#this was meant to be longer but i decided to split it into (or else this wouldve been like 10k long or something lol)
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against all odds (to wait for you is all i can do) – part ten
alexia putellas x photojournalist!reader
warnings: none (im pretty sure)
(a/n in the tags) [parts: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve]
word count: 5.8k
The melodic chirping of birds in time with the gentle beat of Alexia’s heart roused you, your back delightfully warm, and for what seemed to be a long time you felt well-rested–felt as if the leaded weight that made its home in your bones finally melted away because, truly, you’d forgotten the lightness of being one felt upon waking from a night’s sleep or, even more so, the lightness one felt when waking in the sheltering arms of a lover. So you sighed, content and at peace, as you breathed Alexia in when you nestled further into the safety of her neck where faint wintergreen and her delicate, earthly scent lived, familiar and evermore comforting.
When you finally drew your eyes open, the world came to focus and revealed, in its center, Alexia already awake, her head propped on her arm with her honey eyes, just like molten gold in the resplendent glow of the morning sun, lidded as she gazed at you with a lazy smile, soft and relaxed but it ignited you with a gentle flame all the same, whose radiance only intensified upon meeting your eyes.
“Good morning.” Alexia greeted you and it struck you just how much you missed the sound of her voice in the morning, low and soft with just the right amount of rasp that never failed to incite the desire to kiss her right then.
“Good morning.” You replied in the same tone, cheeks warming to a gentle simmer in the face of your lover’s tender demeanour. She brushed the back of her fingers on your cheek while a silence filled the space between your eyes, intimate, as you soaked each other in. But when you could no longer sustain the weight from her gaze–when you chest had filled twice over that it felt in danger of bursting from the sheer joy of being looked upon by such earnest affection–you whispered, “you’re staring.”
Alexia tucked your hair behind your ear before she countered in a voice so tender your heart ached.
“And you’re beautiful.”
No words could translate the gravity of what you felt in that moment, so you spoke the only language that could ever come close to conveying it: you cupped her jaw and caught her lips between yours, seared the missed ‘good morning’s’ and the lost ‘hello, how are you’s’ into the kiss, the pace languid but sweet, savouring the way her lips parted in this silent conversation–relishing the way Alexia tasted like summer on your tongue.
Alexia tugged you closer, and closer still but still not close enough, with a gentle pressure from her hand against the small of your back, the other now over the nape of your neck.
But the conversation was cut short, too short, when a small gasp reached your ear, electrifying you in an unpleasant way your eyes flung wide open, darting immediately to the direction of the sound to find Elisa standing at the last step of the stairs, her hair ruffled from sleep, her loose shirt creased and draped slightly to the side, mouth wide open in disbelief as she gawked at the sight of the two of you.
And what a sight the two of you must have been.
In your haste to extricate yourself from Alexia, you ended up flopping down against the tiled floor, the carpet doing little to cushion your fall, but you recovered quickly and now you stood there not quite knowing what to do with your arms or what to even say. Alexia, on the other hand, remained half on her back and half sitting up, her weight against an elbow, the other arm frozen outstretched towards you, a clear attempt to save you from when you fell down. If the situation had been different, you probably would’ve laughed especially at Alexia’s expression: her face contorted in part mortification and part worry, brows upturned, eyes agape, and lips partially opened–if only you weren’t too flustered yourself to do so.
Alexia got her bearing faster than you, though–damn her and her athletic condition–because she, too, now stood from the couch (and did so with a lot more grace than you did). She cleared her throat, fumbled with her hands as it looked like she tried to stick her hands in her jacket pockets before it dawned on her that it remained still on the coffee table, so she resorted in putting them in her jean pockets instead.
“Good morning, Elisa. How are you?” Alexia said in English and her voice wavered at the end, the question infused with a guilty inflection.
With bated breath, you waited for your daughter’s reaction as trepidation filled you, which only worsened when Elisa’s eyes darted at you, then to Alexia, then back to you again. Numerous scenarios fleeted through your mind and out of all the images your mind conjured, what happened next was not one them: you didn’t expect the way with which Elisa’s surprise morphed into smug delight, her once opened mouth now curved into a coy smile, not dissimilar to a cat’s, that only served to accentuate the mischievous gleam in her eyes.
“Are you guys dating?” Each word deliberately drawled out as Elisa posed them, punctuated by a teasing cadence that set your ears and cheeks aflame. The question, thankfully, brought you back to yourself because only you could save you and Alexia from this situation.
“Okay, I think I need to have a conversation with you so up you go, young lady, back to your room for now.” You said as you approached Elisa who you guided towards the stairs with a gentle hand on her back but not before you placed a good morning kiss on the crown of her head. Elisa whined, but she heeded your words nonetheless, although she did sneak a wave and a cheeky thumbs up to Alexia on the way up, leaving you with an amused smile on your lips at her antics as you thought fondly, shaking your head, ‘Oh my god, this child.’
When Elisa was finally out of sight and you heard her bedroom door shut, you let out the breath you were holding. That really could have been a disaster, and when you looked over your shoulder, you found the same thought written in Alexia’s face. You dragged your feet back to where Alexia stood who, as soon as you got close enough, was quick to pull you back into her gentle arms. With your cheek pressed against her collarbone, her arms loose around your waist, and her chin resting on your head, you were grounded back to the moment, your muscles relaxing as apprehension began to leave you.
“That was mortifying.”
Alexia let out an airy laugh, the remnant of her nervousness still apparent. “I know. At least we didn’t do it last night.”
“Alexia,” you groaned as your cheeks burnt anew, “please, don’t–I don’t even want to imagine that right now.”
Melodic laughter filled your ears again before it tapered off which, once again, left you two blanketed in the subtle refrain of the waking world and the warmth of the sunlight that streamed through the window. You didn’t know which of you moved first but in the next moment, you found the both of you swaying to a gentle rhythm as you held each other.
“So, what now?” Alexia asked, breaking the silence.
“I… I don’t know.” You answered truthfully. Sure, the both of you agreed to take everything slow, but where to even start? When intimacy and familiarity were already there, strong and incessant in their pull, how could torn lovers begin to mend the fragments–to keep everything tentative and slow? Where should the lines be drawn, the boundaries set, when a profound desire that transcended physical affection already made its home in your heart, a yearning that constantly craved for not only Alexia’s company but also her thoughts? Because with Alexia, you wanted–and would always–want more.
“I think, for now, I need to talk to Elisa about this–about us.” Sighing, you continued, “what do I even tell her?”
“Well, she seems to approve.” At that, the both of you chuckled, then Alexia spoke again, serious but her tone remained light when she did. “Tell her whatever you’re comfortable with. Slow, remember? No labels for now, it’s just you and me.”
She placed a kiss against your ear and you hummed, nuzzling her neck in gratitude.
Another pause.
“I think I should go.”
Hard as you tried, you couldn’t hide your disappointment at what Alexia just said even though it was probably the best thing to do right now. There were much you needed to talk to Elisa about alone: her nightmares and her therapy, and now this. The only thing that eased your heart was the fact that Alexia seemed as reluctant to go, too, with the way her hold on you tightened and you responded to her touch by falling further into her, clutching the fabric of her shirt in an attempt to let her know you’d rather she stayed.
“I know. Me, too,” Alexia sighed seeming to understand what you were feeling as she kissed your temple. “How about this? If you and Elisa are feeling up for it, I could take you some place tomorrow? I did tell you before that I’d show you around.”
At the reminder, the memory fleeted through your mind and a sense of melancholy filled you but you swallowed it down before it could take root. Then you hummed in agreement, “I’ll ask Elisa about it. What’s on for you today?”
“Apart from waiting until tomorrow comes?” Alexia joked which made you giggle. “I’ll probably visit La Masia, check with Josep for next week’s schedule, then head home or visit Mamá and the family.”
“That sounds fun.” You said as you began to kiss her, knowing that your time together for the day would end any second now. As you punctuated each word with a kiss, you continued, “alright, I should let you go now, then.”
The rumble from Alexia’s chuckle radiated beneath your palm on her chest as she whined, “you’re making it really difficult to leave.”
“Okay, okay, I’ll stop now,” you giggled and just as you began to pull away, Alexia cradled the nape of your neck and sealed your lips together again for a deeper kiss. Then she pulled away but not before dragging down your lower lip with her thumb as she untwined herself from you and gave you a look that made you burn all over.
“Call me later?”
You nodded.
Alexia grabbed her leather jacket, gave you a smile and one last peck on your cheek, before she strode out of the door.
The feeling of loss that arrived upon her departure did not go unnoticed by you but before it could settle in your heart, you made your way to Elisa’s bedroom. As soon as you entered though, Elisa shot you a question without any preamble, practically buzzing in her excitement.
“Mom, why didn’t you tell me you’re dating Alexia?”
Your cheeks burnt at Elisa’s bluntness.
“Before we get to that, ladybug, I need to talk with you about something first.” You said as you set yourself down next to her on the bed. Elisa regarded you with a look that said she already knew what you were going to talk with her about. You wrapped an arm around her and squeezed her shoulder. “I’m worried about your nightmares and your therapy. Do you think we need to switch to a different therapist?”
Elisa gnawed on her lower lip before she spoke in a soft voice. “I like my current one. She’s cool and she makes it easy for me to talk about what happened. But I can take more sessions if you want me to.”
“Do you think you need more sessions?” You looked at Elisa pointedly, emphasising the fact that the choice was hers to make. “All I want is what’s best for you and your wellbeing, Elisa. I’m not trying to make you do anything, especially if you know yourself you don’t need them, but I also can’t just stand by and watch so I’m just here to tell you that there are options. If you need more sessions, we can do it. If you want to change therapists, we’ll both find you a new one. As long as it’s going to help you get through this, we can do it.”
“I’m not sure… Can I–” You caught her eye again and you raised your brows at her chosen word, and you watched as Elisa nodded, understanding what you meant, before she began again, “I will talk to my therapist about it and see if I do.”
You beamed at her, proud as you squeezed her shoulder again. She smiled back.
“So, what do you think is causing this spike in nightmares?”
“I… I don’t know. I think I’m just nervous? Also, maybe too excited?” Then Elisa added with a small laugh, “or both? I don’t really know.”
“About what, ladybug?”
“Going back to the Academy.”
At this information, you couldn’t help but frown, confused. “Is something happening in the Academy?”
Concern must have been too apparent in your tone because Elisa quickly looked at you and said as she waved her hands in reassurance, “it’s nothing bad, Mom, don’t worry! It’s just, Coach told us there are scouts coming some time around the end of the year and I’m… I really want to play for Barça, Mom.”
You understood her apprehension but her answer didn’t tell you why her shoulders looked like they’d taken on an invisible weight again with the way her spine curved inwards, almost dejected.
“That’s a really big opportunity, ladybug, so I understand that pressure is there for you to perform your best. Is it the pressure that’s making you think about what happened?”
Elisa shrugged, quirking her lips to the side in an unsure manner. A moment later though, she nodded and admitted in a small voice. “I just don’t want to let them down. I don’t want to let you down.”
“Elisa,” you took her hand in yours. “Never, never. If your parents were here, they would tell you how proud they are of how far you’ve come already. You’re so strong, ladybug, and you don’t even know how much. And if you happen to fall down, we’ll be here to support you until you’re ready to stand back up again. Just know that whatever happens, you will always be enough. Always, Elisa. ”
Elisa leant her head against your shoulder then she turned her head and gazed at you with wide eyes. “You really think I can make it?”
“I believe in you, ladybug. Do you?” You pinched her arm playfully which earned you a giggle from her. When she looked back up at you and you saw the determined gleam in her eye, the worry in you was put to rest.
“Yes.”
At that, you couldn’t help the warmth that surged through you and you hugged her. “There you go. I’m so proud of you, ladybug.”
After a moment of silence, Elisa asked in a teasing tone, “so… Alexia, huh, Mom?”
Your cheeks warmed. “What about her?”
“Are you together?”
“It’s… complicated right now, ladybug. We’re working on it.”
“Was that why you always looked sad whenever we talked about her? Before now?” You raised your brows in surprise. You’d always tried your hardest to school your features whenever Alexia was brought up because you didn’t want Elisa to worry but you didn’t think that you were that transparent.
“Did I really?”
“Yeah. I don’t know how to explain it but whenever you tried to smile, it didn’t quite reach your eyes.”
“Oh.” Pause. “I… I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”
Elisa shook her head. “There’s nothing to be sorry for, Mom. And it’s different now. Now you look happy.”
“I am.” You admitted with a small smile. “How… how do you feel about us, though?”
“I’m happy that you’re happy, Mom. It’s going to take awhile to get used to the Alexia Putellas being around but I’ll be fine. And as long as she treats you well, I’m alright.”
Your chest expanded at her words. “Thank you, ladybug, that… that means a lot.”
Elisa hugged you then and you hugged her back.
“Speaking of, Alexia offered to take us around the city tomorrow. What do you say?”
At that, Elisa practically jumped up, unable to control her excitement and you laughed.
True to her words, Alexia pulled up in her car the next day a couple of hours before noon. Alexia looked comfy in her white sneakers, ankle length socks, shorts, an oversized t-shirt, and a baseball cap, and upon opening the door for her, she took you in her arms and kissed you. Her eagerness amused you and you laughed against her lips but you tangled your fingers in her hair to deepen the kiss anyway.
“I missed you.” Alexia spoke between kisses.
“It’s only been a day,” you smiled into the kiss, charmed. “And I missed you, too.”
Time slipped you as you lost yourself in Alexia’s arms and lips, and you didn’t know how long the both of you were there by the open door, but it was apparently long enough that Elisa needed to interrupt you two. A terse cough made you pull away and, turning to look at Elisa who was standing just beneath the archway that lead to the living room, offered your daughter an apologetic smile. Elisa only stood there with her arms crossed, clearly unimpressed with the way her brows were creased.
“Hola, Elisa.” Alexia said with a shy wave which drew your attention back to her and you bit your lip at the state of her face. You reached out to wipe away the faint smudge of your lipstick on the corner of her lips and, upon realising what you’d done, Alexia quirked her brows up as she smiled at you, sheepish.
“Hi, Alexia.” A pause. “Wait, should I be calling you Aunt Alexia now?”
Alexia opened her mouth then closed it, seeming to be completely disarmed by the question. And when she looked at you with plea in her wide eyes asking you silently how she should answer it, you knew just how much the question definitely caught her off guard.
“Uh, if you want to.” Her words lilted with so much uncertainty it sounded more like a question than a statement.
Then Elisa grinned at the both of you, practically beaming. “I’m just messing with you, Alexia.”
She then continued to skip between you two, bounding through the door and down the porch stairs, and you held your laughter in as Alexia looked after her with a bewildered gaze, mouth agape. Once Elisa got to where Alexia’s car was parked, she started to wave the two of you over.
“She’s… she’s very funny.” Alexia laughed nervously, eyes still fixed at Elisa. Then she whispered conspiratorially, pointing to Elisa for good measure. “Are you sure she’s the same kid I met at the Olympics?”
“Yes.” You chuckled as you locked the door and began descending down the stairs. “She’s only like this when she feels comfortable around people. So, do you know what that means?”
Alexia shook her head.
You smiled at her, cupping her cheek before you pressed a light kiss on the other. “It means she likes you.”
At that, Alexia smiled back at you with lightness in her eyes before she grabbed your hand, intertwined her fingers with yours, and kissed the back of it. And the gesture warmed you more than Barcelona’s summer sun ever could.
Then, once the three of you were in Alexia’s car, you asked, “so, what do you have planned for us today?”
Alexia adjusted her rearview mirror to look at Elisa at the back seat, smiling. “First of, who’s hungry?”
After a delicious–and a quite scenic–brunch at a restaurant located by one of Barcelona’s waterfronts, the three of you took a short walk down a nearby landing connected to the port. By this time, the sun had already reached its peak, and with the vacant sky and the high tide, the view was one someone would expect to have come out of a film; the blue tinge of both the heavens and the sea was so vivid that you knew your camera would have trouble capturing the essence of it. Image after image, you captured your surroundings and as the three of you walked on, rolls of film were exposed to the light of Elisa and Alexia, and these images, you knew, you would cherish forever.
At one point during the walk, Alexia asked you to teach her how to work your camera, and so you did. With Elisa between you looking over at the sea, you guided Alexia’s fingers over the camera and taught her how to hold it properly, before you told her about the rest. As soon as she got it, she slung your camera around her neck and immediately started taking photos of you and Elisa. You laughed when she held the camera at arm’s length in an attempt to take a selfie of the three of you, adjusting it as best as she could to get the right angle before she set the timer. You told her as all of you returned to her car that you’d send her the fruit of her labour the moment you developed the negatives.
About half an hour later after hitting the road again, the three of you ended up at the second stop for the day: Camp Nou’s Barça store–much to Elisa’s delight. When Alexia parked the car at a less crowded spot and began to take her seatbelt off, you fixed Alexia with a reluctant gaze, speaking in Spanish so Elisa wouldn’t understand.
“Is it really wise for you to just march in the store? You’re the Alexia Putellas, after all, there’s no way no one would notice.”
In response, Alexia held a finger up to indicate you should wait and shifted so she could grab the hoodie that was hanging over the back of her seat. She put it on, zipped it up and pulled the hood down over her cap, then she put on a face mask and her sunglasses, her light brown hair spilling out to frame her face.
“Voila!” Alexia waved her open hands. “What do you think?”
You looked her up and down. All of her tattoos were covered but even with her attire and her face concealed, you could still recognise her–maybe you could chalk that up to you intimate familiarity with Alexia’s being but still. So you said as you schooled your features, your voice monotonous. “Wow. You really look like a whole new person.”
Alexia threw her head back, laughing. Then, “we’ll treat it as an experiment and see if they will.”
“That’s very modest of you,” you countered, tone still dry.
“Thank you,” she retorted in a saccharine tone while she flipped her hair over her shoulder, and that, in turn, made you laugh.
So then it was decided that you and Elisa would also wear face masks as all of you went on ahead in your quest to infiltrate–as per Alexia’s words–the store. Much to your surprise, Alexia’s disguise worked although she did draw some unwarranted glances, ranging from suspicion to pure amusement, due to the nature of her getup. And to your chagrin, once the three of you got back to the car with your bags of merch, Alexia smirked at you, smugness all too evident in the curve of her lips.
After that, Alexia took all of you for a drive up a mountainside with the windows rolled down that let the fresh, summer breeze rush inside. With the wind in her hair, she began to sing along with you and Elisa to the music playing on the radio, nodding her head to the beat of the music. At the end of the ascent, Alexia parked the car at your third stop, which turned out to be the Tibidabo Amusement Park.
You knew this place was pretty high up, but the moment you stepped out of the car, even from the parking lot, the view hit you: it was incredible. The city of Barcelona stretched out far into the distance, expansive and seemingly never-ending, and you could just see the strip of blue that bordered the ports, and the colours of the city’s structures were made ever-vibrant by the radiance of the sun. The view pulled you towards the edge of the parking lot, where you put the viewfinder to your eye to capture it.
“The view is stunning, isn’t it?” Came Alexia’s voice from beside you.
“Yeah…” you said, breathless, dragging you eyes from the cityscape to Alexia and as you did the remainder of your breath was completely taken away, cheeks warming when you found Alexia gazing at you, her smile as tender as her eyes, while her loose brown hair fluttered to the breeze which added to the softness of her demeanour. The urge to kiss her then became too much so before you fall into temptation, you closed the distance and simply rested your head against her strong shoulder, an arm around Elisa’s shoulder when she stepped into the space beside you.
Soon, you began a short trek upwards to get to the entrance, and if the view from the parking lot took your breath away, it was nothing compared to what you found at the top: from the regal immensity of the structure of the Temple of the Sacred Heart of Jesus that greeted you, to the Torre de las Aguas de Dos Ríos that stood proud just behind the Temple, to the perspective that overlooked the other side of Barcelona. After another round of picture-taking, the three of you finally entered the park.
The day went by as the three of you amused yourselves with the park's attractions. And since you'd all forgone wearing masks, Alexia was, as expected, recognised by people and was stopped more than a handful of times for photos and signatures during different points of your excursion. And you watched with Elisa on the sidelines, appreciating the way Alexia interacted with her supporters, and smiled at her with encouragement and reassurance whenever she looked at you two with an apologetic gleam in her eyes.
By the time the three of you left the park, the sun had begun to set.
It was another drive around the mountain side that lead you to the last stop for the day: Mirador d’Horta. Alexia parked the car in such a way that the trunk faced the cliffside before she urged the two of you to step out and you gasped.
You’d seen some magnificent scenes today, but this one was definitely your favorite.
There you stood, taking in the way the lights of the city burned like embers embedded in the earth. There was something about witnessing the city at night that never failed to make you feel connected, elevated, when you see the million tangible proofs of existence: under each light was a person, a family—lovers—all in their own worlds at their corner of this world you shared with them. And in your corner, in the opened trunk of Alexia’s car, was your world right beside you, and there was nowhere else you’d rather be. The three of you sat there in silence, Elisa in the middle of you and Alexia gazing over the city lights.
It wasn’t long until the day finally took its toll on Elisa, and she ended up settling her head on your lap and dozing off into slumber. You smiled down at her, brushing back her hair behind her ear as you watched her breathe deeply, feeling relieved when you noticed the peaceful smile on her lips.
“So her battery does run out. Sometimes, I forget just how much energy kids have.” The pure awe in Alexia’s voice made you let out a quiet laugh.
“It has its way of catching you off guard.” You shook your head fondly before you met Alexia’s eyes and teased, “I can’t believe she tired you out; aren’t you supposed to be the athletic one?”
“Hey! I’m only human; thank you very much. And what’s a thirty-year-old compared to a twelve-year-old?" Alexia raised an eyebrow in challenge.
“Touché. Ah, to feel young and full of energy again.”
Alexia cringed before she laughed out. “Please, stop. You’re making me feel old.”
“I’m making us feel old.”
The both of you chuckled, then took a momentary pause. You turned to Alexia and asked, "Did you run your parents ragged as a kid?”
The inner corners of her brows lifted—it was subtle, but you were familiar enough with the intricacies of her demeanour that you caught it—exposing more of her eyes, which looked pensive in the dim light, her lips pressed in a melancholic line before she smiled, wistful.
“Oh, yeah, but I’d like to think I wasn’t a menace. It’s just—you know, when you get so focused on something that you forget the time?"
You nodded. She continued.
“When I was much younger, there were times I was so intent on winning that I’d forget about dinner. So, one of them would look for me around the streets or the square. But after I got into Sabadell, my energy finally found the right outlet, and most days I’d gone home tired. Papá–” Alexia bit her lip, her eyes glazing over for a moment as she receded somewhere—a tender memory—then she shook her head. You watched the way her throat moved as she swallowed before she continued, voice raspy and quiet, “He, uh, he’d always exclaim, ‘She’s finally tamed!’ whenever I’d slump down on the couch after a practice. It was ridiculous, but it never failed to cheer me up.”
You grabbed her hand and squeezed it, expressing silent gratitude for the memory she imparted, as you smiled at the image of young Alexia with red cheeks in a sweat-soaked shirt, hair matted to her face, being chased and dragged back home to have dinner.
“No, I can’t imagine you being a menace. Mischievous, yes, and probably hot-headed, but never a menace.”
She laughed, winking at you. “Yeah, hot-headed is probably what people who knew me then would say about me. And I can’t imagine you being a menace, either.”
You raised your brow at her, smiling slyly. “Are you sure about that?”
Alexia opened her mouth as if to reassert her claim, but you saw the way her confidence wavered as she regarded you. Then she closed her mouth, now looking more unsure.
“Wait, are you being serious right now?”
You allowed her confusion to linger for another moment before you finally broke your character. “No, I wasn’t a menace, but you really should’ve seen the look on your face.”
Alexia squinted at you and muttered just loud enough for you to hear, her tone dry. “Are you sure about that?”
“Hey!” You yelled quietly, giving her shoulder a playful nudge but being careful not to accidentally jostle Elisa awake before you took her hand again. You intertwined your fingers together and pressed a kiss on the back of her hand, meeting her eyes. Then you took a moment to soak her in.
“Thank you, Alexia, for today. You don’t know how much this means to Elisa... how it means to me.”
Alexia squeezed your hand, smiling softly.
“I’m glad you both enjoyed it.” Alexia squeezed your hand as she regarded Elisa with a soft eye. Then a sincere smile lingered on her lips as she caught your gaze and said, “I think I needed something like today more than I realised. It feels good to be spending time with you again.”
Warmth bloomed in your chest, clearly understanding what Alexia meant.
“I know the feeling,” you whispered. And I missed you, too.”
With her other hand, Alexia reached out over the space between you and brushed her thumb over your cheek, tucking a strand of loose hair behind your ear as she smiled at you with her eyes and her lips. With the city lights behind her, the soft glow of the car light bathing her features in its golden glow, and the summer breeze playing with the soft strands of her hair, Alexia looked so tenderly human, the embodiment of warmth and all that the word entailed, gentle and, oh, so soft.
The two of you sat in silence, just soaking each other in, until a ping from Alexia’s phone interrupted the moment. Alexia looked down, read it, and then locked the screen with a sigh. When she met your eyes, hers were apologetic. You smiled in understanding.
“Time to go?”
“Yes.” Alexia sighed as she stood up and tucked her phone back into her pocket. “It was Josep. He reminded me I have a full day tomorrow.”
You nodded. You gently roused Elisa, watched her drag her feet to the back seat, and nearly chuckled when she fell right back to sleep after putting her seatbelt on and closing the door. You turned to Alexia, and as soon as she closed the trunk, you cradled her jaws in your hands and pulled her down for a kiss. Immediately, Alexia wrapped her arms around your waist, pulling you closer to her.
“I wanted to do that all day.” You whispered against her lips.
Alexia gasped when you nipped at her lower lip before she buried her fingers in your hair, deepening the kiss. “You have no idea.”
On the way back to Derek's house, Alexia kept one hand on your thigh. And with the radio playing softly as the car passed under a tunnel with lights overhead, it felt like you were in a movie.
After Elisa had gone back inside the house after thanking Alexia for the day and bidding her farewell for the night, you kissed Alexia’s cheek in gratitude. Then her lips.
With her forehead resting against yours, she whispered, “I’ll see you Tuesday?”
“Yeah.” You brushed your nose against hers before you kissed her again. You began to pull away. “Have fun tomorrow.”
“I will. I–” Alexia’s cheeks flushed before she smiled. “Bye, for now.”
Later, when you were in bed about to go to sleep, you received a message from Alexia. She sent you a link to a tweet containing a photoset that contained pictures of the three of you but mostly pictures of a hooded Alexia taken from a distance by the photos’ grainy quality, captioned, 'Alexia, what are you doing????’ followed by a string of laughing emojis.
At that, you couldn’t help but laugh. Her disguise was ridiculous in person, but captured like this, you thought it was a work of pure comedy.
You messaged her back, 'I guess you do have reason to be modest after all.’
#ap11#not proofread#mine#my writing#a/n:#this was meant to be longer but i decided to split it into (or else this wouldve been like 10k long or something lol)#sorry for not updating last week id been in pain for the last 2 weeks so it was hard to concentrate#not to mention i got hit by a writer's block so i needed to just take a step back lol#anyway i just need to tie up some loose ends in the next part and then against all odds will be finished in two weeks time 🥲#also i apologise for any style inconsistency#i may or may not have been rereading frankenstein while going through some parts of this lol#will fix any grammar/spelling/prose mistakes later#woso x reader#alexia putellas x reader
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I Laugh Like Me Again... She Laughs Like You - Part 2
Azriel x Reader
Description: Azriel would give anything to hold you one more time.
Warnings: Angst, mentions of blood, injury
Word Count: 6670
Notes: The original plan wasn't to write more of this story but I had a few ideas of where to take this and decided to turn it into a mini series, don't think it will be longer than 3-4 chapters. Also I don't know if the HoW has cells in the books but it does here and they're normal, not dungeon-y like, and the story is set after acosf but Amren never got turned into fae because I like her better like this. A lot of people liked the first part so I really hope this one doesn't disappoint. I hope you enjoy!
Part 1 ○ Part 3
Azriel was at the townhouse before he even fully realized what was happening. Didn't even give anyone an explanation, simply letting his shadows take him, barely hearing the questioning cries of his name. He didn't need to hear anything else aside from your name to know that's where he should be, his body moved before he even had time to formulate the thought.
Your sweet scent invaded his brain before he even arrived at the house. He'd be able to recognize it anywhere, he'd longed for it for so long after all. Every day when he opened his eyes, he hoped he would wake up to your scent floating around this house as it once did, as it did right now. He's not one to go into anything blindly, to run head first and only think about the consequences later, but this felt like his last chance. The loneliness that had settled deep in his soul had been replaced with hope with one word.
His shadows move to different corners of the room as soon as he's dropped off, leaving him uncharacteristically naked, unguarded. Even the shadows that would form naturally from the faint glow of the moon seemed to move off his face. They wanted him to enjoy this moment in full, this was his and only his.
In truth he barely noticed them leave, too preoccupied with the figure in front of him. He wouldn't have believed it if he wasn't witnessing it with his own eyes. How many times had he been haunted by this exact vision in his dreams? There you were standing in the sitting room, shining like a goddess under the moonlight filtering through the windows. You hadn't changed since the last time he saw you, only had gotten even more mesmerizing if anything.
Your hair was a bit shorter than you usually wore it, the tight pants a contrast to the usual short skirts you preferred. Then there was a scar running across your neck, even with the distance and darkness in the room he could tell it ran from ear to ear. It was a painful reminder of what you've been through, of the night he couldn't protect you. But it meant this was real. You were actually standing in front of him. This was something he had dreamed of many times, almost every night since you've been gone.
He calls your name and it feels amazing. Just the sound of your name leaving his lips, not in mourning or wistfulness but as a greeting, is enough to bring a face splitting grin to his face. Gods, he missed saying your name without almost feeling suffocated by the weight that formed in his chest.
You startle at the sound, seemingly not expecting company at the house. He has no time to study the strange expression on your face though, he needs to touch you first, to feel your skin against his, your warmth against his body, your heart beating behind your ribcage. He needs to make sure this is real and not some cruel dream or hallucination his mind thought up to torment him. He needs you to be really back.
As soon as your eyes meet his form, he clears the distance between you in two hurried steps, but, before he can hug you, he feels your hand reach out to him. He doesn't even have time to realize you're reaching towards his thigh, to Truth Teller. He doesn't know if it was confusion holding him back, the strangeness of the whole act or if he's simply willing to take anything as long as it comes from you, but he makes no movement to stop you from grabbing his knife, allowing you to pierce it through his stomach, never so much as looking away from your beautiful face or even flinching at the blade.
He can feel every inch of the dagger inside him, can feel the blood quickly seeping through his shirt. Still, the pain in his gut can't hold a candle to the relief and joy running through his veins. You're real. The knife went through, so you have to be real. He can clearly hear your heartbeat now as well, it sounds strong aside from how fast it's going.
Azriel reaches a hand out to you again, slower as not to startle you. He can't help the fluttering of his own heart as you finally let him make contact with the softness of your skin. You haven't moved your hands from the knife, your wide eyes staring at your now blood covered hands. He caresses your cheek lovingly and tilts your face up so he can meet your eyes at last.
He can tell something is wrong, as if it hadn't been glaringly obvious by his favorite knife currently stuck in his stomach. Your eyes seem unfocused, a bit panicked, maybe even angry. But he can't bring himself to care in this moment.
He doesn't know if this is your revenge for letting you die, for not finding you, or even if this is what you had wanted out of him from the start, maybe your whole relationship had been a lie. It doesn't matter. He'll gladly die at your hands if that's the fate you chose for him. At least he'd spend his last moments with you, a privilege he didn't think he would have the pleasure of experiencing.
His heart threatens to stop altogether when your eyes meet, it feels like time stopped around him. “You're home, my love,” he breathes out, letting out a soft disbelieving chuckle, “You're finally home.” He raises his other hand to your face, caressing both your cheeks with his scarred thumbs, he almost forgot how soft your skin felt against his rough hands. He's been clutching at faint memories for decades.
His smile falters when his thumb moves down, stroking down your jaw to the column of your throat, where a scar runs across your neck. He watches his thumb following the clean line, his scars had always been awful reminders of what was done to him, it ate at him even five centuries later, but seeing yours hurt even more. You should have never known this kind of pain.
“What?” Your voice was barely a whisper, confusion and fear holding it hostage. He looks back up into your eyes, seeing the same emotions swim in your gaze even more heightened. He didn't like that, you would never have any reason to be scared of him. He goes to tell you as much when he feels power surging into the room.
“Azriel?” Cassian's voice cuts through the moment and he has to close his eyes to keep himself calm. He wanted more time with you, wanted to talk to you before they got here, before they saw the blood but had gotten too distracted. His mind wasn't working properly, his thoughts were all over the place, he wanted nothing more than to hug you but was too aware of how strangely you were acting. He couldn't keep you and his family in check, not with every instinct inside him screaming to just pick you up and winnow you to the other side of the world.
He calls his shadows to him, a desperate attempt at hiding his injury. He knows it's in vain when he feels Rhys let go of the damper on his power, letting the suffocating night fill up the room. You look positively terrified now, he can even smell it mixing in your sweet scent. Letting go of your face, an act that takes more effort than he could imagine, he turns around slowly, trying to be mindful of keeping you covered, protected from his family.
Your hands don't stop holding onto the dagger, as he moves away from you, the force of it is enough to pull it out of his stomach and let the blood run free with no resistance. The pain was getting worse, it didn't look like you hit any vital organs but his healing wasn't fast enough to keep it at bay on its own.
Feyre is the first to move towards him when she sees the blood, but he simply holds up a hand, effectively stopping her in her tracks. Trying to keep a leveled head was proving to be a near impossible task as he saw the anger in everyone's faces, it was directed at you. He holds onto his abdomen, the pain was making itself known.
Seeing Azriel stop his mate from approaching, Rhys walks closer to the shadowsinger himself. His face was a mix of regret and fury as he spoke up. “What happened here, Azriel?” If his mind was in the right place he would have noticed the restraint his brother was showing at seeing him bleeding out in his house, restraint only present because of his own feelings towards you. Unfortunately, Azriel's instincts were winning against logic.
He hears you finally drop Truth Teller behind him, your body must have started listening to you when Rhysand got too close, recognizing him as a threat. He makes the mistake of looking back at the knife, not hearing the snarl that curls his brother's lips in time. Rhys winnows behind him in that moment and you had gotten too close to the window for him to reach you.
“Don't touch her,” he warns Rhys viciously. He doesn't want to think what he was capable of if anyone hurt you again, even if it was his own brother.
He sees you fall to the floor before he registers what happened. His heart almost leaps out of his throat, letting out an anguished cry of your name as he runs to you, pushing his brother out of the way and holding you up from the ground. Searching for a pulse frantically, he finds you were only unconscious. A breath of relief escapes him as he pushes your hair out of your face, it almost brings tears to his eyes. You will be fine. Rhys had only entered your mind to keep you asleep and stop you from escaping. You will wake up. You will not leave him again.
He hugs you closer to him, too focused on making sure you were alright and keeping his breathing leveled to hear what they were saying behind him. He felt as helpless as when he was still a child being subjected to his father's cruelty. It takes him a while before he finally calms himself down enough to hear the argument behind him.
“Let's talk to him first,” Cassian says, the emotion clear in his voice.
“He put up a shield around them,” Rhys was sounding less like a High Lord by the word, “He's not in his right mind.” A shield? He checks the air around them to find that his brother was right, there was a shield around them both, even his shadows had moved to cover them, separating them from the world.
“Neither are any of you,” Nesta's voice cuts through everyone, finally silencing them.
“We already called for Madja,” Feyre uses the silence that settled to speak, “We can get him treated and hold her somewhere until she wakes up.”
“No,” he drops you gently on the ground, letting his shadows cover you, protect you, before turning to face his family.
Feyre hesitates before continuing, seeing something on his face that makes her choose a different approach. He never mentioned being married to her but your name had been brought up before, he knew Rhys had filled her in on what happened, still she couldn't understand what he was feeling. Even he couldn't.
“The cells under the House of Wind are safe. It's just for-”
“You will not put my wife in a cell,” the words came out clipped, slipping through clenched teeth, the shadowsinger was barely holding on to a sense of restraint against his High Lady.
“She stabbed you,” Rhys yells, looking down at the wound in his brother's torso, thankfully already starting to heal, “it doesn't matter that she used to be your wife.” The growl Azriel lets out at his brother is nothing short of vicious, a feral and lethal thing rising straight from the center of his being.
“She is still my wife,” Azriel says behind a snarl, “And you will not hurt her.” Even if it was in the clean cells of the House of Wind, he could never bear to see you caged. He was ready to go to any lengths necessary to make sure of that. If helping you escape the Night Court was what it took he knew of a few ways not to get caught.
He could see Rhys' shoulders tense up, his own face morphing to match Azriel's fury. He didn't know if his mental shields were down or if his intentions were just uncharacteristically clear on his face but he was sure that his brother knew what Azriel - his spymaster - was thinking.
“She can stay in one of the rooms up in the House,” Cassian offers quickly, trying to settle the rising tension between his brothers, “She can't winnow out because of the wards and we can watch her until she wakes up.” Deep down he knows they don't want to hurt you either, that they're only worried but it's difficult to pay attention to the voice of reason within him during this whole situation. His greatest wish had just been answered. So why does everything seem to be falling apart with it?
Mor winnows in with Madja before he can give them a response which is a good thing because anything he could come up with would probably only put you and him in a more precarious situation. There were too many emotions warring inside him, the same going around almost everyone in the room if only more intense. The healer's presence seems to dissipate most of the tension automatically as Rhys even turns to look out the window and allows his mate to hold onto his hand, probably telling him soothing words in his mind.
Madja moves to Azriel with no hesitation, only stopping briefly when she senses the shield. She merely gives him a look before he drops it so she can reach him. He knows she wouldn't hurt you, knows he needs the wound in his stomach taken care of so he can focus on you, think about what to do when you wake up.
“You need to sit down so I can treat you,” she tells him while inspecting the wound.
“I will not leave her.”
“You can trust her with us, Az,” Mor tries to reassure him, but with the way the last minutes have played out he wasn't trusting you with them, or anyone else for that matter. He'd just gotten you back, no way is he letting you out of his sight for a second, he could bleed out for all he cares.
Suddenly, he sees Nesta walk to the table and grab a chair through his peripheral. She appears to be mumbling something to herself but he can't quite hear her to understand. She walks to him and drops the chair in her hands on his right, before giving him a narrow eyed look and returning to her mate's side.
He's not sure how much she knows of the situation. The three sisters probably all know by now that he used to be married but none of them has mentioned you to him, warned by whoever told them of the consequences of doing it.
He sits on the chair and lets Madja work on him. The wound wasn't too bad, even if he didn't have access to a healer it would close in a short time. You stabbed it cleanly through, just like he'd taught you. If he hadn't been the practice dummy he might praise you for it. By the Mother, he thinks he still might. He wonders if you'll grace him with a bright smile and flushed cheeks for it like you used to.
Azriel looks over to your sleeping form under the moonlight. He's calming down enough that he's starting to feel the uncertainty bubbling inside him. Truth Teller still laid on the floor beside you, covered in his blood just as your hands were.
“Is she…” What did he want to ask? Is it really her? How did she survive? There was so much blood on the ground that night. He didn't need to be a healer to know it was too much for someone to survive with no immediate help and an absurd amount of luck. “Is it really her?” He whispered the question, not bearing to look away from you as he does.
“You know that better than me,” the healer answers calmly. He can sense some emotion in her voice. You had asked her to make tonics to help him sleep and relax many times, to teach you basic healing and how to put on bandages to help him when he was too stubborn and not gravely injured enough to go see the healer. She probably missed you as well. “She's healthy.”
He feels a rush of relief at the words. You're healthy. The confirmation allows him to relax further. Finally looking away from you to see part of his family still watching the scene before them. He knows they too were thinking about the blood, the sleepless nights they spent searching for any sign of you. His eyes meet Rhys' briefly, knowing they'll need to talk about what happened.
He closes his eyes and leans his head back, letting out a soft sigh. You're back. He never thought he'd see you again but you're right here next to him. You're not a dream or a hallucination. You're healthy. The thought almost brings a smile to his lips despite the situation. Anything else can be dealt with now that you're by his side again.
“Are you sure you don't need to rest, Az?” He looks up from the familiar ring, still twisting it around his finger. It felt right putting it back on, he was almost giddy at the sight of the silver in his finger, but it also left him with immense guilt eating at him for taking it off in the first place. He studies Nesta's face for a second, giving up on trying to decipher what she was thinking in favor of looking back at you.
When everyone calmed down enough and Azriel was treated, it had been decided that you couldn't be left alone even in the room, they needed someone to keep an eye on you. It had also been quickly added that Azriel wasn't enough, his brother had seen right through him, he knew Azriel wouldn't try to stop you from killing him or trying to escape if you put your mind to it.
Cassian and Mor refused to stand watch unless it was truly necessary. He knows they wouldn't want to be put in a position where they had to stop you, knew they would not only feel guilty for hurting you but also wouldn't forgive themselves for hurting Azriel.
Even Rhysand, used to the weight and impartiality of the High Lord's title, looked hesitant in keeping him company, he had already forcefully invaded your mind to take your consciousness away, something he had vowed never to do to his friend. He could definitely stop you both from any of the worse case scenarios but at a cost he couldn't bear to pay.
That had left him with the two trained Archeron sisters and Amren. They set shifts to make sure Azriel was never left alone with you, he thinks they might not even trust him not to take you away from the room himself and help you escape. He can't really be sure himself if he wouldn't do exactly that if you asked. He'd follow you to the end of the world and beyond just to hear you call his name one more time.
“The wound is healed,” he whispers, keenly aware of your sleeping form, a habit that came to him naturally after seeing you. You always liked to sleep in and waking you up before your time was close to a death sentence.
“That's not what I meant.” Nesta walks closer to the chair beside your bed, the one he hasn't gotten up from since tucking you into the bed carefully. She placed a hand on his shoulder and studied you for a moment, something she's been doing since her shift started. “She stabbed you,” she says in an usually hesitant tone coming from her, “Are you sure it's her?”
“I would sooner forget my own name than mistake my wife for someone else,” the words came out clipped even with him trying to hold back his anger. It wasn't her fault for being suspicious, Nesta never got the chance to meet you, barely even heard about Azriel's marriage. She just wants to protect him, protect her friend.
“Why would she hurt you then?”
“Maybe it's my punishment,” the words leave him before he can think them through. It doesn't matter anyway, they all saw the state he was in at the townhouse. No point hiding now.
“Punishment?” She took a step back from the chair to be able to face him, her perplexed face coming into view. “You didn't do anything wrong.” The notion was almost laughable. Azriel had done plenty wrong in his life.
“I didn't find her,” he whispers, facing away from his friend in favor of watching you, “She's been out there for almost a century, on her own,” he clenched his fists at the thought, “and I didn't find her.”
“I know you looked for her as best as you could. I know you all did.” And what good did his best do?
“You don't understand, Nesta,” he says as he looks down at the ring once again, closing his eyes briefly at the burn he felt in his head. He didn't want to talk about this anymore, didn't want to explain his feelings to any of them.
“I do,” she starts, “If something happened-”
“If,” he cringes at how he raised his voice, immediately looking over to your sleeping form to make sure he didn't disturb you, and then added more quietly, with the same conviction in his tone, “If something happened to Cassian you would understand. But it hasn't and so you don't.”
Nesta lets out a defeated sigh, moving back to her original seat by the window, patting his shoulder comfortingly on her way. His eyes are focused on you once more and he has no intention of letting them stray until you wake up, and long after you do.
⋆｡°✩°｡⋆
You wake up slowly, your mind aware of your near consciousness before your body can follow. It feels like you've never been this deeply asleep, even the dreams that usually haunt you were quiet. Perhaps that's why it takes you so long to remember your current situation, it could also be the strangeness of it. You keep your eyes closed as your body and mind slowly come to.
You didn't expect to be lying on a bed, an unbelievably soft bed at that, after being caught stealing from the High Lord's home and then stabbing someone from his so-called Inner Circle. You're not sure when you lost consciousness but, in the split second the High Lord stood in front of you, you were more than certain you wouldn't be able to escape death again.
The sun is high in the sky, meaning you failed your mission, not only because you had been caught but also for not getting to the meeting point on time. Whether at the hands of your captors or your employers you were already as good as dead. The thought has heat burning behind your eyelids and your throat threatening to close up.
You don't even know what happened. This whole mission had seemed above your expertise from the start. You had never been sent on a mission to Prythian and the fact that you were sent to steal from a High Lord's home, the strongest in history at that, had sowed doubts inside you from the moment you heard about your mission from your handler. That and the sinking feeling in your gut as you listened to their descriptions of the city and people working for the High Lord. Every cell on your body was trying to reject this idea.
Deciding to trust your gut, you even brought up your doubts to your superiors, going as far as asking why you were being sent to retrieve some book when there are other fae more experienced in working there. There wasn't even any time to study the place or come up with escape routes. You had never been sent into any mission like this. Your worries had been quickly dismissed. They seemed completely convinced you wouldn't be caught, that you were the only member capable of this job.
Sneaking into the city had been simple enough, there seemed to be some celebration happening since so many fae were drinking and dancing around bars and even on the street. Your uneasiness only got worse as you walked through the streets. Something was wrong, every single one of your instincts was screaming at you, but you couldn't figure out why.
You walked to an alley close to the High Lord's house and surveyed the perimeter, making sure your intel was correct and the house was truly empty. After postponing the inevitable long enough, you took a deep breath and winnowed straight into the house, and, just like your handler told you, there were no wards or shields stopping you from entering. You thought this was peculiar for a High Lord but many powerful fae think themselves invincible to the point of arrogance and at the sacrifice of their own safety.
As you walked quietly through the hallway, your feet seemed to have a mind of their own, carrying you into a big room with sofas and a fireplace instead of the office you were supposed to be already searching through. You had the same feeling of deja vu as when you were walking through the illuminated streets before, something about the portraits on the walls and the peculiar chairs had your heart sputtering in your chest. It was an intricate design but you could swear you'd never seen anything like them before.
You moved closer to the window, far enough that no one could see you through it, and looked down at the city once more. Taking in the lights, the colorful houses and the fae cheerfully walking around the streets despite the late hour. There is no place like this in Montesere, not even close, so you don't understand how you could be confusing it, you really feel like you've been here before. Everything down to the names of the stores and smells wafting through the air look strangely familiar.
As you got lost in your thoughts, you had completely forgot about your mission. Letting your guard down, enough so that you didn't hear or feel anyone's presence in the same room until you heard them call out someone's name. The sound had goosebumps traveling through your entire body, your breath getting stuck in your throat. What scared you the most wasn't even the fact that you had just been caught but that voice, that name, almost brought tears to your eyes.
You stood frozen for a moment before turning around slowly and your entire body went still at what you saw. The male in front of you was the same one that haunted your dreams ever since you could remember, you would recognize that figure, those wings, those eyes anywhere.
You almost doubted you were awake at all but when he moved closer to you, standing in front of you before you could even blink, your body moved to protect yourself on instinct, to do as you had been taught at the guild. Your movements were a lot slower than usual, almost like something inside you was trying to stop you from hurting him but you had still managed to grab the long knife strapped to his thigh and stab it through his stomach in one clean movement.
The knife went in smoothly and he simply took it without trying to stop you or even letting out a sound. You've taken countless times before, killing was part of your life, of your job, but watching his blood run and coat your hands had made you feel incredibly guilty. You couldn't move, couldn't even let go of the knife.
When his hand reached to touch your face - a movement you didn't even register until his rough skin came in contact with your cheek - your wild eyes had met his and, suddenly, it felt like the world was spinning. The bright hazel was so familiar you could cry. He'd been starring in your dreams for so long but you'd never seen him quite this close. As you slowly let your mind catch up to you, you noticed he was smiling.
“You're home, my love,” he whispered softly. Your heart had felt like it was going to beat out of your chest at that point. You were missing something, a piece of information that felt like it was swimming right on the edge of your brain, but you couldn't quite reach it. His hands had both moved to cup your face by the time you found your voice.
“What?” What is going on? Who are you? Why do I feel like I know you? Why is your touch so familiar? My love? Your brain was filled with questions but you couldn't even find it in you to ask them. Couldn't look away from his eyes, the former joy seen in them giving way to something else.
“Azriel?” Both of you had tensed at the voice behind him. It seems he didn't hear anyone else arrive either, too caught up in each other and whatever mysterious tension was tying you together.
Your hands had tightened around the dagger on instinct, you could feel the power rippling through the room. You should have ran away while it was only him, he had let you stab him so maybe he would let you run away as well. But, as night incarnate filled the room, you knew every chance you had at an escape was lost.
The rest of the events were a blur, one moment you were watching more and more people winnow into the room, sending your heart further into disarray, and the next the High Lord himself stood in front of you with fury and what looked like disappointment etching his features, and then everything went dark.
As your memories from the night before fade, you become more aware of your surroundings. You could hear two separate breaths close to you, could smell two distinct scents, you suppose it was lucky enough that they had let you sleep on a bed, it's only natural they'd have someone keeping watch.
If they'd been watching you this whole time they would have to know you were awake by now, so you open your eyes slowly, blinking a few times to adjust to the brightness in the room. You study the intricate gold designs on the dark navy ceiling. Why did even the ceiling seem familiar? It feels like you are losing your mind.
Your head turns to the nightstand, where a cup of water sat over a flower shaped lace coaster. You almost gulped at the sight of it, your throat was so dry you weren't sure you could speak, but you were in a stranger's house, one you had tried to rob the night before, there had to be a catch somewhere and you didn't want to end at the cruel hands of poison.
Two pairs of eyes burned into you, and since you're not going to drink anyway, you decide that there's no delaying this confrontation any more. You turn to look at them, not surprised at finding the winged male sitting close to your bed, but he was accompanied by someone else, something else.
You sit up in bed slowly, not wanting to appear as a threat and startle them into thinking you had intentions of escaping or attacking you. You really didn't know why they hadn't just dumped you in a dark dungeon - you heard about their less than kind reputation before coming here - but you wanted to keep in their good graces if you could help it. They're probably keeping you to know more about who sent you, shame you can't tell them anything, maybe they'd even let you go if you could.
When you sit up against the headboard, your eyes meet the male's immediately, as if you were called to do it. Some of the same emotions you had seen last night were still shining in his eyes, but today there was so much more, so much so that you couldn't even begin to pick them apart even with the difference of a calm mind.
Your captors don't move so you take the moment to study the male before you. He always showed up covered in shadows in your dreams, you had barely caught glimpses of his face in the almost century of seeing him. Which was a real shame if you dared to admit it. He has an exceptionally beautiful face, the sun filtering through the window was giving his tan skin an ethereal glow, his eyes shine brightly, allowing you to make up the different tones of green and brown within them. His hair was stark black, curling slightly at the ends.
You had noticed the large wings that stood at his back the first time you'd seen him. You've never met any species of fae with wings but his were definitely peculiar. You always thought they were black but, with the brightness in the room and his shadows away, you can see they lean more to a crimson and gray-ish color. Trailing down to his torso, you notice that there doesn't seem to be any blood or sign of injury. He had already gotten healed then. For some reason, your heart calms at that and you try telling yourself it's because it might lessen the trouble you got in.
A shadow moves across him to reach up into his ear, almost like it was whispering something to him. You knew the Night Court's Spymaster was a shadowsinger, the only of its kind, but you didn't know what his shadows could do, what they could see and tell him. The hair on the back of your neck raises as his eyes watch you intently while listening to his shadow's words. They had to be talking about you. Could they read through your thoughts?
“Leave us alone, Amren.” Your eyes finally stray from the male when you hear her name, finally taking in the short creature behind him, and you almost regret it when her bright silver eyes meet yours. She was nothing short of terrifying, you think even the older assassins in the guild would feel unnerved under her gaze. You weren't even sure what she actually was but it had to be something other, something ancient and powerful. She seems displeased at the look you give her, though you doubt she's unacquainted with seeing fear on people's faces, or bothered by it.
Amren narrows her eyes slightly before looking at the male. She studies him with an intensity that could make most fae run for their lives, makes you consider it, but the male doesn't seem to care, his eyes never leaving yours. “I hope you know what you're doing, boy.” She walks out of the room with no hesitation, leaving you alone with the male that walks your dreams once again.
You stare into each other's eyes for what feels like an eternity. Neither of you seem to find the right words. You know why you're having trouble finding them. Between getting caught stealing in his house and the turmoil going on inside you, you're surprised you've been managing to keep your composure at all. But you can't understand why he'd be in the same position as you. Could he also be haunted by dreams of you the same way you were of him?
Leaning forward in his chair, he says the same name you heard last night, the one who made your heart tighten painfully in your chest. You had been too confused and scared last night to even consider it but now you can clearly see he's using it to call you. He seems to think that's your name.
“That's not my name,” you manage through your dry throat, the words coming out so rough and low that you're sure he wouldn't have heard you if it weren't for the quiet in the room. Your answer seems to hurt him, his face drops, the sunlight that was shining through his skin seems to vanish, and you see his wings tighten behind him. Your own body seems to respond to it. You want to make him feel better but you don't know how or why.
He nods almost imperceptibly, as if accepting a fact he was unwilling to, and rises up from the chair, tensing slightly when you press yourself further into the headboard. He seems to try to ignore it as he moves to the nightstand, picking up the glass and handing it to you.
You eye the glass sitting in his brutally scarred hands, momentarily wondering what could have done such a thing if he healed up from a stab wound in mere hours. He senses your hesitation but simply holds it closer to you. You look up to meet his eyes again.
“It's not poisoned,” he offers, “I promise.” You're not entirely sure why but you trust him, or maybe you were just in desperate need of water, reaching up to take the glass from him and almost drinking it in one go. He seems at least pleased enough with this, moving back to sit in his chair. As you observe his movements, you almost miss the way the glass refills on its own. You blink at it, deciding it's not worth considering, and take another slow sip.
Since he doesn't start asking you questions, apparently content enough with watching you drink, and you start to get unusually shy under his intense gaze, you start asking them yourself, seeing this as your chance to know the male of your dreams.
“What's your name?” You play with the glass as you ask, trying to appear nonchalant despite your perilous situation and the tension between you.
“Azriel,” his deep voice cuts through the silence. You repeat it, goosebumps spreading over your body at the act. Nothing is making sense anymore but his name feels right on your tongue.
You say it one more time, letting it linger in your mind. There is something inside you trying to claw its way out at the sound. You can feel it now, can feel how wrong it feels, how wrong you feel. There was a growing pressure inside your head. You let go of the glass and watch it vanish into thin air before it has the chance to make contact with the covers.
The sensation that you've forgotten something really important is back. You look up at the male one more time, seeing he has moved closer to you and noting the worry in his gaze. He wasn't supposed to be worried about you, he's a stranger and you had just stabbed him a few hours ago. So why does it feel right for him to care? Tears line your eyelids, your hands shaking slightly at the strange feelings building inside you.
“I don't know you,” you whisper, more to yourself than him, “I feel like I should.”
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#azriel x reader#azriel x you#azriel x y/n#azriel angst#azriel fic#acotar fanfiction#azriel shadowsinger#azriel acotar#acotar
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✧ Pairing : Daryl Dixon x Reader
✧ Era : Season 6
✧ Pronouns : she/her
✧ Genre : Suggestive (oop)
✧ Word Count : 5k
AN ~ …This one might need a part two, that’s all I’m going to say.
“Stop.”
Your mouth parted a little in shock that he had interrupted you, embarrassment filling your entire being as you could feel the heat rising up to your cheeks, no doubt leaving a red hue on your skin. You attempted to read him, trying to figure out what he was thinking just by his face and body language, but you were left with nothing. His expression was neutral, his arms were crossed over his chest as they always were, and his eyes didn’t even give you a flash of indication of what he planned to say next. Though somehow you had a feeling you knew it was something you would dread.
It had been years now that you had been crushing on the older man, from Atlanta to all the way here in your new homes in Alexandria, you had always felt these very strong feelings for him. And though you knew the age gap was definitely something to recognize, you never cared in the slightest as your fondness for him over the years only seemed to grow.
Daryl Dixon was a very serious man, though he mostly kept to himself, no one could deny that he was also a very kindhearted person. He was constantly putting others before himself, protecting nearly everyone in the group even if that meant his life was on the line instead, he did it as if it was just second nature to him. Like he didn’t even have to think before he acted. That’s what you admired most about him, only causing you to fall deeper than you already were, digging yourself further into the hole you couldn’t seem to escape.
It was hard for some to believe, but you truly tried to push these feelings aside, mostly because you thought there was no way in hell he would ever feel the same way about you. But it was growing to be unbearable, the secret you had been keeping to yourself for so long beginning to eat you up inside.
So you finally decided to bite the bullet and just tell him. You didn’t know what exactly compelled you to do so since you had such a huge fear of rejection from him and didn’t want him to see you differently, but still you just threw yourself into the lion’s den it seemed like. But there was a little hope you had when you approached him to confess. The soft smile playing on his lips was enough for you to spill everything, seeing that there was a small chance he might’ve felt something similar. It wasn’t a secret that he had grown to care for you too, so you guessed you could really take that chance.
But now all your hope diminished instantly when he interrupted your sentence with just one word. One single word that caused your stomach to flip. You felt yourself begin to panic a little as you stood there, seconds after pouring your heart out and laying everything out on the table, and he wanted you to stop. You suddenly wished you could take everything back in that split second, tell him you were joking or make something else up on the spot. Anything to escape from this sudden situation.
He then sighed heavily as he raised his hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose, “Look…yer a really sweet girl and I care bout ya…but…ya can’t be sayin all this. M’ way too old for ya.”
Your heart seemed to drop upon hearing that, knowing in the back of your mind, that little aspect would be the thing he brought all his attention to. You had to admit however that it was a pretty big difference, twenty years to be exact where you stood at twenty-four while he was already pushing forty-five. But still, you were an adult and felt that you could make your own choices when it came to something like this, something that he wasn’t willing to listen to any longer.
Daryl noticed your silence, seeing the look you had on your face and he grew almost sympathetic as he looked at you. “Look ya can’t be…fallin for me. It ain’t right.”
That sentence seemed to break you out of your trance. Annoyance began to brew inside you as he was now starting to almost talk down on you as if you were a kid, crossing your arms over your chest in frustration. “Who are you to tell me what isn’t right?” you asked with furrowed brows.
He noticed your change in mood and only sighed to himself again, “I just mean that…” he trailed off as he never wanted to hurt you or deny you, but honesty was more important to him. And this was something he knew he needed to be blunt about. “I ain’t the guy for ya, no matter how ya feel. We’re just too far apart.”
“That’s not true.” you were quick to defend.
Daryl’s eyes narrowed the smallest bit, “It is true.” he said a bit more sternly, “Yer so young and m’ a lot older…besides I ain’t what they call boyfriend material…it would never work.” he claimed.
Your eyes narrowed even further, “I’m not just some kid Daryl, how old do you even think I am?”
He scoffed to himself as he looked at you a little longer, “I dunno…” he spoke as he didn’t want you to really know the age that popped up in his head. If you were really as young as he thought, it would be disgusting to even think about being with you.
“I’m twenty four.”
His eyes widened slightly as he thought about your words for only a moment, before he went back to scoffing to himself, “Well if I didn’t know any better I’d say yer lyin.”
Your frustration only began to build up further as he didn’t believe you. Though maybe he did. Maybe he did believe you, he just didn’t want to believe you. He didn’t want to admit or accept that your age wasn’t as bad as he originally thought, he just put up a wall to defend himself like he always seemed to.
But you were prepared to call him out on his bullshit. “If I didn’t know any better I’d say you were scared.”
“Scared?” he repeated, his lip turning up into an amused smile, “And what am I scared of?”
“Scared of your own feelings.” you said with little to no hesitation at all, stating the obvious and seeing right through him.
The man’s expression remained the same, but something in his eyes flickered with something more, and you couldn’t help but smirk to yourself once you caught it. He stayed silent for what felt like an eternity, pondering over your words as he desperately didn’t want you to see his hesitance as he stood there with a straight face. But you had clearly caught on.
After almost minutes of deafening silence, he finally spoke again in a sarcastic tone, “So ya think ya got me all figured out then, huh?”
You could see his exterior cracking the smallest bit and decided to take a chance. You began to move forward slowly, closing the remaining space between the two of you from the opposite sides of where you stood in his living room. His eyes widened ever so slightly as you got almost uncomfortably close to him, your chests nearly touching as you looked up to him with big doe eyes.
“Yeah…yeah I do.” you answered barely above a whisper.
Daryl subtly sucked in a soft breath at your words, your close proximity, everything that just seemed to draw him in. He desperately wanted to take a few steps away, wanting to tell you something harsh so you would stop being so damn persistent, but he couldn’t seem to find the strength. He stood there almost completely frozen as his heart began beating rapidly, questioning if you could hear it in the silence with how close you were to him.
You could feel yourself smirk slightly as he grew completely silent again, nodding to yourself as you decided to stop tormenting him. At least for now. “Well…since you made your intentions clear…I guess I’ll just see you around then…” you said quietly before turning on your heel to leave his house, to leave him to his now racing thoughts.
His tongue seemed to be tied into a knot as all he could do was watch you leave through the front door, a heat blooming on his cheeks. He began questioning to himself if all of that really just happened, if he was really as transparent as you claimed he was. His mind began to spiral with thousands of thoughts, but not even he could deny that small spark he felt in his chest, one that he had never felt before.
The next day wasn’t any better for him, his mind constantly flooding with the thoughts of that small interaction, not stopping himself from thinking back to your confession as a whole. There was no way he could feel such a thing for someone as young as you…could he? It all felt very wrong and twisted in a way, but he couldn’t stop thinking of you constantly throughout the entire day, how complicated everything seemed to be. He didn’t pull away. Why the hell didn’t he pull away? It was almost as if he liked your closeness, being able to almost feel the warmth of your body…almost as if he craved it more than he realized.
Over the few years he had gotten to know you, he couldn’t deny that he thought you were very beautiful from the start, but he didn’t dare let his mind linger there for long. There was no way he could be with you, it all seemed so wrong to him in his mind and he had to put a stop to those thoughts immediately once they entered his mind. But with everything that went down yesterday, he couldn’t help but be reminded of those familiar feelings he once seemed to have long ago, seeing them rise back up to the surface before his very eyes.
He needed to see you. He couldn’t help but think about you throughout the entire day as if you had somehow put him under a spell, compelling him to eventually crawl back. He didn’t know what he planned to say, he didn’t even know if he should even try to speak about this hovering matter anymore. But he physically needed to see you again. Even if it was just for a few minutes. He needed to feel that spark again.
So after his long patrol, he found himself heading straight towards your house the second he was finished, walking at a fast pace down the streets all the way up until he could see your familiar house just around the corner. His breathing was almost heavy in anticipation as he got closer, hopping up the porch steps in a flash before he hesitated when he was face to face with your front door. He hesitated for a long moment, longer than he was willing to admit, before he finally gave it a heavy knock.
You were inside cooking yourself some dinner when you heard a loud knock coming from your front door, your brows furrowing in confusion at who it could be as you quickly cleaned your hands off with a towel. You made your way closer towards the entrance with a little anticipation weighing in your heart, the sound of the firm knock sounding like it was something urgent. But the moment you looked through the peephole and saw who was standing on the other side, you immediately smirked to yourself. You almost couldn't believe he was actually seeking you out.
You opened the door after a moment or two, leaning against the frame with a smile as you looked at him with a smile, “Hi Daryl.” you greeted with a hint of flirtation to your voice.
Your tone surprised him slightly as he stopped for a moment to take you in, his nerves resurfacing the moment you looked him in the eye. But eventually he cleared his throat a little and sent you a small smile, “Hey.”
“Did you need something?” you asked sweetly.
You were playing with him now, both of you knew it too. He didn’t exactly know what he came over here for, almost as if he didn’t really know what he wanted, but all he could feel was that same feeling rushing over him again once more at the sound of your voice. It was almost comforting to him, something he hadn’t felt in a very long time, and his heart began to beat even faster once he realized just how much he needed more of it.
You tilted your head at him expectantly, and it was then and only then he realized he didn’t answer your question. He shook his head a little to rid of his loud thoughts before finally mustering up a response. “Nah…I don’t need anythin. Just…just wanted to see ya.”
He could see your eyes soften as you looked up at him through your long eyelashes, the sight bringing a warmth through his chest, settling at the bottom of his stomach as he looked at you. “Aw…that’s so sweet.” you said as you placed a hand over your chest.
His eyes widened ever so slightly as he heard just the smallest bit of praise from you, if you could even call it that. But he found he liked the sound of you calling him sweet, and he found he loved the idea of you calling him other things. He felt himself slip almost as your words seemed to affect him well, almost a little too well, feeling himself swallow thickly as he tried to figure out what to say to you next.
“Do…do you mind if I come in for a bit?” he mustered up.
Your face dropped a little bit upon hearing that, though mentally you almost felt yourself light up at the sudden opportunity to turn the tables around on him. “Oh…I don’t know…” you trailed off as you eventually let the smirk return to your face, “Wouldn’t that be…wrong?” I asked with a hinting tone.
The man was stunned a little as his only response to you was silence. He stood there almost completely still at the sound of you throwing his own words back up at his face like that, but then again you had a point. He did say those things to you, he made it very obvious and certain. Yet he couldn’t help but silently smirk to himself at the game you seemed to be playing now.
“I don’t think it’s such a good idea…” you continued on.
He hears his own phrase being used against him again and damn did it feel better than it should’ve. He found himself growing a little excited as you continued on, leaning himself against the doorway a little as he looked down at you with almost hungry eyes.
“Well…maybe I like doin things that are wrong.” he stated.
You clicked your tongue in response as you shook your head, “That’s not what you said the other day, I heard you…I’m just following the rules.” you said as you moved to shut the door.
But his hand came up and quickly caught it before you could shut him out all the way, pushing it back open a little with a raised brow. “Now what’s with you and all these goddamn rules now, hm? Who even made em?” he asked as he felt himself falling right into your trap, flirting right back with you like you wanted.
“You did.” you said simply, watching his face drop a little at your response, “You made it very clear, and I understand...” you said simply before moving to shut the door right in his face.
The man was stunned to say the least seeing the door almost touching the tip of his nose, his expression flustered and his heart hammering. He groaned to himself in annoyance as he slowly turned on his heel to leave, his irritation not directed at you per say, but how you made him feel.
It was far too complicated, but you were playing him like a damn fiddle and he knew it. He supposed that maybe he deserved a little of the shit you were giving him seeing as he turned you down in the first place, but how much were you willing to drag this on for? He was growing attached, too attached, and now he was wrapped around your little finger instead of the other way around. He saw how desperate you looked in the beginning as you confessed everything to him, he saw that look in your eye. But now you had completely flipped the script and made him out to be the one growing desperate. It was frustrating…but in the most captivating way.
A week seemed to pass by in a flash just like that, the two of you going back and forth, leading to you teasing him to no end. He knew there were plenty of times where he could’ve just walked away from the situation, but he was so tempted to keep playing along in the game you entertained. And it was working more than he was willing to admit, his mind not being able to stop thinking about you and slowly feeling himself break. He didn’t want to cave and admit how much he had been thinking of you, how much he wanted you, but it was getting harder and harder every time he saw you. Every bat of your eyelashes, every flash of your small and perfect smile had him absolutely crumbling.
And what he seemed to be dreading the most now was a bonfire being hosted by a neighbor in the community, everyone being invited to the event.
At first Daryl debated on going at all, knowing that you would probably be there taunting him in the best way you knew how. But he couldn’t help but want to feed into that temptation, just looking for another excuse to see you again. Though in all honesty he didn’t know how much longer he could keep this up. How much longer he could hold out as you played with him until he would completely break right in front of your eyes for you to see. He hated to admit it even to himself, but he was growing more and more desperate for you, which he knew is exactly what you wanted. But he didn’t care at this point. He would let you do whatever you wanted to him if he knew he could finally have you.
You on the other hand however were looking forward to the event. You took your time picking out your outfit, settling on a shorter skirt and a black top that left just enough to the imagination, almost not being able to contain your excitement and mischief when thinking about seeing him again. In all honesty, you didn’t expect him to continue to feed into what was supposed to be just a little teasing, it surprised you beyond repair to see him playing along as much as he was. Though you knew he had grown to like it, he had grown to fall for you more than before. And you loved it.
Once the day was finally over and the stars just began to rise into the sky, the time came for everyone to attend the little get together as the bonfire was beginning to light up Alexandria with its orange glow. People began to arrive in pairs and groups to the get together, greeting one another politely with smiles and hugs, but Daryl found himself planted in the corner of the small party. His eyes kept scanning around for you subconsciously, his nerves only growing as he convinced himself not to fall apart for you, to not fall into his desires.
But then he caught sight of you finally arriving, seeing the things you were wearing, and he immediately seemed to lose his train of thought right then and there. He was now reminded why he so desperately wanted to give in, why he wanted to give away every part of himself to you as he watched you smile and greet a few people passing by. You knew how to get to him, how to make him nervous, knowing exactly which strings to pull to get him all hot and bothered. It’s all what made you so absolutely alluring.
He watched you from a distance for a while with his arms crossed over his chest, not being able to approach you as you always seemed to be speaking with someone. His patience was growing thin and his destress was building as all he wanted was to talk to you, to see you up close. The way you were dressed, the way you wore your hair up only to have a few stray pieces aligning your face, it was beginning to drive him crazy.
But then an opportunity seemed to open up right before his very eyes as he saw you walk away off by yourself, just close enough towards the fire to feel the warmth, yet far enough from everyone else so he could finally approach you. He swallowed thickly at the thought of the things he was easily getting himself into, but he couldn’t help it as it seemed like his feet had minds of their own, practically floating right over to you. His steps were quiet as he approached you from behind, not wanting to scare you, but wanting to catch you off guard for once.
When he was finally close enough just to hover over you, it was only then that he spoke, “Hey.” he said quietly.
But you hardly even flinched, as if you knew of his presence approaching the whole time as you turned to look at him with a smile, “Hi Daryl.”
God the way you said his name drove him almost to a point of insanity, wanting you to say it over and over again as you voice was sweet and warm like honey. It’s almost impossible to resist you in this moment in time, taking in your appearance up close and getting a whiff of your intoxicating perfume as a gust of wind blows by was enough to send him over the edge. Leading to a point of no return.
But still, he somehow managed to keep his composure, “You look nice.” he commented sweetly, a small smile crossing his lips.
Your eyes practically lit up at the compliment he gave you, subconsciously smoothing down your skirt as you looked up at him, “You think so?” you subtly flirted.
His mouth parted to respond, but he couldn’t seem to find the right words. But he does think so, in fact he’s thinking almost a little too much about how amazing you look in front of the glowing fire.
A smirk was brought to your face as he didn’t respond to your question, diverting his attention to your body once more as your voice quieted down to a whisper, “You don’t think my skirt’s too…short…right?”
His eyes seemed to trail back down just as you wanted them too, eyeing your legs for a dangerously long time at the brief question that fell from your lips. His mouth was agape as he found he couldn’t look away, the feeling bubbling inside him almost being too overbearing as he desperately tried to swallow and lubricate his dry throat.
Though he eventually found himself shaking his head as his gaze trailed back up to your eyes, “Nah…it’s fine.” he breathed.
“You sure?” you asked again playfully, “I can always go home and change if you think it’s too much-”
“N-No,” he interrupted quickly, “I kinda like it actually.” he blurted before his mind even had a chance to stop him. Though he feels the embarrassment wash over him the moment the words left his mouth, coming to the realization of what he had just said.
But much to his relief, he saw you smile a bit wider, “I’m glad you like it…” you admitted as you suddenly leaned in further to him to whisper in his ear, “...I wore it just for you.”
Daryl’s body went rigid and his mind seemed to go completely blank, his heart beating twice as fast as it was before. Just for him? You wore that pretty little thing just for him? His mouth became very dry once again, his knees feeling weaker, especially when you laughed lightly to yourself at his speechless state, pulling back a little to stand next to him normally before anyone could notice. Oh god, it hit him, what if anyone noticed.
His eyes then did a quick scan around the sea of people, but none of them seemed to catch onto the interactions he was having with such a young girl. That sent a wave of relief through him, bringing his attention back towards you as you hadn’t stopped staring at him the entire time it seemed like.
“So…are you enjoying yourself?” you ask him with a seductive tone to your voice.
The older man sucked in a breath at your tone, seeing that twinkle in your eye that was nearly impossible to resist, “Yeah…I am.” he finally responded.
You smile to yourself as you heard his confirmation, “Good.” you nodded.
He then quietly groaned to himself, almost as if he couldn’t take it anymore, turning to face you better as he collected himself and looked you in the eye, “Why ya always gotta tease me like that?”
You physically felt the wicked grin cross over your face, “Because it’s fun.” you said simply, slowly venturing out to tease him further as you reached out to trail your finger up and down his clothed, toned arm. “But if you don’t like it…I can stop.”
His breathing then became shaky as he nearly quivered under the small ounce of your touch, only imagining what it would be like if you touched him even more. But then it hit him that you threatened to stop playing with him as much as you were, breaking him out of his thoughts as he could still feel your touch burning through the fabric of his shirt.
“...Never said I didn’t like it…”
Your gaze looked back up at his face as your movements stopped completely, your faces only inches apart now it seemed like in such a public setting. “Are you sure…? You can be honest if you don’t want this anymore.” you teased again.
He almost caught himself groaning again as you stopped touching him, not even imagining any scenario where he could ever say no to you. In fact, all of this was just slowly feeding more into the desire and lust that continued to build.
“No, no…I want this.” he assured quickly, in fear that you would completely pull away if he didn’t answer you fast enough.
Seeing him near his breaking point, so close to dangling over the edge, you wondered if you could get him to admit it out loud. You fully took your hand away then, leaning in further to whisper. “Tell me what you want.”
Daryl’s mind goes on some kind of frenzy as he could only think of you. Your voice, your touch, everything. He only wanted you.
“I want you…” he finally broke.
Though upon hearing his answer, he saw your eyes forming into almost sympathy as you stared at him, similar in the way he looked at you when you confessed your feelings for him. “Oh…but you know that’s not allowed.” he hears you say with a sigh.
All logical reason leaves the man’s mind in an instant it seems like as he watched you deny him, feeling as if you were going to pull away fully and reject him for good. He felt defeated as all he wanted now was for you to give it up, stop toying with him and finally give in to let him have you. He learned his lesson, that much was certain, now all he needed to do was convince you somehow.
“Please…”
The moment you heard his plea, you nearly shivered in anticipation seeing how much he was falling apart now, not being able to handle it anymore. But still, you didn’t cave right away. “You said I was too young.” you gently reminded him.
“I don’t care.” he whispers without a second thought, his voice barely being able to come out at all. He found he didn’t care anymore, all he could think about was you. How much he wanted you, needed you. Now.
Your eyes widen in the smallest bit of surprise at his sudden desperateness, “But you do care. You told me so yourself.”
He shakes his head almost frantically, “No, no, that was then. This is now. Nobody even needs to know…we can keep it between us…”
Shock is evident on your features at his suggestion, something about it making you want to finally give it up and give into his requests. That is what you were trying to do since the beginning, making him realize how much he truly wanted you, and now you had it. All you had to do was say the word.
He sees the look of consideration on your face, a feeling of hope filling his chest as he leans closer to you, “Please…” he whispered once more.
You swallowed a bit thickly as your prepared to open your mouth to respond to him, but another voice quickly cut into the silence between you two, causing Daryl to practically jump away from you suddenly as if he was just burned.
“Y/N!” Carol’s voice called out as she approached, completely oblivious to what was just happening moments ago, “Come on, there’s some new people I want you to meet.” she said eagerly as she took you by the arm, and dragging you away from the man.
Daryl huffed in irritation as he watched you get pulled away, collecting himself quickly as he looked around and licked his lips in annoyance. The older man was now just stuck there alone as you were taken elsewhere, left to ponder over the things that was said between you two. It’s almost a painful fate he was placed in, but yet it’s the one he deserved for playing along with you in the first place.
~ Thanks for reading!
Part 2!
#daryl dixon#daryl dixon fanfiction#daryl dixon imagine#daryl dixon x oc#daryl dixon x reader#daryl dixon x original character#daryl dixon x female reader#daryl dixon twd#daryl dixon the walking dead#daryl dixon x y/n#daryl fanfiction#the walking dead imagine#the walking dead fanfiction#the walking dead daryl#the walking dead#daryl twd#twd daryl dixon#twd daryl#twd fanfiction#twd#norman reedus#norman reedus fanfiction#norman reedus x reader#Spotify
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—DO YOU THINK I HAVE FORGOTTEN ABOUT YOU?
pairing: leah williamson x reader
synopsis: in the end, what is meant to be will always be. or; leah struggles after the break up.
word count: 4.5k
a/n: this is a continuation of LIKE REAL PEOPLE DO. i just have to make things angsty i’m sry, if i don’t i start gnawing at the bars of my enclosure but worry not, this will turn fluffy in the end :)
EIGHT. Paris.
It took about 45 mins for Leah to decide that she longer wanted to be in this damned opera house.
The red carpet was exhausting enough, but she powered through it, familiar faces like Amelia DiMoldenberg’s making it barely enough to get through.
The dinner had gone into an intermission, and she had a moment to relax from the cameras, being sat at a table not far from the stage. Ever since she first attended the GQ Men of the Year Dinner a few years ago, it had created a lot of buzz around her every year, fans speculating whether she would come again, donning outfits so foreign on her body. Back then, she still had a support system that she looked forward to coming home to. Now, maybe the only positive to this night was that, whatever happened, she would eventually get to go home and sleep by the end of it.
She had to tilt her head all the way up to get a full glimpse of the ceiling. The Royal Opera House wasn’t the oldest building erected in London by far, but it was one of most interesting to look at, if she wasn’t so in love with her club and the look of the Emirates that was. It was grandiose, regal and typical of Baroque architecture, the concave ceiling arching over her, stretching all the way back to the five balconies—generously lit and horse-shoe-shaped seating areas—stacked on top of each other. It looked a little bit like the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris that she got to see when she attended the Ballon d’Or for the first time a couple of years ago. A lot of things can change in two years, and Leah wasn’t sure whether it was for the better or not.
Her agent caught her in the middle of her admiring when he gave her shoulder a light tap, telling her that she was expected at the after-party too. Great, another two hours she’d have to endure as people praise her name for achievements unworthy of praise, just because she was Leah Williamson, captain of the Lionesses. But whatever else he said after that, Leah didn’t register, because her eyes had found a familiar frame standing a few tables away.
You looked dashing in your black nighttime attire, which sparkled every time the limelight happened to sweep past you. A gentle smile adorned your face as you conversed your heart away with a couple of actors whose names were lost on her. When you put your hand on one of them and laughed, your eyed darted over to her for a split second.
Only when those actors had left, did she even think of approaching you, but her feet were planted on the ground.
One, two, three, she counted in her head. One, two, three; come on, Leah . . .
“Hi, you!” There was a residual cheerfulness from your previous conversation in your voice. “It’s been a while.”
“Yeah,” she tried to chuckle away her nerves, wiping the sweat in her hands on her pant legs. “You been okay?”
“Yeah,” you said it so softly that she almost missed it, if she wasn’t watching your lips. “Are you? Beth says you don’t come around her place anymore.”
“You still talk to Beth?”
“Yeah, she’s my friend, Lee. I . . . hope you don’t mind.”
“No! No, that’s . . . it’s great.” Leah said quickly.
You had smiled at her gratefully, and grasped her hand. “It’s good seeing you again.”
“You too.” She had said, robotically, before deciding against it. “Hey, don’t be a stranger, alright?”
You smiled again. This time, you brought her into your chest and wrapped your arms around her neck. “You first,” you said with a glint in your eyes, then you disappeared into the crowd.
And for a few brief moments, Leah Williamson didn’t think about how exhausted she was, only about how much she has missed being held by you. After all, it had been almost two years since she and you broke up, and maybe Leah was never able to move on like she had promised you.
How could she?
NINE. Be My Mistake.
She hated the feeling afterwards. She hated herself for having initiated it, for chasing after the girl like a hungry wolf in that nightclub. Now, Leah couldn’t bear the feeling of her lanky arms and sweaty skin touching her, like the intimacy was warranted, like she had somehow earned it.
Leah knew it was begrudging of her to shove the girl’s arm away so heartlessly and move upright to the edge of the bed, but she didn’t care. She couldn’t bring herself to be intimate with someone else, not yet. Not when every time she felt her skin she imagined yours, soft and scented with your familiar smell; every time she closed her eyes she saw your face like a ghost, refusing to leave her psyche; every time she opened her mouth to let out a noise of pleasure, it took everything in her to hold herself back from uttering Y/N, Y/N, Y/N.
The girl was confused but she was still, no doubt trying to decipher the sudden shift in Leah’s demeanor. She hated her stillness, the way her eyes watched her frame like she was a wounded animal in its enclosure.
“Please leave,” Leah said quietly, begging.
Silence.
“I don’t know what you’re going through, but if . . . you need someone—”
“Thank you, Delaney.” She gritted her teeth. “Please get out.”
Tonight, it was Delaney with the fiery red hair and dimples peppered over her cheekbones. A few nights ago, it was Lisa-Mae with the sultry brown eyes and unforgettable plump lips. Then there might have been an Erin and Hailey and Polly and maybe even a Daniela from when she visited Keira in Barcelona. She hated that she somehow remembered all of their names and kept count. Body upon body, yet she could not forget the one body she was using them all to forget about.
She couldn’t turn to alcohol, couldn’t smoke or do hard drugs because they would affect her performance on the pitch, but God knows she was thinking about it constantly. Anything to take this pain away for a moment, lest she turns into the starving wolf and goes out to hunt at night again. If only the press caught on to what she was doing.
Righteous Lioness turned starving wolf the moment the loneliness becomes a little too much to bare.
But she knew you wouldn’t have judged her. No, you would wrap her in your arms and let her scream, cry, do whatever she wanted to rid herself of the torment. She remembered all the nights you spent on the bathroom floor with her as she battled through her endometriosis, and how you would hold her like the world was about to collapse outside the window.
Leah was on the bathroom floor again, but she was alone this time, and the floor tiles felt colder and harsher than she had remembered.
TEN. Tonight (I Wish I Was Your Boy).
The feeling she got when the three whistles finally blew came to Leah quite rarely. It was one of elation and immense joy that the result of the game was finalized, because she had known half an hour ago that Arsenal would bring home the crucial three points from the match.
She brought her fists in the air as she made her rounds, patting her teammates on the back and shaking hands with opponents. She found Kyra and hoisted her in the air with a tight hug, as her younger teammate managed to score and assist today.
“Thank you, Leah.” Kyra giggled, as she was put down. “Is Y/N here?”
Leah’s smile remained, but she scrunched her eyebrows. “How did you hear about that?”
“How could I not? Y/N Y/L/N, coming to watch us play. I won’t be surprised if social media was buzzing about that rather than the actual match.”
If Kyra knew, that meant the entire team knew. She would endure the endless teasing if it meant getting to see you again, though.
Leah had found where you were sitting right from the start, in the VIP box where her friends and family sat, the usual spot you occupied when you were still together. Back then, she would watch you jog down the stairs with a blinding grin on your face, hop over the barricade and pull her into a bone-crushing hug. It could be a sold-out Emirates Stadium, but the only thing she wanted to watch was you. She still wanted to.
“Hi! Great game today.” You didn’t hug her, but did something far worse. You swung your arm and gave her bicep a quick pat, like a friend would.
“Thanks,” she said. “Should have scored that header though.”
“Hey, don’t put yourself down like that. You were great.” Somehow, your words made her feel worse about herself, and she just wanted to crawl into a hole and never come out again. They felt patronizing.
Not far away, Beth’s joyful laughter cut through her sulking. Turning to look at the woman, she saw Beth wrapping her arms tightly around Viv’s neck and the Dutch spinning her around gleefully. Viv had managed to score a hat-trick today—her first since returning from her ACL injury—and even if she didn’t celebrate such an important feat, she would be dragged into one because her girlfriend definitely wouldn’t leave it alone.
It reminded her of when she would come home and celebrate her wins with you. She didn’t need any fancy parties or lavish gifts, just being in your company was more than enough. You would always end up buying her gifts though. “Just because”, you would say, the I love you going unspoken, but she knew it was there. She could always feel it hanging in the silence, in the spaces in your home, even when you were half a world away filming. She could always feel it, like a hearth, a palpable warmth flickering in her chest.
It made her envious watching Beth and Viv that they had what she once did.
“Y/N! You made it!” Beth’s voice tore Leah from her thoughts.
Despite her sentimental predicament, a chuckle made its way onto her lips as she watched you embrace Beth like two schoolgirls finally united again after the summer holidays.
“How long are you staying in London?” Beth asked.
“I don’t know, really,” you replied. “I’m doing a thing with Stella McCartney, so it might take a while.”
Leah couldn’t help but perk up at that. She could feel Viv glancing at her from the corner of her eyes.
“No way! Look at ya. Moving on to the fashion world already!” Beth exclaimed and gave your shoulder a light shove.
Only when you and Beth had walked away happily chatting did Vivianne elbow her gently.
“They seem happy,” the Dutch said.
“Yeah,” Leah pursed her lips. “That’s good.”
“And you? Are you happy?”
Leah knew that the both of them knew she wasn’t, but that wasn’t the right answer. She would not admit to something that she has been working for two years to get over, because it would mean that her woes were all for nothing.
“I am,” she nodded. “I’m glad they’re happy.”
If anything, Leah still loved you enough to admit that.
ELEVEN. Me.
Leah didn’t sleep much these days. She never really did—adrenaline being her biggest enemy—but she would find herself crying in frustration at four in the morning, unable to fall asleep.
It would be during those torturous hours that she would reminisce on the conversation in which she pulled the plug on your relationship.
It was a slippery slope of miscommunication, both of you were to blame, but she was the one who decided to run away instead of trying to work it out. She still kept the ring in a drawer somewhere, but the memory of your rejection made it to painful to look at.
In hindsight, she could have said it a bit differently, but she was close to exploding the previous days that all of it came flooding out of her.
She replayed the conversation often, like a broken record in her head, swapping out things that she could have said or you could have said that would have lead to a different outcome, maybe one in which she wasn’t so miserable two years on.
It was 1:43am, and she was wide awake yet again. You’d always had an irregular sleep pattern, and she wondered whether you were awake too.
She knew it was a mistake, and that she would regret it in the morning, but she texted you anyway.
hey
are u awake?
Slamming her phone on the other side of the bed, Leah curled in on herself, burying her face in the pillows trying not to cry. If she hadn’t looked up in time, she would almost miss the incoming call on her screen. It was you.
“Hey,” she picked up after sniffling her tears away.
“Hey, you,” your voice was soft and lulling. “What an odd time for a footballer to be awake. Shouldn’t you be getting your beauty sleep?”
This made her chuckle. “If I did get all of my beauty sleep, you lot would have no chance.”
“Watch out, everyone. Leah Williamson’s ego is inflating, try not get crushed by it.”
As Leah’s laughter died down, she felt an awkwardness settled over the line. A silence once so comfortable now felt forced, straining under the pull between what once was and the ruins of it. The heavy weight of unspoken words curled on the tip of her tongue, the broken record of her mistake playing ever louder in her head.
“I didn’t expect to hear from you,” you finally broke the silence, your voice teetering between caution and curiosity.
“Yeah, well, insomnia makes one do questionable things.”
Leah wondered if she had accidentally revealed too much, and whether it was appropriate to do so. You two weren’t intimate anymore, you were barely friends nowadays, the finest thread of your acquaintance lied solely on your hangouts with Beth. How strange it was, you were half of her soul. Now you were almost like passersby on the street.
“Is everything okay?” You asked, a sense of concern in your tone.
“Um,” she hummed, trying to pull herself together. “Not really. I-I haven’t been doing too well.”
“Leah,” you said. “I-I know we’re not as close as we were before, but I wasn’t lying when I said I still want us to be friendly at least. I’m here for you. You know that, right?”
“I know.” She said, her voice wavering. She wouldn’t be able to hide her feelings from you, never you. “I know. I’m sorry I didn’t reach out sooner.”
“It’s okay, Lee. It hurt me a lot, not gonna lie, but I understand where you were coming from.”
Leah couldn’t hold it in anymore, and squeezed her eyes shut, her tears wetting the pillow she lay on. “I can’t be your friend, Y/N. I can’t just pretend like the last five years didn’t happen.”
There was a brief silence once more before you spoke. “I know. Might be selfish of me to wish things were different.”
“Then I’m selfish too,” she said, almost a whisper.
There was a pause, in which Leah bit the inside of her cheeks so hard they might start bleeding.
“Are you coming to Beth’s thing on Friday?” You asked.
“I think I’m expected to be there. Why?”
“Good, I’ll be there too. We’ll talk then.”
“Okay,” Leah said dumbly.
“Now, go to sleep.”
She giggled. “You first.”
TWELVE. Sincerity Is Scary.
Leah’s teammates have teased her many times throughout the evening, stating her unnecessary brooding was actually unnecessary this time and that she should liven up. She really couldn’t. Just thinking about seeing you again tonight made her want to have a heart attack and end her misery right there.
But the moment she heard your voice as you stepped into Beth and Viv’s house, a bottle of wine in hand and a bright smile on your lips, Leah felt her anxiety dissipate into oblivion, scolding herself for ever feeling nervous.
After all, it was you.
She waited patiently with a soft smile, her arms folded behind her back as she waited for all the girls to swoon over you. She had all night to keep you company, she was in no rush.
“Hey,” you found her after all the canoodling. Extending an arm, you awaited a hug which she gladly accepted.
“Hi,” she offered to take your jacket and hung it on the rack by the door. “You got here alright?”
“Man, the traffic at rush hour,” you sighed exasperatedly. “That’s the one thing I’ll never get used to. Almost makes me miss you being my personal chauffeur.”
She laughed. “That’s the only thing I was good for, was it?”
You narrowed your eyes at her teasingly. “Not just that.”
Leah wasn’t sure what you meant entirely with We’ll talk then, but seeing as she was the one who stupidly broke up with you, the balls were entirely in your court. She was just happy you were still willing to talk to her after she called you at 2am to blabber her insomniac nonsense.
She wasn’t courageous enough to sit directly next to you at the dinner table, but rather took the seat next to Katie who sat in front of you. Courage wasn’t something Leah felt much lately, and it took seeing you again for her to admit that. Perhaps she was never brave, but you always made her feel like it anyway.
Everyone loved you, the movie star that graced her team’s humble dinner. She couldn’t help but watch in awe as you managed to charm the pants off of everyone at the table with your witty remarks and crazy anecdotes. You had a presence that made everyone want to be your friend; it made her uncharacteristically shy at trying to get you to notice her, that she resorted to watching you from afar. And the few times you would make eye-contact with her, she could only look away, bashful that she had been caught staring, as her courage dwindling with each gaze.
Later in the night, when everyone was scattered around the house chatting, she found you sitting alone on the patio. Upon closer look, she could make out a smaller, fluffy unit in the form of Myle, Beth and Viv’s little pup, prancing around in front of you, waiting for you to throw the tennis ball in your hand.
The constant sound of the girls’ conversations died down the moment she stepped out in the backyard, now lit with rows of incandescent lights overhead. Myle barked once with excitement as she spotted Leah approaching.
“I think she wants you to throw it,” you handed her the ball.
She grinned and took it. “No one beats Auntie Leah.”
Little Myle was quick to launch herself across the yard on a mission to retrieve her precious artifact.
“I wanted a dog really bad, the first year we started dating.” You said, pulling your knees to your chest as a gust of wind pulled at your hair. “I wanted a little corgi or an Italian greyhound. I spent hours looking for one to adopt and researched food, bills, insurance and stuff.”
“Why didn’t you get one?” Leah asked.
“We haven’t even moved in together at that point. Plus, I was still bouncing around, you knew that.”
She did. You were shooting a movie in Canada the few first months you and her started talking. Then, you were hopping around Spain, Portugal and various parts of the UK for another project. It wasn’t ideal, but still much closer than Canada. You would fly out every other weekend to watch her play, and she would do the same and visit you on-set, moving most things aside for a couple days with you.
“I would have loved a dog, I don’t know about you.”
“I’m sure you would have. You’d probably love it more than me,” you laughed.
“No,” Leah shook her head softly. “Never.”
Summer was approaching. She could feel it in the mildness despite the breeze. For a while, the soft murmur of the wind caressing the trees was all she could hear, and Myle’s occasional huff as she impatiently waited for the ball to be tossed again.
You both sat there watching her, fantasizing of a different life, a dream that never materialized, another fragment of memories again tainted by what-ifs. Leah bit her lip, trying to calm her spiraling thoughts. She felt her courage slipping away again.
“I’m sorry I called you the other day,” she pursed her lips. “That wasn’t very appropriate. I should have asked to talk to you properly.”
“Don’t worry. Wasn’t the worst thing you could’ve done.” She heard you chuckle next to her. “I’ve had some time to think about us. Admittedly, I didn’t want to think about it at all the first few months, but my therapist told me I had to face it one way or another.”
Leah held her breath. This was the part where you tell her that you’d moved on and that she should stop pestering you. One of her knees started bouncing up and down as she waited for you to talk.
“I had to face the fact that you’re the love of my life, and that night I met you and we danced to Hozier together—on the first night we met no less—was the second best night of my life. The best was when you told me you loved me. And the worst night of my life was when you broke up with me.”
“I’m sorry,” Leah whispered, feeling her throat tighten at your confession.
“No,” you said, moving closer. “I don’t regret it. I wasn’t ready when you proposed, and that was my truth. But Leah, I’d be lying if I said that I’d be okay with letting you go again.”
“I should’ve talked to you about marriage before I asked you to marry me. It wasn’t fair on you.” Leah offered you a tearful smile.
“I want to try again. I would do it again for you.” You reached out and wiped away the tears that had silently rolled down her cheeks as she listened to you.
“I thought I’d lost my chance,” she said. “I thought you’d moved on.”
“Oh, baby,” your thumb brushed over her cheek softly. “How could you think I’d ever be able to forget about you?”
She let out a soft cry of relief. Her heart was pounding in her chest, and there was only one thing she thought of doing.
So she leaned in, never minding her wet cheeks. The last thing she saw was you closing your eyes too.
“Oh—sorry!”
The two of you jumped apart at the voice behind you. Leah turned around with a visible scowl on her face, seeing Beth grimace sheepishly as she called for Myle.
“It’s her dinner time. Come, little one, you hungry?” Beth attempted to explain herself, as Myle sprinted inside. “Alright then. As you were.”
The moment the door closed, you burst into laughter, making her break out of her frown and smile with you. “I can’t believe that just happened,” you said, laughing into her shoulder.
“I’m going to kill her,” she shook her head and placed a chaste kiss on your cheek.
She didn’t mind it too much, because she got to take you home later and make up for the last two years until the early hours of the morning. You and her would laugh about it years later.
THIRTEEN. About You.
Your lover never backed down from a challenge.
That was her way, and that was what made her one of the best in her sport, her unrelenting spirit.
Yet, her legs felt like they would turn to jelly the moment she laid her eyes on you at the end of the aisle, umber dirt covered in white rose petals. She felt like drowning in her emotions which had all risen to the surface, and the waves would only plunge her further into itself until she was completely immobilized by it. But she knew once she was able to pull herself together and walk to you on the other end of that path, heaven would be waiting for her.
The officiate went on and on about love, life, and promises of forever, but she had made that promise to you long before this day. She kissed you fervently the moment she was able to.
It only seemed fitting that the first chapter of your story began with a dance, and the most important one to also end with a dance. She offered you a hand, and you gladly took it, a childish giggle bubbling in your throat. The song you danced to the first night you met rang out in the venue, a soft and folksy tune the backdrop of your falling in love.
“It’s not so bad, is it?” She said with a teasing grin.
You gazed into her eyes like they held the world. You had no idea that her heart beat for you, how her soul yearned for yours, how her life will not forever be intertwined with yours.
You closed your eyes and hummed, swaying with her slowly, just like you’d practiced at home a couple of weeks ago, only that instead of the four walls of your shared home baring witness to this dance, it was all your friends and families.
Memories of the first night you met, and the one in which she promised you her heart bubbled as she saw the serene look in your face. You both have come so far.
You placed your head on her chest for all to see, the way you do when you are tired after long hours of work in front of the camera, when all you wanted was the magic and warmth of her company.
Leah smiled; she couldn’t stop smiling. She smiled and smiled until her cheeks ached, even beyond then, until forever.
“No,” you mumbled. “Not bad at all.”
a/n: happy holidays to everyone :)
#leah williamson x reader#leah williamson imagine#leah williamson imagines#leah williamson x you#leah williamson angst#woso fanfics#woso imagines#woso x reader#engwnt x reader#beth mead#vivianne miedema#viv miedema#kyra cooney cross
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Coconut (Obey Me!)
━━━━━━━━━━ ✦ ━━━━━━━━━━
You got a coconut and need help opening it. You decide to ask your favorite guy. Does he fail or succeed?
��Characters: Demon Bros + Dateables
»Tags: Shitpost, Humor, Mammon's At It Again, Levi Is My Fave
Lucifer:
"Hand it over."
He's heard of coconuts but never seen one up close
Gently tosses it in his hand for a feel
Hmph this will be easy
ItWasNot.png
Had to pull out the old worst cursed magic he could think of
It didn't work
The many cursed tools in the dungeons also didn't work
Sweating angry mess...how's it not open!?
Angrily chucks it through the wall
It knocked out a poor unsuspecting Levi
"I will get you literally anything else you desire that's not that."
Mammon:
"Why's it furry?"
"What do ya mean you're s'pose to eat it?"
He didn't understand why you wanted this thing but he wasn't going to let his human down
Got upset that his attempts did nothing, however he hatched an idea
Got a booth at the carnival
"Pay up and test ya strength! How tough are ya!? HEY YOU! YOU'RE NOT A WIMP ARE YA?"
After hundreds of tries from monsters and demons, the coconut finally split open
He brought it back to you (wearing new bling and all)
"The Great Mammon never disappoints! Also...can ya get me more of 'em?"
Levi:
"Wooaahh a coconut!? I've seen these in so many anime beach episodes!"
The otaku was excited you came to him for help!
He was going to get it open one way or another!
He tried for an hour before sending you off
"I'll come find you when I open it!"
It would be years before he returns
(You lived in the Devildom after the program)
He journeyed through the Devildom in search of knowledge for his quest
He developed surprising friendships, suffered painful losses, but also discovered a new meaning to life
He did eventually find a way to open the coconut
He came back home wizard style
"I bring you that of which you requested"
"Levi no one knew where you went, you were just gone! We were worried!"
"I got your coconut open though! Quest complete!"
He thought the hugs and kisses from you were worth it, the coconut must've meant a lot to you!
I love him so much yall
Satan:
"A coconut? I've only ever read about them. Bring it here."
Gave it a few curious knocks
This will be easy 2.0
Tried to peel it and saw it did nothing
Tried to karate chop it, still nothing
He chuckled and a black aura surrounded him
I see.
He tried punching it and then clawing at it for a while
There is no god, just nothingness
He lost his shit in demon form
His rampage destroyed a chunk of the house
Coconuts are no longer allowed at the House of Lamentation
Like you can't even say the word coconut
Asmo:
"What is that?"
He did not want to touch whatever that thing was
He saw the disappointed look in your face and changed his mind
He tried to break it open in half with his bare hands but it was futile
Why is this thing so tough?
He was not having it, he was going to open your precious coconut!
"MAMMON!"
He could only think of one other way
A grumbling Mammon appeared
"Just stand there a second will you?"
He knocked the coconut against his head (HEY!) and the coconut split open!
It did break one of his manicured nails though but he thought the happiness on your face was worth it
Beel:
"Did you bring more?" (You did)
Was excited to try a human world fruit
Tried to break it in half with his hands
Was surprised when it didn't...but no worries!
He briefly bared his fangs and gave a sharp bite
It made a little opening and he was then able to split it with his hands
He was happy trying something new with you and was excited for future recipes
Yeah...no struggles here ajsjdlgkskdldk
Belphie:
"Huh? You want me to open that?"
He was surprised but flattered you'd go to him
He wasn't even sure what that thing was
He tried to strangle it but just couldn't get it to open
Then he tried to threaten it
Still didn't work
Was exhausted at this point and thought a well deserved nap was needed
You found him clinging to the coconut like a plushie
You never got it back
Diavolo:
"Oh what a cute little silly fruit!"
He thought it looked precious!
Of course he would open it for you!
After a few minutes of trying to get the thing open, he was getting flustered
This can't be from the human realm? It's...it's diabolical!
He gave a sad pout and tried a *different* approach
"Please little one, open up will you?" He politely begged the unforgiving fruit
It magically split open and he triumphantly gave you your coconut back!
...Still not sure how that works but it's probably just... a Dia thing LMAO
Barbatos:
"I would be happy to. Although can you pick it up in say 30 min? I have another task to attend to."
He traveled to the human realm and picked up some chopped coconut and fresh coconut juice for you
He's a demon of many talents
He's also a demon of many secrets
He's never mastered the art of opening human world coconuts but he wasn't going to let you or anyone else know that!
He gave you a beautifully arranged plate and fancy jar
Simeon:
"I can try."
He knew of coconuts but never touched one
He tried knocking it a few times but it didn't work
He tried to remain calm as he tried a few other methods
Burn it. Burn it Simeon.
No just ignore the voice
After one more attempt he lost his cool
He had quite a colorful vocabulary
Threw dangerous celestial magic spears at the indestructible fruit
Luke freaked out and knocked him out in panic
Luke was quite frightened and didn't trust coconuts after Simeons rage
Simeon hates when they refer to it as The Incident™️
Solomon:
"Sure! I will handle it."
He's opened a few in his lifetime
He found a way to get it open every time!
He gingerly touched the coconut
So we meet again
He took the coconut and chucked it fiercely against the wall
He smirked at the small shattered pieces
He thought back on the first coconut he ever had the displeasure of meeting...he will never be made a fool again
You decided to buy coconut juice instead
»Note: Imagine you ask Belphie to open a banana and he just immediately strangles the thing, like is that just how he opens things?? Yep, a new headcanon acquired!
⬦You might also like: Mexican Restaurant︱Waffle House︱Devil-Mart⭐
#obey me shitpost#obey me#obey me shall we date#obey me lucifer#obey me mammon#obey me satan#obey me asmodeus#obey me beelzebub#obey me belphegor#obey me diavolo#obey me barbatos#obey me simeon#obey me solomon#obey me crack#I'm such a simp for levi and dia aaaaaaaaaaa#obey me leviathan#obey me headcanons#◇˖・ﾟ— › cosmic obey me . ⊹#shitpostcifer
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Love You Better (Pt 3/5)
Dean Winchester x Reader
The distance between you and Dean starts to take a toll. How much longer can the tension between the two of you continue before it snaps? And can your relationship survive his insecurities
I think only warnings are cursing and some sort of talk about sex
You weren't sure what exactly had woke you up. You blinked a couple times to let your eyes adjust to the darkness in the room. Nothing was out of place and you could hear Sam's snores coming from the adjoining room. You laid there a second before you heard Dean barely whisper your name.
You turned over to face him and saw in his face he was in pain. He looked broken even asleep. You gently touched his arm "Dean?" He jolted awake, green eyes wide as he took a few breaths. He finally focused on you so you asked if he was ok. He nodded "Yeah, I'm good" you knew he was lying but you also knew pushing it wouldn't work. "You called my name in your sleep. Bad dream?" He nodded quickly "The usual, you getting hurt" if you had been anyone else you would've believed that but there was a hesitation in his eyes, his touch that told you there was more.
You moved closer to him and laid your head over on his chest "Well try to get more sleep. I'm right here" he smiled but it didn't even reach his eyes. He leaned down and pressed a feather light kiss to your lips before settling back onto the pillows.
You were worried about him. You needed to ask Sam about the fallout from the time he'd gotten poisoned by a Djinn before, maybe call Charlie too since she'd dealt with it. After a moment of listening his heart beat under your ear you felt sleep nipping at your mind to pull you back under.
Dean watched as you told Jax goodbye. He still wasn't sure of the reason the two of you had split. If he was being honest Jax was a decent guy and from what he'd seen and heard had damn near worshiped the ground you walked on.
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You hugged Jax and he whispered into your ear "You and Dean are a good fit" you pulled back and smiled "I'd like to think so" then motioned around the garage "This place seems to be doing well, I'm happy for you"
He nodded over to where Dean was leaning against the impala talking to Sam "Looks like we both landed where we were meant to" you hugged him once more before saying "Don't be a stranger"
-------
He walked you over to the impala and offered his hand to Dean first. When Dean shook it he smiled "Was good working with you again Dean. Take care man" Dean nodded "You too"
Jax shook Sam's hand too and thanked him for the help before the three of you decided to hit the road home.
-------------
You'd gotten about sixty miles from Austin and Dean was being a little distant still. You weren't sure what was wrong. He'd even let a few songs you knew he loved pass without so much as drumming along on the steering wheel. You cut your eyes up at Sam to see if he'd noticed but his eyes were on his phone screen checking emails.
You let out a breath then leaned up between the two of them to kiss Dean on the cheek "if you want me to drive I promise I can treat her right. You didn't sleep too well last night" he shook his head but a slight smile pulled at his lips "I'm good sweetheart"
You nodded and leaned back in the seat, he'd talk to you eventually. You had to trust that.
Dean walked up the steps to Bobby's porch. He could hear the sound of music from inside. Certain things stuck out as feeling out of place. Like the junkyard had organization to it, the paint on the house was fresh and wasn't peeled anywhere not to mention the flowers blooming in the garden.
The nagging at the back of his mind grew worse but he pushed it down. He knew where he was, this was Bobby's there was no way anything too much was wrong. He hesitated with his hand on the knob and before he could turn it the door opened and there you stood.
"Sweetheart I think something is wrong" your eyes widened slightly but you nodded "What do you mean Dean?" Then looked around behind him "Where's Lisa? Did she get called into work last minute?" The confusion he felt he knew was visible on his face "Lisa?" Before he could question further he heard Jax's voice calling your name. The man in question came into view behind you and nodded to Dean before slipping an arm around your waist "Baby what's going on?"
Dean could feel his blood boiling as you turned to look up at Jax "I don't know. Dean was saying something was wrong and Lisa couldn't make it" Dean motioned between the two of you "What is going on?"
Your smile faltered slightly "We're celebrating Jax opening up two more garages across Texas. You don't remember?" He shook his head "I think I need to sit down" you stepped out of Jax's embrace to offer him a hand but he shook his head again "I'm good"
You stepped back to let him past you and he heard you tell Jax to go get some water and Ellen? Ellen was alive?
You followed Dean into the living room and sat next to him on the couch, your eyes full of worry "Should I call Lisa? Sam should be here soon" He shook his head and started to ask what was going on but noticed a ring on your left hand. His heart clenched in his chest as he motioned to it "That new?" You looked down at the ring then smiled brightly "We were gonna tell everyone over dinner but yes, Jax proposed last night"
He stared at you for a long second "How long have you two been together?" Your eyes furrowed slightly before you said "Dean did something happen? An accident or something?" He shrugged "I don't think so" you nodded slowly then said "Remember me and you had a fling but then after that wreck that we got into with Sam and Bobby I don't know I guess we started pulling away from each other. You ended up getting back with Lisa then Jax asked me out. That was God six years ago now?"
He felt like the room got ten degrees hotter, he could feel his chest tightening "So you and him have been together that whole time?" You nodded slowly "Im gonna call Lisa ok?" He watched you stand to walk away and knew this wasn't right.
--------------------
Lisa had ended up actually being at work but apparently everyone stayed at Bobby's when you landed in town? Which meant Bobby and Ellen were downstairs in their bedroom while Sam and Jess were in one room, you and Jax were in another and Dean was supposed to take the third room until Lisa could join him.
He couldn't sleep, you weren't supposed to be with Jax. You were supposed to be with him. Of course the sound of Sam and Jess having sex wasn't helping either. He eventually gave up and decided to head downstairs, he took a deep breath before walking past the room you and Jax were in.
When he heard you moan loudly it took everything he had not to break the door down and kill that son of a bitch.
"Dean!" You were on your knees in the bed shaking his arm, trying to get him to wake up. He was having a nightmare that much was clear. He'd been saying your name then his hands were balled into fists tight enough you were afraid he'd hurt himself.
When his eyes opened you ducked back to give him room to breath "Baby are you ok?" He stared at the ceiling for a second before nodding "Yeah, I'm good"
You watched him for a while before he finally sat up, leaning back against the headboard. The sheet pooled around his waist as he did so. He'd gone to bed wearing sleep pants and a tshirt which made you question why he'd been wearing a shirt when he normally didn't.
A slight smirk that was a ghost of his usual one played at his lips "Quick staring sweetheart. You know what I look like under these clothes" you felt your cheeks warm for feeling like an overly hormonal teenager. A couple days had passed since you'd been home from Texas and you were used to yours and Dean's sex life being a usual thing. It didn't bother you when you had reason but you were starting to wonder if something had happened you didn't know about.
"Excuse me for you being gorgeous there Dean" he shook his head at your words but smiled nonetheless "Come here" he held out an arm so you moved closer to him, ducking your head against his clothed chest "Are you sure you're ok?" You asked quietly "I'm ok" he replied and leaned down to press a kiss onto your lips. It was just a touch of a kiss but enough to take your breath away. God you were in love with him and seeing him like this was breaking your heart.
When you cut your eyes up at him he smiled "Let's get some sleep" you nodded and laid down against the pillows and he laid down behind you so you reached for his arm and pulled it around your waist before falling back asleep.
You woke up the next morning and felt Dean's hand had slipped under the shirt you'd worn to bed and had cupped one of your breast in his sleep. You didn't want to move in fear of waking him because this was the most intimate touch you'd had with him since before the three of you had gone to Texas.
You missed his touch. He'd been barely kissing you. You felt him stir behind you and tried to stifle a moan when you felt his erection around your ass. He rolled his hips into yours and laughed as he moved his hand to pinch at your nipple" Good morning"
---------
You were like putty in Dean's hands, always had been. As he teased at your breast you shifted back into him, rubbing back against him "Are you feeling better?" You asked and he nodded biting down gently on your pulse point. You let out a moan and felt him freeze behind you. "Dean?" You turned and he smiled "I forgot we gotta help Jody do some stuff today. Better get up now so we can start getting stuff together to hit the road"
You watched him grab clothes and adjust himself in his pants before he came over to give you a quick kiss "Be back in a few" you watched him walk out and fought the urge to cry. What had you done to make him not want you?
The sound of your moan rang through Dean's head. He should've ignored it, pushed through and give both of you the pleasure from being together you desperately needed but he could still hear you moaning Jax's name, the sounds of flesh hitting flesh and Jax praising your body.
He let the water rush over his face in the shower hoping maybe to wash it away. He didn't want to lose you because of this. He wanted to be selfish and just bury himself inside of you but the doubt remained what if you didn't love him like he loved you? He couldn't blame you, you deserved better but how the fuck was he even supposed to face that maybe you didn't want him like he wanted you?
@marimarvelfan @suckitands33 @sushiumex @janineb86 @nix-rose @ladysparkles78 @globetrotter28 @holdingontil-may @freewastelandstrawberry @jackles010378 @stillhere197 @cat-loves-music @marvelfanfn2187a113 @that1nerd-20 @foxyjwls007
#dean winchester x reader#dean winchester x female!reader#supernatural fanfiction#spn fanfiction#dean winchester fanfiction#love you better mini series
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Good Luck, Babe!
Harry Styles x Fem!reader
Summery: Harry could run around the world in search of a replacement to fill the void that you left, but he’s better off coming to terms with the fact that he’d have to stop the world just to stop the feeling.
I’m okay knowing I won’t ever get to call my future lover my high school sweetheart. It’s hard to stay committed to someone for decades as an adult, let alone at sixteen. But it pulls at my heart strings just to know little me would be so devastated knowing the boy who used to string up fairy lights and scribble on big bubbles letters on poster boards for our prom decided I was too boring for his massive life and left once the glitter from all the glamour of fame got in his eyes.
It’s funny to think about, ten years thrown away forever because my stable life wasn’t worth living when he could offer me anything I could ever dream of. God forbid I want to settle down with some little ones to teach nothing but love in a world where everyone can only ever teach their children hate. God forbid I wanted that with him.
No, my dreams were stupid compared to those of his own. Children mean nothing to him if he’s not taking home another award for his excellence. Settling down is a laughable dream, how could I expect him to ever even try when it seemed like with every single chance to start trying he was at a new peak in his career.
When I left him, he didn’t even look sad. Not even when I turned to face him as I walked out of our front door with all my things stuffed in a bag slung over my arm. He looked distant, sure, but not sad and that made me sad, for me but mainly for him.
Three years ago if I had even shown signs of unhappiness he would have stopped the world to fix our issues, ironed it all out real nice to make sure that I never felt that feeling again. Now I could beg on my knees pleading for him to hear me and my cries would fall on deaf ears.
But I don’t regret leaving him in the end. It hurt at first, leaving behind all I ever knew, letting him go after I wasted away all my youth on him, but life goes on and my heart would heal the longer we were apart.
Occasionally he would reach out, letters with the same swooping letters that I recognized as his own handwriting, the same writing that once wrote me love letters, all addressed to me with the hopes of meeting up.
But I knew myself better than that, I knew Harry better than that. If I met him, even only for coffee our night would end with me back in his arms and his head between my legs. We weren’t ever meant to split, but then again no one who’s ever felt the same kind of love like young kids is ever made to walk away from something so sweet.
I was better for it, between each letter there was a new girl. A model who resembled me in the most vague ways. I wondered all the time if he ever accidentally called any of them my name. If he chose them with my eye color so when he looked into their eyes he could see mine for just a second. It felt like each week he was caught leaving some bar with some other girl, someone else’s lipstick staining his jaw.
I got over him slowly, never fully, but enough to love again. I had room to give once more and enough strength left to keep fighting for the love I deserved. I earned the right to be able to hold someone who would call me “baby” with pride, without the slightest hesitation or embarrassment.
Harry could kiss a hundred girls and boys in bars, drink away his twenties and sing to his fans across the world, and I would be here chasing my own dreams. After all, he always needed the spotlight, he lived for it. All I needed was a little love, and somehow in his search for glory, he lost any kind of that he had and I had found it again.
I saw Harry a couple years later, the small bar in Brooklyn with the good music and sweaty bodies. He looked good, he always did. His hair looked a little grey and I must admit, I almost drooled, but looks were the only attraction I would ever feel for him. Emotionally, I was cut off, even when he leaned up close and pressed me into a bone crushing hug.
With a cool smile on his face he asked me confidently what I was doing here and how I’d been. I told him a friend of a friend had invited me along to come celebrate an old friend’s birthday, that I didn’t really want to drink tonight and was just trying to enjoy myself.
I could see his hesitation when an arm slung itself over my shoulders, curly brown hair tickling my cheek and a kind smile flashing towards him and somehow in our conversation, I forgot the most important update in my life, one I’d make sure he’d never forget.
“Who’s this?” He asked kindly, ready to introduce himself even though we were all well aware everyone in the room knew him by name.
“Oh, Harry, how rude of me!” I laughed at the time, but I’m still not sure if he could hear it over the music. I hope he did, because it would have been the last time he would hear it.
“Harry, this is my girlfriend.”
#harry styles x reader#harry styles x y/n#harry styles x you#harry styles imagine#harry styles fluff#harry styles angst#yn x harry#harry x reader#harrystyles#harr
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Not a Damsel
(Eventual) Elijah Mikaelson x Reader
After worries about you being gone on a hunt for longer than expected Elijah decides to track you down. Could seeing the fact first hand that you're not a Damsel needing saving make him more willing to face his developing feelings?
“She's on a hunt Elijah! I can't control how long it takes. She'll call if she needs assistance but she is more than capable of handling herself” You'd left a couple days before on a hunt and your name had been the main subject of conversation between Rebekah and Elijah.
While she understood that this was your life, your choice to live it how you seemed fit. She knew that she had no right to try to change your mind on something you'd done most of your life and trusted that you would summon help in whatever form you deemed fit should you need it.
Elijah had somehow gotten it into his head that you wouldn't make it back to New Orleans this time despite you having made multiple trips out of town since coming into Rebekah's and by proxy the rest of the Mikaelson's lives. “And if something happens that she can't call for help?”
“Hunters have a tight knit network. Even if something was to happen they would ensure she was avenged” Klaus spoke from the doorway having come in on the tail end of the conversation. The idea of you simply being avenged didn't sit right with Elijah.
He wasn't sure where this sudden worry was stemming from. Since the night of the ball you'd gone from an acquaintance to something more. He found himself looking forward to seeing you. The sound of your heartbeat was one he could pick out of a crowd.
Your laughter warmed something inside of him, coming home to you lounging on one of the couches gossiping with Rebekah, making tea in the kitchen or even dancing with Kol as he'd witnessed a time or two had ingrained in him a need for your presence.
“Or is there something else bothering our dear brother besides the worry for her safety?” Klaus asked Rebekah who smiled “I believe you may be on to something” “Enough, children” Elijah grumbled but was already considering his options. He could locate you easily enough, ensure to himself that you were fine but how would you react? And why did he feel the need to go to such extremes over you? He shook his head in an attempt to clear his thoughts. You were a longtime hunter you could handle yourself as Rebekah had said but he'd rather reassure himself.
The air was knocked out of you when your back hit the mausoleum but you didn't have the luxury of recovery time. Normally Okami didn't hunt in pairs but lucky you it just so happened you stumbled across one.
Their snack of choice? The recently widowed. It'd taken you two days to pinpoint their next victim and you'd nearly been too late to his wife's grave to stop them.
You'd gotten Benjamin Mallory out of the crosshairs and taken down one of them but the remaining one was pissed that you'd not only killed her mate but ruined her supper. She advanced on you so you dodged one of her blows and somehow managed to block another, landing a few of your own.“Bitch” you grumbled when she caught you with a hard kick to your stomach.
A thought occurred to you so you stayed doubled, hoping she'd take the bait and she did. She moved faster than you would've liked but when she grabbed your shoulder you managed to drive the bamboo dagger home, quickly stabbing her the seven times needed.
When her body fell away you started to look around to make sure Benjamin had gotten the hell out of there but you felt the tattoo on your shoulder jump with electricity. Fuck, that meant something else was nearby.
—--------------
Elijah had started to intervene, knowing he could quickly dispose of the Okami but what stopped him was the fact that there was a beauty in the way you fought, raw aggression and the need to protect whoever the beast had been hunting. Your lip was split just enough that the scent of your blood hung on the air but the look in your eyes even when it appeared your enemy had the upper hand was so damn alluring. He chose to wait knowing he could save you if the tides turned.
You took a hard kick to the stomach and he'd moved to inject himself into the fight but the moment the Okami laid a hand on your shoulder you moved relatively fast for a human, shoving a bamboo dagger into her heart. Once you shoved the body away you braced your hands against your knees to catch your breath but suddenly you bolted up looking around.
He saw your hand go to your side and knew you were going for another weapon even before you called out “Who or whatever is watching come on out and play. Don't lurk in the shadows”
That was his clue to leave. He wasn't even sure himself what had lead him here so how could he explain it to you?
—----------
You stood there for a while before the feeling went away. Maybe you were being paranoid. You checked your watch and breathed a sigh of relief if you went ahead and disposed of the bodies you could get on the road and be back in New Orleans by the time the sun was coming up. Sleeping in your own bed versus a ratty hotel room or curling up in your Nova sounded good right about now. You glanced around once more than bent to grab the arms of the first Okami. Yeah you still had an hour or two worth of work ahead of you.
Two days later you were with Rebekah at one of the many cafes that lined the streets of New Orleans. You'd slept in that morning and she'd called a half dozen times before you agreed to meet her.
You were laughing at some story of when Klaus and Kol were honest to God teenagers when you felt electricity tingle through your tattoo much the way it had in the cemetery after the Okami fight right Elijah walked up to the table.
You glanced up at him and wondered if there was a connection but pushed that thought down when she spoke your name. Damn the way it sounded on his lips. “Elijah” you greeted which earned a smile from him “I see you made it back unscathed” you touched a finger to where your lip had gotten split “Mainly but a few bruises being the worst part is always a good thing”
Rebekah glanced at him before saying “I told you the worry was for nothing” you looked from her to him and knew your eyebrows were probably meeting your hairline by that point “Worry? Aw, were you worried about me?”
He shot a glare at Rebekah before saying “Perhaps a bit” you couldn't help but smile “Thank you for caring enough to worry but don't, I chose this life” “Doesn't mean those you've welcomed into it aren't allowed the luxury to have concern for your well being” you nodded at his answer “True but don't worry the Mikaelsons will have a harder time than that getting rid of me”
Elijah and Rebekah both spoke over each other when they said “Good to know” you laughed then motioned to the chair to your right “Care to join us?” Elijah shook his head “and interrupt your day more than I already have? No. I just wanted to say hello” you smiled “ok. I'll see you later then”
Him and Rebekah held each other's gaze for a long second before he walked away. Once he was out of view you narrowed your eyes at her “Care to explain?” She laughed lightly “Afraid I can't but I can offer you to go shopping if you'd like” you didn't need anything but that was her way of asking to spend more time together so you replied “Sounds like the day is planned then”
It Works
#elijah mikaelson fanfiction#elijah mikaelson x y/n#elijah mikaelson fic#elijah mikaelson x reader#the originals fanfiction
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Chapter Five: Unrequited Lover's Lake (Part One)
The Pariahs That Saved The World [Masterlist]
Word Count: 1.6k
Warnings: mentions of death, vecna's curse, horror flashback (violence)
[A/N: So I've decided to split this chapter in half mostly because I've disappeared lately. I am so sorry I haven't been updating as usual, I have had two rounds of completely different illness (both being types of flu lmao) and I am still recovering but in a much better place than I was! I'll keep everyone updated but as for now, here's the first half of a chapter I promised you guys agessss ago]
Unrequited Lover's Lake (Part One)
“Oh, boom!” Steve suddenly shouts out and Robin watches him push through some bushes, rolling her eyes. “Bada bing, bada boom. There she is, Henderson. Skull Rock.”
“Doesn’t make sense.” Dustin mutters as she and Nancy push through the leaves, looking up at the famous Skull Rock in all of its glory. Robin never really saw the appeal of this place.
“It’s just a dumb rock.” She murmurs out loud and Nancy hums in agreement, looking around.
The leaves rustle again and Robin watches as you and Max step through, sharing a look as she gestures to your face. You quickly turn, raising your hand, and when you turn back, you’re sending a grateful smile and walking away. Robin frowns at the interaction. Were you crying?
“Yeah, yeah. Even with it staring you in the face, you can’t admit it.” Steve boasts, placing his hands on his hips. “You just can’t admit that you’re wrong, you little butthead.”
“I concur.”
You all spin around to where someone had jumped down, a smirk on his face.
“You, Dustin Henderson, are a total butthead.” Eddie announces and the boy goes running to him.
“Jesus, we thought you were a goner.”
“Yeah, me too, man. Me too.” Eddie sighs, patting him on the back. He catches someone else’s eye, pulling away and grinning. “As I live and breathe, Y/n is that you?”
“Couldn’t stay out of trouble just this once?” You chuckle as you share a hug, laughing when he tries to pick you up. “We went to the boathouse, what the hell happened?”
Nothing could really prepare you for what he had to say.
From Jason and his gang finding him, to watching poor Patrick suddenly float out of the water, you all stood around him in silence. You felt the sickening feeling creep up throughout your body until it was stuck in your throat, lurking as a reminder of what you’ve let yourself walk back into.
“Excuse me.” You say to Nancy, brushing against her arm so you could walk away from the group, breathing heavily.
You heard their continued conversations as you leant against a tree, a few steps into the thick expanse of trees, just in their view. Your skin was crawling with goosebumps, your spine shivering under the stress of the situation. You thought you were ready for this, that you could help them and save the people you loved in the process. But you didn’t manage it last time. How was this any different?
July 3rd, 1985
“Nancy…” You shake your head at her as you slowly start walking backwards down the hallway.
“Just stay in position, Y/n.” She hisses at you from behind and you trust her, you really do. But she was foolish to think you were the right person for this.
“I can’t.” You whisper back, tears falling down your face. The lights overhead start to flicker and you grip the metal pole in your hand tighter, praying he doesn’t walk around the corner, that it was all a misunderstanding.
“Just a little longer.” She promises, her soothing voice holding more worth to you than she knows. If only you had seen her face.
Two loud footsteps echo out from around the corner and you hold your breath, waiting for the man to show himself and force every fibre of your body not to run. But it wasn’t him. It was Tom Holloway, Heather’s father, and he was smiling at you.
“Ah, Y/n.” He clicks his neck, smirking, “I knew I’d find you here.”
You shake your head. It wasn’t meant to be him. He was supposed to be dead.
“It’s such a shame no one checked to see if they finished the job.” He laughs, pulling a scalpel you hadn’t even seen protruding from his neck, shrugging when no blood comes rushing out. “Someone should really go check on that poor boy, though. Such a wuss.”
“Nancy.” You try and whisper, but you hear nothing back, only the echo of her retreating footsteps as she rushes to find her boyfriend. You understood, you really did, but you’ve never felt so scared.
“Just the two of us, now.” He clears his throat, walking forward with intent and you hold out the pole. “That won’t do anything.”
“Stay back.” You cry out, noticing how dark the black veins were appearing now. Was Heather like this too? “I’m warning you.”
“Or what? You’ll trick me?” He laughs maniacally, stopping just short of you reaching the end of the hall, the corner just behind you. “Or should I say… us?”
Your eyes widen, but it’s too late. A sharp and searing pain digs into your shoulder and you scream, dropping your only weapon out of shock and jolting forward. You stumble, cradling your shoulder as you spin around on the floor, another pair of soulless eyes staring down at you. A sob leaves your lips.
“Dad?”
“Join us.”
Everything about that day still feels like a nightmare, to the point where you nearly convince yourself none of it was real. Not Tom tricking you, or your father becoming one of those monsters. Especially not Nancy leaving you behind. But that scar etched into your skin reminds you it was all very real. Your dad was dead, Nancy had left you to die, and you were lucky you ever escaped.
You take a deep breath, smoothing your hair away from your face. There wasn’t time for your breakdown right now. Max needed you. The sooner you figured it all out, the sooner this would be over.
Something snaps in the woods behind you and you assume someone has walked over, making you turn with a ready-made lie on your tongue. Except, no one was there.
You weren’t even in the woods anymore.
Robin rubbed her eyes as Steve and Dustin disputed over yet another absurd argument she didn’t fully wrap her head around, watching in amusement as it bounced back and forth between them. This time, Dustin was convinced his compass wasn’t wrong and for once, she was on Steve’s side. It made literally no sense.
“So you’re using faulty equipment.” Steve exasperated. “You’re still wrong!”
“Except it isn’t faulty.” Dustin says and Steve groans, throwing his hands up. “Lucas, do you remember what can affect a compass?”
Lucas ponders for a moment before his eyes widen. “An electromagnetic field.”
“Yep.” Dustin looks at everyone else expectedly and Robin furrows her brows.
“I’m sorry, I must’ve skipped that class.”
“In the presence of a stronger electromagnetic field, the needle will deflect towards that power.” Dustin explains, motioning to the woods with his hand. “So either there’s some super big magnet around here, or…”
“There’s a gate.” Lucas concludes and Robin’s eyes widen.
“But we’re nowhere near the lab.” Nancy says and Dustin nods at her.
“But what if, somehow, there’s another gate? A gate that we don’t know about. It’d have to be smaller. Way less powerful.”
“Snack-size gate.” Robin offers and he clicks his finger at her.
“All I know if that something is causing this disturbance, and the last time we’ve seen anything like it, it was a gate. And I hope it is, because then we’d have a way to Vecna. And a shot at freeing Max from this curse.”
And with that Dustin turns around and starts walking, making Robin bat at Steve’s arm until he took notice too.
“Wha- Oh, where are you going? Hey, hey, hey-” He calls out for attention and Dustin unwillingly stops, looking back at him. “Eddie’s still a wanted man. We can’t just go for a hike in the woods.”
“This little steel capsule might be the key to saving both Max and Eddie. What say you, Eddie the Banished?” Dustin asks and Robin smirks, looking to you to share in her amusement. She blinks. You weren’t there.
She looks around again as Eddie responds, frowning like she might just be going blind.
“Uh, guys?” She tries, but her voice seems distant as she peers around the rock, through the trees, anywhere.
“So Mordor it is.” Eddie finally decides, shrugging when Steve looks at him weird.
“Guys!” She finally raises her voice and they all look at her inquisitively, noting her worried face. “Where’s Y/n?”
“She was just…” Nancy motions over to where you were just stood by the tree. The look on her face made Robin’s stomach plummet. “Y/n?”
Everyone starts looking around, shouting out for you, but they don’t hear any kind of response. Robin and Nancy venture further in, calling your name like you might just walk towards them completely fine. But Robin knew from the pit in her stomach that wasn’t the case. She just can’t believe she didn’t notice you had disappeared.
“Robin!” Nancy suddenly calls and Robin runs over as quickly as she can, careful not to trip up on protruding tree roots as she joins her.
The girl is knelt on the ground, holding a body and for a second her heart stops. It’s you.
And then you blink, looking a little dazed.
“I just saw her collapse.” Nancy says, her voice shaking. “Robin, look.”
She looks to where her friend is pointing and her breath hitches, slowly letting herself sink to the ground as you finally mutter a few words from lips beneath a crimson nosebleed.
“The gate.” You whisper out, trying to sit up and grabbing Robin’s arm when you felt weak. “I know… I know where the gate is.”
Robin meets Nancy’s fearful eye, her blood running cold. She hated to admit it, but all the signs were pointing to one thing and one thing only.
Vecna had cursed you, too.
taglist: @kryztalglear . @dejerw . @officerrrfriendly . @a-simpfortessa-lesbriean . @spacedoutdaydreamer . @endurexxsurvive . @em16cor . @gray-cheese . @chaosofmanyfandoms . @kitdjarin1 . @some-day--some-how @cultish-corner
#stranger things#stranger things x reader#fanfic#stranger things reader insert#robin buckley x fem!reader smut#robin buckley x reader#robin buckley#robin x reader#robin buckley fanfic#robin buckley x female reader#fanfics#sapphic fic
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Did you like cc3 or love? Neither?
oh hello, why don't you pull up a chair because I have finished this book and I have Thoughts. I was thinking for a good chunk of this book that I would give it 2 stars. I still might. It depends on how it sits with me over the next couple of weeks. I ended up giving it 3 because I did enjoy some parts.
I will start with the more positive thoughts.
I am glad that the crossover was limited. One of my fears was that the series be unavoidably intertwined from here on out, so that pleases me.
I really did like seeing how Nesta has grown, her friendship with Azriel, and seeing more interesting things with his powers! That was really neat.
I did laugh out loud a couple of times, at points where I was supposed to laugh out loud. I think Tharion is dumb as hell but he made me chuckle.
The scene with Ithan and Sabine towards the end was good, I was like Gordon Ramsay, finally, some delicious fucking consequences.
Ummm... I like Ruhn and Lidia still. They had some silly moments, but overall they are the only characters in this book that I still have a shred of respect for. Maybe Perry and Sathia. Everyone else is on thin fucking ice.
Shout out to the one (1) line Bryce said that I liked: “I’m sick and tired of people using 'girl' as an insult.”
Unfortunately, the list of things I didn't like is far longer. I'm actually going to put it under the cut if people don't want their enjoyment spoiled or simply don't care.
In my opinion, sjm is a good storyteller, and an okay writer. This book really, really highlighted that for me. The plotting was a mess, I was constantly going back a page because I was confused about what was going on, there were weird inconsistencies that only made sense if you stepped back from the book and thought "well, the author needed that to happen, I guess."
There were some typos and word choice errors that should have been caught - "every muscle in Bryce's body went taught" and then a missing quotation mark (But it was Aidas who answered, pride flaring on his face. Apollion slew her with his Helfire when she attacked him—he pulled her burning heart from her chest and ate it.”). Not to mention the 255 "could have sworns" and 50-something "as if". I noticed a few similar phrases to this. If I'm feeling spicy one day maybe I will go back and find them.
The number of times she says "by whatever power" or "somehow" in a book where she has spent a lot of time explaining the power, and we should know what the "somehow" is???
Who in the ever loving fuck thinks that splitting up two tense scenes by cutting them into bite sized pieces and then interspersing them together is a good idea???
There were multiple times when I laughed out loud at scenes that were not meant to be funny, because they just seemed so dumb. Like... Ithan "accidentally" beheading Sigrid. Excuse me?? lmao (I edited this one because in my annoyance I misrepresented that a bit)
The tone was so, so off. That was a big source of my inappropriate laughing. Like, Hunt thanking Urd that he had such a loyal, fierce badass mate. Or a chapter starting with Ruhn saying "nah". I think this is because the genre could not decided what it wanted to be. SJM was still writing like this was high fantasy, but then used the word "like" in the way that I use the word "like". I do get that this is urban fantasy and she tried to smush it with a high fantasy (a high fantasy with very little world building, but still), but I really do not think that this genre serves sjm's style of storytelling. At all.
Dear powers that be in whatever heaven that exists, please stop letting sjm describe every single character as the most strongest beautiful fiercest loyal badass tough unflenching etc etc etc. I fucking beg. One of the big reasons that I dislike pretty much every character in this series is that they ALL HAVE THE SAME PERSONALITY.
Bryce is annoying as hell. I could write a whole essay on her but she is easily my least favorite sjm character EVER.
I am bitter at feeling like I needed to read this book when, after hosab, I would have given up on this series if not for the crossover.
The crossover really did feel like a "teehee I can do this because I want to" with very, very little thought as to how it would actually make sense. A crossover like this should NOT be done by someone who doesn't outline, and who pantses their writing. Pantsing is fine in itself! Pantsers should be barred from writing this kind of book.
Hunt's dick is too big for his underwear.
#hofas#hofas spoilers#house of flame and shadow spoilers#Leslie reads hofas#house of flame and shadow#sjm critical
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Haunted (Cato x Reader)
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Part 11
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A/N: I have been writing like a word a day I am struggling to find happiness and motivation in writing so I apologize for any delay. Hope everyone is doing okay out there!
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Y/n’s POV
The subtle shift immediately caused your eyes to spring open. You stayed frozen, hoping he you still needed to actually wake up. That this was all a dream of some kind and you hadn’t actually had the nerve to trap Cato by falling asleep on him.
Yeah, right. Life has never been that kind to you. You slowly unglue yourself from his shoulder and take even longer to face him. Before the apology leaves your lips, Cato interrupts.
“Did you sleep okay?”
The question takes you by surprise. The genuine concern in his voice makes it hard to discern whether or not he is upset at your clear disregard for boundaries. “I’m sorry… I didn’t think I was that tired. You were probably uncomfortable.”
“Actually, I don’t think I’ve slept that good since before the games.”
“Me either.” The realization finally hits you. This is the second time you’ve felt safe enough to let your guard down. You wondered if it was simply because your body knew there was someone else next to you. Part of you wondering, if it only applied to Cato. No. Things were complicated enough as it is. You look up again to find him intently staring and realize he seems to waiting for a reaction.
“I should go meet Katniss.”
You don’t wait for a response and dash up the stairs into your room. You begin regretting not taking one of the rooms on the first floor. You figured you’d be able to hear if anything stormed in. Give you more time to escape. Your brothers had tried to convince you everything was alright, to take the larger room. You almost had another episode when they decided to split the room. You shouldn’t have been such a coward. Now, you realized, you had to walk past almost every room. And that simply, was not an option. You’d probably woken everyone up. Your face felt warm at the thought of anyone seeing you and Cato in the living room. You threw the window open and hoped the cool air would help you figure out how to breathe again. You debated figuring out how to climb down to the first floor before deciding to get through this as quickly as you could.
You change as quickly as you can and do your best to pretend your heart isn’t racing a million miles a minute. The usually long hallway seemed to stretch even farther than normal. You walked and pretended you didn’t notice Cato and Enobaria in the kitchen. Pretended you didn’t hear their voices go silent as your footsteps approached. Pretended you didn’t see Cato and Enobaria stare as you walked by. Pretended as if their gazes didn’t burn through your facade as you hurried to get out of the house.
You had slept enough to know Katniss would be in the woods by now. You tracked her easily enough, and was glad to see Madge there as well. You didn’t want to talk about Cato’s plan you had decided to follow through on. You had debated it since you saw her and Gale, but really the less people knew the better. Than again, you told her about your act for Peeta…No. Even if she figured out it was an act, and she likely would, it was better you kept her out of the loop in case Snow decided to press for answers. More believable.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to sleep in.”
“Sorry? You haven’t slept in in more than a month at this point. I’d say she earned it, wouldn’t you Katniss?”
“She’s right.” Katniss grumbled, “How did you manage to finally sleep?”
Start planting the seeds, Y/n. “I decided to watch some cheesy capitol movies with…one of the victors. And I fell asleep on the couch.”
Katniss stared for a moment but shrugged. Neither of the girls pressed further. Thank God. You knew Katniss caught the pause in your response. She knew if you didn’t say anything it was because it was not meant to be shared with anyone else, even Gale. Damn. If you needed anyone to support your fake relationship it was Gale. He was popular enough at school people would agree with whatever he said, and you could only assume his character extended to the people he worked with in the mines. You knew this was easier said than done. Gale was no fan of showing any kind of performance for the Capitol, and he’d be less likely to support anything with a career. You had to convince Katniss what you were doing was real, or real enough so she could convince him to play nice for the cameras.
After collecting some strawberries with Madge while Katniss shot some wild turkeys it was time to head back. Checking any snares on the way back. A few rabbits to add to the pile. This would be a good haul for Katniss and Gale’s families. Madge split off first, paying Katniss for the strawberries, though she was met with some resistance.
“You picked those yourself Madge.”
“Its for being protection out there. I don’t plan on going out there by myself.” She pressed the money into her hands and walked off before Katniss could argue farther.
“She makes a good point.” You offer
“It feels like I haven’t earned it.”
“Believe me you earned it.” Katniss’s lips twitched ever so slightly, the closest you usually get to a smile. “Going to trade the turkeys?”
She nodded and the two of you headed towards the hob. Stopping to drop the two rabbits off at Hazels, and one at her own home. You let her do her usual trading done, while you eat buy you both some food from Greasy Sae.
“So where are you hiding your mentor?”
“You brought Cato here?”
You smile at the older woman, “I did, he said it was some of the best food he’s ever tasted. He’ll be so upset I didn’t bring him.”
You wink at Sae and she chuckles before going back to her business, Katniss is analyzing your words. Unsure of what to make of everything, you’re sure. She doesn’t ask any other questions and you start to worry about whether she would say anything else. You both eat in silence, only thanking Greasy Sae when you both finish.
“Are you going to see your mom today?”
“Sure.” Thank god, you think. Katniss waits for the two of you to be completely alone in front of your house before she speaks.
“Do I need to know something?”
“What? Why?”
“You brought a career into the hob? They aren’t welcome there.”
“It was just Cato. And they all seemed fine with him there. Relax.”
“Y/n. He’s still a career. People are going to talk.” That’s the point. They need to keep talking. Not only to sell the act you’re about to perform this next year but to start changing how they see the careers. Something besides from vicious killers and nothing more.
“Talk about what? Cato is a friend. I showed him somewhere he was curious about”
“Right. Which victor was with you when you decided to watch a movie?”
“What’s your point, Katniss?”
“You two are just…close.”
“Yeah we’re both responsible for 23 kids not being able to come back home.” You didn’t intend for the words to come out so harshly. You can tell Katniss recoils at the words, “Its not like hunting animals. Nothing like it at all. I still cant stop thinking about…everything. And its just easier to have someone who understands it. Have you and Gale ever talked about it?”
“…No.” And just like that, you know you’ve at least gotten your point across. “I never thought it would be the same.”
“I know. Gale did. And I get the thought process, but the aftermath… anyways. How is he doing with his new job?”
“Okay I guess. I don’t think it would be easy to go down there.”
“Yeah I couldn’t either.”
“Are you going to come hunting on Sunday?”
“Isn’t Sundays a you and Gale thing?”
Her cheeks go red. “It would be fine.”
It would clearly not be fine. “Just this one Sunday? And then I don’t have to again right?”
“It might have gotten better.” She offered
“I don’t want to find out.”
“Then it can just be this one Sunday.”
You smile at her as she stands to go back home. You hesitate to enter your old home but you need to find out exactly what Mallory and Amal talked to them about. You force yourself to take a deep breath and knock on the door. The door flies open, almost taking out your mother as it swings back.
“Finally. You need to tell us exactly what’s going on.”
You told them nothing. The visit started out fine enough. Your brothers had been relatively quiet. Saying the victors had been called to teach you how to do interviews for the victory tour, which was true, and so that you would know what to expect from the capitol, also true. But your brothers had left too much out, your mother knew there was more you were hiding from her. She had no idea about the sponsors. You felt yourself relax. You assured her that was all they were here for. Your father sat staring daggers at you, probably sure you were lying and not as willing as your mother had been to accept your reassurances. Then everything became blurry. Your mother went from curious to irritated at not being able to get it together before they came here. Not showing a good image of a proper victor. She started yelling about falling asleep next to Cato when he had been sick. Started wondering about how I was suddenly fixed. Then the yelling became a little more noticeable when she got in front of your glazed over eyes. You blinked and heard your father complaining about you were conveniently choosing to not be present in important family matters. You glanced at the old clock hanging on the wall, and decided it had been a long enough day and stood up to leave.
You could hear the sounds coming from their mouths, but the noises didn’t register as anything in your brain. You walked numbly back home. Still not quite able to hear anything as you walked back in your house. You half recognized someone calling your name from the kitchen. You kept walking to your room, you saw Cato’s head turn back to look at you as you passed the living room. You continued walking. You were barely at the top of the steps before you felt someone grab your arm. Mallory is trying to say something to you, you think. Your thoughts, while still foggy, begin to react to your senses. You look at your hand for too long. You know you’re blinking too slowly, but your body does not seem to be in your control. The words ‘I’m fine,’ sound foreign coming out of your mouth. The only thing that feels natural is pulling your hand away and entering your room.
You don’t make it to your bed. You collapse a few feet in. At least your body seemed to know to at least make it the soft rug. You allow your body to sink into the floor, slowly, so slowly turning to the side. You bring your knees into your chest, and look straight ahead. Trying to find anything to ground you.
You left the window open…You took deep breaths by the window earlier…Did that work? It feels like ages ago…You force yourself back onto your hands and knees. Then focus on being able to kneel. One leg at a time…Why was this so much work?
You make it to the window eventually. The air offers some relief. You cant keeping blacking out like this. What if you zone out during the victory tour? The thought turns your stomach into knots, but its enough to somewhat snap you out of whatever fog had enveloped you this morning. When you open the door you find Cato sitting on the ground, maybe keeping watch. Guilt runs over you for worrying everyone. For not being able to hide it. He offers a half smile and you feign one back, pointing your head towards the direction of the stairs, silently asking him to follow you. He doesn’t hesitate to stand up and follow. The house feels empty… You open the door to your house and sit on the steps, you need to be outside. Realistically, you need to be out in the woods, but you cant…not yet.
“How bad was it?” You ask when he sits next to you
“Not great…” he admits, “Your brother looked pissed, he left right after you locked yourself in your room. Everyone else is with Haymitch.”
“They’re worried I’ll mess everything up during the tour.”
“Yeah.” You appreciated his honesty, it made it easier to not dance around the subject. He wouldn’t offer up most of his thoughts, but he didn’t hide them when asked. Made it easier to figure out how much you needed to work on.
“Do you think I can do this?”
“Yes.”
“Honestly?”
“Yes. You were scared before your interviews when you started the games, right? When you’re going through it, it’ll be different.”
It has to be, you think. You know he’s right. You weren’t fighting right now. You were what? Surviving? No, more like running, or hiding. Avoiding the scary things. When you couldn’t run, couldn’t hide…would you be able to pull it off? You had to.
“What did I miss today?”
His face twists ever so slightly, “I don’t think today is a good day to talk about it.”
“I cant avoid this forever. I have less than five months.”
“Effie sent tapes, and…cards. They wanted to work on the speeches you’ll give on tour.” You stop breathing. Trying to find words to say. Trying to find any response other than the words that are threatening to come out once again, I cant. But you have to, another voice says. You force your lungs to take another breath, when you are back to as normal as you can get, he continues, “Theres a generic speech Effie has prepared for most of the tributes. But for…some of them you may want to make a separate speech.”
He means Rue and Thresh… and Peeta. You think about some of the other tributes, then realize the rest of Panem only saw you responsible for their deaths. Not the training center, or discussing possible alliances. That was your weight to carry, no one else’s.
“Y/n?”
“Lets go see Haymitch. I have some memorizing to do.” You can tell he wants to protest, maybe suggest waiting one more day. Still, he ends up nodding and when he stands offers to help you up. You take his hand for the split second it takes to stand up, and try not to think about how you wished he would hold it the entirety of the short walk over.
The house is silent when you walk in. You’re still surprised how thoroughly Brutus has gone through this place. They all tentatively meet you at the entryway. Haymitch looks you over for a couple seconds before putting his arm on your shoulder and nods his head, you nod your head a few times to tell him you’re fine. He pats your shoulder and you follow him into his own living area.
“So, I hear you guys have the speech I need to memorize.” You say when you sit down
“We can start tomorrow.” Enobaria says
“No. Time is running out, and we still have to worry about making the people here believe there is something happening between me and Cato. I don’t have anytime to waste. I need to be able to at least do this speech in my sleep.”
Haymitch again stares for a little and then hands you the cards. Overall, it shouldn’t be too difficult. But you know you’re going to have something prepared for District 11 and 12. That could wait. Effie spared no expense of praise for the Capitol. Panem today, Panem tomorrow, Panem forever…ugh. Well, at least this would help convince Snow you wanted to play along with whatever he wanted you to do. To a point, anyway.
“Okay, I’ll go memorize this now. Anything else?”
“We need to get you two out more. Start building up the romance. So maybe we can go out as a group. A tour, maybe somewhere with music…start there.” Cashmere states
Music? In 12? It would have to be in the square, there’s simply not enough time to dance around like the Capitol parties. But maybe in the better part of 12, they sometimes had people bring out flutes, fiddles, stuff like that. No those are for holidays, and we wouldnt have another one of those for a few months. Then there was the hob. But techincally those get togethers are very much against the rules, not like most peacekeepers care too much around here. But that many victors could draw unwanted attention. You would have to find the right time, figure out how to ask without raising suspicion. If you or Haymitch asked, your ruse would go up in flames immediately. You think of Madge, she could know, but again, you cant ask her. Katniss though…she could figure out how to ask the question. Our brothers were out of the question, Amal was the worst liar, and Mallory was terrible at keeping anything from him. Though, like Katniss, he would probably figure it out too.
“Got it,” you say, “I’ll figure out how to get us out in the public eye here. I’ll be back soon.”
“And just where the hell are you going?”
“Brutus, relax.” Enobaria tries
“We’ve already wasted a whole day. This is going to end badly for all of us.”
“I need to figure out how to set up times for us to get seen together, and I cant just go out and ask. It would be obvious. I need to figure out who to ask and how to do it without anyone knowing about our plans. My family cant know anymore. Mallory will figure it out on his own. Later. He needs to believe this as much as Snow does. I’ll be back.”
Whatever courage you had diminished the second you exited the house. The sun was beginning to set, and you needed to get your plan in motion. You walked as fast as you could without attracting any attention. Knocking entirely too loudly.
Katniss opened the door and immediately sits in front of the door closing it as quietly as she can to avoid her family listening in. You both whisper as quietly as you can regardless.
“You know if Peeta had made it out, I wouldn’t have to worry about visiting any sponsors.” Katniss squints her eyes analyzing every word, “I mean I could have played along with the whole romance act. The capitol would never split up a couple by asking favors of them.”
“Interesting.” She nods, fully taking in what you’re telling her.
“Anyway, I really want to take the victors to hear some music. I just don’t know who to ask…”
“Madge maybe. Or she would know how to find out.”
“Yeah. I don’t know her like that though.” She takes a deep breath. Hating what I was asking of her.
“Okay. Hey, I think I am going to her house tomorrow to try and learn piano. You’re probably busy, right?”
“Yeah. I wanted to hear her play again too.” Katniss chuckles at your sarcasm
“I have to make sure Prim eats. I’ll see you in a few days?”
“Sounds good.” You squeeze her hand in a thank you and she nods before heading back inside. Your stomach growls at the reminder that you haven’t eaten since this morning. You trudge back, still ashamed of your inability to handle the tiniest stressors. Your parents yelling wasn’t new, but you had never been unable to defend yourself. It was as if being in the games had made everything feel so much worse, more…intense. Made you weak. And you no longer had the energy to deal with it. Brutus was right. It wasn’t just my life anymore. Cato, Haymitch, and the others…they could all suffer because of me.
At some point your brothers ran up behind you. You must nave been moving slower than you thought.
“Did you eat yet?” You ask them
“No. You?’ Mallory replies
“Nope. Anything you guys in the mood for?”
“Anything works.” Mallory replies, Amal is quiet and you can only imagine the conversations they inserted themselves into at home. “We can make something this time.”
“I don’t mind—” you start
“I want to make something.” Amal interrupts.
“Okay.” After a few moments of silence you start again, “I’m sorry if I freaked you guys out. “
“Its fine, It wasn’t as bad this time.” Amal says, Mallory nudges him probably trying to not worry you again. It goes over his head, “What?”
You chuckle, you wish the older of the two would be as honest as Amal. It helped you remember to not take things so seriously, “Good. I’ll try and get the time down to a few minutes.”
They both smile and they begin to talk about how much they have learned from the other victors. You are glad they are enjoying the company until Mallory mentions wanting to ask Brutus about tips. Just in case he gets reaped he says. You know its likely they get called, its happened before, family members from victors who had become capitol favorites. With all the commotion you caused. You realize its likely your brothers had a high chance of going in. The upcoming quell… your brother wasn’t an idiot. Its been theorized the Capitol has rigged certain reapings, Haymitch has no one left, but you? It may not be the worst idea. And you certainly couldn’t help him. You would worry too much, in fact the conversation turns your stomach to lead. Suddenly, food held no interest to you. Still, you have to be rational. Cato’s advice saved your life, if Mallory is put in this position… Brutus might save his.
“I think Brutus might appreciate the distraction, if he won’t Cashmere will.” You keep your voice even, but your heart feels like its shattering at the thought of having to become a mentor. Playing along with the sponsors may not be such a bad idea. If it keeps Mallory out of the games. That’s what they said Finnick does, right? You would have to talk to Cato again. You knew if you told either sibling they would tell you to not go back on the original plan. Which is probably why he’s is preparing to go in. So many people willing to put themselves in harms way when you could just play along. You’re from 12, after all maybe in a few years time they would all but forget you.
When you enter your home you’re almost overwhelmed by the smells coming from the kitchen. Amal and Mallory run in ready to help. Enobaria greets them, and they continue talking. Most of it goes in one ear and out the other. You smile to greet Enobaria and Cashmere, but when you meet Cato’s eyes you know he can tell somethings up. He points his head toward the living room and you nod and sneak away. He meets you on the couch, bringing some water and a plate of fruit.
“What happened?” He asks immediately. He sits next to you, which was better because you didn’t want anyone to hear.
“Mallory. I’m so stupid, Cato. If we do this…he’s going to get reaped. I know it. I was right before, I volunteered for nothing. If I had just eaten the stupid berries before Peeta could say anything. They’d be safe. I’ve ruined everything… I—”
Cato brings you into him and you decide you don’t care if its for pity or what. You allow him to comfort you. No tears come just a general sense of hopelessness.
“We’ll figure it out,” he breaks okay and fand positions himself to look at you, “We’ll figure it out, okay? I promise.”
You nod. He tries to hand you the glass of water but your hands are shaking. He holds one hand to help you drink and when you finish puts the plate on your lap. You notice he gives you some space, and you find yourself hating it. You manage to force a few pieces of fruit down when the rest of the house comes in.
“There you two are!” Cashmere floats down and hands you another plate, you smile and try and eat as much as you can stomach. Enobaria asks about the upcoming school year, who the younger ones talk to, their favorite things to do. They both answer, and ask their own questions in return. I’m grateful for the distraction and by the end of the night you find yourself smiling, you find out Amal has been picking things up from Prim. Wants to figure out how to be a doctor, Mallory isn’t exactly sure as he thinks he will just work in the mine. Cashmere pushes and he tells them about drawing when he is bored but nothing else really coming to mind. Both of the female victors encourage them, saying that with your help anything is possible now. You encourage them too after a while, you've realized most people accept what they were born into in 12. The bright side of being a victor is you could give them a chance. A real chance. If you don’t get them killed first.
Cato helps Cashmere collect everything. You know he is likely telling her exactly what is concerning you. You hate going back and forth on this. Making things even harder. Everyone eventually disperses, you try to relax with a bath but you decide its not working and just clean up quickly. After pacing around for a bit you decide to go back down. You sit on the living room and turn on the tv, hoping something will put you to sleep.
Why isn’t it working? You’re staring at the screen for over an hour when you hear footsteps coming down. You don’t move, you know who is coming to join you.
“Cant sleep?”
“Nope.” You smile up at him, “Care to join me?”
“You don’t mind?”
“Of course not. I enjoy the company.” You wonder if you’ve been so closed off for him to still think you dislike him. Maybe he actually wants you to leave. He always seems surprised when you seem to want his company at all. Then again, you’ve been going back and forth on the plan you agreed with since the beginning, why wouldn’t he think you don’t want him around.
“What are you watching?” He asks as he sits on the seat adjacent to yours, you try not to let your face show your disappointment
“A movie from the capitol, the acting is pretty bad so its no wonder they believe whatever the tributes sell to them. Its almost done I think, do you want to pick something?” He shakes his head and you flip through until you find another movie you don’t care to watch. You tell yourself its background noise, and after a while your eye lids get heavy.
Images of the cornucopia appear, drops of water dripping onto the makeshift cave you hid in with Peeta, the snares you’d so carefully hidden in the underbrush, the buzz of the tracker jacker nests, Glimmer’s…screams…? Suddenly you’re running, you think you hear her scream for help when the swarm of tracker jackers descend upon you. You’re on the floor and Glimmer’s disfigured body is facing you, her eyes glazed over yet full of hate and blame. Her lips release a raspy voice not belonging to anyone in particular, no it wasn’t her voice… it was multiple voices. They all hiss together in a bone chilling, raspy harmony…
You…
Did…
This…
To ussss…
Your body shoots up and you’re unsure if that last scream was another part of your dream or your own voice. You violently pat your body to check for the stings of the of tracker jackers. Only when you’re sure nothing has happened do you allow yourself to check your surroundings of the room. There is still a dull murmur coming from the tv and you curse yourself for thinking it would be an easy solution to aide in your sleep. Whatever happened last night…it didn’t matter. It was a mistake. The clock is ticking…only a little past one in the morning. You look over at Cato’s chair, he isn’t faring much better. He had tried to get comfortable but his position was anything but. He is mumbling something under his breath, his eyes are squeezed tight and his hands appear to be clutching the hair by his ears, effectively covering them. If it didn’t look like he was about to crush his own skull you might have left him alone. That would be what he would tell you to do, to leave him. Well. You’ve never been the best at following directions.
You put your hand on his. The one closest to you. His body freezes, you wait a few seconds to allow him to figure out where he is and, as delicately as you can, you pull one of his hands away from his. You focus on his breathing, short and shallow. You pat the hand you’re holding when you bring a good enough distance away from his face and go into the kitchen to get him a cup of water. When you come back he still seems somewhat disoriented, aside from his hands he hasn’t moved. You push the water into his hand until he takes it. He blinks slowly, and takes a few sips. You carefully take the cup back and place it on the table, not moving from your spot on the ground.
“Did I wake you?” He asks after a few beats of silence, and you quickly shake your head
“I woke up from a dream of my own actually.” He nods and slumps to the floor next to you, you notice he begins fidgeting with the small beaded bracelet you had gotten him, and wonder if whatever he was dreaming about continues to haunt him. You can only hope he says anything to drown out that disturbing cadence of whispers echoing in your mind.
“Do you want me to keep watch again? I don’t think I want to sleep right now.” He asks quietly
And I do? The thought makes you smile but you just shake your head at his proposal, “I don’t think I can either. How bad is our schedule tomorrow?”
“They probably have more debriefing, the interview tapes have come in.”
“Great.” You scoff, “I guess we have no choice but to try and sleep again.”
Glimmers disfigured face pops back into your head and you shudder, not in any way excited to see who you’ll see when you close your eyes. Cato stands and turns the tv back on. He offers a sad smile and holds his hand out. You take it knowing full well what his plan is. The tv goes back on and you sit next to each other this time, both trying to focus to blur any remaining memories of your nightmares. The next time you succumb to your fatigue the nightmares stay away. And just like that you both silently agree to continue the process. Both finding excuses from then on to come downstairs and turn the stupid tv on. One of you always waking up before the other and sneaking back into your room to get ready before the rest of the house woke up. By Sunday, you felt rested but your neck really hurt. Katniss’s knock woke you up that day.
“Just wondering if you were still coming.” Gale stood a good distance behind her but nodded in your direction which you returned.
“I have to get ready but yeah one second.” When you close the door Cato is already awake, leaning against the wall.
“You think you’re ready?” It was an innocent question that you only wish you knew the answer to. You had met up with Katniss a few more times this week, but today felt ominous. You suddenly felt like everyone else who avoided the woods. Terrified, like you would have to keep watch for the safety of the fence line.
“I guess I’ll find out.”
“Can I come with you?”
“Are you sure?” He gave a singular nod and told you he was going to go get ready. You stood there in shock for a few seconds before rushing to do the same. You debated starting the whole romance thing now but you decide its better to not overfill your plate. You are a bit surprised Gale and Katniss say nothing when Cato comes out with you. You wonder if Katniss has caught on and whether she’s said anything to her favorite hunting partner.
The walk to the meadow is mostly silent until you offer food for everyone to eat before heading in. But that’s silent too. Everyone’s guards are up. Everyone worried about mine and Cato’s reactions. Including myself and Cato.
Gale seems to liven up in the forest, his footstep soundlessly picking up the pace. You all follow closely behind.
“Alright Y/n, easy pickings.” He points towards some wild turkey.
“I don’t know…”
“You’ve got this.” He hands you one of the bow and arrows made by Katniss’s father. You look to her for permission before even placing your hand on it. But the second you touch the weapon your hands start shaking.
“Y/n, if you’re not ready…” Cato starts but Gale interrupts suddenly agitated
“She’ll be fine. The woods are all she knows, right? She cant be scared of the one good thing about this place.” Cato doesn’t respond, you squeeze his arm and he nods. You barely have the strength to draw the arrow back and your muscles are screaming. You’re weaker than you anticipated. You take a deep breath and aim in the general direction of the bird, but the second you release the arrow the only thing you see is Marvel.
The Marvel you see staggers back, blood pouring from his mouth. You hear yourself scream and step back almost falling into a tree. Cato’s hands grab each of your arms, “NO! Please…”
“Its not real. You’re not in the games. You’re safe…” He says in your ear but his voice is shaky. You have to blink a few times before you nod. You hand the bow back to Gale.
“I’m sorry.”
“Its fine. You can try again, it will get better.” He holds out the bow but you step back
“Gale..” Katniss warns him, Cato pushes me behind him as he turns to look at her
“She just needs to get used to it.”
“She said no.” Cato says firmly
“You don’t get it. She belongs out here. You don’t. She needs to be able to come out here, even if she doesn’t hunt anymore. The games aren’t going to ruin that for her.”
They’ve already ruined it, you think. “Its going to take time. She has to see everyone again in a few months. She can decide when she’s ready.”
Gale steps forward, “Y/n, come on. We’re going to keep moving.”
“Back. off.” Cato growls but Gale keeps moving forward and you react before he figures out whats happening. Gale had pointed the bow in Cato’s direction, and its like something takes over him immediately. His entire body shifts into a position you remember in the training center. From Arioch…
“Or what?” He starts
His name comes out as a warning, to no one but yourself, “Cato…”
Time seems to slow down, this time, its you who has to let Cato know hes safe. You rush to get in front of him, grabbing for his hand reaching for the knife hidden away. A stupid decision on your part because you come from the bottom up so you feel the sting before fully realizing the blood dripping down your arm as fail to stop his arm from pulling it out from across his body. This is what he knows. You stare him down with one hand useless, and the other on his arm with the knife. You think you hear one of them pull the arrow back. Idiots. This can only make things worse. His other hand grabs the one holding onto his arm, preventing him from either throwing or hunting them down. The other arm has seeped through your shirt and is bleeding onto the ground ever so slowly, like the ticking of a clock.
Drip
“Put the weapons down!” You yell at everyone. Scaring off any prey they were hoping of catching. Cato looks furious but he blinks at you as if he is trying to figure out what part of his games you’re form.
Drip. Drip.
“Katniss, Gale. Go.”
“Y/n…”
“But—”
“Now!” You can hear the footstep receding. You’re sure they wont be going far so you have to make this quick. His grip on your arm tightens and you struggle not to cry out. But you had to make sure he thinks of little of his games as possible. Right?
Drip…
“You said we were allies. We aren’t done here.” More blinking. When this is over you’ll have to remember to thank him for giving you the answer to this very problem. You avoid saying anything about the actual games. “We’re safe. You’re safe.”
His eyes squeeze shut as he tries to slow his fast and heavy breathing. The hand with the knife going up his head, pressing against it. He forcefully lets go, and you let out a squeak of surprise as you fall onto the ground. Both arms have gone up to his head, trying to silence voices you will never hear. You stay on the ground so as to not disturb him, hoping he comes back to you on his own. Whatever he tries to block out elicits a small groan of his own as he falls on his knees. His hands never leaving the sides of his head as he continues to try and quiet the nightmares I forced him to see by coming out here. You place a shaky hand on his shoulder, and his body stiffens. His head slowly looks up at yours.
“You’re okay.” You whisper, as if speaking loudly would ruin any progress, “Everything's okay.”
His head scans the area and when he looks back you his eyes widen again, his breathing quickening. “Oh my god.”
You don’t have to follow his eyes to know what hes looking at, “I’m fine. It was my fault.”
His hands turn your forearm to face him, really the scratch wasn’t very deep. Long maybe, but really it would heal quickly. The bleeding had mostly stopped anyway. He lifts the t-shirt sleeve up to where your cut is completely exposed. Cinna probably had some kind of scar cream, you weren’t worried about it. Cato shakily grabs the bag you had set down when you had tried to shoot the arrow, fumbling until he finds what hes looking for. A small red box. You realize it’s a first aid kit, he grabs the water bottle you’d brought as well and begins pouring water on your wound. Your arm twitches when the water first contacts you and Cato winces.
“Sorry.” He mumbles not making eye contact
“Its fine Cato, really.”
“Its not.” He says sternly. He places a type of pad on your arm and begins bandaging. You only try to speak when he’s almost finished
“Cato. This wasn’t your fault. I grabbed the knife wrong. This is on me.”
“Y/n. Stop.”
“No. You cant even look at me. This is not your faul—”
“I shouldn’t have come out here. I knew I wasn’t ready.”
“I wasn—”
“You were right. This is a mistake.” He begins to stand up again
“Cato, wait—” You scramble to catch up to him, but before your arm even reaches out he snaps at you
“No Y/n. This should have never happened. I could have killed you! We will stick to public appearances, the rest of the time you need to stay away from me.”
For some reason this infuriates you. “What are you talking about? No. You said we would do this together. You cant back out now.”
He turns around just as furious, “You’ve been backing out almost every day! Why does it matter if I do it??”
A valid point. You weren’t sure why you were fighting so hard for him to not back out but it suddenly sounded unacceptable. Especially not out of guilt, “Beca—”
“I told you I was dangerous! I told you to use the sedative if you needed to. How could you not bring it??? Do you not understand how easily I could have killed you? Do you know what that would have don—Do you think I could live with myself?” He takes a deep breath, trying to lower his voice. It was the loudest you had ever heard him, certainly. Guilt gnawing at you for not realizing how all of this could have undone any progress, how he could have been punished.. all because you couldn’t shoot a damn arrow. Anger also fights for the dominant spot in your mind, you were the one who just de-escalated everything. Your silence seems to soften him and you know it's only because he's once again, sure he's terrified you.
“Look. Just—Make sure you start bringing the sedative. I’m serious. For your own sake—”
He lets out an exasperated sigh of disbelief as you hold your palm out. The sedative pen still capped facing him.
Cato’s POV
She had it this entire time? Why didn’t she use it? Did she forget? How could she forget? You stood there staring as she held her hand out. Unsure of what to do , what to say. You had just screamed at the person who stopped you from hurting anyone. Who had hurt herself in order to give you the chance to stop. Who had somehow managed to distract you enough to realize you were slipping back into your games. You couldn’t face her as you bandaged her arm, and now you felt like you couldn’t stop staring, trying to figure out why she wouldn’t immediately use that on you.
It was her turn to be angry, but instead of saying anything she grabbed your hand and forced the pen into it before heading back home.
You could only stand there for a minute before you chased after her. You caught up relatively soon, “Y/n?”
When she says nothing. You decide to keep your mouth shut. The walk back is tense she lets the door almost close on you and you aren’t surprised to hear the door slam. You’re thankful no one seems to be home. You know her brothers are at her parents, and Enobaria and Cashmere said they wanted to talk to Haymitch about the public appearances they want to start up. You decide to go over there just to let them know you’re both back.
“So, how’d it go?”
“Could’ve gone better.��� Is all you say as you walk back out. The rest of your day is you hiding in your room. You go out to make yourself a quick lunch. You’re pretty sure Y/n hasn’t come down so you leave a plate of food at her door and knock before running back down to your room. You pace, read, lay down, repeat. You only come out when Enobaria calls you down to eat again. You ask if Y/n has said anything to her but Enobaria says she was worn out from trying all of that today. You wonder if the cut on her arm came up.
“Cato. Is everything okay?” She crosses her arms as she watches you eat. You take one more bite and toss your fork down. You needed today to be over. You can overthink by yourself.
“Yeah. Everything’s great.” You grab your plate and toss everything in the trash. Something people here probably wouldn’t be very fond of but its beyond you to care right now. You can feel Enobaria looking at you but she doesn’t follow. You go into your room and turn the lights off so hopefully, everyone assumes you’re asleep and leaves you alone. You cant sleep. In fact, you know you wont be able to sleep since the only decent sleep you’ve gotten in over a year has been with y/n when you pretend to watch the tv. Really, its probably your brain telling you that you two are watching each other’s backs, but it doesn’t matter. You doubt you could trust anyone else like that.
You replay today’s events for the millionth time. She must have been terrified. And then on top of everything you go and yell at her. She could have yelled back but the only time she even sounded slightly annoyed was when you said doing the whole romance thing may not be a good idea. Isn’t that what she wanted? Was it the way I said it? You hold the pillow over your head for a few minutes before throwing it to the floor out in annoyance. Just fall asleep. Fall asleep. You tell yourself you deserve any nightmares that come to you but sleep refuses to make an appearance. Probably because you were ridden with guilt and disgust. You decided to go apologize. You went down the hall where Y/n’s room was hidden away, you hear Cashmere and Enobaria talking in the distant kitchen. As you raise your arm to knock, the door swings open.
The two of you are stand once again, motionless. With nothing in her hands, you wonder if she had an idea similar to yours. You open your mouth to start apologizing but she shakes her head and steps out of your way. Allowing for you to enter her room. You tell yourself you’ll apologize properly and then leave her alone. She probably just wants to keep todays events hidden, better to curb any more fears about this plan’s already fragile state. When she quietly closes the door behind you try to speak before she once again cuts off your apology by wrapping her arms around you. You freeze, waiting for your living nightmares to resurface but when they don’t come, you return the embrace. A warmth radiating deep in the cold recesses of your heart.
“I’m sorry.” She says softly
You immediately step back, “No. That’s what I should be saying. I was the one who wanted to go, I was the one who hurt you, I was the one that yelled. I’m…I’m sorry.”
“I shouldn’t have freaked out like that. I knew I wasn’t ready.” You bring her towards you again and try not to notice the smell of her hair, still somewhat damp from a fresh bath.
“Can I check?” She sighs but holds her arm out. You feel relief upon realizing how shallow the cut was. You quickly leave her room for more supplies and sneak back as quietly as possible. You both sit on her bed and you begin. You work carefully. Quietly. She says nothing until you put the healing ointment over the scratch.
“I told you it wasn’t that bad.” She tries to joke but you’re struggling to understand why had to put herself in this position in the first place.
“Why didn’t you use it?”
“I didn’t need to.”
“Y/n…”
“You know when I blew up all of the supplies in the cornucopia and everyone ran back…Arioch was so mad he snapped the boy from three’s neck. It was less than a second and Elias was dead. On the ground. You could have done the same the second I grabbed the knife. You stopped yourself. I didn’t have to do anything.”
“I could have still killed you, before all of that.”
“I guess.”
“You cant guess Y/n.”
“Honestly if you really thought you were in the games and you thought the three of us were working together you would have either gone for the person most dangerous to you, which wasn’t me and would have given me time to use it. Or you would have used me as a bargaining tool, and I still would have been able to use it. So, drop it.” Her voice gets short and you decide to listen, trying to not get into your head again. She sighs and lowers her tone, still grumbling at the thought of it.
“I shouldn’t have hid behind you and I should have told Gale off myself. I would have had a better chance at either grabbing the knife or deescalating the situation.”
You cant help yourself. The thought of her putting the blame on herself is ludicrous and you cant accept it, “I shouldn’t have gone at all.”
“I wanted you to come. I would have asked you to anyway.” She says it so softly you aren’t sure you heard her right. You don’t say anything more as you finish rebandaging her. “I’m tired.”
You tell yourself you promised you would leave her alone so you just nod and say “Okay.”
You shift to stand up and leave but she grabs your wrist, “Can you stay?”
“Okay.” You find yourself unable to say anything else at the moment. You down move from your seat on her bed as she lays down. Your throat suddenly feels very dry. You feel as if you’re breaking some kind of rule from the agreement you both had made, which is ridiculous since you had been accidentally sleeping together when you would watch tv. It was just easier to fall asleep that way. You try going over possible interview questions in your head but absentmindedly fidget with the bracelet which gets her attention. She leans over enough to place her hand on your back causing you to jump.
“You should get some sleep.”
“Are you sure?”
“Do you plan on keeping your knife under the pillows?” You shake your head and she smiles, “Then yeah, as long as your comfortable with it.”
She scoots over and you lay next to her. Neither of you fall asleep right away and you try and see if she wants to talk about what happened before she stepped in front of you. “Can I ask you something?”
She turns to her side to face you, you try and resist the urge to get closer and just turn your head to her direction staying on your back. “What is it?”
“What did you see?”
She goes unnaturally still, you want to tell her to forget about it but she decides to answer, “Marvel.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know.” She turns onto her back and looks up as she recounts her time in the games, “You saw the games. I missed.”
“I thought you hit him.”
“I did. But I waited too long and I ended hitting a lung…I was so mad. I was going to watch him suffer for the net. For throwing his spear. He told me to finish. To kill him. When I pulled the knife out I held onto his hand as I plunged my knife into him. I felt his hand go limp in mine. I see his death all the time. Then I run away. In every dream I run, and it doesn’t matter what direction I run I always end up seeing Rue. Struggling to breathe. I didn’t even know she was hit right away.”
“Y/n you couldn’t have saved her.”
“If I hadn’t hesitated I would have. She would have won. I would have made sure of it.” You don’t like what she’s implying but you say nothing, knowing theres more to be said, “Almost everyone else’s death I see like I was watching the games from home. But Marvel and Rue…and Glimmer sometimes. They don’t ever go away. It also sucks because I saw Thresh die the same way everyone else did and I feel bad he doesn't bother me as much.”
She doesn’t turn to face you but you can see tears beginning to form so you reach out and grab her hand. She returns the gesture, intertwining her hand in yours. She finally turns to look at you, but she is too tired to even try and pretend its okay. It isn’t. And it doesn’t get better. But its only fair you tell her your side of things too.
“I see everyone. Whether I killed them or not. I see myself killing them, not being able to stop. Then I hear them. Their families. Calling me a monster. I try to say I cant stop but I can never speak.”
She squeezes your hand. You have others, sometimes its all of the training methods you had in 2. Others are when you are begging to call your family so you can go home, then the voices from the games merge into those too. You turn to face her and she lets go of your hand to turn. She begins to get close. Too close. Shes above you, resting on her elbow you feel her other hand reach up. A finger traces your brow, her thumb gently wiping a tear you weren’t aware had spilled.
“You aren’t a monster. Okay?”
You cant help yourself. You don’t let her let go of your face. You don’t want to let her go at all. So you don’t. With your free arm you bring her as close as you can and hold her. Tired of pretending you weren’t constantly craving her presence. Her touch. You only let go of her hand to put your own in her hair as you pulled her into you. She doesn’t protest. She continues to lean in eventually letting her lips rest on yours ever so gently. Her lips were soft and warm. You could feel them slightly part as she let out a slight gasp. It was as easy as breathing. When you both pull away, you feel like its too soon. You know that you are only entangling yourself into a potentially dangerous situation with the capitol. You had something to lose now. As she stared at you with the same realization you realized you didn’t care. You had something to lose, yes, but you also finally had something to lose. You didn’t want her to worry, you just brought her into you again. Letting her head rest on your chest. Knowing sleep would come easily. You run your hand up and her back and you feel her thumb going back and forth on your chest. Her hand stops moving first, you aren’t sure when your eyes close. All you know is for the first time you feel at peace, nothing gnawing at the back of your mind. No dreading about waking up and doing it all over again.
When you do wake up its anything but peaceful. You both hear the urgent knocking and sit up immediately. You both share a look and you move to the other end of the bed. Pretending you were simply keeping watch.
“Come in.” Y/n says groggily
“What is he doing here? What are you doing here?? What happened to your arm?” Enobaria sounded confused. Furious.
“I still couldn’t sleep. So, I asked him to keep watch and alternate with me. But I fell asleep on my turn.” Y/n, you’ve noticed is only exceptional at lying when it involves someone else. “Sorry. I thought I was getting better?”
“And your arm?” Unfortunately for the two of you, Enobaria was not in way easy to convince. She crossed her arms as asked about Y/n’s injury.
“I got it when we went hunting yesterday. I freaked out and I was fumbling to grab my knife to protect myself. Cato bandaged me up and came to make sure it was healing okay last night. I asked him to stay. I was too embarrassed to say anything so I said I was tired and hid in here all day.”
“And why didn’t you mention this accident?” She starts asking you
You shrugged and tried to seem indifferent, “She asked me not to.”
“Y/n you need to at least get one more person to change shifts, its—” you see that shes struggling to find the words, but theres no real way around it, “its not safe. The flashbacks they don’t always show up in the most convenient times.”
Your head drops, and you can feel Y/n stare. You want to disagree with her but Enobaria is right. One nightmare and you could wake up in a place where Y/n isn’t Y/n at all. Just another person you cant unsee in the games.
“I trust him.”
She says it so easily, you want to believe her. Believe that you would never do anything to her. But you already had. “Y/n its better to be safe than sorry.”
“I trust him. Which is a good thing because at the end of this whole thing we’re going to have to end up together right? So does it matter if we help eachother out?”
Enobaria sighed, “Come on, we have a busy day.”
She leaves the room quickly. No doubt going to talk to Cashmere. You lift your head to look at Y/n, “Don’t.” She says
“Y/n. Shes not wron—”
“I said don’t.”
“I need a favor.”
“Cato…”
You take out the syringe and hold it out. “Please. Just to be safe. For me.”
The last line makes her flinch. She lets out an exasperated sigh and snatches the pen out of your hand. “I’m not going to use it.”
She leaves her room before you have a chance to respond. The words, ‘I know,’ stuck on your lips. You follow behind her and meet up in the kitchen with Enobaria and Cashmere. Enobaria still looks upset but Cashmere has a knowing grin on her face you desperately want to ignore. She slides you and Y/n a plate of food.
“Well before we do anything today, Y/n I suggest you go see your cousin. She came by to check on you already. I’m assuming since yesterday didn’t go so great?” Enobaria states
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Cato? You’re practicing interview questions with Brutus.”
“Why him?” You immediately protest
“Because he is going to pinpoint everything you need to work on and this needs to go perfectly.” There was no point in arguing with either of them. Especially when Enobaria was already on the verge on sending you over to Haymitch’s house.
“What about you guys?”
“Oh Haymitch is going to show us around a bit more.” Cashmere says, you and Y/n share a look. They’re planning something and you two are not to know about it. You both eat in silence until Y/n finishes and is promptly shooed out of the house. You mainly push the food around your plate. Avoiding the stares that felt like were burning holes into your body.
“Its good you two are comfortable with each other. It’s going to make things easier.” Cashmere starts
“Its also going to make things more difficult.” Enobaria grumbled, “This whole charade still might not work. You need to be careful. You both just got out of the games. You still technically need to be supervised.”
“The more believable the more the capitol will want them to get married and pick a district. Regardless of what they feel, they need to make the Capitol obsessed with them in a matter of two weeks for the victory tour. We can worry about the rest later.”
You stood up, not able to take anymore second guesses. You were already doing that yourself. “We just took shifts keeping watch. That’s it.”
You knew they were right but the thought of showing affection toward y/n like that when you still weren’t sure what you felt made you feel…gross. Like you would be forcing her to do things she wasn’t sure of, or didn’t want. This, of course, only worries you about last night. About whether she meant to kiss you, whether you did. Whether she wanted to, or did so out of pity.
You evaluate every action, dissect every movement until Brutus comes in. Working with him is almost unbearable and nearly impossible to get into camera mode. He refuses to make it easy. He starts by quizzing you on everything you and her wrote down, any hesitation would result in breaking character and yelling. You maintain at best a casual conversation, which gave you hope on how things would go with Caesar if it came to that. And you needed it to come to that.
“I still think this is a mistake.”
“I know.”
“You’re sure?”
More than anything, actually. “Yes.”
Brutus rolls his eyes and grunts in what you assume is disgust, but he continues with the questions. Y/n comes back with her brothers behind her and interrupts, “Its my turn, Cato.”
“I don’t have anything to ask you.” He dismisses her but Y/n doesn’t budge
“They asked you to question him because you would be the harshest judge. Its my turn.” She turns to you and asks if you can talk to her brothers, and simply nod and follow them into the kitchen. You hear her tell him he needs to really try so neither of them waste eachother’s time and you’re tempted to hang back and hear how it all plays out.
“So what happened yesterday?”
“Hm?” Mallory’s voice snaps you back and you wonder exactly how much shes told them. You only remember her demand to keep them out of it. “In the woods?”
“Yeah. How bad?”
“Not…great. She was doing okay until she tried to shoot an arrow. Then she remembered her games and was thrown off.”
“So, she did hurt herself trying to get the knife?”
“Yeah she thought she needed to grab it quickly and ended up fumbling it before she actually got a good grip on it.”
“Probably good you were there. She trusts you.” Amal pipes in. Guilt hits you like a train again. Mallory just nods but you’re sure he has more questions about what is happening around here. Around their sister. How were you all supposed to help her? How could he help her? Questions you can never answer. You ask more about the hob. Wondering if you could go there alone. Mallory doesn’t recommend it, most people in twelve even stray from trading there. Y/n comes in silently, sitting next to Amal. It was another obvious clue as to exactly how long she had survived in the woods. Her tread was soundless. Had she decided to simply outlive the others in the arena, you’re sure she could have done so.
“How did the interviews go?”
She shrugged, “I didn’t get much feedback. I’ll ask Enobaria later.”
Everyone decides to cook some food up for the two houses. Its seems like a simple breakfast food dish, but the smell that it creates makes you almost salivate. The others fill in as you all finish up. Mallory even has alcohol ready for Haymitch. He actually makes friendly conversation. They have fully accepted each other as family in one sense or another. You stop paying attention when you begin to eat. The voices all intermingle and you drown most of it out. Or you try to. Usually so many people around ends up making you nervous.
Brutus elbows you, forcing you to refocus. You only return his glare but listen to Cashmere as she calls out your name again, “You okay, Cato?”
“Sorry.” You mumble. “What did you say again?”
“Well, I’ve been tired of being cooped up here so I thought it might be nice to go out. I hear the music is completely different here. I was thinking Friday maybe? It would be nice for all of us to go. What do you think?”
Sounds miserable, but you know she’s beginning your public appearances. “Sure. Would be nice to get out of the house, see a different side to 12.”
Y/n smirks, “Tsk. Well, it wont be all that fancy but it is a fun time.”
“You’ve gone before?” You ask
“A few times. I did have some friends outside of my cousin.”
“Yeah, she used to sneak out to go dancing.” Mallory teases
She rolls her eyes, “I only went out a few times. Enjoying the little times I saw anyone that wasn’t strictly business. Besides, all of my old school mates treat me like I have the plague now. It could be good to try and show I havent changed all that much.”
Except she had, no one contradicts her but even she knows it. It was ridiculous of course, to think she only contained herself to the woods. She wasn’t forced to train for the games. But the thought of her missing her old life springs to your mind again. You listen to her stories. The music that is supposed to be banned plays on random days. No one trusts anyone with association with the capitol here, you wonder how she ended up getting the information. You think of your time at the hob. How everyone seemed to know one another. You wondered if she forced herself to buy things there just to gain their trust back. You thought about Darius and how he had kissed her, and you actively have to work to keep the scowl off of your face. You wondered if some of peacekeepers took shifts so as to not get anyone in any real trouble.
The rest of the day is a blur. Plans, conversations, nothing seems to stick out in your mind. You’re relieved when everyone disperses. And even more so when Y/n whispers for you to go to her whenever you can. You wait until you’re sure everyone has at least gone to their rooms before going to find her. You barely knock, terrified of being ordered to go sleep elsewhere.
“So what happened today?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean. You seem upset.”
“More worried.”
“Because of what Enobaria said this morning?”
“Mostly. This just…it doesn’t end you know? We’ll have to keep this up forever.”
“I know. Whatever happens we will need to prove to the Capitol we’re together. Could you do that? For that long?”
“Could you?”
“Yes.” You realize you were terrified of any other answer. You decide this cannot keep happening, the same conversation, the same worries making you doubt your plan. You can worry another day. You lay down next to her, ask her to get closer. You decide you wont try anything again. Not until you’re in front of the cameras. Just in case. But keeping eachother company you would allow. If only for your own sanity.
The days go on and Friday is upon you quickly. Y/n’s brothers go on ahead, making sure the music wouldn’t stop because of you and the rest of the victors presence. The group watches as the people dance around you. A few peacekeepers get visibly nervous but slowly let loose as well. Y/n makes small talk with some people around her, offering whatever money she has on her to several of the people who work at the hob. Some stands are still open and you find yourself buying a bracelet similar to yours. You rejoin the group for awhile, Y/n dances with her brothers once, and once with Darius. You try not to let that one bother you, especially since he asks several people to dance with him. She gets all of you to try the faster paced dance movements, Cashmere does exceptionally well. You... do not. You all sit and enjoy other people dancing when Cashmere nods to you. Now or never, you brace yourself as you lean over to whisper in Y/n’s ear.
‘I think its time.’ She smiles and nods and the two of you walk to the farther end of where people are sitting. Close enough plenty of eyes would be on you and far away enough it looks like you both want to speak privately. You take a deep breath, there's no going back now.
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Taglist: @chloe-skywalker @ietss @tomihoeka
@chiimiki @akinatrix @inky-sun @themedsaintworkin @tiktoks-aphrodite @fredweasleysgirl16 @callsign-haze @thestrals-and-firewiskey @dreamsarenicer
#hunger games fic#hunger games#catching fire#mockingjay#tbosbas#the ballad of songbirds and snakes#cato hunger games#hunger games cato#cato imagine#cato x reader
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~spoilers below~
Okay so the Heian Period that Sukuna lived lasted from 794 to 1185. Getting rid of the time after 1018 because that no longer qualifies as 1000 years ago and I’m petty like that means that the time when he lived at some point between 800 and 1018, so probably ninth or tenth century.
That still leaves two hundred years of time for him to have lived, and this is under the assumption that he even lived a human lifespan, which he absolutely might not have considering he had four arms for some unexplained reason (seriously he was a human being before dying right? I didn’t imagine that?).
The Fujiwara family was clearly important, though it’s hard to say whether that’s a new, sorcerer thing made up by Gege Akutami or if it’s actually meant to represent the Fujiwara clan of actual Heian Period Japan. Honestly it could be either but I’m fairly certain it is meant to be the same because otherwise that’s just confusing and I choose to believe this universe makes sense on some level for my own sanity.
We know the Fujiwara clan battled with Sukuna in some way because in chapter 219 in that flashback with Yorozu the gossiping people said that he defeated two major elite warriors of that clan’s northern forces, the one that Uro led and the one that Yorozu defeated and later got “recognized” and moved to the capital for.
Now I did some basic googling and the Fujiwara clan was founded in the year 668, but the Northern Fujiwara were founded in 1087 and disbanded in 1189, which completely discredits what I said in the first paragraph. Great going, me.
Sukuna is well established at this point, meaning he’s been doing… whatever conquering evil curse users do, for a while. Unfortunately we can’t use his appearance to learn literally anything because again he has four arms so he very well might not age.
Anyway in keeping with the Heian period and the founding year of the Northern Fujiwara he had to have been active between 1087 and 1185, which is just under a full century of wiggle room for him to do all his evil Sukuna things.
I don’t know if there’s any other evidence that could help narrow things down because this is a spur-of-the-moment, research rabbit hole type thing I decided to document on tumblr as I went along for no particular reason, but other individuals I know for a fact were alive at this point were Kenjaku, who Sukuna clearly knew; Tengen, who Kenjaku clearly knew; Uro, who led the elite force Sukuna destroyed; Yorozu, who was obsessed with and wanted to marry him; and Uraume, who served him.
Tengen and Kenjaku could very well be older than him, but Yorozu and Uro definitely are not, as they were mortal when they died. Uraume could go either way.
I did some other rabbit hole research and found that the Gojo clan was an actual clan that split off from the Sugawara clan, which was founded by Sugawara no Michizane, who Gojo says is the ancestor of him and Yuta.
If we assume that this is meant to be the Gojo clan of jujutsu kaisen, which isn’t an assumption I’m quite as comfortable making as other assumptions I’ve made here, it was founded some point in the 13th century, though I can’t really find the correct date. This is after the Heian period, despite the Gojo’s saying they were well established during that time.
But regardless of this, they could have existed in some hidden form within the Sugawara clan beforehand, and only became official during that time. After all, that tentative date is public, and I can think of several reasons why curse-wielding sorcerers would want to keep certain things about their family history private from the general public.
This works with what Tengen said about the Six Eyes, Star Plasma Vessel, and Kenjaku being intertwined in fate. Even if my assumptions about the Gojo clan are not correct, the Six Eyes probably predated the Gojo Clan in some form anyway.
Anyway there wasn’t a point to any of this, I’m just bored and rambling. If anybody else has anything more specific about the time period or just wants to talk about jjk worldbuilding and background please do I love headcanons and fleshing out already established worlds.
#jjk manga spoilers#jjk#jujutsu kaisen#gojo family#gojo clan#sukuna#ryomen sukuna#jjk sukuna#jjk kenjaku#jjk tengen#jjk uraume#jjk yorozu#jjk analysis#idk if that counts#this is mostly just me rambling I don’t know if I would call it analysis
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His Word Goes Forth
CW: Referenced past child abuse, some emeto references (brief, vague), some dissoci@tion towards the end, alcohol references, prostitution references. Just a whole load of references. But I am so excited to finally be able to write this chapter and introduce... Gilly's children.
Bones in the Ocean Masterlist
The Hotel Import, Grand Island, the Colonies
Guilford Wentworth the Fifth - who went by Ford and told everyone who didn’t already know his parentage that his name was Wilford Prose, simply a cousin to the illustrious Wentworth name - woke up to sunlight streaming in through the gauzy curtains, bright like daggers against his closed eyes.
He’d been meant to go to the symphony last night and make some sort of connection with a man whose properties his father admired, a man named Hogarth or something who owned too much land and not enough good common sense to know to avoid anything to do with the Wentworth businesses. Ford had been told to convince him a visit to the Continent would do him good, to stop by the Wentworth estate and meet the elder Guilford.
He’d been told to make many such meetings before, and usually he did as he was told. Ford had ceased to be treated as a child and had become just another tool in his father’s toolbox since his mother died and could no longer shield her children. He’d been good at it at first.
But now… He was only eighteen and already he was tired of this.
And last night, he’d decided to let tired win the day.
Instead of making contact at the symphony, he’d instead allowed himself to be distracted by the promise of further liquor in a dark men’s club down the street, and spent his night in pursuit of new ways to forget his hated name.
He had succeeded, however briefly.
Unfortunately, the end result was that Ford woke up knowing his own name very well still, but with a headache that threatened to split him in two from temple to chin, a tongue that felt like cotton stuffed into his mouth, and a stomach that was either threatening to empty itself or ravenous for food and it couldn’t seem to decide which.
“Damn the sun,” He groaned, still feeling the ebb and swell of the liquor from the night before within him, stretching against the sheets. There was an ache in his hips that he enjoyed more than he disliked it, and when he tried to open one eye to look down at himself, there were marks of red from someone’s rouge, he thought, along the insides of his thighs. “... huh.”
Rubbing his face, he slowly sat up, squinting against the pain. There was a bottle with at least two good drinks left in it on the table next to the bed, and he drank it all, feeling it burn all the way down.It would help hold off the worst of the ache, though, at least until he could find somewhere darker to hide away from the daylight and a draught of laudanum to send him back to sleep.
Then, when he woke up once more, he’d need to come up with an excuse for why Hogarth Whoever wasn’t already boarding a ship for the Continent, to be swayed by his father’s monster like everyone else was.
That could wait, though. At least for however long it took to sleep off last night, both the alcohol and the pleasures that came with the darker bars and the seedier places in the city. Ocean air and warm nights made pleasures easy to find, and there were plenty of people who wanted money to eat more than they wanted their own virtue intact.
Ford had plenty of money.
Although even the money wasn’t really his.
He sighed, dropping back into the bed. There wasn’t anyone in the bed, although there had been when he went to sleep. Or passed out. Whichever it was that he’d done.
There’d been a young man, his own age - what was his name? It didn’t matter. None of their names mattered. Once they had coins in hand he could call them anything he wanted and they’d do anything they were told. Nothing there beside him now but empty space.
When he laid his hand there, it was still warm.
“Damn,” He whispered, then checked the other side, where there had been a lovely woman. Had the two known each other? He couldn’t remember. Well, in any case, that space was equally emptied, and it wasn’t warm at all.
She’d left long before the man had.
“Well… double damn,” Ford said, voice a little rasping. One of his last clear memories had been shout-singing along with the sea shanties sung by the sailors come on shore to drink and whore with the rest. Had the young man been a sailor on leave? Might have been... “If he told me his name, I forgot it. I rather liked them.”
His eyes drifted closed again.
“Of course you did,” His sister’s voice came, warm as the ocean nearest the shore, dry as the desert wind, breaking through his thoughts. “You like them all, because you are an idiot with money and that makes them like you.”
Ford gasped, his heart half-stopped before his mind caught up and he realized she wasn’t actually in the bedroom, but out in the sitting area where he couldn’t see her - and more importantly, she couldn’t see him. Even so, he felt himself flush and yanked the blankets up to cover himself, sitting upright all at once.
“Nathalie! What in the gods’ names-”
He heard the rustle of the morning paper. “Good morning,” Nathalie said, without even the slightest change in tone. “How are you, dear beloved sister? Oh, I’m fine, Ford, thank you for asking. Did you just arrive, Natty? Why yes, Ford, I did, it is so lovely of you to ask after my health-”
“Fine, fine, Nathalie, I get it. Just-... hold on, let me dress and I’ll join you.” Ford snorted, reaching blindly towards the floor and grabbing at the first pieces of clothing he found there. The suit he’d been meant to wear to the symphony, now a wrinkled mess - but it wasn’t like his sister would care, or even as if it were the first time she’d seen him in disarray after a night wasted. He had to fight a swell of dizzy nausea as soon as he was on his feet, leaning against the wall and letting his fingers scrape the textured wallpaper there, a series of flowers in dim pastels against cream. “How did you get in here, anyway?”
“I asked at the desk if my brother was here carousing with whores,” Nathalie said. The paper rustled again as she turned the page, as if punctuating her sentence. “And the sweet young man at the desk informed me that you were, indeed, carousing with whores. I paid him to let me in and threw out the whore.”
Ford swallowed thickly, walking with slow, careful steps along the cool wooden floor to the doorway, his shirt half-buttoned and the linen a mess of wrinkles. “There were two.”
“Of course there were.” Nathalie set the paper down and turned to look at him. She looked like their mother - both Ford and Nathalie looked like her, thank any god who might have been responsible. They had her delicacy, her bright wide eyes. Nathalie looked the most like her, though. And now she turned their mother’s look of solemn, disappointed judgment on him just like she had. “There was only one when I arrived. I sent him away.”
“Hmph. I thought he was quite nice, I was hoping to seek him out again. I can’t recall if he told me his name, though.” He dropped into a chair at the little breakfast table she’d set herself up at, slumping against the hard wooden back and tipping his head back. The world swayed dangerously around him when he did.
“His name was Darren,” Nathalie said, and when he opened his eyes to look at her, he found that the disappointment had become the slightest hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth. “Darren Meander.”
“That… He cannot have been speaking true to you.”
“I don’t care if he was or wasn’t, it’s what he told me. There, now you have a name if you want to find him again.”
“Thank you. Why did you bother?”
“You get on better with the whores than you do with your own class,” Nathalie said, as if the answer were obvious. “And you’re going to seek them out anyway. Besides, I use you as proof positive to myself of something I have always known.”
“What…?”
“That I, Lady Nathalie Wentworth, shall never marry, since any man of means or with a good family name may be as dissolute and pointless as you are.” She winked at him, and he might even have found it in himself to laugh if his stomach hadn’t twisted angrily at the thought. “I do enough picking up after you, I don’t think I am in need of any other man to deal with.”
“I’m sure you can find a pious man and get to him before he joins the priesthood,” Ford muttered, his face hot with guilt. She really did so often have to handle things for him, things he should have handled himself as the eldest.
Nathalie was younger than him, only just now sixteen, but she’d always seemed older, more second mother than sister some days. Maybe because, since their mother had died - when he was eleven and she was only nine - she’d done all the mothering of the twins, all the hiding them from the attention of their father, holding them in the night after nightmares or when the coastal storms raged.
Ford’s job, back then, had been to take the brunt of his father’s anger, keep Guilford’s eyes - and his fists - on him, and only him. It had kept Nathalie and the twins safe, for years… until their lordly father had split them all apart and declared the twins were old enough for finishing school, Ford was ready to take over the business interests in the Colonies, and Nathalie was old enough to run her own household and prepare for marriage.
Still.
They were all still far, far away from their father, and therefore safe from his direct influence, his attention, and his damnable monster.
Still.
Ford sighed, watching a shivery little rainbow from the sun shining through a window just right bounce off the ceiling. “In any case, I’ve hardly caused enough trouble to cross the channel and find you. What are you doing here, anyway?”
Nathalie didn’t look up from the paper she was scanning, but she gestured at a carafe before her. It had freshly-brewed coffee that steamed as he poured it into a teacup, and he sighed happily at the first sip. She hummed. “I came to see you.”
“You’re meant to be up at Howe House.”
“I was up at Howe House. I’ve been supervising it for months. It’s nearly habitable, which is lovely, considering I’ve been habiting there amongst the dust and the mouse droppings all this time.” Nathalie finally set the paper down, crossing her arms on the table and looking Ford over. She was pristine, in a light-blue linen dress made for the hot island days, her hair pulled back in a chignon to keep it from suffocating the back of her neck. “Oh, Ford. You look awful.”
“I feel awful, thank you ever so much for noticing.” He drained the first cup of coffee and poured a second, his tongue flat and numb from the too-hot liquid. He didn’t care. “So if you were at Howe House, why aren’t you there now? It’s a four-day sail to get here from there, and you sent no warning-”
“I absolutely did send you a notice, you shattered teapot of a man. You just haven’t been home in a week, I checked when I arrived. Your servants haven’t seen you since last Wednesday and not a single one had a clue where to find you except your butler.”
“Yes, well, he’s the only one I told when I left that I was going to stay here.” Ford exhaled. His sister’s constant piercing stare wasn’t helping his headache even a little bit. His stomach turned over itself and he fought back the urge to simply be sick all over this lovely table and Nathalie’s lovely dress. “... I hate the house. I avoid it whenever I can.”
“Clearly.” Something in his sister’s bristling manner softened, a little. She reached out to lay a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry, Ford. I know this… wasn’t how we hoped it would be, when we were young.”
Ford laid a hand over hers. His fingers felt chilled and numb - hers, by contrast, felt bright and warm and full of life. “We thought we could go farther from him, that he wouldn’t follow us. But…”
That had been when their mother was alive, and they had thought they could bring her with. Neither of them said it. Both of them heard it, anyway, even unsaid.
Ford cleared his throat. “... but if this is what our father wants, we must help to build and maintain the Wentworth name and fortune.”
“I know.” She squeezed his arm, brief but firm, and then let go of him, glancing back down at the paper. “I know. And we are, however we hate our parts, we play them. For the twins, at least.”
“For the twins. They’ll… be out of school in a few years, and by then, maybe-”
“Maybe.” She cut him off. She poured herself a coffee, then, holding it in both hands. Her nails were bitten nearly to the quick, the one bad habit that had never been broken in her no matter their father’s rages. “I should tell you, Ford, this is not a social visit. I was… sent here to pick you up.”
“You were?” Ford sat up straighter, and felt a frisson of dread like an electric eel moving inside of him. “By-... Nathalie, not by-”
“Yes. By… our father.”
He swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. “... why?”
She took in a breath, wincing and pressing one hand to her side as the mere expansion of her ribs pushed against the tightly-fitted bodice. The style of the times, for wealthy young women, and Ford had spent more than a few nights undoing laces of young ladies wondering if ‘style’ was just a pretty way to avoid saying suffocation. At least the lower class women he spent most of his time with were allowed to breathe.
Nathalie’s voice was so soft it was nearly a whisper. “You were supposed to be packed and ready to go when I arrived, Ford. I was supposed to explain it to you on the ship.”
“... what?” He blinked.
"Father's letter to me made it clear I wasn't to tell you until we were underway, but-... but I meant to regardless, just-... I expected you to have seen my letter."
"... Ah." The mere mention of his father had made his stomach try to rise up in his throat again, and the idea of going back on a ship - the weeks of seasickness and then the week of land sickness afterward when he had to get used to being solid and still once again - made it much much worse. He had to swallow hard as bile rose and lean over, resting his forehead on the cool surface of the table and pressing one hand over his belly to try and calm it with the pressure.
The morning breeze blew in through the windows, bringing the salt-scent of ocean air with it. There came with the welcome salt the faint hint of dead fish, a simple fact of life everyone tried to ignore. You got used to it. Ford had gotten used to it, in the end. But it didn’t help his stomach feel any better now, or stop his heart from racing. “Father sent you... to pick me up? I am to live at Howe House with you now?” He groaned against the tabletop without looking up. “That house is full of ghosts!”
“It is not.” Nathalie rolled her eyes. He could hear her shoe tapping impatiently under the table and her cup clatter against the saucer as she put it back down. “That’s an old wives’ tale, I’ve never met a single one and I’ve been living there for more than a year.”
“Yeah, because you aren’t the heir, they don’t loathe you like they do me.”
“There are no spirits haunting Howe House,” Nathalie said firmly. “And if there were, why would they hate you?”
“The same reason I have such hatred for myself, due to the blood in my veins! His blood!"
Oh, he’d spoken too loud. The pain in his head spiked with his voice's volume, and he had to close his eyes tightly and breathe in quick, shallow pants until it ebbed again.
Nathalie was silent, but her hand laid on his back, then, rubbing gently up and down. Just like their mother had, when they were young and came to her with sickness. She gave him a moment or two of quiet, which... it helped, honestly. “You cannot help the circumstances of your birth,” She murmured. “And remember what Mother said."
"It is only blood," Ford muttered, mouth barely moving. "She had no idea how deep the ties of blood run."
"Yes she did. And... I understand, Ford, I wish as much as you that we could change our names and be gone, but you know we can’t."
"The twins need us."
"Yes. Besides, Father-”
“Why, why would Father even think of me? I’ve done everything I can to get him to forget me entirely, Nathalie!”
“Oh, is that what the drinking and whoring were about? Being easily forgotten?” Nathalie’s humor was sharp, but it never quite cut deep. He knew her too well for that, and she was still gentling herself for his sake. He made himself sit up and look over at her. There was something in the set of her face that had his nerves singing in worry. “Listen to me, Ford. You aren’t coming to stay at Howe House.”
“Well, he can’t have sent you to scold me about… this.” He gestured at the wreckage of the hotel suite around him, bottles emptied or half-emptied. It looked as though at least one of his guests the night before had left their shirt behind. Or maybe that was one of his, and it had been unpacked… He’d never seen it before, but that didn’t mean much. Ford’s clothing was bought according to his father’s specifications, he never knew of it until he was sent for tailoring. “He doesn’t even know about it.”
“You cannot be sure, but… no, no, it’s not about this.” She licked at her lips, looking uneasily over to the window. Outside, the sun shone in a perfect, cloudless blue sky. The sound of people going about their lives down there filtered up to them. “... Ford. He calls us. We have been summoned... home.”
His heart chilled at the word. "No."
"Yes." Nathalie exhaled, folding her hands in front of her. She looked everywhere but him, and he tried without success to follow her gaze. “He’s… sent for us, Ford. You know why. You know what that means.”
“Either of us, really.” His voice was a whisper, airless. The hotel suite around him seemed suddenly transparent, as if he weren’t even seated here within it. As if it were all a pretty fiction, a daydream he had at night with Wentworth Manor crowding ever closer, his father’s eyes everywhere searching for faults, always finding them. His father’s monster with teeth bared and loathing in its dreadful eyes. “It could be for either of us. You’re sixteen, I’m eighteen, it could-... it could be for you, or for me, it could be-”
“... I think it’s for you.” She took his hand in both of hers again, and this time she held on tight. They looked at each other, with their mother’s eyes, and Ford felt the wave of fear he had spent his time here on the islands trying to escape breaking over his head, to drag him under again. “I think Father has found you a wife.”
The sun shone. Birds sang. The ocean was a constant dull, reassuring roar just outside the window. Despite the heat, Ford shivered with a depthless chill and felt water closing over his head, drowning him in the dark with all his fears coming suddenly to life.
“How-” His voice broke.
He had to swallow down terror, just like he had done since he was a child, and straighten his shoulders. He had to tell himself the world was only a play, and he was only a part his father had imperfectly cast. He had to keep his own life at a distance, and not feel it, or he would feel too much. The world had too many sharp edges, and he must stand apart from them or be slashed to ribbons. “Nathalie-”
“Please,” Nathalie whispered. “Please don’t ask, Ford. Don't, I won't know the answer, none of us know."
“How long?”
She didn’t answer, only looked away. He could see the glimmer in her eyes, knew it for what it was. It made the world feel even more distance, as if he were adrift in a lifeboat, the tide carrying him away from his own body. The escape was a gift or a curse, and he didn't know which.
His mouth still moved, without his consent. Without his decree. It asked the question neither of them knew the answer to, the question that haunted every Guilford Wentworth but the first.
“After I’m married, Nathalie... after he has given me to his bride, and the monster has taken my mind and will from me... after he has me shut up in his house again..."
His voice felt like someone else's. His body was only a creation that carried blood to a new generation, to give his father more power. He was far, far away from it.
"Nathalie-"
"Please, Ford-"
"How long will he... let me live?”
-
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#bones in the ocean#child of whumper#worldbuilding stuff#fantasy whump#fantasy writing#original fantasy writing#original fantasy#writers on tumblr#writblr#original fiction#referenced captivity#dissoci@tion tw#referenced child abuse#whumpers who are also whumpees
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December 5th
pairing: Pero Tovar x reader
warnings: fluff, some light smut (thigh grinding)
words: 1.2k
a/n: as always, a bit longer with Pero and it's also set in the vague past. inspo from the quote prompt "I totally definitely did not just watch you chop wood outside” from @toomanystoriessolittletime's winter writing challenge ❄️
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“If you drop one more egg, I’m going to make you muck out the stables instead of him,” your sister, Martha told you, looking pointedly between you and the hired hand that was currently outside chopping wood.
You wrenched your attention away from the way his body moved to look at her, heat creeping up your neck. Still, you avoided, “Instead of who?”
“Oh, do not try to deny it, I’ve been watching you watch him for the past half hour. And you’ve lost one egg and only barely managed to save another you’re so distracted,” she impugned.
“You have two dozen chickens, it’s not as if we are hurting for eggs,” you muttered, sheepish at having been caught.
“Regardless, I will not have needless waste in my house because you are staring at the hired hand.”
“He has a name,” you reminded her, thinking that Pero deserved to be referred to as such.
“Fine,” Martha acceded. “Stop trying to picture Pero’s nude body and get back to baking.
Your mouth dropped open in shock that she would even say that aloud, but Martha just laughed loudly and ushered you away from the window.
___
An hour later, with the cake in the oven and Martha keeping an eye on it, you had been sent to collect the eggs and skim the milk for cream. Skimming the cream was one of your favorite chores, quiet and meditative. The shed it was kept in had an open doorway that faced the house, but from where you were standing, all you could see was the stacked firewood.
And then a couple minutes later, you could also see Pero, back again with the ax and a cord of wood over his shoulder. He made it look effortless, but you knew it must be ridiculously heavy. The thought of what else he could do with those strong arms made you shiver.
You lost track of what you were doing for several seconds, just watching him starting to do… whatever it was he was doing. You weren’t paying much attention to the technicalities.
So you also didn’t notice when Pero looked up and caught sight of you through the doorway. Which meant you just about jumped out of your skin when he spoke.
“I hear you are making an almond cake.”
You gasped loud, hand coming to your heart and splashing some of the milk. Luckily it wasn’t the cream or else Martha would have your hide.
Pero’s eyes got wide and he looked so sweet and sorry you couldn’t help but adore him, “I am sorry, I did not mean to scare you.”
You stood, having actually finished the skimming while you were distracted, and you wanted to move on before you embarrassed yourself.
“It’s fine, I was just woolgathering. Um, yes, almond cake, do you like it?” you asked, getting the subject back on track and moving out into the open air. Hopefully the chill would help you think straight.
“Yes, it reminds me of home,” he told you softly and when you looked up, his warm brown eyes were deep, just asking you to fall into them.
“What are you— I mean, you were cutting wood earlier, so why are you cutting more now? Do we really need that much?” you laughed awkwardly.
“This morning I was chopping the logs into pieces and now I am splitting them so they are the right size for the hearth,” he explained, gesturing with his large hands and you got distracted again, wetting your lips as you looked at them.
Pero noticed your stares, had noticed them for weeks but was waiting for you to decide what you wanted to do. After all, you were the sister of his employer and he was only planning to stay in the area for a few months longer, getting food and board on the way to his own brother. William had a farm with both of their names on it waiting just a mountain away from where you lived.
In Pero’s distracted daytime fantasies, he pictured wedding you and taking you home with him, coming home to you everyday.
And in his nighttime fantasies, he pictured what you would feel like under him, how sweet you would taste, the sounds you would make when he touched you. Like how he wanted to touch you now, with the hands you couldn’t stop staring at.
The two of you were broken from your separate albeit related reveries by the loud squawk of a chicken.
“I— I have to go collect eggs!” you said, unnecessarily loud and hurried away.
“Yes, of course,” Pero replied, watching you practically run away from your desire.
___
That night, long after Martha and your brother-in-law, John, were asleep, you snuck downstairs, avoiding the creaky steps, because you needed one more sliver of the spice cake. Martha had finished it with her famous orange marmalade icing and it might’ve been the best thing you ever tasted.
The fire in the hearth had dwindled, leaving just coals, but you didn’t need the light to find your way, you were more than familiar with the layout of the house. What you weren’t expecting was to trip over a pair of boots as you walked past the chair closest to the fire.
For the second time that day, your hand flew to your heart and Pero apologized for scaring you.
“I must have fallen asleep reading. The fire is low, I should build it before I return to my quarters,” he said, referring to the loft that was on the far end of the house from the other bedrooms.
As he spoke, he relit the candle he must have been using to read, just about an inch of it left but enough that it became very clear that he was fully dressed and you were in your white cotton nightgown. It wasn’t revealing, but it was intimate enough that you felt heat creep up your chest and neck in embarrassment.
“I don’t know, it feels pretty warm in here to me,” you don’t know what possessed you to say that, but his soft, sleepy eyes and the warmth of his face in the candlelight had your heart beating faster.
“Well maybe you are feverish, because I am cold,” he said with a chuckle.
“Maybe… maybe I can help you with that,” you told him and took a step forward. And then another. You leaned forward and then, with his help, climbed onto his lap.
Your hands rested on his shoulders for balance, one knee between his and the other pressed into the side of the overstuffed chair. The skirt of your nightgown had to be rucked up by his rough hands, and you held your breath as you waited for a rip, but he was surprisingly gentle. His hands came to your hips when he was done and you settled your weight down, breathing in deeply when his thigh pressed against the most intimate part of you.
“Pero,” you breathed, and then he was kissing you.
His full lips pressed into yours, your arms wrapped around his neck, and he tugged you closer until your chest was flush with his. The thin fabric of your nightgown let him feel your warmth easily, and he moaned into your mouth when he felt your hips move against his thigh.
He helped you along, moving you in a slow grind until you had to pull away to gasp a quiet whine of his name and your body shook in his arms.
After a couple shaky breaths of calming yourself down and trying to regain some semblance of dignity, you asked, “warmer yet?”
Pero laughed lightly and kissed your cheek, “Almost, but I think I want more of your heat.”
🌨️🌨️🌨️
#pero tovar#pero tovar x reader#blurb#fluff#smut#ish#nobedofroses#snowy fics 23#stephswinterwritingchallenge
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Rereading The Terror
Chapter Fifty-One: Crozier
A reckoning approaches! My most frequent annotation in that chapter has been simply 'nOoOooOOoooOoO' and you'll see why soon enough.
They've arrived at Rescue Camp - about as far south as they can go on KWI before the coast turns north again - and the halt can't come soon enough. There are so many sick now that even the healthiest men are rapidly running out of strength to haul them along, and Goodsir has advised the Captain that no fewer than five men need their feet amputated, including Mr Diggle.
Crozier and Goodsir have also discussed, only among themselves so far, where to go from here and have proposed a gut-wrenching split. Goodsir will remain at Rescue Camp with the ill, while Crozier and the healthiest men carry on in hopes that they'll make it to rescue if they no longer have to haul their fellows behind them.
"Crozier knew that the surgeon had voluntarily signed his own death warrant by volunteering to stay behind with the doomed men and Goodsir knew his captain knew it. Neither man spoke of it."
Out in the strait, the ice is in complete turmoil - "agitated and torturing itself" into mountainous peaks and troughs that Crozier believes even the indefatigable Manson to be incapable of hauling through or over.
And speaking of Manson, Crozier's thoughts soon turn again to the mutiny that's continued to foment. He hasn't trusted anyone nor been without the company of his most loyal men since the first mutinous stirrings a month earlier. But with tensions rising once more, Crozier has decided that when the time comes, it will be better to let Hickey et al go their own way and wash his hands of them - "The fewer men left at Rescue Camp the better, especially if it meant getting rid of the rotten apples."
Crozier calls a muster of all the remaining men (poor Mr Diggle dies just moments before this, bleeding out after Goodsir - with wee Tom Hartnell as his new assistant - amputates his foot). :(((
Crozier has the bosuns draw in the gravel the outline of their long-lost ships' deck.
"This allowed the men to know where to stand during the muster and gave them a sense of familiarity."
They've apparently done this every time they've stopped in camp and been called to meet.
With the men assembled, Crozier once more reflects on who is now absent. He goes ship by ship and rank by rank from officers right on down to ship's boys. David Young is still alive in the book, as is George Chambers although he never recovered from the head injury he received at Carnivale and has been unable to care for himself or do anything but the most menial physical tasks ever since.
Robert Golding is also still present - he's almost 23 now but is still "gullible in a boy's way" which is an interesting little detail.
On a lighter note, we learn that Mr Honey the carpenter is still clinging onto life in an oddly heartening, Blanky-esque way despite being riddled with scurvy and having just had both his feet amputated -
"Incredibly, as of this assembly, the carpenter was still alive and even managed to shout "Present!" from his tent when his name was called at muster."
After a grim prayer, Crozier announces that from this point forward, each man may go his own way. Goodsir will stay with the sick, Crozier and the healthiest men will forge on for Back's River and if anyone else has an alternate plan, they're welcome to pursue it.
It is then that Lt. Hodgson steps forward:
"The captain just looked at the young officer for a long moment. He knew that Hodgson was a stalking horse [a fun phrase that I can't say I've ever come across before] for Hickey, Aylmore, and a few of the more rebellious sea lawyers who had been stirring up the men with resentment for so many months, but he wondered if young Hodgson knew it."
Hickey, Hodgson et al express once again their intention to return to the ship, and around sixteen men are counted in total when Crozier asks how big this doomed return part is set to be.
As with David Young, we see some interesting differences from the show here - Morfin, Charles Best, and Billy Orren are among those sixteen men, and Gibson's mentioned too.
Three other men - Reuben Male, Robert Sinclair, and Samuel Honey step forward also but stress emphatically that they're not associated in any way with Hickey's band. They want to return to the ships also but will try to make it cross-country with only what they can carry on their backs.
Hickey announces - "folding his arms and standing legs-apart in front of his men like a Cockney Napoleon" - their intention to take poor brain-damaged George Chambers along with them, as well as the still-comatose Davey Leys (insisting that they've been taking care of him and want to continue to do so).
"The hell you say," said Crozier. "Why would you want to bring two men who can't take care of themselves?"
It is then that Goodsir steps in to the fray (though it's a wonder he's able to do so given the absolute BAMF balls of steel he's got on him in the conversation that follows).
"No" said Dr. Goodsir, stepping forward into the tense space between Crozier and Hickey's men, "you haven't been taking care of Mr Leys and you don't want George Chambers and him as fellow travellers. You want them as food."
Hickey is taken aback at that. He urges Manson into violent action but thinks better of it when the last few Marines, scurvy-ridden and barely able to stand, nevertheless raise their weapons.
He settles for entreating Goodsir to come with them, insists that it's the only option for survival but Goodsir, preternaturally calm and collected, is having none of it and insists in turn that they don't need him for what they're planning...
"Even an amateur can learn dissective anatomy quite quickly" interrupted Goodsir, his voice strong enough to override the caulker's mate's. "When one of these other gentlemen you're bringing along as your private food stock dies - or when you help him die - all you have to do is sharpen a ship's knife to a scalpel's edge and begin cutting."
This alone is so SO interesting to me and I might have to write a separate post about it. It reminds me of his confession in the show - "if ever I was a doctor, I am one no longer" - for one thing. And it really does just speak volumes about how he views himself and the situation at hand.
He's been self-conscious throughout the story in his skills as a lowly anatomist and his comparative lack of a "true" doctor's knowledge. But now he sees how little any of that matters. He's just chopped the feet right off five different men FFS - how could he not see himself as only a butcher now? How could he not see that butchery is all that's left?
He continues to describe the grisly processes of carving up a body for consumption, completely in control, his voice soft and never rising. Let's end on his gruesome, nightmarish climax, shall we?
"...I recommend you put each other's bone marrow into a pot for cooking straightaway and let yourselves simmer before trying to digest your friends."
"Fuck you." snarled Cornelius Hickey.
Dr Goodsir nodded.
"Oh" the surgeon added softly, "when you get around to eating one another's brains, it will be simplicity itself. Simply saw off the lower jaw, throw it away with the lower teeth, and use a knife or spoon to gouge and hack your way up through the soft palate into the cranial vault. If you wish, you may invert the skull and sit around it, scooping out each other's brains like so much Christmas pudding."
#The Terror#The Terror AMC#Observations#Random Observations#Meta#Rereading the Terror#Terror Spoilers#🤯#Fuck me man THIS CHAPTER!!!#I want to say it's a treat for all you George Chambers enjoyers out there but that's not exactly true is it?#Francis Crozier#Cornelius Hickey#Harry Goodsir#George Hodgson#Magnus Manson#George Chambers
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Today I find myself consumed by the infamous Simon-Harbouring-Wille’s-Jumper Scenes. (I swear, Simon putting on Wille’s jumper to feel close to him is some real Brokeback Mountain shizz right there, and frankly how dare he do this to himself and to us! But moving on…)
The infamous Jumper Scenes are pretty much a series of whyyyy questions that torment me on rotation: Why did Simon take Wille’s jumper before anyone else could? Why did he never even try to return it? Why are the writers doing this to us? And why did Simon choose to wear what he did to his Netflix date with Marcus after wearing it?
Send help because I think the beauty of the Jumper Scenes is that they are rife with all sorts of potential interpretations -- but it also means I can never make my mind up!
Okay so Q1: Why did Simon quickly yank Wille's jumper into his custody and hide it under his desk in the first place?
Simon grabbed that jumper so fast, it was like he was worried that someone else was going to take it instead (or that the teacher wouldn’t let him). The fact that he went as far as hiding it from sight under his desk really shows how determined he was to keep it in his custody. It feels like there had to be so much going on subconsciously for Simon to react the way he did there.
Were there elements of needing comfort in confusion? (ie. ‘I hate how this situation feels. Should I do something to try and intervene or leave it be? Let me just hold this remaining link to him until I decide’)
Were there elements of strategy? (ie. ‘I don't know why he is being forced to leave, but if I have his jumper then this is a plausible excuse to go talk to him in person and find out. I’m not letting any teacher or student get their hands on it instead.’)
Were there elements of protectiveness? (ie. ‘I know Wille best so I should be the one to take care of his jumper until it can be returned to him’)
And finally, was there panic driving an instinctual need to hold onto Wille to stop him from leaving (with the jumper acting as a symbol of Wille that Simon can physically hold onto in that moment)?
Whichever combination it was, taking that jumper would have felt like regaining some sense of control in a moment of helplessness. I love that Simon did that instinctually.
But I am so curious as to what excuse Simon gave to himself for taking the jumper. How did he justify it? Especially at a time when he knew maintaining space away from Wille was necessary for his health.
I wonder if he tried to brush it off initially as just a way of securing himself a plausible reason to get access to Wille to return it (and thus have a chance to talk to him to get to the bottom of things without Felice being the middle man).
Or was he cognisant that Wille’s sudden departure forced a split-second choice onto him -- whether he wanted Wille in his life or not -- and his jumper-snatching hands had made that choice for him before his head could catch up. That split-second choice exposed some hidden parameters of Simon’s intention to get over Wille: that 'space' from Wille did not mean 'complete absence' of him. There was a hidden, non-negotiable clause in Simon’s plan and that was that Wille had to still be present in Simon's life even if that meant it would take far longer to get over him. And now Simon is aware of his own caveat and has to act on it by seeking out the headmistress.
Okay, fine, cool, fair enough to Simon. But then...
Q2) Why did he keep the jumper and never return it once the crisis had passed?
Once Simon realised he still had Wille’s jumper in his bag, he had ample opportunity to pack it back in his bag and return it to Wille at school. Easy-peasy. It’s not like he needed it as an excuse to talk to Wille anymore, nor did he need to keep it as a souvenir of Wille since Wille didn’t actually leave. So what excuse did he use to keep it this time? That it was for the sake of the Jubilee because without its scent he couldn’t compose the modernised school song? XD
I know that obviously on a storytelling level, Simon kept the jumper because it is meant to represent his feelings for Wille (ie. treasured, kept close to him in secret, never discarded, unable to be let go of, etc), but I want to know why Simon could never consciously bring himself to return it when he knew that keeping it there in the room with him was completely sabotaging his own plan to get over Wille. I mean, he was so determined to get over Wille because it was agony not to but then he chose to keep Wille’s jumper under his pillow. Where treasured things go. That is not moving on, Simon!
So is that the answer? Simon was aware that he was struggling to let Wille go and this was his way of compromising? He thought he should be strong at school and avoid talking to Wille, but while it still hurts, he could get his secret fix of him in a controlled weaning in the safety of his bedroom? Because in the moments of stillness when he can’t quite distract himself from missing Wille, he can just take Wille’s jumper out and catch Wille’s scent on it or put it on and feel like Wille’s arms are around him, and that is a safe form of missing him because Wille’s not there in person to tempt him…
Oh Simon, you sweet self-saboteur…
But hang on just one minute because Q3! What was that boy thinking wearing his version of Wille’s orange jumper to his Netflix & Chill attempt with Marcus?
Like yes, I know Simon has worn that orange jumper before, but of all his jumpers, why did he change into that one that night? Swapping one shade of orange for another…
It happened after he stared himself down in the mirror for being such a pathetic, lovesick moper, wearing his ex’s jumper (that he stole). Was he hoping that he would be able to override the power of Wille’s Sniffable Orange Jumper™ (and thus Wille himself) by associating the colour orange with Marcus instead? Borrow the power of orange jumpers to jump-start the flame of attraction and then BAM a new sexy memory is unlocked and Wille’s Orange Jumper™ becomes just a pile of who-the-eff-cares cashmere (or whatever it is made from)? Because……. boy, there are easier ways to stop moping. Like just returning the jumper to Wille?
Or was it an entirely unconscious choice? He was just vibing orange when he looked through his closet that evening (because his subconscious was screaming ‘never forget about Wille!’).
Oh these damn jumper scenes do my head in in the best way. There’s so much room for interpretation and varying levels of angst. As I said earlier, send help.
#Young Royals#YR thoughts#simon eriksson#wilmon#orange is the new confusion#if that jumper could talk...
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