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[samsaurwrites]

Captivate (Aymeric x Reader x Estinien) - Chapter 2

You don’t know what tales the conspirators in Ul’Dah are spinning. What prices they’ve posted for your head. You don’t know if they’re hunting you—if they’re gaining on you. You don’t know how many they are or how long you can keep going. All you know is that you are alone. Horribly and unspeakably alone.

After the death of the Sultana of Ul'Dah, you seek out sanctuary in Ishgard, in the Lord Commander of the Temple Knights. But Aymeric de Borel hides a dark secret, one that will bring you to your knees.

Tags: Heavensward Expansion, Cannon Adjacent, Mentioned Scions of the Seventh Dawn, Obsessive Aymeric de Borel, Dark Aymeric de Borel, Kidnapping, Emotional Manipulation, Rape/Non-con Elements, Extremely Dubious Consent, Explicit Sexual Content (eventually) , Stockholm Syndrome, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Other Additional Tags to be Added

Read here or on AO3.

Chapters: 1 | 2

They leave you in that wretched darkness for days.

Days.

Days you see and speak to no one. Days you waste away in your own filth.

Days your stomach cramps and growls and shrivels up in your belly; days when the chains feel so heavy around your wrists that you don’t bother lifting them, don’t even try yanking on them anymore.

Days where you don’t try at all.

Days you spend floating somewhere between wake and sleep, seeing phantom horrors that manifest in the dark—disfigured creatures, with hunched backs and long, bony arms that creep in the corners; eyes, staring from you from the mortar in the walls, cold and leering and primal; a ringing in your ears that sounds like whispers.

Like—they’ve forgotten you.

Like—they’re never coming back.

Then, when your lips are so chapped you can’t get rid of the taste of blood; when your stomach is howling so loudly you think your skull may split in two, Estinien returns. The noise, the sudden opening and closing of the door, startles you; the clank of his armor, his boots on the cold stone floor startles you.

You bolt upright. Chains rattling. Barely fighting back a wave of dizziness, of nausea.

The torch he slots into the wall nearly blinds you; straining your eyes, filling them with tears that trickle and burn. You shrink away, shrink into yourself because looking at it, looking at him—it hurts.

He walks closer, approaching you slowly, the way you would a wounded animal, and only then do you notice what he carries. Instead of his lance, a small bucket and ladle. Sloshing. Filled to the brim.

Water.

You swallow thickly, shifting onto your knees, fingers twitching into fists.

Want it, want it, want it—

He sits on the edge of the bed. Beckons you closer.

“Here,” he says, voice rough and low and like velvet against your ears because it’s the only thing you’ve heard besides your own breathing, your own muffled crying in what feels like an eternity. He ladles out a scoop of water. “Drink.”

You do. Scooting as close to him as you dare. Slowly, he brings the ladle to your lips. Tilts it towards you, and cool water flows into your mouth. Once you start drinking, you can’t stop. Drinking frantically. Sloppily. Gulping it down as quickly as you can, as quickly as he’ll refill the ladle and let you drink again.

Your fingers wrap tentatively around his wrists. Squeezing tighter when he doesn’t pull away. Water rolls down your chin, your neck. You drink and drink, clinging to him, drinking until there’s nothing left. Until your panting, shoulders heaving up and down and up and down, breath ragged in your throat.

Then, he starts to stand and—panic.

“Wait,” you croak, voice hoarse from neglect and disuse. “Estinien, please—”

You try to hold him. To grab him and keep him there.

But you’re so weak.

He pries your fingers from his wrist with ease. Retreats from your reach before you can make another grab at him—too weak, too weary, too slow.

You watch him. Dread weighing down on your shoulders, squeezing your chest tighter and tighter and tighter. Your fingers fist in the soiled sheets. You’re breathing fast. Too fast, and it makes you dizzy. Makes you woozy.

Makes you sick.

“P-Please,” you beg. You don’t even realize you’re crying until tears fall from your cheeks onto the backs of your hands. “Please don’t—”

Please don’t leave me here.

The door slams shut, plunging you back into darkness, and you can’t smother the broken wail that crawls out of your throat. The sobs that wrack your shoulders. You scream and cry until you can’t anymore. Until your voice has shriveled up into nothing, leaving you empty, empty, empty.

Please don’t leave me here.

You rock back and forth, arms wrapped around your knees. Dig your fingernails into your skin and pray to Hydaelyn, to anyone who will listen, to help you. To save you. To free you.

To kill you.

You fall asleep to the imagined sounds of claws scraping against stone. 

~

A day later, Estinien comes back. No lance, but no bucket and ladle either.

You don’t bother sitting up. Just shut your eyes against the blinding brightness he brings.

The water had made it worse. Made you acutely aware of how thirsty you were, how dry your throat felt. How much your mouth tasted like dirt and dust and blood. Made you weaker. Listless.

“Come with me,” he says, crossing the room in long, brusque strides. “You’re filthy.”

He kneels down next to you, and only then do you pry open your eyes. Only then do you watch blankly as he unbolts your chains from the wall and takes them in hand.

“Up,” is all he says before he’s pulling you, stumbling, from the bed.

Standing, being upright, after so many days confined to a bed feels wrong. Your legs tremble and shake, unused now to supporting your weight, and your knees threaten to buckle. Your arms hang limply in front of you, held together by the manacles encircling your wrists, by Estinien’s iron grip.

“Do not fight me,” he warns lowly, before releasing your chains and drawing a long strip of cloth from his belt.

For the briefest instant, you imagine it. Imagine what would happen if you drove your shoulder into his stomach. What would happen if you managed to catch him off guard long enough to bolt out the door. You wonder how far you would make it before he caught you. Before he cornered you in a dead-end hallway. Before you ran into someone or something worse.

But you’re tired. So, so tired.

Instead of fighting, instead of running—instead of trying—you let him tie the cloth over your eyes, let him blind you. You cling to your bonds, breath heavy in your lungs, fingers wrapping around the chains, the only thing anchoring you to reality, to him. And then he pulls, tugging you towards the door.

The stone is cold against your bare feet, causing involuntary shivers to race up and down your spine. The clanking of chains is the only sound between you as he drags you forward, sightless, and you start to wonder why he hasn’t gagged or silenced you. Then, you realize, with a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach.

That you must be somewhere where it doesn’t matter how much or how loudly you scream.

Because there must be no one around to hear you.

No one around to help you.

You choke on your next breath.

Estinien leads you onwards, and you quickly lose track. It slips from your memory like sand through your fingers. You can’t remember how steps you’ve taken, how many corridors you’ve turned down, how many lefts or rights you made; can’t remember what order you made them in either. Too tired to focus on anything other than putting one foot in front of the other, struggling to keep up with his long strides.

Eventually, he stops, and you hear a door open in front of you.

Warmth billows out from it, washing over you, dewing on your skin, and you shiver.

A gentle tug on your chains is all it, and you follow him into the room.

Steam wraps around you like a blanket, heating your skin, your fingers and toes. The gentle scent of lavender, of vanilla and oil and soap, invades your senses, and you inhale deeply, sinking down in it, drowning in it.

Hands—not gauntlets or gloves—but warm, calloused hands lift your own, raising them in front of your chest, palms up, like an offering. You don’t recoil, don’t flinch, not like you should. You savor it, the contact, the presence of another being, of something other than the monsters that dwell in the corners of your prison.

You hate that you do.

Then, you hear a soft clanking, feel keys brush across you palms while he undoes your manacles. Removes them from your wrist and—and you feel like you can breathe again.

“Take this off,” he murmurs, voice flat, fingering at the sleeve of your sleeping dress.

Your shoulders tense, breath turning to ice in your lungs. Shake your head. Lower lip trembling, heart pounding—THUD THUD THUD THUD. Eyebrows pulling together, tears burning behind your closed eyes. You cradle your wrists against your chest. Take a half-step backwards.

He catches your arm, and you yelp.

“To bathe,” he bites out, and you can hear the scowl on his face.

A pause. One stuttering heartbeat. Another.

Still trembling, still leaking tears, you nod once. Again, when you still can’t find it in you to move. Then, you’re grabbing the skirt of your dress and pulling it up, up, up. Over your head. Leaving you naked, shivering, as goosebumps break out along your skin.

He takes your hand and leads you forward, guiding you towards the sweet smell, into a deep tub filled with heated water. He helps you slide down into it, placing your hand on the porcelain rim. And—

It’s bliss.

“Estinien,” you start, breathier than you mean for it to be, fingers prodding at the bottom edge of the blindfold, just barely slipping underneath—

But he stops you. Fingers wrapping around your wrist, pulling your hand away from your face.

“Leave it,” he says, then guides your hand down to a washcloth, to a small glass bottle arranged on top of a small table next to the tub. “Use these to clean yourself.”

He stands again, and your head follows the sound, chin tilting up.

“Leave it on,” he says again, and slowly, you nod. “I’ll return soon.”

You hear him leave. Hear the door shut and click. And then, you’re alone.

But it doesn’t feel like it.

You feel watched. Feel eyes roaming down the length of your neck, across your shoulders, sliding down over your spine, over every inch of exposed skin. You sink down deeper into the water, until the water touches your chin.

Your breath comes out fast. In short, ragged puffs that just barely disturb the surface of the water. Despite the heat of the water, despite the way it wraps around you and seeks to soothe the ache in your muscles, in your bones, you still feel cold.

You shiver and quake and don’t dare think about why you haven’t ripped off the blindfold.

Why you haven’t dared to stand up.

Why you haven’t snatched your soiled dress and yanked open the door and run yet.

Trembling, you reach for the washcloth, patting around blindly for it until your fingers brush soft fabric. You take the bottle. Uncork it and pour sweet smelling soap into the cloth, rubbing it between your palms until it warms and suds.

You drag it along your body. Over your arms and legs, hissing when the cloth catches against the scabs that still litter your skin. You scrub at your shoulders, at your hips, rubbing at the dirt and blood and filth that’s caked there. Rub and rub and rub until your skin feels raw.

You discard the cloth, leave it hanging over the side of the tub. Slowly, you lean backwards, dipping your head into the water, back arching, breasts just barely breaching the surface of the water. You let the heat and the wet soak into your hair, your scalp. Lowly, almost without realizing it, you hum.

Gods, how you’ve missed bathing.

Sitting up, you reach again for the soap. Pour it into your hands and lather it into your scalp, working your fingertips around in gentle circles, scrubbing at the oil and the sweat. Again, you lean back. Hold your breath and submerge yourself completely. Try to rinse the suds out from your hair, as best you can, before resurfacing. Before sitting up. Before the water starts to seep from the blindfold, from your hair, to roll down your skin in tiny rivulets.

The silence stings. In the empty expanse of the bathroom, your breath seems to echo. To reverberate and bounce and ring in your ears. You pull your knees up to your chest, wrapping your arms around them. Curling in on yourself because you still feel eyes on you.

Still feel like you’re being watched, like you’re not alone.

“H-Hello?” you whisper, to the silence, to the steam.

You swear you hear an answer, an exhale—a laugh. Your head jerks towards the sound, breath catching in your throat. You almost rip off the blindfold. Almost shatter the bottle on the tub and wield it, jagged and broken, like a weapon. Almost stand, almost fight, almost run.

Almost.

Fear keeps you still. Rigid. Keeps you quiet.

You don’t dare whisper again.

Instead, you wait, shoulders tensed, fingernails digging into your legs. Wait for Estinien to return. Wait for the eyes to come closer. Wait for the breath to whisper across the back of your neck, to float past your ears. Wait so long the water around you grows still, grows tepid, then cool. Shivers wrack you. Tremors shaking you from head to toe, but still you do not stand. Still you do nothing, do not even dare to adjust the blindfold that has gone frigid against your skin.

Then, the door clicks open, and you nearly shriek.

Your head whips towards the sound. Towards the footsteps that approach you.

“Estinien?” you croak, releasing your hold on your knees in favor of the edge of the tub.

“Aye,” he answers. He pulls you up onto your feet, fingers firm around your wrists. Helping you climb out of the tub. Keeping you steady when you sway, when you nearly move your balance. He pushes a towel into your trembling fingers. “Dry yourself.”

You do. Wringing out your hair, wiping away the droplets that cling to your skin.

“Here,” he says, and hands you another dress, a soft, wispy feeling thing that you pull over your head immediately. You feel your breath even out; feel the unease ebb, feel your bones settling back into place; feel less of the burning gaze roving over your body, dampened by the gauzy fabric obscuring your skin.

Fingers touch the edge of your blindfold—and then you recoil. Then you jerk your head away; then the back of your thighs bump the edge of the bath, clattering into the side table. Sending the bottle crashing to the ground. Shattering. Tiny glass shards skittering across the tiles.

The sound is deafening.

You catch yourself. Barely. One hand behind you, braces on the opposite side, the other clasped tight in Estinien’s punishing grasp. He curses and yanks you forward, towards him, so that you sit upright on the edge of the bath.

“I told you not to fight me,” he snaps, tearing off the blindfold. Throwing it to the floor. And for a moment—you glimpse him. A flash of silver hair, of high cheekbones and a strong nose. Eyes the color of slate, of shadow and fog and smoke; eyes outlined with dark, heavy circles.

Then, another cloth is being drawn over your eyes. Cinched tight behind your head with no regard for the hair that pulls and twists within the knot. You wince, but say nothing, focusing on the nettling sting in your scalp instead of the shame that twists and squirms in your belly.

Without warning, Estinien scoops you up into his arms, and you bite back a yelp; arms shooting around his neck, clinging to him as he carries you over shards of broken glass that pop and crunch underneath his boots. 

You hear the door open. Hear it swing shut behind you. Hear the sounds of Estinien’s footsteps echoing in the halls as he carries you back through the winding maze of cold, unfeeling stone.

You don’t hear Aymeric rise to his feet, standing from the chair sitting in the far corner of the bathroom. Don’t see the smile that still lingers on his lips as he takes in the scattered glass, the soiled dress, the sopping blindfold. You don’t see the dark satisfaction that ripples behind his eyes, don’t see the desire that smolders and burns there. You hadn’t fought, hadn’t run. You had listened.

Had obeyed.

~

When your feet once again touch the cold stones, somehow, you know that you’re back. Back in your prison, in your cell. Back to darkness and filth and hunger and thirst. Back to madness. To clawing and crying and begging for an end that won’t come.

Helpless.

You can’t stop the whimper that bubbles up from your throat, strangled and wet and desperate.

“Please,” you whisper, hardly even audible.

Estinien holds you still, hands firm. Unwavering. Slowly, he binds your wrists together, wrapping them in cold bands of iron that burn against your skin. You hear chains. A cacophonous sound that makes you dizzy. Makes sick. You feel the weight of them as he attaches them to your manacles. Gently.

Carefully, he unties the blindfold. Softly, he removes the cloth from your eyes.

Careful, gentle, soft, slow—

“Please,” you beg again, louder this time, voice laced with panic, with fear. Tears sting in the corners of your eyes, in your nose. Breath speeding—uneven—sharp, jagged, like glass skittering across the floor. “Let… Let me go, please. I… I—”

He merely watches. Doesn’t say a word as you clutch at him.

“Tell him I escaped,” you breathe, clutching at him. Trembling. “T-Tell him… Tell him Hydaelyn saved me. O-Or that the Scions did. Tell him… Anything—just… just please—” your voice breaks into two. “—I can’t take it anymore.”

Silence. Then, “you must.”

Thanks for reading!! You can check out my other writing here.

[samsaurwrites]

haha, it's the ✨bath scenes✨ for me ✌🏻

i didn't even realize it was happening until it had happened like four times...

Do you ever sit and think about that, like, one niche thing you sprinkle into every fic you write.

A repeated theme, outfit, obscure knowledge, off the wall detail etc etc like a signature or calling card? Do you do it at all?

[samsaurwrites]

Captivate (Aymeric x Reader x Estinien) - Chapter 1

You don’t know what tales the conspirators in Ul’Dah are spinning. What prices they’ve posted for your head. You don’t know if they’re hunting you—if they’re gaining on you. You don’t know how many they are or how long you can keep going. All you know is that you are alone. Horribly and unspeakably alone.

After the death of the Sultana of Ul'Dah, you seek out sanctuary in Ishgard, in the Lord Commander of the Temple Knights. But Aymeric de Borel hides a dark secret, one that will bring you to your knees.

Tags: Heavensward Expansion, Cannon Adjacent, Mentioned Scions of the Seventh Dawn, Obsessive Aymeric de Borel, Dark Aymeric de Borel, Kidnapping, Emotional Manipulation, Rape/Non-con Elements, Extremely Dubious Consent, Explicit Sexual Content (eventually) , Stockholm Syndrome, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Other Additional Tags to be Added

Read here or on AO3.

Getting out of Ul’Dah had been easy.

The bodies of the Scions, of your friends, had made sure of that.

Yda and Papalymo were the first to die. Urging you onward with a confidence, a bravado you nearly believed. With flashing eyes and brilliant smiles, they reassured you—

We’ll catch up.

Yda and Papalymo—slaughtered like cattle, skin and muscle rent through by savage, unrelenting steel. Cut down in front of each other, drowned in their own blood, their own screams.

Y’shtola and Thancred were next. Bones splintered, snapping—ground to dust by stone and mortar. Y’shtola and Thancred, suffocated beneath a mountain of rubble, beneath the tunnel brought down by their own hands.

We’ll catch up.

Minfilia was the last; clutching at your hands, stumbling, bleeding, begging you to find the others. To save the Scions. To run as fast, as far as you could.

Because you are their last hope. Their only hope.

But your hope only carries you so far. Fear and desperation and dread only carry you so far.

You don’t know what happened to Alphinaud. You don’t know what happened to Cid or Urianger or Tataru or anyone else back in The Rising Stones.

You don’t know what tales the conspirators in Ul’Dah are spinning. What prices they’ve posted for your head. You don’t know if they’re hunting you—if they’re gaining on you. You don’t know how many they are or how long you can keep going.

All you know is that you are alone.

Horribly and unspeakably alone.

It takes you days to stumble from Ul’Dah to Mor Dhona to Coerthas. Days you hardly sleep, hardly eat. Days you spend looking over your shoulder; days you spend listening out for the wolves that nip at your heels.

It’s slow, arduous, traveling by foot. You blister and bruise and burn, but you cannot risk using the aetheryte cores to speed your journey for fear of who might await you on the other side. So you cling to the wilds, to the shadows and the crags until you arrive in Mor Dhona.

Part of you—your weak, fragile hope—splinters when you see the Crystal Braves swarming the city. Part of you fractures when you manage to sneak into the city only for Haurchefant to send you away once again.

To send you to Ishgard.

Your pace slows after leaving Mor Dhona. Dwindles to little more than a crawl as you ascend the mountains of Ishgard, starving, freezing—cracking, splitting, crumbling.

You’re their last hope, their last hope—

You’ve lost hope.

You drag yourself up to the city gates, just after dark. Barely conscious. Mind spinning out of control—drowning in the fear, the dread, the pain you’ve shoved down, down, down. Your legs give out, and you crumple under the weight of your armor, your exhaustion.

“State your business, outsider!” a guard shouts, voice gruff. Angry. But you can barely hear him. Weak. Shivering. Gasping for air. He steps forward, spear pointed down at you. “Who are you?!”

“Aymeric—” you choke out, on hands and knees, head hanging low. Panting. Head throbbing. Tears sting and burn and your voice breaks in two. “Please, I-I need… I need to see Ser Aymeric—”

Your vision swims, going dark and hazy.

“Please…”

You slump forward, limbs going limp, going numb. You can’t take it anymore. Your body can’t keep up anymore.

You’ve lost—

~

“How many know that she’s here?” Aymeric asks, voice low.

He’s distracted, only half interested in the answer, more interested in you. In the cuts, the bruises that mar and discolor your skin. In the way your hair is splayed out on the pillow. The way your brows furrow, the way your lips tremble, even in sleep.

More interested in dragging the tips of his fingers along your hairline, brushing back the oily, matted strands. In listening to the strangled whimper that bubbles up from your throat, so quiet, so fragile.

“Other than myself, only the guardsmen at the gates,” Estinien answers from the foot of the bed the Lord Commander sits upon. The one you currently sleep upon. “However, I doubt they recognized her, given the state she was in.”

Aymeric hums.

“She’ll remain here then, for the time being,” he muses, tracing the pad of his thumb along the swell of your lower lip, savoring the feel of your breath, hot and shallow, washing over his hand. “She’ll be safer here. With us.”

He looks back over his shoulder, and Estinien nods.

“As you wish.”

“See to it that she is bathed and that her wounds are tended to,” Aymeric continues, fingers traveling farther, trailing down the length of your neck, across the shape of your collar bone. “I trust I need not tell you to be discreet?”

“I’ll see it done.”

Aymeric rises. Smiles. “Good.”

~

When next you wake, you are wrapped in silks so soft, in furs so warm, that for a moment, you don’t notice the manacles wrapped around your wrists; don’t notice the chains that lurk in the darkness and leash you to the bed you rest in.

Waking is slow. Like wading through water that is waist deep; water that caresses your skin, that laps at your stomach, your ribs. Water that whispers and calms and yearns to drag you back under.

Waking is painful. Is days old aches flaring with each shallow breath, each tentative twitch of muscle, rising to the surface of your consciousness once more.

Waking is remembering. And remembering is dread. Is hurt and regret and guilt.

We’ll catch up.

You force your eyes open. Force yourself upright—only for the clatter of chains to ring out like alarm bells within the swirling fog of your mind. Numbly, you take in your surroundings. Stone walls and floors. No windows. A bed, a carpet, a fire burning low in a hearth.

And a man.

Waking is panicking. Is realizing you don’t know where you are. Is realizing your weapons, your armor—everything—is gone. Has been taken from you.

Waking is fingers, blackened, bony fingers, curling tight around your heart, your throat.

A split-second later, recognition. You know that armor, that helmet decorated with thick, curling horns. Know that lance, gleaming in the dim firelight, propped up in the corner of the room.

“Estinien?” you breathe, voice rough and weak.

Don’t understand, don’t understand, don’t understand—

The dragoon rises, a towering, brute of a man, silhouetted by the flames that glitter and gleam off midnight armor. You think, for a moment, he’ll come closer. You think, for a moment, that he’ll keel next to you, that he’ll explain what in the seven hells is going on—

But he doesn’t.

Instead, he turns to the door. Retreating, disappearing into the darkness, into the hall, letting the heavy door slam shut behind him.

“Estinien!” you cry, reaching out for him, chains pulling taut, forcing your wrists back, even as your body lurches forward. “Wait!”

But he doesn’t.

You thrash against your binds. Wrenching, scratching, kicking at the bolt in the wall until you ache. Until your wrists bruise, until your fingernails bleed. You scream and tear and fight until the rage in your chest goes cold, until it shrivels and shrinks down into nothing.

You slouch back, shoulders sagging, breaths sharp and jagged and burning. In your nose. In your eyes. Trembling, you scoot backwards, into the corner of the headboard and the wall, pulling your knees up to your chest.

Finally, you take note of the flimsy sleeping dress that does little to hide the shape of your body, to hide the… bandages beneath. You finger at them idly, swallowing hard.

The fire has burned down into little more than embers; embers that hardly touch the shadows that close in around you. You bury your face in your knees, clamping your teeth down on your bottom lip to keep back the sobs that threaten to claw their way up your throat.

You bite down so hard it bleeds.

The seconds pass slowly, rotting, festering into minutes. Into hours. Hours that weigh heavy on your chest, that trap you in a living darkness that seems to roil and seethe. You start to fear that no one’s coming back. That you’ll never get out of here. That you’ll diein this horrible gods forsaken room and—

The door opens once again, and your head snaps up. You squint against the light, eyes struggling to adjust to the sudden brightness—the torchlight that spills into the room, threatening to blind you.

Two figures enter. Tall, imposing figures. Estinien, then…

Aymeric.

‘Ser Aymeric will be able to help you,’ Haurchefant had promised, clasping your hands in his, a lifetime ago. ‘Of that, I am certain.’

For a moment, you feel it—a gentle spark of hope, a weak flicker of light—

And then the door slams shut behind them.

You lurch forward, as far as the chains will allow, moving up onto your knees. You open your mouth, to shout at them, at him, to scream, to demand answers, but the words turn to ash in your throat.

The look in his eyes, the cold smile plastered to his face, it fills your stomach with dread—

Aymeric will be able to help you.

All at once you know.

He won’t.

He moves towards you, closing the distance between you with easy, unburdened steps. As if he hasn’t a care in the world. As if he has nothing better to do. As if he doesn’t have you chained here like a fucking animal.

He stops, at the foot of the bed, and just watches you. Icy blue eyes so intense, it feels like a physical caress. A ghost of a touch. Phantom fingertips, trailing down your neck, tracing the hollow of your throat; dipping lower, sliding between your breasts, brushing down your arms, settling on the iron that encircles your wrists, the bruises that peek out from underneath.

Your heart sinks. He looks so pleased.

He sits, then, on the edge of the bed.

“Let me go,” you bite out, jerking again on your restraints—as if that’ll make a difference.

“You’ve hurt yourself,” he says gently, taking one of your hands, inspecting the blood, the bruises. Stroking your palm, your pulse, languidly, lovingly—

You wrench your hand away from him. “Don’t touch me—”

The crack of his hand against your cheek registers before the pain. Before the ringing in your ear. Before you realize your head’s snapped to one side, that the whole room blurs, that you taste blood.

You look back, slowly, eyes wide.

“I offer you protection,” he murmurs, closer now than he was before. Calloused fingers smoothing along your burning cheek, thumb caressing the split in your lip while you stare on in shock. “Offer you sanctuary while all of Ul’Dah searches for you, and this is how you repay my generosity?”

He tilts your chin up, and you tremble before his gaze.

“Do you understand the risk I’ve taken on by concealing you here?” he whispers, mouth mere inches from yours. “A fugitive? A murderer?”

You shake your head, blinking back tears.

“No,” he muses. “No, I don’t suppose you do.”

He releases you, and you can’t breathe—can suck in enough air as the walls close in around you, as the manacles wrap tighter and tighter around your wrists, around your chest, your throat.

“P-Please,” you beg, voice trembling, warbling and watery and weak. “Let me go. The others—I… I have to find them, have to help them.”

You’re their last hope.

His eyes burn when he speaks. With desire, with violence, with promise.

“No.”

Thanks for reading!! You can check out my other writing here.

[samsaurwrites]

working on Captivate, ch 3 rn and 😳

Sleep. Drink. Bathe. Sleep. Eat—stale bread. Nothing more. Nowhere near enough to abate the gnawing hunger in your stomach. Just enough to keep you alive, to keep you breathing, to keep your heart beating even though your mind begs it to give out. To give up. To sleep. You’re tired. You don’t know what day it is. How many days it’s been. The darkness smothers your light, your fight. You start to anticipate Estinien’s visits. To crave the feel of your fingers around his wrists when he lets you drink; to long for the sound of his voice, for the feel of his presence, no matter how silent the dragoon may be. You laugh—sharp, painful. Feel your mind unraveling. Slipping away from you. Slowly. Unrelentingly. Sleep. He’s watching you. Don’t know why— But you know. Know it in your bones, in your marrow. He’s watching you. Always, always, always. Eyes. You feel them. Everywhere. All the time. In the cracks and corners of your room. In the nightmares that plague you. Watching, watching, watching— Eat. You stop fighting against the chains. You stop fighting against it at all. Stop drinking, stop eating, stop sleeping. So, so tired.

(im having a lot of fun with this one)

WIP Wednesday Friday

Thankyou for the tag @gaeadene! 💖 I'm a little late, but here's a snippet from a Hannibal piece I'm working on (Will x Reader x Hannibal, plus maybe another killer I'm working on).

You swallow. Slide away the laptop you set upon your desk but failed to even turn on. Balance your sleek bookbag across one shoulder. And as trainees go pouring out the center walkway, you instead weave your way up it; a salmon fighting the stream.

Will’s standing behind his desk, packing away a few items and loose notes of his own, apparently finished teaching for the day.

He glances over as you tentatively approach him. His eyes on your feet. A glimpse which confirms you’re there, and nothing more.

“If you have questions about the lecture you’ll have to email me,” he states, businesslike, “I’ve the unfortunate onus of obligation elsewhere.”

Shit. He’s busy.

Normally you’d come back and try again later; you don’t want to bother him. But it’s like Jack Crawford’s standing behind you even now, breathing down your neck, telling you the sooner you get on this the sooner you can get started and whatever other ‘encouragement’ he gave in making this meeting happen.

You don’t know what to say. There’s no time for small talk, and you’re not big on beating around the bush.

As such, you just kinda blurt out: “Jack Crawford wants me to shadow you.”

His hands pause in their task, though he still doesn’t look at you. 

He doesn’t immediately respond to such a blunt admission, and you’re left to worry if you’ve overstepped. Though it does allay you somewhat to get the feeling he might actually appreciate your lack of social foreplay.

“So that’s what your little meeting was about,” he says at length, finally glancing up at you. Though, the second his eyes meet yours, he becomes instantly more intrigued by the shape of your jaw, your neckline, your ears. Anything but your gaze. 

You’re flattered he apparently remembers you. That he can apparently pick you from the crowd.

“______ Black, right?”

That he definitely can.

You nod, trying not to fidget with the hemline of your blouse; to not smooth your dark, tapered slacks over and over again to a perfect smoothness they already retain like you want to.

You know what confidence looks like, and right now it doesn’t look like you.

Standing a little taller, you seek to remedy that.

“So… I’ve come to ask if that’s okay,” you say; a bit lamely, for all your unwavering show.

Will stuffs away the items he was holding into his messenger bag. Slides his dark-rimmed glasses from his face, polishing the lenses with the hem of the plaid dress shirt he wears beneath a fitted, charcoal blazer.

When he slips his glasses slowly back up along the bridge of his nose to look at you, you swear he blocks his pupils with the thickness of their rim.

“Do I actually have a choice in the matter?” he asks.

He sounds weary. And beyond some depthless ocean you can’t sink through as to why, you get the feeling Jack’s been pushing and prodding him around into the shapes and places he wants him to be in, just like you.

You reach across yourself to rub at one forearm; watch as his gaze follows the motion of your hand.

“Jack didn’t make it seem like you did,” you admit. “Failure doesn’t seem like a word in his vocabulary. He seemed convinced I’d be able to talk you into it.”

“And are you?”

“Am I what?”

He glances at you. “Convinced you’ll talk me into it?”

No pressure tags, would love to see what anyone who sees this is currently working on <3 <3: @shintin @samsaurwrites @whimsyvixen @flaggermuser @tawus @lilkrissmuffet @vaya-writes @l0sercat @yoce-chan @athanasius-symposium-of-writings @brimbrimbrimbrim

[samsaurwrites]

i have never ordered the chocolate croissant from starbucks because it looks like it has feelings

[samsaurwrites]

loveeeeeeeed find me, again and again soooooo so much 🫶

awe!! 🥰❤️ thank you so much! i had a ton of fun writing it

[samsaurwrites]

I need a cock thats too big for me and a man that makes it fit

[samsaurwrites]

i still need to watch it 👀

The devil is whispering in my ear

[samsaurwrites]

Molten Greed (Dragon!Mammon x Reader) - Chapter 3, "Fall"

picture credits: fire | eye | scales

You start to hear it then—the slow thrum, thrum, thrumming of monumental wings. Hear the ear-splitting roar that echoes across the mountain range and turns your blood to ice in your veins. It’s here— The dragon has come.

Once The Great Mammon has a hold of you, he's not likely to let go...

Tags: Alternate Universe – Fantasy, Alternate Universe – Dragons, Dragon Mammon (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!), Possessive Mammon (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!), Greedy Mammon (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!), Blood and Gore, Kidnapping, Magical Bond, Mind Control, Extremely Dubious Consent, Other Additional Tags to Be Added

Read here or on AO3.

1 | 2 | 3

Time melts away like candle wax. Slow and sticky, it drips in warm rivulets that roll down your arms, your legs, drying opaque against your skin. It slips through your fingers, settling over your consciousness like a fog. You lose track of it—time. Quickly, slowly, you don’t know—mind wavering, trembling between wake and sleep.  

You notice the torches never dim. You wonder why that is.

You lay on one side, cloak wrapped around you, part of it bunched up underneath your head like a pillow, one arm dipped into the water, sweeping back and forth carelessly. Mindlessly. You try to count the seconds, try to count the number of times you blink, the number of times you breathe.

But you lose count. Over and over and over again.

You blink. Inhale—one thousand four hundred fifty five.

Roll onto you back.

Exhale—one thousand four hundred fifty… fifty…?

You start over. One, two, three, four—

You don’t know how long its been. Since it left you here. Since it did… whatever it did to make you feel like that, to make you react like that. You don’t know how long it’s been since it took you. Since it attacked your home, since it brought with it a wake of ruin.

Your stomach tells you it’s been a while. Long enough that it aches and growls. Long enough that your mouth feels so dry and sticky it makes you sick, and then you’re perching on the edge of the pool, on hands and knees, gulping down handfuls of water, even though the taste is bitter and turns your already empty stomach.

You sit back on your heels, wiping your mouth, fighting back a grimace.

Hungry.

Your stomach growls, so, so loud in the silence of the cave; so loud compared to the sound of your breathing.

You sit there, like that, for a while more. Until your legs start to go numb, after they do. Thinking. Remembering. Worrying at your nails, at the blood you fear is still caked there. Then, you find yourself tracing the brand at the center of your chest, noting the shape, the feel of the raised skin beneath your fingertips.

Your breathing quickens.

You remember the kiss. You can’t help it. You remember the way his mouth molded to yours, violent in its desperation; the way his tongue tangled with yours, the way he tasted. You remember the fog and the heat and the pull. The feel of his hands on your hips, pulling you closer, tighter against him—

Want to, want to, want to—

Your fingernails dig into your chest. Trembling.

You want to forget.

You want to scratch it off.

Sick. You feel so sick.

Made a mistake. You think; feel like the room is spinning. Feel like a thousand spiders are wriggling around underneath your skin.

Should have let him kill you. Should have let him eat you. Should have let the castle crush you or thrown yourself down the mountain or drowned yourself in the pool or—

A noise from the tunnel rips you out of your spiraling thoughts, and you whip your head towards the sound.

The silence that follows is paralyzing. You wait, breath stuck in your throat, heart in a frenzy. You wait for it to show itself. Wait for the burn, for that nettling pull you can’t ignore. Shoulders tensed, eyes wide and unblinking—fists clenched so tightly your fingernails nearly draw blood.

You wait—you don’t know how long—until your breathing slows, until you can hear past the dull thudding in your ears. Only then do you dare unfold your limbs and rise onto shaky legs. Only then do you creep towards the sound, one cautious step at a time, and peer into the tunnel beyond.

It takes your eyes a moment to adjust. Takes your stomach merely an instant to recognize what lies on the ground in front of you.

Food.

A bowl of steaming stew. One that smells meaty and hearty and filling.

You lurch towards it, and then stop yourself mid-step, jerking away from it like a puppet on strings. You force yourself to pause. To listen, as your stomach grumbles and your mouth waters. The smell is nearly overpowering, rich and fragrant and warm, and your headache worsens.

You wait as long as you can and. Wait as long as is physically possible, waiting for the trap, for the catch, before you snatch up the bowl and retreating back into the cave.

You try to listen while you eat. While you devour what was given to you. You try to keep watch on the tunnel while you slurp down hot broth and shovel chunks of meat and vegetables into your mouth with your fingers. But you quickly lose focus, lose yourself in the first taste of food in what feels like days—months.

You eat quickly, and the bowl is empty almost before you realize it. You drop it off to the side, licked clean, and listen to it rattle against the uneven floor. You lean back against the wall, content, for the moment, with a full belly and a slaked thirst.

Satiated.

Soon, your eyelids begin to grow heavy, whole body wrapped in a gentle, pleasing warmth. You consider sleeping. Weigh it against the effort it would take to stay awake, against the mindless boredom that would surely be your only companion.

You start to drift, to wander in that familiar space between wakefulness and sleep. Lost in thought, lost in daydreams—of warm summer nights, of the sour taste of beer, of laughter and fast paced melodies, of glowing meadows, flowers stained silver by the moonlight.

A fierce scraping sound jolts you back to the present. The sound of claws against stone—a sound you’re all too familiar with. Your lungs seize up, filling with a rancid, creeping dread. You hear the sound of wings unfurling. A sound that sends chills down your spine, that tramples the marigolds and the hibiscus, whose sweet scent lingers still in your mind.

You stagger to your feet, hurrying down the tunnel, arriving to the entrance just in time to see the dragon soaring away, a glittering obsidian slash across the sky.

You swallow thickly.

You wonder where it’s going. Wonder whose home it will destroy next.

And then, you wonder if now is your chance to escape.

You stand there. Watching as the beast flies away, as it shrink and shrinks and shrinks until it disappears entirely into the darkness.

Now.

Heart in your throat, you edge towards the mouth of the cave, hand against the wall—step after step until your toes are only inches from the ledge. And then you look down. Then, you feel your stomach flip. Feel dizzy.

It’s a long way down.

The wind whips and howls, near sentient in its malevolence, its screams and cries for blood. The snow makes it difficult to see, difficult to make out anything but distance and danger, and the chill cuts into you, piercing deep, seeping into your bones, your marrow. But—you think you see a crag, an outcropping closer to you than the hardpacked ground further down.

You think you see a way down.

A way out.

You step away, turning your back towards the mouth of the cave. You stare. At the darkness, at the depths of the cave that you haven’t dared set foot in yet.

This is your chance.

Quickly, you make your way back to the hot spring room, swiping a torch from the walls to light your way. You return to the main chamber and pause—hesitate—for just a moment. Just long enough for the brand between your breasts to throb; just long enough for a whisper of guilt to bore itself into your chest.

Then, pulse raging, you proceed deeper into the cave.

This tunnel is shorter, but no less winding. It’s easier, with the torch. No stumbling, no blindly feeling your way forward. You follow the path, through twists and turns until it opens into a massive cavern. Bigger than the central one.

Bigger than anything you’ve ever seen.

And nearly every inch of it is covered in mountains of sparkling, glittering gold.

It’s a sea—no, an ocean of treasure. Rushing rivers and gilded meadows, soaring mountains and glimmering skies; stalactites and stalagmites branching from the floors and ceilings, spanning the open air in thin and twisted columns of dark stone; all of it stained a molten, glowing gold.

It steals your breath away. Stops you dead in your tracks, mouth going slack. Leaves you standing there, wide-eyed, lips parted, just staring. Then you start moving. Start searching through piles and piles of trinkets and gold and treasures, grabbing the things you’ll need.

You find boots first. Too big, but better than nothing in the snow you’ll be facing outside. Then you find an extra cloak, a bag to hold it in. A pair of trousers. A dagger that feels far too heavy in your hands. Then, you grab a handful of coins.

You’ll need some way to pay for your journey home.

Then, you set to cutting, using the dagger to tear long strips from extravagant rugs and gaudy clothes and anything else you can find. Set to braiding the thinner strips together; set to tying them all together in a long, make-shift rope. You work quickly, as quickly as you can, but your fingers tremble while you do so.

You don’t know how long you have. How long it’ll be until it returns.

With more treasure? With another captive?

That thought stops you, mid cut through a silken ballgown.

Should you wait? Should you try to save them too?

No. You shake your head. No, you can’t risk that.

This is your chance.

Your only chance.

~

It takes you hours to finish constructing the mechanism of your escape. Hours to tie together strip after strip of braided cloth, working until you have a length of knotted rope just long enough that it might let you reach the rocky crag you think you saw before.

From there, you’ll just have to hope you can climb the rest of the way down.

In the rest of your searching, you find a pair of gloves. Just like the boots, they’re too big for you, too long for your fingers, but they’re thick and leather and will help protect your hands from the rocks and the cold while you descend the mountain.

You coil the rope around and around, pulling on and testing each knots as you go, as anxiety twists and squirms in your gut. As it wraps around your lungs, your heart, squeezing so tightly you start to tremble.

Standing, you pat the pack on your hip, listening for the rattle of coin against dagger against canteen, a canteen that you plan to fill with snow once you reach the first outcropping.

You start back towards the entrance, torch in hand. One step, followed by another and another. Your legs feel heavy. Weighted and slow. You wonder if it’s the boots, the layers and layers of clothing you’ve piled on your body, but something else stops you.

Something roots you in place.

A mix of fear and dread and… and guilt?

You shake your head, grip tightening around the rope. Pushing past it.

This is your chance.

You come to a stop a few feet from the ledge. Stare out at the night, at the inky blackness, searching for any disturbances among the stars. Listen out for the thrum of dragon wings, for the roar that turns your blood to ice.

But all you hear is the wind.

You set to securing one end of your rope, tying it tight around one of the thick stalagmite teeth that border the mouth of the cave. You test it. Pulling backwards, leaning with all your weight.

It holds.

For now. 

Heart hammering, knees weak, you approach the edge. Toss the untethered side over the edge and watch it uncoil, whipping back and forth in the wind. It stretches, longer and longer and longer, until it doesn’t. Until it swings around in the open air.

You still see it, you think, an outcropping large enough for you to stand on, for you to continue your climb down, maybe ten or fifteen feet below your rope. But it’s hard to tell in the dark, in the snow and the wind.  

You sit down on the ledge of the cave, feet hanging off the side.

Don’t go, a voice whispers. From inside you. From around you. Quiet and pleading. Stay.

The brand on your sternum burns, and you squeeze your eyes shut. Blocking out the voice. Blocking out the pain. You clench your fists. Force your eyes open and check the knots again. Check the ties around your waist again. Check the laces on your boots again.

This is your chance, you repeat, over and over again.

Breathing quick and hard, you situate your foot on top of the first knot, looping the length of the rope around your palm.

Then, you look down. Growing dizzy. Sick.

You’ve never been afraid of heights…

But this is different.

This is lethal, death nipping at your heels.

You slide the rest of your weight off and onto the rope. Bite down hard on the inside of your cheek as the rope creaks. As it stretches and sways.

As it holds you upright.

A manic laugh bubbles up from your throat, sharp and watery.

You start to climb down, one foot at a time, using the knots at support, keeping a firm grasp on the knots above you. It’s slow and difficult and perilous, but you’re halfway down now, and you were right.

There is a ledge there. A place to rest your weary arms and burning thighs.

But the wind is vicious and howling.

It buffets you. Knocking you back and forth. Forcing you off the cliff face just to slam you back into it, bruising your shoulder, your sides against the unforgiving rocks.

Almost there.

Almost free.

The wind surges again. Violent and angry. Blinding you—weakening your grip.

And then you just—Fall.

Thanks for reading!! You can check out my other writing here.

[samsaurwrites]

Alejandra Pizarnik, The Galloping Hour: French Poems

[samsaurwrites]

me thinking that posting the first chapter will give me motivation to get more writing done:

[samsaurwrites]

they hate me for finding romance in the violent & violence in the romantic. also for the killing

[samsaurwrites]

no, no. these are horrors beyond your comprehension. i understand them, though. i desire them carnally.

[samsaurwrites]

Mary Oliver, from “I Worried”, Devotions

[samsaurwrites]

His cunty behavior and odd eyes have captivated me

[samsaurwrites]

i'm so SO excited to read that next chapter 😫

i've been plugging away at Molten Greed chapter 3; hoping to have it done... maybe this weekend? maybe early next week? who knows

Time melts away like candle wax. Slow and sticky, it drips in warm rivulets that roll down your arms, your legs, drying opaque against your skin. It slips through your fingers, settling over your consciousness like a fog. You lose track of it—time. Quickly, slowly, you don’t know—mind wavering, trembling between wake and sleep.   You notice the torches never dim. You wonder why that is. You lay on one side, cloak wrapped around you, part of it bunched up underneath your head like a pillow, one arm dipped into the water, sweeping back and forth carelessly. Mindlessly. You try to count the seconds, try to count the number of times you blink, the number of times you breathe. But you lose count. Over and over and over again. You blink. Inhale—one thousand four hundred fifty five. Roll onto you back. Exhale—one thousand four hundred fifty… fifty…? You start over. One, two, three, four—

WIP Wednesday

Tagged by the one and only @gaeadene 💗

I'm still working on Brat ch.4, but for this week I'm wrapping up a commission featuring Ghost x woc!reader (brat taming, dom/sub, all the good stuff💕)

You haven’t even fully regained your footing before Ghost is stepping toward you – so tall it only takes that single step to reach you – and then his giant arm’s encircling around your waist, hoisting you up into the air with ease as you’re forced to bite back a shriek.

He tosses you up and over his barrelled shoulder in one smooth motion before you can even think to wriggle away or protest; though the wriggling and protesting is soon to follow.

“What–Ghost!” you practically shout at him, blinking rapid and wide, before all at once squirming to somehow free yourself from how he’s folded you belly-down, ass-up over his shoulder; writhing like your life depends on it. “Put me down–ah! Put me down!”

“I admire the tough girl act,” he says, unaffected by your struggles. His strong arm tightening like a python around your middle as he turns in the heavy snow, carrying your struggling form along with him like you’re some unruly, ill-behaved sack of potatoes he’s carting along with him. Otherwise completely ignoring your efforts. “But I’ll only cater to it for so long.”

Your ears burn with embarrassment, being forced into feeling like some toddler he must lug away from the playground – and it certainly doesn’t help you feel any better that, for all your kicking and writhing, he keeps you easily held across the breadth of one dense shoulder. 

“Ghost!”

“You’re wounded, Mamba,” he says more sternly, and with enough conviction that it actually stalls your desperate thrashing, leaves you momentarily limp against him. “I let you walk here because you were hellbent to. But until I assess the damage, you’re not taking another step.”

Your nostrils flare with rising indignation. “You let me?!”

“Everything you do on this mission,” he smoothly, firmly replies, “is because I’ve let you.”

You bite back against arguing on that particular point, seeing as how – with him being your superior – it may or may not be true. 

“I–” you stammer, changing tactics on a dime, “Well… even so, I’m perfectly capable of–!”

You’re abruptly jostled as he strategically shifts your weight.

“I know what you’re perfectly capable of, sweetheart,” he says over you, and the sobriquet makes your stomach twist, makes you flustered and simultaneously see red.

Your struggles increase tenfold, your fists raining judgement on the broadness of his back. Your face bumping up against his coat with each towering step he takes through the misty snowbanks, your voice muffled by the fabric.

“Put me down!”

“I will,” he easily replies. “When I’m good and ready to. Why don’t you settle down… try behaving for once?”

That only has your hands curling into tighter fists.

“Behaving?!” you bark, ready to go on fighting – only to go abruptly still, instead, so suddenly it leaves your mind reeling, as his other hand reaches up to grab the back of one of your thighs to better steady you, firm fingers so large they nearly encircle your leg entirely, imagined warmth somehow seeping through those many winter layers that separate you.

It almost seems like he’d been about to say something, but at your startled, stilled reaction to his touch, he’s left instead in lingering silence. 

“You’re not going anywhere unless I want you to,” he murmurs at length, his voice a growl above the snow crunching beneath his boots. 

You grimace in protest, though your body remains limp, dangled over his shoulder in new-found, stubborn obedience; all the fight slowly fleeing from you. 

“Bastard,” you mutter against his muscled back, and hear his amused huff.

“Maybe,” he gruffly agrees. “But I’m a bastard you’re going to listen to whether you’d like to or not.”

Tagging (only if you want to!! <3) @shintin @samsaurwrites @whimsyvixen @flaggermuser @tawus @lilkrissmuffet @guilty-pleasure-writings @vaya-writes @l0sercat @h-cake @yoce-chan @athanasius-symposium-of-writings @brimbrimbrimbrim

[samsaurwrites]