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#series: courage under fire
roadtogracelandx45 · 10 months
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Day 3 of Band of Brothers Week 2023, Creations based around song lyrics Stay in my arms, Cinderella, While the clock is striking I'll hold you At the stroke of twelve don't run away Oh, can't you hear my heart, it begs you to Stay in my arms, Cinderella, Maybe I'm that fellow Prince Charming, Since I met you I've had one design Your wedding shoes placed next to mine Midnight of midnights and so divine Cinderella, stay in my arms!
Cinderella by Glenn Miller
one shot coming soon Don Malarkey x Betsy Michaels
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oikasugayama · 4 months
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YOU CATCH HIM M@STURBAT!NG pt. 4
MDNI this is a NSFW series for adults. TW: dubcon in Mori & Tetcho's (if your only comment is "I don't agree with this" or "I don't like him" pls keep it to yourself! It's fanfic it's not real!)
pt 1. Fyodor, Poe, Chuuya | pt. 2 Fukuzawa, Kunikida, Dazai | pt. 3 Ranpo, Akutagwa, Ango | pt. 4 Sigma, Mori, Tetcho | pt. 5 Atsushi, Nikolai (Finale)
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Sigma
He's learning what it is to be human after meeting the ADA and realizing he has free will. This includes learning what his own body does...
You've walked in on him touching himself many times. He'll be sitting in his office, tracing his dick through his pants, not knowing it's inappropriate that he didn't stop when you came in.
Another time he'll have his penis out under the desk, absentmindedly playing with it. When you come in he's like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar--all wide eyed and jumpy, "no i'm not doing anything, no you didn't interrupt." (you totally know what he must be doing)
Eventually you come in to find him hard, very obviously nearing an orgasm, his face is all red and he can't believe how good he's feeling. you're so desensitized to it at this point that you give him his afternoon tea anyway, and then ask him if he knows what porn is.
he says no?? what's that?? and you explain, to which he gets very excited so you bring up (on his own computer) a very tame video of someone getting a blowjob
"it's in her mouth??? he seems to really like it. what does that feel like???"
"I wouldn't know, I don't have a penis."
"you don't?"
"no, only men have penises."
that starts a whole other conversation about anatomy, and makes you start another video showing penis in vagina sex. this is when you start to feel weird and uncomfortable--maybe you shouldn't be showing him this. maybe he wasn't supposed to know this stuff and now it'll just cloud his mind so he can't work properly--
"can we try that?"
"HUH?"
"you said you have a vagina, i want to try that. can we?"
meanwhile his dick is still out, in hand, tip leaking pre-cum, and you're nearly throbbing wet but trying to play it cool.
"i mean... it's technically, like... you're only supposed to do this stuff in the privacy of your home with your partner, or someone who agrees to it if you don't have a partner."
"so if you agree we can go to my room, then. correct?"
you can't argue with his flawless logic.
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Mori
There are certain rules at the PM that you cannot afford to break. One of them is that you must meet with any executive, especially the president himself, at any time they call for you.
when you wake up from a nap in your office to not one, but two missed calls from Mori himself, you panic, instantly thinking you're going to be fired for ignoring him. You know exactly what he wants and you're not supposed to be late for these meetings.
you rush to his office, sleep lines still smushed into the side of your face from falling asleep on your hands. you have to explain to two sets of guard that he called you twice and you were only now able to get to him, and they usher you into his penthouse.
he's not in his chair overlooking the city, instead he's lying on his bed under the covers. as soon as the door closes behind you, he sits up, frowning. shirtless.
"it's been 30 minutes since i called for you."
"i apologize, sir. i was unable to get here any sooner."
"why is that?"
"i was..." you think about lying but know it won't end well. "i had fallen asleep in my office, sir."
"why are you so far away? come closer."
you summon your courage and walk to his bed, and as you get closer you realize there's movement under the blanket around his lap...
"doesn't this bed look far more comfortable than your desk?"
"yes sir..."
"good. do you know why i called you, [y/n]?"
"no sir..." you pretend.
he pushes the blankets down, revealing that he's completely naked and furiously hard. his whole cock is blushing, the tip especially an angry red.
"and now?" he asks, to which you nod meekly. he holds his hand out to you, and you take it, letting him guide you to sit on the bed.
"if you finally let me breed that tight cunt of yours i may be inclined to overlook your tardiness."
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Tetcho
you're one of the hunting dogs, and you're very adept at hand-to-hand combat. Tetcho trains with you regularly, enjoying how much endurance you have and how you manage to smile when you fight him. he quite admires you for it, actually, though he keeps it to himself
after beating him one day, you sigh as you stretch out a sore muscle and absentmindedly say that you wish there were higher stakes, because he's starting to get predictable.
this. pisses. him. off. he doesn't like being called predictable. he hates that you're losing interest in fighting him. he doesn't want you to train with anyone else, the idea makes him jealous.
he thinks about it too much for his own good, and more than once he's gotten an angry boner from it--he can't help it, alright. it happens when he's fighting you sometimes too but you've never noticed (or so he thinks)
he thinks up a way to up the stakes, to make it seem more important that you win against him, while simultaneously training privately in a new fighting style. then he waits...
finally, it happens. you happen to walk in on him while he's masturbating, and he can't help but laugh at the shocked look on your face.
"come here" he says, and you bark out a laugh, saying "no fucking way," and you try to leave his room, but he jumps up, grabs you, and drags you inside, closing the door behind you.
"you said you wanted to up the stakes, so i'm gonna up them." he says, pinning you between himself and the door. you try to shrink so his dick wont touch you, but he presses right against you.
"fight me. right now. fight me off and if you can't beat me, i get to fuck you."
"tetcho what the fuck??" you half-heartedly struggle against him, but he laughs and pins you arms above your head.
"you're out of your mind," you say, twisting your hands free and dipping under his arms.
"what, afraid to give me that pretty little pussy?"
"ew, don't talk like that!" you say, backing away from him, and he follows, strategizing how to catch you and get you in his bed
"what, you don't wanna take this fat cock in your tight little cunt?" he taunts, grabbing the base of his dick--this whole time he hasn't had pants on. your face flushes red and he doesn't miss how your eyes glance down.
he's pissed when he gets you in his bed only a minute and a brief scuffle later. "you held back," he grunts, ripping straight through your pants. "where's the fight, you mean bitch? you're tougher than that. you just want this cock huh?"
[if it wasn't obvious, he has a crush on you and you didn't fight back when he said he wanted to fuck you, because you also have a crush on him -.- pls stop leaving rude comments abt this post. i am just a person.]
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theblueflower05 · 1 year
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Crawling Back to You
(Part Two of First Love/Late Spring)
A/N: So like, I’m really excited that you guys seem to be digging this story. I was hesitant about it just because there’s so much of my own Na’vi/Metkayina lore thrown in there. Thank you for all of the kind response.
Word Count: 8k+
Warnings: From here on out, this story will be extremely explicit. Minors DNI. If Aged Up! Neteyam isn’t your thing, please exit to your left. Let’s all respect each other's boundaries, please.
Angst. Self deprecation. Alcohol consumption. Smut. Mutual masturbation. Fingering(fem receiving). Nipple sucking. Breeding kink. Scent marking. Public sex(if you squinttttt)
Summary: Neteyam returns from his Motnaui and isn’t in much of a celebratory mood when he realizes that he’s scrapped any chance of having a mate for Fertility season…or has he? Neteyam x Reader
Series Masterlist(all parts can be found here)
Previous< First Love/Late Spring
Next>: Bottom of the Deep Blue Sea
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Secret's that I’ve held in my heart
Are harder to hide then I thought.
Maybe I just wanna be yours- Artic Monkeys
The brilliant Pandoran sun beats down on the crystal blue waters, fragmenting into bursts of light under the surface of the waves.
The Motnaui is intense, Neteyam’s lean frame isn't made for the open ocean but over the months as he trained intensely with the Metkayina hunters, he gained muscle he didn't even realize his body could retain.
His shoulders are broader and thighs thicker. He can keep up with the clan, he can help row the boats without his arms giving out on him.
Neteyam hasn't felt this way since they had fled the safety of the forest. He’s useful again. He’s worked hard to regain his title of Hunter.
Warrior.
Brother of the people.
He sense’s it as they jump between the endless maze of isles. Hunting and sleeping on the beaches under the open night sky. Swapping stories around the small campfires.
They don't see him as an outsider anymore. No, he is Metkayina. All of the hunters treat him as such. Clapping his back. Embracing him tight. Sharing in the whopping joy as he makes a clean, merciful kill.
They listen to the Omaticayan legends he tells the and fill him in on the lore of the sea.
The four days out at open ocean are needed and he feels sure footed now. Knows that he will always have a place in Awa’atlu. He can't wait for Lo’ak to complete his Iknamaya next cycle, to get to feel this feeling of deep belonging. Of acceptance.
The tattoo forever etched into the the skin on his on his shoulder burns. Throbs all the way down his elbow, ends right above his wrist. The permanent swirling ink a symbol of his place among the reef.
His third birth is as beautiful as his second. He is a man, twice recognized.
Neteyam reminds himself of that fact as he sits down next to Tonowari one night. The stars are sparkling and the dimming light of the dying fire makes the hulking chief look larger than life.
Still, the younger man gathers his courage.
“I wish to mate with Y/N” Neteyam states firmly. He had been Olo’eyktan in training for over a decade back in the forest. He uses the voice he’d take on when speaking of important matters “I would like your blessing to do so, sir”
Their brothers and sisters in the hunt surround them. Either asleep at the late hour or lost to their own conversations.
Or maybe they just know not to interrupt this important exchange. They only listen in with peaked ears and envious hearts.
Tonowari’s features go stern, his strong brows pulling together “Before my T’smuke returned to the great mother, I promised her that I would always take care of her daughter as though she was my own. I love Y/N as I do my children. Do you understand that, Neteyam?”
Neteyam is nodding “Yes sir, of course”
“She is a good woman. A very important member of our community, if I allow this courtship I have to be certain that you will honor that. That you will honor her place among us, and be serious about what that means for your own”
Neteyam mules over the words, thinks he knows what they mean. He will be marrying into the royal family of the Metkayina. He will be bound by blood to the clans chief. His future children will have a claim to the title of Olo’eyktan or Tshaik, third in line should anything ever happen.
“I am very serious about her, I will work hard to give her all that she deserves. I will build us a Mauri to raise our family in. I will dedicate my life to her and the tribe” It is not a vow lightly made, Neteyam knows this.
He had never been one to be fickle about responsibility.
It’s only when the intense expression on the Olo’eyktans face shifts, a broad smile stretching across his mouth, that Neteyam feels his posture untense.
Tonowari claps him hard on the back and offers him the leather flask of strong liquor that the hunters pass amongst themselves-
“Then you have my blessing” Tonowari laughs as the younger Na’vi man almost chokes on the burn of the Kava.
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
When they return to the main island of Awa’atlu with their abundant catch they are greeted warmly by the clan. The giant horns are blown, drums play rhythmically. Children scream joyously and women dance scantly clad in ceremonial drab.
Its busy and blustering but there's only one thing on Neteyam's mind.
Only one person.
The same woman who had plagued him since his arrival all those months ago. You’re as elusive as the receding tide and he had become accustomed to having to look for you. To having to seek you out in a crowd, to go searching for you.
You hadn't seen him off and he hasn't spoken to you in many days. He misses you. It's an ache that he wants to soon remedy, that he knows he’ll never have to feel again. Not with Tonowari’s blessing fueling him.
Since he was young, Neteyam had wanted to be bonded.
He’d dreamt of sharing that special connection with another individual; the way that his parents did. He craved someone to cherish him, to take care of him and in return he’d do the same for them. He itched for a woman to braid his hair, to bear his children. To bury his cock in every night and wake up to every morning.
He was a simple man with a big heart and a lot of love to give. And he wanted to give it to you.
He just has to find you first.
Neteyam tries not to worry when he can't catch sight of your petite frame. Not one peek of your long hair or seafoam eyes. He couldn't scent the natural perfume of florally herbs that always seemed to surround you-
“Neteyam!” It’s Tuk.
She collides with him hard. Many years of being a climbing post for his siblings is the only reason he doesn't topple over. Is able to catch her mid air and hold her to his chest.
He’s greeted by his family-
And only a moment passes before he can notice that something is wrong.
It’s written all over Kiri’s face. In his mothers expressive eyes and the glances his father throws him as he embraces the Olo’eyktan from across the way. Even Lo’ak gives him something akin to a small glare.
“Whatever is going on, it will have to wait” Neteyam decides out loud, slowly lowering his baby sister to the ground. “I need to find Y/N, have any of you seen her?”
Kiri’s mouth opens and shuts, as though she’s trying to figure out what to say and it frays his nerves. His legs are antsy, burning with the need to run. To seek you out- still on the high of the hunt.
“I don't have time for this-”
“Brother, wait. It is about Y/N” Kiri grabs his elbow, keeping him still.
He doesn't like her tone.
Likes the expression on her face even less. She looks too serious, it doesn't suit her at all. Kiri had always been as airy as a tree sprite- carefree and bubbly.
Call it a gut feeling or the simple ability to read the room. He just knows whatever she’s about to tell him isnt going to be pleasant.
“What happened?”
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
His sister pulls him aside, into the mangrove tree’s and away from prying eyes and ears so that she can relay what she’d heard. Fill Neteyam in on what he’s missed.
He listens to every word…and they settle like stones in his stomach.
“Y/N thinks that you have accepted an offer of courtship from another woman”
“I didn't- I’d never!” Neteyam hisses in protest, shaking his head. It’s all one big misunderstanding. He has to make find you, shake these thoughts out of your head. Make you see-
“But you did,” Kiri replies firmly, her mouth pulled into a grim line.
She explains the meaning of the Lei’s.
The gravity of him accepting one from another female and Neteyam hasn't felt so small in many years. He’d been forced into adulthood early. Taken care of his siblings from a young age and then was thrust into the war with the RDA before he had even fully come out of adolescence. He was wise beyond his years, that’s what everyone had always told him.
He doesn’t feel that way now.
He’d fucked up, made a mistake that could very well cost him the future that he had worked so hard to secure since coming to the reefs-
And he hadn't even meant to! He’d been as naive as a baby, as ignorant to Metkayina traditions as an untrained child-
He wants to scream in frustration. Wants to kick the absolute shit out of himself. Instead he listens to his sister, his hands shaking as he balls them into fists.
You had been devastated. Heart broken. Wouldn't talk to anyone or come out to eat. Couldn’t stop crying-
“Enough” He pleads, he can't hear anymore of it. Guilt rises in his chest like bile.
Imagining what the last days had been like for you as he’d spend them having the time of his life, galivanting with other hunters. Getting drunk and having carefree fun-
“Kiri, what do I do?”
She sighs. It’s so rare to see her older brother like this. He’s always so solid. So strong and stable. It’s unnerving when he loses his composure. When his carefully built walls come down
She had known that the whole thing was a miscommunication and had tried along with Tsireya to convince you of that fact. But you wouldn't hear it, and avoided her at every turn.
You and her brother are both such stubborn dumb asses. Rubbing at her temples Kiri prays to Eywa for strength. Sully’s stick together.
“We fix this”
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
As the evening eclipse starts and the sun disappears in the sherbert sky the beach lights up.
Bonfires roar, their flames tall and burning bright.
The air is filled with the smell of roasting Paokpak(island boar) and fish. Huge pots full of dishes that Neteyam had never seen line the long wooden table set up at the center of the celebration. Barrels of Kava have been brought out. The strongest of Metkayina liquors, brewed and stored for decades in airtight containers. Made from berries that are extremely hard to harvest.
This is a time for celebration, to gorge on the hard earned harvests the hunters have brought back. To celebrate the newly rited adults and prepare for the Fertility Season.
The beat of the drums is hypnotic. It's sexy and primal. It's a tune that all Na’vi know in their chest, one that their hips move to as if of their own accord.
Children play, Women sing, stories older then the briny deep are told. The air is electric; so full of magic and unity.
And yet, Neteyam is on edge.
He had been since his rude awakening earlier in the day. He’d spent his afternoon running around like an Austrapede with its head chopped off. Desperately trying to solve the issues that he hadn't meant to create.
After hunting down the culprit to all of this mess, a pretty lei made up of sunset orange lilies which he’d given to Tuk almost automatically after it’d been given to him, he returns it to its owner.
Seychelle is haughty. Rightly upset and shrilly confused as she takes the token of her affections back. Neteyam’s apology is poor and he knows it, he backs away before she can throw her drink in his face.
Tsireya had told him this was the only way to remedy the issue- to refuse the offer for courtship so that he could be open to be with another. The younger girl had been so relieved when he came to her, begging her to help him win back your affections.
“I knew you are a good man, that you don't have a mean spirit”
Tsireya is as eager as Neteyam to see her cousin happy. She doesn't think she could spend another night listening to your inconsolable weeping.
The last obstacle is the hardest.
You refuse to be anywhere near him. Are forced into the festivities because of your family standing, but pretend that Neteyam simply does not exist.
At every turn you evade him.
Sandwiching yourself between the hulking muscle of Ao’nung and Tonowari at the buffet table. Dancing in an enclosed circle of swaying women. Flitting away in a plume of smoke when he approaches you with your favorite ripe fruit in hand; leaving him standing there stupidly. Palms stained by the juice of the Lionberry as he squeezes it in frustration.
You’re hauntingly beautiful in the firelight.
He hates the fact that he’s not the only who notices it. The way the other males consume you with their carnivorous gazes makes him sick. His fingers clench and his knuckles crack of their own accord.
Long dark hair pours down your back in bouncing waves. The top that you wear clings to you like a second skin; the pearls and seashells glittering in the warm hue of the flames. Your own Lei, pink and pristine, is still resting on your throat. Many intricate bracelets and anklets clink as you walk and he cant take his eyes off of the way that the back of your tweng sits on your pert ass-
“Go talk to her” His dad suggests gruffly as he watches his son watch you. It’s getting hard to stomach at this point, all of that longing palpable and souring the atmosphere.
“She doesn't want to speak to me” Neteyam mutters. Trying not to feel too bad for himself. And failing.
Neteyam hadn't thought his return from Motonui would be like this. He’d envisioned a lot more kissing, and alot less moping.
“Woman aren't as complicated as they seem, son. You don't need some grand gesture-”
“Says the man who tamed Toruk after his first fight with his mate” Neteyam interrupts and Jake snorts at his unusual outburst.
His eldest son is usually so very put together- it's entertaining to see that a woman could bring out this side of him.
“I have nothing to offer her. Back home in the forest I could have given her- everything” Neteyam sighs as he admits what's been on his mind since he’d begun pursuing you “There’s no reason why she’d want to be with me, I’m aware of that”
Jake pulls his son close.
His first born. The apple of his eye. Neteyam was good to his core, and anyone who knew him could see it. Jake was so proud of him and wondered if this lack of self confidence came from the fact that he probably didn’t tell the boy of that fact enough.
“All that girl wants from you is reassurance. That’s all you need to give her, everything else will come with time. If she wanted to mate for status she would’ve done it long before you got here, kid. ”
Jake had been shitty at motivational speeches since his stint in the military. You would think his time as reigning Olo’eyktan would have given him some kind of skills. But still, his words are a bit clunky. But sincere.
After a moment, Neteyam gulps at the Kava in his hand. Drains his cup and then squares his shoulders before he’s off.
Eyes set unyieldingly on the prize.
Jake grins. If a good ol’ pep talk doesn't do it- liquid courage sure will.
You’re half heartedly participating in the conversations going on around you, just distracted enough that Neteyam’s able to stalk over. Unnoticed until he’s standing right infront of you-
“Y/N” His voice is firm, he wonders if you know how hard it is for him to keep it as such. “I see you”
Up close he can see how swollen your eyes are. How exhausted you look. You just nod, muttering out a quiet “I see you” in response.
Everything about your body language screams that you want to be left alone. Your arms are crossed over your chest, your ears tipped low. Your tail curls around your ankle and your nose keeps scrunching up.
He wishes he could let you be,
But you make him selfish. You bring out a side of him that wants to take. Has to be satiated or he’s going to lose his fucking mind.
“I must speak with you” He states his intentions, clear. Ignores the way Ronal glares daggers at the side of his head.
“I don’t think-”
“It will only take a moment. But I ask for the privacy to explain myself to you. If after you hear my words you still do not wish to talk to me I will respect that”
You glance at your family before responding to him. Sharing a look with both Ronal and Tsireya. Your cousin smiles encouragingly, your aunt gives a barley tolerant tilt of her head.
You sigh and nod, but step away from his hand when he offers it to you. It's an obvious rejection, but Neteyam tries not to dwell on it. His tail flicks anxiously behind him.
“We may speak in private. Come” your voice is low, before you begin to lead him away from the festivities. Down the beach until the firelight is in the distance and the beat of the drum is a low hum on the howling wind.
The storms will start soon. The sea is choppy, the clouds rolling in and the breeze cool.
It’s hard to find privacy on the sandy shores, intertwined couples can be found scattered along the waters edge. Lips locked. Speaking lowly and intimately.
Neteyam is pretty sure that one of his fellow hunters has his mate twisted into a mating press- if her breathless whimpers are anything to go by.
He avoids their writhing bodies, ignores the way it makes his own core tingle.
Fertility Season is all but here. The entire clan falling under its low boiling energy.
All he could think about as he had been out on the open ocean; is that this cycle he wouldn't have to spend it alone.
He’s not sure that is the case anymore.
After more walking, completely in silence, the two of you come to a mostly desolate area. Quiet and still, as private as it’s going to get.
You stare out at the cresting waves and Neteyam knows he needs to say something, anything. But all he can to is look at you.
At the way that the moonlight illuminates your silhouette, at the dusting of turquoise bioluminescent freckles that are scattered across your nose.
“I-Um-” You start, and that wont do. He cuts you off quick.
It is only him who needs to explain himself. “Let me start by apologizing to you. I am so sorry, Y/N”
You appear as though you’re going to start crying and if you do, he’ll lose all his carefully cultivated cool.
So he presses on.
“I had no idea that accepting Lei’s was a courting symbol here. I don't know how to make you believe me but if I had know I would’ve never-” Neteyam lets out a long shaky breath “I can only swear to you that in the future I will be more mindful of your clans traditions”
Time ticks by. The moon shines and the waves crash against the shore.
“Our clan” you break the silence, your voice gentle and melodic. “You passed your Iknimaya. It is your clan as much as mine”
He wants so desperately to hold you. He has for months, but the need is almost unbearable at this very moment.
“If I have lost my chance. Please, tell me now” it’s a plea. Because it hurts to look at you. If he can not have you- if you do not want him, he will accept it. Somehow. But being alone with you like this and not knowing is killing him. “I will…I’ll leave you alone, if you want me to”
You scoff, not looking away from him. Refusing to meet his eye, still staring blanky at the waves. “You act as though I am the one who accepted someone else’s offer. I have never wanted you to leave me alone, Neteyam”
“I’m sorry” Does he sound as idiotic as he feels? He surely hopes not.
“You already said that”
“Please, look at me”
“I can’t” you whisper- hissing at him warningly when he outstretches his hands “I- I don't want to ever feel like this again. You need to tell me what you want from me because I do not know. I will get confused again, if you do not tell me what we are doing”
He can tell by your expression that you are serious, and even so. He cant fucking believe it. Had he failed at courtship so immensely that you really don't know? He’s stuck in his head for a moment too long.
It makes you anxious, makes you back even further away.
“Please-” He’s all but begging, yet
you avoid his touch again and it feels like blades.
Your shrill warning hiss rings in his ears.
He returns it with a snarl of his own when you continue to refuse to let him touch you. Can't help it, the need to rebuff all of this uncertainty around the union that is so special to him is strong.
He grips the top of your arms, his long fingers holding your biceps.
You finally look at him. Your round eyes wide and vulnerable. Filled with unshed tears and unspoken questions.
“I want to mate with you” He starts because if you need to hear it all, word for word, then he’d tell you. “I want to build my life here with you by my side. I want us to have a home that will never know war-”
A tear rolls down the swell of your cheek.
“I-I want you to choose to be with me” He swallows, the lump in his throat getting bigger, higher. Threatening to choke his vocal cords “I will be good to you. If you let me”
His family had always required him to be the rock. Had leaned on him to take on the role of caretaker, he had had to keep it together. Keep them together. It wasn't easy for him to break open like this. It went against his very nature, all that self preservation he’d learned early.
But you need this. And he thinks he might too.
“Neteyam-”
“I will ask you again. If I have lost my chance tell me now”
Have mercy on him.
“I understand if you want to be with someone who can offer you more. I won’t fault you for it” he doesn’t know why he feels the need to tack that on. Why the self deprecating thoughts manifest their way into words that hurt for him to speak “I don’t have much here. But I’ll build it, for you”
Your muscles tense under his palms and he prepares himself for the rejection. The physical blow of it-
But then, you melt. Loosen. Your entire body sags fully into his grip. That pinched expression on your face slips away. Your full lips part and your eyes soften, brows furrowing together.
You look at him like he is something precious. Like you can see him- and he thinks you might be the first one who ever has.
He’d known it in his bones. Since the day he’d arrived. Since he’d first spotted your face in the crowd.
“Oel ngati kameie” you whisper, your hand coming up to cup his jaw. “Oel ngati kamei, Neteyam. I see-”
He leans heavily into your hand. His forehead clunking against yours, pressing hard. The contact stings, but its welcome. He needs it.
He needs.
“I don’t care about any of that. I don’t care what you have or don’t have. You know I don’t.” you murmur urgently, he can feel the words against against his skin.
When you press a whisper light, tentative kiss against the sharp of his cheekbone, something snaps. Something that had been strained and barely held together just breaks.
His control, he realizes as he crowds you.
As his fingers dig into your arms and he presses the line of his body against your own firmly.
You’re so soft everywhere. So much smaller than him. He’s all lean muscle, tall and hard. You’re pliable skin, a layer of blubber to keep you warm in the deep. So different from the women he’d grown up with. Your hips are wide, thighs pillowy.
You’d give him healthy children. His hindbrain howls.
When he captures your lips he hopes you realize that there’s no going back. That this is until death. He’d go to his grave before he was robbed of this again.
You gasp, sweet and small, and he eats it. Consumes all of the air in your lungs. You’re good at holding your breath anyway, right?
“Neteyam” you whine, pulling away, your lips wet and your pupils wide. You’re shaky, already a bit disoriented and he wants to keep you. Protect you. He’ll give you anything if you just keep looking at him like that.
“Are you ok-”
You reach up on the tips of your toes, slamming your lips back against his before he can finish his words.
Your hands tangle into his braids as you try to gain traction, pull him down to your level. Get a better hold on him.
Its intense, dizzying. You kiss him like you’re dying and maybe you are. Maybe you’ve been slowly dying since he first got here. Every moment that you hadn’t been able to be held by him had killed you- a slow torturous death.
You drag him down. Do you know he’d follow you anywhere? Under the waves, down onto the soft sand. He cups the back of your head, shelters your neck as he bullies his thin hips between your dense thighs and pressed you against the ground.
The months worth of tension isn't released gently, because it can't be.
The kisses are bruising. Wandering hands and desperate tongues. It’s carnal, Fertility season making both of your minds cloudy as you try to dig into each others flesh.
Nothing is close enough.
With a whine, your fingers slip under Neteyam's multilayered choker. Using it as leverage to tug on as you thrust your hips up violently. The heat at the apex of your legs grinding against his covered erection dangerously.
“Ah-” he gasps wetly “Easy, Narlor. Easy”
“Sorry” you simper, panting. Trying to get a hold on the feelings rushing through you. One hand gripping his necklace, the other slipping into the back of his hair, brushing the nape of his neck “I want- I dream about it all the time”
Fire rushes down Neteyam’s spine, both at your words and your feather light touch to his kuru. He wonders if you touched yourself after those dreams. If you had to take the edge off like he had. He shudders at the thought-
You’re kissing at his neck again, at all of that sensitive skin under his braids, near his ears.
Your quick touches are everywhere. Rushing all over his body. Manicured nails scraping over his skin-
“Ugh,” he warbles out as your curious hand disappears under his tweng.
Its a tight fit as your fingers dance along his hard cock. Delicate and teasingly light. He’s going to come all over himself like some inexperienced teenager that had never gotten a taste of pussy before if you don't. Slow. Down.
“Tell me about those dreams of yours. What’d we do in them?” Neteyam teases, his lips moving against the corner of your mouth. A distraction for both you and himself.
You can't form words, not as you feel how big he is. As you cherish the fact you’ll never be empty again. He's hard and pulsing in your hand and you want him inside of you. Your mouth, your cunt. You don't care. You want to be the only one who gets to feel him, no one else can ever-
There’s only one way to ensure that.
“Tsahelyu” you whimper, “Please Neteyam. Need it”
He slows down a bit, his head spacy but not totally lost. The bond is everything. It’s the most important aspect of Na’vi culture “I can't bond you here”
“Why?” its a petulant whine, your hips pressing against his again.
“I’m not going to bond you on the cold ground, Yawne. Out in the open”
“It’s okay, I don’t mind” you press and he chuckles, shaking his head “you could have me anywhere you want me”
It’s the raw honesty in your voice that drives him crazy.
Devotion in a way that makes him lightheaded.
He can't give you Tsaheylu yet, he wants it done right. He wants you tucked in a mountain of blankets with a warm fire going- at the height of Fertility Season. The ancestors watching over you as he intertwines himself into your soul for the rest of time.
“I will have you” He assures you, dragging his mouth across your clavicle, his long fingers working the strings of your intricate top loose “And you’ll have me. But you have to let me do it right”
You hate waiting. You tell him as he suckles his way across your chest. Moaning as he finally gets his mouth on your soft breasts. Your fist his braids, shivering as he feasts on your skin.
“I’ll make it worth your while” Neteyam promises between mouthfuls of supple flesh “You’ll want for nothing. I’ll give you anything”
He’s humping down into you, unable to stop his hips from shifting. His cock seeking your warmth. You’re right there, he could just-
“Please” you shiver, like you know what he’s thinking. Like you can read his mind and all the dirty thoughts that cross it.
You can't take it. All of his hesitating.
You’d heard that the Omiticayans were more reserved, more traditional when it came to mating but he was going to drive you crazy.
You push on his chest. Gentle yet demanding.
He doesn't want to remove his mouth from your breasts but he allows it all the same. His lips swollen, a thin string of spit connecting him to your tender nipple as he stares at you with questioning eyes.
Neteyam lets you push him off of you before he goes down onto his back, the sand grating against his shoulder blades as he lays flat. You grin the entire time. Your eyes sparkling with excitement. With hunger.
You look as horny as he feels and it kills him.
Your fingers pluck at the at the delicate ties of your tweng, loosening it until it falls from your curvy hips.
“Y/N” he warns as you then reach for his own. Tugging at the leather straps of his loincloth. He raises his hips, helping you shimmy it down his long legs.
“You can't bond me” You whisper as you straddle his waist, your small hands using his broad chest for balance, palms on his pectorals “Not yet anyway”
“Mhmm” Neteyams murmurs as his eyes roll into the back of his head. You're hot and dripping wet, the center of your legs steaming as you rub it against his groin.
“That doesn't mean you cant touch me” you coo at the man under you as you slowly begin to undulate above him. Your hips circling as your head lowers to tongue at the underside of his jaw.
“Shit” He curses in English, gasping at the night sky as you drag damply across his lower stomach .
“Yes?” you question him as you reach for his hand, leading it exactly where you need him most.
“Yeah” Neteyam assures, fingertips dipping where you're skin is plush and dripping- right in between your spread thighs “Yeah, Yeah”
Your hand is still leading his, cupping him firmly against your pussy as he feels how much you need him. You hadn't been the only one dreaming of this. You had danced behind his eyelids for months. His brain had played tricks on him, desperately splicing together mismatched audio in an attempt to conjure up what you would sound like when he finally got to have you.
A shivery keen escapes you when he presses on your swollen bundle of nerves and nah. His imagination couldn't hold a candle to this.
It’s not just how you sound its how you look.
Sat on top of him, resting on your knees with your chest bare save for that brightly hued Lei. Your kiss bruised bottom lip is skewered between your sharp teeth as you worry it in keyed-up concentration. Blue eyes low, your long eyelashes almost fluttering against your cheeks as you stare down at him.
It’s how you smell.
Ripe and earth wet- his mouth floods as he inhales lungfuls of it, your juices are all over him. His waist, coating his hand . Everywhere but right on his tongue where he wants it the most.
Exploring you where you’re the most vulnerable is slippery, your pussy swollen as he traces along the folds. Your clit beats with your pulse under his touch, inflamed and you cry out.
“Awe, baby” he tuts. Your hips chase him in jagged little movements, unsure and needy and it’s enough to get him grinning. You’d been so sure of yourself when you’d pushed him down and climbed on top of him.
Yet here you are a whining mess of his thing in his lap.
There’s no room to tease, he wants to watch you come all over him. Everything still feels too over sensitive. Too new and easily breakable. You’d spent the last near week questioning his feelings.
Neteyam had his words. He could wax to you poetic until your ears bled,
But he had this too. He needed to make you feel a way that no one else could and as he sunk his long digit inside of you he realized that this was better then any conversation. This felt like the most natural way to express all of his emotions, you sucking him in knuckle deep felt so right.
Velvet soft and vice tight, he’s hard between his own legs from just the feel of you. Just knowing that this was his.
You, your heart. Your body. Your tiny little cunt.
Tiny but taking him so well, not just one finger. But two. Then three. Your body moves like the crashing waves behind you, intense and wild. Shoving down onto him so hard that his wrist starts to ache with the demanding press.
“More” you pant wetly into his neck “Faster. Net-please”
He figures out that faster means harder, and harder means he has you all but vibrating on top of him. Bouncing in time with every thrust of his digits. The arm that isn't preoccupied comes around you to hold you steady as he finger fucks you until you're a squealing mess.
This isn't the first time Neteyam has done this.
There’d been girls back home. One girl in particular that didn't take it too personally that he needed tension relief from the war raging around them and not the arranged soon to be wife that everyone had been trying to shove down his throat back them.
This isn't the first time he’s done this but it’s the first time he’s felt this.
He nuzzles your head out from its hiding place in his shoulder. He has to watch your face, needs to see the way he’s making you fall apart.
This is the first time he’s felt the all consuming pull to be with another person. He wants you like this always. So close to him that he could taste the perspiration from your panting breaths.
You tighten up in his arms, going rigid as your pleasure crests. Your pussy fluttering and mouth gaping. It’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. You’re orgasm is ethereal, raw and fervid.
It’s a glance at Eywa. He sees the great mother on your face as you writhe atop of him.
It’s alot, he can tell. Fuck he can only imagine what you’re feeling if it had been this intense for him. Neteyam lets you hide again after a moment. Your hair covers your face as you shake and he thinks you might be crying, but he just brushes a hand down your damp back. Soothing you back down from the high.
The stars are brighter, even as the clouds gather in gluggy gray storm clusters. Everything seems a little bit more beautiful with his fingers still inside of you. It pains him to slide them out, missing the tight clutch of you once his wet fingers are exposed to the cool night air.
Tsaheylu, you’d begged him earlier. His kuru throbs and gooseflesh erupts all over his body just thinking about bonding with you. He wants it more than he’s ever wanted anything.
You nuzzle against him, nosing at his cheek. Your lips ghosting at the corner of his own.
“You okay?” you wonder. Your voice deep and husky. So sexy it makes his eyes close for a second.
“I should be asking you that”
“Mmm, no need to ask. I feel so so good” you assure him, starting to sit up a little “I um-I kind of got really into it. I’m sorry”
“Sorry?” Neteyam questions, keeping his grip on you as you start to squirm. Not in pleasure this time. But in shame, the embarrassed kind. Coming down from the pleasure haze, that anxious edge comes back. Unsure even as you’re on top of him. “Don’t say that. Why would you be sorry right now?”
You huff, nose scrunching. Ears flicking “I made a mess all over you”
It might not be very nice but he can't help but laugh at you. His pearly white canines on display as he hoots, the belly laughs jostling you from your perch.
“What!” you grumble, but smile all the same. “Stop”
“Hmm. I love messes like this. Feel free to make messes like this anytime” his fingers, still glistening come into view as he brings them to his mouth. Your eyes widen, glued to him. At the slight suction of his cheeks as he licks them in earnest “See. Easy clean up, you’ve got nothing to worry about, Pretty”
You taste as good as you smell. His tastebuds tingle as he swirls the new flavor around. Complex; a sweet musk that he wants to bathe in. He’s acutely aware of the way you watch him, your sweet cheeks burning at his lewdness.
When he frees his fingers with a pop, he gasps as your tongue surges in his mouth.
Tasting yourself on his spit.
Fuck.
He lets you kiss him breathless. Lets you run your sloppy kisses all over his face, down his chin. Across his neck. He arches into it all, gives you all the room you need. He’s well aware of what you’re doing. Working your strong scent into every inch of his bare skin.
Scent marking is a vital part of Na’vi courtship. Ancient, ritualistic and respected. Practiced by your ancestors before the first songs.
It’s makes something in him pur, knowing that you want him to smell like you.
“I think that's enough” He grins when your tongue dips into his navel “They can smell me, baby. You did a very thorough job”
The pout on your face is beyond cute as you sit up on your knees. The little ‘hmph’ sound so adorably out of place in the highly sexually charged situation “But I wanna smell like you too. How will anyone know I’m yours if they can’t smell it?”
Neteyam's nostrils flare. His ears swivel on his head and his tail gives a good lash at that. You want to be marked by him too. Are willing to parade his scent around all of those assholes in the clan that have been trying to win your affections, even when it was clear you were uninterested.
“Lay down” It’s an order, spoken softly but directly and you follow it at once. A giddy smile on your face as you lounge on the sand.
You are a vision.
Hair sprawling and messy behind your head. Your legs spread, back arched. Pretty nipples pebbled hard and on display. The only thing covering you is the floral necklace around your svelte throat.
It doesn't take him long at all. He strokes his striped cock firm and efficiently. Too many years of having to get himself off fast enough not to be caught has made his practiced movements almost perfect.
You’re looking at him like that again. Adoration clear as day on your face. Soft for him. You see him-
“Ol Ngati Kamiel” your voice is saccharin as you speak and he grunts violently as he comes.
Ropes of it land on your belly, across your exposed chest. It’s almost too much when you reach down swiping into the translucent, sticky, mess and start rubbing it into your smooth skin. He collapses shakily beside you, needing to collect himself for a minute before he helps your cause.
It’s the most intimate thing the two of you have done all night, laying together. Basking in the afterglow. Your scents mingle, dancing together in the evening breeze and Neteyam wants to imprint this memory somewhere deep.
The festivities are still raging- and you really do need to get back. It’s an important night. Your clan wants you there, the two of you need to make your rounds. Keep appearances. He won’t keep you from your duties, no matter how much he may want to.
After a quick dip in the ocean, removing the filth of love making but still wearing the strong scent of each other's pheromones, you begin to redress.
Neteyam watches. Highly distracted as you shimmy back into your tweng before looping your top around your shoulders. He works clumsily at the leather of his loincloth.
“Wait-”
The two of you are starting the trek back to the bonfire when he reaches out to halt you. His fingers play with wreath of lilies around your neck and his eyes bore into yours pleadingly.
The smile you give him is more radiant then the silvery moons that twinkle in the inky sky.
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
Even at the late hour the ceremonial bonfire still crackles with life. The festivities have ebbed into something slower, more intimate.
The adults of the clan are all that’s left, children long gone and tucked into their beds or dozing off against their parents' side.
Kiri sits on a carved log, in a circle of familiar faces.
Her mother and father had left not long ago. Tuk had been fighting slumber but succumbed after the Elders crooned a particularly slow song about the Sky and Sea’s forbidden love. Jake had hoisted the young girl up and bid everyone adieu, swaying on his feet as his wife hissed at him about how after all these years, he still couldn’t handle his liquor.
Now, Kiri listens to stories as she sips slowly on her cup of Kava. Enjoying the pleasant burn;
But not willing to end up like her dumb as rocks brother who is sprawled on the ground. Lo’ak is all but unconscious, every time he opens his eyes they are unfocused and hazy.
That’s what he gets for trying to out drink clan members twice his size. He’d been on the losing end of the drinking competition from the start- he was just too stubborn to see it.
Lo’ak is lucky Tsireya doesn’t care much for drinking, and is more than willing to tend to him. She keeps trying to force him to drink water and nibble on bits of food.
Ao’nung isn’t faring much better; he stares at the moon with a dopey smile as he sings, incredibly off tune, to the song that fills the air. A gaggle of girls surround him. Each hoping to catch his eye.
It’d been an all night thing, affections being thrown at him while he ignored it all too easily.
“My bed will be full this season, I’m not worried about a thing” he’d shrugged it off when asked about it.
Roxto’s boisterous laugh had dwindled down when Kiri shot him an extremely unamused glare.
She’s debating on leaving Lo’ak to sleep on the beach for the night when out of the shadows comes her eldest brother; who had been missing for most of the evening.
The hours had bled away and Kiri had tried not to worry too much about the confrontation that was going on just beyond the jovial bubble of the Metkayina celebrations. You had been distraught and Neteyam had never been good at voicing his own emotional needs-
Huh.
It looks like she had nothing to worry about.
The grin on Neteyam’s face is shit eating. It’s the smuggest she’s ever seen him. Even at his first Inknimaya, back with the Omiticaya, he hadn’t reacted like this. All head raised high and walking on a cloud.
You tug him along behind you, you guys’ fingers tightly intertwined. Your hips sway excitedly as you bounce along the sand. Kiri’s brother's chest is puffed out in obvious pride as he follows your footsteps.
Around his neck is Lei made up of vibrant pink flowers. It matches the one in your hair, that sits kind of lopsided now.
As the couple gets you closer, and Kiri catches a whiff of your approaching bodies, she wants to wretch. You’re drowning in each other's scents and it’s quite obvious what you had been up to all night.
“So gross” Kiri gags in accusation once you’re both in earshot.
You two owed her so big. She thinks naming one of your future children after her would suffice.
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
Okayyyyy. This was so fun to write and I already have Part Three brewing! TAGLIST IS CLOSED.
So like. Lots to address here. Tons to talk about. I’m gonna start the conversation but I hope you guys continue it in the comments.
1. The Motnaui is something I completely made up(…yes after watching Moana and taking inspiration for the name) lol it’s a ritualistic hunt that newly anointed hunters and warriors go on after their Metkayinan Iknimaya’s. I know all the different clans Iknimaya traditions would be different and I thought this would be cool.
2. I read a story in the Avatar fandom where the liquor they drank was called Kava and it just stuck in my brain. I know Kava is a drink in real life too, but for the sake of storytelling, please think about them as completely different things. The drink in this story is more of a wine/moonshine mixture deal. Would really fuck your ass upppp.
3. Fertility Season is obvs totes made up. Why is it rainy during it? Because I myself would want a week of non stop loving making with a nice little fire going, under lots of blankets with it chilly and rainy outside. And at the end of the day I’m writing for me lol
4. NETEYAM IS A SWEETHEART WHO STRUGGLES WITH HIS SELF WORTH JUST LIKE THE REST OF US. Please listen to the Artic Monkeys while you read this chapter(wanna be yours, do I wanna know, 505. THE LONGING)
5. Expect more POV’s to come! It will always be mostly rooted from Y/N’s point of view but I love touching base with all of the other characters. It’s so fun. I’m thinking a snippet of Neytiris in Part Three!
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clownd1ck · 2 months
Text
trouble, j. miller | chapter one
mob!joel miller x fem!reader
chapter summary: after getting fired from your job at the bookstore, your grandparents introduce you to the man who’s been helping them out for awhile: joel miller. now, it’s his turn to help you.
chapter warnings: reader swears and has dry humour (she’s a bit of me x), mentions of vip’s getting touchy but it’s hypothetical if that makes sense?? reader calls her grandparents ‘pops’ and ‘nonna’, no beta cause i cba, blah blah blah that’s it
also no hate to anyone who reads romance/physical smut books, the hate is simply towards minors who read them & their parents for allowing them LOL
word count: 2518
(series masterlist)
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you really don’t know how much longer you can do this.
you’re six hours into your ten hour shift. you’re bored, you haven’t had your lunch break, and your phone is charging behind the desk where you were watching criminal minds before two teenage girls walked into the bookstore.
you’ve watched them for the past twenty minutes. they practically ran to the romance section, picking up books and flicking to certain pages you know had the most pornographic scenes in them before they’d giggle amongst themselves and add it to the pile they were building.
can teenage girls even afford this many books? you had been working since you were sixteen, and you’d barely get enough money to buy yourself two books whilst the rest would be stored away for college. and is this what people were reading nowadays? a male character that exudes toxic masculine standards whilst the author plays into the whole “innocent, virginal” female character who hadn’t the slightest clue about sex or life? is this what parents were allowing their children to-
“we want these books.” a demanding voice speaks to you, and you almost have to do a double take when you see the two teenage girls stood before you at the counter. god, you couldn’t even rely on the younger generation to be polite these days, especially not when one of them is judging you for your oversized hoodie and sweats and the crocs that sit on your feet.
“of course.” you force a smile, biting back on the insults you wish to hurl upon them. but, your boss is in the back. probably doing jackshit like she usually does, leaving you to work your ass off without any breaks.
the scanner scans the barcode on the back of every book before placing them in two bags. dante’s nine circles of hell sounds more appealing than this. you might just grab one of the books and hit yourself with it, hoping you hit so hard you might pass out and get to leave early. not like your boss would allow it, but the thought of having a hot shower and slipping into bed sounded nice.
“and your total is $194.68, is that going to be cash or card?” you rest your hands on the counter, looking at the two girls. one of them whips out a card, so black and matte you almost feel the courage to ask her if: it’s her fathers, and if so, is he single?
you hand her the card machine where she taps the card, and once the payment is deemed successful, one of the girls takes the bag, looks into it and frowns. “these aren’t in the right order.”
“excuse me?”
“the books aren’t in the right order.”
there’s a right order to put books in. none of them were even a series, and even then, does it really matter if your fucking fairy porn trilogy is separated?
“did you ask for them in a certain order?”
the girl gives you a look. “no?”
“so then why would i know what order to put them in?” you’re so done. you’re so fucking done, mentally, physically, and in the eyes of your boss, as well. the girls look at you, mouths agape, probably because they didn’t think they’d be spoken to this way, but you always said that the second a customer is rude to you, you’re being rude back.
the duo scowl at you as they leave the store, muttering insults under their breaths like it was a middle school friendship break up. you sigh, going to turn around to grab your phone when you jump back, spotting your boss leant against the wall.
“you’re fired.” she states.
“yes!” you fist pump the air sarcastically, grabbing your stuff and practically racing out the store. you didn’t even care if you were supposed to wait until the end of your shift to fully leave your job. you were hungry, tired, and your pops and nonna had told you that pops’ infamous burgers would be made for dinner and you were eager.
on your walk home, you listen to your music. it was relatively dark outside, and ideally, as a woman, you shouldn’t be wearing headphones in the dark. but you had always been more frightened by the noises you could hear rather than the ones you couldn’t.
you step into your home, taking your shoes off by the door and walk into the kitchen. you stop at the sight. your pops and nonna were stood in the kitchen talking to a man you have never seen before and you’re almost offended that your grandparents hadn’t allowed you to meet him because jesus christ and all things holy, that man is beautiful.
he’s tall. scarily tall, actually. and not to say you have a thing for muscular men but you would not mind letting this stranger throw you about. he leans on the kitchen counter, arms folded across his chest as he eyes you up.
“he. who is he?” you point to the man, looking at your grandparents.
your nonna tuts your name. “he is joel miller, helps us out where we need it. why are you home so early, sugar, i thought you had a ten hour shift today?” nonna embraces you, kissing your cheek as she taps your arm, signaling for you to sit down at the kitchen table.
a faux laugh escapes you. “heh, well, you see-”
“don’t tell me that damn boss of yours ‘s been givin’ you a hard time again.” your pops speaks up this time, interrupting you this time. your pops was a scary man. he used to be involved in a lot of shit back in the day, constantly being chased down streets and alleyways by the police, always having them on his doorstep which would cause his mother to scold him. you can’t count the amount of times he’s threatened to come down and give your boss an earful on both hands.
“she actually fired me. apparently addressing one’s stupidity isn’t allowed. however, i am more focused on joel. joel, what is your purpose in this here house?” your head turns to look at the man as he addresses you, and he gives you a small smirk, walking over to the table and sitting across from you.
“she got a mouth on her, don’t she?” he asks your grandparents, and your nonna chuckles.
“always has. only started living with us when she was eighteen because of college, but she’s always had something to say.”
“something that’s gotta be shared with everyone.” your pops adds, and you give him a playful pout.
“right here guys, right here.” you announce. “back to the topic at hand. joel, why have you interrupted my pops’ burger night?” you’re facing each other now, your eyes analysing his face but all he does is smirk and since when was smirking so attractive on a man?
“well, your grandparents here mentioned how you hated your job, and i just so happen to have one that needs filled at one of my clubs.” his texan accent was prominent and full as he spoke, his brown eyes never leaving yours. “‘s if you want it, of course.”
“what club?”
“apocalypse.”
you slam your hands on the table with a wide grin. “i’m sold. when do i start?”
joel chuckles. “no questions about the pay, the shifts?”
you shake your head. “nope, don’t care. you know how hard that club is to get into?” you turn your head to look at your grandparents. “extremely fucking hard, i’ll tell you that right now. and i’ll get to work in there? god, life is so generous to me sometimes.” you exhale lightly, jokingly.
joel doesn’t stay for your pops’ burgers, but he’s given some to take home anyway. you decide to walk him to the door, being the ever so kind woman that you were, ready to see him off when he stops.
“ya’ start at five p.m. tomorrow, alright? i’ll have someone show you around, get you your uniform ‘nd all that before the club opens.”
nodding your head at joel, you bid him goodbye and watch as he makes his way to a sleek, black porsche, get in, and drive off.
____
“what do you mean you’re working for joel miller?” alicia asks you. alicia was the first friend you made at college after you chewed her ear off for the entirety of your first class. a girl who followed gothic fashion and was an absolute sweetheart compared to the people you’ve known in the past.
“i mean exactly what i said, babe. he’s apparently been looking after my grandparents for awhile and he offered me a job at apocalypse after that old bitch fired me.” you shrug, taking a bite of burger you got from dining hall.
“but joel miller is…he’s dangerous! everyone says his clubs are just money laundering schemes to hide his actual money.” naomi spoke up this time. ever the worrier, she was.
“money laundering would mean that no one was using his clubs and they were just there, naomi. the clubs are exclusive. i mean, we’ve all seen the lines to get in. we’ve been in those lines!” alicia somewhat comes to your defense even though you know she’s fully against you working there.
“my friend tina, the one from the political science class, worked there last year, and she says the pay is amazing!” a woman with black curls approaches your trio, another close friend of yours: georgia. “don’t get me wrong, she said some shady stuff happens in the v.i.p. lounge, but probably just guys gambling or something.”
you embrace georgia. “see, good pay and all i have to do is not ask questions. i’ll be fine, guys. and you,” you look at georgia “need to meet me at our cafe so you can tell me about that little masc lesbian of yours.”
you finish the rest of your burger, and pick up your bag. “gotta get home, but i’ll fill you all when i see you.”
you wave goodbye to your friends, walking out of the building as you scroll on your phone. when you get to the street, you bump into someone, about to apologise until you look up and gasp dramatically. “you! are you stalking me. god, joel, i didn’t know i was worth being stalked. that’s so flattering.”
joel scoffs, and opens the passenger door to his black porsche. “get in. ‘m gonna drive you down to the club.”
“don’t have to tell me twice.” you get into the passenger seat, placing your bag down in between your legs and joel closed your door. he rounds the front, getting in beside you and starts the car.
“ya’ hungry?” he asks, driving away from your college building.
“i ate just before i left. had a cheeseburger. not the most edible thing i’ve ever had, but it worked.”
“if you’re hungry when we get there, i’ll take ya’ down to the kitchen and grab you somethin’ there. house mom might have some snacks for ya’ too.”
brows furrowed, you turn to look at him. “the fuck is a house mom?”
“older woman who works with the dancers, takes care of ‘em in between dances. she’ll have snacks, spare outfits or shoes, hygiene products. helps ‘em all like a mom would.”
“nice.” you nod your head, and soon you’re in the private parking lot for the club. joel gets out first, rounding to your side and opening the door up for you. “gotta love a southern gentleman.” you snicker, walking into the club behind him.
he walks up a set of marbled stairs, heading to the second floor. “you’ll be working in the v.i.p. lounge, ‘s where all the dancers are and most of our staff.”
the second floor of the club is lit with red led lights, creating a sultry atmosphere. there are private rooms scattered all around, but there are booths scattered in the middle. joel walks you down to a hidden room and opens the door.
“this is my office. you can put your shit in here.” you walk in and place your bag down on the cushioned sofa, taking a seat beside your belongings. “i’m here when i’m not in the booths doing business, but if anything happens out there, ya’ come and find me, alright?”
you nod your head at him.
“all v.i.p’s know dancers and staff aren’t to be touched, but you gotta promise you’ll come find me if that rule is broken.” after promising, he continues. “i’ll take you down to adele and see if she’s got any spare uniform for you. she’ll walk you through anything else.”
joel guides you down the haul with a hand on your lower back, and if there was a camera following you, you would’ve hand an office moment with this simple touch.
“momma!” joel yells, knocking on a pink door.
the door opens, and an african-american woman opens it. she looks at joel, then you, and embraces you in a tight hug. “welcome, baby. this the new girl we’ve been hearing about?”
“yes ma’am!” you answer before joel can, shooting him a shit-eating grin.
joel speaks your name, and your eyes meet his. “go inside while i talk to adele, she’ll be back to help you in a minute.”
as you step inside the room, you’re met with an abundance of dancers. some are singing, doing their hair and make up, zipping up their heels, and others are lay on sat around eating some snacks.
“hi guys!” you wave at everyone, and they all squeal when they see you, immediately asking questions.
you answer them as best as you can until adele comes in. “now, i gotta get her some heels and her uniform, and when i come back-” adele glances around the room, pointing at an east asian woman with pin straight black hair. “lucy, do her make up, just so she knows what the standard is. your hair is fine, baby, don’t need anyone touching that.”
lucy smiles and waves at you, and you return it as adele leads you into the changing rooms. “uniforms are simple. black shorts, black long sleeve, and…what size shoe are you, baby?”
you respond, and she goes over to a rack of black, leather heeled boots. they’re platformed, shiny, and you know your feet are going to hurt the second your shift is done. “and these. i’ll let you get changed and you just come straight out when you’re done. help yourself to some snacks as well.”
“i don’t have to pay you for them?”
adele chuckles. “no, baby. joel gives me the money to buy the snacks. anything for you girls, joel pays for.” and with that, she leaves the room.
you sigh, looking at the mirror in front of you. this was a new job, with a hot boss, and from what you could tell, the rest of the girls in there were lovely.
this was your life now.
____
a/n: first chapter mother fuckers let’s GOOOOO
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bangtanflirt · 8 months
Text
(Un)natural Instincts (Part 6)
*Series taglist is closed.
Tumblr media
angst, fluff, smut
Pairings: OT7 x Fem Reader, Human CEO Reader, Human Assistant Yoongi, Wolf Hybrids Joon, Jin, Hobi, Jimin, Tae, and Kook.
Basic premise: You and your assistant end up rescuing six wolf hybrids. No part of the process is easy.
Part 1 > Part 2 > Part 3 > Part 4 > Part 5 > Part 6 > Part 7
General Warnings: Hybrid abuse and lab experimentation, hybrids as second-class citizens/owned property, future smut (Minors DNI, 18+ content)
Specific Warnings: mentions of covering up SA cases, lasting mental effects of dubcon under the synthetic hormones, morally gray characters, lots and lots of self-deprecation and low self-esteem, one mention of sexual dreams
____
Yoongi’s eyes are on the screen, but his mind is everywhere but the presentation. The meeting room is chattering away about profits and liabilities but all he can think about is you and Hoseok. The feeling of betrayal clawing its way into his chest, ripping out his heart and snuggling into his ribcage as a replacement. Betrayal for making him think you weren’t just as twisted inside as the rest of your kind: the ones with mansions, luxury cars, and chauffeurs waiting on their every move. The kind that Yoongi’s worked for already. He remembers how lucky he felt when he got this job, how ecstatic he was to finally work under someone who wasn’t insufferable. Sure, you were brash and cold, but that was nothing compared to his old boss—the one who’d make him commit a thousand crimes to cover up his own. He can’t remember how many books he’s cooked or funds he’s laundered at this point. The worst were the sexual assault claims, looking into every poor woman’s eyes and writing off a check as if it would make her hurt any less. All the nights he’d cry himself to sleep, feeling like a monster, but not knowing how to stop. His mother’s health has always been the first thing on his mind, and it goes from bad to worse too quick for him to quit with no backup. Hospital bills never pay themselves, do they? Especially not when he's the only breadwinner in the family.
He remembers the day you two first met, at a museum opening in Spain, where he was assisting his former employer in landing a partnership with your firm. He can’t say he liked you from the get-go. Didn’t like you at all, quite frankly. You were quite the expert at barking orders, making a scene at every little mistake the nervous waiters made. Everyone was on edge the minute you’d sit down, designer purses propped on the table that cost more than the last surgery his mother needed. But something changed as the week-long trip progressed, when he saw how quickly you shut his boss down the second he proposed a less-than-legal deal. It’s a deal he’d help get many others to sign off on before—with no one caring about the legality when millions were on the table—but you were passionate in your rejection, saying Shin Investments would never take part in anything illegal under your watch.
He still doesn’t know how he found the courage to approach you for a job at the end of the trip. He knew it was risky, that you could not only reject him but also tell his current boss that he’s looking elsewhere. But he was so fed up. Fed up with doing all the dirty work. Fed up with evading the law under the excuse of “doing his job.”  You gave him hope that there was a place where he didn’t have to do all that.
You had given him an amused brow raise in response, mentioning how you’d fired your last assistant, just prior to the trip, for smiling in a way that annoyed you. He knew you were challenging him, basically telling him he’s free to try, but he won’t last more than a week.
But, surprisingly to everyone, he does. It’s been two years since his first day, and it’s not an exaggeration to say his relationship with you back then is night and day from the one now. You had purposely put him through absolute hell during the first month, having him run around the office scrambling day after day. But even at your most difficult, it was always “run four blocks to my favorite salad bar and get me lunch in the next twenty minutes” and never “tell the new hires if they keep whining to HR about a compliment, they won’t ever work in this industry again” (the latter being the exact words his former boss once said to him). So, as challenging as you were, it never phased him, as you were much better than the alternative.
It was a little after that first month when you started warming up to him, having your first real conversation after you had one too many glasses of wine at an afterparty. It’s when you admitted that you were looking for any excuse to fire him.
“Because I can just do it. I can do it without any red tape, you know? Firing an assistant is that easy. My father wouldn’t even bat an eye. It's one of the few things I don't have to report to him.”
In a strange way, he understood. You were overcompensating. Even you, the CEO, felt powerless in her circumstances.
That was the first of many similar conversations over the years, each one giving him more insight to why you are the way you are. He’s managed to be the only person who can dull your sharp edges, and you’ve managed to do the same for him. And that’s why it feels like a knife is twisting into his gut at the thought of you using Hoseok for you own pleasure, taking advantage of him in a way Yoongi didn’t know you were capable of doing. No, it wasn’t illegal, but still morally wrong—and though he was understanding of your questionable ethics when you agreed to the Kang deal, knowing how you get when you’re backed into a corner, this was unacceptable. No one was backing you into any corner this time. You did this because you wanted to. It made him feel like he was right back at his old job.
And the worst part is the jealousy. His rational mind knows Hoseok is the victim, but his irrational mind—the one that’s in love with you—can’t stop feeling jealous. His thoughts are racing at a thousand miles per hour, conjuring up scenarios of what the two of you could have been doing. Was it like the dreams he’s had of you? Dreams of you flipped on your stomach under him, moaning his name…but with his name instead? Yoongi feels his skin crawl at the thought of you chanting Hoseok’s name in that way. He’s disgusted in himself for thinking like this, but it’s hard to push it all down when his emotions are threatening to spill out at any moment.
___
Jin steps out of the library for a broom when he lays his eyes on you, absolutely mutilating a poor dethawed chicken. It’s clear that you haven’t cooked a proper meal for years, or maybe even ever. The way you’re holding that knife is unintentionally the funniest thing he’s seen in a while, and that’s why he doesn’t even realize the slight laugh escaping his lips. You look up at the sound, meeting his eyes, which turn from joyful to terrified in a single second.
He almost flinches at the expectation of yelling alone, but that’s not what happens. Instead of your shouts filling the giant kitchen, it’s your laughter.
“I look like a mess, don’t I?”
He shakes his head no, to which you just laugh louder.
“It’s okay Jin, I know I suck at cooking. I’ve been putting this poor chicken through hell for the last forty-five minutes.”
He takes tentative steps forward, broom forgotten as he tries to think on his feet and be useful to you.
“I could…I could do it if I’m allowed. I’m a really good cook!”
You look down at the chicken, almost considering it with how outside of your skillset this all is. But you think better, as he’s already been cleaning the library for hours.
“It’s alright, I think I’ll just leave this chicken alone for tonight and order pizza.”
“Please, I insist! You let Jimin make breakfast!”
You don’t miss the way he pouts the last part out, eyes furrowed in a way you can’t help but find adorable.
“I wouldn’t have let him if he didn’t wake up before me. You guys are recovering patients, you should be resting, not cooking. You shouldn’t even be cleaning the library honestly.”
“But we want to help, we want to be use-“
Jin’s words are cut off by the sound of sniffling, heads turning to the source: a very scared Taehyung stands in the entryway of the kitchen, with Jimin by his side. Your heart drops at the sight of tears rolling down Taehyung’s cheeks, and so does Jin’s—apparent in how fast he makes his way over to the wolf.
“What’s wrong? Are you hurt anywhere?!” He takes his pup’s face into his warm hands, trying to provide some sort of comfort.
Taehyung doesn’t answer, instead saying “I’m so sorry” like it’s a mantra. Jimin doesn’t dare speak, eyes trained on the ground.
You’re unsure if you should step in, as it looks like they’re all having a moment, but it’s clear Taehyung isn’t going to respond to Jin.
“What happened?” You ask softly, knowing anything more in your tone will easily spook them further.
Taehyung’s too distraught to register you’re even addressing him, let alone answer back. It’s Jimin who nudges at the younger wolf’s hands, which you notice have been hid behind his back.
“Taehyung, sweetheart, what’s behind your back?” You pray the use of the nickname will calm him like it did with Hoseok, but he just keeps hyperventilating more.
“Jin, please get him some water” the oldest wolf is darting to the water pitcher before you even finish your sentence. Taehyung refuses to let his hands leave his back, leaving Jin with no choice but to bring the glass to his lips for him. It’s only after a few gulps does he regain some sort of composure. It’s then that he brings his hands to the front, bringing to light the ruined mess of pages in his hands.
Jimin crosses his fingers, praying to any and every god that the book isn’t of significance to you, but your reaction makes it clear to everyone how that is far from the case. You look devastated.
It’s your late grandmother’s favorite book: a collection of translated old German poems. You had stored it in the library—granted, in a clumsy pile with the rest of the things you’ve been too busy to properly put up—planning to get a glass case and eventually display it in the living room.
Your grandmother was your favorite person in the world, and that book was her favorite thing in the world. Some of your happiest childhood memories were created with her reading you those poems, at a time when every other adult in your life was too worried about the family business. When she passed last year, she left you a lot, but the diamonds and pearls were never as dear to your heart as that book. And there it was, in Taehyung’s hands, pages stained and soaking wet.
Jin and Jimin had warned Taehyung not to bring orange juice into the library, but he was too stubborn. He assured his hyungs that he was careful enough to drink it without spilling anything, too excited at the prospect of having full access to the fridge to think much about anything else.
And now the damage was done.
Frankly, you want to break down. But you don’t. You do what you’re used to from the office: take a deep breath and compose yourself before the slightest hint of a tear can creep up on you. Crying alone in your room? Perfectly acceptable. Crying in the sole presence of your assistant? Not the end of the world. Crying in front of literally anyone else? You’d rather burn your flesh off.
“It’s okay” the words are not convincing, but at least your voice isn’t shaking. You try to get away from the situation, feeling suffocated, but the worried hybrids are hot on your trail.
It’s at that moment the main door opens, and you can’t be more thankful at the timing. Yoongi’s here. The one person you can let all your emotions out to. Yoongi, with his comforting words and ginseng tea offerings—if anyone can calm you down right now, it’s him.
Except there’s no warmth in his eyes today, not even when he sees your crushed state or the book in Taehyung’s hands.
Speaking of Taehyung, the wolf is looking at him with pleading eyes. If you aren’t in a state to punish him, someone has to. He fucked up big and deserves whatever either of you dish out. He does hope, however, that his knuckles are spared this time.
“I-I ruined y/n’s book. ’M so s-sorry! Please punish me!”
“Taehyung, I said it’s oka—”
Yoongi cuts you off, tone ice cold.
“It’s not your fault. She should’ve kept it in a safer place.”
You stare at him, stunned.
 “What the fuck, Yoongi?”
 “Am I wrong?”
“That’s not the point. You know how much that book means to me…and that’s the first thing you say? You know that’s not what I need to hear right now.”
And that’s when Yoongi’s bottled up rage finally spill all over the floor, flooding everything in its path.
“Well life’s not always about what you want to hear, and if you were taught that as a child instead of being surrounded by servants and yes-men, then maybe this concept wouldn’t be too foreign for you.”
There’s a bite to his words, a bite with canines sharper than those of any wolf hybrid, and it completely destabilizes you. Hot tears start prickling your cheeks, fighting them off no longer a choice.
“What’s gotten into you? W-why are you acting this way?” Your voice is shaking now.
“Because I’m fucking tired of coddling you, of telling you that everything you do is okay even when it’s not. Maybe it’s on me, maybe if I called you out on your shit earlier then it would never get this bad.”
You’re not understanding what he’s trying to say, but you don’t know if that’s because he’s not making sense or how cloudy your brain is right now. Regardless, the venom with which he speaks is enough to shatter your already fragile mental state. The others shuffle down into the living room at the commotion, and suddenly everyone is seeing the one thing you never wanted them to: you bawling your eyes out.
None of the hybrids know what to do. Namjoon’s eyes are locked on Yoongi, ready to lunge if he poses any physical threat, but it’s clear in his body language that Yoongi doesn’t intend to hurt you in that way. Hurting you with words, however, is not something the lab trained Namjoon to protect you against.
It’s not long before you’re running to your room, locking the door, and letting the mascara fully trail down your face, all while gasping for air. Your lungs feel heavy, your eyes feel heavy, everything just feels so heavy. But nothing’s heavier than your heart.
___
Hours go by and the chicken on the counter is long abandoned—no one quite in the mood to eat. You haven’t left your room since the incident, and Yoongi cooped himself up in his room shortly after. The air feels as thick as smoke in a burning building, blocking the lungs of anyone who tries to breathe it in. It’s Taehyung who’s squirming the most, mentally degrading himself for causing all of this in the first place.
I should have listened. Jin and Jimin warned me, but I’m just too stupid to listen. It’s always me that messes up. I’m always the problem of the pack. Maybe if I beg, she’ll only kick me out and let everyone else stay.
A lesser Alpha might have scolded him at the moment, but Namjoon understands how much Taehyung is punishing himself already. He’s all too familiar with how married his pup is to his self-deprecating ways, no matter how much anyone assures him that he’s enough. The lab was always the most strict when it came to the youngest caretaker hybrid, his naturally clumsy nature being the perfect target for their cruelty and leaving him with little to no confidence in anything anymore. So all Namjoon does is take the boy’s hand into his, giving it a squeeze that translates to “I’ve got you,” and wiping away his tears as they rapidly fall. Jin’s got him situated in his lap, hands gently stroking his sides in a way that’s always soothed Taehyung.
“You’ll listen to Jimin and I next time, won’t you pup?” Jin’s voice isn’t all that scolding either, just firm enough to make sure Taehyung learns some sort of lesson from this…for whatever adoption center they’re shipped off to soon.
Taehyung lifts his head up from the oldest’s shoulder, frantically nodding yes.
There’s a knock on the door that makes every hybrid jump, Yoongi’s voice asking to be let in.
“Come in.” Jimin decides too quickly for anyone else to protest.
He awkwardly hovers beside the door, not bothering to close it as he steps in. It’s not long before Yoongi’s eyes zone in on the one he’s here for: Hoseok.
It’s a selfish thing to do, as Hoseok looks like he’d rather be tied to a train track than look into Yoongi’s eyes, but he needs this. He needs to look at the hybrid, the victim, to remind himself not to falter no matter how many tears you shed—because, yes, even now there’s a part of him that wants to hold and comfort you. Yoongi’s always loved sparsely, but hard, and turning it off overnight isn’t something he can do. So, there he is, actively draining out as much as he can by looking at the victim of your actions.
He’s about to apologize for snapping at the wolf yesterday, when another figure peaks into the ajar door. You inch your way closer, not aware of Yoongi’s presence until you’re right at the entrance. Your eyes are puffy and stained black from makeup, but you clutch the wound care kits close to you and brush past him nonetheless. No matter how much you want to lock yourself in your room for eternity, you have a responsibility towards these hybrids and their recovery. It’s clear, as you make your way to the couch, that you’re tired and embarrassed. No one comments on it, though.
“I need to do their wound care.”
And yet again, he seems ready to pick a fight, ignoring your unspoken plea and staying right in place—eyes narrowed into judgmental slits.
“I don’t know what I did that pissed you off so much, but I’m fucking sorry, okay? I can’t deal with this right now, please leave.” Your voice is meek, absolutely no fight left in you. Just desperation to not be in Yoongi’s presence, afraid of what hurtful words will come out of his mouth next.
Yoongi lets out a dry laugh, putting everyone’s nerves on edge. “You don’t know what you did wrong?”
You shake your head earnestly, trying not to feel small when he uses that condescending tone.
“How can you even say that?! How can you pretend to play the victim when Hoseok is right here. I want to throw up just looking at you right now.”
Hoseok? Why would he bring up…
Suddenly all the pieces fall into place.
“Oh my god Yoongi…you assumed I…we…”
“I didn’t assume anything y/n. Hoseok told me directly, so lying isn’t going to get you anywhere.”
You turn your head at a rate that almost gives you whiplash, looking at the hybrid with big eyes. Hoseok doesn’t look at you—can’t look at you. The feeling of your gaze scorches his skin.
“Hobi…”
Hoseok doesn’t know how to breathe anymore, doesn’t know how to do much of anything other than let his own tears waterfall down, heart cringing at the disappointment in which you say his nickname. He knows it was wrong to lie, but he could never have guessed it would turn into something this serious. Did Yoongi like you? Is that why? Or did he have the same moral code thing you had—one that Hoseok couldn’t wrap his head around. The lab had made it very clear that using him for his purpose was no different than using a chair for its purpose—and no one here had a moral problem using chairs. It all hurt his head too much to think about. But regardless, thinking was pointless, because you weren’t even using him. He couldn’t even do that for you, and now his lie is the reason you’re hurting.
Stupid Hoseok. Dumb Hoseok. Stupid Hoseok. Dumb Hoseok.
“I’m so sorry!” The words are broken and muffled through tears, “Y/n didn’t lie…it-it was me…I didn’t want everyone to know I was b-broken.”
The room goes still, the last sentence lingering in the air.
I didn’t want everyone to know I was broken.
Your eyes soften.
“You’re not broken Hoseok”
“You don’t have to say that. I know I am. That day…you pulled back because you could tell I didn’t want it…you shouldn’t have been able to tell that…no…I shouldn’t have not wanted it…that’s why I’m broken.”
Jimin is quick to embrace his hyung, shielding his wrecked state from view, although too late. The hybrids are at a loss for words, with Namjoon being hit the hardest. Hoseok lying meant he didn’t feel comfortable enough to tell the pack the truth—to tell his Alpha the truth. And that’s a failure Namjoon will have to carry on his shoulders for a long time. But now’s not the time for a self-evaluation, now he needs to make sure Hoseok feels his touch on his back. The rest get their hands in wherever they can, gentle pats and caresses to lessen his distress.
You don’t know what else to do to comfort him, to make him believe your words. And frankly, you don’t have the emotional bandwidth to comfort anyone right now. For a moment you can’t help but envy Hoseok, seeing the way his packmates hold him so dearly when he’s crying. You wonder how it must feel to be loved by so many people. It’s not something you can see ever happening for yourself.
Yoongi's not faring well either.
There’s not a word strong enough to describe what he's feeling right now: a cocktail of guilt and absolute dread, swirling in the glass that is his body. Every spiteful word he’s said rings in his ear. How mean he was, how cruel he was. How easily he dismissed your grandmother’s parting gift to you. The worst thing? He made you cry. He’s always promised himself that he would be by your side when the world made you break down, but now it was him causing those mascara stains. And in front of a fucking audience—the thing you hate the most.
“Y/n I—” he doesn’t even know what to say.
No one does, honestly. No one has the heart to blame Hoseok for lying—not when he’s huddled up crying and labelling himself broken. You can’t exactly blame Yoongi for believing him either, because who wouldn’t do the same?
But, regardless of the context, is that how he thought of you? Has he always been by your side with this contempt, thinking of you as a spoiled brat he’s obligated to follow around? That you’d use anyone to get what you want? You would understand if this was back when he was a month into the job…but now, when it’s been two years and you’ve opened up so much of yourself to him…he still held those views? Were they always buried down, hiding until he couldn’t keep them hidden any longer?
Has he stuck by your side all this time feeling so disgusted by you?
Can I even blame him? I am a bitch, after all.
It’s Jimin that pulls you out of your head, bringing a glass of water to your lips as you so badly need it right now. “We’ll do wound care on ourselves tonight, please get some rest.”
___
Yoongi’s two steps behind you, holding his breath as the two of you leave the hybrid room. He doesn’t stop at his bedroom, though, instead following you straight into yours.
“I’ve been a dick.”
You slump onto your bed, dejected, “Maybe I deserved it.”
That’s the last thing he wants to hear. Never in his life did Yoongi think he would be jealous of his coworkers, the ones you’d yell at and kick out of your office the second they made a mistake—but right now, that’s precisely what he wishes you would do. Because the yelling he can withstand, but this is too much for his heart.
“You didn’t deserv—”
“No, it’s okay. You don’t have to pretend that you didn’t mean any of it. I know I’ve never been the easiest person to deal with. You don’t have to like me to do your job well…if you still want to even work for me…”
“I should be the one begging to keep my job. I only said what I said out of spite, y/n, I wanted to hurt you because I just felt so angry. Fuck, the thing I said about your grandmother’s book too, I feel like shit.”
You wince at the mention of the poems.
“Seeing her book in his hands…I wanted to yell at him so bad Yoongi...but he looked so terrified…and Hoseok looked so terrified too …so who am I even allowed to be angry at?”
Yoongi doesn’t know how to respond, so he instead grabs a makeup wipe from the vanity. He’s gentle in the way he glides it across your skin, extra care around each eye. You let it happen, like a limp doll in his grasp, head hurting too much to be anything else.
“Get some sleep now.”
“How can I be sure you don’t hate me? That you don’t hate working for me?”
“Because”
I’m actually in love with you.
“You’re more than my boss. You’re my best friend y/n.”
____
A/N: I know I'm the writer but I'm waiting for them to be a fluffy big happy family as much as the next person. Baby steps though. Please let me know your thoughts! They are always appreciated.
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971 notes · View notes
ugh-yoongi · 5 months
Note
hi! would it be alright if i asked what your favorite namjoon fics are? thank you and have a great day 💗🥹
hello nonnie, it is always okay to ask me for fic recs! <3
most of these works contain mature themes/content. please heed tags and do not engage with any explicit work if you are a minor!
i know there are a bunch i've forgotten, so please reblog and share your own work and your faves!
also, please note: there are a lot of fics on these lists that are posted to ao3. it has recently come out that a volunteer was removed from their position for being pro-palestine (you can find the twt thread here). i am in the process of looking for a better alternative, but until then, it is unfortunately probably the best way to share these stories. while i personally won't be posting to or reading on ao3 for the time being, how you choose to engage going forward is completely up to you! i just wanted to make sure i was being transparent.
namjoon x reader
anything by @effortandmore
anything by @hamsterclaw
anything by @miscelunaaa
1-year anniversary by @johobi
omerta by @anotherbtswriter
hammer it home series by @gukslut
hey, it's me & leave no trace behind by @yoongiphoria
love bytes by @stutterfly
real magic & park and ride by @here2bbtstrash
house of cards & guilty by @xjoonchildx
lacuna by @eoieopda
dream team by @bangtanintotheroom (feat. hobi)
cyanide on my bedsheets by @jimilter
laundry day by @snackhobi
bloom by @hobidreams
the snow globe effect by @gukyi
you've got a friend in me by @wwilloww
pronoia by @junghelioseok
limbo by @beahae
love hard by @raplinesmoon
swiss miss by @here4kpopfics (feat. seokjin)
my feet to follow, and my heart to hold by @daechwitatamic
a fine line by @moni-logues
roommates with benefits
as always, mxm fics under the cut!
member x member
softer than steel (namseok)
frustrations in late foucault (namseok)
the universe needs more you (namseok)
in your atmosphere (namseok)
why don't you figure (my heart) out (namseok)
i'm on fire (rap line)
delta (rap line)
꽃꽂이. kkotkkoji (namjin)
you have 1 new message (namjin)
beta tau sigma (namjin)
white rabbit (namjin)
local dumbass idiot helps sexy criminal and then writes sad bird poems instead of just saying Yes Seokjin I Like You Too (namjin)
easy (namjin)
and they were roommates (namjin)
burn me like an ember (namjin)
the understood boundaries of self (namjin)
more walls (collected along the way) [namjin]
imprints & magnitude (namjin)
salt water (namjinkook)
disgruntledofficebrat [active] (namkook)
you can leave the cape on (namkook)
108 degrees (namkook)
the whole of the moon (namkook)
travelogue with a frat boy (namkook)
it's a color that i can't describe (namkook)
how much to give and how much to take (namkook)
the courage of stars (namkook)
come take it (if you want a piece of me) [namkook]
a feel so sweet (namgikook)
objects in mirror are closer than they appear (namgi)
green carnation (namgi)
the added bonus (namgi)
tear you apart (namgi)
different when i'm with you (namgi)
adrift (namgi)
i'll fuck you if you let me, baby (namgi)
sleepless in (namgi)
恋の予感 (namgi)
take it or leave it (namgi)
baby, but we will (namgi)
verified amateurs [online now] (namgi)
cyrano more like cyraNO (namgi)
record it for later (namgi)
into the red morning (taejoon)
don't call it love (taejoon)
i am red with love (taejoon)
the bad thing (minimoni)
you were more than just light (minimoni)
wish we'd fall in love (minimoni)
but i want it anyway (minimoni)
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jjunieworld · 16 days
Text
𓍼 ˋ✮ TXT MASTERLIST minors dni with my nsfw works or you’ll be blocked!
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key: fluff (☁️), angst (🌪️), smut (🥛), smau (📲), written series (📖), one shot (📓), drabble (📄), other (💬), ongoing (🎬), completed (📨), hiatus (📪), discontinued (🗑️) note: for my works, i consider drabbles to be under 2k words. ∿ [ continue on to . . . works in progress or request ]
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𓍼 ˋ✮ OT5/MULTI
jjunieworld's 2024 valentine's day event having another member's photocard in your phone⌇💬,☁️ you called your pet "baby" and not them⌇💬,☁️ txt as mitski lyrics⌇💬,🌪️,☁️
𓍼 ˋ✮ YEONJUN 𐙚 soft thoughts ⋆ hard thoughts
romeo & juliet⌇📲,☁️,🗑️ the hybe theatre club has an unspoken belief, whoever plays romeo and juliet in the annual play each year will end up falling in love with each other. this year, you and the person you hate the most get casted together.
lip gloss!⌇1.9k - 📄,🥛,☁️ while getting ready for your date, yeonjun notices how you kept licking your lips after applying your lip gloss. let’s just say you don’t make it to your date as planned…
𓍼 ˋ✮ SOOBIN 𐙚 soft thoughts ⋆ hard thoughts
all for a bet⌇📲,🌪️,📨 choi soobin has always been the popular kid surrounded by his popular friends. you... not so much. one night, soobin and his friends make bet that soobin can't get you to date him in a month. unfortunately for you, you're a hopeless romantic.
the great bake off!⌇8.6k - 📓,☁️ spilt milk [part two]⌇4.0k - 📓,🥛 after getting fired from your job as a pizza delivery driver, you’re in desperate need to find a new job before you get kicked out of your apartment. that’s when you hear about the local bakery looking for employees. thinking, “why not? i’ve worked with dough before!”, you apply and actually get the job. that’s when you and the son of the bakery’s owner decide that it would be fun to compete to see who can make the most baked goods for a prize.
from the start⌇3.1k - 📓,☁️,🌪️ you never really understood the saying “you’ll always remember your first love,” but that was before you fell in love with your bestfriend soobin. now all of it makes sense. you notice everything about him, from his dimpled smile to the way he could go on and on about the things he loves. and that just makes you fall for him more. cupid has shot an arrow through your heart and you can’t take keeping your feelings for him inside anymore.
lather⌇2.5k - 📄,🥛 to help raise money for charity you and your friends make your way over to the rich neighborhood to handwash cars in your best skimpy bathing suits and clothing.
𓍼 ˋ✮ BEOMGYU 𐙚 soft thoughts ⋆ hard thoughts
"kiss the prettiest girl in the room"⌇2.3k - 📓,☁️ you and your bestfriend beomgyu decide on going to a new year’s eve party so you’re not bored at the start of the new year. the party goers suggest that you all should play truth or dare. one of beomgyu’s friends decides to dare him to kiss the prettiest girl in the room, knowing you have a crush on him.
don't delete the kisses⌇9.3k - 📓,🌪️,🥛 two years ago, you admitted to yourself that you were in love with your bestfriend beomgyu. two years ago, you and your bestfriend beomgyu stopped being bestfriends. now he’s an up and coming musician and you see his face and hear his music almost everywhere in your local town; not knowing that the songs he writes are about you.
more than this?⌇3.1k - 📓,🥛 when beomgyu asked you to be fuck buddies, you thought it was risky considering your already growing feelings for him. but, you just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to be close to him in any way that you could. now you’re wondering if the two of you will ever be anything more than this.
𓍼 ˋ✮ TAEHYUN 𐙚 soft thoughts ⋆ hard thoughts
february 14th⌇13.6k - 📓,🌪️,☁️ this has to be the worst day of your life. and just your luck, the day keeps repeating. over and over again. and you don’t know why. you get to relive the same day where you finally garner the courage to ask your crush, kang taehyun, out and get to relive the part where he rejects you each time.
6:41am⌇0.9k - 📄,☁️ you’re awoken early in the morning from taehyun’s alarm to go to the gym and decide to go with him. you end up distracting him from his routine with your staring and decide to encourage him with kisses to help him.
meet cute⌇1k - 📄,☁️ you had a thought and a dream, you were going to be a magician. so you did what one who wants to be a magician does next, you went to a magic store. and what did you do? accidentally knock over a shelf of bang snaps and came face to face with an actual magician.
𓍼 ˋ✮ HUENINGKAI 𐙚 soft thoughts ⋆ hard thoughts
stupid cupid!⌇6.5k - 📓,☁️ hueningkai, better known as cupid, is known for his art in helping people fall in love. shooting his arrows here and there, getting those who are meant to be together. what happens when after he shoots one of his love arrows at you, the other one somehow ends up hitting him?
spin the bottle⌇1.4k - 📄,☁️ you’re what people like to call a “wallflower.” your more extroverted friends have been doing everything in their power to try and break you out of that. so they dragged you along to a party and somehow you’re stuck playing spin the bottle with people you barely know.
a bed in your shape⌇1.4k - 📄,🌪️ a life in your eyes [part two]⌇7k - 📓,🌪️,🥛 for as long as you could remember, you’ve been in love with your bestfriend kai. the only problem is, he never loved you back. yet, you can’t stop imagining your life with him.
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© jjunieworld - all rights reserved. please do not repost on any social media sites, translate, or modify any of my works.
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shayyprasad · 3 months
Text
right next door // part two | peter parker
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summary: summary: you move in right next door to a cutie, problem is, he isn't much of a talker. or anything at all. but it's okay, because you're dead-set on getting him to warm up to you.
warnings: none, maybe cursing?
pairing: post-nwh!peter parker x fem!bubbly!reader
word count: 2.0k+ words
series masterlist!
full masterlist!
ask to be added to the taglist!
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you yelped, and in panic, threw down the dish towel onto the fire, hastily trying to get rid of it. you nervously glanced up at the alarm, sighing in relief when it didn’t go off.
well, that relief?
it lasted two seconds.
the loud blaring sound made you jump, and you whined.
“are you kidding me? you have to be kidding me. seriously, i mean, it’s my first freaking day here and i’ve already messed it up. everyone’s gonna freaking hate me. i’ll have neighbors that hate me! and then they’ll kick me out and arsenate me and-”
you cut yourself off, realizing that you had to get out of the apartment.
“screw you, stupid oven!” and for good measure, you threw the measuring cup at it, only slightly wincing at the loud bang.
sighing, you exited the flat, dreading what was yet to come. there were already people out in the hall, cursing and grumbling under their breath. you paused in front of the elevator before realizing that wasn’t going to pass. you slipped into the crowd that was already down the stairs, checking the time on your phone.
you didn’t bring anything else but that, knowing that it wasn’t an actual fire.
you know because you’re the one who set it off.
it was 10:47pm, so not everyone had been sleeping, but there was also a large chuck of people who were.
several people were dressed in their pjs, including yourself. all you had on was a black satin shirt, paired with matching shorts.
…which were definitely short.
you tugged them down as far as you could, biting down on your lips. you were on the literal verge of a mental breakdown. how did everything go so south, so fast?
were you really that incapable of taking care of yourself?
you needed to be more responsible, you thought.
you exited through the front, and the cold air hit you like a brick, making you shiver. to say it was cold outside was an understatement.
it was absolutely freezing.
blowing out breath, you watched as the white cloud dissipated. out of the corner of your eye, you spotted peter. mustering up all the courage you could, you walked over, hugging your sides to warm up.
“um, hi. again.”
he looked over at you, tilting his head slightly. your heart was racing, thudding against your ribcage so loudly you could hear it in your ears.
you held your breath, afraid that he’d hear your racing heart.
no, you scoffed in your head, that’s impossible.
“hey,” his voice was slightly raspy, mussed with sleep.
you shivered again, but not just because of the cold. your brows knitted in guilt, you must’ve woken him up as well.
“some idiot, huh?” you blurted.
“what?” he asked, recoiling slightly, as he straightened up.
“who bakes cookies this late?” god, you needed to shut up. now.
“uh, cookies?”
“well, you know. you can start a fire by baking cookies,” you stammered, trying to amend what you’d already said.
“yeah. i guess.”
you rubbed your arms harder, watching the firemen inspect the building.
“here,” you turned to see peter thrust something towards you. squinting, you realized it was a jacket.
“oh, no, it’s okay, really.”
“you’re cold,” peter said bluntly.
“yes, but-”
“just take it. you can return it later if it’ll make you feel better.”
“are you sure?”
“if i wasn’t sure, i wouldn’t be giving it to you.”
“oh, um, okay. thank you.” reluctantly, you slipped it on.
it smelled like pinewood and… peter, you supposed. you clutched it closer, inhaled the scent. was it weird that you instantly felt so comforted?
“it’s not a biggie.”
you smiled at him anyways, and he quickly looked away.
one of the firemen walked up to the crowd, throwing his hands up. “we’re good. just some dunce set it off. no fire or anything.”
you forced out a laugh, “yeah. what a dunce.”
waking alongside peter, you went back up to your room. standing in front of your room door, you smiled softly at him, no less bright than the one before.
he pulled out his keys, and you opened your mouth, “have a goodnight peter. sleep well.”
this time, he looked at you. for the first time, he actually held eye contact.
he really looked at you.
“you too,” peter murmured, before slipping into the darkness of his room.
-
if you were being honest, you weren’t sure if he liked you or not. truly, you couldn’t tell. last night, and he didn’t even really do anything, but it seemed like there wasn’t pure annoyance in his voice.
that was a start, right? i mean, that had to count for something? right?
right?
probably. most likely? you didn’t know.
honestly, you didn’t know anything when it came to him. you were trying to talk to him, but he kept brushing you off.
oh, well. you’d make it work.
you had dough left over from last night, and you really wanted to put it to use. “i can’t waste it,” you murmured, biting your lip. “but, god, i don’t need a part two of last night. that would be terrible. there goes any hope of peter freaking parker liking me back. as a friend, duh. for now. maybe.”
pulling it out of the fridge, you grabbed some cookie cutters and a baking pan. you clipped off the top of the tupperware box, tearing off a small piece of dough. it tasted like home.
you’d used the same recipe as your mother, in hopes that it would cure some of your homesickness. but standing here with raw chocolate chip dough in your stomach, you felt rather opposed to that.
sure, you didn’t have the best relationship with your family, but that didn’t mean you didn’t love them.
you did.
they were overbearing, and that was alright. they were just more careful given… given what happened.
it was reasonable. after all, you were all they had left now.
“nope. no. think happy thoughts. we think happy thoughts.”
no matter what though, you couldn’t help but reminisce about the times when you’d get scolded for eating the dough uncooked. you and… her.
“happy thoughts, y/n. ohhh-kay. where are those instructions?”
you didn’t really want to do this, but you also did. and didn’t (you had serious ptsd from that incident). after being indecisive a bit longer, you decided to make the cookies. hopefully, you wouldn’t burn them this time. first, you preheated the oven.
“okay, okay, i got this.” you glanced back at the phone, just to make sure you were doing this right. grabbing a rolling pin, you flattened out the dough (tearing off one more piece, just to… just to make sure it tasted the way it should. [it did.]). you picked up a cookie cutter before pressing it into the dough, sliding it around a bit to make sure it went all the way through.
you repeated the action a few more times, and then peeled away the excess. doing the same with what was left, you stepped back and admired your work, feeling confident.
“oven time!” sliding them in, you shut the door. you picked up your phone once more, setting a timer for 15 minutes.
maybe you could trial and error it?
since you had some time, you decided to get ready. you planned on giving peter the freshly baked cookies, and you didn’t want to show up in ratty, old pajamas.
you opened your closet, humming. you weren’t planning in going outside, so perhaps you could throw on a casual dress. filing through the racks some more, you settled on a light blue dress, once with short, puffy sleeves.
it was casual, but it was cute casual. you slipped it on, putting on some light makeup and brushing your hair. by the time you were done, you thought it looked quite presentable. you grabbed a random jacket from the corner of the bed and threw it on.
you moved back into the kitchen, checking in on the cookies. sure, they seemed a little misshaped, but they looked almost like how your mother used to make them. they were a soft, golden-brown at the edges, the chips melted into soft circles of black. you put on an oven mitt and pulled them out.
hesitantly, you picked one up and took a bit of it.
“it’s… not bad? it’s not terrible.”
and it wasn’t. it tasted relatively like one’s that would be made at home. “…kind of.”
oh, well. you didn’t have anything else to give to peter, so why not?
you grabbed the tupperware and set the dessert inside carefully, trying to fit them all in (except for a few for yourself). taking a deep breath, you swung the door open, locking it behind you. actually, you weren’t sure why you locked it, you were literally walking two feet away.
“new york is getting the best of me,” you muttered. new york was also getting you to talk to yourself more often.
it was deeply off-putting.
you paced for a couple minutes outside of his door, contemplating what to say. “hey, peter. you’re hot and i wanna smash you, but i need to have some courtesy first.” you paused.
“yeah, no. what about ‘i really like you and i have the biggest crush on you, despite the fact i don’t know you at all, but i need some friends before i totally lose it and i need you.’?”
you groaned, “that’s definitely worse. y’know what? i’ll wing it. i did improv in freshman for, like, three months. i’m basically a pro. how hard can it be?”
you inhaled and, after a moment, knocked. there was some shuffling and crashing on the other side, and instinctively, you leaned into the door, pressing your ear to it. not even a second later, the door opened and you went tumbling into someone.
well, not someone.
peter.
if it weren’t for him catching you, you would’ve face-planted. his arms were around your waist, and your hands were pressed against his chest. he smelled… like peter.
it was silly to describe it like that, but he had a certain comfort.
it took you a moment to process what just happened, but once you did, you pulled away quickly. “oh my gosh, i’m so sorry! i didn’t mean for that to happen at all!”
he raised an eyebrow, “i doubt you would.”
“um,” you dropped your eyes to the box, sighing in relief when it hadn’t opened when it hit the ground, “i just,” picking them up, “-here.” okay, so improv was harder than you thought.
you thrusted the cookies into his chest.
“cookies?”
“yes, uh, yeah… like a… thanks for being my neighbor?”
“i didn’t have a choice in the matter.”
“oh. right. okay, how about… thanks for the jacket?”
“the one you have on currently?”
“what?” you looked down, and as soon as you did, you turned bright red. “i honestly had no clue i was even wearing this! i-i just grabbed a random one, and y’know, i didn’t look-”
“relax. it was an observation.”
“okay. uh, okay. i’ll get this washed.”
“like i said before, no biggie.”
you fiddled with your ring, pressing your lips together.
“i thought you burned the last batch.”
you looked up, “sorry?”
peter shook the box lightly, “the last batch of cookies. didn’t you burn them?” there was a ghost of a smile on his face, and you felt your heartrate pick up.
“i don’t…?”
“i could hear cursing and a buncha noise. thin walls. and… you weren’t so subtle ‘bout it last night.”
“oops. sorry.” you rubbed the back of your neck, “that was me. sorry again. really, especially if you were sleeping. i’m seriously so sorry about that.”
“it’s fine. i wasn’t sleeping.”
when you glanced at his face, you saw how he looked torn. like he really wanted to say something, but he didn’t. “uh, thanks for these.”
“of course!” you winked at him playfully, “and if you ever need anything, i’m right next door.”
taglist!
@whatsupstark @ell0ra-br3kk3r
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writing-for-marvel · 1 year
Text
Withdrawal
[He’s Hazardous To My Health Series]
Paramedic!Bucky Barnes x Resident!Fem!Reader
< < PART 2 | Series Masterlist | PART 4 > >
Summary: You wait for Bucky to call.
Warnings: strictly 18+ due to the AU, some angst and self doubt, references to sex, references to Bucky having a traumatic past
Word count: 2.8k
A/N: Will he call? Won’t he call? Let’s find out! Banners by @vase-of-lilies
Main Masterlist | Ask me anything! | Taglist | Library
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Bucky stares down at his phone and sighs.
He wants to call you, genuinely, so why is dialling your number so difficult?
Perhaps it’s too soon, is what he tells himself. It hasn’t even been a full day since the end of your date, calling now probably makes him look desperate.
Should he message you? Tell you that he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about you all day? Ugh, no… that seems extremely forward for someone he’s only been on a single date with, regardless of if it’s the truth.
There’s never been anyone whom he’s connected with enough to warrant a second date, let alone have him promising to call. He’s completely out of his depth, drowning in a sea of anxiety and no one has taught him how to swim.
Bucky knows he’s overthinking, but you make it hard to think clearly. You have his brain short circuiting, reforming synapses so that all his thoughts are rerouted to the same thing: you.
Turning his phone off, he sets it down beside him. Just because he isn’t calling straight away, doesn’t mean he won’t at all. It’s probably better to wait and not seem super eager.
Or is that counterintuitive? If you enjoy someone’s company, should you let them know so you can see them again as soon as possible?
Fuck, why is this such a daunting task? He’s never had an issue with talking or flirting with anyone before, it seems to come naturally to him. And yet the thought that he’ll say the wrong thing, and fuck up whatever it is between the two of you is making his stomach churn with prickling nerves he’s never experienced before.
Perhaps he’ll find the courage to call tomorrow.
* * *
“You seem distracted, what’s on your mind?” The familiar voice from the driver's seat of the ambulance pulls Bucky from his daydream.
You, is what Bucky thinks. You are constantly on his mind. Him and his best friend Steve are half an hour into their shift and you have not left the forefront of his mind in that entire time.
It’s like he’s in a trance.
“There’s this girl from the hospital…” Bucky trails off, unsure how to articulate exactly how you’ve bewitched him since meeting not even a week ago.
The night before last wasn’t just another hookup. At least, not to him.
“I’m gonna need a little more information than that Buck, there’s been quite a few girls of yours, especially from the hospital.” Steve laughs, but Bucky’s chest tightens at the insinuation that you’re just another fling, even though Steve doesn’t know any better.
“Two nights ago we went on a date, it ended up back at her place.” This is probably not news to Steve - he’s heard many stories about Bucky’s one night stands which would have started exactly like this. But there is one huge difference this time around. “And then I told her I’d call.”
“You’re thinking about a second date with her? She must be something special.” Bucky chuckles under his breath. Yeah, you really are something special. So fucking special.
“She’s beautiful, intelligent, funny, witty. When she was treating that little girl from the train derailment she was so good with her, kind and patient. I don’t know how to describe it, we just click. I don’t think I’ve ever allowed myself to feel more than physical attraction for someone but with her it just happens, I can’t stop myself.”
He doesn’t want to admit it to himself, but Bucky’s already addicted to you. He’s only had one fix, but he’s already showing symptoms of withdrawal. Every second apart feels like an hour, craving your company and the rapture firing in every neuron of his body when you’re in his presence.
“Look at you actually falling for someone.” Steve teases, without even knowing the full extent of how enthralled Bucky is with you. “So when are you seeing her again?”
Silence fills the front seat of the ambulance when Bucky can’t answer the question.
“Bucky, you have to see her again! Listen to how you’re talking about her, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you actually speak about wanting to see someone again. You need to call her.” Steve stops at a red light and looks over to Bucky in the passenger seat. His best friend knows him better than perhaps he knows himself but doesn’t have the same obstacle with letting people in as Bucky does.
“That’s easier said than done.” Bucky can’t mask the dejected tone in his voice, and Steve recognises the crestfallen hang of his head, knowing exactly what he means without voicing it aloud.
“I know you've been through a lot in your life Buck, you’ve built walls up to prevent any more heartbreak…” Steve starts, but Bucky doesn’t need yet another reminder of his tragic backstory.
“Alright Mr I minored in psychology, I get your point. I’m damaged goods and don’t let people get close to me.”
“It’s just a second date, Buck, you aren’t asking for her hand in marriage. Just see where it goes.” Steve makes it sound so easy. Most people wouldn’t get so stressed about something they would consider as minor as a second date, yet Bucky feels like he’s about to expose the most intimate parts of his soul to someone for the first time.
“But I don’t want to hurt her. I know nothing about dating or being in a relationship.” Bucky pauses - the fact that he’s even considering something as substantial as a relationship with you punches him in the gut. He’s never wanted that with someone before. “And I don’t want to get hurt myself.” Because all Bucky has known is relationships breaking down. To him romantic relationships are synonymous with pain and he’s had enough of that for a lifetime.
“You’ll never know if you never try. I know you think letting someone in will lead to heartbreak, but what if it’s the opposite? What if by letting this person into your heart you finally find love and contentment?” Bucky has never allowed himself to imagine a life where that is a possibility - opening himself up to that prospect sounds like a recipe for more suffering. Besides, he’s been damaged goods for a long time, he’s sure there’s no one who would want to put up with him anyway.
“You really are a hopeless romantic.” Bucky comments, trying to avoid the questions Steve is raising, and divert the topic of their conversation.
“I want you to be happy, Buck. You’ve never afforded yourself that courtesy.”
Though his experience screams at him to run in the opposite direction, that this would be a horrible decision leading to further pain, Bucky finds it hard to believe someone as sweet and good-natured as yourself would ever hurt him intentionally. Even if there is only a slim chance that he doesn’t completely fuck this up, given Bucky cannot stop thinking about you, he supposes it’s worth a shot calling you.
“Well, maybe it’s finally time I do.” Bucky mutters under his breath.
* * *
You’ve been checking your phone periodically throughout the day to se if you have any new notifications from Bucky, but each time your phone lights up, a new wave of disappointment floods your chest.
You wonder if the notion of actually calling you, or simply messaging, has even crossed Bucky’s mind once since he left your place about 36 hours ago, or if he already knew it was an empty promise at the time he made it.
“Heard anything yet?” Wanda asks hopefully, but you shake your head in response. The first thing Wanda asked during your next shift together was how your date went with Bucky - between treating patients you described the picnic Bucky set up on the riverbank and (in slightly less detail) the euphoric night you shared when you made it back to your place.
“I’m stupid for actually believing he’s going to call, aren’t I?”
“…No.” Wanda offers after a brief hesitation which tells you more than the single word does. Sensing your regret in asking, she continues on. “Sweetie, only you know the connection you share, I can’t speak to that. If you feel like there’s something special there and he promised to call, then you have every right to believe him.”
Perhaps you’re being foolish, you should know better than to hang your hopes on a man who is notorious for being a fuckboy, but you really thought Bucky was being genuine when he promised to contact you. That the blissful night you shared, and the waves of ecstasy which melded into a flood of pure pleasure, meant more than just a one night stand.
Or at least it did to you.
“Just because he’s never pursued more than a first date with other people in this hospital doesn’t mean he isn’t now, or isn’t with you. Sometimes it just takes the right person, that could be you.” You take some comfort in the sincerity of her tone, but the voice in the back of your mind reminds you of what Wanda alerted you to prior to your date: no one gets a second date with Bucky Barnes.
“You’ve changed from giving me no hope to giving me false hope, Wan.” You joke, trying to brush off the conversation and not reveal just how heartbroken you’ll be if Bucky ghosts you, even with Wanda warning about his ways.
Internally you remind yourself that it’s only been a day and a half and to not be too mad at him, yet. Perhaps he intends to call, but hasn’t gotten around to it, though you’re pretty sure you’re only telling yourself that to stop the perpetual ache in your chest rather than truly believing it.
“He promised he would call, that’s not false hope.” Wanda advises, shooting you a look of encouragement as you both complete paperwork for your respective patients.
At that moment, the doors to the ER swing open and none other than the paramedic you were just speaking about walks in wheeling a patient.
You hate how good he looks, long chestnut hair framing his face and those dazzling blue eyes you’ve dreamed about shine from all the way across the room. He’s unfairly attractive, and he walks into a room like he knows it too.
Him and his partner consult the head nurse of the ER, who, after examining her clipboard for a moment, points towards your direction, making your stomach flip.
Steel blue eyes meet yours and for a moment your entire world stands still. The sounds of the busy ER fade away and even the presence of Wanda beside you dissolves into non-existence when his eyes find you and a smile overtakes his features. That damn cheeky smile which makes your knees weak.
He truly is infuriatingly beautiful.
“Hey.” Is all you can think to say as they approach, a lump in your throat forming which would prevent you from voicing any more words if your brain could think of any other than how strapping and handsome he looks in his uniform.
“Hi.” Bucky responds softly with a dreamy smile, eyes lingering on yours for a long beat before turning away. How could someone who looks at you with such warmth not want to see you again?
You shake the thought from your mind as your focus on the patient, a young man with scared brown eyes. You can’t afford to be distracted right now, even if you desperately want to look back at him and revel in the fondness brimming in his eyes which was so apparent during your date.
After Bucky’s equally tall, broad and handsome paramedic partner gets you up to speed on the patient's history, you get to work on taking his vitals.
“Rogers, Barnes, give us some space to work, please.” Dr Strange requests and without the chance to say another word to each other, both paramedics disappear out the corner of your periphery.
What you don’t notice is Bucky’s soft gaze on you through the glass walls of the patient room as you start your work up, believing that he had simply got back in his ambulance and out into the field.
“That’s her?” Steve asks from beside Bucky. He knows full well it must be you, he’s never seen his best friend look so enamoured with a girl, nor lost for words as when he set eyes on you, but he wants Bucky to admit it aloud.
“Yep, that’s her.” Bucky says with a pride that if Steve didn’t know any better, would suggest that her meant his girl. Bucky answers without taking his eyes off you, the corners of mouth tugging into a smile. His best friend has it bad, and he doesn’t even realise.
Steve suspects if he doesn’t remind Bucky they have a shift to get back to, he’d happily watch you work for the rest of the day.
He allows Bucky a couple more minutes of that luxury before heading back to the ambulance, knowing his best friend well enough to realise before either Bucky or yourself do, just how significant Bucky’s feelings for you are.
* * *
Bucky steps out of the shower, the warm water having rinsed the hard days work off himself.
He knows he needs to call you. Waiting any longer, especially after seeing you today, even if it were only for a brief moment, would surely only indicate disinterest. That’s so far from how he feels about you, so he decides needs to take matters into his own hands and fulfil the promise he made two nights ago.
A fresh swarm of butterflies fills his stomach. He’s actually going to do this.
He just hopes you’re after more than just another hookup. Bucky’s used to being the one only interested in sex, but if the roles are reversed this time, it’ll be his exposed heart being ripped from his chest.
No, he can’t think like that. He’s finally giving himself a chance at happiness.
Bucky reminds himself that you asked him to promise to call after your date. It’s not just him that wants this, you want him to call.
With that thought, he pulls out his phone and quickly presses on your contact, so he doesn’t chicken out, and with a shaky hand holds his phone to his ear. Bucky’s heart beats in his throat as the first ring sounds, and then skips a beat altogether when the click of you answering fills his ears.
“Bucky, you called.” He can hear the smile in your voice through the line, but what makes his heart clench is the trace of surprise he can perceive, as if you truly hadn’t expected him to call.
“I did promise to.” He reminds you, but it doesn’t entirely eliminate the bitter shame bubbling in the pit of his stomach that even though he did in fact promise, you didn’t fully believe him.
“I’m happy you did. I had a really great time the other night.”
“So did I.” Those three simple words don’t sum up just how much Bucky wholeheartedly enjoyed every second he spent with you, regardless of if that were naked in your bed or getting to know you on a picnic blanket as the sun set across the horizon, but in his anxious state he can’t find words more poetic to express it. “And I’d love to do it again if you’re up for it.”
“Hmm, I’m gonna have to think about it.” He can tell by the light tone of your voice you’re joking, but he supposes he deserves waiting for an answer considering he made you wait for his call. “Of course I’d love to go on a second date with you James.”
The combination of your words and the fact that you punctuated the sentence with his true first name sends Bucky straight to heaven. Everything about you makes him completely weak in a way he has never experienced before. All of those walls Steve seems to think Bucky has built around himself don’t appear to exist with you, instead, you’ve come into his life as easily as walking through a front door with a welcome mat out front.
“I guess I’m going to have to outdo a picnic at sunset then.” He chuckles to himself, knowing that he’s never had this problem before, but realising it’s a good problem to have.
You continue to talk well into the night, forgetting what time it is, and that you both have early shifts in the morning. None of that matters when you’re so caught up in each other.
Bucky simply enjoys the sound of your voice, and how it soothes the remaining anxiety which was swirling in his chest before calling you. He certainly isn’t hanging up first, not when talking with you has been the best part of his day.
He’s chasing happiness. And he might just find it with you.
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Part 4 > >
Be added to the series taglist here
He’s Hazardous To My Health [Paramedic!Bucky Barnes] Taglist: @lavenderpenumbra @crazyunsexycool @eralen @buckbuckyoongs @blackwidownat2814 @roschele @crayongirl-linz @ozwriterchick @desert-fern @misshale21 @chalesleclerc164 @rookthorne @janineb86 @emmabarnes @scarletbich @fallenlilangel99 @princezzjasmine @mdrovert @thebuckybarnesvault @doasyoudesireandlive @solitarioslilium @iamfandomwasted @tanyaspartak @netflixxgoddess @pop-rocks-818 @dumdidditydumdoo @missvelvetsstuff @marvelhoeland @thesadcatto-queen @kayden666 @amiimar @razor-blayde @katheryn1 @safew0rd @kentokaze @thewackywriter @lady-loki-barnes-djarin @badasswlthafatass @Vickie5446 @loveoldmenlikelana @00cmh @pointless-girl @honeyglee @nerdxacid @moonymagician @ashhsage @prettylittlepluviophile @otomefromtheheart @sjsmith56 @mandijo17 @lokidokieokie @oceansandblackhearts @rebeccapineapple @soorwellystan @excusememrbarnes @lofaewrites @snapcapquartet @wishingwell-2 @unaxv @aya-fay
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roadtogracelandx45 · 10 months
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Band of Brothers Day 6: OC:
this is the first of 3 parts: Betsy Michael and Marla Stewart will be the other two and be posted later today. pictures were found on Google and pinterest, credited to the original owners
Captian Olivia Stewart-LIebgott - she is appearing in Courage Under Fire.
Olivia and her twin brother Robert had just turned 18 the same day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and their whole world was turned upside down. Robert joins the Army while Olivia is recruited to join the Army Nursing Corps where she quickly rises to the rank of Lieutenant and is sent with a squad of girls to the second ballation of the 506 and Easy Company. Where her twin, childhood sweetheart Bill Guarnere, family friend Lewis Nixon and future husband Joe Liebgott are.
Along with trying to keep her girls and the boys alive, Olivia finds herself falling in love with a cabbie from San Francisco and struggling with the fact that her ex boyfriend and former best friend are there too.
"We were never supposed to go to the front lines like that but in those direct moments when you have spilt second to react, you do. And I ended up putting myself between flying bullets and shelling to try and protect those boys. And if I had a choice I would do it again. No questions asked."
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When The World Is Crashing Down [Chapter 6: I Am Missing You To Death]
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Series summary: Your family is House Celtigar, one of Rhaenyra’s wealthiest allies. In the aftermath of Rook’s Rest, Aemond unknowingly conscripts you to save his brother’s life. Now you are in the liar of the enemy, but your loyalties are quickly shifting…
Chapter warnings: Language, warfare, violence, a Wolfman update, serious injury, alcoholism/addiction, sexual content (18+), dragons, murder, suicide, say hello to the Crab Fam! 🥰🦀
Series title is a lyric from: “7 Minutes In Heaven” by Fall Out Boy.
Chapter title is a lyric from: “I Slept With Someone In Fall Out Boy And All I Got Was This Stupid Song Written About Me” by Fall Out Boy.
Word count: 9k (she chonky!).
Link to chapter list: HERE.
Taglist (more in comments): @tinykryptonitewerewolf @lauraneedstochill @not-a-glad-gladiator @daenysx @babyblue711 @arcielee @at-a-rax-ia @bhanclegane @jvpit3rs @padfooteyes @marvelescvpe @travelingmypassion @darkenchantress @yeahright0h @poohxlove @trifoliumviridi @bloodyflowerrr @fan-goddess @devynsficrecs @flowerpotmage @thelittleswanao3 @seabasscevans @hiraethrhapsody @libroparaiso @echos-muses @st-eve-barnes @chattylurker @lm-txles @vagharnaur @moonlightfoxx @storiumemporium @insabecs @heliosscribbles @beautifulsweetschaos @namelesslosers @partnerincrime0 @burningcoffeetimetravel-fics @yawneneytiri @marbles-posts @imsolence @maidmerrymint @backyardfolklore @nimaharchive @anxiousdaemon @under-the-aspen-tree @amiraisgoingthruit @dd122004dd @randomdragonfires @jetblack4real @joliettes
Let me know if you’d like to be tagged! 🥰💜
There’s fire on the table, ice in your blood. Alicent and Helaena are prisoners in their rooms, and tomorrow Otto will be beheaded in the Dragonpit, but you are here in the Great Hall surrounded by candles, cider and beer and wine, rare roast boar sweating blood like rubies, raucous celebration.
Your father and Clement are laughing with Medrick Manderly, Lorent Marbrand, Luthor Largent, other men of Rhaenyra’s council; when they toast their wine, it sloshes carelessly out of the glass goblets. Corlys Velaryon—whose navy helped secure the city—is pensive and withdrawn, saying very little. At the center of the high table, the woman who calls herself queen is manic: color in her cheeks, light in her eyes, but not a warm life-giving glow, a hollow glint like the flash of coins or swords or moonlight. She is receiving a litany of congratulations for her victory from the lords of loyal houses: Blackwood, Bar Emmon, Costayne, Tully, Frey, Dustin, Cerwyn, Grimm. Frequently and unmistakably, Rhaenyra glances across the hall to where Daemon is conspiring with her military commanders, his back to the wall and arms crossed and face daunting yet distracted somehow, reminding you very much of Aemond. He does not look at his wife. He looks elsewhere, into the future, into the past, into the northwest where Nettles and Baela are waiting for him to return to the cursed corridors of Harrenhal.
“Please eat something,” Everett says quietly. He is carving off the least-bloody pieces of roast boar and laying them on your plate, where they remain untouched. He doesn’t have much to talk about with the other men as long as the topic of conversation hinges on combat. He knows books, not blades. Everett can walk, though only slowly and with great difficulty; he does not ride horses, he does not fight, he does not have a wife and in all likelihood never will. He reads and he watches, sharp eyes like a hawk’s.
“I’m alright,” you reply with effort that feels like lifting iron, stones, the dead weight of a man.
“You’re not,” Everett says, pained.
“Cregan Stark is a good man!” your father is telling his compatriots. He has grey hair and a crafty grin and speaks with dramatic sweeps of his arms. “When he heard of my daughter’s tribulations, borne with such courage, such resilience, he assured me that his intentions to wed her were unchanged. He pledged to forgive her any transgressions suffered at the hands of the Usurper.”
“A better husband than any of us!” Clement trumpets, toasting his wine glass with anyone who will accommodate him. Clement does have a wife—and two sons so far, the infant heirs of House Celtigar—but he spends far more time writing to Lord Stark than his family back on Claw Isle. “Gallant! Merciful! The most clever and civilized Northerner to ever live!”
“Hear hear!” his audience answers spiritedly, though Everett only frowns.
“And soon Cregan will leave Winterfell,” your father continues. Rhaenyra is now listening attentively. “He will finish rallying and fortifying his men, and then march south to crush the last vestiges of this infernal, traitorous uprising!”
Resounding cheers, fists drummed against the table. Clement picks up where your father left off: “Already Roddy the Ruin and his Winter Wolves slaughtered 2,000 Lannister men at the Fishfeed. Can you imagine the carnage when Cregan arrives with his host of young, fresh, able-bodied warriors?! We will eviscerate the Kingmaker! We will avenge Rhaenys, Lucerys and Jacaerys! And when we find the Usurper, when we drag him out of whatever hovel he’s crawled into on his belly like a snake, we will cut him open to see if his guts are green as well!”
As men roar all around you—men who have killed, men who are starving to do it again—you stare down at the reflection in your wine, a vacant face that barely resembles yours. You cannot write to Aegon. He cannot write to you. Where and how he is will remain a mystery until you meet again…or until the Blacks uncover his fate. In your mind, he is both alive and dead; he is sick, he is well, he is suffering, he is finding solace in another woman’s bed, he is lying broken on the side of the road, he is sailing under the cover of darkness into Dragonstone on a borrowed ship, he is drunk, he is sober, he is burning up with fever, his is reunited with Sunfyre, he is in desperate need of you, he has forgotten you completely.
“I bet he’s at Storm’s End!” Medrick Manderly bellows, motioning with a turkey leg as if it’s a dagger. “We should send assassins to slay him!”
“No, no, the Reach!” Luthor Largent counters. “He’s probably on his way to meet his brother Daeron there!”
Theories are lobbed back and forth like the arrows of archers, none of them right. No one asks you. No one has asked about the abuse you supposedly endured either. It was taken for granted as truth; what else could anyone expect from a captor as notoriously depraved and insatiable as the Usurper? Your melancholic demeanor is proof enough. Inquiry beyond that would be impolite. And then Rhaenyra says, startling you: “Is there any chance he’s gone to Dragonstone?”
“He cannot be there, Your Grace,” your father assures her. “It is impossible to take Dragonstone without there being signs, ships in the sea and smoke from the kitchens and the like. We would have heard from the lords of the Crownlands who reside near the island.”
Unless they have silently abandoned Rhaenyra’s cause. Unless Aegon and Larys have won them over. You have to protect him. You have to distract the side you once called your own. You twist the dragon ring on your left hand, gold wings and jade eyes. No one asks about that either; sometimes you think they don’t really see you at all. You say softly: “He spoke often of Dorne.”
“Dorne?” your father muses, stroking his short beard.
“Of course he did,” Clement says. “Degenerates are quite at home there.”
Medrick Manderly is muttering: “We’ll never find him if he gets past the Marches…”
Rhaenyra gazes at her husband again, a hollow, vulnerable sort of desperation, a plea that echoes against stone walls. He knocks back the last of his wine, turns his back on her, and strides out of the Great Hall. Rhaenyra’s pale eyes—a treacherous, oceanic sort of blue like Aegon’s—are glossy with despair. You’ve crossed paths with her before, of course, usually from a distance; but you are fascinated by how much she has changed. With each person she loses—King Viserys, infant Visenya, Luke, Jace—another piece of her is cut away like a man being flayed. The so-called queen is more erratic, more cold. She has had her remaining children brought to King’s Landing: Joffrey, Aegon the Younger, Viserys who is a sickly and disengaged toddler, his eyes and nose always running. They are tucked safely away in their rooms currently. They are glorified prisoners, just like you; they have no role in shaping the world they will one day inherit.
“My lady?” Autumn says, tapping your shoulder. The Blacks know her only as a handmaiden who assisted you in escaping the clutches of the Usurper when he fled King’s Landing. They have no idea who might have fathered the child in her rounded belly. It would not be safe for them to know. Before her time comes to deliver, Autumn will have to go someplace where the Blacks will be unaware if her son or daughter has the silvery hair of a Targaryen. You promised her a new home, but you cannot give it to her yet; nothing you own is truly yours, and Aegon left too suddenly to gift her property on your behalf. Autumn, curiously, does not seem to be in any hurry to leave you.
“I’m alright,” you say again, another leaden lie. The men are now discussing how the Usurper should be executed once they’ve found him: beheaded, hanged drawn and quartered, fed to a dragon, burned alive, some combination thereof. Medrick Manderly is suggesting that they have him flayed alive. When Cregan Stark arrives at last, surely there will be Boltons in his retinue.
“You are exhausted,” Autumn announces, loudly enough for the others to overhear. “You have been through so much. Please, my lady. Allow me to escort you back to your rooms.”
“Will you, please?” Everett asks Autumn. His eyes flick to hers, his fingers tapping his chin thoughtfully. “I’ll check on her before I retire for the evening.”
Autumn offers you her hand. This is a kindness, an escape. You take it and rise from the table.
“My daughter!” Bartimos Celtigar laments, gesturing to you. His spectators, men rabid with bloodlust, nod and murmur sympathetically, like it is almost something too distasteful to speak of. Murder can be discussed openly, torture, weapons, war; but the violence women collect and carry in their bones? Those are details best left unsaid. Perhaps it strikes too near to their own deeds, if they dared to think hard on them. Your father approaches and kisses you twice, once on each cheek. Rhaenyra drinks her wine and stares blankly at the place where Daemon had stood. “So wronged, so mistreated, and yet she is still with us. She will rise again. She has a glorious future ahead of her. We all do. All of us who serve Rhaenyra, Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men. To the words of my house: Perpetual Resurrection!”
The men lift their cups and shout, none more deafeningly than Clement: “Perpetual Resurrection!” Everett mouths it quietly to himself. Corlys Velaryon says nothing. Rhaenyra holds her head high, sorrowful but defiant. You retreat from the Great Hall with Autumn, the hem of your gown flowing out behind you, black like the faction the Celtigars have aligned with, black like mourning.
“No,” you tell Autumn as she starts up the stairwell that leads to your bedchamber.
She is puzzled. “Where then?”
“Take me to the dungeons.”
“What? Why?” Then she understands. “Oh. Oh no. You don’t want to go down there. It’s awful, dark and grimy, dried blood on the walls, handprints and fingernails. Spiders and bones. Rats everywhere.”
“So you know the way.”
“Yes,” she admits cagily, tugging at a coiled lock of her coppery hair.
Your eyes narrow. “When were you in the dungeons?” You met Aegon there? He took women there? Before the war, before he was burned, before he met me?
“Don’t ask questions you wouldn’t want the answers to,” Autumn says primly. Then she ushers you through doorways and shadowy stairwells that lead down, down, down.
Grand Maester Orwyle is in the black cells. Jasper Wylde has already been executed; Tyland Lannister is being tortured until he reveals the location of the Greens’ stores of treasure. Otto Hightower, condemned to death, is housed on the floor of the dungeons reserved for prisoners of noble birth. There are torches burning in the corridor, rage-orange luminescence like dusk bleeding into the cells through gaps in the iron bars. Autumn does not leave you alone there, but she does wait at the end of the hall to give you—and the man who three times served as the Hand of the King and was twice removed from the same office, first by King Viserys and again by Aegon when Otto proved too cautious for his liking—some semblance of privacy.
Otto peers up at you from where he sits on the floor of his cell, strewn with dirty straw and glowing firelight. He appears old, impossibly old; the flesh has evaporated between his skull and his yellowed skin. He already looks like the skeleton he will be soon. He once counseled Aegon against flying into battle with Sunfyre, and Aegon hated him for it. But Otto was right, wasn’t he? “Did you tire of all the merriment upstairs? Or have they run out of roast boar? I could smell it cooking, you know. All day long as rats chewed at my ankles.”
“I imagine you now regret not running when you had the chance.”
Otto shrugs haggardly. “My odds would have been as good on the road as here. Out there, I might have been descended upon by a bear or a shadowcat or a band of thieves who left me gutted on the roadside. At least my death will be clean and swift.”
“Is there anything I can bring you?” you ask him, gently now. “Anything I can do for you? Before…tomorrow?” Before your life is ended. Before the Greens lose one of their greatest assets.
His gaunt face stretches into a slow, taunting grin. “You have chosen a side, Lady Celtigar.”
That’s true, isn’t it? By not spilling the Greens’ secrets. By falling in love with their king. “If Rhaenyra wins, I have to marry Cregan Stark and Aegon dies.”
“And you want him to live so he can marry you.”
It stuns you so much it takes a moment to find your words again. “Well, that’s not possible.” He already has a wife, no matter how insane she is now.
“I would not assume that any form of depravity is beyond his skill.” Otto sighs deeply. “Before that bitch took the city, I was corresponding with the Dragonseeds called Ulf the White and Hugh Hammer. They claim they will switch to our side for titles that Rhaenyra denies them. Ulf wanted Storm’s End—delusional, the drunk could not manage a fishing village, he spells half his words wrong—and Hugh asked the Blacks for Casterly Rock. Apparently Daemon was actually amenable, but Rhaenyra refused the notion entirely. How fortunate for us. If we offer these Dragonseeds the seats of lesser houses—Costayne and Merryweather, I’d suggest, both traitors to Aegon’s cause—I think they’ll declare for us. Alicent must write to them. With Aemond, Criston, and Daeron on the battlefield, and Aegon gods know where, she must be the one to negotiate for our side now. She is capable of it. I know she is.”
“She can’t get to the rookery.”
Otto smiles up at you cunningly. “I suspect her letters will somehow find their way there,” he says. “And you are now more knowledgeable of the would-be betrayers’ whereabouts than I am.”
You nod. This is true, for the Blacks speak openly around you. While Corlys’ alleged bastard Addam Velaryon—who accompanied the navy into King’s Landing—now patrols the skies above the city on Seasmoke, Ulf and Hugh are currently stationed at Maidenpool in a remote corner of the Riverlands and awaiting further instruction. Rhaenyra dislikes them, you can sense this already. She has heard tales of boasting, drinking, whoring, brawling, bottomless greed. She does not trust them. She does not understand how the gods allowed her sons to be killed and those scoundrels to live.
Otto says: “Can I ask you something?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“What is it that draws you to Aegon?” He speaks with profound, genuine confusion. “What is there to admire? To yearn for?”
You see him, playful crooked smile and dazed eyes, careful hands, tiny silver braid. Unaware that you’re doing it, you twist the dragon ring on your finger. “He’s brave. He’s kind. I don’t understand why none of you can see it.”
“Ah.” And now Otto at last comprehends. “I was in love once,” he says wistfully, very far away, gazing at the stone wall, gazing at nothing. “I don’t remember what it felt like. But I remember that it happened. I suppose I will see Alicent’s mother again tomorrow. I hope she still recognizes me.” His eyes return to you, reflecting torchlight that shifts and distorts. “These dark, contagious facets of life change us all. They ruins us. Time, heartache, violence. You become capable of inconceivable things. You would scheme and deceive. You would murder.”
You can hear Aegon’s voice in the silence of the dungeons: I ruin causes. I ruin people. I couldn’t do that to you. “I’ll help your side however I can.”
“Do not allow the Blacks to discover your treason. You are far more valuable to us as someone who can drift between worlds than as a professed ally, assuming you cannot turn the Celtigars.”
“I can’t.” You could convince Everett, perhaps. But he isn’t the heir to Claw Isle.
Then Otto smiles, and it is the softest, most tender thing you’ve ever seen him do. “Please tell Alicent that I love her.”
“I will.”
“Now go,” he says. “Before you are witnessed here. Before you endanger what you want most.”
To end the war. To stop this suffering. To be with Aegon again. You hesitate, not knowing how to say goodbye. What is there left to say when the man in front of you is already dead?
“Go,” Otto Hightower orders again; and this time you obey.
He dies at 9:00 the next morning. Sunlight streams fierce and blinding into the Dragonpit. The smallfolk applaud and cheer, though perhaps mostly because Syrax and Caraxes are perched atop the domed roof and waiting, fangs bared, to devour anyone who dissents. In the people’s eyes, you see less savagery than terror. You can read the thoughts that dart between them, infectious like fever: We do not trust Rhaenyra, this ruthless queen, this Maegor with teats. We do not trust her bloodthirsty uncle-husband. We do not want to burn if Aemond and Vhagar return to reclaim the city.
Daemon swings the blade himself. It takes three blows to sever Otto’s head. This must have been intentional; you know what an expert swordsman Daemon is.
~~~~~~~~~~
You sit compliantly with your family at meals, dances, executions. You stroll in the gardens. You bring Helaena flowers, lilies, irises, tulips, daisies, roses. You bring Alicent paper and quills and ink. You take the letter she writes to the rookery above the chambers where Grand Maester Orwyle once resided. As the raven departs for Maidenpool, black wings flapping in cerulean summer air, you stare through a window that looks out onto Blackwater Bay towards Essos, Driftmark, Dragonstone.
Is Aegon there now? Is he alive?
You have no way of knowing; while ravens pass between King’s Landing and the Riverlands frequently, you cannot risk someone noticing correspondence with Dragonstone. But you feel that Aegon is safe on that fearsome, windswept island. You feel that he might even be gazing out of his own window, back towards the mainland, back towards you.
When you return to your bedchamber, Everett is there. He is seated at the writing desk and pointing to pages in a book about animals of the Crownlands, bears and dragons and crabs. The book is for children; the words are large and accompanied by colorful illustrations. Autumn is sitting in Everett’s lap, giggling as she repeats the words that he croons through her firelight hair.
You pause in the doorway. “What are you doing?”
“Learning how to read!” Autumn replies brightly.
“I thought you weren’t interested in that.”
“I’ve been struck by sudden and forceful inspiration to shed my commoner ignorance.”
“Autumn, dear,” Everett prompts. She climbs out of his lap, sweeps him a teasing girlish courtesy, and sails out of the room. Everett looks to you. “Come. Sit.”
“Not in your lap, hopefully.”
He laughs. “Where on earth did you find her?”
You take a seat at the edge of your bed, toying with your ring. Your fingertips glide over the bumps of those gleaming jade eyes. “A brothel here in King’s Landing. I don’t know what sort of family she was born into.”
“Oh,” Everett sighs sympathetically. Your father and Clement would be viciously pejorative, would demand Autumn’s removal from your service immediately. But Everett is a different sort of man. He was even before he was burned, and he’s far more so now. “The poor thing.” Then his eyebrows leap up. “Wait. How did you end up visiting a brothel…?”
“It doesn’t matter.” You peer out the window that overlooks the beach. You’re always watching the sea now, as if it can tell you its secrets, as if it can whisper to you in a language made of gull cries, breaking waves, starlight and moonbeams reflected on indigo currents in the dead of night.
“It’s strange,” Everett says. There is a soft, sad smile on his face. “Your body is here with us, but your soul isn’t.”
You don’t know how to reply. You don’t know how to explain everything that’s happened.
“The Usurper must have harmed you terribly.” Everett is not asking, but he is opening the door; you can tell him anything that is burdening you, and he will keep it to himself. You once sat with him as he lay dying, or at least when everyone believed he was; everyone but you and Maester Arthur back on Claw Isle. You once helped bring him back to life. That is a bond forged with something stronger than iron, something deeper than blood.
Aegon? Harm me? “He would never do that.”
Now Everett’s eyes are fixed intently on you. He is reading you like calculations of taxes, expenses, accounts, gains, losses. He realizes, hushed and alarmed: “You weren’t taken to King’s Landing by force.”
“No, I wasn’t.”
His jaw drops open, his eyes blink incredulously. “Do you…do you think he’s the rightful king?!”
“It’s not about that for me.”
“You are betrothed to another man.”
“Yes,” you agree.
“The Usurper is married.”
“Yes,” you say again. “And yet…”
“Seven hells,” Everett exhales. He shakes his head. “But…the Usurper…Aegon…he…he…he’s a monster, isn’t he? A rapist, a degenerate, a slothful and selfish wastrel?”
“No. He’s not. Just like Rhaenyra isn’t a sweet, serene mother to her kingdom.”
Everett smirks ruefully. He can’t argue with this.
“Aegon will pardon any Celtigar who rebelled against him. All they need to do is swear fealty upon being captured.”
“Do you know where he is now?”
“I know where he was planning to go. I don’t know if he made it there.”
“And you worry for him,” Everett says softly.
You nod, unable to speak. You can feel the threat of tears scorching in your throat, dark churning clouds that forecast lightning, cyclones, floods.
“His burns have healed?” Everett asks. “Everyone knows he was horribly wounded at Rook’s Rest.”
“They’ve scarred over. But that doesn’t mean he’ll be alright.”
Everett understands this, he remembers the discussions the two of you once had with Maester Arthur. Severe burns weaken the organs, even years after the flesh is no longer raw and weeping. Survivors are prone to failure of their kidneys, liver, heart. They must be careful to avoid further trauma. Aegon does not have that luxury. “I don’t know what remedy to offer you,” Everett says remorsefully. “Rhaenyra met with Alicent, and the dowager queen put forth a generous compromise. Alicent proposed that the realm be divided. Aegon’s seat would be at Oldtown, and his jurisdiction would include the Reach, the Westerlands, and the Stormlands. Rhaenyra would continue to rule from King’s Landing and preside over the Crownlands, the Riverlands, the Vale, the Iron Islands, and the North. Both branches of the family would survive.”
“Rhaenyra could have ended it.” You marvel at the simplicity, the doomed slighted possibilities. “Here and now. The bloodshed would be over. Aegon could return to me.”
“Rhaenyra rejected the notion of any concessions whatsoever. Our father and Clement encouraged her. I would advocate for a peaceful resolution, I would advance your interests, sister. I would, I swear I would. But it is futile. You know they don’t listen to me.”
No, not in the arena of warfare. Everett is the heir to your father’s skill with trade, but Clement is the future Lord of Claw Isle, and it is he who wields swords and shields and leads men into combat. Everett cannot fight. Other men will never regard him as their full equal. “You have listened to my treason and not condemned me. I cannot ask for more from you than that.”
Everett stands from his chair, a slow, laborious undertaking. He crosses the room gingerly, lifts your chin to break the trance as you stare down at your ring, beams like the sun. “You want him.”
“Yes,” you admit helplessly.
“You’ve never wanted any man.”
“Just him. It can’t be anyone but him.”
Everett nods, thoughtful, amused. “Then I will pray that Lord Cregan Stark takes a wrong turn on the Kingsroad and ends up in the Vale, or the Iron Islands, or Essos, or perhaps even walks right into the sea. He’d sink, I’m sure. All those furs must be heavy when wet.”
“If anyone asks, you believe Aegon to be in Dorne.”
“I certainly do.” Everett smiles, touches his lips to your forehead, shuffles off to find Autumn and tell her that she can come back now.
Some nights, if you can enter without being noticed, you steal into the bedchamber that was once Aegon’s, the place where you brought him back from the dead, the place where he made you crave things that had once only filled you with dread, fear, revulsion. No one else has claimed Aegon’s rooms. No one else wants them. They make jokes about the debaucheries his walls must have seen, the unholy stains that surely riddle his mattress, rugs, curtains. They don’t know him at all, and nothing can make them want to. Tonight, there are quarreling voices coming from outside. You go to the open window, your lungs expanding with cool indigo air, and look out.
“Where are you going? Daemon? Daemon!” Rhaenyra is raging after him, following him onto the wet sand of the beach. “Back to Harrenhal? Back to your whore?!”
He does not answer. He strides arrogantly, he storms away from her, this woman he once loved for her tenacity and pride. He has no appetite for weakness. He has no patience for pruning those creeping, thorny vines of madness that are growing into her mind, her veins. Already Caraxes is landing in the surf to take him back to his foothold in the Riverlands, to Baela, to Nettles.
“Then go!” Rhaenyra screams after Daemon. And if you can hear this, surely others can as well. “Just go! We don’t need you here! I don’t need you here!”
Lies, lies, lies. Desperate and transparent lies.
Daemon and Caraxes take flight and disappear into the nightscape darkness over the ocean. You climb into the bed that was once Aegon’s, curl up in a nest of his blood-flecked sheets, breathe in lingering wisps of rose oil and the echoes of his low, drowsy voice, thick with wine and milk of the poppy and forbidden desire for a woman who sheds and replaces her skin again and again and again.
~~~~~~~~~~
A week later, you go to the gardens and read under the heart tree about cures and poisons. When you return inside—clutching a glass jar containing sticks, leaves, grass, and a single wriggling caterpillar, a gift for Helaena—the Red Keep is in chaos. Servants and guards are gossiping feverishly. Upstairs, Alicent is howling with grief. You glimpse Autumn racing up a staircase towards the dowager queen’s rooms to comfort her. There are sounds of celebration in the Great Hall, cups being toasted and cheers loosed like dragonfire. You follow them, suffocating terror constricting your throat like a noose. Is it Aemond, Criston, Daeron? Is it Aegon? Have they found him, have they killed him?
At the center of the high table, Rhaenyra is wearing a gown of black and red on her body and a smile of soulless satisfaction on her face. She holds a glass of maroon wine high above her head. “To vengeance!” she calls, and the lords that fill the hall thunder the words back to her. “To victory!”
“Father…?” you say, rushing to Bartimos Celtigar’s side. Clement is shaking hands with Manderlys and Blackwoods and Costaynes, grinning radiantly. Everett and Corlys are peering around grimly, looking uneasy, looking ashamed.
What have they done now? Who have they murdered in cold blood?
“Father, what—?”
“He has no more heirs,” Bartimos Celtigar tell you, as if it is the most joyous of surprises, as if is a gift like a gemstone or a rare book.
“Who?”
“The Usurper. Both of his sons are now dead. Neither of his brothers have children. Aegon has no heirs!”
“Maelor,” you whisper, envisioning that defenseless white-haired child, giggling, affectionate, anxious, sobbing in the arms of Sir Rickard Thorne. The jar tumbles out of your grasp and shatters against the stone floor. “Maelor is…he’s…he’s been killed…?”
“By a mob of Black loyalists at Bitterbridge,” your father says. “The Greens were trying to smuggle the child to Oldtown. Our supporters attempted to seize the boy so he could be brought to us. Alas, they were too boisterous. He did not survive, and neither did his keeper Rickard Thorne.”
They tore Maelor apart? They clawed and yanked at that little boy until there was nothing left but shreds of muscle and moon-white bones? You gape up at your father, unable to recognize him, unable to keep the horror from your face. “You’re celebrating the murder of a child?”
“They did the same when Luke was killed.”
Because Aegon thought they had to. Because he wanted to protect his brother. “It was wrong then and it’s wrong now.”
“You are too compassionate, daughter,” your father says, smiling with a puddle-deep, patronizing fondness. Was he always this way? Has he changed so much, or have you? He touches your cheek, and you want to flinch away from him. “You lose sight of the scale of this war. Each child of the Usurper that dies spares thousands of others. Aegon now has no heirs left, not unless you count that little girl who’s hidden away somewhere, and don’t the Greens reject the right of a daughter to inherit the throne? Isn’t that what all of this havoc has been about, preventing Rhaenyra’s ascension? This is a resounding triumph for our side! This is something to commemorate!”
They tore Maelor apart??
Corlys gets up from the table and leaves the Great Hall. Everett is watching you with wide, fearful eyes. He is pleading silently: Don’t react. Don’t panic. Not where they can see you.
“Are you well?” your father asks you, concerned now.
“I feel ill,” you hear yourself answer. You grip the back of his chair so the floor can’t rip itself out from under you.
“Just a moment,” Everett says, rising in that labored way, the scar tissue straining painfully at his ankles and knees and hips. “I’ll accompany you back to your rooms…”
But you can’t wait for him. The tears are already flame-hot and misty in your eyes. You rip away from the Celtigars, away from all the Blacks, and escape upstairs. Breathless, sobbing, you go first to Helaena’s bedchamber. Aegon’s wife is standing in front of her window that overlooks the sandstone courtyard, cobblestones of muted earthy gold. You can hear courtiers chattering far below. You can hear the carousing reverberating from the Great Hall. Helaena does not turn when you arrive; she does not give any indication that she is aware of you.
“Helaena,” you gasp. “Your Grace, I…I’m so sorry…what has happened…it’s despicable, it’s soulless, I cannot stop Rhaenyra’s men from reveling in it but I would never defend their actions, I would never join them, I am horrified and heartsick and appalled—”
“It’s a travesty,” Autumn says from the doorway, and you glance over at her. When you look back to the queen, she has vanished.
“Helaena?!” you shout. You and Autumn bolt to the window. Down in the courtyard, courtiers are shrieking and fleeing from the mess. On the cobblestones, Helaena lies sprawled; her arms and legs are bent at impossible angles. A pool of blood spreads out from under her like a river swelling in a storm until it spills over. Guards are hurrying to the scene, their armor jangling. “Helaena!”
“She’s gone,” Autumn says, bundling you into her arms before you can make for the hall, the stairwell. Her belly presses unyieldingly into you. “There’s nothing you can do. Don’t go down there. You can’t help her now.”
You cover your face with both hands and scream: for Maelor, for Helaena, for Alicent, for Aegon, for the world full of people who can’t stop paying the debts others incurred.
“Don’t go down there.” Autumn’s voice is warm and hushed, her grasp strong. “You can’t help Helaena now. You can only hurt yourself. You don’t need to see it. You don’t need her blood on your hands.”
Everett appears, looks out the window to investigate the commotion in the courtyard, backs away with a hand covering his gaping mouth. “Oh, gods. All the gods, Old and New. What a goddamn fucking disaster.”
Autumn at last releases you, and you dash into the hallway with Everett following as quickly as he can and Autumn walking with him, one arm looped through his. You find Alicent in her rooms, standing motionless beside her bed in an emerald green gown. She is trembling and speechless, she is in shock. You embrace her. “I’m sorry,” you say, tears falling on the velvet of her dress. “I know that doesn’t make it any better, but I am.”
Everett and Autumn enter the bedchamber and shut the door behind them. “What—?” Everett begins.
“I have to go to him,” you say. You step away from the dowager queen and wipe your eyes with your sleeves, black like onyx, like obsidian, like death.
“Who...?”
“Aegon. The king,” you tell them. “He’s going to hear of this. He’s going to know what happened to Maelor and Helaena. I can’t let him face that alone. I can’t let him fall into despair.”
“But he…I mean…” Everett is trying to choose his words sensitively. The state of the royal marriage was no secret anywhere in the realm. “Was he even…involved with his wife and children? In any meaningful way?”
“It’s not about them, it’s about him thinking that he’s responsible, that he’s a curse to anyone he touches, that he ruins people, I…” You shake your head franticly. “I can’t stay here. I have to go. I have to be with him.”
“Go where?!” Everett exclaims.
“Dragonstone,” Autumn answers for you.
“Dragonstone,” he repeats numbly. “You can’t be serious! How will you get there?!”
“I’ll take a horse to Crackclaw Point and then pay a boat to ferry me across the water.”
“Alone?!” Everett says.
“I’ll have to be. You cannot travel by horse, only carriage. And your absence would be noticed too swiftly. Father would send soldiers after you if he feared you’d been captured.”
“You’ve never gone anywhere alone, now you’re going to travel a hundred miles over earth and ocean to Dragonstone?!”
“She won’t be alone,” Autumn says. You and Everett turn to her. She is grinning. “I mean no offense, my lady, but you know nothing of the world beyond your castles and gardens and books full of naked men drawings. You would not last a day on your own.”
“You can’t ride a horse either,” you object. “You’re with child. It could be dangerous.”
“I’ve done far more vigorous activities while pregnant, believe me.”
“You’re really going?” Everett says, quiet, mournful. It seems that you’ve only just reunited with him.
“I have to. Aegon thought I’d be safe with the Blacks, and I am, I suppose…but I’m not really a Black anymore. And I can’t let him suffer alone. I…I…”
“You love him,” Alicent says. She gazes at you with huge, glassy, void-dark eyes, like those of a doe felled by arrows. She is half-here and half-not, and thank the gods for that. Her loss is too great. She cannot bear it all at once. Part of her knows her only daughter is dead on the cobblestones outside, her last grandson was torn apart by a mob that were more beasts than men. And then part of her is only aware of this room. “Properly. Entirely. In a way he can understand.”
“I do,” you confess. I do, I do.
“I’m glad,” Alicent says dully. “Someone must.”
She staggers to her bed, lies down on it, curls up like a wounded animal, rips away her golden necklace of a seven-pointed star and throws it to the floor.
~~~~~~~~~~
In the night, you and Autumn leave King’s Landing on horses Everett procured. There is only a skeleton crew of guards left in the Red Keep; the rest are partaking in the festivities that pulse in the Great Hall like a heartbeat, candlelight and music and manic glee. Yet among the smallfolk, no one is celebrating. They are in mourning for their misfortunate, benign queen and her toddler son. They are hissing venomously about Rhaenyra, Daemon, Bartimos Celtigar.
The court will not notice Autumn’s absence, not for days at least, perhaps not ever. Everett will upend your bedchamber before he goes to sleep, knocking over chairs and tables, yanking sheets from the bed. In the morning, he will tell your father that he assumes you are still resting from your illness, from the insurmountable stress of the past months. Women are so fragile, after all; their lives are one tragedy after the next. When at last someone checks on you—hopefully not for a few days—it will appear that you have been taken after a struggle. You did not leave. You were kidnapped by fiends using the secret passageways. You are a prisoner of the Greens again, and likely spirited away to the Stormlands or the Reach or perhaps even the remote, golden sands of Dorne.
You and Autumn travel by night and sleep through the day, staying at roadside inns paid for by the heavy sack of coins Everett gifted you. It is not difficult to blend in among countless travelers and refugees displaced in the wake of the war. You have no distinguishing characteristics, no Valyrian-white hair or ragged burns or sapphires in place of eyes. In fact, Autumn attracts more attention than you do. She is beautiful, talkative, effortlessly flirtatious. Men trail after her at every inn. You receive exemplary service, the hottest soup and the cleanest rooms. She complains to you about how difficult it is becoming for her to rest as her belly grows: perhaps five months along, perhaps six, she isn’t certain, her cycle was already irregular from the lemonweed tea brewed at the brothel.
In a small town called Eagle Harbor at the base of Crackclaw Point, you need to hire a sailor to take you across the narrow strait to Dragonstone. You fumble through stilted inquiries at a tavern until Autumn takes charge, half-drags a bald, bearded man back into the pantry, emerges with him five minutes later, and orders a pint of ale that she sips with a lazy, arrogant smirk.
“May the Mother have mercy!” the sailor says unsteadily, wiping sweat from his brow. “I’ll go to Dragonstone and back ten times for this red-haired demon!”
You and Autumn board his humble vessel at the end of the town’s lone pier and set off through choppy, night-draped waters towards Dragonstone. On the way, the sailor informs you that he’s made this trip a handful of times in the past two weeks, delivering an assortment of workers to the island: servants, guards, maesters, cooks.
“Rumor has it,” the sailor says with a conspiratorial grin. “There is a very illustrious occupant currently holding Dragonstone. He is scarred, but he is growing stronger. Surely you know of whom I speak. He must have beckoned you to join him. Perhaps you are servants. Perhaps you are whores. He has a famed appetite for them.”
“Perhaps, perhaps,” Autumn offers casually.
“Many here in the Crownlands are aware,” the sailor continues. “But you will not catch anyone being too loose with their gossip. The Beggar King is no enemy to us. The Bitch Queen is an enemy. That money-grubbing Bartimos Celtigar is an enemy. But the Greens will end the taxes he put on us. The sooner the Beggar King is well again, the better. He and his dragon too.”
When the sailor docks at Dragonstone, Autumn helps you up onto the pier and then gets back in the boat. “You aren’t staying?” you ask her, baffled, troubled. You have grown terribly attached to her. Cold night rain falls onto the island, growing heavier by the minute. Lightning snaps through the darkness and strikes near the castle.
“No. I want to be with Everett.” Autumn smiles. “And I know the king would not wish for me to impose upon Dragonstone.”
She’s probably right. “Why is he so cold to you? So avoidant?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Autumn says. “He doesn’t want you thinking about him fucking anyone except you.” She grins, winks, gestures for the sailor to unmoor his boat again. “When the Greens come to retake the capital, please ask them not to incinerate me.”
“I’ll pass the message along.”
“Good luck,” she says, waving. “We’ll wait to set sail until you’ve started up the steps.”
Through the darkness, through the driving rain, you trudge up the beach and then ascend the stone steps carved precariously into the cliffside. The grey stone is slippery; for parts of the climb, you walk on your palms as well as your boots. Your ring clinks against rock. When the clouds momentarily blow away from the moon, the gold wings glimmer in the silver light. There are torches burning in the mouths of iron dragons as you near the entranceway of the castle, towering walls that disappear into storm clouds. There is candlelight flickering in the corridors and chambers within. You can see dots of miniature infernos in the windows.
Aegon is in one of those rooms.
Suddenly, a screech startles you so badly you nearly plunge off the steps. Fire blooms in the night air only yards from your face. He’s clutching the cliffside, glaring at you with molten gold eyes set in an angular skull, snarling, smoke drifting skyward from his nostrils. You scream before you can stop yourself.
Sunfyre!!
You crouch down on the steps, squeeze your eyes shut, and wait for him to burn you alive. Seconds pass, ten, twenty, thirty. When you look at Sunfyre again, scales shimmering in the moonlight, he is observing you not with hatred but with curiosity that is clever, almost catlike. You have never been this close to a dragon before. You’ve never wanted to be, and now is no exception. He smells like smoke and sulfur, earth and ash. Sunfyre clambers nearer to you, his muzzle outstretched. You flinch away, whimpering, but he is not deterred. The dragon sniffs and nudges at you, his breath hot, his snout bumping against your arm and shoulder.
“Stop!” you squeak, petrified. “Sunfyre, don’t!”
At last, he seems to realize he’s frightening you. The dragon retreats with a low grumble from deep in his chest. You scramble up the remainder of the steps before he can change his mind.
There is distant shouting, and someone cranks open the castle gate for you. You hurry into the courtyard, running now, as rain pours down on you and thunder booms. There is a figure in a hooded cloak trotting out of the castle entrance. At first you don’t believe he can be Aegon; he is standing too tall, moving too brisky. You have never seen him so well before. But then he calls to you, and there is no doubt.
“Angel?!” Aegon shouts in disbelief over the drumming of raindrops. He is rapidly closing the distance between you. The wind tears off his hood. Beneath it his hair is longer than you remember and wild except for a single small braid down the left side of his face. His cheeks are ruddy. Tears stream from his eyes. He has heard what happened to Maelor and Helaena; he has been weeping for them, for the impending ruin of anyone he’s ever touched. “What the hell are you doing here—?!”
And instead of waiting for an answer he kisses you, or you kiss him, or you both do it at once, an unspoken covenant written not in ink but in the blood that whispers to each other through the veils of vessel walls, muscle, scarred skin. His hands are cradling your jaw, his lips ravenous. He smells like rose oil; he tastes like wine and rain and the clean salt of tears, the ageless mineral blue of the ocean.
“It has to be you,” you tell Aegon, a ghost of a voice in the maelstrom of the storm. Your thumbprint skates across his full bottom lip before you kiss him again, more slowly now, entwining yourself with him, hipbones and ribcages and handprints that will never wash off. Do you see what I’m offering? Do you feel what I want? “You’re not ruining me. You’re saving me. And it can’t be anyone but you.”
Aegon studies your face, stunned eyes murky like the waves, and then hungry as well: depths that swallow ships, watery graveyards that feast on bones. Then he takes your hand and leads you into Dragonstone. Inside, Larys Strong is waiting under a cascade of torchlight. He blinks at you as if you might disappear. When you don’t, he tilts his head to the side, intrigued.
“Lord Larys,” Aegon says curtly. “Make yourself invisible for the rest of the night.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” Larys purrs with a bow. Then he vanishes into the shadows.
“This way,” Aegon says, and you follow him up a staircase and down a corridor to a bedchamber illuminated only by a few flickering candles and flashes of lightning. In the corner of the room, you glimpse swords and armor; on Aegon’s bedside table, there is a glass bottle of rose oil and the hollowed-out shell of a crab, boiled red like fresh blood. And then you are on the bed and Aegon is beside you and there is not a single thread of you, muscle or marrow or nerve, that is afraid. “Are you sure?” he’s asking between deep, insatiable kisses, his fingers working on the laces of your gown. “We don’t have to. We can stop.”
But does he want that? No, no, he’s starving just like I am. “I’m sure, Aegon.” And you uncover each other with hands that rip away cotton and silk like trees are stripped bare in the winter.
His clothes are gone, cloak and trousers crumpled on the floor, and he pauses with trepidation in his eyes. His scars riddle him with uneven swaths of white, pink, red, a burgundy so dark it’s almost the violet of a bruise. The macabre patchwork stops at the lowest part of his belly, where his skin becomes abruptly pristine, pale, velvet-soft. “I guess…” He swallows noisily. “I guess this isn’t what you imagined the man you’d sleep with would look like, huh?”
“No,” you agree, smiling, pulling him in close again. I never imagined enjoying this at all. “And I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything. Don’t keep me waiting.”
Aegon helps you tug off your gown and loosen your hair; it spills freely over the bedsheets. He’s on top of you, his warm weight perfect and welcome and right. Too swiftly for you to be nervous, his hand has settled between your legs. He strokes you, only on the outside where there is no threat of pain, as his tongue darts into your mouth and wetness soon coats his fingers. Then his fingers venture lower, seeking to enter you, the first time anything ever has. And you feel it, though you wish you didn’t, involuntary and uninvited: your body tensing just as his finger attempts to glide inside, a biting pain that makes you wince.
“No,” you yelp softly, a betrayal of your own flesh.
“Okay,” Aegon murmurs reassuringly. “That’s okay. Not a problem. Here…” He sits upright, draws you to him, bites lightly at your throat as you settle in his lap. “You’re in charge. You decide if and when it happens. And if this time doesn’t work, that’s fine, that’s completely fine, we can try again later, I can wait—”
“Are you alright like this? Am I too heavy?”
He grabs your face with his left hand—fingers hooked around your jaw, his eyes locked with yours—and says roughly: “Don’t ask about me again.”
“Okay,” you moan into him as his right hand skims down to touch you, to coax the fear out of you, to draw powerful circles around the place where your pleasure is greatest.
“This is about you.”
“Okay,” you say again, only a whisper this time, obedient, desperate.
“Please let me have this,” Aegon begs, resting his forehead against yours, his silver hair grazing your cheeks. “Please let me take care of you this time.”
“Yes,” you sigh, breathing him in, roses and heat and wine and sharp, oceanic, mineral lust. You lay your palms against the gnarled scar tissue of his chest and Aegon chuckles bitterly.
“I can’t even feel it. I’m a monster.” Then you press your bare hips to his, gradually finding a rhythm, slipping his cock through slick, warm folds that are aching more ardently than you ever knew was possible. “Oh fuck,” he gasps. “I felt that.”
“I want you,” you plead. “I want you, I want you.”
“Not yet…”
You are aware that your tension unraveling, your muscles opening as Aegon massages you until his hand is soaked, until you’re so wet the friction is almost nonexistent. Outside waves crash and lighting flashes and thunder growls like a dragon. I can’t wait. I need him. You lift up and Aegon holds his cock steady, coating it in your wetness with a quick pump of his hand, so you can lower yourself onto him. Slowly, you can feel his cock sinking into you, an indescribably foreign sensation, fullness and stretching and dull, strange contentment that is more like the potential of pleasure than anything else. There is discomfort as well, yes, a burning and a stinging that swells as he fills you. You try to keep it from your face; still, Aegon can read the pain there like black ink on pages.
He shakes his head and murmurs: “Stop, stop, I’m hurting you.”
“I want it. I can take it.”
He’s kissing your lips, your cheek, the slope of your jaw. “Give yourself time to adjust. There’s no rush, Angel. I’m not going anywhere.”
You wait until the pain seems to have vanished, then—carefully, tentatively—you rise up and lower yourself again. Yes, there’s definite pleasure now, less sharp than where he touched you before but deeper, more total. You try this again, again, faster now. Aegon’s breath hitches. He’s trembling; sweat glistens on his forehead and dampens his hair.
“I’m going to show you something,” he pants. “But you have to help me out.”
“Help how…?”
“Tell me what I’m doing right.” His fingers are on you again, pressing, circling. And there’s something about this combination of two very different colors of pleasure—dull fullness inside, intense ecstasy dancing over the skin—that lights a spark in you like striking flint.
You cry out, your pace as you ride him quickening, any last remnants of pain banished to distant memory. You are conscious now that you are working towards a peak of some sort; you can feel it building in you like fire in the mouth of a dragon.
Aegon asks: “Faster? Slower?”
“Faster,” you reply, and his hand obeys. You moan, fingers knotted in his hair and lips against the scar tissue of his throat, grisly webs that you cherish for knitting him back together, for saving his life.
“Harder or softer?”
“Harder,” you beg him in a whisper. And all at once, the pleasure is overwhelming, unstoppable, incomparable to anything you’ve ever experienced or ever wanted to, anything you thought was possible, anything you believed you were worthy of. It wrenches everything out of you, desire as well as turmoil, every thought in your skull and fear in your bones. It passes, leaving your heart thumping violently and an involuntary throbbing that squeezes Aegon’s cock, releases it, squeezes it again.
Aegon lays you down on your back and thrusts into you, shallowly at first to make sure you’re alright, then deeper and more powerfully. There’s no pain at all, only a hazy calmness, a need to be near to him, to tangle up closer and closer until you share everything, veins and arteries and the capillary beds of lungs. He’s exhausted already; you notice a few needle-thin split seams in his scar tissue. There are faint stains of crimson blood on your belly, your chest. His fingers link through yours, his moans grow louder and more jagged. He comes so hard tears spring into his eyes, and you feel one more thing you hadn’t expected to: not vulnerability but power, pride, satisfaction.
“It’s like that every time?” you ask, drowsy and amazed as he rolls onto his side and pulls you against him. The rain is still falling outside. Lightning paints the windows; thunder quakes them.
“If it’s done well.” Aegon is pink-faced, breathing heavily, staggeringly beautiful. “See? Nothing to be afraid of.”
“No wonder you’ve fucked hundreds of women.”
He laughs. “Not that many.” He grins as he kisses you, brushing your hair back from your face. “You’ve rid me of them all. You’ve burned them away.”
“I love you,” you say without planning to.
Aegon replies, but not in words you can understand. He whispers something in High Valyrian, his eyes dip closed, he is asleep before you can ask him what it means.
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throneofsapphics · 4 months
Text
old faces, part eight 
Rowaelin x f!Reader
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Summary:  you and Rowan meet again after seven years, and deal with the fall-out of a secret. 
Warnings: mentions of death, drinking
Word Count: ~5.6k 
A/N: i’m not too sure about this one, but here it is!
series masterlist
The sun shifted, light hitting you directly in the eyes. You groaned, throwing your arm over your head. Disentangling yourself from your sheets … not your sheets, the one on your bed at the castle. 
Lurching forward in bed, a pounding headache set in, and not alcohol induced this time. 
The hungry look in Aelin’s eyes. Rowan’s hands on your face, your hips, in your hair. Aelin’s hand running over your shoulder, down your arm. Soft lips, canines grazing over your neck, whispers in your ear … 
You slammed your palm into your forehead, like you might shake the memory out - or reverse it.  
Was it a bad idea? Probably. 
Did you want it to happen again? Yes. 
Should it? No. 
You debated all of the possible reactions to last night’s events. 
Pretend it didn’t happen? That wouldn’t work. 
Hide out in the staghorns for the rest of your days? First, Ceri. Second, they might be concerned and come looking. 
Tell them it shouldn’t happen again? The most ‘mature’ reaction, but the most terrifying one to you. The next few weeks would be busy, and with a little luck you could limit encounters, and have time to find the courage to say what you needed to. 
“Don’t run away in the morning.” 
Like you’d run all those years ago. Was that what he meant? You’d run to keep yourself safe. But now … you’re struggling to grapple with a reason why that shouldn’t change. Everything was different now, and that meant you should react differently. Gods, it felt like your life was full of ‘shoulds.’ Everything you should, should have, and should not. If you could kill a word and bury it deep under, that would be the target. 
Pounding on the bedroom door. You’d been distracted enough you hadn’t sensed or scented anyone coming - but it was Ceri and Evangeline, and sure enough the door swung right open. The older girl had an apologetic look on her face as Ceri nearly sprinted in, jumping right up on your bed, flopping down on her back. 
You sent her what you hoped was a reassuring smile, and she only grinned back, telling the two of you she’d see you at breakfast. A nice way of informing her she was expected. 
“How was your night,” you prompted your daughter, and was treated to a full recounting of events. It took your mind off of the end to your night - or the beginning of your morning, and her joy was infectious. Listening attentively, you found yourself drawn into her story. 
“We jumped over a massive fire, taller than you!” 
“That’s impressive.” 
She nodded, “it was all magic.” 
“It was,” you added, smoothing out some of her hair. 
A few hours later, another pounding on the door - not the bedroom one this time. Swinging it open, it was him. Instantly, your face turned bright red. His mouth quirked at one corner. 
“Aelin’s still asleep,” he looked past you to see Ceri, grinning at him but not moving. An orange fluff ball was on her lap. Fleetfoot ran past him, running over to greet the two. 
“I’m glad they get along,” you said, as Halle jumped down, and the two went past them, probably to try and find someone to slip them bits of meat. Whenever you were here, so was Halle. Even if they tried, they couldn’t keep her away. 
Rowan was also treated to a full recounting of the previous night's events, something you tried hard to pay attention to - very intentionally not looking at him. Had he come to make sure you hadn’t run away? At least that meant they still wanted you here. 
-
Rowan was a bit surprised you were still there in the morning. He’d not expected, necessarily, but was fully prepared for you to disappear. Just like before. That wasn’t fair of him, not at all, but it didn’t stop the unwanted thought from popping in. You could barely look at either of them, as expected. 
Still, nothing seemed awkward throughout the breakfast - if you could call it that, the sun was already bright overhead. Aelin looked like, and had, just rolled out of bed. He debated what time to come knock on your door, but turns out someone beat him to it. Apparently she’d woken you up around nine, when the majority of the castle was still sleeping off the night before. You’d smiled fondly at her as she told everyone, before ruffling her hair. 
He found himself scanning the table. Their friends, and court, all in one place. Generally it resulted in some level of chaos, but he didn’t mind it. In four days, guests would start flooding in, and he relished in the temporary peace. 
Five months ago, they’d first brought up the ball to you. In the time that passed, you’d started your work as an advisor, and it had been invaluable. Although once word fluctuated to the librarians, they’d stolen plenty of your time with help for research. 
Too much of it, once they’d noticed the absolute exhaustion, Aelin had a little chat with them. Well, Ceri had brought it up first. Never giving any hint that you’d neglected her somehow - Rowan knew you wouldn’t - just that you weren’t sleeping as much, that you’d stay up half the night with books. Your daughter had always been skilled at sneaking around, and she’d only gotten better. 
“Ceri told me you spoke to the librarians,” you said casually, glancing up from the papers you were studying. “You didn’t have to do that, but thank you.” 
Aelin snorted, “they’d run you down to the bone if you let them.”
You would be ‘on-call’ during the week of meetings, but not ‘required’ to attend them, like the rest of the court advisors.
It happened this year several countries outside of Erilea would attend. That was confirmed before your arrival in Orynth, but Ceri’s appearance - and your own, would add an extra layer of interest. Anyone with two eyes could see who Ceri was related to, and he wouldn’t deny her anyway. 
He’s certain people know of her by now, but seeing and knowing are two very different things. He hated it, but it would be good to note who asked too many questions, and everyone in the castle already knew what to listen out for, and that was one item on the list.
Now that Beltane was over, there were several days of different kinds of preparations to do. Ones that were much less enjoyable. 
Ceri was staying for another few nights, but after breakfast you managed to slip away, with Fenrys, before he or Aelin could catch up to you. 
-
“Tell me what happened last night,” Fenrys demanded as you walked through the door. 
“We’re supposed to be working,” you tried to deflect, failing miserably. 
“I can’t do that until I figure out why you’re so …” 
“So what?” you hissed
“Skittish.” Fenrys raised his brows, arms crossing over his chest, daring you to disagree. Unfortunately, you couldn’t. With an overdramatic groan, you collapsed back onto the couch. “That bad?” He took the seat across from you. 
“No,” you closed your eyes. This might be easier to say if you don’t look at him. “Aelin and Rowan kissed me,” it came out barely above a whisper.
“And how do you feel about it?” He asked, and you peeked your eyes open. His expression was carefully neutral, giving away nothing. 
“Conflicted,” you answered honestly. 
“Was it not enjoyable?” A bit of amusement slipped into his tone. If you told him that - it would be a lie, and it would get back to them - he wouldn’t be able to resist making fun of them for it. Maybe if that happened … they’d be inclined to come prove you wrong. 
No. no. no. 
“That’s not it,” your hand ran over your face. “It just can’t happen again.”
“Why?” 
“You’re nosy today.” 
He snorted, “it’s my default.” 
“Fair enough.” 
“You weren’t supposed to agree,” his eyes rolled before his expression slipped back into neutrality. Unfortunately, he didn’t give up. “Why?”
He stayed silent during the long moments you attempted to put words to it. “It’ll make things … messy. Complicated.”
“Simple is boring.” 
“It’s easy. Maybe that’s what I want.” 
“The fact that you said ‘maybe,’ proves that wrong.” 
“What about Ceri? This is probably strange enough for her already” 
“She’s a kid.” 
“Exactly.” 
“So she’ll adapt. Are you scared she’ll ask if you’re special friends again?” You laughed, it wasn’t that funny, in fact the idea of it was horrifying, but it was enough to make you loosen up. 
Once you’d calmed down, Fenrys kept opening his mouth. “It’s obvious you all want each other. Why would you deny yourself?
That damn word again. Are you going to deny her? Are you going to deny him? Your toxic thoughts chose a fantastic time to resurge. Maybe you were nothing more than a way to pass time, a temporary reprieve to their boredom. Something to get out of their system. The mere thought left you feeling dirty, made your skin crawl. You didn’t know if you were capable of seeing them in that light. 
“Maybe I'm a masochist,” you finally responded. 
-
“I don’t know what to do,” she told Lys, collapsing back onto the couch. Twelve hours ago, you’d been here with her. 
“That’s a new one,” Lysandra grinned. “About the kiss?” Aelin scowled, and flipped her off. She hadn’t told her, hadn’t told anyone, but somehow the shifter figured it out and promised to keep it a secret. 
“No,” she gritted her teeth. Although she was a bit lost on that one, something she could figure out with Rowan. One task at a time, she reminded herself. One gods-damned thing at a time. 
First, get you a dress. 
Second, figure out when she can kiss you again. They hadn’t expected you to fall right in with them, although it would’ve been nice. But, the last thing she wanted was to scare you off - and that meant patience. 
Rubbing at her temples, she refocused herself. “On how to get her to go dress shopping.” 
“What’s stopping her?” Aelin kept her mouth shut. 
Definitely not something she’d be spreading around, she’d been trusted with that precious kernel of information. The main reason was to not betray her trust. But, even if you’d given your permission for her to share, she’d be reluctant to. A precious gift. One she’d want to keep to herself. Then again, Aelin had pissed several people off in the past for withholding information. What could she tell Lysandra without giving too much away? No matter what she said, it would imply something, and she refused to lie to her friend. Thankfully, before she could come up with an answer, Lysandra nodded in understanding. 
“Should we ambush her? Take her out to one of the shops?” 
“Catching her by surprise is our best shot,” Aelin paused, “but she’d hate being taken out into public like that.” She grinned at Lysandra, her plan already formed. Emerald green eyes twinkled in response. 
-
You intended on having a slow morning. All of the work you wanted to accomplish for the week was done, and for once you had zero plans. Recently, keeping yourself busy seemed like the only reasonable way to keep your sanity. Two days ago you’d kissed them. They’d kissed you. 
Maybe having zero plans was a bad idea. 
Aelin’s thumb grazing over your lips. Rowan’s fingers sliding into your hair. 
A loud meow snagged you out of the memories, and you mumbled a ‘thanks’ to Halle. At least nobody could witness you speaking to your cat, currently winding herself in between your legs. You leant down, scratching between her ears. 
“What is it?” Yellow eyes stared up at you, before she darted towards the cabinet. “I know Ceri snuck you one this morning.” 
Dried pieces of fish. Would stink up the house permanently, if you hadn’t a small box to contain the … stench. She wouldn’t stop staring, and you caved. A little bit of magic floated it, just high enough for her to lean up, snatch it, and dart off somewhere else. 
Less than a year in Orynth, and it already felt like home. At first, it felt a bit like a betrayal to Antica - to the friends there who’d become family, but … someone could have multiple, you supposed. Part of you might always belong there, but another part was growing its roots in this city, and Ceri was flourishing. That always helped. Your ‘advisor’ role helped too, bringing a different kind of purpose and motivation. Maybe you weren’t ‘vital’ or ‘essential’ to the country, but you felt like you were helping - and that was enough. 
A pulse from the wards showed visitors coming. The feel of their magic told you who, and your cheeks preemptively flushed. Glancing at the clock, Aelin was up early, for her. And dragged Lysandra with her. You didn’t have a good feeling about this. 
The door creaked, and then swung open. Maybe you shouldn’t have told them if it isn’t warded, locked, or before eight in the morning, they could come right in. Still in the kitchen, you sighed and started making tea for them. Then, you’d figure out whatever Aelin’s plan is, and try to keep yourself from blushing every time you looked at her. Halle re-appeared, winding herself around your ankles. 
-
Aelin wasn’t surprised you didn’t come meet them at the door. After all, you’d told all of them that if the wards didn’t keep them out, they could come right in. They’d all taken advantage of it one time or another - Fenrys, most of all. 
“You’re up early,” you commented - water set to boil on the stove. Aelin, on instinct, quickened the process for you, flames heating it up. A flash of surprise, you glanced at the pot, before shooting her a smile. “Thank you,” you murmured. 
“We’ve got things to do today,” she grinned, catching your eye. 
You looked at her skeptically, before asking Lysandra, “should I be worried?” 
Lysandra shrugged, and she jabbed her elbow into her ribs. At least you looked amused, rather than concerned. She waited to broach the topic until you were all seated. 
Halle had hopped into your lap, and you sighed - but didn’t try to remove her. There was a barely detectable smell of fish coming from somewhere. 
“Do you have a dress yet?” She already knew the answer. 
“I don’t,” one hand stroked Halle's fur, but the cat was still tense - staring right at Aelin, as if she could read her mind. Maybe it was too early, because it felt vaguely like the cat was warning her. “Ines hasn’t stopped harping on about it, one of her cousins is a seamstress.” 
“Who?” Aelin tilted her head, and you named the exact person she had in mind. 
“She told me last night she already gave her my measurements,” you groaned, “and I agreed to meet her tomorrow afternoon.” Aelin’s heart dropped to her stomach.
“That’s wonderful,” Lysandra cut in, and your eyes darted between the two of them, bottom lip rolling between your teeth. 
“It’ll be just me, here. If you’re not busy, I could use a friend or two with a good fashion sense.” 
Friend.
“We volunteer,” Lysandra replied, “what time?” 
“She’ll be here around two.” 
Meetings for the morning, some of the final preparations, wrapped up at half past one. They’d be a bit late, but could still make it. 
“Perfect timing.” Aelin noticed the cat finally settled. 
-
The kindest way to put it, was you were a wreck the next morning. In fact, you drank several cups of tea designed to keep you calm, and it worked somewhat. Baking carob cookies helped too. 
At least you knew the seamstress, Lya, from nights out. Unfortunately, she detected some of your nerves. 
“I promise I’ll try not to jab you,” she grinned. 
Laughing, you asked, “how much will I owe you?” 
“I’d be willing to trade instead.” That worked fine for you. 
Aelin and Lysandra showed up a quarter of an hour after her, and you were grateful they’d come. Their presence added excitement, instead of dread. They spoke eagerly to Lya, already familiar with her, about different colors, textures, designs, and you tried your best to keep on top of it.
Gold. That was the color you ended up deciding on, and a small gleam appeared in Aelin’s eyes at it. Sleeveless, gauzy and flowing, and a v neckline - bordering on the hint of modesty. 
An hour later, you’d made it through unharmed. You ended up trading three amulets, and a ward to alert of anyone approaching. She tried to insist the ward itself was enough, but you’d refused. If you were exchanging actual cash value, it probably would even out. But, without knowing, she’d made you feel comfortable during it, calming any nerves, and that was worth much more to you. 
Neither Aelin nor Lysandra commented, but they stayed with you until after the seamstress left. Just in time for Ceri to come home, her three friends in tow. The same friends she’d convinced to attend the local school with her, for the three days a week she went. 
“They really are inseparable,” Lysandra commented as you watched them through the window, running right up the path. Ceri paused twenty paces away, and her eyes lit up, she knew who was here. Maybe she remembered Lya was coming today - and you always baked when guests came over. 
The door swung open, and after a few quick hellos they breezed right into the kitchen where the sweets were. 
“And I thought you were excited to see me,” Aelin called after them. Laughter, and then the sound of a box opening. It took a few months, but they always made themselves at home now - and you loved it. 
Minutes later, they sprinted out into the back garden - going to check on the chickens. Lysandra made an excuse to leave, and it was just you and Aelin. 
“More tea?” You asked, heading towards the kitchen. You needed something to do, because looking at her kept bringing back memories, and being alone with her was dangerous. 
Aelin stood, and caught your wrist as you passed, calloused fingers closing around your skin. Knowing you’d probably regret it, you let her invade your space. Jasmine and lemon verbena. Her eyes met yours, before slowly scanning down your face - pausing on your lips, where your teeth bit almost painfully. 
You were frozen in time and place, stuck and lost as her thumb tugged it free, before slipping between your lips. Your skin heated, heart quickening as you swirled your tongue around it. The smallest touch from her should not be doing this to you. 
Hearing the back door open, you both separated, Aelin with a particularly feline grin. 
-
It was Terrasen’s first time hosting, and Aelin was glad to see everyone gathering under different circumstances. Several people who’d been in Orynth during the battle were coming. Dorian, Manon, Chaol, Yrene, Ansel, Sartaq and Nesryn, a few of Rowan's cousins, and more. 
The entourages from Adarlan, and the Witch Kingdom arrived first. 
In the end, they had to tell Ceri Manon was coming, likely with Abraxos, and coached her several times on what not to say. For example; ‘Rowan tells me bedtime stories about you.’
Gods, part of Aelin hoped Ceri did say it - if only to see Manon’s reaction. 
Still, her mind wandered to you. To that night. She’d only had that brief time alone with you, that moment when your eyes met hers, and she saw lust start to glaze over. The feeling of your tongue against her skin, the sound of your heart pounding, she wanted more. You were quickly becoming a sweet addiction. 
-
They weren’t announcing you were Rowan’s ex-lover, but anyone with two brain cells would put the pieces together. Instead, you were an advisor to their Court, and Ceri’s mother. 
It was probably one of the last things on everyone else's minds, but it was circling around in yours enough to cause a headache. Several headaches. 
“I can do this,” you muttered, in front of the mirror. There wasn’t any other option. 
“Do what?” Ceri asked, and you spun around to see her, lurking just outside of the door. She waited for you to answer. 
“Meet all of these new people,” you answered honestly. 
“I’m excited,” she grabbed your hand, tugging you away. “I’ll get to meet Manon,” she peered up at you, “do you think she’ll let me see Abraxos?” 
“You’ll have to ask nicely,” you squeezed her hand. “And maybe wait until you know her a bit better, Wyverns aren’t pets.” 
Ceri agreed, and you headed out. All you had to do was make it through dinner, and then you could overthink everything alone. 
-
She’d been to Terrasen before - since the battle, but visiting with several others would be interesting. From the air, she’d spotted the memorial to her … to her thirteen. Although she didn’t come here often, each time she did it almost felt like she could feel their presence - could hear Asterin; “Live, Manon. Live.” With some difficulty, she let the memory slip from her mind. It never got easier with time. 
Manon didn’t know what to make of Rowan’s child. The girl was perfectly polite, but kept sending her looks throughout the entire meal. Nothing rude, more like curious. 
She didn’t seem afraid of anyone. Her mother, on the other hand … you’d been introduced at the beginning as an advisor to their court. A few others seemed to vaguely recognize your name.  
“The child's mother,” she asked Dorian later on - keeping an ear open for anyone crawling around. “Who is she?” 
“A specialist.”
Manon scowled, at the small smirk growing on his face. He was enjoying knowing something she didn’t. The King didn’t say anything further, waiting for her to keep asking. 
“A specialist in what?” She hissed. 
Shrugging his shoulder, he only responded when she shot him another glare. “Wards, enchanted objects, those types of things.” Mildly interesting, and she noted it for later. “Ceri couldn’t stop looking at you,” he commented. 
“I’m aware.” 
Manon couldn’t tell from where, but she felt eyes on her. Launching to her feet, she began to search around the room, and felt Dorian’s magic doing the same. 
Then - soft paws, and a meow. An orange cat, bright yellow eyes, was staring at her. Not a shifter, and her body relaxed somewhat. 
“Where did you come from?” she crouched down, holding her hand palm up. It, Manon tilted her head, she trotted over, her head rubbing against her hand. Too well taken care of to be a stray, but she supposed there were always mice to find. 
She scented them first, then three knocks on the door. Dorian called them to come in, and Chaol, Yrene, and a good portion of Terrasen’s court followed. 
Aelin stopped as she saw the cat, eyes widening in surprise. 
“Halle,” she called, and the creature looked up. 
“You have a cat?” Dorian asked, “how does Fleetfoot feel?”
“Fleetfoot loves her,” Aelin huffed, “and she’s not my cat.” 
Sure enough, the cat spotted Yrene and bounded towards her - like greeting an old friend. “Or my cat,” Yrene said, but still bent down to scratch between its ears. “How did you end up all the way out here?” Another meow, and a purr.
“Yrene,” Chaol cleared his throat. 
She glanced up at him, to find most of the room staring at her. “She’s part Baast cat, I didn’t know any lived outside of the Torre. “Or that they mixed with other kinds.” 
“It’s almost like she knows you,” Aelin looked between them. 
“Well, they’re certainly not normal cats. To offend one is to insult them all, it's best to stay on their good side.” 
“She’s y/n’s cat,” Rowan finally said. With a swish of a fluffy tail, the creature trotted off through the still open door. Ceri’s mother is getting more interesting. “I should warn you,” he fixed his gaze on her, “Ceri’s recently -” 
“It’s not recent,” Aelin interjected - and she ignored him, 
“Become obsessed with Wyverns - and dragons.” 
“And?” Manon pushed. 
Aelin stalked over, and flopped down on the couch next to her. “We’re apologizing, in advance, for when she tries to badger you with questions.” 
“I’m surprised she hasn’t already,” Lysandra added, taking a seat across from them. 
The subject changed after that, and a bottle of wine was brought. Manon supposed if she was stuck talking to anyone, this group wasn’t the worst option.  
-
They couldn’t force you to, but had offered for you to come meet their friends, aware you’d probably decline. Aelin might consider them friends, but to you - you’d see rulers of different countries, a lot of which most people in Terrasen would never be in the same room as. 
As expected, you turned down the offer and although she understood, Aelin couldn’t help feeling a bit disappointed, even as she tried to imagine herself in your situation. Rowan came up with the idea to warn Manon, instead of having Ceri catch her off guard. It was a smart decision, but it would’ve been nice to see the Witch Queen surprised. 
Gods, Aelin wanted you here - even felt like you’d belong. Aelin was waiting to see if you would be brought up, if someone would ask questions. 
“Your friend,” Yrene asked carefully - not sure who to address, “y/n, she’s from Antica?” 
“She lived there for a while,” Rowan answered. 
“I thought she looked familiar.” 
“Familiar?”
Yrene paused, her mouth tightening for the briefest moment - debating what to say. “Antica is busy - but I still remember faces.” Chaol’s hand covered her own, her friend smiling. 
You didn’t come up again for the rest of the night. 
-
Mind whirling, you tapped your foot incessantly against the carpet. Ceri was nearly asleep, Rowan finishing up a story. Likely, he had somewhere to be after this, and with a touch of luck he’d say a quick goodnight and walk right out the door. 
Instead, he stopped, eyes tracking your movements. Your foot stilled. 
“Nervous?” He asked, and took a seat next to you, still a healthy distance away. Shields of wind went up around the room, keeping nosy ears from listening. 
“A bit,” you admitted - fixing your eyes on the wall. It wasn’t nearly as nice to look at as the male next to you. 
“Look at me,” Rowan said rather gently. 
You couldn’t. A few seconds passed. 
“Look at me.” His words were more forceful, more demanding this time. “For fucks sake,” you heard him mutter, and his fingers closed around your jaw, turning your head. The grip didn’t hurt, but it was firm. He almost looked … worried. 
“Rowan, I'm fine.” 
Two fingers tapped together, he caught it. “Don’t lie to me.” 
Shrugging out of his grip, you stood, one hand through your hair. “Fine. I’m a fucking wreck, is that better?” Squeezing your eyes shut, you forced the memories out, back into the past - where they needed to stay. 
Grabbing your arm, he tugged you back down to sit. “Stay at the castle after.” 
It wasn’t a question, and something you’d already agreed to do. The look in his eyes … as if he was saying it for his own reassurance. 
Your throat bobbed, “I will.” 
Rowan’s hand slid down your arm, stopping to squeeze your hand. “Good.” 
-
The next morning, over breakfast, Ceri finally cracked. 
“I’ve heard all about you,” she told Manon. In the rush of everyone getting seated, they hadn’t noticed she was directly across from the Witch. 
Rowan braced himself. 
“Really?” Manon paused, putting her fork back down and giving her full attention. Aelin may have killed all of the Gods, but he still prayed. 
She hummed, “I want to be a Wyvern-rider,” he could tell she was holding her tongue - avoiding saying and a witch. She’d been very upset when they had to tell her Witches were born, not made. 
“I can take you on Abraxos.” The entire table went silent. 
“Absolutely -” Aelin started, he was still in shock that she'd even offered. He glanced at you, on Ceri’s right. Your shoulders had tensed, but you weren’t protesting. 
“Yes please, that would be amazing,” eyes identical to his own lit up in pure joy and excitement. 
Manon’s mouth briefly curled up at one corner, “then it’s settled.” 
His eyes slid to you, again, at how your mouth had tightened. Rowan watched as Manon met your gaze, and you held her stare for a few moments, before nodding almost imperceptibly, before nudging your head towards him.
Wanting him to agree as well. Very briefly, you looked at him.
Ceri had tracked the silent conversation, and now stared at him with pleading eyes. Shit. 
He looked at Manon instead - more like glowered, enough Aelin stomped on his foot. 
A silent stare said; anything happens to her and I'll destroy you.
Manon rolled her eyes, but her mouth indented at the corner. Was he really about to trust her to take her daughter on a wyvern? 
With you already agreeing, and Ceri likely to throw a fit if he disagreed, the decision was already made for him. 
-
The next morning, at dawn, a small crowd gathered as Ceri trailed Manon, approaching Abraxos. You were on edge, and this was insane, but a dream came true for your daughter. Maybe it wasn’t entirely fair you left the final decision on Rowan, but in your defense Manon looked at you first. 
You’d always been good at reading people, and animals, and this was the safest way possible. Plus, a hawk would be trailing them - wind prepared to slow her down if anything happened. 
Abraxos seemed to like her, and Manon explained everything, answering all of her questions. Honestly it seemed to surprise everyone around you as well. It was all she’d talked about last night, and it took some convincing to get her to actually go to sleep. 
You could’ve sworn little screams of joy were heard over the city as they did a loop around the castle and surrounding areas, a white tailed hawk trailing after them. 
Ten minutes, but possibly the longest ten minutes of your life. 
-
You fidgeted with your gown. Gold and elegant, Lya had really outdone herself. It was nothing like the last one, and you were grateful for it. Even then, part of you still wished your parents were here with you. 
“There’s going to be several guards watching over Ceri, all night,” Fenrys said, appearing behind you in the mirror. He’d told you this before - probably dozens of times by now, like he needed to beat it into your head that you were allowed to enjoy yourself. Still, you hadn’t been able to bring yourself to tell another person about the last ball you went to.
“Aren’t you supposed to be down there?” 
“I have a few minutes,” he glanced at the clock. “Don’t forget you have to be there too.” 
“You won’t let me.” 
After unnecessarily moving a pin around in your hair, you let Fenrys loop his arm through yours. “Remember to have fun. Remember you don’t belong to anyone.” 
“Obviously,” you nudged him. “What are you trying to say?” 
Voices started filling the hall, and he shot you a sly grin before merging both of you into the crowd. 
-
Ceri glowed. She wasn’t introduced as a ‘princess,’ but a member of the royal household. You were well aware that several parts of the world still shunned children born out of wedlock - especially in Royal families, and seeing her up there made you proud. Proud of how high she held her head, of the confidence radiating from her. 
Although her existence was already known, murmurs still rose in the crowd - just from a few people. A few sharp looks from Terrasen’s court and the Witches, cut those right off. 
The ball was beautiful. Joy, laughter, feasting, and dancing. Gods, just after a few hours you thought your feet might fall off. But as Aelin and Rowan swept across the dance floor, it brought a strange feeling. It wasn’t jealousy sneaking into you, but a realization.
There would never be a place for you there, with them, not with how perfectly they fit together. As far as you were concerned, whatever that night was - physical attraction drove it. Nothing more. It couldn’t be more, even if you wanted it to. Giving in to that same desire … it wouldn’t end well. If you grew attached like that, it would rip your heart out once they realized you didn’t fit, and that would come eventually. 
You can’t speak for them, a little voice whispered in your mind. Likely part of you  trying to convince yourself it could work. But, it wasn’t like you to wait around in denial. 
‘You don’t belong to anyone,’ 
When a witch strode up to you with confidence, asking if you wanted to dance, you said yes without a second thought, sore feet forgotten. When she asked if you’d like to get some fresh air, you agreed. 
In a private corner of a garden, her hand slid around your waist, the other sliding into your hair, you let yourself lean into the moment and forget. 
-
The light hit your dress at all of the right moments, drawing his attention to you. Gold. He knew Aelin must’ve been behind it. You were absolutely beautiful, and each person you danced with seemed charmed. He hadn’t made his way over to you, but he planned on it at some point throughout the night.
Just as he thought he had an opportunity, your last dance finished, Rowan saw you smile at her, watched the witch lead you from the ballroom, and couldn’t do a damn thing.  
taglist: @holb32 @fussel9913 @moonlightttfae @cassianswh0reeee, @reidishh
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dearestspirit · 4 months
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a note heard in heaven - 04
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mizu x fem!reader | au based on the film the handmaiden | word count: 3,826 | warnings: mdni. this series will contain sexual and dark themes, including: abuse, sex, sexual assault/harrasment, period typical misogyny, murder, allusions to suicide, and period typical stigmas against mental health.
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With a deafening metallic crash, the bell you’ve been ringing falls to the ground, the string snapping. Mizu, still enraged, fumbles with her sheets before rising to her feet. She’s sliding your door open so hard it thwacks against the wall, nearly closing once more. Every bit of her anger crackled within her, a roaring fire yet to be settled. If she shut her eyes for even the briefest moment, all she could see was you in Taigen’s lap. The way you so easily accepted his lips on yours, his fingers slithering up past your underclothes. Approaching your bed, she’s sure you can feel the heat radiating off her. She hopes it burns you. Melts you until you’re ash she can blow out to sea; watch as you mix with the water and then never visit the shore again.
You’re upright on your bed, heart thudding with every heavy step Mizu takes that shakes the floor. “I can feel a nightmare coming.”
“And?” She stares.
You’ve never been scared of her eyes. But her glare is frighteningly cold, devoid of any care for you. You yearn to see her eyes the way you had seen them yesterday; comforting you, cupping your cheeks and telling you those tender words to not feel guilty for being born. You’d hate to hear whatever thoughts were running through her mind right now, if she felt any sense of regret. Her lack of emotion towards you left you bitter.
“You know, it’s hard to do those readings. I would’ve liked it if you were here to help me with my clothes,” You flip the corner of your blankets over, scooting to the left and patting the spot where you sat. “Lay here.”
“Yeah,” Mizu scoffs. “I’m sure you would’ve gotten your clothes off just fine with The Count’s help.”
You don’t respond, already on your side and staring at the wall. Away from her.
If she looked close enough, she thought she could see a tremor in your shoulders. That feisty resolve of hers was crumbling, and it didn’t take long for her to slide in next to you. She too faced opposite you, not wanting to look you in the eyes. A few beats of silence pass once she settles under the covers. Closer to you now, she can feel it. Your breaths aren’t the most stable, and your skin emanates a chill that almost worries her.
“The Count… he proposed to me,” You’re whispering so quietly she’s not even sure if you can hear yourself. “Next month, when my fiance leaves for his visit to the family business, we’ll escape and elope.”
She’s plucking at the threads of your blankets, shrugging. “You said yes?”
“I said I wasn’t sure.”
“Why?” Mizu’s tone switches to annoyance. That wasn’t the plan; you were supposed to be elated. Say yes in an instant.
“I’m scared of The Count.”
“There’s nothing to be scared of,” Mizu grits her teeth, as if she’s trying to convince herself of the lie she just told. “He’s a better man for you than your fiance.”
“I can tell he’s not, like an instinct.” You’re sighing, rolling yourself over so that you face Mizu’s back.
Gulping, she finds the courage to do the same. Your breaths, short and shallow, billow across her face. Strands of your hair fall over your cheek. In a moment she doesn’t even think, tracing your cheekbone with her finger to tuck your hair behind you. Like an instinct.
Before she can get too distracted, you lean close to her.
“Mizu,” You mumble, and there’s a tinge of embarrassment on your expression. “I don’t understand men. What they want after marriage… I didn’t have a mother here to teach me. I know first… I’d have to kiss The Count, right?”
She’s dumbfounded, raising an eyebrow. “Yes, you’d have to kiss him. Which you’ve already done, so I don’t know why you’re having a fit.”
“I’m not!” You whine, the noise tugging on Mizu’s heartstrings. Maybe she liked when you were a little bit of a playful brat. “I just don’t know about everything that… comes after.”
“You and The Count will kiss, and then hug. In bed,” She snorts at putting such inappropriate thoughts into innocent euphemisms. “Just say yes. It’ll be fine, you don’t even need to think about it.”
“What if I don’t feel anything?” You mutter, squirming in discomfort.
Mizu groans, head falling. “Look, I’ll show you one thing, then you’ll go to bed, wake up and say yes to The Count. You can figure the rest out yourself.”
She can’t say she didn’t feel bad for you; even though she herself didn’t have a mother for these things either, she had a plethora of friends who would talk about all these crass topics together. Sharing stories of their encounters to pass the time. Yet here you were, all alone with no peer to fool around with. Though she supposed you now had that little tryst with Taigen– she’d been trying to black it out of her mind to avoid the bristles of anger it’d bring her– but she doubts he taught you anything useful out of that. She knew him. He would put his hands on you and take the lead. Touch you where he wanted to touch you. With pinching fingers that’d sting and bruise. Is that what made her so furious? That she’d be complicit in letting someone like you, fragile and delicate, be fed to a wolf like him? She didn’t care if you liked him. It was fine, it was more than fine, it was the plan. She doesn’t like you.
She reaches over you, digging around the drawer next to you to find the candy you liked; the one she had given you in the bath. Popping it in her mouth, she wets it sufficiently, before spreading a thin, sticky layer of sugar on the outside of her lips. If she was going to kiss you, she’d at least make sure you enjoyed it. For your sake. She doesn’t like you.
But then you’re staring at her expectantly, pouting as you wait for her to make any sort of move, make any sort of comment.
“You’re so…” She sounds breathless, the tightness in her chest growing.
One of her thumbs comes up to pass across your bottom lip. Her knuckles brush against your cheek. Hoping her fingerprints can memorize the little imperfections of your skin. Hoping, selfishly, that her touch could stain you, make you hers.
Cute. Is what she wants to tell you.
“Infuriating.” She finishes, and with the most delicate touch she could muster, presses her lips against your own.
It’s swift, as if your body could barely process the feel of her. When your tongue swipes out, you find that the taste of that candy she had once fed you in the bath is sweeter, this time. It doesn’t take her long to chase after you, giving you another chaste peck.
“Mizu,” You murmur into her mouth, opening your eyes. “How’d you learn this?”
“I had friends who told me.” She tells you.
“In words, or…?” You’re asking, unsure if you want the real answer to that.
“Yes,” She huffs, chuckling. She’s pulling away from you, moving back to how she was before you two kissed. “Just words. Let’s get you to bed, okay?”
You’re silent, though she can see the way your eyes have darkened. Yet they’re shining– barely reminiscent of the dull, lonely girl she’s been so used to. It takes her by surprise when you reach for her neck, pulling her lips back to yours fervently. She had kissed you so sweetly, yet your kiss burns her. Ardent with desire, you’re quick to prod your tongue against her mouth. You’re nearly cooing when she opens hers in return, your content exhales satisfying the need she had buried deep within her. Remorse creeps in her bones when she realizes she has to pull away, taking a breath the both of you needed. You’re panting beside her, hand on your chest right over your heart.
“I felt it.” You’re grinning, lips still shining.
Mizu’s smile drops, a cold rush of panic seeping through her when she hears your words. It’s not supposed to be her.
“That’s what you’ll feel for The Count.” She’s rushing to fix the mess she’s made.
“Really?” You’re snuggling yourself closer to her, giggling. “He’ll like bedding me, even with my cold hands and feet?”
You’re playing around, and Mizu wishes she could entertain that. Just for a while, forget all about Taigen. In her mind there’s a world where there is nothing but the two of you; there is no horrible past spent being a criminal, there is no awful fiances, there is no Taigen. There, she can dote on you– and, if she let herself really be vulnerable and admit it to herself– you’d dote on her too. She’d kiss you breathless in the morning, the afternoon, at night. Rest her head on the plush of your thighs while your fingers stroke her hair. Lay her body over yours to keep you warm. Sate your hungers in any way you wished. She’d like bedding you, she wanted to hiss.
“He will.”
“Are you sure?” You’re squinting, still smirking.
“Yes, I’m absolutely-” She’s cut off by the feeling of your hand reaching into her underclothes, the chill of your hand shocking her when it cups her breast. “Oh.”
“Do you like it?” Your head tilts, a devious sparkle in your eye.
She’s gasping when your cold fingers give a faint pinch to her nipple, an intense flush crawling up the back of her neck, her ears, to her cheeks. You bite your lip, thinking just how ethereal she looks; her dark hair framing her face, eyes wide with what you hope is the same lust yours hold, and that pink glow. You wanted, so badly, to sink your teeth into whatever skin of hers you could reach. To taste whatever she’d be willing to give you. You wanted her to give you her touch.
“Show me, Mizu,” You plead, burying your teeth deeper into your lip. “Do it to me.”
She has to get herself together. Her eyes can barely focus on your form in the low light of the room. She kneads at your breast over the fabric of your underclothes, not daring to go further.
“The… The Count will like this, too.” Mizu says with a rasp, barely able to contain herself.
Her hand reaches higher, slipping the sleeve of your robe off your shoulder. Your bare chest now exposed, she watches you shudder as the cold air meets your skin. Her mouth runs dry, making a quick glance back up at your eyes. Taking your upper arm into her hand, she pushes you back so she can hover over you.
“If he sees you like this…” It’s sudden, the way she dips her head down and encloses her mouth around your nipple.
She doesn’t want to hurt you– that much is evident by the way she avoids scraping her teeth against the peak. Instead she laps at it soothingly, relishing in your muffled whimpers. When she sucks, your hand flies to her hair, pulling. The sting as you tug on the strands excites her, causing her to press hot, open-mouthed kisses to the swell of your breast. To the valley between them, following the column of your throat to the bottom of your chin. She can tell your mouth is open in an attempt to speak; teasingly, she circles her thumb around your nipple, wet with her spit. Heavy, stuttered breaths escape you as your mouth opens and closes, trying to gain some footing. Is it wrong of her to say she likes toying with you? Not cruelly, like your fiance would, and not demandingly like Taigen would; but giving you what you want, just never enough. Anything to hear your staggered moans. See the dewdrops of tears shine in the corners of your eyes. And you’ll find that no matter how much she taunts you with just hints of pleasure, that it’s the sweetest touch you’ve ever felt. Ever will feel.
“Will he be this gentle, too?” You ask, voice hoarse.
“How could he not?” Mizu tells you, words tickling your skin. “He’ll do this, too…”
Her fingers dance at the hem of your robe about halfway down your calf, not quite reaching underneath but not entirely innocent, either. She waits until she feels the nod of your head in the crook of her neck, and then she’s diving in. It parts so easily, the thin fabric pooling under you. Your legs squeeze together when you feel her trace up your thighs, so slowly you wonder if it’s torture. Tugging at her sleeves, you try to pull her underclothes past her chest, wanting her bare. When you do, she’s descending down your body, tongue trailing down along with her. Her nails scrape down your sides, not deep enough to scratch but enough to leave red lines in their wake. They’d fade before the sun rose, but you’d cherish them all the same, fingers curving over the way they slightly raise your skin.
“Keep showing me,” You breathe out. “Do it like The Count would.”
She has half the mind to bite deep marks into your thighs– if Taigen ever reached down here, he’d be met with imprints of her teeth. Sucked into your skin until they blossom in every bold shade of red, purple, blue. Maybe then, she thought, he could no longer mindlessly devour you– you can’t, not after you had already been so lovingly tended to. Those memories would stick to every nerve ending of yours. You’d think of her during whatever mediocre sex Taigen would put you through. You’d think of the rush of intimacy you two shared. You’d call out her name. Mizu settles by dragging her tongue up your skin; starting from just above the inside of your knee to near the apex of your thighs.
“The Count will tell you that you’re soft, warm, and…” Her hands grab at the back of your knees, positioning them so they’re raised, your feet flat on the bed. Leaning her head against your knee, she sighs. “Breathtakingly beautiful.”
You’re leaning up on your elbows now, smiling down at her. Her mind is about to short circuit. You were real. Those precious eyes of yours gleaming with unbridled bliss. How badly had she wanted this without even knowing it? To sink down to your cunt, take your waiting clit into her mouth and taste you. To drink every drop of slick her tongue could. She wanted to hear you keen, to feel you grind your hips on her face. Worship the way you’d clench around her fingers– one, two, however many you’d beg for. Do anything for you that Taigen could never dream of doing. After all, Taigen loved you because he could ruin you; she wanted to ruin you because she loved you. The acknowledgement of that terrified her, her once feverish motions slowing to a halt. Her palms caress the backs of your thighs, tongue coming out to wet her lips as she contemplates what she’s doing. You were being so patient even as she hesitated.
“Would The Count be staring like this, too?” You quip, though your hand soothingly cards through her hair.
“Sorry,” She’s sheepish at your observation. “He would.”
When you mewl out as her lips meet your clit in a timid kiss, she knows she’s a goner.
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Her ears ring with the sound of your shared moans the next morning, unable to get the angelic sounds to pass from her mind. She’s once again forced to sit in on your painting lessons with Taigen, the sight of the man making her sick to her stomach. Though, there’s also a twinge of pride knowing she had been the one to watch you come undone. You had fallen apart with such a loud, shuddering gasp– it had sent a quiver up the bumps of her spine, electrifying her. Taigen would never have the luxury of hearing it. Never feel the needy rock of your hips against his own, never delight in the deluge of your wetness soaking him. Even if it were only to happen once, she had already etched herself into you. Carved out a place for herself so that your bodies could mold seamlessly. Your fingers interlocked, legs coupled together as the heat of your arousal slotted against hers.
Mizu’s shaken out of her thoughts when she notices Taigen glide a hand up your arm. The discomfort on your face is apparent. Taigen had given her simple instruction, though– sit and be quiet. Even patronizingly gave her a pencil and some loose sheets of paper to follow along with the lesson. There’s just chicken scratch doodles and letters scrawled across it to quell her frustrations. His hands continue their journey over the dips of your hip.
“Stop.” You whisper, cringing away from his touch.
She wants him to leave you alone. Her pencil scratches harder, listening to you snivel while Taigen just chuckles. It’s not until your own pencil clatters to the floor as you yell, “Stop it!” that she stands up, towering over Taigen sitting behind you.
He lets out a cough, raising himself. He fishes around in his pocket for a while, digging out a coin and extending it to Mizu. “Go find some other job to do. You know?”
Taking one glimpse at you, she sees the trepidation in your expression. Your trembles, imperceptible to the naked eye unless trained for it. By now, she knew exactly what you looked like when you felt fear. Always because of your fiance, or Taigen. Tearing her eyes away from you, she takes the coin from his grasp. Your shoulders fall as she approaches the door. Behind her, there’s a hushed, stuttery breath. She knows it's you. Exhaling, she turns on her heel and stands in front of Taigen.
“My only job is to watch over her.” Mizu says, deliberately enunciating her words as she places the coin back into his palm.
She doesn’t miss the way your lip quirks up, the tension in your muscles easing as you let yourself relax.
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Mizu’s chasing after Taigen as he follows just one of the dirt paths on the property. He’s kicking rocks, angrily muttering under his breath until he notices her presence. Taigen, with a furious grip, grabs her wrist and pulls her closer to him.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” He hisses callously. “I could’ve had her! She’s fully ripe. If you mess this up, we’re fucked!”
She struggles in his grasp, breathing labored from running after him. He doesn’t even give her a chance to respond before he’s continuing on his tirade.
“I have fought way too hard to escape that shitty village,” His skin burns red in exasperation. “I’m not letting you ruin it. Should I tell her what you really are? A lowly thief preying on her, huh?”
“Then I’ll just tell her the same thing about you,” Mizu spits. “The son of a poor farmer from the same poverty stricken village I am.”
“Mizu,” His fingers clasp harder around her arm as he talks calculatedly. “Think of everybody depending on you back home. What would your mother say if she knew you were destroying a golden opportunity such as this?”
Pulling out of his hold, she’s finally able to swat his hand away from her, panting. “Just… don’t go too far. She doesn’t have anyone on this earth, so if you scare her, she’ll never say yes. I’ll… I’ll work on it. And don’t ever fucking touch me again.”
She’s stomping away from him, leaving him behind to stew in his disbelief.
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You’re sprawled out across the lounge chair in your room, Mizu on her knees at your feet. Her hands massage up the tired muscles of your calves, adoring your sleepy sighs of peace. You’ve got an elbow propped up on the chair’s arm, cheek in palm as you stare down at her.
“Miss,” Mizu breaks the silence. “You know, your nails have been growing longer since The Count got here. You could go far away with him. You’ve barely ever been past the manor’s yard. Wouldn’t that make you happy?”
“My fiance would follow me. My life has always been like this, so,” With a click of your tongue, you shrug. “I wouldn’t mind staying here… if you were here with me. That’d make me happy.”
Mizu gulps, trying to make her expression as neutral as possible. “The Count loves you. He wants to protect you. What could go wrong?”
“I don’t love him.”
“You do.”
You’re pulling your legs away from her, sitting up straight. Palms flat on the cushion under you, you angle yourself down to her eye level. “How can you tell?”
“You… when you look out the window waiting for your painting lessons, or when in your sleep you turn, or… your nails.” She’s mumbling, unable to look you in the eyes. They’re teary, glossed over with an anger she’s never seen from you before.
“What if I said I loved someone else?” You asked, ignoring the lump in your throat. “I don’t have anyone on this earth… would you really still tell me to marry him?”
She’s hesitant, but Mizu takes your calf into her hands again, looking up at you with optimistic eyes and a smile. She can fix this. Make you love Taigen the way you’re supposed to. “You will love him.”
And then you’re hiccuping, a sob escaping you. Those pearls of tears roll down your face with such speed it startles her. You’re pulling her up by her arms, moving her backwards to the door. She didn’t even know you had such strength in you. “Get out,” Your voice warbles, thick with grief. “Get out.”
“Wait, miss!” She’s collapsing backwards, falling onto her ass on top of the bedroll behind her.
The cold flame in your eyes doesn’t dwindle even as you see her chest rise and fall in quick bursts, the way her hands grip the sheet to stabilize herself. That heartless, indifferent demeanor is the last thing she sees before your door slams closed, bellowing footsteps retreating. Hand over her chest, she does her best to calm her hyperventilating. Lowering herself until she hits the floor, she feels something that she hasn’t in a long time– the bite of tears welling up. Outstretching her arms, she clamors around haplessly, searching for something. There, hidden in the corners of her belongings, was a wrapped up candy. The one she had used to kiss you.
If she closed her eyes and focused on the taste, maybe then she could find herself back in the recesses of her thoughts– in that world that was just the two of you.
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a/n: part 4!! sorry for the longer update between 3 and 4. this is where the story starts getting like. really non-linear so bear with me as we go through the next parts of the plot sdlkfhsdf also don't worry there's more nsfw parts to come eventually, so even though it got cut off/implied now there will be more later <3
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your-eternal-lies · 20 days
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YOU’RE STUCK WITH ME (chapter four)
Main Navigation || Series Masterlist Please follow @your-eternal-library for all my fanfiction updates.
PAIRING — Steve Rogers x f!Reader SUMMARY — As his perfectly normal civilian neighbour, you’ve always been secretly curious about the Captain. Getting to know him while trapped together in your building’s elevator, however, definitely wasn’t on the agenda.
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WARNINGS — None.
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YOU’RE STUCK WITH ME
CHAPTER FOUR THE ARTS AND THE HOURS
The darkness of the elevator seems to press against him like a tangible force, urging the silence to stretch on infinitely. Steve shifts in the cramped space, his knees brushing against yours as the two of you have now found purchase on the floor, his leather jacket spread under you in a makeshift blanket. 
The initial irritation that had marked his unplanned confinement seems to dissolve into the soft shadows surrounding him, now that he’s gotten to know his neighbour a little more. 
“Ever play two truths and a lie?” You ask, breaking the silence, obviously bored. He checks his phone, it has now been an hour since the elevator stopped, with no signs of rescue on the horizon. 
“Can’t say I have,” Steve replies, the corners of his eyes crinkling with curiosity. 
“You tell me three things about yourself, or vice versa—two are true, and one’s a lie. You guess the fib.” 
“Sounds easy enough,” he says, already mentally sifting through his own truths and falsehoods. “You first.” 
“Okay,” you clear your throat dramatically, allowing your head to drop back against the wall behind you. “One, I’ve bungee-jumped off the Macau Tower. Two, I can recite every line from The Notebook. And three, my favourite colour is blue.” 
He taps his chin, pretending to deliberate. “I’m going to say… the third one?” 
“Nope, never even seen The Notebook,” you say, your voice softening, eyes meeting his as you turn your head. “I love blue.” 
“Well, now I know,” he grins, in that moment feeling a swell of tenderness in his chest. 
“Your turn, Cap.” 
Steve takes a breath, “I once danced with Marilyn Monroe. I’ve painted a self-portrait. I hate coconut.” 
“Self-portrait?” You raise an eyebrow. 
“No,” he chuckles, his cheeks turning red. “It’s a terrible piece, but it exists somewhere. The lie is Marilyn, I never met her. And I do actually despise coconut.” 
“Who hates coconut?” You exclaim, feigning outrage before chuckling quietly to yourself. “But you paint? That’s really cool.” 
“I draw, too,” he inhales deeply, the sound cutting through the stagnant air of the elevator. “I find it… therapeutic, to put pencil to paper. It helps me make sense of things—things I’ve seen, stuff I’ve been through.” 
“What do you draw?” You ask, your tone soft and betraying genuine intrigue. 
“Sometimes,” he begins, his voice lowering as if sharing a forbidden secret. “It’s just abstract shapes, lines, and shadows. Other times, it’s memories of…” Places he can’t return to, people he can’t bring back. 
His voice trails off, leaving the sentence unfinished. You don’t press him, instead you wait patiently for him to continue. 
“Mostly landscapes,” he says, his gaze growing distant as he switches gears. He squeezes his phone in his hand, as the minutes stretch indefinitely, maybe he can have the courage to share the man beyond the shield—a dreamer, an artist, and a quiet soul who speaks in shades and contours. 
“Maybe I could show you?” 
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Steve is more than talented. 
You scroll through his camera roll, a digital photo album bursting with snapshot images of charcoal, oils, and watercolour. 
The view from the Brooklyn Bridge at sunset, the light hitting the water in a way that makes the painting look like it’s moving, like the city skyline is breathing golden fire. 
A cityscape twisted with ribbons of futuristic technology entwined with threads of the past; an intricate dance of what had been and what was to come—a disorienting world not quite ready for a man out of time, a touching display of raw honesty in lines of graphite that bares a soul on paper. 
You push down a little tiny lump of emotion in your throat, trying not to acknowledge his bashful gesture of scratching at the back of his neck. This version of Steve is so at odds with the persona you’re so used to seeing in the action-packed news reels, a far cry from the stoic shield-wielding soldier you’d pegged him for. 
“Okay, so this one,” you tap one, a sketch of a figure standing at the edge of a precipice, looking out into an abyss that seems to pulse with both danger and wonder. “You’ve got some serious metaphors going on here. What, is Captain America contemplating a leap of faith of some kind?” 
Steve chuckles. “Both? Sometimes, you stand on the edge, not sure if you’re ready to jump into what’s next.” 
You nod, smiling so hard it makes your cheeks hurt, hoping it doesn’t make your admiration for him, among other things, painfully obvious. “That’s deep, Rogers.” 
Steve tuts in disapproval at your teasing tone, swiping the phone out of your hands, but he’s smiling too as he glances down at the screen. 
“Okay, I’m giving you a hard time,” you say, your tone shifting into something softer, more sincere. Your shoulder bumps lightly against his in the dark, and somehow his eyes shine like stars when he glances over at you. “But these are really something, Steve. You’ve got a gift.” 
“Thanks,” Steve says, the vibrations of his deep voice drawing a flush of warmth up your neck, and you break the eye contact reluctantly. “That means a lot to me… coming from the world’s most cynical woman.” 
“I’m not a cynic,” you laugh, your heart flip-flopping when the corners of his eyes crinkle in a way that should be illegal without a permit. “I’m a realist. There’s a very big difference.” 
“Is that what you call it?” Steve’s lips twitch, the ghost of a smile still playing there. 
“Even if I am a cynic, I’m not that bad.” You admit, not missing the way his smile finally reaches his eyes. Your shared laughter dwindles down to a comfortable hush, and you shift on the floor next to him, your legs starting to cramp from sitting too long. 
“You’re right,” Steve relents, his eyes betraying an affection you’re surprised to see. “Not bad at all.” 
« Chapter 3 || Chapter 5 »
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wishfulwithwine · 10 months
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The Great War
Rhysand x Reader
ACOTAR x Taylor Swift One Shot Series 
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My knuckles were bruised like violets
Sucker punching walls, cursed you as I sleep-talked
Spineless in my tomb of silence
The cabin in the middle of the woods was quiet, but not silent. There was water running nearby, birds chirping, and animals running through the forest. You kept the fire lit, hearing the embers crackle and feeling the continuous warmth. 
What used to be the deepest fear of yours, was now a comfort. The fire no longer reminded you of the torture you and your brother received at the hands of your other step-brothers. 
Now, you couldn’t feel the cold, dark and damp hallways, or the chill of Amarantha’s stares out here. Under the mountain was pure silence - no breeze, no animals - just a deafening, terrorizing silence. 
The makeshift punching targets on the trees had become your outlet for your pent up emotions, your knuckles inevitably bloody but at least you could let your hurt out. Your body needed to expel the bottled emotions it kept from the facade under the mountain. The wounds didn’t hurt as much as the emotional struggle you endured. 
 You survived. You survived. 
Tore your banners down, took the battle underground
And maybe it was ego swinging
Maybe it was her
Flashes of the battle come back to me in a blur
“You shouldn’t have come with me. You should be back, back home, with everyone else” Rhysand stated, angrily, pacing once you arrived at his new room. You looked at Rhys, not just your High Lord but your brother’s best friend. You had followed him quickly back to his room after the welcoming ball, a bit more difficult in your large gown, but you weren’t a spy for nothing. 
“I’m not overjoyed to be here, especially with the likes of you, but we are here, Rhysand. I promised my brother to protect you” You said, walking closer to him. His eyes looked over at yours, fury swirling in them.
“Your brother… he’ll kill me. Why did you argue with me to go?” He asked, shaking his head.
“Because it didn’t feel right. You had to go, and if something went wrong, I’d never forgive myself if something happened to him.… Azriel won’t kill you, and you need all the help you can get here if we want to survive” You said, and although Rhys understood on some level your logic, he was furious at you. Well you were furious at him too, but that wasn’t necessarily new.
Despite being Azriel’s sister, you disliked Rhysand. You couldn’t say you hated him - which honestly, you probably did - because he had saved your brother from himself. Saved him from the daily torment of his mind, pulled him and yourself from the war camps, and gave him a fulfilling purpose. Azriel trusted him, formed a brotherhood bond with him and Cassian, yet you disliked for doing what you thought you should have been able to help with. 
“Why did you include yourself on the bargain with Amarantha? Huh? How was that protecting?” He asked, almost spitting at you, his temper rising. You kept your ground, firmly planting your feet as Rhys’s anger grew, his eyes swirling with fury.
“She wanted more than just you. She had been eyeing me all night as well, or did you not hear her words about the jewel of Illyria becoming her whore. She plays both teams, Rhysand. I don’t trust her, and Azriel would have done the same. We save home at all costs” You said, and he stared at you, and you felt the stroke on your mind’s walls. 
You shook your head, unwilling to let him in. Your mind was a place you never wanted him, nor anyone in. Luckily Rhysand was a good man deep in his core, despite your dislike of him for other reasons, and would never do anything without your consent. 
Rhys was the man who saved you and your brother from hell, and you could never repay him. You could never repay him for giving your brother all the courage and heart in the world, what you had tried to do but could never accomplish like he had. He was your brother’s knight in shining armor, and for that you would be forever grateful, and forever jealous. How could he save him from despair when you couldn’t?
“Thank you..” He uttered softly, looking at you with an emotion you couldn’t quite place.
“I’m not doing this for you” You said, looking away, trying to force down the emotions rising from memories of your family flooding your brain. You didn’t know when you’d see your brother again, your mother, the inner circle who had become your best friends...
“I know” He said, and you nodded, unable to look at him.
“When do you think we’ll be out of here?” You asked, trying to change topics. You heard his harsh exhale.
“I don’t know, but they’re safe. I was able to bubble them” Rhysand said, a bit sadly. 
“They’re safe” You reiterated, nodding. 
All that bloodshed, crimson clover,
The bombs were close and
My hand was the one you reached for 
All throughout the Great War
Always remember 
The burning embers
I vowed not to fight anymore
If we survived the Great War
Fifty years. Fifty years of torment, torture and hell was finally ending.
“Y/N” Your name pierced through your thoughts, as you turned your head away from the corpse of Amarantha to your High Lord. It felt like your body was stuck in place, the shock of the night overwhelming your body. 
Rhys approached you delicately, reaching out a hand for you to take. No words were spoken, as you stared into his eyes, and took his hand, clutching it tightly. He looked at you cautiously, before raising his other hand to your cheek, resting his forehead on yours as the two of you synced your thudding hearts to a normal rhythm. 
“Ready?” He asked, in a whisper, after a few moments. You nodded, as he wrapped his arms around you, holding you as tightly as he felt appropriate while winnowing.
“You’re back!” Mor screamed, as you and Rhysand had winnowed back. Your whole body tensed, unable to pull away from Rhysand’s arms despite the inner circle’s stares at the two of you, your grip on his tightening. He felt you shake your head on his chest, minimally, and Rhysand opened his wings, shielding you both from the stares of the group. 
You leaned a bit from his grip, looking directly at him as you opened your mind up to him, your heightened emotions and stress of seeing everyone again after so long. After everything.
I’ll let them know when you are ready, Rhys said in your mind, as leaned into you, kissing your forehead gently. Leaning back, you shared a look before you stepped out of his arms, and winnowed away.
The inner circle stared as you left, and Rhysand put away his wings, looking away finally from where you were standing, to address his family’s. A weak smile appeared on his lips, as he finally saw the faces of the people he - they - had fought so long to protect. 
“What-Where’d-“ Azriel stared, looking at the spot his sister once stood.
“A lot has happened. Y/N needs some time alone. If I have to, I will order you not to search for her” Rhys stated, looking directly at Azriel, before glancing at all of them to show the severity of his words.
“She’s my sister” Azriel growled, protectively. Rhys stared at him, posturing himself tall to full strength of High Lord as intimidation. The Inner circle was shocked by his display of protection for someone who - before going under the mountain - had all but hated Rhysand. Y/N would barely speak to him unless ordered and was forced by Azriel to spend time with him. 
Now, Rhysand was defending Y/N against her own brother. 
“And she will see you when she is ready” Rhys stated, the violet in his eyes spinning in fury.
“Alright, we’ll give her time. We’re just so happy you’re home” Cassian said, diffusing the situation, as the pair nodded, and the rest of the group sighed, hugging their best friend and High Lord. 
Broken and blue, so I called off the troops
That was the night I nearly lost you
I really thought I lost you.
We can plant a memory garden
Say a solemn prayer, place a poppy in my hair.
There’s no morning glory, it was war, it wasn’t fair.
And we will never go back
You had heard the wind shift, his steps coming closer to you after he closed the door. You smelled his distinct cologne - the scent you had previously hated, but now smelled like comfort. You didn’t look at him, as he made his way to sit next to you on the coach in front of the fireplace and took the additional wine glass you had left out for him. 
Time was another concept out here - only marked by the rising and setting of the sun around you, the cooler air breezing through the trees. The days were spent working out - climbing th mountains, training, or destroying the punching bag trees.
Every night since the first night, Rhysand had come out here after he felt your terror. Your mind was replaying on repeat all the torture and nightmares under the mountain you had faced. When he arrived, Rhysand didn’t hesitate to wrap you in his arms, wake you from your nightmares, and hold you tight against his chest.
Rhys himself hadn’t been able to sleep that night. The terrors keeping his mind active.
Both of you had sobbed, no words needed to be spoken of the horrors the two of you had lived.
The next night, you added the wine, hoping to calm yourself and forget, but it ended the same way without Rhysand. The memories too overwhelming to go to sleep safely alone. Now, days later, the two of you would drink wine before heading to bed together, knowing you were secure with the others’ arms wrapped around you.
You moved the blanket to allow him to move closer to you, snuggling in to his side as he wrapped his arms around you. You took a deep breath, inhaling more of his cologne, as he moved to make you both comfortable but surrounding you with his warmth. Your head nuzzled into the space by his neck, his arms wrapped around your waist with your legs over his.
“Azriel asked about you again today. He’s getting more demanding on seeing you” Rhys admitted. You let out a sigh.
“I told them you’ll be back on your own time and you’re safe” He added.
“Tomorrow. I’ll come tomorrow” You said, and you felt Rhys breathe deeply, before moving his body to look at you in your eyes.
“Are you sure?” He asked, softly, and you let the corners of your lips lift a bit into a smile, the first form of a smile you’ve displayed in fifty years. 
“As long as we can still continue our sleeping arrangements, I can handle our family” You quipped, and you could see his face morph with happiness. 
He leaned in, pressing his lips against yours, shooting tingles down your spine and fireworks along the softness of his lips.
“Anything you wish, mate”
I would always be yours
Since we survived the Great War
I vowed I would always be yours
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aemonds-fire · 7 months
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Answered Prayers: Dark Series HOTD Aemond Targaryen x Fem OC Part Four : A Twisted Little Game
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Summary: First infatuation, then obsession. Prince Aemond has found the lady of his dreams and the gods give him a way to keep her. But the Lady is more than she seems. A Dark Romance
Pairing: HOTD Aemond Targaryen x Fem OC
Word Count: 3849
Warnings: 18+, Minors DNI, DUB/CON - NON/CON, Strong Sexual Content, coercion, angst, mention of murder/suicide, medieval-canon sexism, profanity
Not beta read, any mistakes are my own.
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Enjoy! Likes, reblogs and comments are appreciated.
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maegītsos - little witch sȳres riñus - good girl gevie - beautiful
Not long back in his own chambers, he already realizes that sleep will elude him again this night. Sitting before the fireplace, holding a cup of wine in his slender fingers, Aemond is cursing himself and you.
‘Is she a cruel jest by the gods?’ He asks himself. 'To deliver this perfect maiden to me only to have her bewitch and bedevil me to the verge of madness?’
First came the shock that she had played a part in the deaths of her father and stepmother. He recognized the silver-topped glass vial immediately as the one she held in her hand when they met by chance that night. To think this innocent, perfect lady was capable of murder surprised him greatly. What also surprised him was that it did not matter to him. Strangely, it even excited him, making him want you even more, so under his skin you have become. If anything, he found he rather admired your courage and your determination to avenge your mother. Wanting to right a wrong was something he could understand.
His heart soared when he realized he had found a way to possess the lady of his dreams. He would keep your secret, and you would become his wife. But again, you surprised him with your resistance to the idea of marriage.
He truly went to your chambers tonight to talk with you and to convince you that he would be everything you could want in a husband. Protective, honorable, and dutiful, you would be the lady of your house as well as a princess of the realm.
But his restraint was tested immediately. The mere sight of you had his cock twitching, knowing that only the thin material of your gown separated him from your exquisite body. Your audaciousness to dare him to drink the wine you offered him, knowing your history with poison. He did not think you foolish, but it was still a risk on his part, and the challenge got his blood up.
But just like earlier in the day, you could not speak for more than a moment before antagonizing each other. Your immediate resistance to the subject of marriage and the theory that he was simply doing this to have you in his bed infuriated him.
He offers you not only silence but marriage, and you spurn it, wanting only his silence but not him.
What lady would want to marry that?’ He’s heard in the past.
Despite the intense release of pleasure your mouth gave him, his need is creeping back already. He wants nothing more than to be between your thighs right now, with his cock being squeezed by your tight maiden cunt.
But he let his pent-up frustration and ire get the better of him. Deliberately leaving you unsatisfied was an impulsively spiteful act, he thinks with a smirk, but you exasperate him to no end.
He has never met a lady like you, and your response to him is confusing. Unlike other ladies, you have never looked at his face with distaste or turned away from the sight of him. Thinking about it, you have not shown any reaction to the scar that mars his face, as if it doesn't bother you at all. Though a virtuous maiden, you did not reject his touch but reveled in the pleasure, while the idea of marrying him is apparently abhorrent to you.
He could actually admire your strong will, audacity, and fierceness, were it not directed at him. Though after leaving you the way he did tonight, he’s sure more of your fiery stubbornness will come his way.
He has no intention of giving you a choice regarding marriage, whether you want it or not. While your resistance excites him, he craves your submission and your obedience. He will never give you up; truthfully, even his promise to expose your crime and face execution is an empty threat that he had no intention of carrying out. The more you resist him, the more determined he is to have you. In the meantime, you have shown him a way to weaken your resolve.
He remembers a night over a year ago when he was sitting in this same chair before the fireplace.
He barely turned his head when he heard someone enter his chambers late one night. He knew who it was right away, for only his brother Aegon was foolish enough to barge into his chambers without leave. Sighing in frustration, he was about to simply tell his brother to get out when he also heard female laughter.
Getting up to confront Aegon about this unwanted intrusion, he saw his brother, clearly drunk as usual, with his arm around a young woman. She was pretty, about his own age, and obviously a whore.
“Aegon, leave. The keep is large enough that you can surely find an empty room somewhere. You won’t be fucking your whore in my chambers,” he told him brusquely.
Aegon chuckled, turned to his female companion, and said, “Do you see what I mean?”
Turning back to his brother, he continued, “I didn’t bring her to your chambers so I could fuck her; I brought her here so you could fuck her.” Aegon led the girl further into the room, closer to Aemond. “You see, my brother for some reason tries to ignore the fact that he has a cock, but by doing so, he makes life rather unbearable for the rest of us,” he tells her.
Even in the dim light, Aemond could see through the sheer material of her whore’s dress, revealing that she was naked beneath it. His eye drawn to her full breasts, pert nipples poking against the flimsy fabric, and he felt himself begin to harden despite his annoyance. Clenching his jaw and warring with himself about whether or not to take what was being offered, he bit back another demand that they leave.
Aegon, seeing his younger brother’s resistance weaken, whispered something in the girl’s ear, prompting her to unfasten her dress at her shoulder and let it fall, pooling at her feet. At Aegon’s urging, she went over to Aemond, smiling prettily when she took his hand and placed it on her breast.
At the feel of her hardened peak against his open palm, he couldn’t help but cup her flesh, squeezing and feeling the weight of her breast in his hand.
“I’ll leave the two of you alone now, unless you would like me to stay and watch, or perhaps join in?” harassed Aegon.
Not even bothering to look at his brother, Aemond growled low, “Get out.” Aegon, knowing not to press his luck too far, left to find his own amusement.
Despite his aversion to whores, Aemond soon had her bent over, his strong hands gripping her hips roughly, rutting into her hard from behind. There was neither gentleness nor regard for her pleasure from him as the sounds of skin hitting skin and her soft moans floated through his bedchamber. He took her three times that night before finally being satisfied enough to send her off.
Before leaving him, she said, ”You have a beautiful cock, my prince. If you ever care to learn what pleases a woman, I would be happy to show you.”
Curious to understand a woman’s pleasure, combined with the desire to have her again, Aemond had the whore secretly brought back to his chambers on several occasions.
For the next several days, you and Aemond play a game akin to cat and mouse. Avoiding direct contact with each other but making your presence known, hopefully to the other’s irritation.
When you were with Helaena and the children in her chambers and he came to visit, you quickly complained of a sudden headache and a desire to rest. You were able to avoid his offer of escorting you to your chambers by insisting he continue his visit with his family, even placing little Princess Jaehaera in his arms.
Another day, you decide to make your way to the training yard to watch him spar with Ser Cole, delighting when you realize your presence distracts him, forcing him to yield to the knight. You return his glare of annoyance with your prettiest smile before disappearing back into the Keep.
You spend your afternoons with a small group of ladies, chatting and working on your embroidery. Though far from your favorite activity, you find security in their presence, thinking even the fearsome prince would hesitate to cross some of these old crones.
Today, when you spy the prince watching you from a distance, you simply ignore him and walk the other way.
But Aemond is on your mind the entire time, with you trying to sort out your feelings about what happened and about him. You should be shamed, devastated, and revolted by your last encounter with him, but you're not. You’re angry with him more than anything for awakening your body and leaving you wanting more.
You have never been more conflicted in your life. He stands in the way of your independence, yet when he touches you, everything you want means nothing; you just want more of him. You know that if you allow him to take your virtue and ruin you, he will simply have another way to force you into marriage. You tell yourself that you cannot allow yourself to be swayed by his amorous advances.
‘What sort of twisted little game has this become?’ you ask yourself.
But the prince has clearly lost patience with the game. That night, just after settling yourself into your bed to sleep, you hear him enter your chambers. Knowing that simply pretending to be asleep will not work, you sit up, pulling the covers over your chest.
Watching him walk towards you in the darkness, you can’t help but feel the quickening of your pulse. He moves like a predator, stalking prey, the moonlight coming through the window glinting off his long silver hair. Tonight, instead of his usual black leather, he wears a simple white shirt over loose trousers.
“I’ve missed you, Lady Mira,” he says, his voice smooth as silk. He stops at the foot of your bed, his eye never leaving you.
Determined to resist him, you snap, “I haven’t missed you.”
“Hmm, you seem uptight, my lady," he said, smiling devilishly. “Are unfulfilled desires keeping you from resting at night?”
"Of course not,” you lie. “I was about to go to sleep, so please leave.”
“Hmm, still upset with me, I see,” he sighs, though the smirk on his lips tells you he is not bothered by it.
Frustrated by his presence, you get up, reaching for your robe. Before you can put it on, you feel him behind you, his arm going around your waist. Crooning in your ear, “The sight of you in bed is quite lovely and something I intend to get used to."
“Take your hands off me and leave,” you hiss while trying to pull away from him.
“Such a temper, maegītsos,” he chides you while pulling you closer. “And I came to make up for my poor behavior the other night.
Continuing to struggle, ”You can make up for it by getting out of my chambers.”
Spinning you around to face him, he says, “No, I have a better way.” Not giving you a chance to respond, he kisses you. His lips are forcefully and possessively claiming yours.
You try to push him away, but you cannot match his strength, and your efforts at resistance are ignored by him.
Breaking his kiss momentarily, he reminds you, “Your body for my silence, remember?” He wraps you in his arms tightly until you cease your struggles. “Sȳres riñus,” he purrs into your ear, between little nips of your skin.
Leaning against his chest, you unconsciously tilt your head to let him trail his lips down your neck, each kiss fanning the flames of the desire growing within you. You gasp when he tugs down the front of your gown to free your breasts before cupping them in his strong hands and fondling them while rolling your nipples between his fingers.
"Aemond," you whimper as each tease of your stimulated peaks sends little shivers through you.
He lowers his head to fasten his lips around your areola, sucking gently. Keeping hold of your other breast with one hand, his other moves down to grasp your hip. The flicks of his tongue on your sensitive nipple cause wetness to pool between your legs. When his mouth moves to switch his attention to your other breast, he murmurs against your skin, “Shhh, I will soon ease that ache in your cunt.”
Your hand tangles in his hair while his lips and tongue seduce your body, breaking down your resolve. Soft hums of pleasure escape your throat as your hand digs into his shoulder, gripping him tightly.
He finally releases your breasts and straightens to his full height, his eye lingering on your disheveled state. Suddenly, you feel very small standing this close to him, with your gown pushed down past your shoulders and your bosom exposed to him. When you move to cover yourself, he quickly stops you. “No, I want to see all of my future wife,” he tells you as his hands take hold of the material covering you, pushing everything down until it falls around your feet, leaving you completely naked before him.
Fearful that this will go much further than you wish it to, you whisper, “Your grace, no..." while trying to back away, only stopping when the back of your legs bump into the side of your bed. His strong hands then push you down, forcing you to lie back. Panic sets in, and you try to scamper back from him, but he quickly grabs hold of your legs at the knees, dragging you back to him.
You let out a small cry when you feel his strength pull you across the bed. You’re holding your breath as you watch him kneel on the floor while pushing your thighs apart, baring to his eye the most intimate part of your body that no man has ever seen before. You stare at him until he finally raises his gaze and your eyes meet, and you watch one corner of his lips turn up in a wicked smile, hearing him whisper the word "gevie" before extending his tongue, teasing that little bundle of nerves within your folds.
The sensation immediately rips a whimper from you—this shock of pure sensual pleasure that he is making you feel. You don’t even notice when he hooks one of your thighs over his shoulder, your other leg still being pushed wide by his firm hand gripping your flesh.
Letting your head drop back on the bed, you stare at the ceiling as his mouth ravishes your cunt; licking and sucking, you can hear the lewd wet sounds coming from between your legs. When he fastens his lips around your stimulated bud, sucking and flicking his tongue repeatedly, you can’t hold back the moan that comes from your mouth.
“You will need to be more quiet. If we are caught like this, my mother will have us married before the new moon,’ he teases you. The vibration from his voice sends shivers through you that has you fisting the bedclothes.
Before long, you begin the tingling pressure deep inside you, gradually building. Your breathing is now quick, shallow breaths as you try to quiet your whimpers. Soon, your release hits you, much more intense than anything you’ve felt before, forcing you to bite your lip to keep crying out and forcing Aemond to hold your hips tightly to keep you still.
He keeps lapping up the wetness coming from you while you feel waves of pleasure roll through your body. Despite the fact that you’ve reached your peak, he continues to tease your now-overstimulated bud.
When you whimper for him to stop, he ignores your pleas. When you try to twist away, he holds you tighter, and when you feel one of his long, slender fingers probe your entrance before slowly sliding into your tightness, you cannot hold back a loud gasp.
His finger, coated in your slick wetness, moves easily back and forth. “Your cunt is so fucking tight,” he murmurs against your thigh.
The sensation is not unpleasant until he begins pumping two fingers inside you, causing an uncomfortable stretch of your walls, but that is soon overridden when he starts rubbing your little bud with his thumb. That stimulation, combined with a new feeling every time he brushes a certain spot inside you, soon has you overwhelmed with intense pleasure that leaves your legs quivering, and you are forced to cover your mouth to stifle your moans.
“Look at you, writhing on my fingers,” he mutters while he watches you lose yourself in the ecstasy he is causing. Gradually, he eases his touches, letting you enjoy the bliss that overcomes you and delighting in the knowledge that he can reduce you to a whimpering, shaking mess.
The feeling of power that he has over your body arouses him tremendously, hardening his cock to near painfulness in his breeches. He finally rises from the floor to lie down on the bed, pulling your limp body next to him, pressing the bulge in his trousers against you, his face next to yours. “I want to fuck you so badly,” he whispers in your ear. “I prayed for you, and the gods gave you to me, but I want to honor them by waiting until we are wed to claim your maidenhead."
As you try to recover your senses from your second release of the night, you can feel his length straining against his clothes. You can smell yourself on him when he brushes his lips on your cheek, and you shiver when his large hand splays on the skin of your belly before moving up to cup your breast.
The sight of your naked body, feeling you tremble at his touch, and the knowledge that you cannot resist him send an unstoppable surge of lust through him. After a moment of indecision, Aemond begins loosening his trousers, freeing his cock. Growling with desire, he grabs a handful of your hair and says, “But if I cannot have your cunt tonight, I need your mouth on me again.” He quickly shifts his hips while the hand tugging on your hair forces you up to all fours. “Or would you rather I start fucking my heirs into you instead?”
When you begin to protest, a sharp pull of your hair causes your words to die on your lips. You know it is this or he will take your virtue tonight, giving him one more way to bind you to him for the rest of your life. When he places his length on your lips, once again you open your mouth to him.
The next several minutes are filled with him instructing you to lick and suck and how to work your mouth on him, between a stream of filthy praises at how well you take his cock, how perfect you are for him, and how he intends to fuck you. While you bob your head up and down on his shaft, his hand on your head guiding your pace, his other hand roughly fondles your breast, tweaking your nipple, before his long arm reaches between your legs.
“You’re still fucking dripping,” he says, swirling his fingers in your wetness before pushing two back into you, causing you to moan around his cock. As you suck him to his peak, he wrests another from you.
The two of you lay side by side on your bed for a few moments before you move to get up on shaky legs, finding your nightgown and slipping it back on. You walk over to a table and pour yourself a cup of wine, drinking deeply, feeling the need to rinse the taste of his seed from your mouth.
Looking towards your bed, you take in the sight before you. The fearsome Prince Aemond, who always presents a stoic form, is always impeccably groomed, with never a long silver hair out of place. is lying still, his eye closed, looking almost as if he is ready to drift off to sleep. You can see the rise and fall of his chest with his breathing. His sharp features look softer right now, and his hair is tousled.
You almost want to laugh at the realization that you do not understand this man who is determined to make you his wife at all. He is a mystery wrapped in another mystery. He is a fierce warrior and dragonrider who seems to have a desperate need for something—you cannot figure out what—but there is so much roiling beneath the cold exterior.
Right now, you feel like a little girl from a little house on the southwest coast of the realm who foolishly tried to play with a dragon.
For some reason, he has decided you are the one he wants, and he will not let go. And you have no idea of how to free yourself from him. The second vial of poison you still have hidden is useless to you with him. The discovery of a royal prince, dead from poison, would lead to an intense search for the culprit, while another poisoning so soon after the deaths of your father and step-mother would draw unwanted attention towards you. 
For the first time, you wonder if perhaps marrying him wouldn’t be so bad.
You know your parents' marriage bed was not pleasurable for your mother. You are quite certain your father never made your mother feel like Aemond has made you feel. "Does that make me a whore, or is there something else between us?” you ask yourself.
“Since you’re drinking the wine, it clearly isn’t poisoned. Would it be too much trouble for you to stop staring at me and bring me a cup?” Aemond asks, the sound of his voice snapping you out of your thoughts.
He is now sitting up in your bed, adjusting his trousers. Pouring him a cup, you take it over to him. As you hand the cup to him, he asks, ‘What were you thinking?”
Sighing, “I was thinking how much I don’t understand you.”
Getting up to stand next to you, he pauses for a moment before saying, “I don’t think anyone really understands me.”
“That sounds lonely,” you tell him. Walking back to the table to refill your cup, “I should hate you for what you’re doing.”
“But you don’t,” he says, following you. Aemond pauses for a moment before saying, “No one will ever love you like I do.”
Glancing over at him, you ask, “Do you love me or do you wish to possess me? They are two different things.” Taking a final sip of your wine, you add, “I may not hate you, but that doesn’t mean I like you either.”
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