heliads

[heliads]

hello may I have a thomas (hehehe I’m back) httyd au when the reader is the daughter of a chief but it’s Thomas who discovered a night fury the first. And try to make her warm up to it (and to HIM) also please

'A Way Out' - Thomas

masterlist

One of these days, you’re finally going to have everything under control. Growing up the daughter of the chief, you’ve had the perfect view of the maelstrom of chaos surrounding your family, how the singular burden of leadership means you’ll never have a waking moment of peace. For such a tiny village, Berk seems to have no shortage of problems. It’s honestly quite remarkable, if it weren’t for the fact that they’re all continually laid at your doorstep.

Your father has borne this burden for years, never backing down no matter how great or small the woes brought before him. As his daughter, you’ll inherit the title of chief some day, hopefully far into the future, so your father has taken to roping you into his chiefly duties as a sort of training process. You shadow him in meetings, you listen to the complaints of the townspeople, and recently he’s even allowed you to make decisions on public matters, albeit only the small ones.

You’re glad to be able to help your village, even in the small, carefully limited way permitted by your father, but you’d be lying if you said it was all smiles and well wishes. It feels like there’s always someone left jilted and sour-faced by one of your decisions, even when you’ve spent far too much time deliberating. Everything has a trade-off, every good choice has unintended consequences. You know that’s the lesson your father hoped you’d understand, but it’s so hard to accept. You hate letting people down, so you can’t help but overthink everything, trying to find the impossible decision that lets you make everyone happy. Very rarely does that ever play out in your favor, but you still hold out hope.

Hope, however, is a fleeting thing, and certainly not something that can survive long in a Viking village. If it weren’t enough to have burly, disagreeable warriors all trapped together on an inhospitable rock, constantly in danger of running out of resources or getting on each other’s nerves, you have to face one big problem that blows everything out of proportion. Life wasn’t difficult as is, so your ancestors had to move to an island home threatened by dragons.

Dragons. Behemoths of scale and talons scorching your homes and carrying off your livestock. Your father is obsessed with them, of finding some way to their labyrinthine nest and slaughtering the lot of them. He dreams of the day when he can eradicate the disease of dragons and protect everyone for good. It seems an impossible task– how could anyone fight against something like that– but if anyone were to do it, Chief Janson seems the best suited for it. He’s fiendishly clever and brutal with his methods. There is no bridge he wouldn’t burn to end the dragon threat, once and for all.

For years, you’ve watched the warriors of the village setting out to slay the dragons that plagued your home, mostly to mixed results. A successful raid will be rewarded by a vicious slaughter one week later, or they’ll manage to keep their homes from burning down one night only to lose an entire street a few days afterwards. It’s a constant battle, ever changing, ever dangerous. You’ve begged your father to let you join the warriors, but he’s never let you, not until you were old enough.

Secretly, awfully, you think Chief Janson doesn’t keep you from the dragons because he’s worried you’ll get hurt, but because he thinks you’re too young to handle yourself. If you went out in a blaze of glory, cementing the legacy of your people, stopping the tide of dragons, your father would be delighted. If you embarrassed him by putting on a poor performance in front of his people, Janson would wish you had just died instead. He’s more of a schemer than he ever has been a father, and even if he says he loves you, he loves his vengeance more. To disappoint him would be deadly. It is a fate you cannot allow.

So, when your father finally announced that this was the year you’d be allowed to take part in dragon training, you knew that this opportunity wasn’t just a privilege but an expectation. A winner is announced among the students every year, and if it isn’t you, if you cannot prove yourself as worthy of your father’s legacy, he might honestly just offer you as bait to the dragons then and there. At least then you would be of use to him.

In order to win the coveted title of best among the dragon trainers, you’ll have to beat out the other students. The competition is mixed this year– a few top contenders, like always, and those on the outskirts. There’s Gally, the stonemason’s son. You think he could out-wrestle a dragon even without training. Minho is lithe and fast, and still quite strong even if not quite at Gally’s level. Newt, a farmer’s boy, doesn’t even need to be here, everyone knows he’ll be a future advisor to your council one of these days. In fact, you’re fairly sure he’s more trusted to solve conflicts than you, and you’ve got the direct tie to the chief. You’d be jealous of his clear favor were it not for the fact that he’s a genuinely nice guy, someone you consider a friend.

They’ll be your toughest competitors, strength and speed and skill. There are a few other sons and daughters, no one really worth considering, and then there’s– well, there’s Thomas, but that’s an entirely different conversation altogether. Thomas– he tries, you think, he really does, but Thomas is better known for his mishaps than his successes. He’s attempted many different professions, but after nearly breaking Gally’s foot by dropping a heavy stone a hair’s breadth from the older boy’s boot, then outright refusing to join the butchers, then dozing off at a council of the elders, he’s shown less promise than most. Right now, they’ve stuck him in the smithy, somewhere he’s not completely terrible, for his strength to improve while he keeps out of trouble.

Thomas is somewhat of a nuisance to most of the village. He’s best at appearing when you least want him, always snooping around like he’s suspicious of the very walls that surround you. If he’s looking for a way out, though, he’ll be hard-pressed to find it. Your village is tucked into rocky precipices that plunge to the ocean below. It’s this life or no other, something even the always-questioning Thomas has to accept.

Your father seems to have written Thomas off completely. There was hope for him at some point– his mother was a prominent council member, and he was effortlessly brave growing up, always running ahead of the pack, but then he kept running and refused to settle down. He’s too flighty, so claims your father, too wild. He’ll never fit in.

You, on the other hand, have a less critical view of the boy. Thomas was always kind to you growing up, even if your father stopped allowing you to be near him once it became clear that your playmate might convince you to run from your problems instead of facing them head on and screaming a war cry like any proper Viking. What you remember was a nice boy, if quiet at times, who looked at the world like a puzzle to be solved. He fascinated you, the way his curiosity never failed him. You’d love to read his mind someday, to find out all the things he’s learned that you could only imagine.

To you, Thomas is a bated breath, a pull of air trapped in the lungs, stuck until ribs crack and bend and break. He will spend his whole life waiting for the one thing he’s meant to do, and when that day comes, he’s going to blow all of you away. You know it like muscle memory. His entire being, body and blood and mind, seems tense and ready for something that has never happened to him. There’s a sharpness in his eyes, a fuse in his mind ready to light. You can only wonder if he’ll ever stumble across his purpose, or if that bright fire in him will crumble to ash without even so much as a spark before it goes.

You watch him during dragon training when he isn’t looking. For someone everyone considers a fool, too busy running to stand and fight like a proper Viking, Thomas doesn’t seem particularly afraid of the fire-breathing monsters thrust before him. He takes proper care, of course, always keeping himself well out of reach of claws or fangs, but he isn’t running with fright or hiding behind wooden structures like some of the other would-be students. Instead, you swear Thomas is watching them, as if he knows some secret of theirs that you could only guess.

It confuses you. What has Thomas figured out? He manages to emerge from every dragon training session completely unscathed, even after that one Razorwhip that left everyone’s armor in tatters, even yours. Yet when the rest of you were trying to get ash off of your skin and mourning the deep scores in your shields, Thomas was totally fine. He griped with everyone else about how difficult the dragon had been, but not so much as a hair was out of place. Somehow, he’d figured out how to navigate the beast’s attacks, but he never bothered attacking, just kept himself safe. You’re fairly sure your father would consider that a coward’s plan, but you think there’s more to it. Thomas seems to understand the language of dragons, you just can’t fathom where he could have learned it.

Maybe you’re too focused on Thomas instead of actually fighting the beasts you were sent here to slay. Maybe that’s why Gally ends up getting the decisive blow on a Windstriker during one of the later lessons instead of you. Normally, it would have been no matter at all, you’d get the upper hand on a later day and show Gally up like usual, but your father had happened to be in attendance that afternoon. He was expecting a great show of your prowess, but instead he saw Gally win the accolades that day.

You dread returning home after the lesson, dragging your feet as if to fight off whatever’s waiting for you behind your front door. However, you can’t delay forever, and you know your father well enough to tell that any more dilly-dallying will only get you in more trouble than you are already, so you gather your spirits and head inside at last.

The chief is waiting for you by the great hearth, arms folded across his chest. He doesn’t bother with greetings, but since when has Janson let etiquette get in the way of what he wants?

“Is this how you spend every lesson?” Your father asks coldly. “You chase the dragon’s tail while someone else goes after the head? I was under the impression that I was raising a warrior, but I saw none out there in the arena today.”

You fight to keep your chin up, already wanting to shrink under the weight of his disapproval. “I let myself get distracted, it was my mistake. Clint had tripped and fallen, I was trying to pull him out of the way when Gally charged.”

Your father arches a brow. “That’s your excuse? One healer’s boy?”

“I was trying to prioritize the strength of the village,” you plead. “Isn’t that important for a chief?”

“What’s important is slaying a dragon when you see it,” your father says icily. “One dragon can slaughter a thousand healers. If this had been a real attack, you would have saved that boy only to see that Windstriker destroy half the village. You cannot let your emotions get in the way of your true purpose.”

You nod, but you still feel upset. “So, next time I should ignore a friend in need? How could I expect them to trust me? What if I needed help and they left me to die because I did the same to them?”

Your father scoffs. “No chief would need help. If you were ever in a situation in which you had to rely on one boy to save you, I would rather–”

Stupidly, you interrupt, fury radiating through you. “You’d rather I died, right? Better a dead warrior than a living embarrassment.”

Your father refuses to rise to the bait. “You seem to know my position perfectly. Why should I bother to agree with it?”

You shake your head disgustedly. “Maybe I wanted you to contradict me for once. Maybe I wanted to believe that, as my father, you cared about my life in any way.”

“No Viking needs petty condolences,” your father sneers. “I don’t recall raising you to rely on pretty lies. The truth should be sufficient, and if it doesn’t make you feel better, maybe you should try improving yourself. I’ll never lie to you, Y/N. I’ll never tell you I need you if I don’t.”

The words cut to the quick. He’s hinted at this before, but he’s never said it, not outright. Your throat burns, and before you can say something to land yourself even further in your father’s disregard, you turn and head for the door. You’re sure he’ll hate you even more for it, for running instead of facing what bothers you, but you’ve had enough fighting for the day. Just once, you want to be enough for somebody. Just once, you want to matter.

You’re through the village and into the surrounding forest in the blink of an eye. You’re not sure where you’re going, only that it cannot be here. You vaguely remember seeing Thomas walking down into these parts of the woods a few times, and the thought fills you with an odd sense of relief. Thomas has figured out how to survive despite the ire of the villagers. The comments and mutterings about his isolation and unusual behavior seem to wash off of him. You could learn a thing or two from him, or at least you could commiserate.

Your eyes prick as you remember the harsh words from your father. He’s been in a worse mood than usual, ever since the dragon raid a week or two ago. There had been a clear spell of attacks for a bit, and your father’s confidence had grown, assuming it had been his direction in leading raids and fighting off the beasts that had finally scared them off. No sooner had he said that, though, than your village had suffered one of the worst raids in a while. There were even rumors of a Night Fury sighting, although no one had been able to land so much as a scratch on the thing, and those that did catch a glimpse ended up with the healers, badly burned and talking gibberish.

Your progress through the forest is harsher than usual, twigs snapping under your feet as you irritably swat low-hanging branches away from your face. It feels as if no one wants you to succeed, no one cares about you, it’s just as your father said–

The brush clears away, and you find yourself in a clearing surrounded on all sides by swooping faces of pale rock. You’re not alone, either, Thomas is sitting on a smooth shore by a small lake and writing something in that journal he always carries around. He’s clearly lost in thought, and only looks up when you’re quite nearby to him. Since you’re not the closest of friends, you weren’t expecting an enthusiastic greeting, but you certainly didn’t think he would jump up immediately, eyes full of panic, and start trying to force you back the way you’d come.

“What are you doing?” You ask, confused.

Thomas shakes his head frantically. “Nothing. Nothing! Just, uh, writing. Super boring. Say, I think some of the healers wanted to see you about something? Something important, for sure. You’d better leave as fast as you can and–”

You shake your arm free. “Why are you acting so weirdly? Are you hiding something?”

“No, not at all,” Thomas says suspiciously, “I hate hiding. I’ve never hid. You should definitely go, though.”

The sound of movement echoes across the clearing, and Thomas steps forward to try and block your view of whatever is happening behind him. It’s too late, though, you’ve already ducked around him and seen– and seen–

Thomas isn’t just hiding a stray cat or unusual collection of runes. No, his secret is dangerous and terrible, so completely unexpected that all thoughts of the argument you’d had with your father are erased from your head in the blink of an eye. Climbing down from one of the far rock walls is a dragon, and not just any dragon, either. You’ve heard whispers of those ink-jet scales, the wings that could cover an entire house, the brilliant green eyes that stare straight to your soul.

“That’s a Night Fury!” You hiss, eyes wide.

Thomas winces. “Would you believe me if I said it wasn’t?”

You’re unable to tear your eyes from the dragon. “Why aren’t you running? We should be running.”

Thomas shakes his head. “No, don’t run! Please. I can explain.”

You shoot him a suspicious look. “You were certainly in a hurry to get me out of here earlier, but now you want me to stay? You had better explain yourself.”

“I will,” Thomas pleads, “I just need you to trust me, alright? I was hoping to get you out of here so you wouldn’t see him, but it’s too late for that, obviously, so I’m going for a different approach. I think you two can be friends.”

“Friends,” you repeat dubiously. “You want me to be friends with a Night Fury?”

“I’m friends with a Night Fury,” Thomas says pleasantly. “He’s actually pretty great, disregarding the obvious attitude issues. Serious entitlement, I’m telling you.”

“Obviously,” you repeat faintly.

Thomas makes a face. “Let me start from the beginning. I found Toothless after that bad raid a few weeks back. He didn’t like me at first, but we’ve gotten to trust each other. Look, I can prove it. I’ll introduce you.”

“That’s alright,” you say hastily. “I think I can go without introductions. In fact, I’m pretty sure I can just leave right now, and it won’t be an issue at all.”

“I think it’s a little late for that,” Thomas says, forcing calm into his words. “Toothless wants to meet you.”

You start to ask him what he means, and then you happen to glance over your shoulder and you realize that the Night Fury has crept up on you while you were talking. It’s impossible that a creature that large could move without making a sound, but now it’s regarding you from just a few steps away. You’re certain it could lunge and tear out your throat in the blink of an eye, or bite your head off, or incinerate you with that infamous fire–

“Stay calm,” Thomas tells you firmly. “I won’t let anything happen to you, I swear it. Toothless, this is Y/N. She’s a friend of mine, alright? That means she’s a friend of yours, too.”

It is absolutely ridiculous, but you swear the dragon cocks its head as if it’s listening to Thomas. You’re still not sure why you both aren’t dead yet, but the dragon looks back to you expectantly, and you feel the odd urge to say something. “Hi, Toothless. It’s, uh, nice to meet you.”

Thomas nods. “That was great. Here, give him this.”

You risk a glance away from the Night Fury to realize that Thomas is handing you a large fish. You take hold of the slippery thing and hesitantly toss it to the dragon, who swallows it up in one gulp. The Night Fury tilts its head to the side, and if you weren’t absolutely crazy you’d honestly believe it smiles at you, leathery skin pulling a little away from its mouth. You smile back, and Toothless makes a sort of keening noise.

“Perfect,” Thomas says. “You can touch him, if you want.”

“I can?” You ask.

“Sure,” Thomas answered. “He’s spoiled, anyway. Might as well make it worse.”

He goes first, approaching the dragon and rubbing small circles into the scales above its nose. He nods at you to follow and you do, albeit much more slowly. Your breath catches when you place your hand on the black scales, certain your luck will run out and Toothless will bite you in half, but instead the dragon just sighs and leans into your touch.

You let out a surprised laugh. “This is crazy. You’re friends with a Night Fury.”

“You are too, now,” Thomas says. “If you bring him more fish, he’ll probably like you more than me.”

You shake your head, dumbstruck. “You amaze me, Thomas. I knew you had some sort of secret, but I never imagined this.”

Thomas looks over at you. “You thought I had a secret?”

“Not something as big as this,” you murmur, embarrassed, “It’s just– you’re good at dragon training, that’s all. Better than the rest of us. I just thought you studied a lot or something.”

Thomas snorts. “I’m awful at dragon training. I have yet to strike a single one of them, even the weak ones.”

“That’s on purpose, isn’t it?” You ask, realization dawning upon you. “You know how to live with the dragons because of Toothless, but you don’t want to hurt them, either.”

Thomas shakes his head, looking oddly guilty. “How could I? I mean, what if every dragon is just like Toothless? Dangerous, sure but so are humans. We just keep attacking each other for no reason, but if a human and a Night Fury can get along, I figure the same is true for everything else. My friendship with Toothless feels more real than any fake battle in dragon training. This can’t be wrong. I know that somehow, I don’t know why. I can’t help but believe that we aren’t supposed to fight them, even if that’s why we were put on this island in the first place.”

He looks suddenly abashed. “You probably don’t want to hear that, though. Chief’s daughter and all. I don’t mean to insult your father or his way of ruling, it’s just–”

“No, you should,” you interrupt. “He’s wrong. Wrong about a lot. He doesn’t care about the village, just slaughtering dragons. Growing up, I thought a chief was supposed to protect his people, but my father’s only obsession is killing. That’s no way to lead your people. He’ll get all of us killed in the name of salvation.”

Thomas stares at you, respect blossoming in his eyes. “I never thought I’d hear you say that.”

You let out a quiet half-laugh. “I’m the one who knows it the best. I see him all the time. He– he’s worse than you could ever imagine.”

Thomas reaches out, gently laying a hand on your shoulder. “Hey, if you ever need an escape, you’ve always got us. You know, all the best friends are dragons or loner misfits.”

“I don’t think you’re a misfit,” you say. “Never have. I think you’re smarter than the rest of us. Smart enough to figure out that we’ve trapped ourselves in a war we’re not supposed to fight.”

Thomas smiles. “If anyone had to find out about Toothless, I’m glad it was you.”

You frown. “Why? Because I can protect him from my father?”

“No,” Thomas says, shaking his head, “Because I trust you. Always have. Your father has years of experience, and the council is fine, but whenever someone had to weigh in on a tough decision, you always gave the best advice. Even when no one could agree on anything.”

The words mean more to you than you could have expected. They’re enough to convince you to stick around a little longer than you planned, to talk idly with Thomas until the sun starts to dip over the horizon and you realize you’ve spent hours here instead of minutes. Thomas doesn’t seem to mind, in fact he appears glad for the company, for your company. You had always assumed he was perfectly fine on his own, but he opens up to you as if he had been waiting his whole life for you to get to know him.

Maybe that’s why you come back the next day, and the next. Thomas takes you up into the sky with Toothless, soaring until the whole world seems just a hazy smear of green and blue below you. Every ride is perfect, enough to steal the breath from your lungs with a rush of adrenaline, but it ends, it always ends. No matter how crisp the air, how far you soar, you always have to come back. You wish you could stay up there in the clouds forever, answering to no one, but there always comes the point when your feet touch back down, when you begin the slow trek back to your house, where the weight of your father’s disapproval threatens to pull you under.

You live for those stolen hours with Thomas. In just a matter of weeks, he seems to understand you better than any of your friends, even your father. It’s a welcome relief, especially since the time you spend in the company of Thomas’ Night Fury only serves to pull you down his path and all of a sudden you don’t want to slay any dragons, either. This only serves to make your father even more furious with you, so you sneak out to visit Thomas more often, and the cycle intensifies.

As the days tick down to the final day of dragon training, where one of you will have to actually slay a dragon, you get more nervous. You’re still in the lead, even despite your refusal to actually harm any of the dragons. That only means that you’ll be the one to do the bloody deed.

Thomas tries to help talk you through it, but neither of you can find a way out. “Just refuse,” Thomas urges. “They can’t make you kill it, right? If you found some way to rise above, maybe argue for working with them instead of against, if you had enough reason, maybe–”

“That would never work,” you laugh bitterly. “You don’t know my father, Thomas. You haven’t lived with him as I have. Every moment in his presence is a test. Every conversation is a demand to prove my worth. I hover on the knife’s edge of his approval, and if I ever fall, he’d have my head in a moment. I cannot disappoint him, Thomas, not like this. He would feed me to the dragons himself if I let him down in front of the whole village.”

Thomas sees the true fear written plainly on your face and reaches over to take your hand, squeezing it comfortingly. “Hey, don’t worry. We’ll find a way out, I swear it. Maybe I’ll crash your ceremony and stop the whole thing. They’ll think I’m just jealous, but I could get you out and they’d only blame me.”

You shake your head fervently. “Then they’d make me go after you. I’ll never betray you, Thomas, I swear it.”

“Then you have to know I’m not letting you do this alone, either,” Thomas says. “We’ll find a way.”

In the end, you leave the clearing together, no closer to a way out than you ever had been before. Running seems the only option, but you have no idea where you’d go. The only way out, it seems, is through.

When you get back to the village center, though, thoughts of dragon training are quickly swept from your mind. Everyone seems on high alert, rushing to the smithy to get more weapons and hurrying with shields and spears down to warboats waiting below.

You catch the arm of one of your father’s councilmen as he passes. “What happened?”

The councilman shakes his head darkly. “Some of our warriors went out for a raid on a nearby island. It should have been an easy task, but they were caught unawares by a nest of Grievers. We set off to save them, but we fear it’s too late.” He fixes you with a wary look, then continues. “Your father was among the first party.”

You draw in a sharp gasp, and the man leaves, pulled back into the throngs of rushing Vikings. You may not always get along with your father, but even he doesn’t deserve this fate. Grievers are monsters worse than dragons, worse than anything. Some say they clawed their way up from the very reaches of the land of the dead. They’re massive, sharp things that have killed dozens if not hundreds of warriors from your island home over the years. Dragons are smart, they could be trusted, as you’ve learned. Grievers are another story. There is no befriending a Griever. To see one is to accept your own death, and your father has been set upon by a nest of them.

As the village center quickly empties of people, you turn to Thomas. “We have to save them. We have to do something.”

Your voice catches on the word, and Thomas’s face twists to see you in pain. “We will, I swear.” A look of dawning realization crosses his countenance. “Actually, I think I have an idea. Gather your friends, tell them to meet me in the dragon training arena as fast as you can.”

You look at him questioningly, but Thomas doesn’t elaborate. There’s no time to ask, with every passing moment more of your people put themselves at risk, so you start to run. Thomas knows what he’s doing, you’re sure of it.

Soon enough, you’re in the arena. You managed to track down Gally, Newt, Minho, Winston, and a few others. When Thomas tells you all that he intends to rescue your father and his warriors by using dragons to fight the Grievers, no one believes him at first. It’s only when Thomas calls his Night Fury down from the skies that people start listening.

It takes less time than expected to coax the dragons out of their cages from training, to convince them to trust you, but then you’re up in the air, clutching at crevices in blue-green scales as you soar through the skies. Minho shoots through the air, racing Newt, who laughs delightedly as the wind pulls at his hair.

The laughter dies at once when you come upon the scene of the fight. Already, you see bodies crumpled on the ground, but you feel shamefully relieved to see your father isn’t among them. Thomas leads the charge down, and the terror on your villager’s faces when they see the dragons quickly melts into confusion when they realize you’re riding them.

The Grievers are deadly, awful things. You’ve never seen them face-to-face, only heard awful stories from people missing legs or eyes or lives. Even on dragonback, they pose a substantial threat, but slowly, tenuously, they succumb to the burns and slashes of your dragons. Once you’re sure the danger is past, you land your dragon and climb to the ground, searching the gathering crowds for your father.

He finds you soon enough. Your father stalks through the throngs of Vikings, eyes cold. “What is the meaning of this?”

You straighten up, forcing yourself to seem confident even if you don’t entirely feel it anymore. “We had to save you from the Grievers. This seemed the best way.”

“Dragons,” your father spits out. “You trusted dragons over your own people. You should have been down here fighting with the rest of us, but you turned to the beasts.”

“We saved your life,” you retort. “We were wrong about the dragons. They saved all of us today from the Grievers. Doesn’t that warrant a second chance?”

Your father scoffs. “No Viking would ally itself with a monster. You’ve disappointed me, Y/N, for the last time.”

Your eyes widen, but all of a sudden Thomas is emerging from the crowd and putting himself between you and your father. “You’re wrong, Janson. Y/N is more a Viking than you ever could be.”

The crowd behind you dissolves in shocked gasps. You try to tell Thomas to stand down, but he shakes his head, as obstinate as ever. “Y/N would have given her life to save you, to save this whole village. She trusted the dragons because she would do anything to protect her people. If you think that’s a failure, then you have no idea what I think of you.”

Your father’s eyes flash, and he opens his mouth to argue, but he’s interrupted by a voice from the crowd. “He’s right,” a woman says. You recognize her at once– Ava Paige, one of the village’s finest warriors. She’s covered in long scars from a Griever attack, making her one of only a small handful that had survived such a deadly assault. “I see nothing wrong with their plan. Better than they acted quickly to ally themselves with the dragons then watch all of us die throwing ourselves at the Grievers.”

You smile thankfully at her. Your father turns to Ava, then takes in the approving looks being exchanged by the rest of the village and realizes at last that he alone has a problem with your plan. He forces a thin smile. “Fine,” he says briskly. “All glory be yours for this battle. I only hope that your dependence on the dragons does not prove dangerous in the end.”

“It won’t,” you vow. Your father seems to disagree with this, but he heads back into the crowds to the boats, leaving you with Thomas.

“Thank you,” you whisper to him.

“It’s nothing,” he says. “I’ve been wanting to fight with him for a while, anyway. No one should make you feel so badly about yourself. There isn’t a single thing about you that could ever disappoint me, and I’ll tell that to the whole village if I have to.”

As it turns out, he doesn’t need to tell the whole village anything. He says enough when he kisses you, right there on the bloodsoaked beach, under the light of the afternoon sun. If this is victory, you want all of it. The only glory you would ever want is here, with him, knowing at last that you’ve proved yourself. It’s better than you could have ever imagined.

requested by @pjxcksonswrd, i hope you enjoy!

tmr tag list:

tmr tag list: @blondsauduun, @ellobruv, @retvenkos, @neewtmas, @mayfieldss, @jvst4ever, @gods-fools-heroes, @pjxcksonswrd, @23victoria, @w1shes43, @imwaysthelastchoice, @fadedver, @il0vebeingdelulu

all tags list: @wordsarelife, @supervoldejaygent

[heliads]

hello may I have a thomas (hehehe I’m back) httyd au when the reader is the daughter of a chief but it’s Thomas who discovered a night fury the first. And try to make her warm up to it (and to HIM) also please

'A Way Out' - Thomas

masterlist

One of these days, you’re finally going to have everything under control. Growing up the daughter of the chief, you’ve had the perfect view of the maelstrom of chaos surrounding your family, how the singular burden of leadership means you’ll never have a waking moment of peace. For such a tiny village, Berk seems to have no shortage of problems. It’s honestly quite remarkable, if it weren’t for the fact that they’re all continually laid at your doorstep.

Your father has borne this burden for years, never backing down no matter how great or small the woes brought before him. As his daughter, you’ll inherit the title of chief some day, hopefully far into the future, so your father has taken to roping you into his chiefly duties as a sort of training process. You shadow him in meetings, you listen to the complaints of the townspeople, and recently he’s even allowed you to make decisions on public matters, albeit only the small ones.

You’re glad to be able to help your village, even in the small, carefully limited way permitted by your father, but you’d be lying if you said it was all smiles and well wishes. It feels like there’s always someone left jilted and sour-faced by one of your decisions, even when you’ve spent far too much time deliberating. Everything has a trade-off, every good choice has unintended consequences. You know that’s the lesson your father hoped you’d understand, but it’s so hard to accept. You hate letting people down, so you can’t help but overthink everything, trying to find the impossible decision that lets you make everyone happy. Very rarely does that ever play out in your favor, but you still hold out hope.

Hope, however, is a fleeting thing, and certainly not something that can survive long in a Viking village. If it weren’t enough to have burly, disagreeable warriors all trapped together on an inhospitable rock, constantly in danger of running out of resources or getting on each other’s nerves, you have to face one big problem that blows everything out of proportion. Life wasn’t difficult as is, so your ancestors had to move to an island home threatened by dragons.

Dragons. Behemoths of scale and talons scorching your homes and carrying off your livestock. Your father is obsessed with them, of finding some way to their labyrinthine nest and slaughtering the lot of them. He dreams of the day when he can eradicate the disease of dragons and protect everyone for good. It seems an impossible task– how could anyone fight against something like that– but if anyone were to do it, Chief Janson seems the best suited for it. He’s fiendishly clever and brutal with his methods. There is no bridge he wouldn’t burn to end the dragon threat, once and for all.

For years, you’ve watched the warriors of the village setting out to slay the dragons that plagued your home, mostly to mixed results. A successful raid will be rewarded by a vicious slaughter one week later, or they’ll manage to keep their homes from burning down one night only to lose an entire street a few days afterwards. It’s a constant battle, ever changing, ever dangerous. You’ve begged your father to let you join the warriors, but he’s never let you, not until you were old enough.

Secretly, awfully, you think Chief Janson doesn’t keep you from the dragons because he’s worried you’ll get hurt, but because he thinks you’re too young to handle yourself. If you went out in a blaze of glory, cementing the legacy of your people, stopping the tide of dragons, your father would be delighted. If you embarrassed him by putting on a poor performance in front of his people, Janson would wish you had just died instead. He’s more of a schemer than he ever has been a father, and even if he says he loves you, he loves his vengeance more. To disappoint him would be deadly. It is a fate you cannot allow.

So, when your father finally announced that this was the year you’d be allowed to take part in dragon training, you knew that this opportunity wasn’t just a privilege but an expectation. A winner is announced among the students every year, and if it isn’t you, if you cannot prove yourself as worthy of your father’s legacy, he might honestly just offer you as bait to the dragons then and there. At least then you would be of use to him.

In order to win the coveted title of best among the dragon trainers, you’ll have to beat out the other students. The competition is mixed this year– a few top contenders, like always, and those on the outskirts. There’s Gally, the stonemason’s son. You think he could out-wrestle a dragon even without training. Minho is lithe and fast, and still quite strong even if not quite at Gally’s level. Newt, a farmer’s boy, doesn’t even need to be here, everyone knows he’ll be a future advisor to your council one of these days. In fact, you’re fairly sure he’s more trusted to solve conflicts than you, and you’ve got the direct tie to the chief. You’d be jealous of his clear favor were it not for the fact that he’s a genuinely nice guy, someone you consider a friend.

They’ll be your toughest competitors, strength and speed and skill. There are a few other sons and daughters, no one really worth considering, and then there’s– well, there’s Thomas, but that’s an entirely different conversation altogether. Thomas– he tries, you think, he really does, but Thomas is better known for his mishaps than his successes. He’s attempted many different professions, but after nearly breaking Gally’s foot by dropping a heavy stone a hair’s breadth from the older boy’s boot, then outright refusing to join the butchers, then dozing off at a council of the elders, he’s shown less promise than most. Right now, they’ve stuck him in the smithy, somewhere he’s not completely terrible, for his strength to improve while he keeps out of trouble.

Thomas is somewhat of a nuisance to most of the village. He’s best at appearing when you least want him, always snooping around like he’s suspicious of the very walls that surround you. If he’s looking for a way out, though, he’ll be hard-pressed to find it. Your village is tucked into rocky precipices that plunge to the ocean below. It’s this life or no other, something even the always-questioning Thomas has to accept.

Your father seems to have written Thomas off completely. There was hope for him at some point– his mother was a prominent council member, and he was effortlessly brave growing up, always running ahead of the pack, but then he kept running and refused to settle down. He’s too flighty, so claims your father, too wild. He’ll never fit in.

You, on the other hand, have a less critical view of the boy. Thomas was always kind to you growing up, even if your father stopped allowing you to be near him once it became clear that your playmate might convince you to run from your problems instead of facing them head on and screaming a war cry like any proper Viking. What you remember was a nice boy, if quiet at times, who looked at the world like a puzzle to be solved. He fascinated you, the way his curiosity never failed him. You’d love to read his mind someday, to find out all the things he’s learned that you could only imagine.

To you, Thomas is a bated breath, a pull of air trapped in the lungs, stuck until ribs crack and bend and break. He will spend his whole life waiting for the one thing he’s meant to do, and when that day comes, he’s going to blow all of you away. You know it like muscle memory. His entire being, body and blood and mind, seems tense and ready for something that has never happened to him. There’s a sharpness in his eyes, a fuse in his mind ready to light. You can only wonder if he’ll ever stumble across his purpose, or if that bright fire in him will crumble to ash without even so much as a spark before it goes.

You watch him during dragon training when he isn’t looking. For someone everyone considers a fool, too busy running to stand and fight like a proper Viking, Thomas doesn’t seem particularly afraid of the fire-breathing monsters thrust before him. He takes proper care, of course, always keeping himself well out of reach of claws or fangs, but he isn’t running with fright or hiding behind wooden structures like some of the other would-be students. Instead, you swear Thomas is watching them, as if he knows some secret of theirs that you could only guess.

It confuses you. What has Thomas figured out? He manages to emerge from every dragon training session completely unscathed, even after that one Razorwhip that left everyone’s armor in tatters, even yours. Yet when the rest of you were trying to get ash off of your skin and mourning the deep scores in your shields, Thomas was totally fine. He griped with everyone else about how difficult the dragon had been, but not so much as a hair was out of place. Somehow, he’d figured out how to navigate the beast’s attacks, but he never bothered attacking, just kept himself safe. You’re fairly sure your father would consider that a coward’s plan, but you think there’s more to it. Thomas seems to understand the language of dragons, you just can’t fathom where he could have learned it.

Maybe you’re too focused on Thomas instead of actually fighting the beasts you were sent here to slay. Maybe that’s why Gally ends up getting the decisive blow on a Windstriker during one of the later lessons instead of you. Normally, it would have been no matter at all, you’d get the upper hand on a later day and show Gally up like usual, but your father had happened to be in attendance that afternoon. He was expecting a great show of your prowess, but instead he saw Gally win the accolades that day.

You dread returning home after the lesson, dragging your feet as if to fight off whatever’s waiting for you behind your front door. However, you can’t delay forever, and you know your father well enough to tell that any more dilly-dallying will only get you in more trouble than you are already, so you gather your spirits and head inside at last.

The chief is waiting for you by the great hearth, arms folded across his chest. He doesn’t bother with greetings, but since when has Janson let etiquette get in the way of what he wants?

“Is this how you spend every lesson?” Your father asks coldly. “You chase the dragon’s tail while someone else goes after the head? I was under the impression that I was raising a warrior, but I saw none out there in the arena today.”

You fight to keep your chin up, already wanting to shrink under the weight of his disapproval. “I let myself get distracted, it was my mistake. Clint had tripped and fallen, I was trying to pull him out of the way when Gally charged.”

Your father arches a brow. “That’s your excuse? One healer’s boy?”

“I was trying to prioritize the strength of the village,” you plead. “Isn’t that important for a chief?”

“What’s important is slaying a dragon when you see it,” your father says icily. “One dragon can slaughter a thousand healers. If this had been a real attack, you would have saved that boy only to see that Windstriker destroy half the village. You cannot let your emotions get in the way of your true purpose.”

You nod, but you still feel upset. “So, next time I should ignore a friend in need? How could I expect them to trust me? What if I needed help and they left me to die because I did the same to them?”

Your father scoffs. “No chief would need help. If you were ever in a situation in which you had to rely on one boy to save you, I would rather–”

Stupidly, you interrupt, fury radiating through you. “You’d rather I died, right? Better a dead warrior than a living embarrassment.”

Your father refuses to rise to the bait. “You seem to know my position perfectly. Why should I bother to agree with it?”

You shake your head disgustedly. “Maybe I wanted you to contradict me for once. Maybe I wanted to believe that, as my father, you cared about my life in any way.”

“No Viking needs petty condolences,” your father sneers. “I don’t recall raising you to rely on pretty lies. The truth should be sufficient, and if it doesn’t make you feel better, maybe you should try improving yourself. I’ll never lie to you, Y/N. I’ll never tell you I need you if I don’t.”

The words cut to the quick. He’s hinted at this before, but he’s never said it, not outright. Your throat burns, and before you can say something to land yourself even further in your father’s disregard, you turn and head for the door. You’re sure he’ll hate you even more for it, for running instead of facing what bothers you, but you’ve had enough fighting for the day. Just once, you want to be enough for somebody. Just once, you want to matter.

You’re through the village and into the surrounding forest in the blink of an eye. You’re not sure where you’re going, only that it cannot be here. You vaguely remember seeing Thomas walking down into these parts of the woods a few times, and the thought fills you with an odd sense of relief. Thomas has figured out how to survive despite the ire of the villagers. The comments and mutterings about his isolation and unusual behavior seem to wash off of him. You could learn a thing or two from him, or at least you could commiserate.

Your eyes prick as you remember the harsh words from your father. He’s been in a worse mood than usual, ever since the dragon raid a week or two ago. There had been a clear spell of attacks for a bit, and your father’s confidence had grown, assuming it had been his direction in leading raids and fighting off the beasts that had finally scared them off. No sooner had he said that, though, than your village had suffered one of the worst raids in a while. There were even rumors of a Night Fury sighting, although no one had been able to land so much as a scratch on the thing, and those that did catch a glimpse ended up with the healers, badly burned and talking gibberish.

Your progress through the forest is harsher than usual, twigs snapping under your feet as you irritably swat low-hanging branches away from your face. It feels as if no one wants you to succeed, no one cares about you, it’s just as your father said–

The brush clears away, and you find yourself in a clearing surrounded on all sides by swooping faces of pale rock. You’re not alone, either, Thomas is sitting on a smooth shore by a small lake and writing something in that journal he always carries around. He’s clearly lost in thought, and only looks up when you’re quite nearby to him. Since you’re not the closest of friends, you weren’t expecting an enthusiastic greeting, but you certainly didn’t think he would jump up immediately, eyes full of panic, and start trying to force you back the way you’d come.

“What are you doing?” You ask, confused.

Thomas shakes his head frantically. “Nothing. Nothing! Just, uh, writing. Super boring. Say, I think some of the healers wanted to see you about something? Something important, for sure. You’d better leave as fast as you can and–”

You shake your arm free. “Why are you acting so weirdly? Are you hiding something?”

“No, not at all,” Thomas says suspiciously, “I hate hiding. I’ve never hid. You should definitely go, though.”

The sound of movement echoes across the clearing, and Thomas steps forward to try and block your view of whatever is happening behind him. It’s too late, though, you’ve already ducked around him and seen– and seen–

Thomas isn’t just hiding a stray cat or unusual collection of runes. No, his secret is dangerous and terrible, so completely unexpected that all thoughts of the argument you’d had with your father are erased from your head in the blink of an eye. Climbing down from one of the far rock walls is a dragon, and not just any dragon, either. You’ve heard whispers of those ink-jet scales, the wings that could cover an entire house, the brilliant green eyes that stare straight to your soul.

“That’s a Night Fury!” You hiss, eyes wide.

Thomas winces. “Would you believe me if I said it wasn’t?”

You’re unable to tear your eyes from the dragon. “Why aren’t you running? We should be running.”

Thomas shakes his head. “No, don’t run! Please. I can explain.”

You shoot him a suspicious look. “You were certainly in a hurry to get me out of here earlier, but now you want me to stay? You had better explain yourself.”

“I will,” Thomas pleads, “I just need you to trust me, alright? I was hoping to get you out of here so you wouldn’t see him, but it’s too late for that, obviously, so I’m going for a different approach. I think you two can be friends.”

“Friends,” you repeat dubiously. “You want me to be friends with a Night Fury?”

“I’m friends with a Night Fury,” Thomas says pleasantly. “He’s actually pretty great, disregarding the obvious attitude issues. Serious entitlement, I’m telling you.”

“Obviously,” you repeat faintly.

Thomas makes a face. “Let me start from the beginning. I found Toothless after that bad raid a few weeks back. He didn’t like me at first, but we’ve gotten to trust each other. Look, I can prove it. I’ll introduce you.”

“That’s alright,” you say hastily. “I think I can go without introductions. In fact, I’m pretty sure I can just leave right now, and it won’t be an issue at all.”

“I think it’s a little late for that,” Thomas says, forcing calm into his words. “Toothless wants to meet you.”

You start to ask him what he means, and then you happen to glance over your shoulder and you realize that the Night Fury has crept up on you while you were talking. It’s impossible that a creature that large could move without making a sound, but now it’s regarding you from just a few steps away. You’re certain it could lunge and tear out your throat in the blink of an eye, or bite your head off, or incinerate you with that infamous fire–

“Stay calm,” Thomas tells you firmly. “I won’t let anything happen to you, I swear it. Toothless, this is Y/N. She’s a friend of mine, alright? That means she’s a friend of yours, too.”

It is absolutely ridiculous, but you swear the dragon cocks its head as if it’s listening to Thomas. You’re still not sure why you both aren’t dead yet, but the dragon looks back to you expectantly, and you feel the odd urge to say something. “Hi, Toothless. It’s, uh, nice to meet you.”

Thomas nods. “That was great. Here, give him this.”

You risk a glance away from the Night Fury to realize that Thomas is handing you a large fish. You take hold of the slippery thing and hesitantly toss it to the dragon, who swallows it up in one gulp. The Night Fury tilts its head to the side, and if you weren’t absolutely crazy you’d honestly believe it smiles at you, leathery skin pulling a little away from its mouth. You smile back, and Toothless makes a sort of keening noise.

“Perfect,” Thomas says. “You can touch him, if you want.”

“I can?” You ask.

“Sure,” Thomas answered. “He’s spoiled, anyway. Might as well make it worse.”

He goes first, approaching the dragon and rubbing small circles into the scales above its nose. He nods at you to follow and you do, albeit much more slowly. Your breath catches when you place your hand on the black scales, certain your luck will run out and Toothless will bite you in half, but instead the dragon just sighs and leans into your touch.

You let out a surprised laugh. “This is crazy. You’re friends with a Night Fury.”

“You are too, now,” Thomas says. “If you bring him more fish, he’ll probably like you more than me.”

You shake your head, dumbstruck. “You amaze me, Thomas. I knew you had some sort of secret, but I never imagined this.”

Thomas looks over at you. “You thought I had a secret?”

“Not something as big as this,” you murmur, embarrassed, “It’s just– you’re good at dragon training, that’s all. Better than the rest of us. I just thought you studied a lot or something.”

Thomas snorts. “I’m awful at dragon training. I have yet to strike a single one of them, even the weak ones.”

“That’s on purpose, isn’t it?” You ask, realization dawning upon you. “You know how to live with the dragons because of Toothless, but you don’t want to hurt them, either.”

Thomas shakes his head, looking oddly guilty. “How could I? I mean, what if every dragon is just like Toothless? Dangerous, sure but so are humans. We just keep attacking each other for no reason, but if a human and a Night Fury can get along, I figure the same is true for everything else. My friendship with Toothless feels more real than any fake battle in dragon training. This can’t be wrong. I know that somehow, I don’t know why. I can’t help but believe that we aren’t supposed to fight them, even if that’s why we were put on this island in the first place.”

He looks suddenly abashed. “You probably don’t want to hear that, though. Chief’s daughter and all. I don’t mean to insult your father or his way of ruling, it’s just–”

“No, you should,” you interrupt. “He’s wrong. Wrong about a lot. He doesn’t care about the village, just slaughtering dragons. Growing up, I thought a chief was supposed to protect his people, but my father’s only obsession is killing. That’s no way to lead your people. He’ll get all of us killed in the name of salvation.”

Thomas stares at you, respect blossoming in his eyes. “I never thought I’d hear you say that.”

You let out a quiet half-laugh. “I’m the one who knows it the best. I see him all the time. He– he’s worse than you could ever imagine.”

Thomas reaches out, gently laying a hand on your shoulder. “Hey, if you ever need an escape, you’ve always got us. You know, all the best friends are dragons or loner misfits.”

“I don’t think you’re a misfit,” you say. “Never have. I think you’re smarter than the rest of us. Smart enough to figure out that we’ve trapped ourselves in a war we’re not supposed to fight.”

Thomas smiles. “If anyone had to find out about Toothless, I’m glad it was you.”

You frown. “Why? Because I can protect him from my father?”

“No,” Thomas says, shaking his head, “Because I trust you. Always have. Your father has years of experience, and the council is fine, but whenever someone had to weigh in on a tough decision, you always gave the best advice. Even when no one could agree on anything.”

The words mean more to you than you could have expected. They’re enough to convince you to stick around a little longer than you planned, to talk idly with Thomas until the sun starts to dip over the horizon and you realize you’ve spent hours here instead of minutes. Thomas doesn’t seem to mind, in fact he appears glad for the company, for your company. You had always assumed he was perfectly fine on his own, but he opens up to you as if he had been waiting his whole life for you to get to know him.

Maybe that’s why you come back the next day, and the next. Thomas takes you up into the sky with Toothless, soaring until the whole world seems just a hazy smear of green and blue below you. Every ride is perfect, enough to steal the breath from your lungs with a rush of adrenaline, but it ends, it always ends. No matter how crisp the air, how far you soar, you always have to come back. You wish you could stay up there in the clouds forever, answering to no one, but there always comes the point when your feet touch back down, when you begin the slow trek back to your house, where the weight of your father’s disapproval threatens to pull you under.

You live for those stolen hours with Thomas. In just a matter of weeks, he seems to understand you better than any of your friends, even your father. It’s a welcome relief, especially since the time you spend in the company of Thomas’ Night Fury only serves to pull you down his path and all of a sudden you don’t want to slay any dragons, either. This only serves to make your father even more furious with you, so you sneak out to visit Thomas more often, and the cycle intensifies.

As the days tick down to the final day of dragon training, where one of you will have to actually slay a dragon, you get more nervous. You’re still in the lead, even despite your refusal to actually harm any of the dragons. That only means that you’ll be the one to do the bloody deed.

Thomas tries to help talk you through it, but neither of you can find a way out. “Just refuse,” Thomas urges. “They can’t make you kill it, right? If you found some way to rise above, maybe argue for working with them instead of against, if you had enough reason, maybe–”

“That would never work,” you laugh bitterly. “You don’t know my father, Thomas. You haven’t lived with him as I have. Every moment in his presence is a test. Every conversation is a demand to prove my worth. I hover on the knife’s edge of his approval, and if I ever fall, he’d have my head in a moment. I cannot disappoint him, Thomas, not like this. He would feed me to the dragons himself if I let him down in front of the whole village.”

Thomas sees the true fear written plainly on your face and reaches over to take your hand, squeezing it comfortingly. “Hey, don’t worry. We’ll find a way out, I swear it. Maybe I’ll crash your ceremony and stop the whole thing. They’ll think I’m just jealous, but I could get you out and they’d only blame me.”

You shake your head fervently. “Then they’d make me go after you. I’ll never betray you, Thomas, I swear it.”

“Then you have to know I’m not letting you do this alone, either,” Thomas says. “We’ll find a way.”

In the end, you leave the clearing together, no closer to a way out than you ever had been before. Running seems the only option, but you have no idea where you’d go. The only way out, it seems, is through.

When you get back to the village center, though, thoughts of dragon training are quickly swept from your mind. Everyone seems on high alert, rushing to the smithy to get more weapons and hurrying with shields and spears down to warboats waiting below.

You catch the arm of one of your father’s councilmen as he passes. “What happened?”

The councilman shakes his head darkly. “Some of our warriors went out for a raid on a nearby island. It should have been an easy task, but they were caught unawares by a nest of Grievers. We set off to save them, but we fear it’s too late.” He fixes you with a wary look, then continues. “Your father was among the first party.”

You draw in a sharp gasp, and the man leaves, pulled back into the throngs of rushing Vikings. You may not always get along with your father, but even he doesn’t deserve this fate. Grievers are monsters worse than dragons, worse than anything. Some say they clawed their way up from the very reaches of the land of the dead. They’re massive, sharp things that have killed dozens if not hundreds of warriors from your island home over the years. Dragons are smart, they could be trusted, as you’ve learned. Grievers are another story. There is no befriending a Griever. To see one is to accept your own death, and your father has been set upon by a nest of them.

As the village center quickly empties of people, you turn to Thomas. “We have to save them. We have to do something.”

Your voice catches on the word, and Thomas’s face twists to see you in pain. “We will, I swear.” A look of dawning realization crosses his countenance. “Actually, I think I have an idea. Gather your friends, tell them to meet me in the dragon training arena as fast as you can.”

You look at him questioningly, but Thomas doesn’t elaborate. There’s no time to ask, with every passing moment more of your people put themselves at risk, so you start to run. Thomas knows what he’s doing, you’re sure of it.

Soon enough, you’re in the arena. You managed to track down Gally, Newt, Minho, Winston, and a few others. When Thomas tells you all that he intends to rescue your father and his warriors by using dragons to fight the Grievers, no one believes him at first. It’s only when Thomas calls his Night Fury down from the skies that people start listening.

It takes less time than expected to coax the dragons out of their cages from training, to convince them to trust you, but then you’re up in the air, clutching at crevices in blue-green scales as you soar through the skies. Minho shoots through the air, racing Newt, who laughs delightedly as the wind pulls at his hair.

The laughter dies at once when you come upon the scene of the fight. Already, you see bodies crumpled on the ground, but you feel shamefully relieved to see your father isn’t among them. Thomas leads the charge down, and the terror on your villager’s faces when they see the dragons quickly melts into confusion when they realize you’re riding them.

The Grievers are deadly, awful things. You’ve never seen them face-to-face, only heard awful stories from people missing legs or eyes or lives. Even on dragonback, they pose a substantial threat, but slowly, tenuously, they succumb to the burns and slashes of your dragons. Once you’re sure the danger is past, you land your dragon and climb to the ground, searching the gathering crowds for your father.

He finds you soon enough. Your father stalks through the throngs of Vikings, eyes cold. “What is the meaning of this?”

You straighten up, forcing yourself to seem confident even if you don’t entirely feel it anymore. “We had to save you from the Grievers. This seemed the best way.”

“Dragons,” your father spits out. “You trusted dragons over your own people. You should have been down here fighting with the rest of us, but you turned to the beasts.”

“We saved your life,” you retort. “We were wrong about the dragons. They saved all of us today from the Grievers. Doesn’t that warrant a second chance?”

Your father scoffs. “No Viking would ally itself with a monster. You’ve disappointed me, Y/N, for the last time.”

Your eyes widen, but all of a sudden Thomas is emerging from the crowd and putting himself between you and your father. “You’re wrong, Janson. Y/N is more a Viking than you ever could be.”

The crowd behind you dissolves in shocked gasps. You try to tell Thomas to stand down, but he shakes his head, as obstinate as ever. “Y/N would have given her life to save you, to save this whole village. She trusted the dragons because she would do anything to protect her people. If you think that’s a failure, then you have no idea what I think of you.”

Your father’s eyes flash, and he opens his mouth to argue, but he’s interrupted by a voice from the crowd. “He’s right,” a woman says. You recognize her at once– Ava Paige, one of the village’s finest warriors. She’s covered in long scars from a Griever attack, making her one of only a small handful that had survived such a deadly assault. “I see nothing wrong with their plan. Better than they acted quickly to ally themselves with the dragons then watch all of us die throwing ourselves at the Grievers.”

You smile thankfully at her. Your father turns to Ava, then takes in the approving looks being exchanged by the rest of the village and realizes at last that he alone has a problem with your plan. He forces a thin smile. “Fine,” he says briskly. “All glory be yours for this battle. I only hope that your dependence on the dragons does not prove dangerous in the end.”

“It won’t,” you vow. Your father seems to disagree with this, but he heads back into the crowds to the boats, leaving you with Thomas.

“Thank you,” you whisper to him.

“It’s nothing,” he says. “I’ve been wanting to fight with him for a while, anyway. No one should make you feel so badly about yourself. There isn’t a single thing about you that could ever disappoint me, and I’ll tell that to the whole village if I have to.”

As it turns out, he doesn’t need to tell the whole village anything. He says enough when he kisses you, right there on the bloodsoaked beach, under the light of the afternoon sun. If this is victory, you want all of it. The only glory you would ever want is here, with him, knowing at last that you’ve proved yourself. It’s better than you could have ever imagined.

requested by @pjxcksonswrd, i hope you enjoy!

tmr tag list:

tmr tag list: @blondsauduun, @ellobruv, @retvenkos, @neewtmas, @mayfieldss, @jvst4ever, @gods-fools-heroes, @pjxcksonswrd, @23victoria, @w1shes43, @imwaysthelastchoice, @fadedver, @il0vebeingdelulu

all tags list: @wordsarelife, @supervoldejaygent

[heliads]

hello may I have a thomas (hehehe I’m back) httyd au when the reader is the daughter of a chief but it’s Thomas who discovered a night fury the first. And try to make her warm up to it (and to HIM) also please

'A Way Out' - Thomas

masterlist

One of these days, you’re finally going to have everything under control. Growing up the daughter of the chief, you’ve had the perfect view of the maelstrom of chaos surrounding your family, how the singular burden of leadership means you’ll never have a waking moment of peace. For such a tiny village, Berk seems to have no shortage of problems. It’s honestly quite remarkable, if it weren’t for the fact that they’re all continually laid at your doorstep.

Your father has borne this burden for years, never backing down no matter how great or small the woes brought before him. As his daughter, you’ll inherit the title of chief some day, hopefully far into the future, so your father has taken to roping you into his chiefly duties as a sort of training process. You shadow him in meetings, you listen to the complaints of the townspeople, and recently he’s even allowed you to make decisions on public matters, albeit only the small ones.

You’re glad to be able to help your village, even in the small, carefully limited way permitted by your father, but you’d be lying if you said it was all smiles and well wishes. It feels like there’s always someone left jilted and sour-faced by one of your decisions, even when you’ve spent far too much time deliberating. Everything has a trade-off, every good choice has unintended consequences. You know that’s the lesson your father hoped you’d understand, but it’s so hard to accept. You hate letting people down, so you can’t help but overthink everything, trying to find the impossible decision that lets you make everyone happy. Very rarely does that ever play out in your favor, but you still hold out hope.

Hope, however, is a fleeting thing, and certainly not something that can survive long in a Viking village. If it weren’t enough to have burly, disagreeable warriors all trapped together on an inhospitable rock, constantly in danger of running out of resources or getting on each other’s nerves, you have to face one big problem that blows everything out of proportion. Life wasn’t difficult as is, so your ancestors had to move to an island home threatened by dragons.

Dragons. Behemoths of scale and talons scorching your homes and carrying off your livestock. Your father is obsessed with them, of finding some way to their labyrinthine nest and slaughtering the lot of them. He dreams of the day when he can eradicate the disease of dragons and protect everyone for good. It seems an impossible task– how could anyone fight against something like that– but if anyone were to do it, Chief Janson seems the best suited for it. He’s fiendishly clever and brutal with his methods. There is no bridge he wouldn’t burn to end the dragon threat, once and for all.

For years, you’ve watched the warriors of the village setting out to slay the dragons that plagued your home, mostly to mixed results. A successful raid will be rewarded by a vicious slaughter one week later, or they’ll manage to keep their homes from burning down one night only to lose an entire street a few days afterwards. It’s a constant battle, ever changing, ever dangerous. You’ve begged your father to let you join the warriors, but he’s never let you, not until you were old enough.

Secretly, awfully, you think Chief Janson doesn’t keep you from the dragons because he’s worried you’ll get hurt, but because he thinks you’re too young to handle yourself. If you went out in a blaze of glory, cementing the legacy of your people, stopping the tide of dragons, your father would be delighted. If you embarrassed him by putting on a poor performance in front of his people, Janson would wish you had just died instead. He’s more of a schemer than he ever has been a father, and even if he says he loves you, he loves his vengeance more. To disappoint him would be deadly. It is a fate you cannot allow.

So, when your father finally announced that this was the year you’d be allowed to take part in dragon training, you knew that this opportunity wasn’t just a privilege but an expectation. A winner is announced among the students every year, and if it isn’t you, if you cannot prove yourself as worthy of your father’s legacy, he might honestly just offer you as bait to the dragons then and there. At least then you would be of use to him.

In order to win the coveted title of best among the dragon trainers, you’ll have to beat out the other students. The competition is mixed this year– a few top contenders, like always, and those on the outskirts. There’s Gally, the stonemason’s son. You think he could out-wrestle a dragon even without training. Minho is lithe and fast, and still quite strong even if not quite at Gally’s level. Newt, a farmer’s boy, doesn’t even need to be here, everyone knows he’ll be a future advisor to your council one of these days. In fact, you’re fairly sure he’s more trusted to solve conflicts than you, and you’ve got the direct tie to the chief. You’d be jealous of his clear favor were it not for the fact that he’s a genuinely nice guy, someone you consider a friend.

They’ll be your toughest competitors, strength and speed and skill. There are a few other sons and daughters, no one really worth considering, and then there’s– well, there’s Thomas, but that’s an entirely different conversation altogether. Thomas– he tries, you think, he really does, but Thomas is better known for his mishaps than his successes. He’s attempted many different professions, but after nearly breaking Gally’s foot by dropping a heavy stone a hair’s breadth from the older boy’s boot, then outright refusing to join the butchers, then dozing off at a council of the elders, he’s shown less promise than most. Right now, they’ve stuck him in the smithy, somewhere he’s not completely terrible, for his strength to improve while he keeps out of trouble.

Thomas is somewhat of a nuisance to most of the village. He’s best at appearing when you least want him, always snooping around like he’s suspicious of the very walls that surround you. If he’s looking for a way out, though, he’ll be hard-pressed to find it. Your village is tucked into rocky precipices that plunge to the ocean below. It’s this life or no other, something even the always-questioning Thomas has to accept.

Your father seems to have written Thomas off completely. There was hope for him at some point– his mother was a prominent council member, and he was effortlessly brave growing up, always running ahead of the pack, but then he kept running and refused to settle down. He’s too flighty, so claims your father, too wild. He’ll never fit in.

You, on the other hand, have a less critical view of the boy. Thomas was always kind to you growing up, even if your father stopped allowing you to be near him once it became clear that your playmate might convince you to run from your problems instead of facing them head on and screaming a war cry like any proper Viking. What you remember was a nice boy, if quiet at times, who looked at the world like a puzzle to be solved. He fascinated you, the way his curiosity never failed him. You’d love to read his mind someday, to find out all the things he’s learned that you could only imagine.

To you, Thomas is a bated breath, a pull of air trapped in the lungs, stuck until ribs crack and bend and break. He will spend his whole life waiting for the one thing he’s meant to do, and when that day comes, he’s going to blow all of you away. You know it like muscle memory. His entire being, body and blood and mind, seems tense and ready for something that has never happened to him. There’s a sharpness in his eyes, a fuse in his mind ready to light. You can only wonder if he’ll ever stumble across his purpose, or if that bright fire in him will crumble to ash without even so much as a spark before it goes.

You watch him during dragon training when he isn’t looking. For someone everyone considers a fool, too busy running to stand and fight like a proper Viking, Thomas doesn’t seem particularly afraid of the fire-breathing monsters thrust before him. He takes proper care, of course, always keeping himself well out of reach of claws or fangs, but he isn’t running with fright or hiding behind wooden structures like some of the other would-be students. Instead, you swear Thomas is watching them, as if he knows some secret of theirs that you could only guess.

It confuses you. What has Thomas figured out? He manages to emerge from every dragon training session completely unscathed, even after that one Razorwhip that left everyone’s armor in tatters, even yours. Yet when the rest of you were trying to get ash off of your skin and mourning the deep scores in your shields, Thomas was totally fine. He griped with everyone else about how difficult the dragon had been, but not so much as a hair was out of place. Somehow, he’d figured out how to navigate the beast’s attacks, but he never bothered attacking, just kept himself safe. You’re fairly sure your father would consider that a coward’s plan, but you think there’s more to it. Thomas seems to understand the language of dragons, you just can’t fathom where he could have learned it.

Maybe you’re too focused on Thomas instead of actually fighting the beasts you were sent here to slay. Maybe that’s why Gally ends up getting the decisive blow on a Windstriker during one of the later lessons instead of you. Normally, it would have been no matter at all, you’d get the upper hand on a later day and show Gally up like usual, but your father had happened to be in attendance that afternoon. He was expecting a great show of your prowess, but instead he saw Gally win the accolades that day.

You dread returning home after the lesson, dragging your feet as if to fight off whatever’s waiting for you behind your front door. However, you can’t delay forever, and you know your father well enough to tell that any more dilly-dallying will only get you in more trouble than you are already, so you gather your spirits and head inside at last.

The chief is waiting for you by the great hearth, arms folded across his chest. He doesn’t bother with greetings, but since when has Janson let etiquette get in the way of what he wants?

“Is this how you spend every lesson?” Your father asks coldly. “You chase the dragon’s tail while someone else goes after the head? I was under the impression that I was raising a warrior, but I saw none out there in the arena today.”

You fight to keep your chin up, already wanting to shrink under the weight of his disapproval. “I let myself get distracted, it was my mistake. Clint had tripped and fallen, I was trying to pull him out of the way when Gally charged.”

Your father arches a brow. “That’s your excuse? One healer’s boy?”

“I was trying to prioritize the strength of the village,” you plead. “Isn’t that important for a chief?”

“What’s important is slaying a dragon when you see it,” your father says icily. “One dragon can slaughter a thousand healers. If this had been a real attack, you would have saved that boy only to see that Windstriker destroy half the village. You cannot let your emotions get in the way of your true purpose.”

You nod, but you still feel upset. “So, next time I should ignore a friend in need? How could I expect them to trust me? What if I needed help and they left me to die because I did the same to them?”

Your father scoffs. “No chief would need help. If you were ever in a situation in which you had to rely on one boy to save you, I would rather–”

Stupidly, you interrupt, fury radiating through you. “You’d rather I died, right? Better a dead warrior than a living embarrassment.”

Your father refuses to rise to the bait. “You seem to know my position perfectly. Why should I bother to agree with it?”

You shake your head disgustedly. “Maybe I wanted you to contradict me for once. Maybe I wanted to believe that, as my father, you cared about my life in any way.”

“No Viking needs petty condolences,” your father sneers. “I don’t recall raising you to rely on pretty lies. The truth should be sufficient, and if it doesn’t make you feel better, maybe you should try improving yourself. I’ll never lie to you, Y/N. I’ll never tell you I need you if I don’t.”

The words cut to the quick. He’s hinted at this before, but he’s never said it, not outright. Your throat burns, and before you can say something to land yourself even further in your father’s disregard, you turn and head for the door. You’re sure he’ll hate you even more for it, for running instead of facing what bothers you, but you’ve had enough fighting for the day. Just once, you want to be enough for somebody. Just once, you want to matter.

You’re through the village and into the surrounding forest in the blink of an eye. You’re not sure where you’re going, only that it cannot be here. You vaguely remember seeing Thomas walking down into these parts of the woods a few times, and the thought fills you with an odd sense of relief. Thomas has figured out how to survive despite the ire of the villagers. The comments and mutterings about his isolation and unusual behavior seem to wash off of him. You could learn a thing or two from him, or at least you could commiserate.

Your eyes prick as you remember the harsh words from your father. He’s been in a worse mood than usual, ever since the dragon raid a week or two ago. There had been a clear spell of attacks for a bit, and your father’s confidence had grown, assuming it had been his direction in leading raids and fighting off the beasts that had finally scared them off. No sooner had he said that, though, than your village had suffered one of the worst raids in a while. There were even rumors of a Night Fury sighting, although no one had been able to land so much as a scratch on the thing, and those that did catch a glimpse ended up with the healers, badly burned and talking gibberish.

Your progress through the forest is harsher than usual, twigs snapping under your feet as you irritably swat low-hanging branches away from your face. It feels as if no one wants you to succeed, no one cares about you, it’s just as your father said–

The brush clears away, and you find yourself in a clearing surrounded on all sides by swooping faces of pale rock. You’re not alone, either, Thomas is sitting on a smooth shore by a small lake and writing something in that journal he always carries around. He’s clearly lost in thought, and only looks up when you’re quite nearby to him. Since you’re not the closest of friends, you weren’t expecting an enthusiastic greeting, but you certainly didn’t think he would jump up immediately, eyes full of panic, and start trying to force you back the way you’d come.

“What are you doing?” You ask, confused.

Thomas shakes his head frantically. “Nothing. Nothing! Just, uh, writing. Super boring. Say, I think some of the healers wanted to see you about something? Something important, for sure. You’d better leave as fast as you can and–”

You shake your arm free. “Why are you acting so weirdly? Are you hiding something?”

“No, not at all,” Thomas says suspiciously, “I hate hiding. I’ve never hid. You should definitely go, though.”

The sound of movement echoes across the clearing, and Thomas steps forward to try and block your view of whatever is happening behind him. It’s too late, though, you’ve already ducked around him and seen– and seen–

Thomas isn’t just hiding a stray cat or unusual collection of runes. No, his secret is dangerous and terrible, so completely unexpected that all thoughts of the argument you’d had with your father are erased from your head in the blink of an eye. Climbing down from one of the far rock walls is a dragon, and not just any dragon, either. You’ve heard whispers of those ink-jet scales, the wings that could cover an entire house, the brilliant green eyes that stare straight to your soul.

“That’s a Night Fury!” You hiss, eyes wide.

Thomas winces. “Would you believe me if I said it wasn’t?”

You’re unable to tear your eyes from the dragon. “Why aren’t you running? We should be running.”

Thomas shakes his head. “No, don’t run! Please. I can explain.”

You shoot him a suspicious look. “You were certainly in a hurry to get me out of here earlier, but now you want me to stay? You had better explain yourself.”

“I will,” Thomas pleads, “I just need you to trust me, alright? I was hoping to get you out of here so you wouldn’t see him, but it’s too late for that, obviously, so I’m going for a different approach. I think you two can be friends.”

“Friends,” you repeat dubiously. “You want me to be friends with a Night Fury?”

“I’m friends with a Night Fury,” Thomas says pleasantly. “He’s actually pretty great, disregarding the obvious attitude issues. Serious entitlement, I’m telling you.”

“Obviously,” you repeat faintly.

Thomas makes a face. “Let me start from the beginning. I found Toothless after that bad raid a few weeks back. He didn’t like me at first, but we’ve gotten to trust each other. Look, I can prove it. I’ll introduce you.”

“That’s alright,” you say hastily. “I think I can go without introductions. In fact, I’m pretty sure I can just leave right now, and it won’t be an issue at all.”

“I think it’s a little late for that,” Thomas says, forcing calm into his words. “Toothless wants to meet you.”

You start to ask him what he means, and then you happen to glance over your shoulder and you realize that the Night Fury has crept up on you while you were talking. It’s impossible that a creature that large could move without making a sound, but now it’s regarding you from just a few steps away. You’re certain it could lunge and tear out your throat in the blink of an eye, or bite your head off, or incinerate you with that infamous fire–

“Stay calm,” Thomas tells you firmly. “I won’t let anything happen to you, I swear it. Toothless, this is Y/N. She’s a friend of mine, alright? That means she’s a friend of yours, too.”

It is absolutely ridiculous, but you swear the dragon cocks its head as if it’s listening to Thomas. You’re still not sure why you both aren’t dead yet, but the dragon looks back to you expectantly, and you feel the odd urge to say something. “Hi, Toothless. It’s, uh, nice to meet you.”

Thomas nods. “That was great. Here, give him this.”

You risk a glance away from the Night Fury to realize that Thomas is handing you a large fish. You take hold of the slippery thing and hesitantly toss it to the dragon, who swallows it up in one gulp. The Night Fury tilts its head to the side, and if you weren’t absolutely crazy you’d honestly believe it smiles at you, leathery skin pulling a little away from its mouth. You smile back, and Toothless makes a sort of keening noise.

“Perfect,” Thomas says. “You can touch him, if you want.”

“I can?” You ask.

“Sure,” Thomas answered. “He’s spoiled, anyway. Might as well make it worse.”

He goes first, approaching the dragon and rubbing small circles into the scales above its nose. He nods at you to follow and you do, albeit much more slowly. Your breath catches when you place your hand on the black scales, certain your luck will run out and Toothless will bite you in half, but instead the dragon just sighs and leans into your touch.

You let out a surprised laugh. “This is crazy. You’re friends with a Night Fury.”

“You are too, now,” Thomas says. “If you bring him more fish, he’ll probably like you more than me.”

You shake your head, dumbstruck. “You amaze me, Thomas. I knew you had some sort of secret, but I never imagined this.”

Thomas looks over at you. “You thought I had a secret?”

“Not something as big as this,” you murmur, embarrassed, “It’s just– you’re good at dragon training, that’s all. Better than the rest of us. I just thought you studied a lot or something.”

Thomas snorts. “I’m awful at dragon training. I have yet to strike a single one of them, even the weak ones.”

“That’s on purpose, isn’t it?” You ask, realization dawning upon you. “You know how to live with the dragons because of Toothless, but you don’t want to hurt them, either.”

Thomas shakes his head, looking oddly guilty. “How could I? I mean, what if every dragon is just like Toothless? Dangerous, sure but so are humans. We just keep attacking each other for no reason, but if a human and a Night Fury can get along, I figure the same is true for everything else. My friendship with Toothless feels more real than any fake battle in dragon training. This can’t be wrong. I know that somehow, I don’t know why. I can’t help but believe that we aren’t supposed to fight them, even if that’s why we were put on this island in the first place.”

He looks suddenly abashed. “You probably don’t want to hear that, though. Chief’s daughter and all. I don’t mean to insult your father or his way of ruling, it’s just–”

“No, you should,” you interrupt. “He’s wrong. Wrong about a lot. He doesn’t care about the village, just slaughtering dragons. Growing up, I thought a chief was supposed to protect his people, but my father’s only obsession is killing. That’s no way to lead your people. He’ll get all of us killed in the name of salvation.”

Thomas stares at you, respect blossoming in his eyes. “I never thought I’d hear you say that.”

You let out a quiet half-laugh. “I’m the one who knows it the best. I see him all the time. He– he’s worse than you could ever imagine.”

Thomas reaches out, gently laying a hand on your shoulder. “Hey, if you ever need an escape, you’ve always got us. You know, all the best friends are dragons or loner misfits.”

“I don’t think you’re a misfit,” you say. “Never have. I think you’re smarter than the rest of us. Smart enough to figure out that we’ve trapped ourselves in a war we’re not supposed to fight.”

Thomas smiles. “If anyone had to find out about Toothless, I’m glad it was you.”

You frown. “Why? Because I can protect him from my father?”

“No,” Thomas says, shaking his head, “Because I trust you. Always have. Your father has years of experience, and the council is fine, but whenever someone had to weigh in on a tough decision, you always gave the best advice. Even when no one could agree on anything.”

The words mean more to you than you could have expected. They’re enough to convince you to stick around a little longer than you planned, to talk idly with Thomas until the sun starts to dip over the horizon and you realize you’ve spent hours here instead of minutes. Thomas doesn’t seem to mind, in fact he appears glad for the company, for your company. You had always assumed he was perfectly fine on his own, but he opens up to you as if he had been waiting his whole life for you to get to know him.

Maybe that’s why you come back the next day, and the next. Thomas takes you up into the sky with Toothless, soaring until the whole world seems just a hazy smear of green and blue below you. Every ride is perfect, enough to steal the breath from your lungs with a rush of adrenaline, but it ends, it always ends. No matter how crisp the air, how far you soar, you always have to come back. You wish you could stay up there in the clouds forever, answering to no one, but there always comes the point when your feet touch back down, when you begin the slow trek back to your house, where the weight of your father’s disapproval threatens to pull you under.

You live for those stolen hours with Thomas. In just a matter of weeks, he seems to understand you better than any of your friends, even your father. It’s a welcome relief, especially since the time you spend in the company of Thomas’ Night Fury only serves to pull you down his path and all of a sudden you don’t want to slay any dragons, either. This only serves to make your father even more furious with you, so you sneak out to visit Thomas more often, and the cycle intensifies.

As the days tick down to the final day of dragon training, where one of you will have to actually slay a dragon, you get more nervous. You’re still in the lead, even despite your refusal to actually harm any of the dragons. That only means that you’ll be the one to do the bloody deed.

Thomas tries to help talk you through it, but neither of you can find a way out. “Just refuse,” Thomas urges. “They can’t make you kill it, right? If you found some way to rise above, maybe argue for working with them instead of against, if you had enough reason, maybe–”

“That would never work,” you laugh bitterly. “You don’t know my father, Thomas. You haven’t lived with him as I have. Every moment in his presence is a test. Every conversation is a demand to prove my worth. I hover on the knife’s edge of his approval, and if I ever fall, he’d have my head in a moment. I cannot disappoint him, Thomas, not like this. He would feed me to the dragons himself if I let him down in front of the whole village.”

Thomas sees the true fear written plainly on your face and reaches over to take your hand, squeezing it comfortingly. “Hey, don’t worry. We’ll find a way out, I swear it. Maybe I’ll crash your ceremony and stop the whole thing. They’ll think I’m just jealous, but I could get you out and they’d only blame me.”

You shake your head fervently. “Then they’d make me go after you. I’ll never betray you, Thomas, I swear it.”

“Then you have to know I’m not letting you do this alone, either,” Thomas says. “We’ll find a way.”

In the end, you leave the clearing together, no closer to a way out than you ever had been before. Running seems the only option, but you have no idea where you’d go. The only way out, it seems, is through.

When you get back to the village center, though, thoughts of dragon training are quickly swept from your mind. Everyone seems on high alert, rushing to the smithy to get more weapons and hurrying with shields and spears down to warboats waiting below.

You catch the arm of one of your father’s councilmen as he passes. “What happened?”

The councilman shakes his head darkly. “Some of our warriors went out for a raid on a nearby island. It should have been an easy task, but they were caught unawares by a nest of Grievers. We set off to save them, but we fear it’s too late.” He fixes you with a wary look, then continues. “Your father was among the first party.”

You draw in a sharp gasp, and the man leaves, pulled back into the throngs of rushing Vikings. You may not always get along with your father, but even he doesn’t deserve this fate. Grievers are monsters worse than dragons, worse than anything. Some say they clawed their way up from the very reaches of the land of the dead. They’re massive, sharp things that have killed dozens if not hundreds of warriors from your island home over the years. Dragons are smart, they could be trusted, as you’ve learned. Grievers are another story. There is no befriending a Griever. To see one is to accept your own death, and your father has been set upon by a nest of them.

As the village center quickly empties of people, you turn to Thomas. “We have to save them. We have to do something.”

Your voice catches on the word, and Thomas’s face twists to see you in pain. “We will, I swear.” A look of dawning realization crosses his countenance. “Actually, I think I have an idea. Gather your friends, tell them to meet me in the dragon training arena as fast as you can.”

You look at him questioningly, but Thomas doesn’t elaborate. There’s no time to ask, with every passing moment more of your people put themselves at risk, so you start to run. Thomas knows what he’s doing, you’re sure of it.

Soon enough, you’re in the arena. You managed to track down Gally, Newt, Minho, Winston, and a few others. When Thomas tells you all that he intends to rescue your father and his warriors by using dragons to fight the Grievers, no one believes him at first. It’s only when Thomas calls his Night Fury down from the skies that people start listening.

It takes less time than expected to coax the dragons out of their cages from training, to convince them to trust you, but then you’re up in the air, clutching at crevices in blue-green scales as you soar through the skies. Minho shoots through the air, racing Newt, who laughs delightedly as the wind pulls at his hair.

The laughter dies at once when you come upon the scene of the fight. Already, you see bodies crumpled on the ground, but you feel shamefully relieved to see your father isn’t among them. Thomas leads the charge down, and the terror on your villager’s faces when they see the dragons quickly melts into confusion when they realize you’re riding them.

The Grievers are deadly, awful things. You’ve never seen them face-to-face, only heard awful stories from people missing legs or eyes or lives. Even on dragonback, they pose a substantial threat, but slowly, tenuously, they succumb to the burns and slashes of your dragons. Once you’re sure the danger is past, you land your dragon and climb to the ground, searching the gathering crowds for your father.

He finds you soon enough. Your father stalks through the throngs of Vikings, eyes cold. “What is the meaning of this?”

You straighten up, forcing yourself to seem confident even if you don’t entirely feel it anymore. “We had to save you from the Grievers. This seemed the best way.”

“Dragons,” your father spits out. “You trusted dragons over your own people. You should have been down here fighting with the rest of us, but you turned to the beasts.”

“We saved your life,” you retort. “We were wrong about the dragons. They saved all of us today from the Grievers. Doesn’t that warrant a second chance?”

Your father scoffs. “No Viking would ally itself with a monster. You’ve disappointed me, Y/N, for the last time.”

Your eyes widen, but all of a sudden Thomas is emerging from the crowd and putting himself between you and your father. “You’re wrong, Janson. Y/N is more a Viking than you ever could be.”

The crowd behind you dissolves in shocked gasps. You try to tell Thomas to stand down, but he shakes his head, as obstinate as ever. “Y/N would have given her life to save you, to save this whole village. She trusted the dragons because she would do anything to protect her people. If you think that’s a failure, then you have no idea what I think of you.”

Your father’s eyes flash, and he opens his mouth to argue, but he’s interrupted by a voice from the crowd. “He’s right,” a woman says. You recognize her at once– Ava Paige, one of the village’s finest warriors. She’s covered in long scars from a Griever attack, making her one of only a small handful that had survived such a deadly assault. “I see nothing wrong with their plan. Better than they acted quickly to ally themselves with the dragons then watch all of us die throwing ourselves at the Grievers.”

You smile thankfully at her. Your father turns to Ava, then takes in the approving looks being exchanged by the rest of the village and realizes at last that he alone has a problem with your plan. He forces a thin smile. “Fine,” he says briskly. “All glory be yours for this battle. I only hope that your dependence on the dragons does not prove dangerous in the end.”

“It won’t,” you vow. Your father seems to disagree with this, but he heads back into the crowds to the boats, leaving you with Thomas.

“Thank you,” you whisper to him.

“It’s nothing,” he says. “I’ve been wanting to fight with him for a while, anyway. No one should make you feel so badly about yourself. There isn’t a single thing about you that could ever disappoint me, and I’ll tell that to the whole village if I have to.”

As it turns out, he doesn’t need to tell the whole village anything. He says enough when he kisses you, right there on the bloodsoaked beach, under the light of the afternoon sun. If this is victory, you want all of it. The only glory you would ever want is here, with him, knowing at last that you’ve proved yourself. It’s better than you could have ever imagined.

requested by @pjxcksonswrd, i hope you enjoy!

tmr tag list:

tmr tag list: @blondsauduun, @ellobruv, @retvenkos, @neewtmas, @mayfieldss, @jvst4ever, @gods-fools-heroes, @pjxcksonswrd, @23victoria, @w1shes43, @imwaysthelastchoice, @fadedver, @il0vebeingdelulu

all tags list: @wordsarelife, @supervoldejaygent

[heliads]

hallo !

i was wondering since requests are open…

may i ask for a peter pevensie x reader, where reader is kind of like the odd person, thats always there like around the royals, in a village close to their castle lets say f.e., and shes just quiet and just likes to people watch (projection whats that? hah…) and one day, after a typical sibling argument, peter goes out all angry/frustrated on horseback only to fall off his horse and pass out in the woods and reader ‘saves’ him? takes care of him or finds him and thats when he first hears her voice?

(and gets all soft and idk gentle hehe im a sucker for big tough men being soft sorry😔)

thank you! hope your summer break is awesome!!

'Riding Away' - Peter Pevensie

masterlist

Peter Pevensie feels like he’s crawling out of his own skin. He’s busy, too busy, and it feels like ever since he came to Narnia, he’s never truly been alone. Peter didn’t realize how good he had it back home, when he could just take a walk or go study and never hear a voice for hours. Now, he can’t cross a courtyard without someone hurrying up to him, begging for an opinion on some asinine issue, or enjoy a meal without courtiers attempting to sway him to their side.

It’s not as if Peter expected to become a King of Narnia without some manner of social obligation. He’d expected the meetings, the visiting dignitaries, the swordplay drills, but he hadn’t counted on the total absence of privacy. He feels it slowly driving him mad, wearing him down like a rock on the bottom of a streambed. With every day that passes, Peter cedes more and more control to the unstoppable masses. At some point, he truly believes he’ll fade away entirely. No more Peter left, just a crown and a few last thoughts.

The problem is, there’s not a whole lot he can do about it, not really. He can’t abandon his people, nor can he foist the responsibility onto his siblings. They’ve already got too much on their plates as is. Peter’s the eldest, he’s supposed to protect the others, not give up and run off screaming, even if that’s what he’d like to do most of all.

The only brief escape Peter can find is in horseback riding. He’d never gotten the chance to try it out back in England, how could he? In Narnia, though, there are endless meadows all calling to be explored, and countless forests carpeted in wildflowers. Peter’s gone on hundreds of rides by now, all exhilarating. The wind catches at his hair as he soars past burbling rivers, peering in to watch the blurry reflection of himself galloping by in time.

Even on the rides, Peter is almost never by himself. A pair of guards will insist on accompanying him, maybe even one or two of his siblings, or all of them, or a few members of the court who can’t or won’t look past Peter’s almost explicit dismissal of them. Luckily, if Peter is riding fast enough, all words are ripped away by the wind, and attempts to discuss national matters are dashed to pieces beneath the hooves of his stallion.

The past week has been a constant parade of meetings and banquets, so as a reward, Peter has promised himself that he’ll go riding today, come hell or high water. He’d hoped to make it in the morning, while the air was still cool and the sun hadn’t completely emerged, but as per usual, his plans had been foiled. First, there was some emergency with the knights early in the morning, then that damned diplomat from the sea countries had caught Peter unawares and forced him into an hours-long discussion of trade policies. Once he’d finally been able to shake the slippery sweet-talker, Peter had been willing to skip his midday meal entirely, but Susan had coerced him with no small amount of threats to get something in his stomach before he passed out.

Now, it’s afternoon, and Peter can only cast despairing glances at the lengthening shadows out the window as he feels his chances at a fine ride slip through his fingertips. At last, he’s finally able to shake free of a particularly stultifying conference on heraldry, and he’s not going to let anything get in his way.

The second it’s socially acceptable, Peter is striding briskly down the corridor, practically running in his haste to just get out. One of his advisors follows him, begging Peter to join a conference of scholars recently arrived from the western reaches of Narnia.

“Tomorrow,” Peter says. “I’ll join them tomorrow. Perfect, then they can get their thoughts in order after discussing with the rest of you and we can cut right to the chase.”

“Please, sir,” his advisor begs, “It really would be best for you to host them immediately.”

“That’s what the other kings and queens are for,” Peter says. “Three royals makes for a perfectly good hosting party. Any more than that, and it gets excessive, right?”

“If not to meet them, where are you going?” The advisor pleads, breath becoming more labored as Peter picks up his pace even more than before.

“I’m going for a ride,” Peter says. “I’ll be back soon, don’t worry. Plenty of time to greet the scholars. All will be well.”

The captain of the guard emerges from another corridor, joining them on Peter’s other side. “You mean to go for a ride, sir? Very well, I’ll send a pair of soldiers to accompany you.”

Peter wilts inside at the thought of more people. “That’s alright, Captain. I assure you, I can handle a mere hour away from the castle by myself.”

“I would never insinuate otherwise, your Grace,” the captain says. “However, with recent reports of robberies in the surrounding countryside, I do have to insist that you travel with protection.”

Peter turns a corner. The stables are in sight, he’s almost there– “I will be careful, I swear it. Next time, I’ll travel with guards, just not this once.” Please, not this once.

The captain frowns. “But sir–”

“I’ll be quick,” Peter assures him. “No more than an hour, I promise. Besides, I would have thought you could personally attest to my skill with the blade given all the time we’ve spent sparring? I’ll be alright.”

The captain purses his lips, but acquiesces. “If you insist.”

Peter smiles. “I do. I’ll see you soon.”

With that, he heads into the stables, mounting his ride and taking off before the captain can change his mind. The second he’s past the gate, Peter heaves a sigh of relief. He can feel an immense weight being removed from his shoulders. For once, no one is following him, no one is asking for anything from him. Peter is no longer just a king, he’s a human being again, and one with the freedom to ride as fast and hard as he can. At some point, he’ll have to turn around again, but that time seems far off, and out here in the waving greenery, Peter can’t think about anything but the delight of adrenaline coursing through his veins.

He isn’t thinking, that’s the whole point. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t slow down when the ground underneath him starts to become more uneven. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t notice the startled sound his horse is making until it’s too late, when a rock slips beneath the hoof of his horse. If he hadn’t been hurrying from the castle like his life depended on it, Peter might have noticed that the horse he chose wasn’t his normal steed, the one who could face any danger without backing down. Instead, he has one of the newer ones, a horse that hasn’t yet learned not to balk at everything unusual in its path.

So, instead of snorting at the stumble, the horse panics, rearing into the air. Peter isn’t expecting it, too lost in the dreamy exultation of being free, and he’s caught completely off guard, tossed from the horse in a moment. He hits his head hard on the stony ground, and the blow is enough to shock him into unconsciousness. He doesn’t notice his horse taking off in the opposite direction, stranding him in the middle of nowhere. He certainly doesn’t notice the shadowy figure approaching him from a stand of trees. How could he?

Peter wakes slowly, grasping at sleep. He had a strange dream, one that smelled like wildflowers and coppery blood. His head aches, and one hand rises to gauge the injury but meets fabric instead of skin and bone.

Confused, Peter sits up, and immediately regrets it. The world swims before him, and Peter has to clutch the bedding at either side of him to not become sick while the ground stops swimming.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” comes a voice somewhere far away from him.

Peter squints forward and manages to make out that he’s in a strange room, far more sparsely decorated than any of his quarters at the palace. There’s a girl in plain clothes standing on the other side of the room, washing something stained scarlet. With a start, Peter realizes that it’s blood. His blood.

“What did you do?” Peter manages to croak out. His throat, dry and aching, is so shocked by being forced to speak that for a moment it almost hurts as bad as his head.

The girl laughs derisively. “I saved your life. Trust me, if there’s anyone you should be scared of, it’s not me.”

Peter squints at her. His vision is starting to clear again, and he realizes that he recognizes the face of this girl as she draws closer to him, eyeing what must be bandages over his head. He’s seen her once or twice as he passed through town, but more than that, he’s heard the rumors. Stories of a young woman who lives on the outskirts of town, known by few and trusted by fewer, who watches from a quiet corner of the town as the village proceedings unfurl before her. Some claim she’s a witch, others a spy. Others whisper that she isn’t anything at all, more a ghost than a living girl.

And right now, Peter is in her home, injured with no way to get back. There’s no way the captain of the guard is ever going to let him ride alone again, he thinks with chagrin.

“Well,” Peter says, plastering a smile on his face and trying to act as if merely sitting up doesn’t make his head want to split in half, “I appreciate your hospitality, but I’d really best be going.”

“I doubt that,” the woman says. “When I found you, you were passed out in a pool of your own blood. It’s not a good wound, your Grace. It’ll take a while to heal.”

Peter blinks. “You know who I am?”

The girl looks like she wants to laugh at him. “Everyone knows the High Kings and Queens of Narnia. Even out here.”

Peter nods slowly. He can work with this. He’s not in direct danger, not yet. If she tries to stop him, there’s a poker at the fireplace he can grab, but he’d prefer it not come to that yet. “If you know who I am, then you know I have to get back to the palace as soon as possible. They’ll send guards searching for me. My siblings will be worried. I’d rather assuage their fears as soon as possible.”

The girl holds up her hands. “I’m not keeping you here maliciously, believe me. But you’re right, it would be a terrible thing to keep a king captive when he wants to leave. Go ahead, then. Stand up and walk out.”

She folds her arms across her chest expectantly. Peter blinks, not expecting her to give in so easily, then steadies himself and stands. He tries to, at least. What really happens is that Peter lurches up about a centimeter or two, then his vision spots over with black and he collapses onto the ground.

Instantly, the girl is with him again, carefully pulling Peter back onto the stack of cushions she’d arranged for him. “Do you believe me now?” She asks chidingly. “I don’t mean to keep you here against your will, but you’ll be exceedingly dizzy for hours. Trying to move you now isn’t a good idea.”

“Seconded,” Peter acknowledges. “In that case, if you don’t mind, I’d like to stay.”

The girl nods, and Peter realizes something embarrassing. “Pardon me, but I don’t think I know your name.”

“Y/N,” the girl says. “Y/N L/N.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Y/N,” Peter says. If he doesn’t have his strength, he’ll have to rely on his mind instead, and that starts with appraising the situation.

Y/N quirks an eyebrow. “It’s nice to meet me like this? With you bleeding copiously from the head?”

Peter laughs, surprising himself. “Well, I’d prefer to have done so under more favorable conditions, but I’ll take what I can get.” An idea occurs to him suddenly. “Say, I came here on horseback. If you take my horse, it’ll know the way back to the castle. You can send help here, and be handsomely rewarded, I promise.”

Any spark of hope he’d felt is quickly crushed when Y/N sadly shakes her head. “I’m sorry, your Grace, but you were alone when I came upon you. Your horse must have been spooked, tossed you, and ran away.”

Peter grimaces. “So much for the reward, then.”

Y/N snorts. “I don’t need a reward. Seeing you hale and healthy will be compensation enough for me.”

Peter, used to the endless demands and obligations of court, startles. “You mean that, don’t you?”

A furrow appears between Y/N’s brows. “Of course I do. Do you really think me that heartless, to need money or jewels to convince myself to help someone in need?”

“Of course not,” Peter says hastily. “You’re– you’re a good person. I see that now. Better than most I know.”

“I find that hard to believe,” Y/N says, smiling slightly. “I can only imagine the sorts of people you’d get to meet in court, but I have to imagine they’re good, too. More interesting than anyone in a small village like this one.”

Her tone is soft, almost as if she’s daydreaming, and Peter can’t help but smile back. “Some are, yes, but most want more than they give.”

“That’s true of people here, too,” Y/N sighs. “Still, I suppose that means we’ll just have to be better to make up for it, then. You should get some rest,” she says suddenly. “It’s late, it’ll help with the healing. There’s a glass of water and some bread on the table beside you. If you need anything, please call, your Grace.”

“Peter,” he says, surprising both of them. “Call me Peter, please. I don’t think there’s any need for decorum when I’m getting blood on your things.”

She smiles, and Peter feels uncommonly proud of himself. “Alright, Peter. Sleep well.”

She’s gone in a swish of skirts, and Peter is left alone, contemplating just what he’s gotten himself into. He should be more worried, he thinks, but for some reason, he just feels safe, like no matter what, he trusts Y/N to get him through this.

He dozes fitfully, torn between sleep and the pain in his skull. He must have cried out at some point, because he vaguely recalls Y/N appearing by his side in the night, coaxing him to drink some sort of herbal soup, which eased the pain away and let him sleep again. Peter sleeps late, far later than he usually can as king, and when he finally manages to open his eyes for longer than a minute, the sun slants fully into the room.

He feels better, surprisingly, well enough to change into some spare clothes Y/N left for him and get some food and water down. Y/N isn’t there when he wakes up, which unsettles Peter more than he cares to admit, but she’s back within the hour, exclaiming happily at his progress. He’s able to sit up a little more, but walking around is out of the question.

Instead, he watches Y/N at her chores. She makes a living by preparing herbs and tinctures for the local apothecary, so Peter observes curiously as she grinds up leaves or carefully measures out petals into labeled jars. He asks her countless questions about what she’s doing, so many that she must be sick of him, but Y/N seems glad to have the company and always answers him readily enough.

By evening, Peter feels brave enough to eat his supper with her, and even though she apologizes for the plain fare, he swears it’s better than most of the banquets he’s ever attended. He’s not lying, either; somehow, the warm fire and the good company make the food decadent and delightful. Peter can’t seem to drag his gaze away from Y/N’s face, watching how she smiles as she talks, how the firelight lights her eyes like stars in the sky.

At some point, she catches him staring, and turns away, suddenly shy. “You’ll probably be missing home,” she says quickly, to disguise the heavy silence that’s fallen upon them. “Normally, I’d suggest you inquire with some of the local workers to see if any of them had a horse you could borrow, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to reveal yourself quite yet.”

Peter frowns. “Why not?”

Y/N’s lips purse. “There have been more thieves in the area than in the past, and they certainly aren’t the most fervent royalists around. If they heard that the king was in town, hardly able to lift a book, let alone a sword, they’d sense an opportunity and strike or attempt to hold you for ransom. I live on the outskirts of town, so you won’t be noticed so long as you stay here. In the meantime, I can send a trusted messenger to alert the guards, and they can bring a party of soldiers to ensure your safe return.”

Peter nods, feeling an odd pang at the thought of leaving. He should be delighted to return to the castle, to his family, but he’s actually had a marvelous time here. It’s been a relief to not be sought after for meetings and functions. For the past several hours, he hasn’t been a king, just a boy, just Peter, someone who can meet a pretty girl and stay with her just because he wanted to do so. It’s been lovely, and if he were in the mood to be honest, he would admit that he doesn’t want to give it up.

But he isn’t just Peter, he’s a king with responsibilities, so Peter nods stoically. “I would appreciate the message being sent. How long would you expect before the soldiers arrive?”

Y/N tilts her head to the side, considering this. “It depends. Likely a few more days, if that is acceptable to you.”

“It’s perfect,” Peter says too quickly, then tries to play it off. “I don’t mind waiting, I mean. I– I enjoy the company.”

For a moment, he feels that he’s overstepped, but then Y/N turns to him with a grin that could outshine the sun, and then he doesn’t feel bad at all anymore.

Y/N gets up early the next day to send out the messenger. Peter feels much better thanks to the medicine she’s been giving him, well enough to help sweep the floors and perform some of the chores he’d seen her completing the day before. He’s rewarded with another bright smile when she returns. It’s sort of silly, but Peter likes this, playing this part alongside her. He wants to keep breaking bread and talking late into the evening, watching her carefully cataloging the herbs and helping her by tallying the sums in a notebook as she calls them out to him. Secretly, he hopes the messenger might get lost, just for a day or two, long enough for Peter to exult in this quiet life for as long as he can.

It’s easy to imagine this is his life. Too easy. Peter is a High King, he should be thinking of his responsibilities, or making a greater effort to get back to the castle. He definitely shouldn’t be chopping vegetables for stew, or stumbling over his own feet not because of the injury but because Y/N smiled at him. His head has actually been fine for a while, the wound better than it looked, but he hasn’t let that on to Y/N in case she wanted him out of her house.

He hasn’t had to worry about that, though, not really. He’s sure she figured him out ages ago, what with her knowledge of medicine, but Y/N seems to want Peter here just as much as he yearns to stay. They make a good partnership. Everything comes instinctively, Peter sensing when Y/N needs help with something or Y/N knowing what’s on his mind at the drop of a hat.

So, a day or two later, when Peter hears the tumult of horse hooves outside, his first thought isn’t joy to return to his family, but an odd pitfall in his stomach, like something lovely has just been torn from him. Looking up, he sees a brief flash of despair in Y/N’s eyes as she comes to the same conclusion, but she covers it up quickly.

“That must be your guards,” she says briskly, hurrying to the door. “I’d better let them in before they get worried.”

Peter wants to stop her, to compel the soldiers outside to turn around and leave them be, but it’s too late. Y/N opens the door to reveal the captain of the guard, as frantic as Peter has ever seen him. The soldiers storm into the house, which is suddenly engulfed in the clanking of metal and shouts of worry.

Out of concern that Y/N might be hurt, Peter steps forward quickly, hands up. “It’s alright, I’m okay. Thank you for coming.”

The captain looks relieved to see him, but keeps one hand on the hilt of his sword. “Are you safe, your Grace?”

“Perfectly,” Peter assures him. “This woman saved my life. I– we all owe her many thanks.”

Y/N’s eyes flash to Peter when he says this, as warm as ever despite the tinge of sadness still lurking in her gaze. “That’s very kind of you to say.”

The captain nods his thanks, then steps towards Peter, ushering him towards the door. “We should return at once. The entire castle is in an uproar over your disappearance.”

It all feels out of his control, more like Peter is getting kidnapped than being rescued. “Wait,” he says, fighting free to hurry back to Y/N’s side. “I– Thank you,” he says again, “For everything. If you ever need anything, any favor, please do not hesitate to ask.”

Ask me, he means. Find me. Come back to me.

Y/N smiles tentatively. “I might take you up on that.”

“Please do,” Peter says, urgency bleeding through the words. This can’t be it, the end of these past few golden days, but the horses are stomping their hooves impatiently outside, and the soldiers are watching on, and none of it is as Peter hoped it would be.

“Goodbye,” he whispers, and waits for Y/N’s smile one last time before forcing himself away.

The ride back seems far too short. Before he knows it, Peter is being ushered into the castle, past throngs of courtiers and soldiers telling them how relieved they are at his safe return. He changes into garments more suitable for a king, but cannot stop himself from keeping the clothes Y/N had given them. The cloth still smells like the herbs she kept, and all at once he’s homesick for a place he hadn’t even known for a full week.

Peter tries to throw himself back into the life of a royal. He attends court functions with renewed vigor, leads debates, listens to his subjects. He treats his siblings well. He is always diligent with the sword, and makes time for visiting diplomats and scholars whenever they grace his door. No matter what, though, no matter how he overfills his schedule so he won’t have one moment for his mind to settle into bleak wanting, Peter is not happy. He does not feel like himself, not the way he had in that small village. The gilded shackles of royalty are clamped tightly around him, cutting Peter off from what he wants.

And, at last, he can take it no more. The captain of the guard is quite taken aback when he spots Peter hurrying to the stables. “Your Grace, I hope you are taking a patrol with you if you wish to ride, you remember the last time–”

“If you wish to accompany me,” Peter shouts over his shoulder, “I encourage you to try and keep up.”

He’s saddled and out the door in the blink of an eye, his horse charting a path its rider has kept alive in his mind since the day he left it. Somewhere behind him, a few soldiers are racing after him, but Peter cares not for what’s in his wake, only what lies ahead.

Y/N looks surprised when she opens the door to find Peter there. “What are you doing here?” She asks, eyes darting from Peter to the equally confused guards behind him. “Don’t tell me you hurt your head again, I’ll be quite upset.”

Peter actually laughs. It rings from him like a bell. He thinks it’s the first real laugh he’s had since he left her. “Come back with me,” he says. “I miss you. I’ve missed you since I went back. You can work with the castle apothecary if you like, or never lift a finger again if it pleases you. Just return with me, please. I can’t feel sane unless you’re by my side.”

Y/N looks stunned. “You can’t be serious. I’ve never been to court, Peter. I wouldn’t have the faintest idea what to do.”

“I’d teach you everything you’d need to know,” Peter assures her. “I came to court a total novice, and I was king. And if you get sick of me, there are plenty of teachers and old masters who would be more than happy to help you out. I’d do anything to make you feel at home.”

Y/N looks tentatively up at him. “You mean it? You really want me there?”

Peter nods, suddenly more sure of himself than he’s ever been. “I want you, Y/N. More than anything.”

Peter has been treated to a lot of her smiles in the past, but this one is so dazzling he feels as if he’s been knocked off his feet. “I would love to go with you, Peter.” “Perfect,” he says, and he means it– perfect. As High King, Peter is constantly making concessions, agreeing to deals he doesn’t like just so he can squeeze some much-needed detail out of the bargain. For once, though, Peter has everything he could want. His home, his family, the girl he’s grown to love, all in one place. This, then, is what winning must feel like. It occurs to Peter that from here on out, he’s going to grow quite accustomed to that feeling.

narnia tag list: @remussbitch, @faerieroyal, @goldfish4403

all tags list: @wordsarelife, @supervoldejaygent

[heliads]

hallo !

i was wondering since requests are open…

may i ask for a peter pevensie x reader, where reader is kind of like the odd person, thats always there like around the royals, in a village close to their castle lets say f.e., and shes just quiet and just likes to people watch (projection whats that? hah…) and one day, after a typical sibling argument, peter goes out all angry/frustrated on horseback only to fall off his horse and pass out in the woods and reader ‘saves’ him? takes care of him or finds him and thats when he first hears her voice?

(and gets all soft and idk gentle hehe im a sucker for big tough men being soft sorry😔)

thank you! hope your summer break is awesome!!

'Riding Away' - Peter Pevensie

masterlist

Peter Pevensie feels like he’s crawling out of his own skin. He’s busy, too busy, and it feels like ever since he came to Narnia, he’s never truly been alone. Peter didn’t realize how good he had it back home, when he could just take a walk or go study and never hear a voice for hours. Now, he can’t cross a courtyard without someone hurrying up to him, begging for an opinion on some asinine issue, or enjoy a meal without courtiers attempting to sway him to their side.

It’s not as if Peter expected to become a King of Narnia without some manner of social obligation. He’d expected the meetings, the visiting dignitaries, the swordplay drills, but he hadn’t counted on the total absence of privacy. He feels it slowly driving him mad, wearing him down like a rock on the bottom of a streambed. With every day that passes, Peter cedes more and more control to the unstoppable masses. At some point, he truly believes he’ll fade away entirely. No more Peter left, just a crown and a few last thoughts.

The problem is, there’s not a whole lot he can do about it, not really. He can’t abandon his people, nor can he foist the responsibility onto his siblings. They’ve already got too much on their plates as is. Peter’s the eldest, he’s supposed to protect the others, not give up and run off screaming, even if that’s what he’d like to do most of all.

The only brief escape Peter can find is in horseback riding. He’d never gotten the chance to try it out back in England, how could he? In Narnia, though, there are endless meadows all calling to be explored, and countless forests carpeted in wildflowers. Peter’s gone on hundreds of rides by now, all exhilarating. The wind catches at his hair as he soars past burbling rivers, peering in to watch the blurry reflection of himself galloping by in time.

Even on the rides, Peter is almost never by himself. A pair of guards will insist on accompanying him, maybe even one or two of his siblings, or all of them, or a few members of the court who can’t or won’t look past Peter’s almost explicit dismissal of them. Luckily, if Peter is riding fast enough, all words are ripped away by the wind, and attempts to discuss national matters are dashed to pieces beneath the hooves of his stallion.

The past week has been a constant parade of meetings and banquets, so as a reward, Peter has promised himself that he’ll go riding today, come hell or high water. He’d hoped to make it in the morning, while the air was still cool and the sun hadn’t completely emerged, but as per usual, his plans had been foiled. First, there was some emergency with the knights early in the morning, then that damned diplomat from the sea countries had caught Peter unawares and forced him into an hours-long discussion of trade policies. Once he’d finally been able to shake the slippery sweet-talker, Peter had been willing to skip his midday meal entirely, but Susan had coerced him with no small amount of threats to get something in his stomach before he passed out.

Now, it’s afternoon, and Peter can only cast despairing glances at the lengthening shadows out the window as he feels his chances at a fine ride slip through his fingertips. At last, he’s finally able to shake free of a particularly stultifying conference on heraldry, and he’s not going to let anything get in his way.

The second it’s socially acceptable, Peter is striding briskly down the corridor, practically running in his haste to just get out. One of his advisors follows him, begging Peter to join a conference of scholars recently arrived from the western reaches of Narnia.

“Tomorrow,” Peter says. “I’ll join them tomorrow. Perfect, then they can get their thoughts in order after discussing with the rest of you and we can cut right to the chase.”

“Please, sir,” his advisor begs, “It really would be best for you to host them immediately.”

“That’s what the other kings and queens are for,” Peter says. “Three royals makes for a perfectly good hosting party. Any more than that, and it gets excessive, right?”

“If not to meet them, where are you going?” The advisor pleads, breath becoming more labored as Peter picks up his pace even more than before.

“I’m going for a ride,” Peter says. “I’ll be back soon, don’t worry. Plenty of time to greet the scholars. All will be well.”

The captain of the guard emerges from another corridor, joining them on Peter’s other side. “You mean to go for a ride, sir? Very well, I’ll send a pair of soldiers to accompany you.”

Peter wilts inside at the thought of more people. “That’s alright, Captain. I assure you, I can handle a mere hour away from the castle by myself.”

“I would never insinuate otherwise, your Grace,” the captain says. “However, with recent reports of robberies in the surrounding countryside, I do have to insist that you travel with protection.”

Peter turns a corner. The stables are in sight, he’s almost there– “I will be careful, I swear it. Next time, I’ll travel with guards, just not this once.” Please, not this once.

The captain frowns. “But sir–”

“I’ll be quick,” Peter assures him. “No more than an hour, I promise. Besides, I would have thought you could personally attest to my skill with the blade given all the time we’ve spent sparring? I’ll be alright.”

The captain purses his lips, but acquiesces. “If you insist.”

Peter smiles. “I do. I’ll see you soon.”

With that, he heads into the stables, mounting his ride and taking off before the captain can change his mind. The second he’s past the gate, Peter heaves a sigh of relief. He can feel an immense weight being removed from his shoulders. For once, no one is following him, no one is asking for anything from him. Peter is no longer just a king, he’s a human being again, and one with the freedom to ride as fast and hard as he can. At some point, he’ll have to turn around again, but that time seems far off, and out here in the waving greenery, Peter can’t think about anything but the delight of adrenaline coursing through his veins.

He isn’t thinking, that’s the whole point. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t slow down when the ground underneath him starts to become more uneven. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t notice the startled sound his horse is making until it’s too late, when a rock slips beneath the hoof of his horse. If he hadn’t been hurrying from the castle like his life depended on it, Peter might have noticed that the horse he chose wasn’t his normal steed, the one who could face any danger without backing down. Instead, he has one of the newer ones, a horse that hasn’t yet learned not to balk at everything unusual in its path.

So, instead of snorting at the stumble, the horse panics, rearing into the air. Peter isn’t expecting it, too lost in the dreamy exultation of being free, and he’s caught completely off guard, tossed from the horse in a moment. He hits his head hard on the stony ground, and the blow is enough to shock him into unconsciousness. He doesn’t notice his horse taking off in the opposite direction, stranding him in the middle of nowhere. He certainly doesn’t notice the shadowy figure approaching him from a stand of trees. How could he?

Peter wakes slowly, grasping at sleep. He had a strange dream, one that smelled like wildflowers and coppery blood. His head aches, and one hand rises to gauge the injury but meets fabric instead of skin and bone.

Confused, Peter sits up, and immediately regrets it. The world swims before him, and Peter has to clutch the bedding at either side of him to not become sick while the ground stops swimming.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” comes a voice somewhere far away from him.

Peter squints forward and manages to make out that he’s in a strange room, far more sparsely decorated than any of his quarters at the palace. There’s a girl in plain clothes standing on the other side of the room, washing something stained scarlet. With a start, Peter realizes that it’s blood. His blood.

“What did you do?” Peter manages to croak out. His throat, dry and aching, is so shocked by being forced to speak that for a moment it almost hurts as bad as his head.

The girl laughs derisively. “I saved your life. Trust me, if there’s anyone you should be scared of, it’s not me.”

Peter squints at her. His vision is starting to clear again, and he realizes that he recognizes the face of this girl as she draws closer to him, eyeing what must be bandages over his head. He’s seen her once or twice as he passed through town, but more than that, he’s heard the rumors. Stories of a young woman who lives on the outskirts of town, known by few and trusted by fewer, who watches from a quiet corner of the town as the village proceedings unfurl before her. Some claim she’s a witch, others a spy. Others whisper that she isn’t anything at all, more a ghost than a living girl.

And right now, Peter is in her home, injured with no way to get back. There’s no way the captain of the guard is ever going to let him ride alone again, he thinks with chagrin.

“Well,” Peter says, plastering a smile on his face and trying to act as if merely sitting up doesn’t make his head want to split in half, “I appreciate your hospitality, but I’d really best be going.”

“I doubt that,” the woman says. “When I found you, you were passed out in a pool of your own blood. It’s not a good wound, your Grace. It’ll take a while to heal.”

Peter blinks. “You know who I am?”

The girl looks like she wants to laugh at him. “Everyone knows the High Kings and Queens of Narnia. Even out here.”

Peter nods slowly. He can work with this. He’s not in direct danger, not yet. If she tries to stop him, there’s a poker at the fireplace he can grab, but he’d prefer it not come to that yet. “If you know who I am, then you know I have to get back to the palace as soon as possible. They’ll send guards searching for me. My siblings will be worried. I’d rather assuage their fears as soon as possible.”

The girl holds up her hands. “I’m not keeping you here maliciously, believe me. But you’re right, it would be a terrible thing to keep a king captive when he wants to leave. Go ahead, then. Stand up and walk out.”

She folds her arms across her chest expectantly. Peter blinks, not expecting her to give in so easily, then steadies himself and stands. He tries to, at least. What really happens is that Peter lurches up about a centimeter or two, then his vision spots over with black and he collapses onto the ground.

Instantly, the girl is with him again, carefully pulling Peter back onto the stack of cushions she’d arranged for him. “Do you believe me now?” She asks chidingly. “I don’t mean to keep you here against your will, but you’ll be exceedingly dizzy for hours. Trying to move you now isn’t a good idea.”

“Seconded,” Peter acknowledges. “In that case, if you don’t mind, I’d like to stay.”

The girl nods, and Peter realizes something embarrassing. “Pardon me, but I don’t think I know your name.”

“Y/N,” the girl says. “Y/N L/N.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Y/N,” Peter says. If he doesn’t have his strength, he’ll have to rely on his mind instead, and that starts with appraising the situation.

Y/N quirks an eyebrow. “It’s nice to meet me like this? With you bleeding copiously from the head?”

Peter laughs, surprising himself. “Well, I’d prefer to have done so under more favorable conditions, but I’ll take what I can get.” An idea occurs to him suddenly. “Say, I came here on horseback. If you take my horse, it’ll know the way back to the castle. You can send help here, and be handsomely rewarded, I promise.”

Any spark of hope he’d felt is quickly crushed when Y/N sadly shakes her head. “I’m sorry, your Grace, but you were alone when I came upon you. Your horse must have been spooked, tossed you, and ran away.”

Peter grimaces. “So much for the reward, then.”

Y/N snorts. “I don’t need a reward. Seeing you hale and healthy will be compensation enough for me.”

Peter, used to the endless demands and obligations of court, startles. “You mean that, don’t you?”

A furrow appears between Y/N’s brows. “Of course I do. Do you really think me that heartless, to need money or jewels to convince myself to help someone in need?”

“Of course not,” Peter says hastily. “You’re– you’re a good person. I see that now. Better than most I know.”

“I find that hard to believe,” Y/N says, smiling slightly. “I can only imagine the sorts of people you’d get to meet in court, but I have to imagine they’re good, too. More interesting than anyone in a small village like this one.”

Her tone is soft, almost as if she’s daydreaming, and Peter can’t help but smile back. “Some are, yes, but most want more than they give.”

“That’s true of people here, too,” Y/N sighs. “Still, I suppose that means we’ll just have to be better to make up for it, then. You should get some rest,” she says suddenly. “It’s late, it’ll help with the healing. There’s a glass of water and some bread on the table beside you. If you need anything, please call, your Grace.”

“Peter,” he says, surprising both of them. “Call me Peter, please. I don’t think there’s any need for decorum when I’m getting blood on your things.”

She smiles, and Peter feels uncommonly proud of himself. “Alright, Peter. Sleep well.”

She’s gone in a swish of skirts, and Peter is left alone, contemplating just what he’s gotten himself into. He should be more worried, he thinks, but for some reason, he just feels safe, like no matter what, he trusts Y/N to get him through this.

He dozes fitfully, torn between sleep and the pain in his skull. He must have cried out at some point, because he vaguely recalls Y/N appearing by his side in the night, coaxing him to drink some sort of herbal soup, which eased the pain away and let him sleep again. Peter sleeps late, far later than he usually can as king, and when he finally manages to open his eyes for longer than a minute, the sun slants fully into the room.

He feels better, surprisingly, well enough to change into some spare clothes Y/N left for him and get some food and water down. Y/N isn’t there when he wakes up, which unsettles Peter more than he cares to admit, but she’s back within the hour, exclaiming happily at his progress. He’s able to sit up a little more, but walking around is out of the question.

Instead, he watches Y/N at her chores. She makes a living by preparing herbs and tinctures for the local apothecary, so Peter observes curiously as she grinds up leaves or carefully measures out petals into labeled jars. He asks her countless questions about what she’s doing, so many that she must be sick of him, but Y/N seems glad to have the company and always answers him readily enough.

By evening, Peter feels brave enough to eat his supper with her, and even though she apologizes for the plain fare, he swears it’s better than most of the banquets he’s ever attended. He’s not lying, either; somehow, the warm fire and the good company make the food decadent and delightful. Peter can’t seem to drag his gaze away from Y/N’s face, watching how she smiles as she talks, how the firelight lights her eyes like stars in the sky.

At some point, she catches him staring, and turns away, suddenly shy. “You’ll probably be missing home,” she says quickly, to disguise the heavy silence that’s fallen upon them. “Normally, I’d suggest you inquire with some of the local workers to see if any of them had a horse you could borrow, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to reveal yourself quite yet.”

Peter frowns. “Why not?”

Y/N’s lips purse. “There have been more thieves in the area than in the past, and they certainly aren’t the most fervent royalists around. If they heard that the king was in town, hardly able to lift a book, let alone a sword, they’d sense an opportunity and strike or attempt to hold you for ransom. I live on the outskirts of town, so you won’t be noticed so long as you stay here. In the meantime, I can send a trusted messenger to alert the guards, and they can bring a party of soldiers to ensure your safe return.”

Peter nods, feeling an odd pang at the thought of leaving. He should be delighted to return to the castle, to his family, but he’s actually had a marvelous time here. It’s been a relief to not be sought after for meetings and functions. For the past several hours, he hasn’t been a king, just a boy, just Peter, someone who can meet a pretty girl and stay with her just because he wanted to do so. It’s been lovely, and if he were in the mood to be honest, he would admit that he doesn’t want to give it up.

But he isn’t just Peter, he’s a king with responsibilities, so Peter nods stoically. “I would appreciate the message being sent. How long would you expect before the soldiers arrive?”

Y/N tilts her head to the side, considering this. “It depends. Likely a few more days, if that is acceptable to you.”

“It’s perfect,” Peter says too quickly, then tries to play it off. “I don’t mind waiting, I mean. I– I enjoy the company.”

For a moment, he feels that he’s overstepped, but then Y/N turns to him with a grin that could outshine the sun, and then he doesn’t feel bad at all anymore.

Y/N gets up early the next day to send out the messenger. Peter feels much better thanks to the medicine she’s been giving him, well enough to help sweep the floors and perform some of the chores he’d seen her completing the day before. He’s rewarded with another bright smile when she returns. It’s sort of silly, but Peter likes this, playing this part alongside her. He wants to keep breaking bread and talking late into the evening, watching her carefully cataloging the herbs and helping her by tallying the sums in a notebook as she calls them out to him. Secretly, he hopes the messenger might get lost, just for a day or two, long enough for Peter to exult in this quiet life for as long as he can.

It’s easy to imagine this is his life. Too easy. Peter is a High King, he should be thinking of his responsibilities, or making a greater effort to get back to the castle. He definitely shouldn’t be chopping vegetables for stew, or stumbling over his own feet not because of the injury but because Y/N smiled at him. His head has actually been fine for a while, the wound better than it looked, but he hasn’t let that on to Y/N in case she wanted him out of her house.

He hasn’t had to worry about that, though, not really. He’s sure she figured him out ages ago, what with her knowledge of medicine, but Y/N seems to want Peter here just as much as he yearns to stay. They make a good partnership. Everything comes instinctively, Peter sensing when Y/N needs help with something or Y/N knowing what’s on his mind at the drop of a hat.

So, a day or two later, when Peter hears the tumult of horse hooves outside, his first thought isn’t joy to return to his family, but an odd pitfall in his stomach, like something lovely has just been torn from him. Looking up, he sees a brief flash of despair in Y/N’s eyes as she comes to the same conclusion, but she covers it up quickly.

“That must be your guards,” she says briskly, hurrying to the door. “I’d better let them in before they get worried.”

Peter wants to stop her, to compel the soldiers outside to turn around and leave them be, but it’s too late. Y/N opens the door to reveal the captain of the guard, as frantic as Peter has ever seen him. The soldiers storm into the house, which is suddenly engulfed in the clanking of metal and shouts of worry.

Out of concern that Y/N might be hurt, Peter steps forward quickly, hands up. “It’s alright, I’m okay. Thank you for coming.”

The captain looks relieved to see him, but keeps one hand on the hilt of his sword. “Are you safe, your Grace?”

“Perfectly,” Peter assures him. “This woman saved my life. I– we all owe her many thanks.”

Y/N’s eyes flash to Peter when he says this, as warm as ever despite the tinge of sadness still lurking in her gaze. “That’s very kind of you to say.”

The captain nods his thanks, then steps towards Peter, ushering him towards the door. “We should return at once. The entire castle is in an uproar over your disappearance.”

It all feels out of his control, more like Peter is getting kidnapped than being rescued. “Wait,” he says, fighting free to hurry back to Y/N’s side. “I– Thank you,” he says again, “For everything. If you ever need anything, any favor, please do not hesitate to ask.”

Ask me, he means. Find me. Come back to me.

Y/N smiles tentatively. “I might take you up on that.”

“Please do,” Peter says, urgency bleeding through the words. This can’t be it, the end of these past few golden days, but the horses are stomping their hooves impatiently outside, and the soldiers are watching on, and none of it is as Peter hoped it would be.

“Goodbye,” he whispers, and waits for Y/N’s smile one last time before forcing himself away.

The ride back seems far too short. Before he knows it, Peter is being ushered into the castle, past throngs of courtiers and soldiers telling them how relieved they are at his safe return. He changes into garments more suitable for a king, but cannot stop himself from keeping the clothes Y/N had given them. The cloth still smells like the herbs she kept, and all at once he’s homesick for a place he hadn’t even known for a full week.

Peter tries to throw himself back into the life of a royal. He attends court functions with renewed vigor, leads debates, listens to his subjects. He treats his siblings well. He is always diligent with the sword, and makes time for visiting diplomats and scholars whenever they grace his door. No matter what, though, no matter how he overfills his schedule so he won’t have one moment for his mind to settle into bleak wanting, Peter is not happy. He does not feel like himself, not the way he had in that small village. The gilded shackles of royalty are clamped tightly around him, cutting Peter off from what he wants.

And, at last, he can take it no more. The captain of the guard is quite taken aback when he spots Peter hurrying to the stables. “Your Grace, I hope you are taking a patrol with you if you wish to ride, you remember the last time–”

“If you wish to accompany me,” Peter shouts over his shoulder, “I encourage you to try and keep up.”

He’s saddled and out the door in the blink of an eye, his horse charting a path its rider has kept alive in his mind since the day he left it. Somewhere behind him, a few soldiers are racing after him, but Peter cares not for what’s in his wake, only what lies ahead.

Y/N looks surprised when she opens the door to find Peter there. “What are you doing here?” She asks, eyes darting from Peter to the equally confused guards behind him. “Don’t tell me you hurt your head again, I’ll be quite upset.”

Peter actually laughs. It rings from him like a bell. He thinks it’s the first real laugh he’s had since he left her. “Come back with me,” he says. “I miss you. I’ve missed you since I went back. You can work with the castle apothecary if you like, or never lift a finger again if it pleases you. Just return with me, please. I can’t feel sane unless you’re by my side.”

Y/N looks stunned. “You can’t be serious. I’ve never been to court, Peter. I wouldn’t have the faintest idea what to do.”

“I’d teach you everything you’d need to know,” Peter assures her. “I came to court a total novice, and I was king. And if you get sick of me, there are plenty of teachers and old masters who would be more than happy to help you out. I’d do anything to make you feel at home.”

Y/N looks tentatively up at him. “You mean it? You really want me there?”

Peter nods, suddenly more sure of himself than he’s ever been. “I want you, Y/N. More than anything.”

Peter has been treated to a lot of her smiles in the past, but this one is so dazzling he feels as if he’s been knocked off his feet. “I would love to go with you, Peter.” “Perfect,” he says, and he means it– perfect. As High King, Peter is constantly making concessions, agreeing to deals he doesn’t like just so he can squeeze some much-needed detail out of the bargain. For once, though, Peter has everything he could want. His home, his family, the girl he’s grown to love, all in one place. This, then, is what winning must feel like. It occurs to Peter that from here on out, he’s going to grow quite accustomed to that feeling.

narnia tag list: @remussbitch, @faerieroyal, @goldfish4403

all tags list: @wordsarelife, @supervoldejaygent

[heliads]

hallo !

i was wondering since requests are open…

may i ask for a peter pevensie x reader, where reader is kind of like the odd person, thats always there like around the royals, in a village close to their castle lets say f.e., and shes just quiet and just likes to people watch (projection whats that? hah…) and one day, after a typical sibling argument, peter goes out all angry/frustrated on horseback only to fall off his horse and pass out in the woods and reader ‘saves’ him? takes care of him or finds him and thats when he first hears her voice?

(and gets all soft and idk gentle hehe im a sucker for big tough men being soft sorry😔)

thank you! hope your summer break is awesome!!

'Riding Away' - Peter Pevensie

masterlist

Peter Pevensie feels like he’s crawling out of his own skin. He’s busy, too busy, and it feels like ever since he came to Narnia, he’s never truly been alone. Peter didn’t realize how good he had it back home, when he could just take a walk or go study and never hear a voice for hours. Now, he can’t cross a courtyard without someone hurrying up to him, begging for an opinion on some asinine issue, or enjoy a meal without courtiers attempting to sway him to their side.

It’s not as if Peter expected to become a King of Narnia without some manner of social obligation. He’d expected the meetings, the visiting dignitaries, the swordplay drills, but he hadn’t counted on the total absence of privacy. He feels it slowly driving him mad, wearing him down like a rock on the bottom of a streambed. With every day that passes, Peter cedes more and more control to the unstoppable masses. At some point, he truly believes he’ll fade away entirely. No more Peter left, just a crown and a few last thoughts.

The problem is, there’s not a whole lot he can do about it, not really. He can’t abandon his people, nor can he foist the responsibility onto his siblings. They’ve already got too much on their plates as is. Peter’s the eldest, he’s supposed to protect the others, not give up and run off screaming, even if that’s what he’d like to do most of all.

The only brief escape Peter can find is in horseback riding. He’d never gotten the chance to try it out back in England, how could he? In Narnia, though, there are endless meadows all calling to be explored, and countless forests carpeted in wildflowers. Peter’s gone on hundreds of rides by now, all exhilarating. The wind catches at his hair as he soars past burbling rivers, peering in to watch the blurry reflection of himself galloping by in time.

Even on the rides, Peter is almost never by himself. A pair of guards will insist on accompanying him, maybe even one or two of his siblings, or all of them, or a few members of the court who can’t or won’t look past Peter’s almost explicit dismissal of them. Luckily, if Peter is riding fast enough, all words are ripped away by the wind, and attempts to discuss national matters are dashed to pieces beneath the hooves of his stallion.

The past week has been a constant parade of meetings and banquets, so as a reward, Peter has promised himself that he’ll go riding today, come hell or high water. He’d hoped to make it in the morning, while the air was still cool and the sun hadn’t completely emerged, but as per usual, his plans had been foiled. First, there was some emergency with the knights early in the morning, then that damned diplomat from the sea countries had caught Peter unawares and forced him into an hours-long discussion of trade policies. Once he’d finally been able to shake the slippery sweet-talker, Peter had been willing to skip his midday meal entirely, but Susan had coerced him with no small amount of threats to get something in his stomach before he passed out.

Now, it’s afternoon, and Peter can only cast despairing glances at the lengthening shadows out the window as he feels his chances at a fine ride slip through his fingertips. At last, he’s finally able to shake free of a particularly stultifying conference on heraldry, and he’s not going to let anything get in his way.

The second it’s socially acceptable, Peter is striding briskly down the corridor, practically running in his haste to just get out. One of his advisors follows him, begging Peter to join a conference of scholars recently arrived from the western reaches of Narnia.

“Tomorrow,” Peter says. “I’ll join them tomorrow. Perfect, then they can get their thoughts in order after discussing with the rest of you and we can cut right to the chase.”

“Please, sir,” his advisor begs, “It really would be best for you to host them immediately.”

“That’s what the other kings and queens are for,” Peter says. “Three royals makes for a perfectly good hosting party. Any more than that, and it gets excessive, right?”

“If not to meet them, where are you going?” The advisor pleads, breath becoming more labored as Peter picks up his pace even more than before.

“I’m going for a ride,” Peter says. “I’ll be back soon, don’t worry. Plenty of time to greet the scholars. All will be well.”

The captain of the guard emerges from another corridor, joining them on Peter’s other side. “You mean to go for a ride, sir? Very well, I’ll send a pair of soldiers to accompany you.”

Peter wilts inside at the thought of more people. “That’s alright, Captain. I assure you, I can handle a mere hour away from the castle by myself.”

“I would never insinuate otherwise, your Grace,” the captain says. “However, with recent reports of robberies in the surrounding countryside, I do have to insist that you travel with protection.”

Peter turns a corner. The stables are in sight, he’s almost there– “I will be careful, I swear it. Next time, I’ll travel with guards, just not this once.” Please, not this once.

The captain frowns. “But sir–”

“I’ll be quick,” Peter assures him. “No more than an hour, I promise. Besides, I would have thought you could personally attest to my skill with the blade given all the time we’ve spent sparring? I’ll be alright.”

The captain purses his lips, but acquiesces. “If you insist.”

Peter smiles. “I do. I’ll see you soon.”

With that, he heads into the stables, mounting his ride and taking off before the captain can change his mind. The second he’s past the gate, Peter heaves a sigh of relief. He can feel an immense weight being removed from his shoulders. For once, no one is following him, no one is asking for anything from him. Peter is no longer just a king, he’s a human being again, and one with the freedom to ride as fast and hard as he can. At some point, he’ll have to turn around again, but that time seems far off, and out here in the waving greenery, Peter can’t think about anything but the delight of adrenaline coursing through his veins.

He isn’t thinking, that’s the whole point. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t slow down when the ground underneath him starts to become more uneven. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t notice the startled sound his horse is making until it’s too late, when a rock slips beneath the hoof of his horse. If he hadn’t been hurrying from the castle like his life depended on it, Peter might have noticed that the horse he chose wasn’t his normal steed, the one who could face any danger without backing down. Instead, he has one of the newer ones, a horse that hasn’t yet learned not to balk at everything unusual in its path.

So, instead of snorting at the stumble, the horse panics, rearing into the air. Peter isn’t expecting it, too lost in the dreamy exultation of being free, and he’s caught completely off guard, tossed from the horse in a moment. He hits his head hard on the stony ground, and the blow is enough to shock him into unconsciousness. He doesn’t notice his horse taking off in the opposite direction, stranding him in the middle of nowhere. He certainly doesn’t notice the shadowy figure approaching him from a stand of trees. How could he?

Peter wakes slowly, grasping at sleep. He had a strange dream, one that smelled like wildflowers and coppery blood. His head aches, and one hand rises to gauge the injury but meets fabric instead of skin and bone.

Confused, Peter sits up, and immediately regrets it. The world swims before him, and Peter has to clutch the bedding at either side of him to not become sick while the ground stops swimming.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” comes a voice somewhere far away from him.

Peter squints forward and manages to make out that he’s in a strange room, far more sparsely decorated than any of his quarters at the palace. There’s a girl in plain clothes standing on the other side of the room, washing something stained scarlet. With a start, Peter realizes that it’s blood. His blood.

“What did you do?” Peter manages to croak out. His throat, dry and aching, is so shocked by being forced to speak that for a moment it almost hurts as bad as his head.

The girl laughs derisively. “I saved your life. Trust me, if there’s anyone you should be scared of, it’s not me.”

Peter squints at her. His vision is starting to clear again, and he realizes that he recognizes the face of this girl as she draws closer to him, eyeing what must be bandages over his head. He’s seen her once or twice as he passed through town, but more than that, he’s heard the rumors. Stories of a young woman who lives on the outskirts of town, known by few and trusted by fewer, who watches from a quiet corner of the town as the village proceedings unfurl before her. Some claim she’s a witch, others a spy. Others whisper that she isn’t anything at all, more a ghost than a living girl.

And right now, Peter is in her home, injured with no way to get back. There’s no way the captain of the guard is ever going to let him ride alone again, he thinks with chagrin.

“Well,” Peter says, plastering a smile on his face and trying to act as if merely sitting up doesn’t make his head want to split in half, “I appreciate your hospitality, but I’d really best be going.”

“I doubt that,” the woman says. “When I found you, you were passed out in a pool of your own blood. It’s not a good wound, your Grace. It’ll take a while to heal.”

Peter blinks. “You know who I am?”

The girl looks like she wants to laugh at him. “Everyone knows the High Kings and Queens of Narnia. Even out here.”

Peter nods slowly. He can work with this. He’s not in direct danger, not yet. If she tries to stop him, there’s a poker at the fireplace he can grab, but he’d prefer it not come to that yet. “If you know who I am, then you know I have to get back to the palace as soon as possible. They’ll send guards searching for me. My siblings will be worried. I’d rather assuage their fears as soon as possible.”

The girl holds up her hands. “I’m not keeping you here maliciously, believe me. But you’re right, it would be a terrible thing to keep a king captive when he wants to leave. Go ahead, then. Stand up and walk out.”

She folds her arms across her chest expectantly. Peter blinks, not expecting her to give in so easily, then steadies himself and stands. He tries to, at least. What really happens is that Peter lurches up about a centimeter or two, then his vision spots over with black and he collapses onto the ground.

Instantly, the girl is with him again, carefully pulling Peter back onto the stack of cushions she’d arranged for him. “Do you believe me now?” She asks chidingly. “I don’t mean to keep you here against your will, but you’ll be exceedingly dizzy for hours. Trying to move you now isn’t a good idea.”

“Seconded,” Peter acknowledges. “In that case, if you don’t mind, I’d like to stay.”

The girl nods, and Peter realizes something embarrassing. “Pardon me, but I don’t think I know your name.”

“Y/N,” the girl says. “Y/N L/N.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Y/N,” Peter says. If he doesn’t have his strength, he’ll have to rely on his mind instead, and that starts with appraising the situation.

Y/N quirks an eyebrow. “It’s nice to meet me like this? With you bleeding copiously from the head?”

Peter laughs, surprising himself. “Well, I’d prefer to have done so under more favorable conditions, but I’ll take what I can get.” An idea occurs to him suddenly. “Say, I came here on horseback. If you take my horse, it’ll know the way back to the castle. You can send help here, and be handsomely rewarded, I promise.”

Any spark of hope he’d felt is quickly crushed when Y/N sadly shakes her head. “I’m sorry, your Grace, but you were alone when I came upon you. Your horse must have been spooked, tossed you, and ran away.”

Peter grimaces. “So much for the reward, then.”

Y/N snorts. “I don’t need a reward. Seeing you hale and healthy will be compensation enough for me.”

Peter, used to the endless demands and obligations of court, startles. “You mean that, don’t you?”

A furrow appears between Y/N’s brows. “Of course I do. Do you really think me that heartless, to need money or jewels to convince myself to help someone in need?”

“Of course not,” Peter says hastily. “You’re– you’re a good person. I see that now. Better than most I know.”

“I find that hard to believe,” Y/N says, smiling slightly. “I can only imagine the sorts of people you’d get to meet in court, but I have to imagine they’re good, too. More interesting than anyone in a small village like this one.”

Her tone is soft, almost as if she’s daydreaming, and Peter can’t help but smile back. “Some are, yes, but most want more than they give.”

“That’s true of people here, too,” Y/N sighs. “Still, I suppose that means we’ll just have to be better to make up for it, then. You should get some rest,” she says suddenly. “It’s late, it’ll help with the healing. There’s a glass of water and some bread on the table beside you. If you need anything, please call, your Grace.”

“Peter,” he says, surprising both of them. “Call me Peter, please. I don’t think there’s any need for decorum when I’m getting blood on your things.”

She smiles, and Peter feels uncommonly proud of himself. “Alright, Peter. Sleep well.”

She’s gone in a swish of skirts, and Peter is left alone, contemplating just what he’s gotten himself into. He should be more worried, he thinks, but for some reason, he just feels safe, like no matter what, he trusts Y/N to get him through this.

He dozes fitfully, torn between sleep and the pain in his skull. He must have cried out at some point, because he vaguely recalls Y/N appearing by his side in the night, coaxing him to drink some sort of herbal soup, which eased the pain away and let him sleep again. Peter sleeps late, far later than he usually can as king, and when he finally manages to open his eyes for longer than a minute, the sun slants fully into the room.

He feels better, surprisingly, well enough to change into some spare clothes Y/N left for him and get some food and water down. Y/N isn’t there when he wakes up, which unsettles Peter more than he cares to admit, but she’s back within the hour, exclaiming happily at his progress. He’s able to sit up a little more, but walking around is out of the question.

Instead, he watches Y/N at her chores. She makes a living by preparing herbs and tinctures for the local apothecary, so Peter observes curiously as she grinds up leaves or carefully measures out petals into labeled jars. He asks her countless questions about what she’s doing, so many that she must be sick of him, but Y/N seems glad to have the company and always answers him readily enough.

By evening, Peter feels brave enough to eat his supper with her, and even though she apologizes for the plain fare, he swears it’s better than most of the banquets he’s ever attended. He’s not lying, either; somehow, the warm fire and the good company make the food decadent and delightful. Peter can’t seem to drag his gaze away from Y/N’s face, watching how she smiles as she talks, how the firelight lights her eyes like stars in the sky.

At some point, she catches him staring, and turns away, suddenly shy. “You’ll probably be missing home,” she says quickly, to disguise the heavy silence that’s fallen upon them. “Normally, I’d suggest you inquire with some of the local workers to see if any of them had a horse you could borrow, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to reveal yourself quite yet.”

Peter frowns. “Why not?”

Y/N’s lips purse. “There have been more thieves in the area than in the past, and they certainly aren’t the most fervent royalists around. If they heard that the king was in town, hardly able to lift a book, let alone a sword, they’d sense an opportunity and strike or attempt to hold you for ransom. I live on the outskirts of town, so you won’t be noticed so long as you stay here. In the meantime, I can send a trusted messenger to alert the guards, and they can bring a party of soldiers to ensure your safe return.”

Peter nods, feeling an odd pang at the thought of leaving. He should be delighted to return to the castle, to his family, but he’s actually had a marvelous time here. It’s been a relief to not be sought after for meetings and functions. For the past several hours, he hasn’t been a king, just a boy, just Peter, someone who can meet a pretty girl and stay with her just because he wanted to do so. It’s been lovely, and if he were in the mood to be honest, he would admit that he doesn’t want to give it up.

But he isn’t just Peter, he’s a king with responsibilities, so Peter nods stoically. “I would appreciate the message being sent. How long would you expect before the soldiers arrive?”

Y/N tilts her head to the side, considering this. “It depends. Likely a few more days, if that is acceptable to you.”

“It’s perfect,” Peter says too quickly, then tries to play it off. “I don’t mind waiting, I mean. I– I enjoy the company.”

For a moment, he feels that he’s overstepped, but then Y/N turns to him with a grin that could outshine the sun, and then he doesn’t feel bad at all anymore.

Y/N gets up early the next day to send out the messenger. Peter feels much better thanks to the medicine she’s been giving him, well enough to help sweep the floors and perform some of the chores he’d seen her completing the day before. He’s rewarded with another bright smile when she returns. It’s sort of silly, but Peter likes this, playing this part alongside her. He wants to keep breaking bread and talking late into the evening, watching her carefully cataloging the herbs and helping her by tallying the sums in a notebook as she calls them out to him. Secretly, he hopes the messenger might get lost, just for a day or two, long enough for Peter to exult in this quiet life for as long as he can.

It’s easy to imagine this is his life. Too easy. Peter is a High King, he should be thinking of his responsibilities, or making a greater effort to get back to the castle. He definitely shouldn’t be chopping vegetables for stew, or stumbling over his own feet not because of the injury but because Y/N smiled at him. His head has actually been fine for a while, the wound better than it looked, but he hasn’t let that on to Y/N in case she wanted him out of her house.

He hasn’t had to worry about that, though, not really. He’s sure she figured him out ages ago, what with her knowledge of medicine, but Y/N seems to want Peter here just as much as he yearns to stay. They make a good partnership. Everything comes instinctively, Peter sensing when Y/N needs help with something or Y/N knowing what’s on his mind at the drop of a hat.

So, a day or two later, when Peter hears the tumult of horse hooves outside, his first thought isn’t joy to return to his family, but an odd pitfall in his stomach, like something lovely has just been torn from him. Looking up, he sees a brief flash of despair in Y/N’s eyes as she comes to the same conclusion, but she covers it up quickly.

“That must be your guards,” she says briskly, hurrying to the door. “I’d better let them in before they get worried.”

Peter wants to stop her, to compel the soldiers outside to turn around and leave them be, but it’s too late. Y/N opens the door to reveal the captain of the guard, as frantic as Peter has ever seen him. The soldiers storm into the house, which is suddenly engulfed in the clanking of metal and shouts of worry.

Out of concern that Y/N might be hurt, Peter steps forward quickly, hands up. “It’s alright, I’m okay. Thank you for coming.”

The captain looks relieved to see him, but keeps one hand on the hilt of his sword. “Are you safe, your Grace?”

“Perfectly,” Peter assures him. “This woman saved my life. I– we all owe her many thanks.”

Y/N’s eyes flash to Peter when he says this, as warm as ever despite the tinge of sadness still lurking in her gaze. “That’s very kind of you to say.”

The captain nods his thanks, then steps towards Peter, ushering him towards the door. “We should return at once. The entire castle is in an uproar over your disappearance.”

It all feels out of his control, more like Peter is getting kidnapped than being rescued. “Wait,” he says, fighting free to hurry back to Y/N’s side. “I– Thank you,” he says again, “For everything. If you ever need anything, any favor, please do not hesitate to ask.”

Ask me, he means. Find me. Come back to me.

Y/N smiles tentatively. “I might take you up on that.”

“Please do,” Peter says, urgency bleeding through the words. This can’t be it, the end of these past few golden days, but the horses are stomping their hooves impatiently outside, and the soldiers are watching on, and none of it is as Peter hoped it would be.

“Goodbye,” he whispers, and waits for Y/N’s smile one last time before forcing himself away.

The ride back seems far too short. Before he knows it, Peter is being ushered into the castle, past throngs of courtiers and soldiers telling them how relieved they are at his safe return. He changes into garments more suitable for a king, but cannot stop himself from keeping the clothes Y/N had given them. The cloth still smells like the herbs she kept, and all at once he’s homesick for a place he hadn’t even known for a full week.

Peter tries to throw himself back into the life of a royal. He attends court functions with renewed vigor, leads debates, listens to his subjects. He treats his siblings well. He is always diligent with the sword, and makes time for visiting diplomats and scholars whenever they grace his door. No matter what, though, no matter how he overfills his schedule so he won’t have one moment for his mind to settle into bleak wanting, Peter is not happy. He does not feel like himself, not the way he had in that small village. The gilded shackles of royalty are clamped tightly around him, cutting Peter off from what he wants.

And, at last, he can take it no more. The captain of the guard is quite taken aback when he spots Peter hurrying to the stables. “Your Grace, I hope you are taking a patrol with you if you wish to ride, you remember the last time–”

“If you wish to accompany me,” Peter shouts over his shoulder, “I encourage you to try and keep up.”

He’s saddled and out the door in the blink of an eye, his horse charting a path its rider has kept alive in his mind since the day he left it. Somewhere behind him, a few soldiers are racing after him, but Peter cares not for what’s in his wake, only what lies ahead.

Y/N looks surprised when she opens the door to find Peter there. “What are you doing here?” She asks, eyes darting from Peter to the equally confused guards behind him. “Don’t tell me you hurt your head again, I’ll be quite upset.”

Peter actually laughs. It rings from him like a bell. He thinks it’s the first real laugh he’s had since he left her. “Come back with me,” he says. “I miss you. I’ve missed you since I went back. You can work with the castle apothecary if you like, or never lift a finger again if it pleases you. Just return with me, please. I can’t feel sane unless you’re by my side.”

Y/N looks stunned. “You can’t be serious. I’ve never been to court, Peter. I wouldn’t have the faintest idea what to do.”

“I’d teach you everything you’d need to know,” Peter assures her. “I came to court a total novice, and I was king. And if you get sick of me, there are plenty of teachers and old masters who would be more than happy to help you out. I’d do anything to make you feel at home.”

Y/N looks tentatively up at him. “You mean it? You really want me there?”

Peter nods, suddenly more sure of himself than he’s ever been. “I want you, Y/N. More than anything.”

Peter has been treated to a lot of her smiles in the past, but this one is so dazzling he feels as if he’s been knocked off his feet. “I would love to go with you, Peter.” “Perfect,” he says, and he means it– perfect. As High King, Peter is constantly making concessions, agreeing to deals he doesn’t like just so he can squeeze some much-needed detail out of the bargain. For once, though, Peter has everything he could want. His home, his family, the girl he’s grown to love, all in one place. This, then, is what winning must feel like. It occurs to Peter that from here on out, he’s going to grow quite accustomed to that feeling.

narnia tag list: @remussbitch, @faerieroyal, @goldfish4403

all tags list: @wordsarelife, @supervoldejaygent

[heliads]

hallo !

i was wondering since requests are open…

may i ask for a peter pevensie x reader, where reader is kind of like the odd person, thats always there like around the royals, in a village close to their castle lets say f.e., and shes just quiet and just likes to people watch (projection whats that? hah…) and one day, after a typical sibling argument, peter goes out all angry/frustrated on horseback only to fall off his horse and pass out in the woods and reader ‘saves’ him? takes care of him or finds him and thats when he first hears her voice?

(and gets all soft and idk gentle hehe im a sucker for big tough men being soft sorry😔)

thank you! hope your summer break is awesome!!

'Riding Away' - Peter Pevensie

masterlist

Peter Pevensie feels like he’s crawling out of his own skin. He’s busy, too busy, and it feels like ever since he came to Narnia, he’s never truly been alone. Peter didn’t realize how good he had it back home, when he could just take a walk or go study and never hear a voice for hours. Now, he can’t cross a courtyard without someone hurrying up to him, begging for an opinion on some asinine issue, or enjoy a meal without courtiers attempting to sway him to their side.

It’s not as if Peter expected to become a King of Narnia without some manner of social obligation. He’d expected the meetings, the visiting dignitaries, the swordplay drills, but he hadn’t counted on the total absence of privacy. He feels it slowly driving him mad, wearing him down like a rock on the bottom of a streambed. With every day that passes, Peter cedes more and more control to the unstoppable masses. At some point, he truly believes he’ll fade away entirely. No more Peter left, just a crown and a few last thoughts.

The problem is, there’s not a whole lot he can do about it, not really. He can’t abandon his people, nor can he foist the responsibility onto his siblings. They’ve already got too much on their plates as is. Peter’s the eldest, he’s supposed to protect the others, not give up and run off screaming, even if that’s what he’d like to do most of all.

The only brief escape Peter can find is in horseback riding. He’d never gotten the chance to try it out back in England, how could he? In Narnia, though, there are endless meadows all calling to be explored, and countless forests carpeted in wildflowers. Peter’s gone on hundreds of rides by now, all exhilarating. The wind catches at his hair as he soars past burbling rivers, peering in to watch the blurry reflection of himself galloping by in time.

Even on the rides, Peter is almost never by himself. A pair of guards will insist on accompanying him, maybe even one or two of his siblings, or all of them, or a few members of the court who can’t or won’t look past Peter’s almost explicit dismissal of them. Luckily, if Peter is riding fast enough, all words are ripped away by the wind, and attempts to discuss national matters are dashed to pieces beneath the hooves of his stallion.

The past week has been a constant parade of meetings and banquets, so as a reward, Peter has promised himself that he’ll go riding today, come hell or high water. He’d hoped to make it in the morning, while the air was still cool and the sun hadn’t completely emerged, but as per usual, his plans had been foiled. First, there was some emergency with the knights early in the morning, then that damned diplomat from the sea countries had caught Peter unawares and forced him into an hours-long discussion of trade policies. Once he’d finally been able to shake the slippery sweet-talker, Peter had been willing to skip his midday meal entirely, but Susan had coerced him with no small amount of threats to get something in his stomach before he passed out.

Now, it’s afternoon, and Peter can only cast despairing glances at the lengthening shadows out the window as he feels his chances at a fine ride slip through his fingertips. At last, he’s finally able to shake free of a particularly stultifying conference on heraldry, and he’s not going to let anything get in his way.

The second it’s socially acceptable, Peter is striding briskly down the corridor, practically running in his haste to just get out. One of his advisors follows him, begging Peter to join a conference of scholars recently arrived from the western reaches of Narnia.

“Tomorrow,” Peter says. “I’ll join them tomorrow. Perfect, then they can get their thoughts in order after discussing with the rest of you and we can cut right to the chase.”

“Please, sir,” his advisor begs, “It really would be best for you to host them immediately.”

“That’s what the other kings and queens are for,” Peter says. “Three royals makes for a perfectly good hosting party. Any more than that, and it gets excessive, right?”

“If not to meet them, where are you going?” The advisor pleads, breath becoming more labored as Peter picks up his pace even more than before.

“I’m going for a ride,” Peter says. “I’ll be back soon, don’t worry. Plenty of time to greet the scholars. All will be well.”

The captain of the guard emerges from another corridor, joining them on Peter’s other side. “You mean to go for a ride, sir? Very well, I’ll send a pair of soldiers to accompany you.”

Peter wilts inside at the thought of more people. “That’s alright, Captain. I assure you, I can handle a mere hour away from the castle by myself.”

“I would never insinuate otherwise, your Grace,” the captain says. “However, with recent reports of robberies in the surrounding countryside, I do have to insist that you travel with protection.”

Peter turns a corner. The stables are in sight, he’s almost there– “I will be careful, I swear it. Next time, I’ll travel with guards, just not this once.” Please, not this once.

The captain frowns. “But sir–”

“I’ll be quick,” Peter assures him. “No more than an hour, I promise. Besides, I would have thought you could personally attest to my skill with the blade given all the time we’ve spent sparring? I’ll be alright.”

The captain purses his lips, but acquiesces. “If you insist.”

Peter smiles. “I do. I’ll see you soon.”

With that, he heads into the stables, mounting his ride and taking off before the captain can change his mind. The second he’s past the gate, Peter heaves a sigh of relief. He can feel an immense weight being removed from his shoulders. For once, no one is following him, no one is asking for anything from him. Peter is no longer just a king, he’s a human being again, and one with the freedom to ride as fast and hard as he can. At some point, he’ll have to turn around again, but that time seems far off, and out here in the waving greenery, Peter can’t think about anything but the delight of adrenaline coursing through his veins.

He isn’t thinking, that’s the whole point. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t slow down when the ground underneath him starts to become more uneven. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t notice the startled sound his horse is making until it’s too late, when a rock slips beneath the hoof of his horse. If he hadn’t been hurrying from the castle like his life depended on it, Peter might have noticed that the horse he chose wasn’t his normal steed, the one who could face any danger without backing down. Instead, he has one of the newer ones, a horse that hasn’t yet learned not to balk at everything unusual in its path.

So, instead of snorting at the stumble, the horse panics, rearing into the air. Peter isn’t expecting it, too lost in the dreamy exultation of being free, and he’s caught completely off guard, tossed from the horse in a moment. He hits his head hard on the stony ground, and the blow is enough to shock him into unconsciousness. He doesn’t notice his horse taking off in the opposite direction, stranding him in the middle of nowhere. He certainly doesn’t notice the shadowy figure approaching him from a stand of trees. How could he?

Peter wakes slowly, grasping at sleep. He had a strange dream, one that smelled like wildflowers and coppery blood. His head aches, and one hand rises to gauge the injury but meets fabric instead of skin and bone.

Confused, Peter sits up, and immediately regrets it. The world swims before him, and Peter has to clutch the bedding at either side of him to not become sick while the ground stops swimming.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” comes a voice somewhere far away from him.

Peter squints forward and manages to make out that he’s in a strange room, far more sparsely decorated than any of his quarters at the palace. There’s a girl in plain clothes standing on the other side of the room, washing something stained scarlet. With a start, Peter realizes that it’s blood. His blood.

“What did you do?” Peter manages to croak out. His throat, dry and aching, is so shocked by being forced to speak that for a moment it almost hurts as bad as his head.

The girl laughs derisively. “I saved your life. Trust me, if there’s anyone you should be scared of, it’s not me.”

Peter squints at her. His vision is starting to clear again, and he realizes that he recognizes the face of this girl as she draws closer to him, eyeing what must be bandages over his head. He’s seen her once or twice as he passed through town, but more than that, he’s heard the rumors. Stories of a young woman who lives on the outskirts of town, known by few and trusted by fewer, who watches from a quiet corner of the town as the village proceedings unfurl before her. Some claim she’s a witch, others a spy. Others whisper that she isn’t anything at all, more a ghost than a living girl.

And right now, Peter is in her home, injured with no way to get back. There’s no way the captain of the guard is ever going to let him ride alone again, he thinks with chagrin.

“Well,” Peter says, plastering a smile on his face and trying to act as if merely sitting up doesn’t make his head want to split in half, “I appreciate your hospitality, but I’d really best be going.”

“I doubt that,” the woman says. “When I found you, you were passed out in a pool of your own blood. It’s not a good wound, your Grace. It’ll take a while to heal.”

Peter blinks. “You know who I am?”

The girl looks like she wants to laugh at him. “Everyone knows the High Kings and Queens of Narnia. Even out here.”

Peter nods slowly. He can work with this. He’s not in direct danger, not yet. If she tries to stop him, there’s a poker at the fireplace he can grab, but he’d prefer it not come to that yet. “If you know who I am, then you know I have to get back to the palace as soon as possible. They’ll send guards searching for me. My siblings will be worried. I’d rather assuage their fears as soon as possible.”

The girl holds up her hands. “I’m not keeping you here maliciously, believe me. But you’re right, it would be a terrible thing to keep a king captive when he wants to leave. Go ahead, then. Stand up and walk out.”

She folds her arms across her chest expectantly. Peter blinks, not expecting her to give in so easily, then steadies himself and stands. He tries to, at least. What really happens is that Peter lurches up about a centimeter or two, then his vision spots over with black and he collapses onto the ground.

Instantly, the girl is with him again, carefully pulling Peter back onto the stack of cushions she’d arranged for him. “Do you believe me now?” She asks chidingly. “I don’t mean to keep you here against your will, but you’ll be exceedingly dizzy for hours. Trying to move you now isn’t a good idea.”

“Seconded,” Peter acknowledges. “In that case, if you don’t mind, I’d like to stay.”

The girl nods, and Peter realizes something embarrassing. “Pardon me, but I don’t think I know your name.”

“Y/N,” the girl says. “Y/N L/N.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Y/N,” Peter says. If he doesn’t have his strength, he’ll have to rely on his mind instead, and that starts with appraising the situation.

Y/N quirks an eyebrow. “It’s nice to meet me like this? With you bleeding copiously from the head?”

Peter laughs, surprising himself. “Well, I’d prefer to have done so under more favorable conditions, but I’ll take what I can get.” An idea occurs to him suddenly. “Say, I came here on horseback. If you take my horse, it’ll know the way back to the castle. You can send help here, and be handsomely rewarded, I promise.”

Any spark of hope he’d felt is quickly crushed when Y/N sadly shakes her head. “I’m sorry, your Grace, but you were alone when I came upon you. Your horse must have been spooked, tossed you, and ran away.”

Peter grimaces. “So much for the reward, then.”

Y/N snorts. “I don’t need a reward. Seeing you hale and healthy will be compensation enough for me.”

Peter, used to the endless demands and obligations of court, startles. “You mean that, don’t you?”

A furrow appears between Y/N’s brows. “Of course I do. Do you really think me that heartless, to need money or jewels to convince myself to help someone in need?”

“Of course not,” Peter says hastily. “You’re– you’re a good person. I see that now. Better than most I know.”

“I find that hard to believe,” Y/N says, smiling slightly. “I can only imagine the sorts of people you’d get to meet in court, but I have to imagine they’re good, too. More interesting than anyone in a small village like this one.”

Her tone is soft, almost as if she’s daydreaming, and Peter can’t help but smile back. “Some are, yes, but most want more than they give.”

“That’s true of people here, too,” Y/N sighs. “Still, I suppose that means we’ll just have to be better to make up for it, then. You should get some rest,” she says suddenly. “It’s late, it’ll help with the healing. There’s a glass of water and some bread on the table beside you. If you need anything, please call, your Grace.”

“Peter,” he says, surprising both of them. “Call me Peter, please. I don’t think there’s any need for decorum when I’m getting blood on your things.”

She smiles, and Peter feels uncommonly proud of himself. “Alright, Peter. Sleep well.”

She’s gone in a swish of skirts, and Peter is left alone, contemplating just what he’s gotten himself into. He should be more worried, he thinks, but for some reason, he just feels safe, like no matter what, he trusts Y/N to get him through this.

He dozes fitfully, torn between sleep and the pain in his skull. He must have cried out at some point, because he vaguely recalls Y/N appearing by his side in the night, coaxing him to drink some sort of herbal soup, which eased the pain away and let him sleep again. Peter sleeps late, far later than he usually can as king, and when he finally manages to open his eyes for longer than a minute, the sun slants fully into the room.

He feels better, surprisingly, well enough to change into some spare clothes Y/N left for him and get some food and water down. Y/N isn’t there when he wakes up, which unsettles Peter more than he cares to admit, but she’s back within the hour, exclaiming happily at his progress. He’s able to sit up a little more, but walking around is out of the question.

Instead, he watches Y/N at her chores. She makes a living by preparing herbs and tinctures for the local apothecary, so Peter observes curiously as she grinds up leaves or carefully measures out petals into labeled jars. He asks her countless questions about what she’s doing, so many that she must be sick of him, but Y/N seems glad to have the company and always answers him readily enough.

By evening, Peter feels brave enough to eat his supper with her, and even though she apologizes for the plain fare, he swears it’s better than most of the banquets he’s ever attended. He’s not lying, either; somehow, the warm fire and the good company make the food decadent and delightful. Peter can’t seem to drag his gaze away from Y/N’s face, watching how she smiles as she talks, how the firelight lights her eyes like stars in the sky.

At some point, she catches him staring, and turns away, suddenly shy. “You’ll probably be missing home,” she says quickly, to disguise the heavy silence that’s fallen upon them. “Normally, I’d suggest you inquire with some of the local workers to see if any of them had a horse you could borrow, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to reveal yourself quite yet.”

Peter frowns. “Why not?”

Y/N’s lips purse. “There have been more thieves in the area than in the past, and they certainly aren’t the most fervent royalists around. If they heard that the king was in town, hardly able to lift a book, let alone a sword, they’d sense an opportunity and strike or attempt to hold you for ransom. I live on the outskirts of town, so you won’t be noticed so long as you stay here. In the meantime, I can send a trusted messenger to alert the guards, and they can bring a party of soldiers to ensure your safe return.”

Peter nods, feeling an odd pang at the thought of leaving. He should be delighted to return to the castle, to his family, but he’s actually had a marvelous time here. It’s been a relief to not be sought after for meetings and functions. For the past several hours, he hasn’t been a king, just a boy, just Peter, someone who can meet a pretty girl and stay with her just because he wanted to do so. It’s been lovely, and if he were in the mood to be honest, he would admit that he doesn’t want to give it up.

But he isn’t just Peter, he’s a king with responsibilities, so Peter nods stoically. “I would appreciate the message being sent. How long would you expect before the soldiers arrive?”

Y/N tilts her head to the side, considering this. “It depends. Likely a few more days, if that is acceptable to you.”

“It’s perfect,” Peter says too quickly, then tries to play it off. “I don’t mind waiting, I mean. I– I enjoy the company.”

For a moment, he feels that he’s overstepped, but then Y/N turns to him with a grin that could outshine the sun, and then he doesn’t feel bad at all anymore.

Y/N gets up early the next day to send out the messenger. Peter feels much better thanks to the medicine she’s been giving him, well enough to help sweep the floors and perform some of the chores he’d seen her completing the day before. He’s rewarded with another bright smile when she returns. It’s sort of silly, but Peter likes this, playing this part alongside her. He wants to keep breaking bread and talking late into the evening, watching her carefully cataloging the herbs and helping her by tallying the sums in a notebook as she calls them out to him. Secretly, he hopes the messenger might get lost, just for a day or two, long enough for Peter to exult in this quiet life for as long as he can.

It’s easy to imagine this is his life. Too easy. Peter is a High King, he should be thinking of his responsibilities, or making a greater effort to get back to the castle. He definitely shouldn’t be chopping vegetables for stew, or stumbling over his own feet not because of the injury but because Y/N smiled at him. His head has actually been fine for a while, the wound better than it looked, but he hasn’t let that on to Y/N in case she wanted him out of her house.

He hasn’t had to worry about that, though, not really. He’s sure she figured him out ages ago, what with her knowledge of medicine, but Y/N seems to want Peter here just as much as he yearns to stay. They make a good partnership. Everything comes instinctively, Peter sensing when Y/N needs help with something or Y/N knowing what’s on his mind at the drop of a hat.

So, a day or two later, when Peter hears the tumult of horse hooves outside, his first thought isn’t joy to return to his family, but an odd pitfall in his stomach, like something lovely has just been torn from him. Looking up, he sees a brief flash of despair in Y/N’s eyes as she comes to the same conclusion, but she covers it up quickly.

“That must be your guards,” she says briskly, hurrying to the door. “I’d better let them in before they get worried.”

Peter wants to stop her, to compel the soldiers outside to turn around and leave them be, but it’s too late. Y/N opens the door to reveal the captain of the guard, as frantic as Peter has ever seen him. The soldiers storm into the house, which is suddenly engulfed in the clanking of metal and shouts of worry.

Out of concern that Y/N might be hurt, Peter steps forward quickly, hands up. “It’s alright, I’m okay. Thank you for coming.”

The captain looks relieved to see him, but keeps one hand on the hilt of his sword. “Are you safe, your Grace?”

“Perfectly,” Peter assures him. “This woman saved my life. I– we all owe her many thanks.”

Y/N’s eyes flash to Peter when he says this, as warm as ever despite the tinge of sadness still lurking in her gaze. “That’s very kind of you to say.”

The captain nods his thanks, then steps towards Peter, ushering him towards the door. “We should return at once. The entire castle is in an uproar over your disappearance.”

It all feels out of his control, more like Peter is getting kidnapped than being rescued. “Wait,” he says, fighting free to hurry back to Y/N’s side. “I– Thank you,” he says again, “For everything. If you ever need anything, any favor, please do not hesitate to ask.”

Ask me, he means. Find me. Come back to me.

Y/N smiles tentatively. “I might take you up on that.”

“Please do,” Peter says, urgency bleeding through the words. This can’t be it, the end of these past few golden days, but the horses are stomping their hooves impatiently outside, and the soldiers are watching on, and none of it is as Peter hoped it would be.

“Goodbye,” he whispers, and waits for Y/N’s smile one last time before forcing himself away.

The ride back seems far too short. Before he knows it, Peter is being ushered into the castle, past throngs of courtiers and soldiers telling them how relieved they are at his safe return. He changes into garments more suitable for a king, but cannot stop himself from keeping the clothes Y/N had given them. The cloth still smells like the herbs she kept, and all at once he’s homesick for a place he hadn’t even known for a full week.

Peter tries to throw himself back into the life of a royal. He attends court functions with renewed vigor, leads debates, listens to his subjects. He treats his siblings well. He is always diligent with the sword, and makes time for visiting diplomats and scholars whenever they grace his door. No matter what, though, no matter how he overfills his schedule so he won’t have one moment for his mind to settle into bleak wanting, Peter is not happy. He does not feel like himself, not the way he had in that small village. The gilded shackles of royalty are clamped tightly around him, cutting Peter off from what he wants.

And, at last, he can take it no more. The captain of the guard is quite taken aback when he spots Peter hurrying to the stables. “Your Grace, I hope you are taking a patrol with you if you wish to ride, you remember the last time–”

“If you wish to accompany me,” Peter shouts over his shoulder, “I encourage you to try and keep up.”

He’s saddled and out the door in the blink of an eye, his horse charting a path its rider has kept alive in his mind since the day he left it. Somewhere behind him, a few soldiers are racing after him, but Peter cares not for what’s in his wake, only what lies ahead.

Y/N looks surprised when she opens the door to find Peter there. “What are you doing here?” She asks, eyes darting from Peter to the equally confused guards behind him. “Don’t tell me you hurt your head again, I’ll be quite upset.”

Peter actually laughs. It rings from him like a bell. He thinks it’s the first real laugh he’s had since he left her. “Come back with me,” he says. “I miss you. I’ve missed you since I went back. You can work with the castle apothecary if you like, or never lift a finger again if it pleases you. Just return with me, please. I can’t feel sane unless you’re by my side.”

Y/N looks stunned. “You can’t be serious. I’ve never been to court, Peter. I wouldn’t have the faintest idea what to do.”

“I’d teach you everything you’d need to know,” Peter assures her. “I came to court a total novice, and I was king. And if you get sick of me, there are plenty of teachers and old masters who would be more than happy to help you out. I’d do anything to make you feel at home.”

Y/N looks tentatively up at him. “You mean it? You really want me there?”

Peter nods, suddenly more sure of himself than he’s ever been. “I want you, Y/N. More than anything.”

Peter has been treated to a lot of her smiles in the past, but this one is so dazzling he feels as if he’s been knocked off his feet. “I would love to go with you, Peter.” “Perfect,” he says, and he means it– perfect. As High King, Peter is constantly making concessions, agreeing to deals he doesn’t like just so he can squeeze some much-needed detail out of the bargain. For once, though, Peter has everything he could want. His home, his family, the girl he’s grown to love, all in one place. This, then, is what winning must feel like. It occurs to Peter that from here on out, he’s going to grow quite accustomed to that feeling.

narnia tag list: @remussbitch, @faerieroyal, @goldfish4403

all tags list: @wordsarelife, @supervoldejaygent

[heliads]

Hi Lisa! I hope you’re well. Can I request a Jack Wilder x female reader one-shot? The reader is a popular street magician who is an illusionist and a contortionist. ections to the Four Horsemen because she’s dating Jack and occasionally makes a guest appearance in their shows. They let her in on their steal from the rich scheme, and she becomes part of the Eye.

'Magical' - Jack Wilder

masterlist

Sometimes, the universe sends you subtle signs that it’s time to call your boyfriend. Other times, you walk outside your apartment building and find that the entire side of the brick complex across the street has been papered over with photos of his face. If you were dating anyone else, you’d be deeply unsettled, but your boyfriend isn’t exactly a nameless nobody. No, you decided to fall in love with Jack Wilder, one of the infamous Four Horsemen, and now you can count on seeing him just about everywhere.

In this case, the posters stretching from street to sky are advertisements for his upcoming show. It’s sure to be a spectacle, full of the latest tricks to boggle the mind of attendees. The rich will be conned, the average showgoer will be delighted, and you’ll get to see your boyfriend shine on stage from even closer than usual. Typically, only the Horsemen appear onstage during one of their shows, with the exception of whatever corrupt millionaire they’ve decided to con that night, but tonight’s special. It’s the anniversary of their first stage show, so the Horsemen have decided the sky’s the limit when it comes to this performance. The costumes will be stunning, the magic will be showstopping, and they’ll even invite a few special guests to perform tricks alongside them. One of those guests, as it turns out, happens to be you.

Since both you and Jack have been orbiting the magic scene for a while now, you’d heard of each other long before he ever became a Horseman. You’d strayed into each other’s paths a few times; you, when you caught him performing tricks on unsuspecting tourists and always walking away a couple wallets richer than he had been before, and him, attending one of your performances. You’d built up quite a following as a popular street magician specializing in illusions and contortions. Jack had to build up his courage for weeks before he could ask for your name, then your number, then your heart.

Now, you’ve had the pleasure of being with him through the ups and downs in his life. You’ve never doubted him for a second, not even when he first joined up with the Horsemen and started answering your calls from all over the world, usually with the Feds somewhere behind him. Jack may be keeping busy with all the shows the Horsemen perform, but he’s always made time for you.

So, when you snap a photo of the many posters of Jack’s face and text it to him, he responds almost immediately, saying that he didn’t remember your apartment having such a stunning view. You laugh to yourself, then answer him with a reminder that you like the real deal much more.

Smiling, you head off down the street, towards an address that won’t exist on any records filled with people the FBI would love to track down. There’s a set of apartments used exclusively by the Eye, and that’s where you go now. You were only introduced to the Eye and its mission a year or so ago, but you’ve worked with the Horsemen for longer. The way Danny Atlas explains it, they’d tapped you as a clear boost to their ranks even without Jack’s obvious favoritism, but the higher-ups in the Eye wanted to get to know you a bit better before trusting you with their big secret.

You can’t entirely blame them. The Eye relies on its secrecy to accomplish its mission. You wouldn’t let any random street magician join its ranks, either. As it turns out, you’d been a name on their list for quite a while, ever since that stunt you pulled with the disappearing bridge when those unpopular politicians were in town. Jack constantly talking about how amazing you were didn’t hurt, either, although if you asked Merritt, he’d say his ears were hurt from your constant praise.

Smiling at the memory, you check once at the street behind you to ensure you aren’t being followed before slipping inside an inconspicuous apartment building. You can see dozens of people walking by the windows as you head to the room, some even talking about the upcoming Horsemen show. You wonder how many people have passed this place without a single clue that the very Horsemen of their wildest imagination were right in front of them.

You knock on a specific door, and a few moments later, it opens to reveal Danny Atlas.

“Good to see you,” he says, looking a bit relieved. “Thanks for coming early, we’re just going through all our bits one last time. There’s a lot to get right, you know.”

You grin. “That’s why I was early. I remember your, uh, passion for planning.”

Someone cackles across the room. “You mean his manic obsession? Yeah, we’re all familiar.”

Danny frowns. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting our show to go smoothly, Merritt. Remember, if anything fails, we’re in jail and–”

“And worse, we don’t get paid. I know, Einstein. I’m ready.” Merritt shakes his head disbelievingly at you, eyes wide with mock annoyance.

You bite back a laugh. “Hi, Merritt.”

“Hi yourself,” he says. “Loverboy is in the other room, if for some reason you wanted something other than the obvious amount of talent right here.”

You roll your eyes fondly. “I’m not responding to that.”

“That still counts as a response,” Merritt calls after you as you head down the hall. “I’m already in your head, sweetheart. Just like that.”

You would shout back some kind of insult, but any thoughts of Merritt are swept from your brain when you spot a familiar figure idly shuffling a deck of cards in a nearby room. You softly knock against the door frame, causing a pair of warm brown eyes to meet yours.

Instantly, Jack is on his feet, sweeping you up in a hug. “I missed you,” he mumbles against your temple.

You smile, wrapping your arms around him. “It’s been two weeks.”

“Exactly,” Jack groans. “That’s, like, an eternity. I’ve been miserable the whole time.”

“Weren’t you off in Paris for a show?” You ask. “I would have thought you’d be having the time of your life.”

Jack shakes his head, pulling away slightly so he can get a better look at you. “Wasn’t any fun without you. You’re the best part of this, Y/N. You have to know that.”

Something about being around Jack makes you feel lighter in a moment, as free as the birds flying recklessly outside your window. When he says things like that, like how he’s happiest with you as opposed to gallivanting around the world in a team of the world’s best magicians, you can hardly believe your luck. It’s not just that Jack means every compliment, every affirmation of his love, but he says it all so easily, like it’s second nature. Like loving you is something he does with every breath, every beat of his heart. Like there’s never going to be a version of him that won’t want you with him all the time.

You kiss him. “Tell me again, just in case.” You can afford to be greedy. Jack never gets tired of telling you things like this.

He smiles. “I love you.”

“Love you too,” you say, just as Danny pokes his head in from the hall.

“When you two are done being obnoxiously obsessed with each other, can you join us out in front? We need to go through our parts again.”

Jack groans. “Can’t we have five more minutes?”

Danny shoots him a death glare. “Now, Jack.”

Jack rolls his eyes, and reluctantly lets you go, although he keeps your hand laced with his as if even a moment apart is far too much. “He’s even clingier than we are.”

You laugh. “He means well, I think.”

Jack looks like he wants to argue that point, but Danny’s practically jumping out of his skin with nerves, so you pull your boyfriend back into the main room of the apartment complex. Jack takes a seat on a nearby couch, tugging you down next to him. He wraps an arm around your back, fingers absentmindedly drawing circles against your skin.

Danny clears his throat. “Alright, everybody. Let’s go through our roles again. When we begin, Merritt and I will enter stage right, Lula and Jack stage left. We go through the basic numbers until we introduce the main act. Our mark will be sitting in seat 14C.”

Merritt nods. “Earlier, I’ll pose as an usher and start his hypnosis.”

Danny agrees. “Right. You’ll also pass off his wallet to Jack, who’ll make copies of his ID and credit cards. From there, Lula can hack into his security systems, and then we’re in. While we’re waiting for her to finish, Y/N will take center stage. You’ll buy us as much time as you can, then we’ll take over again.”

You flash him a confident thumbs up. “Don’t worry about me. Maybe I’ll even convert some of your fans to follow me instead.”

Jack grins. “I’d believe it.”

Merritt throws a pillow at him. “Hey, you’re supposed to be on our side. One more comment like that and I’ll hypnotize you to add me to your bank account again.”

Jack makes a face. “That didn’t work the first time, why would it work again?”

“Must be your easily susceptible mind,” Merritt comments, wiggling his fingers for dramatic effect. “You want to read me your credit card number, you need to tell me the three digit number on the back–”

“Focus, please,” Danny breaks in. “Once we give the signal to Y/N that we’re ready to keep going, we begin the next phase. This is where the fun begins.”

You lean a little closer to Jack as Danny gets deeper into his spiel. You’ve gone over the plan a dozen times, typically over the phone or a video call while the Horsemen were busy on their tour, so the information isn’t new. That means you’re more interested in snuggling a little closer to your boyfriend, listening to his contented hum. You and Jack lead crazy lives. When the two of you are together, it’s impossible not to believe in magic, that luck and unbelievable circumstances follow you wherever you go. This sort of life is ridiculous and fantastic and yours, all yours.

And when you’re on the stage later that night, listening to the delighted roar of the crowd as you perform yet another jaw-dropping trick, you find that in spite of all those adoring faces, there’s only one you’re interested in. Even with the rush of adrenaline from another successful heist, the heart-skipping thrill of risking your life for a perfect illusion, you feel most alive when Jack joins you onstage again, spinning you around once before taking your hand to join you in a bow. Thunderous applause echoes around you, lights going off across the stage, and heaven help you, you feel magical.

requested by @thornyrose463, i hope you enjoy!

nysm tag list: @mayfieldss, @faerieroyal

all tags list: @wordsarelife, @supervoldejaygent

[heliads]

Hi Lisa! I hope you’re well. Can I request a Jack Wilder x female reader one-shot? The reader is a popular street magician who is an illusionist and a contortionist. ections to the Four Horsemen because she’s dating Jack and occasionally makes a guest appearance in their shows. They let her in on their steal from the rich scheme, and she becomes part of the Eye.

'Magical' - Jack Wilder

masterlist

Sometimes, the universe sends you subtle signs that it’s time to call your boyfriend. Other times, you walk outside your apartment building and find that the entire side of the brick complex across the street has been papered over with photos of his face. If you were dating anyone else, you’d be deeply unsettled, but your boyfriend isn’t exactly a nameless nobody. No, you decided to fall in love with Jack Wilder, one of the infamous Four Horsemen, and now you can count on seeing him just about everywhere.

In this case, the posters stretching from street to sky are advertisements for his upcoming show. It’s sure to be a spectacle, full of the latest tricks to boggle the mind of attendees. The rich will be conned, the average showgoer will be delighted, and you’ll get to see your boyfriend shine on stage from even closer than usual. Typically, only the Horsemen appear onstage during one of their shows, with the exception of whatever corrupt millionaire they’ve decided to con that night, but tonight’s special. It’s the anniversary of their first stage show, so the Horsemen have decided the sky’s the limit when it comes to this performance. The costumes will be stunning, the magic will be showstopping, and they’ll even invite a few special guests to perform tricks alongside them. One of those guests, as it turns out, happens to be you.

Since both you and Jack have been orbiting the magic scene for a while now, you’d heard of each other long before he ever became a Horseman. You’d strayed into each other’s paths a few times; you, when you caught him performing tricks on unsuspecting tourists and always walking away a couple wallets richer than he had been before, and him, attending one of your performances. You’d built up quite a following as a popular street magician specializing in illusions and contortions. Jack had to build up his courage for weeks before he could ask for your name, then your number, then your heart.

Now, you’ve had the pleasure of being with him through the ups and downs in his life. You’ve never doubted him for a second, not even when he first joined up with the Horsemen and started answering your calls from all over the world, usually with the Feds somewhere behind him. Jack may be keeping busy with all the shows the Horsemen perform, but he’s always made time for you.

So, when you snap a photo of the many posters of Jack’s face and text it to him, he responds almost immediately, saying that he didn’t remember your apartment having such a stunning view. You laugh to yourself, then answer him with a reminder that you like the real deal much more.

Smiling, you head off down the street, towards an address that won’t exist on any records filled with people the FBI would love to track down. There’s a set of apartments used exclusively by the Eye, and that’s where you go now. You were only introduced to the Eye and its mission a year or so ago, but you’ve worked with the Horsemen for longer. The way Danny Atlas explains it, they’d tapped you as a clear boost to their ranks even without Jack’s obvious favoritism, but the higher-ups in the Eye wanted to get to know you a bit better before trusting you with their big secret.

You can’t entirely blame them. The Eye relies on its secrecy to accomplish its mission. You wouldn’t let any random street magician join its ranks, either. As it turns out, you’d been a name on their list for quite a while, ever since that stunt you pulled with the disappearing bridge when those unpopular politicians were in town. Jack constantly talking about how amazing you were didn’t hurt, either, although if you asked Merritt, he’d say his ears were hurt from your constant praise.

Smiling at the memory, you check once at the street behind you to ensure you aren’t being followed before slipping inside an inconspicuous apartment building. You can see dozens of people walking by the windows as you head to the room, some even talking about the upcoming Horsemen show. You wonder how many people have passed this place without a single clue that the very Horsemen of their wildest imagination were right in front of them.

You knock on a specific door, and a few moments later, it opens to reveal Danny Atlas.

“Good to see you,” he says, looking a bit relieved. “Thanks for coming early, we’re just going through all our bits one last time. There’s a lot to get right, you know.”

You grin. “That’s why I was early. I remember your, uh, passion for planning.”

Someone cackles across the room. “You mean his manic obsession? Yeah, we’re all familiar.”

Danny frowns. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting our show to go smoothly, Merritt. Remember, if anything fails, we’re in jail and–”

“And worse, we don’t get paid. I know, Einstein. I’m ready.” Merritt shakes his head disbelievingly at you, eyes wide with mock annoyance.

You bite back a laugh. “Hi, Merritt.”

“Hi yourself,” he says. “Loverboy is in the other room, if for some reason you wanted something other than the obvious amount of talent right here.”

You roll your eyes fondly. “I’m not responding to that.”

“That still counts as a response,” Merritt calls after you as you head down the hall. “I’m already in your head, sweetheart. Just like that.”

You would shout back some kind of insult, but any thoughts of Merritt are swept from your brain when you spot a familiar figure idly shuffling a deck of cards in a nearby room. You softly knock against the door frame, causing a pair of warm brown eyes to meet yours.

Instantly, Jack is on his feet, sweeping you up in a hug. “I missed you,” he mumbles against your temple.

You smile, wrapping your arms around him. “It’s been two weeks.”

“Exactly,” Jack groans. “That’s, like, an eternity. I’ve been miserable the whole time.”

“Weren’t you off in Paris for a show?” You ask. “I would have thought you’d be having the time of your life.”

Jack shakes his head, pulling away slightly so he can get a better look at you. “Wasn’t any fun without you. You’re the best part of this, Y/N. You have to know that.”

Something about being around Jack makes you feel lighter in a moment, as free as the birds flying recklessly outside your window. When he says things like that, like how he’s happiest with you as opposed to gallivanting around the world in a team of the world’s best magicians, you can hardly believe your luck. It’s not just that Jack means every compliment, every affirmation of his love, but he says it all so easily, like it’s second nature. Like loving you is something he does with every breath, every beat of his heart. Like there’s never going to be a version of him that won’t want you with him all the time.

You kiss him. “Tell me again, just in case.” You can afford to be greedy. Jack never gets tired of telling you things like this.

He smiles. “I love you.”

“Love you too,” you say, just as Danny pokes his head in from the hall.

“When you two are done being obnoxiously obsessed with each other, can you join us out in front? We need to go through our parts again.”

Jack groans. “Can’t we have five more minutes?”

Danny shoots him a death glare. “Now, Jack.”

Jack rolls his eyes, and reluctantly lets you go, although he keeps your hand laced with his as if even a moment apart is far too much. “He’s even clingier than we are.”

You laugh. “He means well, I think.”

Jack looks like he wants to argue that point, but Danny’s practically jumping out of his skin with nerves, so you pull your boyfriend back into the main room of the apartment complex. Jack takes a seat on a nearby couch, tugging you down next to him. He wraps an arm around your back, fingers absentmindedly drawing circles against your skin.

Danny clears his throat. “Alright, everybody. Let’s go through our roles again. When we begin, Merritt and I will enter stage right, Lula and Jack stage left. We go through the basic numbers until we introduce the main act. Our mark will be sitting in seat 14C.”

Merritt nods. “Earlier, I’ll pose as an usher and start his hypnosis.”

Danny agrees. “Right. You’ll also pass off his wallet to Jack, who’ll make copies of his ID and credit cards. From there, Lula can hack into his security systems, and then we’re in. While we’re waiting for her to finish, Y/N will take center stage. You’ll buy us as much time as you can, then we’ll take over again.”

You flash him a confident thumbs up. “Don’t worry about me. Maybe I’ll even convert some of your fans to follow me instead.”

Jack grins. “I’d believe it.”

Merritt throws a pillow at him. “Hey, you’re supposed to be on our side. One more comment like that and I’ll hypnotize you to add me to your bank account again.”

Jack makes a face. “That didn’t work the first time, why would it work again?”

“Must be your easily susceptible mind,” Merritt comments, wiggling his fingers for dramatic effect. “You want to read me your credit card number, you need to tell me the three digit number on the back–”

“Focus, please,” Danny breaks in. “Once we give the signal to Y/N that we’re ready to keep going, we begin the next phase. This is where the fun begins.”

You lean a little closer to Jack as Danny gets deeper into his spiel. You’ve gone over the plan a dozen times, typically over the phone or a video call while the Horsemen were busy on their tour, so the information isn’t new. That means you’re more interested in snuggling a little closer to your boyfriend, listening to his contented hum. You and Jack lead crazy lives. When the two of you are together, it’s impossible not to believe in magic, that luck and unbelievable circumstances follow you wherever you go. This sort of life is ridiculous and fantastic and yours, all yours.

And when you’re on the stage later that night, listening to the delighted roar of the crowd as you perform yet another jaw-dropping trick, you find that in spite of all those adoring faces, there’s only one you’re interested in. Even with the rush of adrenaline from another successful heist, the heart-skipping thrill of risking your life for a perfect illusion, you feel most alive when Jack joins you onstage again, spinning you around once before taking your hand to join you in a bow. Thunderous applause echoes around you, lights going off across the stage, and heaven help you, you feel magical.

requested by @thornyrose463, i hope you enjoy!

nysm tag list: @mayfieldss, @faerieroyal

all tags list: @wordsarelife, @supervoldejaygent

[heliads]

Just wanna let you know that I think about the Charles Xavier fic you wrote when I put in a request often <3

awww thank you!!!! this is so sweet <333

[heliads]

Hi Lisa! I hope you’re well. Can I request a Jack Wilder x female reader one-shot? The reader is a popular street magician who is an illusionist and a contortionist. ections to the Four Horsemen because she’s dating Jack and occasionally makes a guest appearance in their shows. They let her in on their steal from the rich scheme, and she becomes part of the Eye.

'Magical' - Jack Wilder

masterlist

Sometimes, the universe sends you subtle signs that it’s time to call your boyfriend. Other times, you walk outside your apartment building and find that the entire side of the brick complex across the street has been papered over with photos of his face. If you were dating anyone else, you’d be deeply unsettled, but your boyfriend isn’t exactly a nameless nobody. No, you decided to fall in love with Jack Wilder, one of the infamous Four Horsemen, and now you can count on seeing him just about everywhere.

In this case, the posters stretching from street to sky are advertisements for his upcoming show. It’s sure to be a spectacle, full of the latest tricks to boggle the mind of attendees. The rich will be conned, the average showgoer will be delighted, and you’ll get to see your boyfriend shine on stage from even closer than usual. Typically, only the Horsemen appear onstage during one of their shows, with the exception of whatever corrupt millionaire they’ve decided to con that night, but tonight’s special. It’s the anniversary of their first stage show, so the Horsemen have decided the sky’s the limit when it comes to this performance. The costumes will be stunning, the magic will be showstopping, and they’ll even invite a few special guests to perform tricks alongside them. One of those guests, as it turns out, happens to be you.

Since both you and Jack have been orbiting the magic scene for a while now, you’d heard of each other long before he ever became a Horseman. You’d strayed into each other’s paths a few times; you, when you caught him performing tricks on unsuspecting tourists and always walking away a couple wallets richer than he had been before, and him, attending one of your performances. You’d built up quite a following as a popular street magician specializing in illusions and contortions. Jack had to build up his courage for weeks before he could ask for your name, then your number, then your heart.

Now, you’ve had the pleasure of being with him through the ups and downs in his life. You’ve never doubted him for a second, not even when he first joined up with the Horsemen and started answering your calls from all over the world, usually with the Feds somewhere behind him. Jack may be keeping busy with all the shows the Horsemen perform, but he’s always made time for you.

So, when you snap a photo of the many posters of Jack’s face and text it to him, he responds almost immediately, saying that he didn’t remember your apartment having such a stunning view. You laugh to yourself, then answer him with a reminder that you like the real deal much more.

Smiling, you head off down the street, towards an address that won’t exist on any records filled with people the FBI would love to track down. There’s a set of apartments used exclusively by the Eye, and that’s where you go now. You were only introduced to the Eye and its mission a year or so ago, but you’ve worked with the Horsemen for longer. The way Danny Atlas explains it, they’d tapped you as a clear boost to their ranks even without Jack’s obvious favoritism, but the higher-ups in the Eye wanted to get to know you a bit better before trusting you with their big secret.

You can’t entirely blame them. The Eye relies on its secrecy to accomplish its mission. You wouldn’t let any random street magician join its ranks, either. As it turns out, you’d been a name on their list for quite a while, ever since that stunt you pulled with the disappearing bridge when those unpopular politicians were in town. Jack constantly talking about how amazing you were didn’t hurt, either, although if you asked Merritt, he’d say his ears were hurt from your constant praise.

Smiling at the memory, you check once at the street behind you to ensure you aren’t being followed before slipping inside an inconspicuous apartment building. You can see dozens of people walking by the windows as you head to the room, some even talking about the upcoming Horsemen show. You wonder how many people have passed this place without a single clue that the very Horsemen of their wildest imagination were right in front of them.

You knock on a specific door, and a few moments later, it opens to reveal Danny Atlas.

“Good to see you,” he says, looking a bit relieved. “Thanks for coming early, we’re just going through all our bits one last time. There’s a lot to get right, you know.”

You grin. “That’s why I was early. I remember your, uh, passion for planning.”

Someone cackles across the room. “You mean his manic obsession? Yeah, we’re all familiar.”

Danny frowns. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting our show to go smoothly, Merritt. Remember, if anything fails, we’re in jail and–”

“And worse, we don’t get paid. I know, Einstein. I’m ready.” Merritt shakes his head disbelievingly at you, eyes wide with mock annoyance.

You bite back a laugh. “Hi, Merritt.”

“Hi yourself,” he says. “Loverboy is in the other room, if for some reason you wanted something other than the obvious amount of talent right here.”

You roll your eyes fondly. “I’m not responding to that.”

“That still counts as a response,” Merritt calls after you as you head down the hall. “I’m already in your head, sweetheart. Just like that.”

You would shout back some kind of insult, but any thoughts of Merritt are swept from your brain when you spot a familiar figure idly shuffling a deck of cards in a nearby room. You softly knock against the door frame, causing a pair of warm brown eyes to meet yours.

Instantly, Jack is on his feet, sweeping you up in a hug. “I missed you,” he mumbles against your temple.

You smile, wrapping your arms around him. “It’s been two weeks.”

“Exactly,” Jack groans. “That’s, like, an eternity. I’ve been miserable the whole time.”

“Weren’t you off in Paris for a show?” You ask. “I would have thought you’d be having the time of your life.”

Jack shakes his head, pulling away slightly so he can get a better look at you. “Wasn’t any fun without you. You’re the best part of this, Y/N. You have to know that.”

Something about being around Jack makes you feel lighter in a moment, as free as the birds flying recklessly outside your window. When he says things like that, like how he’s happiest with you as opposed to gallivanting around the world in a team of the world’s best magicians, you can hardly believe your luck. It’s not just that Jack means every compliment, every affirmation of his love, but he says it all so easily, like it’s second nature. Like loving you is something he does with every breath, every beat of his heart. Like there’s never going to be a version of him that won’t want you with him all the time.

You kiss him. “Tell me again, just in case.” You can afford to be greedy. Jack never gets tired of telling you things like this.

He smiles. “I love you.”

“Love you too,” you say, just as Danny pokes his head in from the hall.

“When you two are done being obnoxiously obsessed with each other, can you join us out in front? We need to go through our parts again.”

Jack groans. “Can’t we have five more minutes?”

Danny shoots him a death glare. “Now, Jack.”

Jack rolls his eyes, and reluctantly lets you go, although he keeps your hand laced with his as if even a moment apart is far too much. “He’s even clingier than we are.”

You laugh. “He means well, I think.”

Jack looks like he wants to argue that point, but Danny’s practically jumping out of his skin with nerves, so you pull your boyfriend back into the main room of the apartment complex. Jack takes a seat on a nearby couch, tugging you down next to him. He wraps an arm around your back, fingers absentmindedly drawing circles against your skin.

Danny clears his throat. “Alright, everybody. Let’s go through our roles again. When we begin, Merritt and I will enter stage right, Lula and Jack stage left. We go through the basic numbers until we introduce the main act. Our mark will be sitting in seat 14C.”

Merritt nods. “Earlier, I’ll pose as an usher and start his hypnosis.”

Danny agrees. “Right. You’ll also pass off his wallet to Jack, who’ll make copies of his ID and credit cards. From there, Lula can hack into his security systems, and then we’re in. While we’re waiting for her to finish, Y/N will take center stage. You’ll buy us as much time as you can, then we’ll take over again.”

You flash him a confident thumbs up. “Don’t worry about me. Maybe I’ll even convert some of your fans to follow me instead.”

Jack grins. “I’d believe it.”

Merritt throws a pillow at him. “Hey, you’re supposed to be on our side. One more comment like that and I’ll hypnotize you to add me to your bank account again.”

Jack makes a face. “That didn’t work the first time, why would it work again?”

“Must be your easily susceptible mind,” Merritt comments, wiggling his fingers for dramatic effect. “You want to read me your credit card number, you need to tell me the three digit number on the back–”

“Focus, please,” Danny breaks in. “Once we give the signal to Y/N that we’re ready to keep going, we begin the next phase. This is where the fun begins.”

You lean a little closer to Jack as Danny gets deeper into his spiel. You’ve gone over the plan a dozen times, typically over the phone or a video call while the Horsemen were busy on their tour, so the information isn’t new. That means you’re more interested in snuggling a little closer to your boyfriend, listening to his contented hum. You and Jack lead crazy lives. When the two of you are together, it’s impossible not to believe in magic, that luck and unbelievable circumstances follow you wherever you go. This sort of life is ridiculous and fantastic and yours, all yours.

And when you’re on the stage later that night, listening to the delighted roar of the crowd as you perform yet another jaw-dropping trick, you find that in spite of all those adoring faces, there’s only one you’re interested in. Even with the rush of adrenaline from another successful heist, the heart-skipping thrill of risking your life for a perfect illusion, you feel most alive when Jack joins you onstage again, spinning you around once before taking your hand to join you in a bow. Thunderous applause echoes around you, lights going off across the stage, and heaven help you, you feel magical.

requested by @thornyrose463, i hope you enjoy!

nysm tag list: @mayfieldss, @faerieroyal

all tags list: @wordsarelife, @supervoldejaygent

[heliads]

Hi Lisa! I hope you’re well. Can I request a Jack Wilder x female reader one-shot? The reader is a popular street magician who is an illusionist and a contortionist. ections to the Four Horsemen because she’s dating Jack and occasionally makes a guest appearance in their shows. They let her in on their steal from the rich scheme, and she becomes part of the Eye.

'Magical' - Jack Wilder

masterlist

Sometimes, the universe sends you subtle signs that it’s time to call your boyfriend. Other times, you walk outside your apartment building and find that the entire side of the brick complex across the street has been papered over with photos of his face. If you were dating anyone else, you’d be deeply unsettled, but your boyfriend isn’t exactly a nameless nobody. No, you decided to fall in love with Jack Wilder, one of the infamous Four Horsemen, and now you can count on seeing him just about everywhere.

In this case, the posters stretching from street to sky are advertisements for his upcoming show. It’s sure to be a spectacle, full of the latest tricks to boggle the mind of attendees. The rich will be conned, the average showgoer will be delighted, and you’ll get to see your boyfriend shine on stage from even closer than usual. Typically, only the Horsemen appear onstage during one of their shows, with the exception of whatever corrupt millionaire they’ve decided to con that night, but tonight’s special. It’s the anniversary of their first stage show, so the Horsemen have decided the sky’s the limit when it comes to this performance. The costumes will be stunning, the magic will be showstopping, and they’ll even invite a few special guests to perform tricks alongside them. One of those guests, as it turns out, happens to be you.

Since both you and Jack have been orbiting the magic scene for a while now, you’d heard of each other long before he ever became a Horseman. You’d strayed into each other’s paths a few times; you, when you caught him performing tricks on unsuspecting tourists and always walking away a couple wallets richer than he had been before, and him, attending one of your performances. You’d built up quite a following as a popular street magician specializing in illusions and contortions. Jack had to build up his courage for weeks before he could ask for your name, then your number, then your heart.

Now, you’ve had the pleasure of being with him through the ups and downs in his life. You’ve never doubted him for a second, not even when he first joined up with the Horsemen and started answering your calls from all over the world, usually with the Feds somewhere behind him. Jack may be keeping busy with all the shows the Horsemen perform, but he’s always made time for you.

So, when you snap a photo of the many posters of Jack’s face and text it to him, he responds almost immediately, saying that he didn’t remember your apartment having such a stunning view. You laugh to yourself, then answer him with a reminder that you like the real deal much more.

Smiling, you head off down the street, towards an address that won’t exist on any records filled with people the FBI would love to track down. There’s a set of apartments used exclusively by the Eye, and that’s where you go now. You were only introduced to the Eye and its mission a year or so ago, but you’ve worked with the Horsemen for longer. The way Danny Atlas explains it, they’d tapped you as a clear boost to their ranks even without Jack’s obvious favoritism, but the higher-ups in the Eye wanted to get to know you a bit better before trusting you with their big secret.

You can’t entirely blame them. The Eye relies on its secrecy to accomplish its mission. You wouldn’t let any random street magician join its ranks, either. As it turns out, you’d been a name on their list for quite a while, ever since that stunt you pulled with the disappearing bridge when those unpopular politicians were in town. Jack constantly talking about how amazing you were didn’t hurt, either, although if you asked Merritt, he’d say his ears were hurt from your constant praise.

Smiling at the memory, you check once at the street behind you to ensure you aren’t being followed before slipping inside an inconspicuous apartment building. You can see dozens of people walking by the windows as you head to the room, some even talking about the upcoming Horsemen show. You wonder how many people have passed this place without a single clue that the very Horsemen of their wildest imagination were right in front of them.

You knock on a specific door, and a few moments later, it opens to reveal Danny Atlas.

“Good to see you,” he says, looking a bit relieved. “Thanks for coming early, we’re just going through all our bits one last time. There’s a lot to get right, you know.”

You grin. “That’s why I was early. I remember your, uh, passion for planning.”

Someone cackles across the room. “You mean his manic obsession? Yeah, we’re all familiar.”

Danny frowns. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting our show to go smoothly, Merritt. Remember, if anything fails, we’re in jail and–”

“And worse, we don’t get paid. I know, Einstein. I’m ready.” Merritt shakes his head disbelievingly at you, eyes wide with mock annoyance.

You bite back a laugh. “Hi, Merritt.”

“Hi yourself,” he says. “Loverboy is in the other room, if for some reason you wanted something other than the obvious amount of talent right here.”

You roll your eyes fondly. “I’m not responding to that.”

“That still counts as a response,” Merritt calls after you as you head down the hall. “I’m already in your head, sweetheart. Just like that.”

You would shout back some kind of insult, but any thoughts of Merritt are swept from your brain when you spot a familiar figure idly shuffling a deck of cards in a nearby room. You softly knock against the door frame, causing a pair of warm brown eyes to meet yours.

Instantly, Jack is on his feet, sweeping you up in a hug. “I missed you,” he mumbles against your temple.

You smile, wrapping your arms around him. “It’s been two weeks.”

“Exactly,” Jack groans. “That’s, like, an eternity. I’ve been miserable the whole time.”

“Weren’t you off in Paris for a show?” You ask. “I would have thought you’d be having the time of your life.”

Jack shakes his head, pulling away slightly so he can get a better look at you. “Wasn’t any fun without you. You’re the best part of this, Y/N. You have to know that.”

Something about being around Jack makes you feel lighter in a moment, as free as the birds flying recklessly outside your window. When he says things like that, like how he’s happiest with you as opposed to gallivanting around the world in a team of the world’s best magicians, you can hardly believe your luck. It’s not just that Jack means every compliment, every affirmation of his love, but he says it all so easily, like it’s second nature. Like loving you is something he does with every breath, every beat of his heart. Like there’s never going to be a version of him that won’t want you with him all the time.

You kiss him. “Tell me again, just in case.” You can afford to be greedy. Jack never gets tired of telling you things like this.

He smiles. “I love you.”

“Love you too,” you say, just as Danny pokes his head in from the hall.

“When you two are done being obnoxiously obsessed with each other, can you join us out in front? We need to go through our parts again.”

Jack groans. “Can’t we have five more minutes?”

Danny shoots him a death glare. “Now, Jack.”

Jack rolls his eyes, and reluctantly lets you go, although he keeps your hand laced with his as if even a moment apart is far too much. “He’s even clingier than we are.”

You laugh. “He means well, I think.”

Jack looks like he wants to argue that point, but Danny’s practically jumping out of his skin with nerves, so you pull your boyfriend back into the main room of the apartment complex. Jack takes a seat on a nearby couch, tugging you down next to him. He wraps an arm around your back, fingers absentmindedly drawing circles against your skin.

Danny clears his throat. “Alright, everybody. Let’s go through our roles again. When we begin, Merritt and I will enter stage right, Lula and Jack stage left. We go through the basic numbers until we introduce the main act. Our mark will be sitting in seat 14C.”

Merritt nods. “Earlier, I’ll pose as an usher and start his hypnosis.”

Danny agrees. “Right. You’ll also pass off his wallet to Jack, who’ll make copies of his ID and credit cards. From there, Lula can hack into his security systems, and then we’re in. While we’re waiting for her to finish, Y/N will take center stage. You’ll buy us as much time as you can, then we’ll take over again.”

You flash him a confident thumbs up. “Don’t worry about me. Maybe I’ll even convert some of your fans to follow me instead.”

Jack grins. “I’d believe it.”

Merritt throws a pillow at him. “Hey, you’re supposed to be on our side. One more comment like that and I’ll hypnotize you to add me to your bank account again.”

Jack makes a face. “That didn’t work the first time, why would it work again?”

“Must be your easily susceptible mind,” Merritt comments, wiggling his fingers for dramatic effect. “You want to read me your credit card number, you need to tell me the three digit number on the back–”

“Focus, please,” Danny breaks in. “Once we give the signal to Y/N that we’re ready to keep going, we begin the next phase. This is where the fun begins.”

You lean a little closer to Jack as Danny gets deeper into his spiel. You’ve gone over the plan a dozen times, typically over the phone or a video call while the Horsemen were busy on their tour, so the information isn’t new. That means you’re more interested in snuggling a little closer to your boyfriend, listening to his contented hum. You and Jack lead crazy lives. When the two of you are together, it’s impossible not to believe in magic, that luck and unbelievable circumstances follow you wherever you go. This sort of life is ridiculous and fantastic and yours, all yours.

And when you’re on the stage later that night, listening to the delighted roar of the crowd as you perform yet another jaw-dropping trick, you find that in spite of all those adoring faces, there’s only one you’re interested in. Even with the rush of adrenaline from another successful heist, the heart-skipping thrill of risking your life for a perfect illusion, you feel most alive when Jack joins you onstage again, spinning you around once before taking your hand to join you in a bow. Thunderous applause echoes around you, lights going off across the stage, and heaven help you, you feel magical.

requested by @thornyrose463, i hope you enjoy!

nysm tag list: @mayfieldss, @faerieroyal

all tags list: @wordsarelife, @supervoldejaygent

[heliads]

Could you possibly write a Bill Weasley x reader oneshot where they are busy planning their wedding and Molly is inserting herself where she really shouldn’t (I adore her but I get the feeling she would probably get to be a bit much at times) and the burrow is complete chaos, as usual, and the reader has a panic attack over some small seemingly insignificant detail (washing dishes and breaks a plate in the sink type thing or can’t the icing to be the right texture or something) and snaps. Everyone in the burrow goes completely silent and she rushes out, still panicking but now feeling guilty about snapping as well and Bill follows her out and calms her down and makes sure she’s okay before they go back inside and Bill asks his mother to back off a bit and to let reader breath when Molly try’s to mother her the second she sees her and it all ends in fluff and Bill being an incredibly supportive fiancé to reader???

'Wedding Woes' - Bill Weasley

masterlist

You were pretty sure your wedding is supposed to be the happiest time of your life, but right now that feels like that farthest thing from the truth. You’re sure all of the nerves and panic will disappear the second you’re actually walking down the aisle, the moment you’re finally declared the wife of the man you love, but that feels a lifetime away. Instead of delighting yourself in the promise that you’re about to make to Bill Weasley, all you can feel is never ending stress.

It’s just– you had no idea how much work went into a wedding. You even asked Bill for a smaller ceremony, not wanting the hubbub of putting on a large affair to get in the way of your collective happiness, yet you still find yourself getting pulled under by a tidal wave of prep work.

To his credit, Bill has been wonderful. He was the one who had the idea to get married at the Burrow, to rent a large tent and dance under the stars for your reception. Every time you so much as furrow a brow, he’s by your side, talking you through the latest wrinkle in the plans. He never seems to get tired of it, of making sure you’re doing okay. Maybe it’s because he never gets tired of loving you.

After all, that’s why you’re doing this. The setup nightmares, the difficulties with the cake, the food, the guest list– none of that matters, not really. The most important part is that Bill asked you to marry him, and you said yes, and now you get to spend the rest of your lives together. 

You’ve been dreaming of this since the day you met him. You’d been visiting your friend Fleur at Gringotts when she insisted you meet one of her good friends, Bill. You’re not sure what you’d been expecting– some dry banker, maybe, but tolerable, Fleur always befriended the nice ones– but you certainly weren’t prepared when a Curse-Breaker walked in with long, coppery hair tied back from his face to reveal a fanglike earring in one ear. He wore leather. He was cool.

How you managed to keep your head in order during that first meeting, you have no idea. Maybe you didn’t, Fleur certainly teased you to no end about how dazzled you’d been for weeks afterwards. As it turned out, it wasn’t just you who’d been swept away, and the next time you picked up Fleur from work, Bill just so happened to be hanging around, and the two of you struck up a conversation that ended in him asking you out.

It had been perfect from that point forward. There was something about Bill that made you let down your guard. It felt like you had known him for a lifetime by the second date, and before long you knew everything about his family, including his litany of brothers, as well as Bill’s adventures as a Curse-Breaker. In turn, he listened to you, really listened to you, and whatever he heard, he loved. It was inevitable that you would fall in love. It was inevitable that it would lead to this.

Now you’re eight months engaged. In a few days, you’re going to be married, and no matter what happens after that, you’ll have Bill by your side. That means more than you could describe. The only problem is that making this wedding happen has become so difficult that you can’t help but drown in all this work.

You’ve got your friends here to help, Bill’s too, and his family, who you love like your own, but if you were being honest with yourself, you would admit that there’s one catalyst to your stress explosion, and that would be Bill’s mother, Molly Weasley. You’ve met Molly on numerous occasions, and she’s always been kind to you, if a bit overly attached to her son, but you can hardly blame her for that. Bill is her eldest, what mother wouldn’t want to know that he was doing alright?

What was once a protective spirit, however, seems to have strengthened considerably the closer you are to the date of the wedding. Molly has thrust herself into every conversation, every task, and now everyone seems to be asking Molly where she wants flowers or how to decorate the tent instead of you. You know, the one actually getting married.

It should be nice to have someone taking the burden of wedding prep off of your shoulders, but instead, you just feel silenced and inconsequential. Your own voice was drowned out a long time ago by the force of Molly’s storm of affection, and now you’re no better than a bystander. You can’t help but wonder if this is what it’s going to be like after you’re married, too, if you’ll always have Molly jumping in, visiting randomly, offering her advice on your career or Bill’s or anything else that crosses her mind.

Bill can tell that you’re stressed, but you can’t exactly tell him that his mother is the one causing most of your grief. Family is vital to Bill, and you won’t use your wedding as an excuse to get in the way of that. Only, as time wears on, and you find Molly more and more entrenched in what was supposed to be your special day with your husband, it’s harder and harder to turn the other cheek.

It all comes to a head one afternoon in the Burrow kitchen. More and more guests have been arriving, so now it’s not just a few assorted Weasley brothers tucked into various chairs around the small room but Hermione Granger and Harry Potter as well, earnestly telling Molly they love her cake recipe or dinner plans whenever she turns the force of her attention upon them.

You had snuck into the kitchen for a moment of peace, hoping that the guise of cleaning up the whirlwind of clutter would get everyone off of your back for a few moments, but Bill had gone to see where you’d disappeared, and then Molly, naturally, had followed, and now this small kitchen feels packed to the gills with people.

You’re standing by the kitchen, one hand gripping the counter like a lifeline while the other holds your wand, trying to put all of your focus on a cleaning spell for a few dirty dishes so you won’t have to listen to Molly’s latest monologue behind you. You’re trying to remind yourself that she means well, but as the minutes wear on and she seems no closer to wrapping up her critique of your idea for the order of bridesmaids and groomsmen down the aisle, it’s getting harder to remember just why you put up with all of this.

Eventually, you break, interrupting her mid stream of consciousness. “Actually, Molly, I’ve talked it over with Bill and we think we’re fine with the current arrangement. You know I’m always glad to hear your point of view, but I really think we’ve got everything settled there.”

Molly blinks at you, surprised. “But, dear, Ginny isn’t tall enough to be with her current pairing. It’ll look askew.”

You force a smile. It’s hard. “I think we’ll manage.”

Molly frowns, her eye catching on the cleaning spell behind you, which is picking up intensity the more you try to keep your calm. “I still think you should re-consider. And, Y/N, I don’t know what you’re doing with that Scourgify charm, but I’ve really found that clockwise scrubbing is better than anticlockwise. You should give the other direction a go–”

“They’re plates, Molly,” you interrupt. “I’m sure we’ll all be alright.”

Molly makes a face. “Well, no need to get snappy, dear. I’m just trying to help. Your way just isn’t as efficient, that’s all.”

See, it’s things like this that makes it so impossible. Molly is a master of the biting comment, the casual put-down. You’re not even sure if she does it intentionally, she’s just so good at making you feel like you’ll never be enough. Even when it comes to washing dishes, apparently, you’ll never meet her standards.

You turn back to the sink just in time to watch your control over the spell slip. The plate skids a little to the left under the force of your magical scrubbing, and breaks in half, the pieces dropping into the mess of bubbles.

Behind you, Molly clicks her tongue impatiently. “See, that’s just what I was talking about. No use.”

And just like that, you’ve had it. “Enough. Enough. I cannot take your comments any longer. Merlin, I’m not trying to be crazy about this, but I can’t help it! I feel like a– oh, what’s the word the Muggles use? A bride vampire?”

“Bridezilla?” Harry pipes in helpfully, before Hermione pinches in the side and he contorts in pain and a forced apology.

You point at him. “That. I don’t want to be that, but apparently that’s all I can do, right? I can only mess things up. That’s a wonderful omen for our marriage, right? Isn’t that why you were checking my birth star signs against Bill’s last night, Molly?”

Bill stares incredulously at his mother. “Mum,” he says, scandalized. “Tell me that isn’t true.”

Molly has the grace to look a little apologetic. “I just wanted to make sure it would all work out. There’s certainly been enough butting heads around here that it seemed a fair thing to make certain.”

You throw up your hands, anger replaced by a singular, burning need to be alone. “Forget it. It’s your show, isn’t it? I just happen to be in the wedding too, but it’s not like that matters. I can’t do anything well enough for you.”

Unable to resist the alluring call of the door anymore, you cross the room in a few strides, practically running out. You can hear Bill pleading with you, but it’s all too much– the stares from Harry and Hermione, the mess of decorations heaped on every surface, and Molly’s undeniable look of satisfaction as you leave, as if she’d called this from the very start. Like she’d always known better than you, and this was just one more proof of it.

The clean air of spring is a welcome balm against your skin after the bubbling heat of the kitchen. Your steps are brisk, carrying you far away from the mess in there. You head past the gardens, past the few irritable gnomes Arthur hadn’t yet managed to hide, aiming for the protective shade of the trees on the outskirts of the yard. 

Once you’re out of sight, you can finally let your shoulders drop. A few bitter tears creep down your cheeks before you can stop them. You’ll have to go back in there sometime, force out an apology and pretend as if no one knows just how useless you are, but maybe you can steal an hour or so before that awful moment comes.

All you want is to be alone, so the sound of footsteps hurrying towards you is just about the last thing you can stand. You start to conjure up an excuse, but the sight of Bill’s devastated face breaks you again.

“Y/N,” he says, and then you’re in his arms. “I didn’t know it was this bad, sweetheart, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have let her talk to you like that. I just about let her have it now, and I promise, she’ll never make you feel like that again.”

You cling to him. “I’m sorry, Bill. I was trying to be good, I just couldn’t–”

“No,” he interrupts, “you’re not the one who needs to be apologizing. It’s our wedding day, and I’ve let my mum come in between us. I can’t believe I didn’t catch it sooner, I knew you were upset, I just didn’t know why. I don’t want you to be stressed, sweetheart, I just want you to be my wife. If you want, we can elope right now and run away, never be seen again. I don’t need a big ceremony, I just want you. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

He presses a kiss to your cheek and you melt. “I just want you too, Bill. That’s why I’m here.”

Bill pulls away slightly so he can see your face, and his heart seems to break in two when he spots the tear tracks on your face. Carefully, he wipes them away with his thumb. “No one in the world gets to make you feel poorly about yourself, Y/N. I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again. My own mum. I mean, she’s always been a bit overbearing, but the last few weeks have been mental, even I noticed that.”

You laugh shakily. “No, I don’t want you to have to badmouth your mother just because of me.”

He grins. “It’s not badmouthing if it’s true. Trust me, I know. Why do you think I ran off to Egypt for so long? I needed space. I was sort of considering staying out there forever, but I’m certainly glad I came back. Meeting you was better than any adventure in the world.”

You smile, this time for real. “Sap.”

“It’s true,” he laughs. “I was smitten after the first meeting, I promised. Fred and George were merciless, they kept teasing me because I wouldn’t stop talking about you. Even Mum had a laugh or two at my expense.”

You snort. “Molly was in on it?” You find that hard to believe. Although she’s always polite, you’ve never gotten the feeling that Molly was your biggest supporter.

Bill’s eyes widen earnestly. “I swear. You were, like, the golden standard for any of my brother’s girlfriends. It drove Percy crazy back when he started dating Penelope Clearwater because Mum wouldn’t stop comparing her to you. Any time Percy said something about Penelope, Mum was always chiming in, asking if she had half the career achievements you did.”

You shake your head in disbelief. “Molly said that about me?”

Bill’s smile is soft. “You’ve always been her favorite. She was terrified I’d scare you off. I’ve never seen her more relieved than when I managed to pull off a successful proposal. I know you think she’s taking on all of this responsibility for me, but I don’t think you know how worried she is about making sure you like it. She’s asked me about a hundred times about your favorite flowers, your favorite colors, what foods you prefer, all of it. She just wants you to be happy, even if she came off a little stronger than she realized.”

“But all the comments,” you whisper. “She was always correcting what I was doing.”

“She does that with everyone,” Bill says, rolling his eyes. “Honestly, it just means you’re family, well and truly. Years ago, I even saw her try to tell Fred and George how to properly escape the notice of their Prefects, as if they hadn’t figured out their first week as first years.”

You laugh, and Bill noticeably relaxes. “See?” He says. “You’re alright, I promise. I’ve told Mum to think more carefully about how she talks to you, and I’ll make sure she does. You’re going to be my wife, Y/N. There isn’t a thing in this world I wouldn’t do to make sure you’re okay.”

You smile and lean forward to kiss him. “I know. I love you.”

“Love you too,” he says, and kisses you back.

requested by @chippedchina-teacup, i hope you enjoy!

harry potter tag list: @blondsauduun, @cameronsails, @neewtmas, @lovesanimals0000, @with-inked-solace, @sher-lokid7, @eclliipsed, @frenchgirlinlondon, @23victoria, @ilovexavierthrope, @faerieroyal

all tags list: @wordsarelife, @supervoldejaygent

[heliads]

Could you possibly write a Bill Weasley x reader oneshot where they are busy planning their wedding and Molly is inserting herself where she really shouldn’t (I adore her but I get the feeling she would probably get to be a bit much at times) and the burrow is complete chaos, as usual, and the reader has a panic attack over some small seemingly insignificant detail (washing dishes and breaks a plate in the sink type thing or can’t the icing to be the right texture or something) and snaps. Everyone in the burrow goes completely silent and she rushes out, still panicking but now feeling guilty about snapping as well and Bill follows her out and calms her down and makes sure she’s okay before they go back inside and Bill asks his mother to back off a bit and to let reader breath when Molly try’s to mother her the second she sees her and it all ends in fluff and Bill being an incredibly supportive fiancé to reader???

'Wedding Woes' - Bill Weasley

masterlist

You were pretty sure your wedding is supposed to be the happiest time of your life, but right now that feels like that farthest thing from the truth. You’re sure all of the nerves and panic will disappear the second you’re actually walking down the aisle, the moment you’re finally declared the wife of the man you love, but that feels a lifetime away. Instead of delighting yourself in the promise that you’re about to make to Bill Weasley, all you can feel is never ending stress.

It’s just– you had no idea how much work went into a wedding. You even asked Bill for a smaller ceremony, not wanting the hubbub of putting on a large affair to get in the way of your collective happiness, yet you still find yourself getting pulled under by a tidal wave of prep work.

To his credit, Bill has been wonderful. He was the one who had the idea to get married at the Burrow, to rent a large tent and dance under the stars for your reception. Every time you so much as furrow a brow, he’s by your side, talking you through the latest wrinkle in the plans. He never seems to get tired of it, of making sure you’re doing okay. Maybe it’s because he never gets tired of loving you.

After all, that’s why you’re doing this. The setup nightmares, the difficulties with the cake, the food, the guest list– none of that matters, not really. The most important part is that Bill asked you to marry him, and you said yes, and now you get to spend the rest of your lives together. 

You’ve been dreaming of this since the day you met him. You’d been visiting your friend Fleur at Gringotts when she insisted you meet one of her good friends, Bill. You’re not sure what you’d been expecting– some dry banker, maybe, but tolerable, Fleur always befriended the nice ones– but you certainly weren’t prepared when a Curse-Breaker walked in with long, coppery hair tied back from his face to reveal a fanglike earring in one ear. He wore leather. He was cool.

How you managed to keep your head in order during that first meeting, you have no idea. Maybe you didn’t, Fleur certainly teased you to no end about how dazzled you’d been for weeks afterwards. As it turned out, it wasn’t just you who’d been swept away, and the next time you picked up Fleur from work, Bill just so happened to be hanging around, and the two of you struck up a conversation that ended in him asking you out.

It had been perfect from that point forward. There was something about Bill that made you let down your guard. It felt like you had known him for a lifetime by the second date, and before long you knew everything about his family, including his litany of brothers, as well as Bill’s adventures as a Curse-Breaker. In turn, he listened to you, really listened to you, and whatever he heard, he loved. It was inevitable that you would fall in love. It was inevitable that it would lead to this.

Now you’re eight months engaged. In a few days, you’re going to be married, and no matter what happens after that, you’ll have Bill by your side. That means more than you could describe. The only problem is that making this wedding happen has become so difficult that you can’t help but drown in all this work.

You’ve got your friends here to help, Bill’s too, and his family, who you love like your own, but if you were being honest with yourself, you would admit that there’s one catalyst to your stress explosion, and that would be Bill’s mother, Molly Weasley. You’ve met Molly on numerous occasions, and she’s always been kind to you, if a bit overly attached to her son, but you can hardly blame her for that. Bill is her eldest, what mother wouldn’t want to know that he was doing alright?

What was once a protective spirit, however, seems to have strengthened considerably the closer you are to the date of the wedding. Molly has thrust herself into every conversation, every task, and now everyone seems to be asking Molly where she wants flowers or how to decorate the tent instead of you. You know, the one actually getting married.

It should be nice to have someone taking the burden of wedding prep off of your shoulders, but instead, you just feel silenced and inconsequential. Your own voice was drowned out a long time ago by the force of Molly’s storm of affection, and now you’re no better than a bystander. You can’t help but wonder if this is what it’s going to be like after you’re married, too, if you’ll always have Molly jumping in, visiting randomly, offering her advice on your career or Bill’s or anything else that crosses her mind.

Bill can tell that you’re stressed, but you can’t exactly tell him that his mother is the one causing most of your grief. Family is vital to Bill, and you won’t use your wedding as an excuse to get in the way of that. Only, as time wears on, and you find Molly more and more entrenched in what was supposed to be your special day with your husband, it’s harder and harder to turn the other cheek.

It all comes to a head one afternoon in the Burrow kitchen. More and more guests have been arriving, so now it’s not just a few assorted Weasley brothers tucked into various chairs around the small room but Hermione Granger and Harry Potter as well, earnestly telling Molly they love her cake recipe or dinner plans whenever she turns the force of her attention upon them.

You had snuck into the kitchen for a moment of peace, hoping that the guise of cleaning up the whirlwind of clutter would get everyone off of your back for a few moments, but Bill had gone to see where you’d disappeared, and then Molly, naturally, had followed, and now this small kitchen feels packed to the gills with people.

You’re standing by the kitchen, one hand gripping the counter like a lifeline while the other holds your wand, trying to put all of your focus on a cleaning spell for a few dirty dishes so you won’t have to listen to Molly’s latest monologue behind you. You’re trying to remind yourself that she means well, but as the minutes wear on and she seems no closer to wrapping up her critique of your idea for the order of bridesmaids and groomsmen down the aisle, it’s getting harder to remember just why you put up with all of this.

Eventually, you break, interrupting her mid stream of consciousness. “Actually, Molly, I’ve talked it over with Bill and we think we’re fine with the current arrangement. You know I’m always glad to hear your point of view, but I really think we’ve got everything settled there.”

Molly blinks at you, surprised. “But, dear, Ginny isn’t tall enough to be with her current pairing. It’ll look askew.”

You force a smile. It’s hard. “I think we’ll manage.”

Molly frowns, her eye catching on the cleaning spell behind you, which is picking up intensity the more you try to keep your calm. “I still think you should re-consider. And, Y/N, I don’t know what you’re doing with that Scourgify charm, but I’ve really found that clockwise scrubbing is better than anticlockwise. You should give the other direction a go–”

“They’re plates, Molly,” you interrupt. “I’m sure we’ll all be alright.”

Molly makes a face. “Well, no need to get snappy, dear. I’m just trying to help. Your way just isn’t as efficient, that’s all.”

See, it’s things like this that makes it so impossible. Molly is a master of the biting comment, the casual put-down. You’re not even sure if she does it intentionally, she’s just so good at making you feel like you’ll never be enough. Even when it comes to washing dishes, apparently, you’ll never meet her standards.

You turn back to the sink just in time to watch your control over the spell slip. The plate skids a little to the left under the force of your magical scrubbing, and breaks in half, the pieces dropping into the mess of bubbles.

Behind you, Molly clicks her tongue impatiently. “See, that’s just what I was talking about. No use.”

And just like that, you’ve had it. “Enough. Enough. I cannot take your comments any longer. Merlin, I’m not trying to be crazy about this, but I can’t help it! I feel like a– oh, what’s the word the Muggles use? A bride vampire?”

“Bridezilla?” Harry pipes in helpfully, before Hermione pinches in the side and he contorts in pain and a forced apology.

You point at him. “That. I don’t want to be that, but apparently that’s all I can do, right? I can only mess things up. That’s a wonderful omen for our marriage, right? Isn’t that why you were checking my birth star signs against Bill’s last night, Molly?”

Bill stares incredulously at his mother. “Mum,” he says, scandalized. “Tell me that isn’t true.”

Molly has the grace to look a little apologetic. “I just wanted to make sure it would all work out. There’s certainly been enough butting heads around here that it seemed a fair thing to make certain.”

You throw up your hands, anger replaced by a singular, burning need to be alone. “Forget it. It’s your show, isn’t it? I just happen to be in the wedding too, but it’s not like that matters. I can’t do anything well enough for you.”

Unable to resist the alluring call of the door anymore, you cross the room in a few strides, practically running out. You can hear Bill pleading with you, but it’s all too much– the stares from Harry and Hermione, the mess of decorations heaped on every surface, and Molly’s undeniable look of satisfaction as you leave, as if she’d called this from the very start. Like she’d always known better than you, and this was just one more proof of it.

The clean air of spring is a welcome balm against your skin after the bubbling heat of the kitchen. Your steps are brisk, carrying you far away from the mess in there. You head past the gardens, past the few irritable gnomes Arthur hadn’t yet managed to hide, aiming for the protective shade of the trees on the outskirts of the yard. 

Once you’re out of sight, you can finally let your shoulders drop. A few bitter tears creep down your cheeks before you can stop them. You’ll have to go back in there sometime, force out an apology and pretend as if no one knows just how useless you are, but maybe you can steal an hour or so before that awful moment comes.

All you want is to be alone, so the sound of footsteps hurrying towards you is just about the last thing you can stand. You start to conjure up an excuse, but the sight of Bill’s devastated face breaks you again.

“Y/N,” he says, and then you’re in his arms. “I didn’t know it was this bad, sweetheart, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have let her talk to you like that. I just about let her have it now, and I promise, she’ll never make you feel like that again.”

You cling to him. “I’m sorry, Bill. I was trying to be good, I just couldn’t–”

“No,” he interrupts, “you’re not the one who needs to be apologizing. It’s our wedding day, and I’ve let my mum come in between us. I can’t believe I didn’t catch it sooner, I knew you were upset, I just didn’t know why. I don’t want you to be stressed, sweetheart, I just want you to be my wife. If you want, we can elope right now and run away, never be seen again. I don’t need a big ceremony, I just want you. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

He presses a kiss to your cheek and you melt. “I just want you too, Bill. That’s why I’m here.”

Bill pulls away slightly so he can see your face, and his heart seems to break in two when he spots the tear tracks on your face. Carefully, he wipes them away with his thumb. “No one in the world gets to make you feel poorly about yourself, Y/N. I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again. My own mum. I mean, she’s always been a bit overbearing, but the last few weeks have been mental, even I noticed that.”

You laugh shakily. “No, I don’t want you to have to badmouth your mother just because of me.”

He grins. “It’s not badmouthing if it’s true. Trust me, I know. Why do you think I ran off to Egypt for so long? I needed space. I was sort of considering staying out there forever, but I’m certainly glad I came back. Meeting you was better than any adventure in the world.”

You smile, this time for real. “Sap.”

“It’s true,” he laughs. “I was smitten after the first meeting, I promised. Fred and George were merciless, they kept teasing me because I wouldn’t stop talking about you. Even Mum had a laugh or two at my expense.”

You snort. “Molly was in on it?” You find that hard to believe. Although she’s always polite, you’ve never gotten the feeling that Molly was your biggest supporter.

Bill’s eyes widen earnestly. “I swear. You were, like, the golden standard for any of my brother’s girlfriends. It drove Percy crazy back when he started dating Penelope Clearwater because Mum wouldn’t stop comparing her to you. Any time Percy said something about Penelope, Mum was always chiming in, asking if she had half the career achievements you did.”

You shake your head in disbelief. “Molly said that about me?”

Bill’s smile is soft. “You’ve always been her favorite. She was terrified I’d scare you off. I’ve never seen her more relieved than when I managed to pull off a successful proposal. I know you think she’s taking on all of this responsibility for me, but I don’t think you know how worried she is about making sure you like it. She’s asked me about a hundred times about your favorite flowers, your favorite colors, what foods you prefer, all of it. She just wants you to be happy, even if she came off a little stronger than she realized.”

“But all the comments,” you whisper. “She was always correcting what I was doing.”

“She does that with everyone,” Bill says, rolling his eyes. “Honestly, it just means you’re family, well and truly. Years ago, I even saw her try to tell Fred and George how to properly escape the notice of their Prefects, as if they hadn’t figured out their first week as first years.”

You laugh, and Bill noticeably relaxes. “See?” He says. “You’re alright, I promise. I’ve told Mum to think more carefully about how she talks to you, and I’ll make sure she does. You’re going to be my wife, Y/N. There isn’t a thing in this world I wouldn’t do to make sure you’re okay.”

You smile and lean forward to kiss him. “I know. I love you.”

“Love you too,” he says, and kisses you back.

requested by @chippedchina-teacup, i hope you enjoy!

harry potter tag list: @blondsauduun, @cameronsails, @neewtmas, @lovesanimals0000, @with-inked-solace, @sher-lokid7, @eclliipsed, @frenchgirlinlondon, @23victoria, @ilovexavierthrope, @faerieroyal

all tags list: @wordsarelife, @supervoldejaygent

[heliads]

Could you possibly write a Bill Weasley x reader oneshot where they are busy planning their wedding and Molly is inserting herself where she really shouldn’t (I adore her but I get the feeling she would probably get to be a bit much at times) and the burrow is complete chaos, as usual, and the reader has a panic attack over some small seemingly insignificant detail (washing dishes and breaks a plate in the sink type thing or can’t the icing to be the right texture or something) and snaps. Everyone in the burrow goes completely silent and she rushes out, still panicking but now feeling guilty about snapping as well and Bill follows her out and calms her down and makes sure she’s okay before they go back inside and Bill asks his mother to back off a bit and to let reader breath when Molly try’s to mother her the second she sees her and it all ends in fluff and Bill being an incredibly supportive fiancé to reader???

'Wedding Woes' - Bill Weasley

masterlist

You were pretty sure your wedding is supposed to be the happiest time of your life, but right now that feels like that farthest thing from the truth. You’re sure all of the nerves and panic will disappear the second you’re actually walking down the aisle, the moment you’re finally declared the wife of the man you love, but that feels a lifetime away. Instead of delighting yourself in the promise that you’re about to make to Bill Weasley, all you can feel is never ending stress.

It’s just– you had no idea how much work went into a wedding. You even asked Bill for a smaller ceremony, not wanting the hubbub of putting on a large affair to get in the way of your collective happiness, yet you still find yourself getting pulled under by a tidal wave of prep work.

To his credit, Bill has been wonderful. He was the one who had the idea to get married at the Burrow, to rent a large tent and dance under the stars for your reception. Every time you so much as furrow a brow, he’s by your side, talking you through the latest wrinkle in the plans. He never seems to get tired of it, of making sure you’re doing okay. Maybe it’s because he never gets tired of loving you.

After all, that’s why you’re doing this. The setup nightmares, the difficulties with the cake, the food, the guest list– none of that matters, not really. The most important part is that Bill asked you to marry him, and you said yes, and now you get to spend the rest of your lives together. 

You’ve been dreaming of this since the day you met him. You’d been visiting your friend Fleur at Gringotts when she insisted you meet one of her good friends, Bill. You’re not sure what you’d been expecting– some dry banker, maybe, but tolerable, Fleur always befriended the nice ones– but you certainly weren’t prepared when a Curse-Breaker walked in with long, coppery hair tied back from his face to reveal a fanglike earring in one ear. He wore leather. He was cool.

How you managed to keep your head in order during that first meeting, you have no idea. Maybe you didn’t, Fleur certainly teased you to no end about how dazzled you’d been for weeks afterwards. As it turned out, it wasn’t just you who’d been swept away, and the next time you picked up Fleur from work, Bill just so happened to be hanging around, and the two of you struck up a conversation that ended in him asking you out.

It had been perfect from that point forward. There was something about Bill that made you let down your guard. It felt like you had known him for a lifetime by the second date, and before long you knew everything about his family, including his litany of brothers, as well as Bill’s adventures as a Curse-Breaker. In turn, he listened to you, really listened to you, and whatever he heard, he loved. It was inevitable that you would fall in love. It was inevitable that it would lead to this.

Now you’re eight months engaged. In a few days, you’re going to be married, and no matter what happens after that, you’ll have Bill by your side. That means more than you could describe. The only problem is that making this wedding happen has become so difficult that you can’t help but drown in all this work.

You’ve got your friends here to help, Bill’s too, and his family, who you love like your own, but if you were being honest with yourself, you would admit that there’s one catalyst to your stress explosion, and that would be Bill’s mother, Molly Weasley. You’ve met Molly on numerous occasions, and she’s always been kind to you, if a bit overly attached to her son, but you can hardly blame her for that. Bill is her eldest, what mother wouldn’t want to know that he was doing alright?

What was once a protective spirit, however, seems to have strengthened considerably the closer you are to the date of the wedding. Molly has thrust herself into every conversation, every task, and now everyone seems to be asking Molly where she wants flowers or how to decorate the tent instead of you. You know, the one actually getting married.

It should be nice to have someone taking the burden of wedding prep off of your shoulders, but instead, you just feel silenced and inconsequential. Your own voice was drowned out a long time ago by the force of Molly’s storm of affection, and now you’re no better than a bystander. You can’t help but wonder if this is what it’s going to be like after you’re married, too, if you’ll always have Molly jumping in, visiting randomly, offering her advice on your career or Bill’s or anything else that crosses her mind.

Bill can tell that you’re stressed, but you can’t exactly tell him that his mother is the one causing most of your grief. Family is vital to Bill, and you won’t use your wedding as an excuse to get in the way of that. Only, as time wears on, and you find Molly more and more entrenched in what was supposed to be your special day with your husband, it’s harder and harder to turn the other cheek.

It all comes to a head one afternoon in the Burrow kitchen. More and more guests have been arriving, so now it’s not just a few assorted Weasley brothers tucked into various chairs around the small room but Hermione Granger and Harry Potter as well, earnestly telling Molly they love her cake recipe or dinner plans whenever she turns the force of her attention upon them.

You had snuck into the kitchen for a moment of peace, hoping that the guise of cleaning up the whirlwind of clutter would get everyone off of your back for a few moments, but Bill had gone to see where you’d disappeared, and then Molly, naturally, had followed, and now this small kitchen feels packed to the gills with people.

You’re standing by the kitchen, one hand gripping the counter like a lifeline while the other holds your wand, trying to put all of your focus on a cleaning spell for a few dirty dishes so you won’t have to listen to Molly’s latest monologue behind you. You’re trying to remind yourself that she means well, but as the minutes wear on and she seems no closer to wrapping up her critique of your idea for the order of bridesmaids and groomsmen down the aisle, it’s getting harder to remember just why you put up with all of this.

Eventually, you break, interrupting her mid stream of consciousness. “Actually, Molly, I’ve talked it over with Bill and we think we’re fine with the current arrangement. You know I’m always glad to hear your point of view, but I really think we’ve got everything settled there.”

Molly blinks at you, surprised. “But, dear, Ginny isn’t tall enough to be with her current pairing. It’ll look askew.”

You force a smile. It’s hard. “I think we’ll manage.”

Molly frowns, her eye catching on the cleaning spell behind you, which is picking up intensity the more you try to keep your calm. “I still think you should re-consider. And, Y/N, I don’t know what you’re doing with that Scourgify charm, but I’ve really found that clockwise scrubbing is better than anticlockwise. You should give the other direction a go–”

“They’re plates, Molly,” you interrupt. “I’m sure we’ll all be alright.”

Molly makes a face. “Well, no need to get snappy, dear. I’m just trying to help. Your way just isn’t as efficient, that’s all.”

See, it’s things like this that makes it so impossible. Molly is a master of the biting comment, the casual put-down. You’re not even sure if she does it intentionally, she’s just so good at making you feel like you’ll never be enough. Even when it comes to washing dishes, apparently, you’ll never meet her standards.

You turn back to the sink just in time to watch your control over the spell slip. The plate skids a little to the left under the force of your magical scrubbing, and breaks in half, the pieces dropping into the mess of bubbles.

Behind you, Molly clicks her tongue impatiently. “See, that’s just what I was talking about. No use.”

And just like that, you’ve had it. “Enough. Enough. I cannot take your comments any longer. Merlin, I’m not trying to be crazy about this, but I can’t help it! I feel like a– oh, what’s the word the Muggles use? A bride vampire?”

“Bridezilla?” Harry pipes in helpfully, before Hermione pinches in the side and he contorts in pain and a forced apology.

You point at him. “That. I don’t want to be that, but apparently that’s all I can do, right? I can only mess things up. That’s a wonderful omen for our marriage, right? Isn’t that why you were checking my birth star signs against Bill’s last night, Molly?”

Bill stares incredulously at his mother. “Mum,” he says, scandalized. “Tell me that isn’t true.”

Molly has the grace to look a little apologetic. “I just wanted to make sure it would all work out. There’s certainly been enough butting heads around here that it seemed a fair thing to make certain.”

You throw up your hands, anger replaced by a singular, burning need to be alone. “Forget it. It’s your show, isn’t it? I just happen to be in the wedding too, but it’s not like that matters. I can’t do anything well enough for you.”

Unable to resist the alluring call of the door anymore, you cross the room in a few strides, practically running out. You can hear Bill pleading with you, but it’s all too much– the stares from Harry and Hermione, the mess of decorations heaped on every surface, and Molly’s undeniable look of satisfaction as you leave, as if she’d called this from the very start. Like she’d always known better than you, and this was just one more proof of it.

The clean air of spring is a welcome balm against your skin after the bubbling heat of the kitchen. Your steps are brisk, carrying you far away from the mess in there. You head past the gardens, past the few irritable gnomes Arthur hadn’t yet managed to hide, aiming for the protective shade of the trees on the outskirts of the yard. 

Once you’re out of sight, you can finally let your shoulders drop. A few bitter tears creep down your cheeks before you can stop them. You’ll have to go back in there sometime, force out an apology and pretend as if no one knows just how useless you are, but maybe you can steal an hour or so before that awful moment comes.

All you want is to be alone, so the sound of footsteps hurrying towards you is just about the last thing you can stand. You start to conjure up an excuse, but the sight of Bill’s devastated face breaks you again.

“Y/N,” he says, and then you’re in his arms. “I didn’t know it was this bad, sweetheart, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have let her talk to you like that. I just about let her have it now, and I promise, she’ll never make you feel like that again.”

You cling to him. “I’m sorry, Bill. I was trying to be good, I just couldn’t–”

“No,” he interrupts, “you’re not the one who needs to be apologizing. It’s our wedding day, and I’ve let my mum come in between us. I can’t believe I didn’t catch it sooner, I knew you were upset, I just didn’t know why. I don’t want you to be stressed, sweetheart, I just want you to be my wife. If you want, we can elope right now and run away, never be seen again. I don’t need a big ceremony, I just want you. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

He presses a kiss to your cheek and you melt. “I just want you too, Bill. That’s why I’m here.”

Bill pulls away slightly so he can see your face, and his heart seems to break in two when he spots the tear tracks on your face. Carefully, he wipes them away with his thumb. “No one in the world gets to make you feel poorly about yourself, Y/N. I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again. My own mum. I mean, she’s always been a bit overbearing, but the last few weeks have been mental, even I noticed that.”

You laugh shakily. “No, I don’t want you to have to badmouth your mother just because of me.”

He grins. “It’s not badmouthing if it’s true. Trust me, I know. Why do you think I ran off to Egypt for so long? I needed space. I was sort of considering staying out there forever, but I’m certainly glad I came back. Meeting you was better than any adventure in the world.”

You smile, this time for real. “Sap.”

“It’s true,” he laughs. “I was smitten after the first meeting, I promised. Fred and George were merciless, they kept teasing me because I wouldn’t stop talking about you. Even Mum had a laugh or two at my expense.”

You snort. “Molly was in on it?” You find that hard to believe. Although she’s always polite, you’ve never gotten the feeling that Molly was your biggest supporter.

Bill’s eyes widen earnestly. “I swear. You were, like, the golden standard for any of my brother’s girlfriends. It drove Percy crazy back when he started dating Penelope Clearwater because Mum wouldn’t stop comparing her to you. Any time Percy said something about Penelope, Mum was always chiming in, asking if she had half the career achievements you did.”

You shake your head in disbelief. “Molly said that about me?”

Bill’s smile is soft. “You’ve always been her favorite. She was terrified I’d scare you off. I’ve never seen her more relieved than when I managed to pull off a successful proposal. I know you think she’s taking on all of this responsibility for me, but I don’t think you know how worried she is about making sure you like it. She’s asked me about a hundred times about your favorite flowers, your favorite colors, what foods you prefer, all of it. She just wants you to be happy, even if she came off a little stronger than she realized.”

“But all the comments,” you whisper. “She was always correcting what I was doing.”

“She does that with everyone,” Bill says, rolling his eyes. “Honestly, it just means you’re family, well and truly. Years ago, I even saw her try to tell Fred and George how to properly escape the notice of their Prefects, as if they hadn’t figured out their first week as first years.”

You laugh, and Bill noticeably relaxes. “See?” He says. “You’re alright, I promise. I’ve told Mum to think more carefully about how she talks to you, and I’ll make sure she does. You’re going to be my wife, Y/N. There isn’t a thing in this world I wouldn’t do to make sure you’re okay.”

You smile and lean forward to kiss him. “I know. I love you.”

“Love you too,” he says, and kisses you back.

requested by @chippedchina-teacup, i hope you enjoy!

harry potter tag list: @blondsauduun, @cameronsails, @neewtmas, @lovesanimals0000, @with-inked-solace, @sher-lokid7, @eclliipsed, @frenchgirlinlondon, @23victoria, @ilovexavierthrope, @faerieroyal

all tags list: @wordsarelife, @supervoldejaygent

[heliads]

Hellooou! :) I hope you’re doing well, I was hoping if you’d be willing to write this really angsty idea I had for newt

I just rewatched the whole TMR trilogy and thought about this

So for this fic maybe reader was there way way before Thomas came up the box, so she has known Newt for a long time and they are both very close, maybe he looked out for us in the glade or something teehee 🤭

My idea is, reader is the one captured by WCKD instead of Minho, so like the movie, they go and save the immunes, but ofc, Newt is super cranky (pun intended), and when they go and get the serum, we are left with him, he tells us to take the necklace with the note inside (in this fic he writes it to us instead of Thomas)

N then, newt, in his deathbed confessed his love to us, so now we're even more crazy about saving him, because ofc we are so in love with this blonde British boy, and maybe when they finally get to reader and newt he’s basically dead at this point (idk how to work around the whole him trying to kill us thing haha) we still try injecting him and saving him, and the rest are like, gurl leave him he's already dead or something, so we are all leave without me I can't leave him alone 😭, and they are just like: don’t be a stupid b let’s go, and ultimately leave him there convinced his dead fr.

Now in the safe haven, we are all weepy and sad because of Newt, we even carved his name in the rock of the safe haven, we are really depressed (level we haven't eaten for days or a thing like that) because of his death.

And all of a sudden one day, reader sees Newt in the safe haven (maybe he did come alive because of the serum and found his way to the safe haven???) and reader being convinced it's just an illusion because WCKD messed with her head so much, but once she sees it's really him, instead of being like: omg love you're alive happy ever after 😝😜🤪😛, she's furious, she crashes out to Newt, and newt is like, what the bloody hell did I do?

He's so confused because we are mad at him, we start constantly ignoring him all over the safe haven for days, (because we are scared to get attached to him again because he's constantly putting himself at risk, we're scared to lose him again, we also feel as if he left us because he didn't tell anybody about his flare once it was too late, and we feel like we are still grieving him even though he's literally right there, basically a bunch of emotions...)

So him, being fed up of us ignoring him for DAYSSSS, confronts us (literally crash out) and we argue¿ idk

And from here you can take the lead, like, i maybe think after that argument we confess how we feel and then make up or something. Or maybe it can end angsty also.

If you don’t wanna write this because it’s super long or it’s just a stupid ahh idea just ignore it, I love love everything you write, specially for tmr boysss, take care cutie 😚

Alone Without You - Newt

masterlist

For the first time in a very long time, you feel alone.

You shouldn’t. There are still bodies around you, the faces of people just as scared as you are. For once, though, you have no idea who they are. The details of your capture are a dizzy haze of screaming and gunfire, but the end result is clear. You’re in the captivity of WCKD, which is certainly the last place you’d ever want to be. The right thing to do is to start talking to the other prisoners, figure out their stories and names and if anyone has a way to get out. It’s just, well– the last time you were surrounded by strangers, you were back in the Glade, and that was a lifetime ago.

You were one of the first Gladers to come up in the Box, so you’d had plenty of time to get used to the unfathomable discovery that you were stranded with no memories and no idea how to escape. Back then, there had only been a few of you, and most of those are gone now, too. George died a long time ago, and Alby– God, Alby– 

It’s easier to think about the friends you still have. Minho had been one of the first friends you made, and even if Gally was a little thickheaded at times he was still dependable, but there’s one name that surges to your mind more than any other, and that’s Newt.

After all, Newt was the one who really mattered, anyway. Newt was the one who made sure the other boys didn’t give you too much trouble for being the latest Greenie in a quickly growing string of new arrivals. Newt was the one who insisted that you try out all the jobs in the Glade so you could be sure that you settled into a position you actually liked. He was the one who comforted you when you felt sick for not remembering anything about your past life, the first one to cheer when you discovered your name, who saved you a space next to him at every Bonfire Night and laughed with you at every one of Gally’s ill-fated opponents in the ring. All of the Gladers had been your family, but Newt was more than that. It felt like he always had been.

Thanks to WCKD, your memories are gone, so your entire life has orbited around Newt. He has quite literally always been there for you. You suppose that’s why you feel so lost now that you’re away from him. It had all happened so fast, the quiet night in the Scorch suddenly shattered by the descent of the WCKD ships, how you’d attacked the guards so the other Gladers would have time to get away. You can still picture the look of horror in Newt’s eyes when they dragged you onto that ship, but even when you were in the belly of the beast, a fierce sense of joy still curled in your stomach when you knew that he had gotten away.

Now you’re in the depths of one of their holding cells, surrounded by a new group of confused test subjects. It feels like awful deja vu, but these kids aren’t your Gladers and they never will be. Even if they’re looking just as terrified and confused as you did when you first came up in the Box. If Newt were here, he would have started befriending them already, would have looked out the window and tried to find a way out. Newt would have stayed calm, but Newt was always better at this than you, anyway. Even as his shadow, you could never quite match his natural knack for leadership.

Still, you owe it to him to try. You grit your teeth and stand, forcing yourself into the center of the captive teenagers. “Listen, everybody. I know you’re nervous to be back in WCKD central, and trust me, so am I, but we have to stay calm. If we keep our heads in order, we can work together, maybe find a way out of here.”

One of the kids near you scoffs. “Yeah, right. You think WCKD can’t keep a bunch of kids in place?”

You fold your arms across your chest. “They already failed at that once, right? I mean, that’s why we’re all here. They messed up the first time and they’re going to do it again. They underestimate us because they don’t know what we’re capable of, but I do. I know we can get out of here.”

Some of the prisoners are starting to nod along. Encouraged, you keep going. “Come on, guys. We’ve survived this far despite everything else. You’re telling me we can’t get past one locked door? After everything, this is it?”

It takes a bit more convincing, but at last, you’re able to rally most of them to check for loose vents, assess the room for possible exits, and grab anything they can for use as weapons. It’s not much, but it’s all you can do. Better to waste your time looking for a magic escape that doesn’t exist than sit around waiting to die.

The cautious atmosphere of hope is quickly shattered when footsteps start to echo in the hall outside the door. The other kids start to bunch together, waiting for the inevitable. The lock chimes, opening the door to reveal three guards in WKCD gear. Your eyes widen. You’d hoped you’d have a little more time, but they must have been waiting for your arrival for a while. Why waste time when they could cut you open immediately?

You wait for them to start barking orders, but strangely enough, one starts reaching for his mask instead of a gun. The black metal clicks open, and all of a sudden you’re not scared at all anymore, because you’re not staring at the cold visage of a WCKD guard but the face you wanted to see most of all. It’s Newt, your Newt.

In a moment, you’re moving towards him, unable to contain your delight. Strangely enough, his expression had been angry when he took off the mask, lips curled in barely disguised irritation, but it’s wiped from his face the second he sees you, and then he’s happy again, holding out his arms to pull you close to him.

“Missed you,” he mumbles against your temple. “You had me scared, you know that? Don’t ever do that again. Like you were trying to get captured.”

You laugh weakly. “I just wanted to make sure you were safe.”

“Not worth it,” he says. “Couldn’t think straight for days, Y/N. All I could think of is what would happen if I was too late. What would I do then, huh?”

You gently pull away from his embrace just enough to look him in the eyes. The pain in his gaze– it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before. You thought you were going mad trying to live without him for the first time, but Newt looks even worse off than you. Out of the corner of your eye, you notice that the other two guards have pulled their masks off to reveal themselves as Thomas and Minho. They’re exchanging worried looks at Newt when they think you can’t see. A cold feeling starts to descend in your stomach, the sense that something has gone wrong.

Still, it can’t be too bad. Newt is here. You’re fine so long as he’s here. “You weren’t too late, Newt. I’m fine. Now, how about we get out of here, and you can tell me off for being stupid afterwards?”

He chuckles, but it’s forced. “I can manage that.”

He lets you step away long enough to tell the other teenagers in WCKD’s cell that they’re going to be alright so long as they stay with your friends, then head back out into the corridors. Thomas and Minho, ever the runners, lead the way, you right after them. Newt stays close, no matter what, like he’s scared you’ll disappear if he lets you slip away again.

As expected, escaping the WCKD facility is not easy, far from it. As if it weren’t a big enough shock to see Gally again, who appears long enough to guide the other Immune prisoners to safety, you’re stopped by Janson, who chases you like a man possessed. You’re able to lose him in the nick of time by jumping through a window into a pool of water far below. For a moment, you’re weightless, falling through the dark night, and time seems to stand still. Explosions bloom around the city, upside down flowers of fire and ash. Neon lights trail incomprehensible messages in the broken windows of the nearby buildings, and you fall, and fall.

The water is cold, and shocks you like a knife through the ribs. It stuns you, and for several long moments you forget what you’re meant to be doing at all until you start choking on water and force yourself to swim up towards the surface. Thomas finds you and guides you towards the edge of the water. You look around for the others, movements growing more frantic until you spot Newt and Minho several yards away.

At first, you think they’re hugging, until you clear the water from your eyes and look closer. No, it’s not just the embrace of two friends glad they didn’t die, it’s something else, something worse. In fact, it looks like Minho is holding Newt back. Newt is angry, more than you’ve ever seen him. He’s shouting something unintelligible, and his entire body twists as he tries to get away from Minho and dive back into the water. As he flails, veins stand out against his forehead, his throat, but they’re awful looking, dark like ink, and when the chill of the water finally leaves your mind, you remember where you’ve seen someone who looked like that before, and the last of your hope drains away.

You turn to Thomas, who’s watching the same scene with heavy, quiet eyes. “Thomas,” you say quietly, haltingly, “How long has Newt been Infected?”

Thomas looks over at you, and if you had been praying to be wrong, your pleas are not answered. “I’m not sure,” Thomas says hoarsely. “I was hoping– I thought he was Immune. Like the rest of us.”

“But he isn’t,” you whisper.

Thomas shakes his head. You feel like sobbing. To come this far– to lose everything, your home so many of your friends, and now this– it’s just not fair. Nothing has been fair, not here, not with WCKD, but this feels like too much. You had accepted the loss of your memories, the destruction of the world first with your escape from the Maze and then the desolation of the Scorch, hell, you’d even managed to accept the risk of Cranks so long as you were with your friends, but this you cannot handle. You could keep running from danger for the rest of your life just so long as you had Newt, that’s the way it had always been, but you realize now that you won’t ever have him again. Newt is no longer Newt. What you saw when he rescued you was the last clarity you’d ever get from him. All that’s left is the disease.

You let out a sob, and the sound makes Newt’s head snap up. When he sees you, he relaxes at once, hanging motionless in Minho’s arms. Unable to stop yourself, you walk over to them. Newt stares up at you through virus-darkened eyes. Thomas taps your shoulder, says something about trying to find a cure, and then he and Minho take off into the night, sprinting as if their lives depend on it. They’re gone in moments, and then you’re with the boy who used to be Newt.

He pushes himself up into a sitting position, and claws for something at his neck. You lean back slightly, afraid he’s going to hurt himself, but then you see the light of the explosions flash off of something metallic, something he presses into your hands.

“Open it,” he chokes out. “Later. When it’s– when it’s safe.”

You nod, pressing the silver keepsake into your pocket. You can’t seem to take your eyes off of him.

Newt tries to say something else, but he dissolves into a coughing fit, leaving drops of dark blood on the asphalt around you. “I– I have to–”

You grasp at his hands. “Save your strength, Newt. They’re going to get the cure, it’s going to be alright. You’re going to be fine.”

He lets out a hacking sound that might be a laugh. “I’m sure. Y/N, I have to tell you– after everything–”

“It can wait,” you plead. “I’ve known you all my life, Newt. Don’t you leave me now.”

“All our lives,” he hums, the sound off-tune. “You were the best of all of them, you know. All the Gladers. All of them.”

Your throat feels raw, but you haven’t screamed yet. “You were my favorite too, Newt. By a long shot. My best friend.”

He frowns sharply at that, his torn lips a harsh slash on his face. “I liked being friends. Your friend. But I– I wanted more. I wanted you.”

The night seems to stretch on forever, utterly silent except for you and Newt and the awful pounding in your chest. Newt’s fingers curl around yours. “I love you, Y/N. I love you. I loved you the whole time.”

Your head feels funny. Maybe it’s the tears that have started to course down your cheeks. You don’t remember when you decided to cry, but you can’t seem to stop. Frustrating, that. You can’t control anything, not even this.

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” You say. All those months, that wasted opportunity.

He manages to grin. “Scared, I guess. Maybe you didn’t want–”

“I did,” you break in hastily. “I did, Newt. I love you, too. I love you.”

Movement up ahead startles you, and you jerk your head up, scared WCKD will be descending again, but it’s just Thomas and Minho, thank everything.

You let out a gasp of relief and call over to them. “The cure, do you have it? Hurry!”

For some reason, though, they’re not speeding up. In fact, they’re slowing down, looking at you with twin expressions of grief. You can’t understand why they chose now of all times to stop moving, and you scream at them to get the cure over here, damn it.

Thomas reaches you at last, but he still won’t give you the cure. “Y/N–” He says, but can’t continue.

“The cure,” you snap at him. “Come on, we don’t have much time.”

Minho’s eyes look empty. “It’s too late, Y/N.”

You don’t understand what he’s talking about. Newt isn’t in the best shape, obviously, but he was just speaking to you a moment ago, so it’s clearly fine. You look back to Newt to show Minho what you mean, but for some reason, Newt is lying perfectly still. Conserving energy, maybe. His eyes stare up at you, open and glassy, his lips parted with the ghost of his last words.

“No,” you say, unable to understand what you’re seeing. “No, he’s alright. He was fine just a few moments ago.”

You squeeze Newt’s hand, but he doesn’t respond. “Newt,” you say, and your cheeks feel wet again, a drop splashing onto Newt’s motionless chest. “Newt, you have to get up now. We have the cure. It’s okay.”

But he doesn’t move. Thomas is crying, kneeling on the ground next to you. Minho looks like he’s anywhere but here, not able to comprehend the moment he’s living in, the body at his feet.

You spot the cure in Thomas’ hand and grab it before he can stop you, uncapping the needle and injecting it into Newt’s arm. Too late, Thomas tries to grab the cure back, but you’ve already delivered the drug. Newt doesn’t move immediately, but that’s okay, maybe it just takes a little while for the medicine to take hold. Just in case, you inject him again, on a different vein, until they grab the cure away from you. A sudden wind is blowing, fierce and strong. When you look up, you realize that an aircraft is descending overhead, the exit ramp down. You can make out the faces of your friends, but they feel distant, practically a world away.

Thomas and Minho try to guide you onto the aircraft, but you fight when you realize they want you to leave Newt. “We have to bring him,” you cry. “He’s going to be alright, you’ll see. We just have to let the cure work. We can’t leave him. He’s our friend, we can’t leave him!”

You try to wriggle out of their grasp and back to Newt, but it’s two against one, and you can hardly think for crying. You blink and you’re in the aircraft, staring down at the city. Someone is standing next to you, offering you a blanket, asking if you’re okay. It’s such a ridiculously stupid question that you start to laugh, and then you can’t stop. She gives you something, you think, because you’re so tired you can hardly stand up. Black starts to swirl in at the edges of your vision. Just before it takes you over, you notice a bag zipped shut near the door about the size of someone your age. You start to stumble towards it, but your eyes insist on shutting and then you can’t think about anything at all.

When you wake up again, it’s warm out. The sun is shining. You’re almost certain you died, but a doctor comes in some time later to assure you that you haven’t, that you’ve been brought somewhere called the Safe Haven and you’re going to be alright. You know for a fact that nothing about you could ever be considered alright, but you just nod and say polite things until the doctor leaves. It’s easier being alone. You don’t have to think about the right words to say. You don’t have to listen to everyone talking about how wonderful it is to be alive.

You sleep a lot, and when you dream, you dream of the past. Half are memories, half aren’t. You can’t really tell which is which until you wake up, at which point you’re so devastated to be awake that you try to go back to sleep again immediately. You dream of Newt, laughing with you in the Glade, trying Gally’s awful brew around a fire, sneaking off to talk during breaks, crossing the Scorch with you. Dying in your arms. Telling you he loves you, too late and too quickly.

The painkillers the doctors gave you wear off soon enough, and then you can’t spend as much time sleeping anymore, which you despise. People have been into your hut a few times, asking if you want to come out and be with the others, but you answer them with enough vitriol that they stop asking. That’s good. You don’t want to see any of them, laughing and smiling as if the whole world didn’t end when you left that city. 

You take to walking around the Safe Haven early at dawn and late at night, when you’re certain that you won’t run into anyone else. You discover that this so-called paradise is an island in the middle of nowhere, somewhere WCKD or Cranks won’t ever find you. The grass is green. The water is blue. It doesn’t feel real in the slightest.

There’s a stone in the middle of camp they’ve been using as a memorial to those who died. You  steal a knife from somewhere and carve Newt’s name into it, right at the top, because if you can’t bring him with you, you can at least bring his name, his memory. You keep the knife. You keep the memories. You keep the necklace he gave you, the one with the note tucked inside telling you he was infected and that he loved you, two things you learned too late. It makes him sound doomed, and it burns against your skin when you wear it.

One morning, you’re wrapping up your walk around the island. You’d stayed out longer than you usually do, entranced by a field of wildflowers somewhere far from camp. People are starting to emerge from their tents and huts, beginning work for the day. You can see Minho eating breakfast with the others, he always was an early riser, even in this home that isn’t yours, and Brenda’s talking with Jorge about some plan to expand the camp. Conversation bubbles up to you, and you look around at the gathered residents of the Safe Haven. Most of them are scarred in ways no one can comprehend, but they’re starting to put the pieces back together, starting to feel human again. It’ll take a long time, but they just might be able to make it work.

And then– in the corner of your eye, a flash of blond hair. You stare, but what you see is impossible. You must be mad, because you swear you see Newt emerging from a hut, hand up to shade his face just like he did as a Track-Hoe. He takes a few steps forward, and then he seems to feel your gaze on him and he looks up at you.

Your breath catches in your throat. It can’t be. It’s impossible. You must be seeing things. You turn and swiftly disappear into the woods, hurtling past glades and groves until no one can find you. You curl up at the base of a tall maple, breath hard in your throat, and stay there until you manage to calm down again. Newt isn’t here, he died on that street and you know it, even if you couldn’t believe it for the longest time. Maybe you finally are going mad.

For the next few days, you keep your head down. If you hear a familiar laugh, you run for the hills, or lose yourself in the crowds. One time, you swear you feel a hand on your arm, and you shake it loose and disappear, staying outside overnight to avoid having to return home. You should talk to the doctors about changing your meds, something is obviously wrong with you. You avoid Thomas and Minho, even though they keep trying to talk to you about something, certain they’ll pick up on the fact that you’re clearly going crazy.

And then, the next day, you can’t run any longer. You take your usual morning walk and someone is waiting for you under your favorite cedar. He folds his arms teasingly and says, “You’re a really hard person to find, you know.”

You stare. It looks like him, but it can’t be. “You’re dead,” you say emptily. This isn’t real. It can’t be. You’ll blink and he’ll be gone again, vanished like dust.

Stubbornly, he stays. “Not at the moment,” Newt says pleasantly. “Although I think I was for a bit. Certainly felt like it.”

You shake your head and walk on. You’re hoping this is the sort of thing you can outrun, but this illusion of Newt follows you. “It’s me, Y/N. Honest.”

He reaches out and grabs your arm to stop you. You stare uncomprehendingly at the fingers wrapped around your forearm. They feel real, which is impossible. It couldn’t be. Could it?

“How is that possible?” You ask haltingly. “I saw your body, Newt. You weren’t moving.”

Newt shrugs. “Your guess is as good as mine. I thought the Flare killed me, but the doctors think you got the cure to me just in the nick of time. I was totally unconscious for a while, it took me a while to wake up. Even then I didn’t know what was going on. You think you’re confused, imagine waking up in a body bag.”

He chuckles, eyes wide with the memory, then continues. “One of the doctors here found me. Nearly had a heart attack, poor chap. They lay me down somewhere out of the way with an IV drip. I wasn’t able to even sit up until a few days ago, it took everything in me to walk. The first thing I tried to do was find you, Y/N, I promise, but no one said they’d seen you. I even tried to get Minho or Thomas to send word but they said you were avoiding them, which was fair. Everything’s different now.”

That’s the understatement of the century. You can’t seem to stop staring, terrified you’ll find some clue that this is all a dream after all and he’ll go back to being a figment of your imagination. “You were dead,” you repeat tonelessly. “You were dead, and you told me you loved me.”

Newt winces. “Right, that. Bad timing?”

All of a sudden, you feel something for the first time since you got to the Safe Haven, and that something is anger, hot and deep. “Bad timing? Newt, I’ve known you for years. You could have told me at any point. When we got out of the Maze, maybe. That would be special. Or while we were still happy in the Glade. Or in the Scorch. But no, you waited until you were on death’s door to whisper that little fact in my ear. What if you hadn’t come back, Newt? What if I’d had to go my whole life knowing I could have been with you but never was? How was I supposed to live with that? How was I supposed to forgive myself for losing you?”

Your voice rises with every sentence until you’re practically shouting at him. Newt’s eyes widen, but to his credit, he doesn’t back down. Instead, he waits until you’ve said your piece, then surges forward and hugs you. For a moment, you’re perfectly still, a person of glass about to shatter, and then you melt into him and it’s just like every other day before. How long have you known him? How long has he been keeping you safe, keeping you happy? How long have you been his?

“I was selfish,” Newt mumbles against your hair. “I wanted you to know but I was nervous you wouldn’t feel the same way. Then I was too selfish to die without ever saying anything. But we don’t have to worry about the what-ifs anymore, right? We’re both here. We’re safe.” Safe. You can’t honestly remember the last time you were free from harm for more than a few hours. Maybe you never have been since your memories were stolen. Maybe you’ve never been safe at all. When Newt holds you close, when you can feel your breathing synchronise and the last of your worries ebb away, it finally occurs to you that you are going to be alright. That hole in your chest isn’t empty anymore. You have Newt. You could do anything.

tmr tag list: @blondsauduun, @ellobruv, @retvenkos, @neewtmas, @mayfieldss, @jvst4ever, @gods-fools-heroes, @pjxcksonswrd, @23victoria, @w1shes43, @imwaysthelastchoice, @fadedver, @il0vebeingdelulu

all tags list: @wordsarelife, @supervoldejaygent

[heliads]

Hellooou! :) I hope you’re doing well, I was hoping if you’d be willing to write this really angsty idea I had for newt

I just rewatched the whole TMR trilogy and thought about this

So for this fic maybe reader was there way way before Thomas came up the box, so she has known Newt for a long time and they are both very close, maybe he looked out for us in the glade or something teehee 🤭

My idea is, reader is the one captured by WCKD instead of Minho, so like the movie, they go and save the immunes, but ofc, Newt is super cranky (pun intended), and when they go and get the serum, we are left with him, he tells us to take the necklace with the note inside (in this fic he writes it to us instead of Thomas)

N then, newt, in his deathbed confessed his love to us, so now we're even more crazy about saving him, because ofc we are so in love with this blonde British boy, and maybe when they finally get to reader and newt he’s basically dead at this point (idk how to work around the whole him trying to kill us thing haha) we still try injecting him and saving him, and the rest are like, gurl leave him he's already dead or something, so we are all leave without me I can't leave him alone 😭, and they are just like: don’t be a stupid b let’s go, and ultimately leave him there convinced his dead fr.

Now in the safe haven, we are all weepy and sad because of Newt, we even carved his name in the rock of the safe haven, we are really depressed (level we haven't eaten for days or a thing like that) because of his death.

And all of a sudden one day, reader sees Newt in the safe haven (maybe he did come alive because of the serum and found his way to the safe haven???) and reader being convinced it's just an illusion because WCKD messed with her head so much, but once she sees it's really him, instead of being like: omg love you're alive happy ever after 😝😜🤪😛, she's furious, she crashes out to Newt, and newt is like, what the bloody hell did I do?

He's so confused because we are mad at him, we start constantly ignoring him all over the safe haven for days, (because we are scared to get attached to him again because he's constantly putting himself at risk, we're scared to lose him again, we also feel as if he left us because he didn't tell anybody about his flare once it was too late, and we feel like we are still grieving him even though he's literally right there, basically a bunch of emotions...)

So him, being fed up of us ignoring him for DAYSSSS, confronts us (literally crash out) and we argue¿ idk

And from here you can take the lead, like, i maybe think after that argument we confess how we feel and then make up or something. Or maybe it can end angsty also.

If you don’t wanna write this because it’s super long or it’s just a stupid ahh idea just ignore it, I love love everything you write, specially for tmr boysss, take care cutie 😚

Alone Without You - Newt

masterlist

For the first time in a very long time, you feel alone.

You shouldn’t. There are still bodies around you, the faces of people just as scared as you are. For once, though, you have no idea who they are. The details of your capture are a dizzy haze of screaming and gunfire, but the end result is clear. You’re in the captivity of WCKD, which is certainly the last place you’d ever want to be. The right thing to do is to start talking to the other prisoners, figure out their stories and names and if anyone has a way to get out. It’s just, well– the last time you were surrounded by strangers, you were back in the Glade, and that was a lifetime ago.

You were one of the first Gladers to come up in the Box, so you’d had plenty of time to get used to the unfathomable discovery that you were stranded with no memories and no idea how to escape. Back then, there had only been a few of you, and most of those are gone now, too. George died a long time ago, and Alby– God, Alby– 

It’s easier to think about the friends you still have. Minho had been one of the first friends you made, and even if Gally was a little thickheaded at times he was still dependable, but there’s one name that surges to your mind more than any other, and that’s Newt.

After all, Newt was the one who really mattered, anyway. Newt was the one who made sure the other boys didn’t give you too much trouble for being the latest Greenie in a quickly growing string of new arrivals. Newt was the one who insisted that you try out all the jobs in the Glade so you could be sure that you settled into a position you actually liked. He was the one who comforted you when you felt sick for not remembering anything about your past life, the first one to cheer when you discovered your name, who saved you a space next to him at every Bonfire Night and laughed with you at every one of Gally’s ill-fated opponents in the ring. All of the Gladers had been your family, but Newt was more than that. It felt like he always had been.

Thanks to WCKD, your memories are gone, so your entire life has orbited around Newt. He has quite literally always been there for you. You suppose that’s why you feel so lost now that you’re away from him. It had all happened so fast, the quiet night in the Scorch suddenly shattered by the descent of the WCKD ships, how you’d attacked the guards so the other Gladers would have time to get away. You can still picture the look of horror in Newt’s eyes when they dragged you onto that ship, but even when you were in the belly of the beast, a fierce sense of joy still curled in your stomach when you knew that he had gotten away.

Now you’re in the depths of one of their holding cells, surrounded by a new group of confused test subjects. It feels like awful deja vu, but these kids aren’t your Gladers and they never will be. Even if they’re looking just as terrified and confused as you did when you first came up in the Box. If Newt were here, he would have started befriending them already, would have looked out the window and tried to find a way out. Newt would have stayed calm, but Newt was always better at this than you, anyway. Even as his shadow, you could never quite match his natural knack for leadership.

Still, you owe it to him to try. You grit your teeth and stand, forcing yourself into the center of the captive teenagers. “Listen, everybody. I know you’re nervous to be back in WCKD central, and trust me, so am I, but we have to stay calm. If we keep our heads in order, we can work together, maybe find a way out of here.”

One of the kids near you scoffs. “Yeah, right. You think WCKD can’t keep a bunch of kids in place?”

You fold your arms across your chest. “They already failed at that once, right? I mean, that’s why we’re all here. They messed up the first time and they’re going to do it again. They underestimate us because they don’t know what we’re capable of, but I do. I know we can get out of here.”

Some of the prisoners are starting to nod along. Encouraged, you keep going. “Come on, guys. We’ve survived this far despite everything else. You’re telling me we can’t get past one locked door? After everything, this is it?”

It takes a bit more convincing, but at last, you’re able to rally most of them to check for loose vents, assess the room for possible exits, and grab anything they can for use as weapons. It’s not much, but it’s all you can do. Better to waste your time looking for a magic escape that doesn’t exist than sit around waiting to die.

The cautious atmosphere of hope is quickly shattered when footsteps start to echo in the hall outside the door. The other kids start to bunch together, waiting for the inevitable. The lock chimes, opening the door to reveal three guards in WKCD gear. Your eyes widen. You’d hoped you’d have a little more time, but they must have been waiting for your arrival for a while. Why waste time when they could cut you open immediately?

You wait for them to start barking orders, but strangely enough, one starts reaching for his mask instead of a gun. The black metal clicks open, and all of a sudden you’re not scared at all anymore, because you’re not staring at the cold visage of a WCKD guard but the face you wanted to see most of all. It’s Newt, your Newt.

In a moment, you’re moving towards him, unable to contain your delight. Strangely enough, his expression had been angry when he took off the mask, lips curled in barely disguised irritation, but it’s wiped from his face the second he sees you, and then he’s happy again, holding out his arms to pull you close to him.

“Missed you,” he mumbles against your temple. “You had me scared, you know that? Don’t ever do that again. Like you were trying to get captured.”

You laugh weakly. “I just wanted to make sure you were safe.”

“Not worth it,” he says. “Couldn’t think straight for days, Y/N. All I could think of is what would happen if I was too late. What would I do then, huh?”

You gently pull away from his embrace just enough to look him in the eyes. The pain in his gaze– it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before. You thought you were going mad trying to live without him for the first time, but Newt looks even worse off than you. Out of the corner of your eye, you notice that the other two guards have pulled their masks off to reveal themselves as Thomas and Minho. They’re exchanging worried looks at Newt when they think you can’t see. A cold feeling starts to descend in your stomach, the sense that something has gone wrong.

Still, it can’t be too bad. Newt is here. You’re fine so long as he’s here. “You weren’t too late, Newt. I’m fine. Now, how about we get out of here, and you can tell me off for being stupid afterwards?”

He chuckles, but it’s forced. “I can manage that.”

He lets you step away long enough to tell the other teenagers in WCKD’s cell that they’re going to be alright so long as they stay with your friends, then head back out into the corridors. Thomas and Minho, ever the runners, lead the way, you right after them. Newt stays close, no matter what, like he’s scared you’ll disappear if he lets you slip away again.

As expected, escaping the WCKD facility is not easy, far from it. As if it weren’t a big enough shock to see Gally again, who appears long enough to guide the other Immune prisoners to safety, you’re stopped by Janson, who chases you like a man possessed. You’re able to lose him in the nick of time by jumping through a window into a pool of water far below. For a moment, you’re weightless, falling through the dark night, and time seems to stand still. Explosions bloom around the city, upside down flowers of fire and ash. Neon lights trail incomprehensible messages in the broken windows of the nearby buildings, and you fall, and fall.

The water is cold, and shocks you like a knife through the ribs. It stuns you, and for several long moments you forget what you’re meant to be doing at all until you start choking on water and force yourself to swim up towards the surface. Thomas finds you and guides you towards the edge of the water. You look around for the others, movements growing more frantic until you spot Newt and Minho several yards away.

At first, you think they’re hugging, until you clear the water from your eyes and look closer. No, it’s not just the embrace of two friends glad they didn’t die, it’s something else, something worse. In fact, it looks like Minho is holding Newt back. Newt is angry, more than you’ve ever seen him. He’s shouting something unintelligible, and his entire body twists as he tries to get away from Minho and dive back into the water. As he flails, veins stand out against his forehead, his throat, but they’re awful looking, dark like ink, and when the chill of the water finally leaves your mind, you remember where you’ve seen someone who looked like that before, and the last of your hope drains away.

You turn to Thomas, who’s watching the same scene with heavy, quiet eyes. “Thomas,” you say quietly, haltingly, “How long has Newt been Infected?”

Thomas looks over at you, and if you had been praying to be wrong, your pleas are not answered. “I’m not sure,” Thomas says hoarsely. “I was hoping– I thought he was Immune. Like the rest of us.”

“But he isn’t,” you whisper.

Thomas shakes his head. You feel like sobbing. To come this far– to lose everything, your home so many of your friends, and now this– it’s just not fair. Nothing has been fair, not here, not with WCKD, but this feels like too much. You had accepted the loss of your memories, the destruction of the world first with your escape from the Maze and then the desolation of the Scorch, hell, you’d even managed to accept the risk of Cranks so long as you were with your friends, but this you cannot handle. You could keep running from danger for the rest of your life just so long as you had Newt, that’s the way it had always been, but you realize now that you won’t ever have him again. Newt is no longer Newt. What you saw when he rescued you was the last clarity you’d ever get from him. All that’s left is the disease.

You let out a sob, and the sound makes Newt’s head snap up. When he sees you, he relaxes at once, hanging motionless in Minho’s arms. Unable to stop yourself, you walk over to them. Newt stares up at you through virus-darkened eyes. Thomas taps your shoulder, says something about trying to find a cure, and then he and Minho take off into the night, sprinting as if their lives depend on it. They’re gone in moments, and then you’re with the boy who used to be Newt.

He pushes himself up into a sitting position, and claws for something at his neck. You lean back slightly, afraid he’s going to hurt himself, but then you see the light of the explosions flash off of something metallic, something he presses into your hands.

“Open it,” he chokes out. “Later. When it’s– when it’s safe.”

You nod, pressing the silver keepsake into your pocket. You can’t seem to take your eyes off of him.

Newt tries to say something else, but he dissolves into a coughing fit, leaving drops of dark blood on the asphalt around you. “I– I have to–”

You grasp at his hands. “Save your strength, Newt. They’re going to get the cure, it’s going to be alright. You’re going to be fine.”

He lets out a hacking sound that might be a laugh. “I’m sure. Y/N, I have to tell you– after everything–”

“It can wait,” you plead. “I’ve known you all my life, Newt. Don’t you leave me now.”

“All our lives,” he hums, the sound off-tune. “You were the best of all of them, you know. All the Gladers. All of them.”

Your throat feels raw, but you haven’t screamed yet. “You were my favorite too, Newt. By a long shot. My best friend.”

He frowns sharply at that, his torn lips a harsh slash on his face. “I liked being friends. Your friend. But I– I wanted more. I wanted you.”

The night seems to stretch on forever, utterly silent except for you and Newt and the awful pounding in your chest. Newt’s fingers curl around yours. “I love you, Y/N. I love you. I loved you the whole time.”

Your head feels funny. Maybe it’s the tears that have started to course down your cheeks. You don’t remember when you decided to cry, but you can’t seem to stop. Frustrating, that. You can’t control anything, not even this.

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” You say. All those months, that wasted opportunity.

He manages to grin. “Scared, I guess. Maybe you didn’t want–”

“I did,” you break in hastily. “I did, Newt. I love you, too. I love you.”

Movement up ahead startles you, and you jerk your head up, scared WCKD will be descending again, but it’s just Thomas and Minho, thank everything.

You let out a gasp of relief and call over to them. “The cure, do you have it? Hurry!”

For some reason, though, they’re not speeding up. In fact, they’re slowing down, looking at you with twin expressions of grief. You can’t understand why they chose now of all times to stop moving, and you scream at them to get the cure over here, damn it.

Thomas reaches you at last, but he still won’t give you the cure. “Y/N–” He says, but can’t continue.

“The cure,” you snap at him. “Come on, we don’t have much time.”

Minho’s eyes look empty. “It’s too late, Y/N.”

You don’t understand what he’s talking about. Newt isn’t in the best shape, obviously, but he was just speaking to you a moment ago, so it’s clearly fine. You look back to Newt to show Minho what you mean, but for some reason, Newt is lying perfectly still. Conserving energy, maybe. His eyes stare up at you, open and glassy, his lips parted with the ghost of his last words.

“No,” you say, unable to understand what you’re seeing. “No, he’s alright. He was fine just a few moments ago.”

You squeeze Newt’s hand, but he doesn’t respond. “Newt,” you say, and your cheeks feel wet again, a drop splashing onto Newt’s motionless chest. “Newt, you have to get up now. We have the cure. It’s okay.”

But he doesn’t move. Thomas is crying, kneeling on the ground next to you. Minho looks like he’s anywhere but here, not able to comprehend the moment he’s living in, the body at his feet.

You spot the cure in Thomas’ hand and grab it before he can stop you, uncapping the needle and injecting it into Newt’s arm. Too late, Thomas tries to grab the cure back, but you’ve already delivered the drug. Newt doesn’t move immediately, but that’s okay, maybe it just takes a little while for the medicine to take hold. Just in case, you inject him again, on a different vein, until they grab the cure away from you. A sudden wind is blowing, fierce and strong. When you look up, you realize that an aircraft is descending overhead, the exit ramp down. You can make out the faces of your friends, but they feel distant, practically a world away.

Thomas and Minho try to guide you onto the aircraft, but you fight when you realize they want you to leave Newt. “We have to bring him,” you cry. “He’s going to be alright, you’ll see. We just have to let the cure work. We can’t leave him. He’s our friend, we can’t leave him!”

You try to wriggle out of their grasp and back to Newt, but it’s two against one, and you can hardly think for crying. You blink and you’re in the aircraft, staring down at the city. Someone is standing next to you, offering you a blanket, asking if you’re okay. It’s such a ridiculously stupid question that you start to laugh, and then you can’t stop. She gives you something, you think, because you’re so tired you can hardly stand up. Black starts to swirl in at the edges of your vision. Just before it takes you over, you notice a bag zipped shut near the door about the size of someone your age. You start to stumble towards it, but your eyes insist on shutting and then you can’t think about anything at all.

When you wake up again, it’s warm out. The sun is shining. You’re almost certain you died, but a doctor comes in some time later to assure you that you haven’t, that you’ve been brought somewhere called the Safe Haven and you’re going to be alright. You know for a fact that nothing about you could ever be considered alright, but you just nod and say polite things until the doctor leaves. It’s easier being alone. You don’t have to think about the right words to say. You don’t have to listen to everyone talking about how wonderful it is to be alive.

You sleep a lot, and when you dream, you dream of the past. Half are memories, half aren’t. You can’t really tell which is which until you wake up, at which point you’re so devastated to be awake that you try to go back to sleep again immediately. You dream of Newt, laughing with you in the Glade, trying Gally’s awful brew around a fire, sneaking off to talk during breaks, crossing the Scorch with you. Dying in your arms. Telling you he loves you, too late and too quickly.

The painkillers the doctors gave you wear off soon enough, and then you can’t spend as much time sleeping anymore, which you despise. People have been into your hut a few times, asking if you want to come out and be with the others, but you answer them with enough vitriol that they stop asking. That’s good. You don’t want to see any of them, laughing and smiling as if the whole world didn’t end when you left that city. 

You take to walking around the Safe Haven early at dawn and late at night, when you’re certain that you won’t run into anyone else. You discover that this so-called paradise is an island in the middle of nowhere, somewhere WCKD or Cranks won’t ever find you. The grass is green. The water is blue. It doesn’t feel real in the slightest.

There’s a stone in the middle of camp they’ve been using as a memorial to those who died. You  steal a knife from somewhere and carve Newt’s name into it, right at the top, because if you can’t bring him with you, you can at least bring his name, his memory. You keep the knife. You keep the memories. You keep the necklace he gave you, the one with the note tucked inside telling you he was infected and that he loved you, two things you learned too late. It makes him sound doomed, and it burns against your skin when you wear it.

One morning, you’re wrapping up your walk around the island. You’d stayed out longer than you usually do, entranced by a field of wildflowers somewhere far from camp. People are starting to emerge from their tents and huts, beginning work for the day. You can see Minho eating breakfast with the others, he always was an early riser, even in this home that isn’t yours, and Brenda’s talking with Jorge about some plan to expand the camp. Conversation bubbles up to you, and you look around at the gathered residents of the Safe Haven. Most of them are scarred in ways no one can comprehend, but they’re starting to put the pieces back together, starting to feel human again. It’ll take a long time, but they just might be able to make it work.

And then– in the corner of your eye, a flash of blond hair. You stare, but what you see is impossible. You must be mad, because you swear you see Newt emerging from a hut, hand up to shade his face just like he did as a Track-Hoe. He takes a few steps forward, and then he seems to feel your gaze on him and he looks up at you.

Your breath catches in your throat. It can’t be. It’s impossible. You must be seeing things. You turn and swiftly disappear into the woods, hurtling past glades and groves until no one can find you. You curl up at the base of a tall maple, breath hard in your throat, and stay there until you manage to calm down again. Newt isn’t here, he died on that street and you know it, even if you couldn’t believe it for the longest time. Maybe you finally are going mad.

For the next few days, you keep your head down. If you hear a familiar laugh, you run for the hills, or lose yourself in the crowds. One time, you swear you feel a hand on your arm, and you shake it loose and disappear, staying outside overnight to avoid having to return home. You should talk to the doctors about changing your meds, something is obviously wrong with you. You avoid Thomas and Minho, even though they keep trying to talk to you about something, certain they’ll pick up on the fact that you’re clearly going crazy.

And then, the next day, you can’t run any longer. You take your usual morning walk and someone is waiting for you under your favorite cedar. He folds his arms teasingly and says, “You’re a really hard person to find, you know.”

You stare. It looks like him, but it can’t be. “You’re dead,” you say emptily. This isn’t real. It can’t be. You’ll blink and he’ll be gone again, vanished like dust.

Stubbornly, he stays. “Not at the moment,” Newt says pleasantly. “Although I think I was for a bit. Certainly felt like it.”

You shake your head and walk on. You’re hoping this is the sort of thing you can outrun, but this illusion of Newt follows you. “It’s me, Y/N. Honest.”

He reaches out and grabs your arm to stop you. You stare uncomprehendingly at the fingers wrapped around your forearm. They feel real, which is impossible. It couldn’t be. Could it?

“How is that possible?” You ask haltingly. “I saw your body, Newt. You weren’t moving.”

Newt shrugs. “Your guess is as good as mine. I thought the Flare killed me, but the doctors think you got the cure to me just in the nick of time. I was totally unconscious for a while, it took me a while to wake up. Even then I didn’t know what was going on. You think you’re confused, imagine waking up in a body bag.”

He chuckles, eyes wide with the memory, then continues. “One of the doctors here found me. Nearly had a heart attack, poor chap. They lay me down somewhere out of the way with an IV drip. I wasn’t able to even sit up until a few days ago, it took everything in me to walk. The first thing I tried to do was find you, Y/N, I promise, but no one said they’d seen you. I even tried to get Minho or Thomas to send word but they said you were avoiding them, which was fair. Everything’s different now.”

That’s the understatement of the century. You can’t seem to stop staring, terrified you’ll find some clue that this is all a dream after all and he’ll go back to being a figment of your imagination. “You were dead,” you repeat tonelessly. “You were dead, and you told me you loved me.”

Newt winces. “Right, that. Bad timing?”

All of a sudden, you feel something for the first time since you got to the Safe Haven, and that something is anger, hot and deep. “Bad timing? Newt, I’ve known you for years. You could have told me at any point. When we got out of the Maze, maybe. That would be special. Or while we were still happy in the Glade. Or in the Scorch. But no, you waited until you were on death’s door to whisper that little fact in my ear. What if you hadn’t come back, Newt? What if I’d had to go my whole life knowing I could have been with you but never was? How was I supposed to live with that? How was I supposed to forgive myself for losing you?”

Your voice rises with every sentence until you’re practically shouting at him. Newt’s eyes widen, but to his credit, he doesn’t back down. Instead, he waits until you’ve said your piece, then surges forward and hugs you. For a moment, you’re perfectly still, a person of glass about to shatter, and then you melt into him and it’s just like every other day before. How long have you known him? How long has he been keeping you safe, keeping you happy? How long have you been his?

“I was selfish,” Newt mumbles against your hair. “I wanted you to know but I was nervous you wouldn’t feel the same way. Then I was too selfish to die without ever saying anything. But we don’t have to worry about the what-ifs anymore, right? We’re both here. We’re safe.” Safe. You can’t honestly remember the last time you were free from harm for more than a few hours. Maybe you never have been since your memories were stolen. Maybe you’ve never been safe at all. When Newt holds you close, when you can feel your breathing synchronise and the last of your worries ebb away, it finally occurs to you that you are going to be alright. That hole in your chest isn’t empty anymore. You have Newt. You could do anything.

tmr tag list: @blondsauduun, @ellobruv, @retvenkos, @neewtmas, @mayfieldss, @jvst4ever, @gods-fools-heroes, @pjxcksonswrd, @23victoria, @w1shes43, @imwaysthelastchoice, @fadedver, @il0vebeingdelulu

all tags list: @wordsarelife, @supervoldejaygent