I mean, ain’t no way he’s gonna keep staying with the same partner forever. I mean, come on, he’s Apollo!” They both giggled like school girls, then kept gossiping about something else, but you did not care enough to keep eavesdropping their whole conversation.

You really hated yourself for being like this right now.

Of course, you know that those two girls meant no harm, it wasn’t their fault if they knew just as much as you did about Apollo’s tendencies. And about that you’re already came to terms with, but there’s something else you hate yourself for…

You stopped reaching out to him. Or even worse, you even started to avoid him.

Not also him, but your friends and siblings as well. You closed yourself off of everyone else in your life, opting to spend your free days in Camp by yourself, whether it is in your cabin, sparring or all alone in your favorite spot in the forest.

Which is exactly where you’re directed to right now, as you put your headphones in your ears, wasting no time to press play and then abuse the volume up button to muffle any sound from the outside. You walk past the two girls, past another group of guys that were training with one another, and past your friends too, who you didn’t noticed as they were calling and waving at you to join them for a quick snack, leaving them rather confused and preoccupied as it seemed that you were stuck in a trance, locked out in another dimension of your own.

You didn’t even see Lester excusing himself from the group to subtly start following you wherever you were going.

It’s a quiet place, the one in the forest, protected by a thick layer of trees and bushes that makes it hard to reach it; but it’s worth all the climbing and scratches for the beautiful sight of a clear waterfall that fell right into a circular body of water, surrounded by a rather big field of moss, so soft and fresh to lay on during the hot summer nights.

And so you did, letting yourself fall on that natural mattress, then closing your eyes to feel the light breeze on your exposed skin, and let the words of the song that’s blasting at full volume at the moment fill your ears, although you can barely focus on what they’re saying

It really seems unfair, all of this. That you thought you had fallen in love not with a god, but with a boy. Somehow forgetting that boy and god mixed in Lester, two sides of the same coin.

And maybe he forgot too, because every time the two of you were together, he suddenly couldn’t bring himself to think of the responsibilities that were waiting for him. With you, he forgot about his lost and very much missed abs and tan, he forgot about his chariot and his comfortable place in Olympus. Hell, you even made him forget about all his old lovers. It was really only you in his eyes, just as he was in yours. If only he’d ever told you all of this though…

Your mind keeps swirling in a million thoughts, until it fixates on one memory in particular.

You and him, alone on that very same spot in the forest. In a similar situation as you were now, too, with your crappy phone playing music softly in the background, as the the two of you laid together, one next to the other. You turn around to look at him briefly, only to find him already looking at you. “What, do I have something on my face or..” he just shake his head with the most lovestruck eyes you’d ever seen, batting his eyes slowly before looking at you once again, “I just really want to kiss you right now”.

Your eyes widen. His eyes widen. Did he really just say THAT?

Neither of you were sure how or why, thinking back to it, you wonder if it was his godly charm poking at the back of his head. But that didn’t matter at the time, the future in which he came back to his godly state seemed so far from you, it wasn’t even an option in your head.

Nevertheless, after the initial shock from his words, you silently answered him with a slow, almost numbed movement of the head, nodding slightly, almost scared that if you moved to fast you would’ve whisked him away, or that he could’ve changed his mind already.

But that nod was all that he needed before crashing his lips against yours, one of his hands flying to grab the side of your head, while the other stayed put on its place against the ground to keep him from falling on top of you.

The kiss was an absolute mess: teeth clashing, nose bumping against each other,... but it was perfect that way to you. You broke away from each other for a brief moment to catch your breaths, and you just look into each other’s eyes. With chests heaving, breaths mixing, you both started laughing, if only for a moment, a laugh of disbelief at what had just happened.

But that laugh didn’t last long before he moved his head closer once again, this time more slowly, more confidently. The kiss was in fact much less messy, your lips found their place against each other, the panic from before had morphed into pure butterflies in your stomach and fireworks in your eyes.

After a minute at most, you broke apart once again, but only for Lester to reposition himself on top of you in a more comfortable position. Your bodies closer than ever, you could feel everything of him….

What happened after still makes your cheeks flush red at the mere thought, but it also causes a frown to form on your face. Those times, when it was just the two of you are over. Maybe it was just a time of crisis that brought you two together, the shock from a morta perspective might have caused him to cling onto the closes person he could find. You can’t help but imagine Leste- Apollo in that moment, laying in the clouds of Olympus in a much similar scenario, maybe with a beautiful nymph or a smaller deity, or a mortal he laid his eyes on while he was on this earth-

“There you are! I should’ve known that if you’re not around you’re definitely in here.” If it were a normal, mortal voice, you wouldn’t have been able to hear it over the deafening high volume of the music blasting in you ears. But it wasn’t a mortal voice.

It was loud, it was melodic, it resonated in the air like the echo of the most beautiful of songs,…

You wouldn’t even need to turn around to know that that voice came from no other than Apollo. That’s right, he probably came back to his true form already. You can’t even imagine what a scene that would’ve been, to see the handsomely perfect god walking around Camp Half Blood, how many boys and girls had probably followed him around drooling over the sight of him.

You wish you could just stay put, coldly dismiss him and let him go for what probably is the rest of your life and his eternity. But, curiosity gets the best of you, and you can’t help but turn around tentatively, eager to see what your boyfriend really looks like.

Your mouth quite literally hits the floor at the sight. Don’t get me wrong, you’ve always found Lester really attractive, but this.

This was something beyond the concept of handsome or beautiful.

This, him, was beyond what humans can perceive and comprehend.

Yes, you knew that his skin was tanned, but as he stood in front of you it seemed as if his body was made of bronze.

And yes, you also knew that his hair was blonde, but that didn’t make them justice. They flew, like rays of sun through a clouded sky.

Of his eyes you knew nothing about, but you were pretty sure at this point that no description could really depict just how deep, bright, captivating, alluring, even, they really were.

Your mouth quite literally hit the floor at the sight. Don’t get me wrong, you’ve always found Lester really attractive, but this.

This was something beyond the concept of handsome or beautiful.

This, him, was beyond what humans can perceive and comprehend.

Yes, you knew that his skin was tanned, but as he stood in front of you it seemed as if his body was made of bronze.

And yes, you also knew that his hair was blonde, but that didn’t make them justice. They flew, like rays of sun through a clouded sky.

Of his eyes you knew nothing about, but you were pretty sure at this point that no description could really depict just how deep, bright, captivating, alluring, even, they really were.

Your throat felt tight, your mouth dry, and your whole body gives you this tingly sensation. With all of your strength, you took a deep breath to try and calm yourself down, before mustering all of your strength to speak without a pathetic shaky voice. “I thought you were going back as soon as you got your body back.“

“Ain’t no way that I wasn’t coming to kiss my beautiful partner goodbye.” He grinned as he swiftly took a seat right by your side, propping himself on his elbow, his eyes never once leaving yours. You swore his smile was intoxicating, you’d say contagious even if the thought that this might’ve been your last moments together didn’t fill your mind with sorrow.

You wanted to protect yourself from this, detach your mind and heart from him before he does it first, leaving you with an aching heart and moving on with his eternal life.

You felt a hand come up to your cheek, holding it softly as the sweetest melody came from his lips, “I’m gonna miss you madly once I’m back there, you know?” At that, you can’t help the deep anger that fills you from inside, a feeling that expresses through icy, stinging words, as you turned your head away from his touch, “I’m sure you’ll move on in no time.”

He frowned. That wasn’t the reaction he expected from you at all, but he didn’t really take it personally, it was so obvious that there was something troubling you. “What do you mean?”

“I mean…” your voice is louder, a mixture of frustration and anger. But also so much sadness, that can be felt by just how strained the sound that came from your throat is, almost as if you were fighting back tears. You swallow hard, trying to recollect yourself, “I mean that you are a God, I am just a mortal. One of many. I’ve got nothing special to be remembered for, to be remembered by you for the rest of eternity. And Im okay with it, really. Our destinies were never meant to combine, I was just another one of your lovers.” As you spoke those last words you couldn’t help but let the tears flow from your eyes, those who always looked at Lester with a mix of love and mischief, now only filled with a never ending sadness.

Slowly, as to avoid scaring you off, the renewed god took your wet face in his warm hands, pulling you closer and wiping your tears off at the same time. Gently, he spoke: “My love, you couldn’t have said anything more wrong. You are special to me, and I could never forget you. In thousands of years that I’ve existed, no one had ever treated like you did, like I wasn’t a god. Sure, it was temporary and you knew I could’ve incinerated you as soon as I got back to… this.” He looked down, gesturing at his body, a sight for sore eyes that could’ve really made you unfocus on anything were you not so taken by your talk with Apollo at the moment. “But that didn’t stop you from treating me like we were equal. And I hated it, at first. I thought it would be part of my punishment. But as time passed, I realized that being your equal was the highest of honors I could ever get. You’re… you’re crazy strong, incredibly smart, unbelievably beautiful, way too kind for your own good, especially with those brats of the kids in this Camp.”

You giggled at his words, a consistent contrast with your tearful eyes and quiet sobs, “Some of those brats are your children too, genius.” “Well then it must run in the family.” You laughed again while shaking your head, but only for a moment before returning your full attention on the boy in front of you. He took the sign to continue.

“What I’m trying to say is, I don’t think I could ever be able to let you go. Over all the lovers I had through the years, which I’m sure you know are many, you’re the only one that saw me and treated me with true love and care. Not with fearful devotion, never fearing what I was capable of. I only ever saw this kind of love in Sally Jackson, and I mocked Poseidon for letting a mortal like many treat him so casually. But now, now I get it, and to be honest I can’t help but think that you’d deserve to be called a deity far more than many others who already are. Maybe even more than me. So I refuse to ever let go of this blessing that fate has given me. And if in order to do so I have to take your soul and put it on the sky above, to rest as a star forever by my side, so be it. But trust me you’re not getting rid of me so easily.”

You crumbled like a sand castle at his words, that he spoke with the very same tone, on the very same spot when you still called him Lester, and you promised to stick by each other’s side for the time you had left, only a few months before this whole encounter. You let your head fall into his broad chest, sobbing softly as you desperately clung to him. Your tears weren’t of sadness anymore, but of relief, for you had just been given the confirmation that your lover was still yours.You spent the rest of the night there, cuddling as close to eachother as possible as you rested in peace.

The morning after, at dawn, when he had to officially go back to his daily duties, he begrudgingly got up from his place in your arms, placing butterfly kisses on your arms and neck, careful not to wake you. He left a little not right next to you, one that read:

“I had to go, didn’t want to wake your pretty face this early in the morning. Meet me here at dusk tomorrow, Forever yours, A.”

It made you smile, seeing that note as soon as you opened your eyes, almost made you forget the lack of your boyfriend next to you,… and the yelling of your friends and siblings calling for your name in the distance.

You wasted no time walking towards those voices, and when they asked you just where the hell have you been all night, you just smiled and brushed it off, but everyone noticed how your usual bright self had mysteriously came back after days of brooding.

Hours later, you were calmly eating dinner with the other campers, laughing and talking and eating seemingly decent food. You were totally clueless as to where exactly Apollo was, but you guessed he was on his chariot, on his way to let the sun set and go to your secluded spot. But little did you know, he was in neither of those places. He was actually walking up to Zeus’ throne, tall and proud as he respectfully bowed to his father. “Apollo, I see it took you no time to get used to your old life once more. I trust you have learned your lesson.”

“Indeed, father. And I came here to thank you for it all. It was… better than I expected.” Zeus lifted a brow suspiciously, eyeing his son as if trying to make out what’s in his mind just by his appearance. “Mmh I hardly believe that you only came here to thank me for your punishment.” “Heh, you’re not wrong, father. I came here to make a request.”

“Depends. What is it that you desire?”

“How do you make a demigod immortal?”

#lester papadopoulos #my fic #angst #fluff #gender neutral reader #apollo #lester papadopoulos x reader #writers on tumblr #trials of apollo #percy jackson #meg mccaffrey #pjo apollo #apollo x reader #apollo x you #the trials of apollo

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evieelyzabethh · 1 year

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𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐕𝐨𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐚𝐦𝐧𝐞𝐝

pairing(s): spike x demon!reader

summary: watching the man you love fawn over someone else is always hard, especially when you know you could love him better.

warnings: angst with a happy ending, later seasons Spike, soft Spike, the reader is a demon so old that no one knows your name and they call you Honey.

Spike was an actor, but William was a poet. This was easy to tell when watching Spike act as if he wasn't in love with Buffy. William would've written her a sonnet, presented her with a rose and some ridiculously expensive necklace. The image of a stone glittering around her neck would've inspired dozens of lines of prose, enough to keep her image alive in those fateful moments when she wasn't there to be looked upon. Spike looked. He watched. He stalked. It was his bad boy persona, the leather jacket hiding the heart that still beat out of his chest. Some things never changed.

This new apocalypse had changed something, though, that and the fact that Buffy had now come back from the dead a second time. You thought it would make her more formidable. A cockroach. Through apocalypse after apocalypse, thick and thin, even death, she was never really gone. Whether she was crawling, suffering, or drowning, she always came back. You liked Buffy, you were friends, or whatever she called the unhumans she hung around who wasn't dating her or one of her friends.

She kept you at an arms width ever since she found you back before her first death. In a bottle or a vase, something old and dusty that tipped over in the library and through smoke you materialized. You didn't remember much; you didn't remember anything. The collection of you took days, like assembling some million and one pieced puzzle. Pieces were lost along the way, Giles bet that somewhere between your brain being assembled and your bones hardening that your memory slipped through the cracks of the old hardwood flooring and was lost to the Hell Mouth beneath. He also said that if the memory was so heavy it sank, it wasn't worth remembering anyways.

This being said, it made since that she wasn't immediately open to letting you in and you were fine with that. You didn't know how to exist otherwise. Feelings were also lost on you, along with your name, and breathing, and speaking. You read a lot, after being placed in Giles' care, you only ever were in the school library or his personal library in his apartment, and being born again, you now had a broken vocabulary of unnatural and old English.

It was Willow who named you Honey. She told you hot tea helped with the healing vocal cords and that honey would hopefully act as a sticky cement so they would stay together. Lots of honey was what you consumed until your presence became synonymous with honey and then that became your name. Remembering to breath came soon after, it made your human company that much more relaxed around you. That and the fact that because you were so broken, you weren't deemed a threat.

Feelings came crashing after the fact.

Angelus' return took a toll on Buffy and Spikes appearance began your ascension. You had read classics before; Giles didn't exactly keep copies of Dr. Seuss or even Baum. It was all Bronte, Shelly, or Austen. Writers who taught you that humans love and to love is human and you didn't understand at all not until

"And who might you be, love?"

What are you wasn't the question and he called you "love". Could you be called love, was that something you could be. With how much honey you consumed, you probably were part honey, but even outside of that, when the humans introduce themselves, they say "I am..." so you said "I am Honey" to fit in.

But he called you Love.

You didn't doubt Willow, but you wondered if being Honey was a mistake, if being love was an option. To be love would mean to have love and how did one do that.

"I am Honey." you replied. 3 words that didn't even scratch the surface of what you wanted to say. Maybe speech was more lost on you than you thought.

A lot of time had passed since then. A few apocalypses, a more modern and appropriate speech pattern, plenty of feelings and more importantly, the knowledge that feelings couldn't be shared.

Being so far removed from everyone else made it easy to notice things that they didn't. You noticed her push him away. You had heard him confess. You had become friends after a while, and there were many moments when you would be in his crypt talking to him in between bottles of wine and blood, pigs' blood after he became aware of his feelings. He told you about her, he raved about her bravery, he retold her jokes. The affect she had on him was palpable, impossible to ignore. His lips spoke of Buffy, he cried tears that reflected Buffy, even when he looked at you, he was looking for pieces of Buffy. That was the only explanation for why he would look at you for so long. You weren't a genius, you weren't even a poet, but you knew better than to delude yourself. And yet

He looked at you.

He watched you. He saw you. He perceived you; and it was so beautiful.

He also told you of Dru. She would have moments of clarity when she would revert to the ghost of who she was before Angelus drove her insane. Moments when she would look at the stars, not because she was seeing things, but because she was looking at them. Like the haze of one thousand years had cleared and she was looking at the stars, not shiny shards of glass wedged in a rocky ceiling. She stopped echoing wishes, and she made them. He even told you her favorite wish. She wanted a pretty dress to go to a pretty ball. It was so normal and human. She wanted to exist and be a girl in her own time again, like it used to be. Maybe she also wanted to be human.

Sometimes, if you found the strength in you to stomach it, you liked to think he looked at you like how she used to look at the stars. Like Buffy was his pipe dream and you were what he really wanted.

It wasn't a stretch of the imagination. She was a slayer, and he was a vampire. She is a pipe dream. She was the false stars of shattered glass, she was dangerous to him, she would hurt him. She has hurt him.

Every time he told her he loved her, she told him no. A step worse than rejection, she denied he even could love her. Demons weren't capable of love; he was experiencing obsession. He wanted to own her, to take her, ravish her and leave her a husk of who she used to be then toss her when the infatuation faded. He didn't need to, she already was. Death did that to her, she didn't need Spike to finish the job. And obsession. If what Spike felt towards her was obsession, then what the hell was she feeling.

This all lead to today. An old show playing on the boxy television, sitting on a newly stolen couch, occasionally passing a bowl of popcorn between the two of you. The show was a cheesy vampire comedy where the main character had finally cornered the terrifying "Dracula" and staked him with a cartoonishly large stake. "Blood squirted everywhere, coating the main character with what was probably corn syrup, chocolate syrup, and red food dye.

"That is totally unrealistic. Us vampires don't bleed, and he would've seen that stake from a mile away." he said while tossing a handful of popcorn at the screen.

"I doubt they had a way to turn him to dust back in like the 40's." he scoffed at your nonchalance.

"This is ridiculous. Us vampires need better representation on the telly, they're makin' us look like bumbling idiots." you can' help but laugh at his dramatics. In his rage, his hair had fallen out of place. It wasn't gelled like it usually was, a mistake he'll probably rectify in a few hours when the sun goes down.

"I didn't know you took such pride in being a vampire." He dramatically jumps to face you, a disgusted look on his face.

"Of bloody course I do. Why on Earth would I want to be human."

"Maybe Buffy would like you if you were human." For anyone else it would've been a low blow, but he lets you slide. That and the fact that beneath the mocking tone you took, you didn't laugh at it all that much.

"Would you want to be human, love?" There it is again. You should be used to it by now, but you still every time you hear it from him. Maybe because when it comes from him you want it. You had been on dates with other guys, some of whom confessed to you. The Scoobies told you they loved you multiple times before, even better, they all meant it and the feeling is mutual. Why is it still so much different with him.

"I don't know, I think it could be nice. I think life would be easier." He smiled.

"Why? You're not a vampire, you can frolic in the sun as much as you'd like." you shake your head.

"That's not it." What could it be? Spike wasn't often confused, as a matter of fact he was extremely self-assured, but he couldn't figure out what you were missing out on. He'd much rather be in you position than to remember every sin he's ever committed. You got the immortality and the powers with none of the guilt that comes with it.

"If I was human, I wouldn't be nearly as confused. I'd know more, I guess."

"But what if you never lost your memory? Knowing things wouldn't be an issue." If only knowing your name was the knowledge you were seeking.

"Knowing things wouldn't be an issue but there are some uniquely human things I can't experience because I'm not a human."

"Like what?" Being human at one point was interesting, it was so ingrained in Spike he couldn't imagine what it would be like for feelings to not be second nature. He never needed to understand them, feeling them was more than enough.

"I don't know because I'm not human. I don't know what I'm missing, but I'm missing something." Quit beating around the bush.

"What if you didn't need to be human and it just fell out?"

"What is so bad about being human that it fell out."

"Trust me, as a former human myself, there is plenty to hate about being human. They're puny and pathetic." He pulled a pack of cigarettes from the couch along then struck a match against a loose plank of wood. Bringing it to his lips, he inhaled the smoke and blew it away from your face, but the breeze from an open (broken) window whisked it towards your face anyway.

"But is that because you were human, or because you are you?" His gaze hardened at how quick the answer came.

"You think I was pathetic?" The fallen embers came onto his pants, but he paid them no mind.

"You think you used to be pathetic." Though this was true, a part of him felt offended. Even stranger, he didn't know which part.

"Because I was. I was human and emotional and a bloody mess, because I was human. Demons don't feel anything which is far better than feeling and getting hurt."

"But you aren't demon enough to know what it means to feel nothing!" You weren't a demon to him, though. It would've been easy for him to forget that you weren't one of those pesky humans had it not been for your distinctly not human scent. It was like whisky, rich and old and expensive. Too expensive to break open and drink because it grew more valuable with time. He'd do anything for you not to go to waste.

"And if you want to feel so badly, you can't possibly be that much of a demon!" To waste you would for you to be human. They're too fragile. They die. Spike longed to be a demon because at his core, he was a coward. He didn't want to die. Judging by how much you yearned to be human, you feared loneliness more.

"Why do you love Buffy so much." Ah, the point.

Spike was many things. A bastard, one of those British nancy boys, a coward, a freak. A thing he prided himself the most on was his intellect. He was insightful, he could be emotionally intelligent when he wanted to be. This was the important part.

A part of him knew his best friend loved him. A part he profusely ignored because he was only emotionally intelligent when he wanted to be. He could admit that he was intellectual and intelligent and at times wise, he believed those to be self-evident truths, cornerstones of his Spikeism. He's the brooding, yet insightful, bad boy with a heart of gold who does the right thing when it conveniences him. He's an actor and this was the character he's had centuries to build, and he'd be damned it cracked because then he'd be proving that he was never anything more than William "The Bloody Bad Poet".

Maybe self-hatred was the root of it. The inescapable need- no instinct, to kick himself in the ass at any possible opportunity, was why he ignored you. It had to be some sick penchant for pain, or the belief that he wasn't deserving of good things, because if you were nothing else, you were good to him which meant you deserved better than him.

But altruism doesn't fit into the paradigm of Spike. Altruism is William's thing which made this so much more horrifying. William loved you. Spike loving you meant nothing because he didn't really mean it. The stage kisses and the dramatized sex scenes were suffocatingly filled with false passion, more passion than humanly possible. Spike loved hard, William loved deeply, and both loved you. It couldn't be undone, but it could be forgotten.

"I don't know." Those 3 words didn't even begin to scratch the surface of why he "loved" her.

"But all I know of love comes from you, I learned it from you, and you don't know why you love her?" You wanted to cry, and you hated it. If you could take it back, you would. You wished you had shut your mouth and watched the stupid show that was still playing as you had this argument.

"Love isn't something you explain." He put distance between the two of you, standing up and walking away from the couch in search for a bottle of alcohol. He wasn't planning on you following him, following closer than the tail of his leather duster.

You threw the alcohol before his hand even grazed it, smashing it against the concrete walls of his crypt. Positioning yourself between himself and the makeshift table that used to be a grave, you stood your ground. Blinking back tears because the second water hit that cement you were done for.

"Then show me. That's how I learned before." He clenched then unclenched his jaw. Buffy was all over him, but you were inside of him. The air he breathed, the blood in his veins, the force making his heart beat was you and it always had been. "Show me."

He was scared.

"What if you don't understand." He was stalling. For too long he hadn't been allowed to have anything. Dru was never his because Angelus had ingrained his way into her very being. Buffy was never realistic, and even if she was, she was human. One day she'd die, and he'd move on long before that date anyways. You were so attainable, and you were willing to be his. What if he fucked up. He has, right in front of him, sharing breaths mere inches from each other, everything he had ever wanted, and he didn't even have to fight for it. Handed to him on a silver platter was the key to the universe, but he could find a way to fuck it up. He always did.

"You don't know that." He held your head in his hands, rubbing his thumb over your cheek. His world in the palm of his hands. What if he dropped it.

"You love me?"

"I didn't even know what love was before I met you." You whispered it and he shattered. He kissed you, as if he could pull the sound from your lips so that your confession him that could replay forever in his mind. Like he was sealing some sort of promise so you couldn't take it back.

"I love you." He said in between kisses. "I love you so much it hurts." He kissed you on the forehead." I love you so much it makes me feel alive again." He kissed you on your right cheek, "Longed for you like the sun and cherished you like the stars, I love you.", then on the left.

He looked you in the eyes before kissing you again. As if he wouldn't be there to say it again, as if you could somehow forget it, he said it once more.

"I love you."

#spike btvs #spike btvs x reader #buffy the vampire slayer fanfic #spike x reader #buffy the vampire slayer imagine #btvs imagine #btvs x reader #spike btvs imagine #spike btvs fanfiction #buffy the vampire slayer fanfiction

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poppy-metal · 2 years

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Y’all got me thinking about listening to Eddie’s heart beat while I’m in sub space after getting my brains fucked out and let me tell you I’m fucking yearning

In that one post with Eddie teaching Steve how to take care of you after fuckin the part where he was like “she like listening to your heart beat” FUCKING HELLO

you mumble, "your hearts racin' eds..." sleepily into his sweat slick chest, coming down from the hight of just being fucked dumb. your head is propped on one of his pecs, right over his tattoo, and you can hear the rapid-fire thump thump thump of his heart under you.

you hear him snort, the motion making your head bob on him and he twirls a strand of your hair around one of his fingers. "s'cause im in love with you, dummy."

you don't know why this makes tears prick your eyes. maybe its because you're still in that floaty place he takes your head to sometimes when he fucks you. everything just feels so surreal and overwhelming. the fact that eddie munson is in love with you, that having sex with you makes his heart race, makes you suddenly, very, very emotional.

"oh." you say, softly. sniffle a little. "i love you too."

"shit, I'd hope so with the way you just let me fuck you." he brushes a knuckle down your cheek. pauses when he feels the warmth of your tears and presses his knuckle under your chin to raise your head so he can look down at you.

"hey." he soothes. "what're these for, huh?"

he's so warm and comforting. you dip your chin back down so your cheek is laying flat on his chest again. his heartbeat thumbing like a hummingbirds wings. "good tears." you reassure him before he worries too much. "m'just happy to have you, eddie. you make me feel....cherished."

you aren't present enough to articulate masterfully crafted sonnets about your feelings. its simple but its real and true. even with his cum running down your thighs and his hickeys marring your skin. everything you feel for him is soft.

he soothes a hand over your head. "i adore you." he says, without an ounce of teasing. "more than i ever thought i could. you deserve every good thing i can give you-" he drops a kiss to your temple. "-gonna work my ass off to make this all worth your while."

you flutter your lashes drowsily. "just keep making me cum like you did before."

now his tone is teasing. "oh, i plan on it."

#ask #SOFT EDDIE #eddie spaghetti #eddie munson x reader

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friendsoup · 5 months

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Could I perhaps request Dikke/Tennant with a reader who’s overly emotional/burnt out and cries a lot? (Currently happening to me and they’re like my comfort characters) thank you in advance 🫶🏻

Your Strength

Recipe: Dikke's can be read as romantic or platonic, Tennant's can be platonic if you squint, GN! Reader, Reader is called beautiful (many times), my dove and love, Both Tennant and Dikke are bad with genuine emotions, But they both Really Really care about You, Comfort fic, Shamelessly Indulgent WC: 1,998 (SO CLOSE) Chef's Note: AHHH I tried to get to this one as quickly as I could!!! I hope it's in time to make you feel better, anon :[!!!! Hopefully my work can brighten your day, at least a little bit :]! As always, thank you for the request!

Dikke has never been “in tune” with her emotions. Emotions were something strange and distant to her, they came and went as they pleased, leaving her feeling empty in their absence. To some, she came across as apathetic. That wasn’t exactly true, though. Her emotions simply never reached her face, despite how fiercely they roared in her chest. She could never quite tell how she was feeling. Though she could list symptoms of an emotion, she was never quite able to put a name to it, no matter how hard she tried.

The emotions of others were worse. She knew the basics. A frown meant sadness, a raised voice meant anger. But human emotion had so many intricate working pieces, an entire depth to them she couldn’t begin to understand. Sometimes a frown was meant jokingly. Sometimes a raised voice meant excitement. These little things made Dikke’s head spin.

So when you came into her room, and curled yourself into a ball on her bed, she didn’t know what to do.

The two of you had been seeing each other for quite some time now. Dikke didn’t put any labels on the relationship, and you didn’t mind that as long as you could keep her company. She was a strong shoulder to cry on, and though she was hesitant and awkward with your crying fits, you could always tell she cared.

Initially, Dikke didn’t look up from her blade. You entering her room was not a special event, you did this often regardless of how you felt. She greeted you, then continued to polish her sword, her eyes transfixed on it’s silver gleam.

When you didn’t respond, a pang of worry hit her. Even at your worst, you always managed to mutter a hello.

She spoke your name softly, turning to you to gauge a reaction. When you did not move from your spot on the bed, her heart began to race. What had happened to you? Were you okay? Had she done something wrong? Had someone hurt you?

She spoke your name again, louder this time, worry dripping from her voice.

Again, you did not respond.

Dikke put her blade down, discarding it on her desk without much thought. Her mind could not comprehend anything other than panicked thoughts about you. She stood, cautiously moving over to where you sat.

She didn’t know what to do. Emotions were something so vague and strange to her. It killed her inside, but she knew she wasn’t best suited for the job. She was a hero of justice, meant to serve harsh judgements. She was never meant to be soft or kind or comforting. It wasn’t in her nature.

Hesitantly, Dikke reached out a hand, placing it on your shoulder. You shook beneath her touch, fighting back every emotion in your body. Dikke gave your shoulder a squeeze, as other knights had once done for her.

“I’m no poet.” Dikke began, slowly scooching towards you. “I cannot sing you ballads of your beauty, nor write sonnets declaring my love.” She was sitting shoulder to shoulder with you now, her hand still resting on your arm. “I could try, if that’s what you wanted, but my voice was not built for anything but battle cries, and my rhymes would all come across as cheap.” When her words gained no reaction, she sighed. Usually, her attempts at jokes gained some sort of smile from you. “But, as a soldier, I can tell you how strong you are.” Her gaze settles on something far in the distance, her shoulders sinking, as if under some heavy weight. “I have seen only a fraction of the things you battle. I know only what you’ve shared with me, and the things we have fought together. Some, you will tell me with time. Others, I will never know.” “And that is fine. I do not need to know the extent of your war to know the strength of your character. I have seen great men fall to what you are fighting. Their minds unable to handle the stress their heart gives. You hold so much love, that it is painful to keep it all in your chest.” You lift your head, trying to form some sort of argument, but Dikke does not leave room for an answer. “Your love takes different forms,” She tells you, “Grief, guilt, anger. You torture yourself with the burdens of others. You try to carry the weight of the world, then grow frustrated when your shoulders grow sore, and your legs weak. You are not Atlas, my dove.” Her eyes flutter over to you, catching yours. “Some things are out of your control. Some things, you do not have to carry.”

“...But I do.” You argue, the words coming out too quick. “If I don’t care, nobody will. I need to prove myself worthy.” You sputter. Warm tears race quickly from the corners of your eyes, staining your cheeks.

“Worthy of what?” Dikke asks, her eyebrows drawn up in concern. “Of life. Of love. Of everything I’ve been given.” You can’t control your sobs now, they escape your lips, leaving you shuttering. “I need to make up for the fact that I exist.”

In one swift movement, Dikke pulls you to her lap. She wraps her arms around you, and you can feel her strength in her embrace. She doesn’t squeeze you hard, just enough to provide pressure. You can tell she’s holding back, as if worried she’ll break you.

“Please don’t say such cruel things to the person I love.” She begged, burying her face in your hair. “Please, be kind to them.” You were unable to say anything now, clinging onto Dikke with an intense desperation. You sobbed into her, unable to pull yourself together again. It was as if something inside you had broken, and now everything was pouring out. For so long you’d managed to keep yourself upright, yet Dikke had managed to destroy any wall you’d put up around yourself.

The two of you stayed there, tangled in each other for an hour. You, crying, and Dikke, muttering lovely words into your ear. Eventually, you grew tired, and fell asleep in her arms. Dikke was exhausted as well, yet she didn’t want to let go of you just yet.

Collapsing onto her bed, she cuddled into you, holding you tighter than she’d ever had before.

Your Beauty

“Genuine” had never been Tennant’s style.

She was a conwoman, who always got what she wanted from her clients. She used any tactic necessary to reach into their pockets. She’d been a lover, a mother, a friend, and an advisor to a wide variety of people. Never did she mean a word she said. It was all a game to her, her prize being the end goal. She didn’t care how she won it, in the end. As long as it was hers.

If you had been another noble lady, appearing on her doorstep in tears, she would have whisked you inside and poured you a glass of red wine. She would listen to your woes, but no matter their contents, she’d have the same solution. Treat yourself with diamonds, wear something nice to fight off the sadness. Show him how much you’re really worth by donning something shiny and expensive. By the end of the night, you would have been under her spell, and deep in her debt. But you were far from a noble lady.

Tennant had no idea how to act around you. She’d been a conning for so long, she forgot how to forge a connection with another human being. So, she treated you the only way she knew how. Soft flirting and batting eyelashes, wrapping you in her arms, but never staying long. The only difference between you and a client, is that she kept her free hand out of your wallet.

So when you showed up on her doorstep in tears, she had no idea what to do. Her mind instantly went to how she could bend the situation to gain your trust, which she hated, as she wasn’t trying to earn anything from you. Yet she didn’t know how to act in anyone else’s benefit. She was completely lost, trying to find some small glimpse of humanity in her heart.

She spoke your name once, wrapping an arm around your shoulder. Her touch was light, almost as if she was afraid, as she gently pushed you into her room. “What happened?” She asked, casually. You took a seat on her couch, trying your hardest to muster any words. “It’s so much…” Was all you could say, between choking on sobs and sputters.

Tennant hummed, putting a kettle on heat. As long as she had something to do with her hands, she figured, you wouldn’t see how nervous she really was.

“I’m making tea.” She told you, no question if you wanted it or not. “I’ll make it sweet, for you.” She winked towards your direction.

When her flirt made no difference in your behavior, she grimaced. It was the only thing she knew how to do in this situation. How else was she supposed to get across that she wanted you to be okay? The two of you sat in relative silence. Her, fidgeting with the tea. And you, sobbing on the couch. Eventually, the kettle sang, and Tennant made a glass for both you and herself. Forcing a smirk back onto her lips.

She placed the tea cup down in front of you, and began to drink from her own. The warm cup bringing some comfort during this uneasy interaction. You sniffled, trying to pull back your tears for long enough to drink. When you managed through a shaky breath, you picked up the cup and began to drink. Tennant was right, she did make the tea sweet for you. It was the perfect amount, however. Not enough to rot your teeth, but enough to taste nice. The tea warmed the both of you, making it easy to find some tranquility. When you’d both finished your cups, the two of you sat there, unable to find any words.

You sniffled again, rubbing your sleeve over your nose. You were out of breath, your eyes red with tears, and your entire body shaking with emotional exhaustion. Tennant watched you, observing you closely. This was a private moment, she realized with great alarm. You did not show this face to just anyone. This was you at your lowest, at your most emotional. You were showing her something special, these were not just some pretty tears in order to gain sympathy.

“You’re beautiful.” She said, without realizing the words were escaping her lips. Her eyes were wide, watching you with great admiration.

“Right now?” You questioned. “I highly doubt it.” You almost laughed, confused by her sudden change in demeanor.

“Are you kidding?” Tennant spoke, suddenly breathless. “This is the most beautiful I’ve ever seen you.” Your face grew hot at the attention, as you focused on fidgeting with your hands. “You’re just saying that to make me feel better.” You argued.

Tennant shook her head, reaching forward for your cheek. She guided it gently, until the two of you were locking eyes. “Right now, you are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. More than diamonds, more than gold. You are a work of art, brilliant and bold. You are something to be marveled at.” “You have me at a loss. I don’t know if I want to keep this expression all for myself, or display your true beauty to the world.” Tennant’s gaze was so intense, you felt yourself melting underneath it. “Your tears are worth diamonds, I can only imagine what worth a genuine smile from your lips would bring.”

You looked away, the ends of your lips quirking up from the compliments. Tennant gasped, dragging a stray strand of hair behind your ear. “Better than I could have ever imagined. Priceless.” She whispered.

#x reader #reverse 1999 #reverse 1999 x reader #Dikke #Dikke x reader #Dikke x you #Dikke reverse 1999 #reverse 1999 tennant #tennant #tennant x reader #Tennant x you #Let's Make Friend Soup!#order up!

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