#Imagine if that had happened at the funeral scene

[peachysunrize]

Labyrinth ⥃ Aemond Targaryen

Summary: falling in love is easy for most people, but not for Aemond Targaryen. How can a broken cold-hearted man be able to love the most gentle human Westeros has ever seen?

Warnings: 18+ mdni! Smut, p in v, very very gentle, angst angst angst angst!!!, humiliation, reader is Daemon & Laena’s oldest daughter, no description for reader (besides white hair) you can imagine her however you like, Aemond is a vulnerable & insecure baby girl, like he is really really insecure, mentions of murder, fluff, nightmares, chronic pain, mentions of Aemond’s injury, anxiety attack, babes are in looooove, English isn’t my first language<3 it’s very heavily plotted and the smut is at the end of the story.

Word count: 11.5k (she's so long but worth it)

a/n: I’ve always wanted to write something with this kind of trope, especially when it’s from the man’s pov, and there’re so little fics that get into the depths of Aemond’s pain and suffering so I needed to try and write something that says his part of the story as well! Please please tell me your opinions and favorite lines of this piece! I’ve worked sooo hard for this fic and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did! Reblogs and comments are appreciated<3🩷

A very special thank you to my babies, @namelesslosers & @neptuneiris for beta-ing and supporting my ideas😭🫂✨

“Where is duty? Where is sacrifice?”

Aemond watches the scene unfold in front of him; his mother seeking justice for him, slashing Rhaenyra’s forearm with the dagger in her hand, spilling her blood in fury.

He looks around the room, finding you scared behind your grandfather, looking at him with wide teary eyes. He scowls when he sees how you look at him with pity, thinking he is a deformed monster in your eyes, to his best friend’s eyes.

You leave the hall in a rush, and he scoffs at how unbearable he must look for you to go in such haste, allowing this injustice to wreck his world and him to cope with the aftermath alone. How could you leave him like that? What happened to all the hours he helped you build that stupid sandcastle next to where Vhagar lays? Did you forget every moment, every laughter you had together?

He stands up and walks to his mother, telling her that Vhagar is worth it. But is it true? It might be worth gaining the largest dragon alive, but in the back of his mind, he thinks about how he has lost you.

No, you left him, he hasn’t done anything wrong. He is the one with his eye in a tray, he is the one who needs tending to for the first time, and you left him while he and his mother were humiliated by Rhaenyra and her bastards.

The morning comes sooner than expected, the milk of the poppy knocked him out immediately last night. He walks down the stairs where his family is gathering to leave, his mother holding Helaena’s hand while god knows where his father is, probably saying his goodbyes to his daughter and Princess Rhaenys. 

Aemond moves toward the hill that Vhagar is sleeping on, catching the sight of you waiting for him next to the sandcastles he helped you build yesterday after your mother’s funeral.

“What do you want?” he asks, standing in front of you, trying not to frown too much to loosen his stitches.

“I-I wanted to ask how you were doing…”

“After leaving me all alone? You were my friend! I needed you and you left me! And you ask how I am after I got my eye cut out?” He shouts at you, waking up Vhagar from her drowsy nap.

“I-I don’t have any excuses, but Aemond, please—” “No, I hate you! I hate your stupid hair, your eyes, your laugh, even-even your sandcastles! They are so childish and-and ugly!” “I know you are upset with me, and I’m so sorry for what happened to you, but please let me—” “No!” he yells at you again, marching toward the castle next to your feet before he stomps all over it, screaming and crying while he ruins the perfect sculpture he himself has made for you.

“Aemond…” the sob that wrecks through you makes him stop, but you are not looking at his feet, you are looking at his face, crying for him. He doesn’t spare a glance at you when he walks to climb Vhagar’s saddle, but guilt overwhelms his emotions and dread fills him.

You just wanted to talk, and he treated you so poorly even if his anger was justified.

Oblivious to him, as soon as he and his family were gone, you ran to your grandmother, crying in her arms and begging her to allow you to study with Maesters, in hopes that someday you may help your childhood friend with the pain he will carry for the rest of his life.

•••••••••••

Jacaerys’ name day, another pathetic excuse to have his sister and her pups in the capital under the same roof, drinking and wasting the crown’s money. He can’t blame them though, they’re desperate to get on the lords’ good sides by showing off their heritage, going with songs and praises for the heir after his mother.

Unnecessary, stupid… 

Aemond groans, running his hand over his face as he wakes up with the sounds of banging in the hallway. He knows that they’re arriving today, and he’s aware that the royal chambers should be ready when his sister makes a face, but to wake him up at such an early hour after the rough night he had should have severe consequences.

With another deep groan, he sits up on his bed, looking at the sea from between the sheer curtains of his room, watching the sunlight shine bright on the surface of the water, Sunfyre and Dreamfyre already taking turns in the sky over the city.

He stands up, looking down at the soaked undershirt he had on during sleep, exhaling deeply as he pulls the fabric off, slamming it down on the couch as he walks to the balcony to get some fresh air. The morning breeze hits his sweat-covered chest, stinging the empty socket of his eye.

He knows he should go back inside, to cover his scar and avoid pain from the cold wind, but the contrast of the coldness of it on his heated skin is soothing his mind, calming his beating heart. He will regret it during the day, but for now, after experiencing yet another nightmare, he needs to feel alive again.

As soon as the sharp pain starts from the depths of his skull, he moves back, shutting the door and pulling the curtains closed. He stands straight, his nails digging inside his palms as he controls, or tries to control his breathing. 

It always starts like this; a sting, then another one but sharper, then a minimal pain that surrounds his scar, and finally, the stabbing pain all over his face followed by the worst headache someone can ever endure.

He reaches for the nearest surface he can lean on, knuckles turning white as he keeps his weight up, trying not to fall on his knees just yet.

He can do it, he has done it countless times.

Aemond steadies himself on his feet before he sighs shakily, walking towards the clothes his mother’s servants laid down for him yesterday. It is a simple outfit; a leather tunic with black pants and a fresh beige undershirt. Nothing too fancy, and nothing less regal that a prince should wear.

He takes his time while getting ready, allowing the phantom pain of his eye to fade away slowly. Before he can button up his tunic, his chamber servants come running in, putting a bowl of water with a warm towel on the side desk while they prepare his breakfast. He covers the left side of his face with his hand so as to not scare them with the unbearable sight of the empty space in his face.

He watches them with a sleepy gaze as they clear the room, slamming the door behind them. Aemond sits in front of his mirror, taking the brush in his hand to untangle his unruly hair.

There are no thoughts in his head as he stares blankly at his reflection; he hates his scar with a passion that could set the realm on fire. There is no gentleness in his features, everything is sharp, angular, and rough. There is no trace left of the boy he was before his nephew took out his eye.

Doomed before he could even try to become someone worthy.

He ties his hair, revealing more of the healed wound and the dark empty socket on his face. Sometimes he gets stuck inside the labyrinth of his head, running and running until he reaches the middle, but it’s never enough. At the end of the maze, someone drops dead; whether he kills them or they kill him. There is no escape from these dreams, from these self-destructive thoughts that haunt him day and night.

He reaches for a box on the vanity, pulling out the sapphire gem before reaching for an ointment Maester has given him to help the gem fill his eye socket without pain.

He looks at himself again; he looks less like a brute, the gem adds to his beauty but in his mind, it’s not enough, it’ll never be. He sees his brothers, healthy and handsome, being subjected to women’s attention all the time, and sometimes he wishes desperately to be in their place, to be able to talk to a lady without frightening her. But he has learned that a maimed man is less worthy than a whore in Streets of Silk, so he exercises and trains daily to become worthy again, to live up to his Targaryen name. There are deep yet little scars adorning all over the skin of his hands and arms — a reminder of how he has become the man he is.

He eats his breakfast in silence, tension rising in his shoulders as the smoke of the candles on his desk reaches his eye. He drops his spoon on the table, blowing the candles out before he reaches for his eyepatch.

He has told everyone that there shouldn’t be any scented candles in his rooms, but as it seems no one ever pays attention to what he has to say, not even to help with the pain of his eye.

He stands up, knocking a few plates on the table to the floor, smearing fresh fruits on his carpet. A deep groan rumbles through his chest, but he can’t care less about anything other than the fact that he needs to join his family in the throne room — and he does after he grabs his dagger and secures it in his belt.

“Ser,” Aemond nods at his appointed guard, earning a ‘good morning, my prince’ from him. Aemond walks down the stairs with his head held high, scoffing at the servants who make a path for him hurriedly, trying to avoid being seen by him or see him.

The bustling of the castle is irritating; everyone is running from one corner to another and decorating the keep for their princess’ arrival. He is not annoyed that he has to reunite with his sister and nephews, but because he has to endure their presence for longer than necessary, to look them in the eye and act civil as if the pain he copes with already isn’t enough torment from them.

He nods at Ser Cole, who follows him into the crowded hall, eying everyone who is waiting for the Realm’s delight. Aegon and Helaena are standing side by side, his sister is clutching Aegon’s arm tightly as the crowd makes her feel small under its gaze. His mother looks at the throne silently, and he can see the hesitation in her eyes — how are they going to go through these weeks of celebration, they have no idea.

“Good morrow, Mother,” he whispers as he stands behind her, his eye softening at the small smile she gives him, “you look radiant this morning.”

“Hush you, sweet talker,” she chuckles lowly, rubbing his arms lovingly, “have you heard about the Velaryons’ arrival?”

“Lord Corlys is coming as well?” he asks, shifting on his feet nervously, his fingers tightening slightly on Alicent’s elbows, “I did not know…” “Neither did I, darling. They shall arrive at the same time as Rhaenyra, at least I know Daemon’s eldest will.”

“Driving on dragonback, obviously,” he mutters, sighing shakily. 

Alicent notices his hesitancy, she gently cups his cheek, forcing him to look her in the eyes, “Do not project your anger on her, she was but a child.”

“Yet she kept silent that night. She was supposed to be my friend,” he says, looking away from his mother, lowering his head in shame, beating himself for letting his emotions take hold of him.

“Give your courtesy and leave if you wish not to talk to her,” Alicent smiles sadly at Aemond, patting his cheek before they both look at the doors of the hall.

Something in his guts drops when he sees Rhaenyra entering, her family walking towards them, all smiling and laughing as if they aren’t going to experience the most dreadful weeks of their lives. 

“Your grace,” Rhaenyra says, trying to break the visible tension between the families. The crowd goes silent, and the only thing they can hear is the soft exhales of the people close to them, everyone waiting with bated breath to see what happens in a few seconds.

“Princess,” Alicent smiles, “welcome back to your home,” she replies politely, giving Daemon a half courtesy before she congratulates Jacaerys for his eight-and-ten name day.

“Aegon…”

Aemond looks away from his sister as she acknowledges them all, instead his eye finds Daemon’s who is staring back at him with a smirk on his face. Aemond’s gaze doesn’t waver, and Daemon chuckles at that, giving him a challenging look.

He looks back at Rhaenyra who says his name, giving him a forced smile before she turns around quickly and asks for the King.

“He is quite unwell, he shall join us in the evening,” Alicent explains, telling the maids to make haste and set the garden ready to start the celebrations; nothing too fancy for the noon, a tea gathering in the garden to reunite everyone, or at least to make sure the court has something to gossip about.

Aemond follows them slowly, taking time to observe each and every one of them. He can’t shake the uneasy feeling that settles in his chest as his eye finds Lucerys Velaryon, laughing and looping his arm with Rhaena. He looks away immediately, lips forming into a sneer as he walks with his hands behind him, grinding his teeth while he thinks about how he was robbed of everything good because of that bastard, because of the hideous scar he gave him.

The garden is filled with new bushes; roses, lilacs, daisies, and surprisingly winter roses. The sight would have been quite beautiful if all this fuss wasn’t for his nephew. He walks away from the crowd, making his way toward his siblings who are trying to appeal content with the events. Helaena is in her own world, lifting a worm from the ground as she counts its feet. Aegon is gulping down his wine while he listens to Daeron telling him about whatever book he has read these past few days, or at least he seems like he is paying attention.

Aemond sighs, grabbing a goblet of wine himself to nurse on it as he tries to distract himself from the chilly wind that hits his face. Luckily the eyepatch covers his eye socket fully and doesn’t let the cold breeze hit his scar, but the tension in his bones has remained from the morning rush of pain he experienced earlier. It’d be best if he left this pointless gathering earlier anyway.

“How are you faring this beautiful morning, brother?” Aegon asks him, grinning sarcastically. Daeron groans in response, even though the question wasn’t meant for him. Everyone can tell he is fed up with Aegon’s constant teasing of Rhaenyra’s family coming back to Red Keep.  

“Well enough to know I will be leaving in a few minutes,” Aemond replies, sipping on his wine as he catches Luke stealing glances at him. Pathetic, he is too scared to even look at him properly, he is glad though, it gives him a sense of comfort to know the mark he has left on his face scares him enough to keep him away from him.

“Can’t do that! It’d be rude if you left without saying hi to our favorite Velaryons.” Aegon smirks, tipping his head back as he laughs at Aemond’s sneer.

“As much as I hate to say this, but the idiot is right; you can’t give them more reasons to resent us,” Daeron says, looking at his older brother with kind eyes, “besides, they are here anyway.” he points at the passageway leading to the garden, catching the sight of Lord Corlys and Princess Rhaenys walking side by side toward the crowd.

Aemond’s heart stops for a second when his good eye lays upon you, following your grandparents with a gentle smile grazing your lips. You are a sight to behold; silver hair falling around your shoulders like curtains of moonlight that shine bright like a diamond beneath the morning rays of sunshine. Your gown the bluest of blue that shows your devotion to your mother’s house, and your lips painted pink in the most alluring way… 

Aemond’s eye sees a sight his mind can not comprehend, too unreal and beautiful that makes him doubt if he is seeing you with his sapphire eye through the patch.

His face is blank, but his heart is beating so fast he can hear his pulse in his ears. His eye follows you, watching you bow before his mother and sister, looking away immediately to find your sisters already giddy to hug you. Rhaena is the first to run to you, wrapping her arms around you while Baela approaches you slowly, letting her twin have her moment with you.

He doesn’t move from his spot, he can’t move even if he wants to; he’s struck between shock and something he can’t pinpoint; he can only say for sure that he hopes it’s a rush of adrenaline of not seeing you for so long.

The only time he looks away from you is when Daeron pats his back and encourages him to join everyone to say hello and welcome your family to the Keep. He doesn’t need to say a word, just a nod at both Corlys and Rhaenys is enough, but when you turn around to greet him and his siblings, his breath gets stuck in his lungs. 

You look at him from beneath your lashes, beaming so radiantly at him that he almost forgets the pain in his eye or the pain he has caused you the last time he saw you. The world around him fades away, the noises become distance as his sky-blue eye finds yours easily, and he has to swallow sharply while he desperately tries to keep his face stoic and serious and not show you how he is panicking from inside, palms sweaty and lips drying while he gazes at you, his childhood friend who… suddenly the bubble around you breaks and he remembers how you abandoned him that night at Driftmark.

“My lady,” he says in a hushed tone, watching your reaction closely.

“My prince, it’s so good to see you again,” you grin at him, “I hope you are doing well.”

“As well as a half-blinded man can do,” averting his eye from you, he regrets the words he said immediately, flushing a bit in embarrassment, but when he looks back at you, your smile hasn’t left your face, if anything you look at him with empathy and much kindness that he has a hard time believing you are real; it’s been too long since anyone has looked at him with such sincerity.

“Darling,” Daemon steps closer to them, ruining the moment for Aemond to say something, anything to take back what he said earlier.

He watches your smile wavering a little when you look at your father, hands fidgeting with the skirt of your dress. He notices how you try to ignore your father and Rhaenyra as they approach you, a tense smile on his sister’s lips while she tightens her grip on her husband’s arm.

“We have missed you, the girls, and I,” Daemon says, reaching to caress your hair as gently as the Rogue prince can, “you did not visit us at Dragonstone.” “I don’t like it there, the castle unnerves me,” You reply softly, “I rather enjoy the silence of grandsire’s castle.” “You are a Targaryen, you should visit your ancestor’s sit,” Rhaenyra tries her best to persuade you to think about coming back with them, leaving your lovely grandparents alone.

“I’m a Velaryon just as much as I’m a Targaryen, but ‘tis not a matter we should discuss at such a joyous day, don’t you think, princess?” you say, and Aemond sees it in your eyes how desperately you wish for the conversation to end. Aemond watches his sister’s words falter, her confidence crumbling with each word that you utter. Your statement is not rude, not even filled with malicious intent, but the mention of your Mother’s side of the family makes the Targaryen couple uncomfortable.

“I would have loved to stay and talk with you, Father, but I’m afraid the journey on dragonback has left me starving. Please, excuse me,” you nod at them before walking past them to the corner where Aemond and his siblings were sitting minutes ago, reaching for a glass of wine to gulp down.

Aemond doesn’t spare a glance at the couple, following you closely so he can sit in silence and out of the sun, truly not wishing for another fit of agony that consumes his skull.

“You have grown, Aemond,” you sit beside him, turning your head to look at his side profile, “no longer the child who used to build sandcastles with me when I would visit the Keep.”

“Yes, no longer a child with friends. Spending years apart without any contact, surely you are not that surprised how I have turned out to be,” he scoffs at your words, frowning when he turns around and finds you chuckling gently, “Did I jest about something I’m not aware of?”

“No, no, I just remembered how we promised to never let anyone break us apart, but you were the first who did so; you stomped your feet on my sandcastles the morning after my Mother’s funeral. You are right though, no ravens were exchanged, but I do hope you’re still the sweet prince who helped me study.” your lips twist into a small smile.

You are not angry with him, how can you not be angry with him? You had spent hours after they freed your Mother’s soul into the sea to find the perfect place to build your sandcastles and he ruined them the morning he was about to leave.

Your teary eyes have haunted him from that moment to this day.

“I apologize, I did not wish to remind you of that night,”

“I’m reminded every time I look into a mirror, do not concern yourself.” his reply is curt as he gazes at you, your eyes full of sadness and sympathy for a man you no longer know. Or maybe you know him too much, he thinks.

“I look forward to spending time with you, my prince. I hope we can catch up on each other's lives.” “Perhaps we can,” he sounds unsure of himself, Getting to know you again while you have turned into a woman grown — the most beautiful woman he has ever seen at that — is going to be a challenge he does not know he welcomes or fears greatly.

•••••••••••

He leaves sooner than he should, hiding in his room with a warm towel on his face as he soothes the pain of his eye, the headache he had since morning finally fading away. There are so many thoughts lingering in his head, and ironically, they are all filled by you; your gown, bright smile, and gentle personality.

He groans, so frustrated that he has met you a few hours prior yet you have consumed his every thought. If he focuses hard enough, he can see the labyrinth of his nightmares, the hedges are covered in ivy, suffocating as they reach for air — he thinks of him as the hedge, and how easily he has let you wrap yourself around his thoughts this quickly.

Weak, he thinks to himself, he’s weak.

He sits up, dropping the towel in the bowl on his nightstand, breathing deeply as he looks around his dark room, spotting a lit candle on his desk in the corner.

Sometimes it baffles him how his room represents his inner self so openly; it’s not messy, no, but if you squint you can see the abandoned book in the foot of his chair, ink dripping from his pot on the carpet, the candle illuminating the trail of black paint on his desk. It seems as if his room is showing the ugly part of itself to his eye, and for a second he thinks about how he sees himself — an ugly monster with an unsightly scar.

Aemond leaves his room a few minutes after fixing his eyepatch and hair, walking to the king’s solar to join his family for dinner. He walks with his hands clasped together behind him, looking straight to avoid eye contact with anyone who sees him on his way up the stairs. He doesn't expect to see you of all people, heading out of your room to take the same path as him.

“Aemond!” You say his name with such enthusiasm that has his heart racing again, beaming at him as if you are excited to see him. How could you be this giddy to meet him? No one has expressed to be happy to spend time with him, let alone smile at him the way you do. Is this an act of modesty? It has to be, he thinks, or else it does not make sense at all.

“My lady,” he bows his head politely, “How come you are late for such an interesting gathering?”

You giggle a little, walking side by side with him, “I was spending some time with Helaena’s children. Oh, they are such sweet babes!”

“Indeed they are,” he replies quietly, watching you curiously as you round him to stand on his good side, “what are you doing, My Lady?”

“I did not realize I was on your blind side, Aemond, forgive me,” “There is nothing to forgive,” he sucks in a harsh breath, pondering over your response for the rest of the way til King’s solar. The silence is oddly comfortable even though he gets a bit nervous when you keep glancing at him. 

There’s an unusual warmth spreading through his chest, he can’t understand it — it can be his heart since it’s beating too hard and fast, or perhaps even his lungs! He can’t even breathe properly, but at the same time, he feels… right, much better than before. He blames you for the conflicted emotions, it’s all your doings, he is sure. Because whenever he looks at you, he feels as if his clothes are suffocating him, his ears ring while the world fades around him, and the center of his world becomes you.

Weak, worthless, he has just met you, yet all these years apart seem blurry to him, as if he has known you since the age of the Firstmen; so familiar and comforting, even though you left him alone the night he needed you the most.

The guards open the door to the solar, and Aemond follows you inside, his eye wandering all over the room, taking his surroundings in. His mother and Rhaenyra are sitting at the table, his nephews are standing on their mother’s side while Aegon is trying to listen to whatever lecture Otto is giving him.

He watches you walk to your sisters, wrapping your arms around Baela and Rhaena as they both start talking to you about the things they have done during the past years you’ve been Lord Corlys’ ward in Driftmark.

“You’re staring,” Daeron says out of nowhere, pulling Aemond out of his thoughts but he doesn’t look away, he keeps his eye trailing on you until you turn around and catch his eye as well, smiling broadly at him.

“I am merely observing,” he replies, but knows his brother is right. It’s only the first dinner but he can already feel his eye itching to be on you again.

“Whatever makes you happy,” Daeron shrugs, leading him to Aegon and Helaena to sit down.

He finds an empty seat next to him, thinking Daeron is the one who’d sit beside him, but when he sees it’s you who reaches for the chair, his heart leaps to his throat before he composes himself quickly, pulling it out like the prince he is.

You give a smile that is worth countless gold dragons, and for the second time today, he questions if the sapphire is a magical eye, because the world turns a bit brighter and less dull when he looks at you. He sits next to you, his eyebrows twisting into a deep frown when he sees Lucerys at the other side of the table engaged in a deep conversation with Rhaena, playing the role of the happy family quite well.

Everyone stands up when the guards bring in the King, everyone except for Helaena but neither she nor Aemond pays any attention to others. One is busy playing with her hairpin, and he is busy admiring your ethereal face as you kiss the king, your uncle’s cheek, thanking him for having you and your grandparents in his home after so many years. As soon as Viserys sits behind the table, you take your place next to him again, giving him a small smile before you turn your head to listen to what his father has to say. 

He knows what his father is about to say; first, he thanks them all for coming, paying special attention to his grandsons and Rhaenyra while he lies over and over again about how much he loves them all, how they should never let the House of the Dragon fall into ruins, oblivious to the fact that not Rhaenyra nor Alicent were the ones who broke the family into different agendas, but it was him who started the flame.

Tonight, Aemond doesn’t look at his sister to attend to her. His eye is solely on you, taking in the shape of your lashes kissing your cheekbones, carving the silhouette of your nose and lips in his memories. He looks at the way your lips curve into a grin, cheeks forming into the most beautiful shape he has ever witnessed.

You turn your head a little to glance at him, catching him red-handed while he tries to play it cool, but he finds that he is not powerful enough to look away from your blown-out pupils and the orange hue that’s cast on your irises softly.

He breaks the eye contact, a scowl forming on his face as he reaches for his goblet of wine, nearly throwing the goblet across the table when he hears Lucerys laughing at the two of you.

You beat him to it before he could open his mouth, “Is there something funny, Prince Lucerys?” your voice is so soft and slow, almost humiliatingly sweet, and funnily, it terrifies Luke. 

Aemond smirks as he watches his nephew stuttering over his words while everyone around the table sits in uncomfortable silence, waiting for the young prince to say something, anything.

“I was surprised by how fast Uncle Aemond took a liking to you, given his looks and all,”  he explains, sarcasm dripping like honey from each of his words.

Fucking bastard, Aemond thinks to himself as an ugly sneer sits on his face. As much as he wants to leap toward him and cut off his tongue, he can’t — not when you put your hand on his over the hilt of his dagger.

Your skin is so smooth atop his calloused one. The way your fingers wrap around his wrist sets his body on fire, burning the skin in a way unknown to any man, but this is no ordinary burn; there’s no trace of fire, no long-forgotten ashes of his bones are visible, instead his fingers twitch for more, begging for more skin to skin contact, but he pulls his hand away from you without looking away from Luke’s blushing face.

“Your words are mean for no reason, Lucerys, given how it’s been your doing that has caused Aemond his scar,” you say, “I find him quite handsome actually. He was my beloved friend when we were younger. There are, of course, many feelings between us. Nothing has happened out of the blue for you to mock him for.”

“I-I apologize, good sister, I wasn’t…”

“It is not me who you should apologize to, it’s Aemond. I have taken no offense on my behalf but I do believe you owe him an apology.” You explain, sipping from your glass slowly while keeping your eyes on Lucerys.

No one, not even the King has the strength to intrude into the situation, maybe in doubt of saying something to hurt you, or perhaps you’re just speaking the truth, and for once, everyone fears your gentle mannerisms.

“I apologize, uncle,” 

Aemond’s stare is blank as he looks at Luke who’s chewing the inside of his cheek in embarrassment. He nods, not bothering to reply to him; he will never forgive nor forget what he has done to him, crushing his hopes and ruining his worth for a lifetime.

“Let us put our differences aside, and become a family again,” the king says, coughing before he reaches to drink from his cup. 

The dinner goes smoothly from there and to Aemond’s surprise, he engages in more conversations with you. He does not talk too much, he’d rather listen to your giggles and stories rather than talk about his boring and miserable life.

His eye always lingers on you for far longer than it should, not in an inappropriate way, but more in a sense of intrigue and curiosity, trying to understand you from his perspective. He simply can’t though; you are worlds apart. He is a cold-hearted, broken, and worthless man when it comes to your bright and beautiful personality. Even if he gets to know you again after so many years, he would never think himself worthy enough to be in your presence.

“Aemond…?” you call his name oh so sweetly, making him feel as if he is on top of Vhagar, flying atop the city while the wind blows in his hair; it makes him feel alive.

“Yes, My Lady?”

“Are you alright? You look quite flushed,” You smile sweetly, reaching to put the back of your hand on his cheek, flustering him even more than he already is.

“Yes, yes, I might have had too much wine,” he doesn’t know who he is trying to convince; you or him? By the sound of it, it’s him who needs to be convinced that it’s the wine in his blood and not the same unknown feeling he gets when you look at him. No, it is definitely the wine. It has to be.

“Oh, well then, I wish to spend more time with you if you are not against it,”

“Why would I be?” he asks almost too quickly, making you chuckle at his… enthusiasm. If he can even call it that.

“Then I’d be overjoyed if we could rebound what we had as children.”

•••••••••••

After the dinner, something between you and Aemond shifted; he spent more time outside his room, he was calmer and less serious, and the pain in his skull was almost gone. You joined him in the library a few times in the next few days, meeting each other at your door to attend the meals side by side, and almost everyone could feel how he was changing the longer he had you close, almost turning into the little boy he once was.

Both of you forget your last interactions as an act of mercy for the other.

With your insistence, he agreed to miss the tourney being held for Jace’s nameday to sneak out of the castle and take you to the beach. He did not need much convincing, but when you gave him those doe eyes with a little pout on your lips, he felt weaker than he ever did and gave in immediately.

Aemond helps you down the rocks near the shoreline with your small hands in his, taking cautious steps down to not trip over and hurt yourself. He keeps his eye on your feet instead of his, worrying more about you than himself even though he is stepping down with his good eye on you, not looking where he is going.

That seems to be a bad decision, because the next second, not only does his foot miss a small rock, but yours slips on one too, tumbling into his arms as the two of you fall on the soft sand, Aemond’s arms wrapping tightly around your back to keep you steady.

He looks at you, panting as his eye widens at the closeness; your faces are inches away from each other, and he can feel your soft rushed exhales on his lips. You look like a goddess atop him, the sun illuminating your silver hair, reminding him of the last sennight when you arrived and your hair made your face shine even brighter.

He has never seen such a beauty before, sure he has seen the ladies of the court, but your Valyrian beauty combined with sunlight and the blue hue of the sky has him mesmerized, not realizing how his hands are gripping your waist while he stares at you.

You giggle at first, then break into a fit of laughter while you lean more into him, dropping your forehead on his shoulder as you laugh wholeheartedly.

He chuckles lowly at first, then matches your laughter and throws his head back, holding you on him by one arm while the other comes to run over his face. 

“I have never heard you laugh so freely before,” you say after you have calmed down, putting your palms on either side of his face while you hover over him.

“I don’t remember having a reason to do so,” he replies, smiling up at you.

“I’m glad that I’m able to bring joy to your life, you deserve it.” leaning down, you press a gentle kiss on his cheek before standing up, smoothing down your skirt.

He is at loss of words, speechless to his core. He deserves it, he thinks, do you truly think a monster like him deserves any chance of happiness?  How are you not disgusted by him, his scar, his sour and mean tongue? How can you ever leave a butterfly kiss on someone as unworthy as him? 

He looks at you from where he is staying lying on the sand, watching as you extend your hand to him, rocking on your heels in anticipation so you can go and wander on the beach and reunite with the sea.

He grabs your hand, standing up on his feet as well. There is sand in both of your clothes, but you have just begun your venture and won’t stop until you are satisfied.

You don’t let go of his hand when you start jogging, pulling him with you as you giggle in delight. And he observes you as he always does; wind in your hair, waves crashing against the shore while your laughter fills the air around him. He doesn’t realize his smile has widened and he is following you just as excited, letting the sand and the sea separate you from the outer world.

“You promised you would make a sandcastle for me!” you say, pulling him behind you to the spot where you would sneak away as children, sitting down to get to work.

“I did not,” he replies, unbuttoning his tunic so he can stay under the sun without being bothered by the heat.

“Fine, you did not. But you ruined the one we built together at Driftmark so you owe me one!”

He chuckles at you, his dimples on display as he shakes his head, “Alright, I will make one for you.”

It took you a good few hours to finish the sandcastle; it could have finished much sooner if you hadn’t thrown wet sand at him, cleaning your dirty hands with his white cotton undershirt just to annoy him — and it worked. In a second, he was chasing you around the beach with hands full of wet sand curved into balls, throwing them at you.

And here you are now, fingers laced together, shoes in one hand as you both walk on the shoreline, letting the waves cool your feet. You point at the sunset, leaning on his side when you come to a stop to watch the sky change color as the sun goes down.

Aemond on the other hand, looks at your calm face that is glowing under the pink and orange sunlight. How did he get so lucky to be blessed by such a beauty to lay his eye upon? Maybe he truly deserves this unknown feeling that spreads through him like fire and makes his fingers tingle and his heart beat in happiness. Maybe he deserves to be loved by you and love you unconditionally in return.

You turn around, dropping your shoes before you reach up to cup his cheeks. He closes his eye and basks in the attention you give him; so unique and pure. He drops his boots as well, arms circling your waist to pull you closer.

Aemond doesn’t dare to open his eye, fearing that he might ruin this perfect moment as you trace the lines of his lips, his cheekbones, and his jaw. You are so gentle with him, something he is not quite used to. It has always been him, alone in a cold room, but now and here with you, he feels as if he can breathe again, and forget every pain he has endured to reach this moment of his life.

“Open your eye, My Prince,” you whisper before you peck the corner of his lips, pulling him in so you can rest your forehead on his.

He obligates, sighing shakily when he finds you already looking at him. Your gaze is so genuine that somehow scares him, a rush of destructive thoughts comes into his head, but you seem to notice it from how his hands shake on your waist.

“Don’t think about anything, just… just focus on me.” 

He does as you say, his brain shutting those annoying voices at the back of his head down as soon as your nose brushes against his, your soft lips brushing over his so endearingly. He is hesitant at first but when you peck him again, he moves forward as well, meeting you halfway until his lips are locked with yours.

You taste as sweet as the strawberry cakes you had this morning, if not sweeter. The way your lips move together makes his head hazy. You are kissing his breath away, leaving him begging for more. His chest moves up and down quickly when you break the kiss, and you caress his thin swollen lips, bruised by your kisses and lack of air, while he admires you from head to toe.

The sun has set, but the glimmer of love has risen inside of Aemond’s broken heart.

•••••••••••

A kiss here and there, more sneaking around the castle and to the beach until the main event for Jace’s birthday arrives. He is in his mother’s solar, listening to her talk about how lovely you are and how much of a wonderful couple you would make with him if only you weren’t Daemon’s daughter.

“Mother—”

“You should dance with her tonight, my darling!” Alicent says, running her hands over his arms when he stands up and approaches her, “I have heard Daemon has plans of betrothing her. Obviously, he has yet to find someone suitable, but he is thinking about it.”

Aemond’s heart drops when Alicent says your father is looking for a suiter, fortunately, Alicent sees his surprise, shock, and fear. She reaches to cup his cheek, forcing him to maintain eye contact while she talks, “Don’t let her go if you truly wish to have her. I know that she would stand strong against her father and Rhaenyra, but she would need your support and love as well to feel brave enough to turn down a good match.”

“They would make her happier than I can ever do, Mother,” he replies, his voice breaking slightly. Losing you terrifies him, and he is aware that his mother can read him like an open book, shushing him while he inhales sharply.

“I have never seen her happier than I have with you, and I have never seen you this happy and lively, darling. Be selfish for once, choose your happiness this time.”

“How can I choose my happiness over her life?!” he asks harshly, frowning at his mother.

A knock interrupts Alicent before she can respond, and the guards open the door for you to step inside the queen’s room.

“Oh, I apologize, it was not my intention to interrupt you.”

Aemond seems to be struck by your beauty; your body is wrapped in a teal-colored gown with a low neckline that leaves your shoulders and collarbones on display. Your silver hair is braided with some parts of it pinned up, some strands framing your bare neck.

“You look so beautiful, my darling,” Alicent says, nudging Aemond a bit forward when she sees how he is looking at you.

“Thank you, my queen. You look very beautiful as well,” you look away from the queen, smiling when he approaches you slowly, “you said you were going to wear something close to this color and I decided it would look quite good to match. How do I look?”

“Enchanting,” he breathes out, reaching to hold your hand, pressing a gentle kiss on your knuckles, “You look breathtaking, My Lady.”

“So do you, My Prince.”

“Shall we then?” he offers you his arm and you accept without hesitation, looking back to see if the queen will come with you and she assures you she will come with the King.

“You said you were going to retrieve me from my chambers for the party,” you say, leaning your head on his shoulder as the two of you walk toward the great hall.

“I am deeply sorry. Mother wanted to have a word with me,” he explains, dropping a quick kiss on the crown of your head.

“Is everything alright, Aemond?” you ask him, and he chuckles at how adorably your brows twist into a frown in worry. “Yes, darling, she merely wished to remind me to make sure you have a great time tonight. You are our special guest.”

“Does that mean you will dance with me?” you ask, holding his hands in yours before you reach the hall.

“We shall see,” he brings your hands to his lips again, leading you toward the hall, bowing and nodding at the ladies and lords who take it upon themselves to greet you.

You come to a stop in front of the table, Rhaena coming to hug you and twirl you around, gasping at the sight of your beautiful gown, gasping even louder when she sees how your dress matches Aemond’s tunic.

A ghost of a smile finds its way on Aemond’s face as he watches you get flustered at your sister’s attention to details, but soon, his eye hardens when he finds his uncle glaring at the two of you. Tonight will change the course of so many lives.

He watches you laugh with your sisters, pointing at the empty chair next to you so he would sit close by all night. With one last glare at his uncle, he walks to his seat and pours wine into his cup, blushing a bit when he hears you laughing again. You are not even laughing at something he has said and he is the one who gets flushed.

He is knee-deep inside these new feelings but he welcomes the challenge with open arms. Or at least he tries to do so without Daemon being an obstacle to his plans. 

He looks at you when Rhanea and Helaena pull you to the dancefloor for the new song, pairing up with different lords to dance with, but what catches his eye, isn’t who you are dancing with, but more than who Daemon is talking to. He recognizes the lord to be from the south, probably a Tyrell, and when his uncle and the lord look in your direction, he knows something is not right, an uneasy feeling settling deep in his stomach.

He watches the lord closely as he makes his way through the crowd to get to you, bowing and introducing himself before taking your hand to dance with you. He can see how uncomfortable he is making you, probably discussing his sick desire to have a wife and kids while he dances with a Targaryen-Valeryon goddess.

“Stop glaring and do something!” Baela slides into the seat next to him, hissing the words at him while she keeps her eyes fixed on you as well, “I don’t like you, I will never like you, but you make her happy. Do something before our father ruins her life because of Rhaenyra.” “I thought you liked your stepmother,” Aemond chooses to ignore most of the things she said.

“It’s Rhaenyra’s schemes, please, Aemond, my sister deserves to feel appreciated. I have never seen any lord take an interest in her the way you have. You are the only thing she could talk about in the last few days. I will beg you if I have to.” Aemond turns his head toward Baela, letting her words calm down the hesitancy he has toward courting you. There are far more handsome men than him in the court, yet, he is the one who is blessed to hold you and kiss you, to gaze into your eyes and see forever in them.

He hisses when he feels a sting in his skull, not now, no. The pain can’t start now. He gulps his wine before he nods at Bela and stands up to walk to the crowd in the middle of the hall, catching your eyes for a second before he has to bow and start the dance with a lady he does not care to engage in a conversation with.

He thinks about how much he has changed in a few days; there will always be a part of him who thinks he’s not worthy of your affection, that you can do better than him, but also the thought of you in another man’s arms sets his skin ablaze. He is torn between keeping you all to himself or letting you have a wonderful future with another guy who can stand by your side and make you proud, who is not maimed and scarred like him.

Luckily, everyone needs to change their partner and he reaches with his hand to grab yours and pull you to his side, grinning when he hears your delighted shriek. “My Prince Aemond,” you say, squeezing his hand while the two of you twirl around the room.

 He doesn’t wish to say, but the tempo is too high for me, and it worries him that somehow he might make a fool of himself or you if he trips over someone’s shoe on his blindside.

“Lady Targaryen, you look like a Valyrian Goddess, my beloved.”

“Why thank you, my good prince. I have to say that this color truly brings out your beautiful eye,” you reply coyly, tipping your chin up while you bite your lip.

“You are playing with fire, darling.” he leans down to whisper in your ear, pressing a feather-like kiss on your earlobe without anyone noticing.

“I’m a Targaryen, Prince Aemond, fire is in my blood,”

“Is that so? Well, I must say—”

He doesn’t know what happens, or how it happens, but in a second he can’t see you when he twirls you around him, and suddenly, the weight of your waist isn’t in his hand anymore.

“Aemond!” you fall down by his feet, and he sees that his boots have caught the edge of your heels, making you twist your ankle in the wrong way and causing your fall.

What have I done?

What have I done?

I dropped her.

I did this.

What happened?

His eye has widened in fear, and he is frozen in place, hands shaking slightly as he feels the crowd around you look in your direction, staring and gaping at him before the hushed whispers start to fill the room.

“Aemond, look—”

He can’t look at you. He will never be able to live with himself for humiliating you in the way he did tonight.

Stupid, weak, useless good for nothing, Aemond. If another lord was dancing with her, he wouldn’t have dropped her. A prince but less worthy than a common whore. 

With trembling lips, and a pain blooming in his eyesocket, he dashes out of the room, leaving you on the floor. 

His vision is blurry, the pain is getting worse and the air is stuck in his lungs. He can’t breathe, no, he doesn’t deserve to breathe. How can he when all he wanted to do was to dance with you but ended up hurting you? How could he hurt you like this? 

He skips the steps, running to his room while he groans in pain, the stinging is getting stronger, the agony in his nerves is spreading through his skull and it only gets worse when he opens the door to his chambers to find not only scented candles but the windows and the balcony door is open as well.

“You are dismissed!” he shouts at the guard before he slams the door shut, “Ah!” He tumbles down, gripping the nearest chair to keep himself on his feet at least before he falls on his knees, clawing at the eyepatch to pull it off as if it’s burning his skin.

The pain is like a dagger, stabbing him over and over again until even his knees don’t have the strength to keep him up. He falls on the floor, curling into a ball while the pain spreads through his face, and he finally breaks down, bursting into tears from agony and humiliation. If only he wasn’t in pain… if only his eye wasn’t cut out…

Aemond doesn’t hear when the door opens, nor he can see who the person is. Tears have flooded his vision, but as soon as he feels your soft hand on his arms, trying to help him sit up, he flinches, backing away from you while he gasps for air, feeling his tunic clinging to his sweaty body. 

“Aemond, please let me—” “No, no, no, no…” he stands up hurriedly, walking to the balcony on unsteady legs to get some air in his lungs, only to be met by a freezing wind that makes the chronic pain in his eye even worse. He drops to his knees again, this time the sounds of his gasps and painful yelps are louder than before.

You rush to his side, kneeling in front of him to cup his cheeks, kissing his clammy forehead before you wipe his tears away gently. He lets you touch him this time, too exhausted to utter a word, to push you away even if he has to.

“It’s going to be okay, Aemond, let me help you,” You help him on his feet, making sure to have your arms wrapped tightly around him while he leans his weight on you, trusting you to take care of him, even though the voice in the back of his head is telling him to push you out of his room.

“Gently, my love, gently,” you help him lay down on the bed, pecking his cheek again, rising to get the smoke out of the room but his hands shot up and grabs your forearm tightly.

“Stay, please,” he whimpers, his beautiful eye tearing in pain.

“I will, my dearest, I just need to blow out the candles and close the windows, and I’ll be back in bed with you.” You reach and bring his hand to your lips, pressing a gentle kiss upon his knuckles before he lets you go.

He can’t see you clearly, but your shadow moves from side to side frantically, blowing the candles on the balcony so the smoke won’t get inside again, shutting the windows quickly so the cold wind doesn’t bother him anymore before you come to bed again.

You unlace your gown, taking it off so you can tend to him more easily, pulling at the few pins inside your head to let the strands fall freely around your shoulders. You climb onto the bed, a jar of his salve and ointment in hand with clean rags in your other as you sit comfortably next to him, helping him take off his tunic and pants.

Aemond lies on the pillow on your lap, sniffing as you look at his face; bare and raw of emotions with his sapphire glinting in the low lights of the room.

“My love, you need to help me pull the gem out,” you whisper, almost sound scared of him, or scared of what you might see.

“No, it is an unbecoming sight—”

“Nothing about you is unbecoming. You are the most beautiful man I have ever laid my eyes on, and for you and your suffering, I begged my grandma to allow me to study about your condition with the Maesters,” you lean to kiss the bridge of his nose, “the skin around your eyesocket is swollen, if we do not pull it out now, it shall make it more unbearable for you.”

He hesitates for a moment. While he would love to ask you about why you studied something so gruesome because of him, he can’t help but feel so wanted. The pain is getting worse, sure, he has to pull the gem out anyway but to hear you say how you have begged Rhaenys to let you partake in those classes, to maybe someday help him with his pain… that truly makes him feel fuzzy all over.

“Alright…” he whispers, gritting his teeth in pain as he reaches out with his fingers to grab the side of the gem, pulling it out slowly while he groans and the pain nearly knocks him out. “Shouldn’t we use something more—” “Take it out, take it out—I don’t care how!”

You nod, tears falling from your eyes as you watch him writhe in pain more as the two of you pull his sapphire out, leaving a heavily swollen and empty eyesocket on display. His hand falls limp on the bed while you drop the gem into a clean bowl before pouring some of the ointment on a rag, gently holding his face in one hand while the other daps slowly over the scar and his ripped eyelids, pressing a few kisses here and there to soothe his whimpering.

He clings to your arms and waist tightly, letting his tears fall freely while you soothe his pain away, falling into slumber easily beneath your gentle touch.

•••••••••••

He is running.

Where is he? Why is he running?

He looks around him, finding himself in the labyrinth he always sees in his dreams.

The hedges are covered in ivy, the walls have gotten taller and the paths are thinner.

What’s this smell?

He steps closer to the source of it, taking different routes until the smell gets worse and stronger. He knows where the center of the maze is, he has been here countless times.

He turns around, finding the space of the labyrinth of his dream, but he doesn’t expect to see you there, not while standing with your nightshift covered in maroon, hands dripping with thick droplets of blood as you look at him horrifyingly.

“Darling, are you alright?”

“Don’t- don’t come closer,” you say, taking a step away from him.

“I don’t understand, why—” “You did this to me!” screaming at him, your hands cover your heart, and he finally sees how your chest has been ripped open and blood gushes out of the wound.

“I was not here—”

“You did this to me! You hurt me, Aemond!”

“Aemond!”

“Aemond!”...

He jolts up, gasping for air, hands clutching the bedsheets as he experiences another nightmare. He looks at you, finding you awake and alarmed while you rub his back, eyes filled with worry and pain for him.

“You should leave,” his voice is barely above whispering, his nails digging into the palms of his hand while he blinks his tears away.

“Aemond—” “I will only hurt you, why don’t you understand?!” he asks, raising his voice a little. 

He is torn between needing you to wishing you were gone; he can’t cope if he ever hurts you again.

“You have not hurt me, you won’t hurt me.” “I killed you in my dream! You fell in front of everyone and twisted your ankle because of me, I humiliated you! How can you say I won’t fucking hurt you? I have already done it.” He explains, but instead of pushing you away, he welcomes you when you pull him down into your embrace, holding his head tightly in your neck as he sobs uncontrollably.

“It’s not your fault, I should have been more careful. I won’t let you ruin yourself for something that was a mistake on my behalf.” you kiss the side of his face, rocking him from side to side while he calms down eventually.

“Don’t push me away, I love you, Aemond. Let me be here and help you carry this heavy pain with you.”

He doesn’t reply, but his arms tighten around you.

He looks at how you lay back on the pillows, gently pulling him in your arms until he is lying in your chest while you play with his hair.

“Sleep, I’ll be here when you wake up.”

•••••••••••

He opens his eye slowly when he feels someone caressing his hair, pressing butterfly kisses all over his face. Smiling a little, he finds you admiring him in his sleep, taking notes of every line and deep of his skin.

“It’s very rude to stare,” he says, his voice thick and raspy from all the crying he did last night.

“Not when he is my lover,” you whisper back, nuzzling your nose against his, “you look like a fairy when you sleep.”

“No one has ever told me that. How do you come up with such unique ways to describe me?” He leans over, pressing a kiss on your shoulder while he waits for you to answer.

“You are a wonderful muse for poetry, I shall start writing about your hair and eye!”

He keeps his lips sealed to your skin, sucking and nibbling until he is satisfied with the marks he has left. His pupil is blown out with a newfound lust; how can he not desire you when you are lying in his arms with your wild white hair plastered over his pillows?

“You are staring,” he chuckles at how breathless you sound. He hasn’t even begun to do anything and he already has you melting under his touch.

“Can you blame me? I have the most exquisite lady of the realm in my bed.”

“What happened to the insecure boy I held last night?” You ask while leaning up towards him, pushing him down on his back so you can straddle his narrow hips.

“It’s still here with us in this room, but he has begun to heal. You have helped him when he had no one,” his palms rest on your thighs.

“I need you,” it comes more as a plea, but Aemond obliges and flips the two of you over, hiding his face in your neck to prep it with kisses while he whispers that he needs you too.

“I love you, darling,” he whispers, craning his neck to catch your lips in a kiss, moving them together with a rhythm that encourages him to take the next step.

His hand inches downward, pushing past the fabric of your underwear to find you already wet for him.

“I-I have already lost my maidenhand…”

“I don’t care, I have you now,”

He silences your whine with another deep kiss, his fingers circling your clit until you are squirming and bucking your hips into his palm, your arms pulling him in by the shoulders.

He breaks the kiss, watching you take a deep breath when he pushes one digit inside while he tugs at the front of your shift, pulling it down until your tits are on display. He covers your chest with marks and bruises the same time another finger enters you, making you gasp loudly in pleasure.

He stretches you on his fingers, thrusting them in and out slowly at first, but soon he is speeding up, his patience running thin as he scissors you open not roughly to make it hurt, but to make sure you are ready to take him.

“A-Aemond, please, need you closer,”

He nods because he too can feel the need to become one with you, to take you as his, or more so you take him as yours.

His breeches are thrown on the floor, followed by his undershirt immediately as he takes home between your spread legs, one hand holding him up while the other guides his throbbing cock to your entrance. You both gasp in union when his tip nudges past your muscles, pushing in slowly and gently until he is sheathed inside you completely.

You throw your head back, wrapping your legs around his waist while your nails dig into his naked chest as he lets you get adjusted to his size.

“Can I move?” He asks, leaning down over you as he cages you beneath him, both of his forearms holding himself up against the pillow under your head.

You nod, looking at him with pleading eyes, and he finally caves in and moves slowly; pulling his hips back a little before driving in.

The next minutes pass by him gently making love to you, circling his hips and kissing you, bringing you closer and closer to your highest point. You know you both are close when his groans and moans grow louder, and your voice matches his tone as he quickenes his pace, the loud sounds of skin slapping against each other echoing in the chambers of the prince.

You both finish together; you with a gasp of his name, and him with a loud groan of yours as he fills you and you gush around him. He trembles above you, whether it is for the climax he experiences or the overwhelming love he holds for you. 

He watches your face twist in pleasure — the pleasure he is giving you — and he memorizes every sound, counting each lash that he can while he himself rides his high with you.

He drops face down on the bed next to you, both of you trying to catch your breath as you look at each other with a satisfied expression on your faces.

“They would ask about our whereabouts if we are late for breakfast.” You say, giggling when he groans in absolute disgust — he is not ready to leave this room and face the world again when he knows he can stay and take you again, thrive in your attention and love for all day.

“Must you ruin this moment for us? Now I can only think about how to face your father after what we did.”

“You should look him in the eye and ask for my hand,” you sit up, throwing the cover off of you before getting off the bed “and you shall do it with the braids I do for you,”

“You are impossible,” he says, but he knows that behind his words, there is no hidden intent, nothing but adoration and playfulness.

“Come, sit!” You pull him off the bed as well, leading him to his vanity before pushing him down on the chair, both of you stark naked as you brush his hair slowly.

He looks at himself in the mirror, and for the first time in years, his reflection doesn’t disgust him, it doesn’t scare him or make him self-conscious. He feels… beautiful, he feels worthy again of having this life, having you as his.

“Do you wish to know what I see when I look at you?” You ask him, letting his soft hair fall around his shoulders before you lean down, wrapping your arms around him, resting your chin on his shoulder.

He nods, hands coming to cover yours where they caress the skin above his heart.

“I see a broken man who needed to be saved. I see a boy, fierce and strong as he claims the largest dragon alive. I see my friend who danced with me in different gatherings, my beloved friend who built sandcastles with me and helped me with my Valyrian studies. I see my Aemond, finally freed from the labyrinth of his mind.”

[rafeandonlyrafe]

sin, sin, sin.

words: 1.6k

warnings: 18+ only, smut, p in v sex, unprotected sex, semi public sex, catholic church setting, confessional, rafe kind of pretending to be a priest (itll make sense quickly), religious trauma, if youre religious and easily offended probably skip this one

rafe knows little about his mother, but the one thing he does know is that she was a devout catholic. maybe it's stories ward told him, or the fact that his strongest memory of her was her funeral, held in the same catholic church he's currently pushing the grand wooden doors to enter.

it's his last chance as he looks into the candlelit hall. to turn around and go back into the darkness of the night, let the inky blackness swallow him whole.

rafe feels a pang in his chest. good old catholic guilt his mother passed down to him. rafe lets out a curse before he steps foot into the church, wishing he got his father's fake christianity instead, going to church on holidays and only using the religion when it suits you.

rafe looks away from the altar, the cross hanging above it, and to the confession booth to the side of the pews. his feet carry them there with the false confidence he's always been able to paste on as a front.

rafe looks at the door and then swallows thickly. guilt, guilt, guilt. he's not sure anything could help, yet he opens the handle and steps inside.

the creaky door slams shut behind him as rafe sits and faces forward towards the screen, just opaque enough to make out a figure on the other side in the low light.

rafe realizes then that he doesn't know the words. 

“forgive me father, for i have sinned.” a voice from the other side suddenly rings out, a soft, feminine voice. rafe suddenly is aware of his mistake. “it has been two days since my last confession.”

rafe knows he should interrupt you, stop you from continuing on, but something in him stirs him to stay, his interest peaking.

“ive slept with another man. i know you're tired of hearing it, father. i just can't help myself. i can't seem to wait, it's like something takes over me. father, i feel as if i am possessed by some sexual demon.” 

you scoff and rafe can see your body crumple on the other side, becoming an even smaller shape.

“tell me what happened.” rafe says.

“i-i had a date. a nice catholic man, or at least who i thought was a nice catholic man. he took me to dinner, and then i thanked him by getting on my knees immediately after.”

“keep going…” there's something about your voice that stirs rafe, has his hand gravitating to his crotch, there's a sexual prowess in your voice mixed with the guilt and innocence, like you're describing the deeds of some other woman entirely.

“he didn't even initiate it. i did. i pulled him into my apartment when he was dropping me back home. can you believe that? he was being a gentleman bringing me back to my doorstep and i just had to be a total hussy.”

rafe presses his hand down against his growing cock, imagining himself as that so called catholic gentleman.

“i unzipped his pants and tugged them down. he wasn't even hard. i played with him over his underwear, kissed his length and sucked on it and everything.”

rafes hands follow your description as he leans back against the wooden wall, tugging down his zipper and closing his eyes to picture it even better, some anonymous bold woman.

“i then pulled his underwear down. right there in the front hallway. when i saw him… i knew i was going to sleep with him next.”

you pause for long enough that rafe realizes he needs to speak. he hopes his voice doesn't come out strained. “then you slept with him?”

“yes. didn't even make it to the bedroom, he took me against the dining room table. how am i ever expected to settle down and have my own children and a loving family when all i really want is that high.”

“how does the high make you feel?”

“it comes right before the orgasm, really.” your voice drops in octave, and rafe wonders if your pussy is getting wet reimagining the scene. “when he's inside of me, pounding hard, and i know he's about to lose it too.”

rafe pushes his underwear down and tugs his cock out, not kid himself any longer that he's not extremely turned on and cannot leave the confessional with his pants tented.

“we're moaning in sync, not worrying about the neighbors in that moment. im clenching around him and he's-” you hesitate for a moment, and rafe swears he hears a sensual exhale, as if you may be touching yourself on the other side of the booth. “he's stretching me out. i love the pulsing of right when he's about to cum-”

rafe lets out a moan as he strokes before he realizes and sits up suddenly, but his reaction is too delayed as you're out of your booth and opening the door to his.

“you perv! father-” you come face to face with a handsome young man instead of the elderly priest you expected. “you're not the father.”

your eyes then travel down to his cock and that devious part of you taking over again.

“it-it was an accident.” rafe says quickly, trying to explain why he's in the priests side of the confessional when you step inside and close the door behind you.

“i have another sin to confess.” you pull the skirt of your dress up, revealing that you're wearing nothing beneath, your glimmering wet pussy directly in front of rafes face. he could so easily lean forward and taste you.

“ive always wanted to fuck in the confessional.”

rafe grabs your hips and tugs you down. he doesn't even know your name. he doesn't need to as his lips smash against yours, wildly making out.

you reach down between your bodies, grasping rafes hard cock and giving it a few strokes before you line yourself up.

you hesitate for just a moment before sinking down as rafe moans into your mouth, hoping that his mother isn't up in heaven looking down at him desecrating this holy place with you.

you gasp and pull away from the kiss as you adjust, your pussy being stretched just the way you described liking it.

“fuck.” rafe hisses out.

“shouldn't curse in a place of worship.” you smirk at him, cutting off whatever reply he had as you begin to move, bouncing up and down.

rafe grabs your hips, helping you move. his hands are strong as they disappear beneath your dress, needing to feel your bare skin.

“so good.” you whimper, pressing your forehead against rafes, breathing heavily as the temperature in the small booth rises.

“fuck, your pussy-” rafe grunts out as his hips begin to snap up into your tight heat. 

“you ever had a good catholic girl like this?” there's a hint of playfulness in your voice that rafe is shocked you can manage with your labored breathing.

“from your confession, im not sure you're all that good.” rafe says, moving his hand to rub his thumb over your clit, mostly just to see the reaction on your face as you moan out.

hes thankful for the late hour as he doesn't move his mouth forward to silence yours, letting your beautiful symphony of pleasure escape through the confessional walls and fill the church.

“this high.” you arch your back, eyes rolling back in your head as your fingers tighten on rafes shoulders. 

he knows exactly what you're speaking of. that moment when you're both on the apex, his cock swelling inside you while his thumb rubs against your clit, doing anything he can to elicit a reaction out of you, to increase your pleasure even more.

“cum for me.” rafe commands in a shockingly even voice, even surprising himself as your body stills and then shakes, crumpling forward into rafes strong arms as your pussy clenches around rafes cock, and it's all he needs to release himself, thrusting upwards and spilling inside of your cunt.

you're both breathing heavily as you come down from your high, wrapped up in each others bodies and your own intersecting pleasure before you have to pull away, realization setting in.

“oh my god.” you giggle. “we just fucked in the church.”

“shit.” rafe laughs as well. this is certainly not what he meant to do when entering into the church, yet his soul still feels lighter as he looks at your smile.

“god,” you look up at the ceiling, as if you're talking to him directly. “im so sorry. im going to hell.”

“i guess ill see you there.” rafe chuckles before he's interrupted by a gasp as you pull off of him.

rafe is quick to get himself back together, very aware of the fact that you're still bare under your dress, his cum no doubt dropping down your thigh.

you push open the door to the tiny booth and take a breath of cool air before rafe is quick to follow you out.

“i thought i heard a noise.”

you both freeze as you look up to see the nun walking from across the aisle.

“do you need the priest? he's already retired for the night.”

“no, sister.” you respond, a soft, innocent smile gracing your features as you grasp rafes hand and pull him to continue towards the exit. “see you at service sunday.”

you both let out a laugh as you push open the large wooden doors and flee from any more questions.

“can i at least get your name?” rafe asks as you enter into the night, way lit by moonlight.

“no.” you smile back at him. “but i will have another confession to make. tomorrow. same time.”

[xzaddyzanakinx]

Not That Kind of Guy

Part Four: Stalker!Anakin Skywalker × femme reader series

Warnings: stalking, weirdo behavior, psychotic/delusional behavior, possessive/protective, sexism/misogyny, one-sided relationship, sexual content, pervy behavior, male masturbation, panty kink, sex daydreams [eventual warning for smut; be sure to pay attention to future warnings in the series]

Info: Anakin is doing his very best, he just loves you and wants you to be comfy around him. Just let him worm his way into your heart babe [diary entries from Ani] extremely not proofread. I’m illiterate so apologies in advance MDNI 18+

Diary Entry: July 8th

Mr. Nelson’s funeral was today, it really was a beautiful ceremony as I look back on it. Even more so when my inner self smears the background enough to bring you to the front of the mental image.

You’d spoken to the man a handful of times, but I didn’t expect you to come. When I saw you accept the invite to the event on Facebook I thought surely it was a mistake. That was until you messaged Luke and asked him to accompany you, funerals make you nervous, but feeling obligated to do something and avoiding it makes you more nervous.

So your moral support was happy to attend and fight off dear old Alan’s corpse should he rise from the casket and set his sights on you.

And I though I had irrational fears, geez babydoll, how old were you when you watched Night of The Living Dead for the first time? If I had to guess it was too young. It’s alright though I get it, you know what movie traumatized me? The Mummy. Heebied my fucking Jeebies so bad I avoided the beach on family vacations.

You’re telling me there’s not a sarcophagus under all that sand? There’s at least one under there and you can’t convince me otherwise.

Solid ground for me only, please and thank you.

🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤

I had a thought that I initially considered to be a sweet reminder of my dear friend Alan. His obituary was in the newspaper and I happened to swipe one from the guest book table at the viewing as well. Have you ever scrapbooked before? I bet you’ve at least tried it.

Well I thought it would be nice to make him a page in my journal. A little celebration of life for the man who gave me an opportunity to grow and nurture my love for you.

Then I realized mid-glue stick on the newspaper clipping that the idea was something that a clinically insane person would do.

I’m not that guy. That guy’s not me.

But the glue was already on there and it felt wrong to toss Alan’s wrinkly old face into the trash so I pasted him into my journal anyway.

Crazy people don’t know that they’re crazy. I’m well aware that little idea was less than tasteful, just felt like I should mention that.

Date:

July 28th

Anakin Skywalker hadn’t been this happy since… ever. The previous record being his discovery of you, was now toppled into second place and overshadowed by ‘Move In Day’.

He could hardly contain himself. It was a dopamine high that he would ride out until he’d drained every last drop.

The movers lugged in box after box, furniture and books, until finally they dropped off the last load and thanked Anakin for the business. He eagerly shook their hand and shoved them out. He had preparations to make.

He set up his Tv, screen mirroring the live feed of the apartment building entrance to the big screen so that he could easily keep an eye out for you while he unpacked his kitchen.

He’d planned your ‘meet-cute’ meticulously, looking to your bookshelf and streaming services to gather intel on your ideal scenario. You were an odd bird, but he liked that about you. It’s part of your charm, it’s part of the challenge. You’re not as predictable in your tastes and interests as others can be.

Anakin formulated the interaction step by step, frame by frame in the storyboard of his imagination until he had the perfect scene. His box office hit that he’d replay over and over again until the next time he stood face to face with you.

It took quite some time and a load of practice. Discarded dialogue, awkward movements that made him feel stiff and less than human when he practiced them in the mirror. Endless options of clothes, shoes, and hair.

Should he get a new piercing? He wanted to. So he did, he knew you’d like it.

It’d match the one he already had on the opposite nostril. It made him feel more complete to add something so permanent to his body, he wished he could do something similar with you. He wanted you to be permanent, so maybe it’s his subconscious’s way of telling him that this was going in the right direction.

He was on the right path. His journey of life alone was coming to a close and a new trail would reveal itself. No more rocky, unsteady tread. No more sharp turns and blind spots, no more impossible inclines.

Scraped knees and bloodied hands would be distant memories. Maybe even distant enough that he could toss them into The Pit.

He would have no need for anger or sorrow anymore.

How could he feel anything but the warm embrace of love as he strolled down the flowered path ahead with you?

Who knew that you could position one box in 83 different ways and hate every single one of them? Anakin was so thankful there weren’t any actual surveillance cameras in the apartment building. It’d be really difficult to explain why he was in the hallway for an hour with his hands on his hips, scooting a box of books a centimeter or two at a time. Turning it sideways and then making sure the book on top was perfectly positioned and would effectively fall to the ground to catch your attention.

He checked his watch nonstop, stared at his Tv screen, willing you to just hurry the fuck up before he vomited from anxiety. He’d waited months for this. If he fucked it up now he’d… well he’d probably keel over on the spot.

Which would promptly traumatize you and not even his ghost would be able to peacefully haunt you. It’s hard to peacefully haunt someone if they watched you die, or at least Anakin assumed it would be difficult. He wasn’t willing to test that theory though.

So, he puffed up his chest and walked back into his apartment and rehearsed the upcoming conversation a few more times. He needed, desperately needed to ensure his facial expressions conveyed what he wanted.

Soft, trustworthy, dependable, safe, caring.

He practiced softening his eyes, knowing sometimes he stared alittle too hard. He worked on his facial fidget; chewing on the inside of his cheek was a quick tell of his nervousness. He didn’t want to be perceived as nervous, he wanted to be confident and sure of himself so that you would be confident in your soon to blossom affection for him.

His eyebrows, that’s a hard one, but he’d meticulously watched bar goers trying to flirt. The successful ones he learned, sometimes use their eyebrows in place of questions or words. A difficult concept, but one he studied until he mastered it.

Now, the other facial expressions and mannerisms… he gathered that information from your watch lists on your streaming services. For the visible examples at least, but your books were just as helpful in describing how he should approach you, speak to you, and simply exist near you.

He hadn’t realized these things were this important until now. Standing and posture was surprisingly very, very important to women. As well as hand movements and subtle glances and minuscule changes of expression.

You were worth the time and effort it took to learn all of it. He’d read and research and practice until he couldn’t stand to look at himself in the mirror any longer. He was determined to make sure you were happy with the results.

He was startled by a loud ping, someone had entered to building and holy shit it was you.

Anakin shook out his hands frantically, remembering the breathing techniques he’d learned as a child, he grounded himself quickly.

It’s okay.

‘She’s gonna love you. She’ll warm up to you quickly, you know everything you need to know about her to make her comfortable and loved.’

‘There’s no way she won’t fall head over heels.’

He smoothed out his band-tee and ran his hands through his hair quickly and headed to his door that was propped open slightly. A few boxes sat in the hall, including the most important one, the one instrumental to his plan.

The apartment hallway was ridiculously tiny, which worked in his favor in this situation.

He heard you come up the stairs, counted your steps until he knew you were almost at the door, 17 and a half steps. Then he swung open the door and bent down to grab one of the boxes.

As expected, he startled you and you dropped your keys. You always wore your backpack on one shoulder, one strap. So when you quickly went to scoop up your keys, your bag swung out of place and toppled a few books from one of the boxes.

Perfect. Absolutely perfect.

Anakin could gloat to himself about his magnificent setup later, right now he needed to woo you with his sweet words.

“Oh, sweetheart I’m sorry.” He said softly, coming over to offer you a hand up.

“It’s okay, my bad.” You laughed, taking his hand.

He managed to keep calm and collected despite his insides boiling him alive at the willing skin contact.

“No, not at all. It’s my fault for startling you like that.” He chuckled, squeezing your upper arm and using his hand already in yours to give you a small handshake. Smooth.

“I’m Anakin.” He said with a bashful smile, dropping your hand and reveling in the lingering warmth your palm left on his.

You introduced yourself in return, gesturing to his apartment door.

“So I take it that you’re my new neighbor huh?” You said, making small talk as you crouched down to pick up the books you’d knocked over.

“No I’m just a one man moving crew.” He grinned.

“Very funny.” You laughed, standing up as you looked through the titles. “Hmm, you’ve got good taste.”

“You think so?” He asked, remembering to make his eyebrows swoop up toward the middle of his forehead to give a quizzical look.

“Oh yeah, this is one of my favorites.” You said, showing him the cover of The Silmarillion by Tolkien.

“Not many people actually read that one, I’m impressed.” He smiled.

“Impressed? Yeah well I’m jealous.” You laughed.

“What?” He chuckled, holding his hands out to take the other books from you.

“This is a really nice edition, it’s similar to mine. I recently lost it.” You sighed. “I think I must’ve left it the park or maybe it fell out of my bag or something.”

“Ah, that sucks… well, I mean I’ve read that one a few times now. It’s been well loved.” He said tipping the books in his arms toward the one you were holding. “Why don’t you keep it?”

He shrugged, acting nonchalant as though this didn’t mean the entire world to him and if you said no he’d sob about it later.

“You’re serious?” You asked in surprise, he was offering you a 50$ special edition book and you’d barely known him for a minute.

“Yeah, ‘course sweetheart.” He said with a cute, crooked smile. “Think of it as a… reverse house warming gift.” He chuckled.

“Thank you, I- this means a lot to me.” You said, grinning widely. “That’s real sweet of you Anakin. I owe you one.”

“No worries.” He chuckled, “I’m sure we’ll find a way to make it even sweetheart.” His gaze flickered quickly from your eyes to your lips, and he turned to go back into his apartment after giving you an almost-missed wink.

You stepped inside your home, and went straight to the bookshelf to put your new-to-you book where it belonged. After the fact you stood there and buffered, just staring at it.

‘There’s no way, this guy has to be too good to be true.’

But he seemed… so genuine. He didn’t ogle you, he didn’t make you feel weird or like he just felt obligated to speak to you.

He seemed to actually, really be a good guy.

Rare. Few and far of those exist in this day and age. It’s uncommon to meet someone who would do something, even as simple as giving you a used book, without expecting anything in return.

But he didn’t seem to expect anything. He didn’t seem to even expect a thank you, it was like he’d already decided he would give it to you before he even offered.

What are the odds that a hot, tattooed and pierced man moves in next door and gifts you an expensive book that just so happens to be an even better replacement for the one that you just lost? That couldn’t happen twice even if you tried to make it happen again.

What kind of second dimension did you step into? The land of dreamy men?

Diary Entry: July 28th

It’s late. But I have to write to you, it can’t wait til tomorrow.

Everything went more perfectly than I could’ve imagined. Thank you so much for being you sweet girl. It made my job of curating the scenery so much easier, you clumsy little thing. I am sorry for having to spook you though, but it worked didn’t it?

Research pays off. Always.

And of course there’s the issue of your book, I hated to see your frustration and your mad scowl when you realized it was missing from your backpack. I really did.

But I’d do it every goddamn day if I knew I’d get the same reaction out of you from giving you that new copy.

Oh god you’re… you’re beautiful. You’re so beautiful. You look angelic when you sleep but you look like competition for Aphrodite when you smile at me.

You smiled, grinned. You smiled all the way up to the corners of your bright and beautiful eyes. For me.

You even laughed for me.

It was so sweet I could taste it. The honey of your voice, I could fucking bathe in it. Just the sound of you speaking, knowing you were speaking to me. Really speaking to me.

In the flesh.

It’s intoxicating. It’s emboldening, it’s dangerous. I’ve never been more worked up in my life. I’m torn all to pieces from at two minute and 6 second conversation.

I think I’ll have to fucking recover from this like a damn hangover.

But what has me so drunk you might ask? Was it your laugh at my stupid jokes? Was it your perfect smile, your radiant glow, your soulful eyes? The softness of your skin or you willingness to let me touch you?

No baby. It’s how you said my name.

I wish I could’ve stayed longer, I wish I could’ve spoken to you more. But it’s so hard to concentrate when my dick is leaking precum down my leg at a rate that should probably be concerning.

The minute you closed that door I shoved those boxes into my apartment and locked the door. Took my elated ass straight to the couch and watched you in your living room, admiring your gift from me while I fucked my fist with a pair of your dirty panties in my mouth.

I couldn’t have your honeyed lips soothing my angry red cock just yet, but I sure as hell could imagine licking your gorgeous little cunt while I tasted you.

I tugged my balls and pumped my cock for over half an hour until I was a fucking mess for you in my new living room’s floor. The cool hardwood letting the heat from my flushed skin seep away from me as I came back down to earth.

I made myself dizzy. Didn’t give myself a break, didn’t slow down, just stroked my cock like the desperate little manwhore that I am for you. The only thing missing was you being there to watch me fall apart.

I think you’d like that wouldn’t you? Watching a man like me get on his knees and beg for you?

Diary Entry: July 29th

I’ve replayed that moment in my head for hours on end. The beginning always stays the same, but the ending… that’s been subject to many changes. It started off simple, we’d chat alittle longer, I’d ask you how your day was; you’d tell me it was ‘fine, thank you’.

Or you’d ask me why I decided to move in, why I chose this side of town, this side of town, this apartment building, across from you. That one always ended questionably and I’d rather not explore that one on paper.

My favorites however were the ones where you’d laugh at a stupid pick-up line and somehow we’d end up in your bed. The bed I’ve sat and watched you sleep in. Those were the best additions.

Now, I’ve been fortunate enough that you’ve been loyal, faithful and devoted to only me since the very beginning. So I don’t really have a clue what you’d actually be like in bed.

But god it’s so fun to imagine it.

You’ve got such pretty, soft skin. You let me mar it up with my teeth and soothe it with my tongue. You let me grip the pillowy flesh of your thighs to spread you open for me. You let me pinch and roll and pull your nipples until they were raw and begging for a break. You let me caress the sensitive slick covered folds between those beautiful pussy lips, plunge my fingers in as far as they’d go.

I took you from behind, watching your perky little ass bounce off my cock while I plowed into you. Your face smushed against the couch cushions and your body folded over the arm rest for me to fuck you like the good little girl that you are.

Against the wall with your arms around my neck while I’ve got my hands holding you spread open and in place by the crook of your knees. You promised you stay real still so that I could drill up into you like you deserved.

God damn. Do you know how good you look like that? Back arched against the wall, tits jiggling in my face with every thrust. Your legs pushed up and back to the sides of your torso, to pin you in place?

It was like a pretty pink flower had bloomed and spread its buttery smooth petals just for me.

Don’t even get me started on how good you suck cock. Have you ever been told you could be mistaken for a warm, wet Hoover? No? Didn’t think so cause that would be rude as hell, but I bet someone’s thought it before.

(Me. It’s me, I thought that.)

Fuck those soft lips. Fuck that smooth snake of a tongue. Fuck that tight, hot throat that just loves to take a beating from my dick.

Can’t wait to prove my imagination right.

Speaking of, my dick has been beat. Like actually. If one didn’t know any better they’d assume it’s on life support, but I’m a freak of nature. Cumming upwards of 16 times in the span of 40ish hours would probably put a weaker man in a hospital bed. Or maybe a psych ward.

But I am not a weak man even if my dick feels raw. I’d still fuck you if you asked.

I’d be curious to know if I’d be able to stave off cumming longer from all the abuse or if I’d be so fucking sensitive that I wouldn’t make it in half an inch.

Probably the latter.

Diary Entry: August 2nd

Being so close to you is killing me. Truly it is.

You’ve sunken your claws so deeply into my very soul and you don’t even realize it. It’s torture. To you, I’m just the new guy, nice dude who gave you a book. But to me? You’re my entire world.

I’ve been told I have the personality of a guard dog. Soft and squishy on the inside, dangerous and fierce on the outside. Which I suppose could be true, but really I think it’s for a different reason. For a human, a dog is one small but very impactful blip in your life. But for the dog? You are it’s life.

Am I comparing myself to a dog right now? Yes I am.

I’ll beg for you to throw me the scraps of your affections until you finally toss me a bone.

Bark.

🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤

I’ve been trying my best to give you space. To plan accordingly and in advance. I have our next two interactions simmering on the back burner.

I know that if I go too hard, too fast, you’ll be overwhelmed. That’s the last thing I want. I never want to be the thing that causes you stress, I want to siphon it from you. So, in one week I will set out to help you with a few of your errands and plant a few seeds.

But until then, we have late night snacks and couch chats with Boogie.

I’ve also been doing- you guessed it- more research to do with helpful vitamins and medicines. You’ve responded so well to your SleepyTime tea and since I’ve started making sure your birth control packet is plainly visible in the countertop basket directly beneath that cabinet, you’ve been taking it so well.

I’m so proud of you sweetheart, that’s my girl, look at you taking care of yourself. You’ve done so well in fact, that it’s in my personal opinion that you have earned a very special reward.

Anakin sat on his couch, the live feed of your living room screen mirrored to his Tv. He was watching you cook dinner, he knew you’d be making a stir fry. He’d seen it in your planner, so he’d taken the liberty of ordering himself the same, it’d be here any minute. As would your good friend Sam.

Anakin had originally burned red hot with jealousy at the thought of you inviting a man over to your apartment, that he hadn’t vetted via social media and a quick drop-in. But he was relieved to discover that Sam was just a girl from your book club.

This wasn’t one of his well thought out plans, this was decided upon this morning after you’d returned from book club. So, he was anxious to see if his hunches served him well. Sam seemed like a punctual gal, at least from what he’d seen on social media and the text messages between the two of you from weeks/months before.

Anakin had the wonderful idea to log into your cell service providers website to pull your deleted messages from their data bank. You really should have better passwords.

The thing he was most worried about was his door dasher arriving on time. It was rare that one was too far off on arrival time, but it would be his shit luck and lack of planning that could ruin this little glimpse of you.

The minutes ticked by and he was alerted to the new motion sensors he’d placed near the LED pathway lights on the paved entrance to the apartment building. He quickly switched over to the hallway feed at the front door, seeing that it was his door dasher.

Damn you Trevor. How dare you get there before Sam.

Not to worry, he’d call for the door code and Anakin wouldn’t answer the first time. It wasn’t much but it would buy him a few seconds.

Though it seemed to be that luck was on his side as it often was when it came to you. Sam was so kind, kind enough to let the delivery guy into the building. Which is technically a security concern but Trevor didn’t seem like the type of guy who’d be able to remember a 6 digit door code.

He was too busy staring at your friends ass to pay attention to the numbers she entered anyway.

The footsteps approached your door and his, Anakin waited until he heard Sam knock on your door before he opened his. Trevor stood patiently as Anakin slowly counted out his tip in cash and thankfully you were quick to let your friend inside. After the exchange was complete Anakin gave you a smile and wave.

He could’ve had a heart attack at the response you gave him.

A flirty little finger waggle and smile.

He had to remind himself to breathe and keep his expression a happy-neutral. He’d hate for you to see his blushing cheeks this early on.

“Have a good night girls.” He said as he closed his door and to his surprise you actually answered.

“You too!”

If he weren’t confident that you were a sweet and loving soul, he’d think you were trying to kill him with the siren song of your voice.

Stir fry had never tasted so fucking good.

Diary Entry: July 8th

Grocery day baby, here I come.

I love that you’re so predictable. I love that you’re so fucking cute and always try to strong arm your groceries in one trip. I love that it takes at least two good whacks to the trunk of your shitty old Nissan to properly close it.

It’s cute to watch you struggle with it, the annoyed huffs and angry scowl.

I thought you’d combust on the spot once when your paper grocery bag of flour and sugar ripped open and sent a plume of flour up on your black jeans. The parking lot was very empty and I was very glad because I’d hate for someone to have seen the cursing contest you had with yourself as you picked up your spilled items. Very unladylike you know. But it’s you so I don’t mind, I just like to hear you talk.

It’s almost time. I’ve been sitting in my car for about 10 minutes. Gotta account for the traffic on highway 76. Do you really have to shop all the way out there just because of the Whole Foods? C’mon baby they have the same shit at Kroger.

I’ve been watching your little blue dot on my phone and you’re rounding the corner so I’ll write you later doll.

I love you.

You pulled into the parking lot and sat in your car for a moment. Giving yourself the much need quiet to decompress from your work day and the grocery trip. After you’d checked your messages and scrolled for a moment you decided it was time to head inside before your frozen foods got… not so frozen.

You popped the trunk and fumbled with the faulty latch, your fingers feeling blindly under the metal lip until it finally detached and you were able to open the trunk.

You took a deep breath and scolded yourself for buying the extra few things that could’ve waited till next time. Second trips are for wimps and you weren’t one. So you loaded up your left arm bag by bag until you heard a humored puff of air and the beep of a car locking behind you.

“Need a hand sweetheart?” Anakin grinned, shoving his keys into his front pocket.

He waltzed over and took a few bags off your hands without waiting for a response. It took you aback, not because he hadn’t waited for permission, but because of the way he exuded an odd charm that made you falter.

“Anakin, really it’s alright I can get it.” You said, eyebrows furrowed together in confusion by his kind gesture.

“Mmm no, this seems like a two man mission sweet girl.” He smiled, gathering up a few the last few bags from the trunk and shutting it with one solid push.

“You really don’t have to-“

“I know I don’t have to.” He said tilting his head toward the apartment building to encourage you to walk with him. “I want to.”

“Thank you, that’s… thanks.” You smiled, a light blush creeping across your cheeks.

“Atta girl.” He chuckled, tapping in the door code and holding it open for you despite holding many more bags than you.

Something about the low tone of voice or maybe just the way he looked at you with his icey blue eyes… just sent a chill down your spine. A quick one that was gone in an instant, replaced by a warm glow in the center of your chest.

“Guess chivalry’s not dead.” You joked.

“I’m no knight.” He laughed, “but you’re sure as hell a princess.”

‘Oh that was smooth.’ You thought, trying to ignore the heat at the bottom of your stomach.

What is happening? How on earth can one man be so… everything? Kind, caring, chivalrous and gorgeous to boot.

You felt a wave of embarrassment at the squeaky giggle you let out. He had you tore up from one little comment.

True to the gentleman he seemed to be, he chose not to push it and tease you about your beet red cheeks. He just waited patiently for you as you unlocked your door.

“Do you want me to bring these in for you?” He asked, watching your movements closely.

“Oh that would be great.” You said in relief, leading him into your kitchen.

“Cute little place.” He said, looking around the kitchenette and over to the living room.

He sat down your bags on the counter and started unloading them neatly into rows.

“Oh, you-“

“Mmm mmm.” He shook his head with a smirk, “Just let me help, it’s no big deal.”

You let out a puff of air in an amused sort of amazement and pulled out your little step stool to open up the cabinets. Anakin snickered from behind you as you stepped up and started putting things away.

You shot him a glare over your shoulder and almost said something snarky until you realized he was folding your paper grocery bags in the same way that you always do.

“Huh.” You laughed. “I thought I was the only one who did that.”

“Did what?” He asked, his head cocked to the side.

“Fold the bags.” You said, turning back around to continue placing your things where they belonged.

“Oh,” he chuckled, “I dunno it’s just a habit I guess. Fits better in that stupid slot on the recycling bin this way.”

“Yeah I never really understood why they made them that way? I guess so people don’t just shove other trash in there.” You mused.

“Mmhm probably.” He agreed, stacking them neatly and gathering it in his hands. “Do you want me to take these out back for you?”

“I can do-“ You stopped yourself when Anakin raised his eyebrow and cocked his head to the side with a crooked smirk.

You sighed and gave him a downturned smile. “Yes, I would love for you to take them out back for me.”

“Good girl.” He nodded, clicking his tongue and heading for the door. “See ya princess.”

After he shut the door you let yourself breathe alittle easier, blowing out the air in a short puff through your nose. Maybe even letting a little smile cross your lips before you finished up your task.

You’d be thinking about that low rumble of his voice later. Good girl? Shit.

PART FIVE

Tag-List:

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[fantasyinallforms]

Let's talk about this scene. It's one of the most popular, and the writers and actors knew exactly what they were doing when they filmed it. This is going to be a LONG, long post because I will be breaking down and analyzing looks as well as dialog. Don't worry, I will add in a cut! Let's start with the look on Bilbo's face. Specifically, I've slowed the GIF down so you can get a good look at his face.

Bilbo stated quite clearly to Gandalf the night before this that he was not afraid of Thorin, but he is not so naive as to think that he will stay in Thorin's good graces after this. Hitched breath, sluggish movement, rapid blinking, and a look of dread on his face. This is a funeral march for whatever future might have been brewing over the course of the journey.

Thorin, by comparison, is almost slow to comprehend. There is doubt about what he is hearing written all over his features. He shakes his head and says "you" like he expected to turn around and see someone else standing there using Bilbo's voice. What I really want to get at is the conversation right after. Because it's always struck me that Thorin and Bilbo are not having the same conversation with each other.

"I took it as my fourteenth share," followed immediately by "You would steal from me?"

Now, it's, of course, important to note that Thorin is at peak dragon sickness at the moment and not in his right mind. That said, Bilbo stealing something from him was truly the last thing he could have possibly imagined happening. He suspected his kin less than a day ago but never Bilbo. I've said this in a previous deep dive, but the way that the dragon sickness reconciled Thorin's love for Bilbo and the gold was to place them in the same category. You don't expect what is entirely yours to be capable of theft. We're going to skip ahead slightly in the next GIF.

Ok, so this is where we start to see the conversation diverge. Bilbo says, "Steal from you? No, no. I'm a burglar, but I like to think I'm an honest one." Clearly trying to articulate to Thorin and the entire company that he didn't do this as a betrayal or out of greed. Thorin's response is chilling and very telling.

In the first GIF, I have no subtitles because I want you to look at his face, not what he's saying. This is the laughter and smile of a madman who just had the last thread tethering him from true madness cut. He descends very quickly from here.

Now, "You have no claim over me" is a very strong statement. In his mind, the gold is his and bound to him in every way. Bilbo, after this, is desperate. His words are desperate, and his expression is desperate. But what's more heartbreaking is the look in Thorn's eyes. Like the real Thorin is trapped behind those pretty blues, helpless to do anything.

Then, finally, after all of this, we have the full snap. The final break.

"Throw him from the ramparts."

This single line gives us probably the most heartbreaking look in the entire movie. To me, even more so than Thorin's death. This is the true "end" the final break. Bilbo's head was bent low. He was willing to take the vitriol the hate. He understood where it was coming from and was prepared for it. But those 5 words ended everything. Thorin is gone, and Bilbo knows that now.

We haven't seen true fear in Bilbo. Not once. The closest we got was when he was about to charge an orc but even that was not fear alone. There was determination and resolve that colored his expression.

That last hollow look in Bilbo's eyes is properly terrified yet if I had to name this GIF I wouldn't name it terror I would name it

Loss.

[calaisreno]

His Move

1557 Words / Prompt: Manipulate

He shouldn’t have been surprised. Mary was an assassin, the business of her past never quite behind her. She’d run away once, and Sherlock had insisted they go after her. At that point, John was willing to let her go. They were never going to have the future he’d imagined when he bought her that ring. 

She was already dying when he arrived at the aquarium, and said the things you would expect a loving wife to say. You were my whole world. 

He felt a dull sense of relief, and hated himself for it. The problems of your future are my privilege. 

A future, cut short. And still, her problems would haunt him.

When Sherlock reached out his hand towards John, his eyes wide, John saw the horror-stricken expression on his face.. 

You were my whole world, he thought. 

Her body was lifted, put on a stretcher, and carried out. John followed.

Sherlock texts him: I’m so sorry. SH

John doesn’t reply.

Please talk to me, John. SH

He feeds Rosie, gives her a bath, puts her to bed. She fusses; she’s old enough to sense something is wrong. Now she has only her father to keep her world stable.

John, please. SH

He plans the funeral; there’s no one else. Mary has no family, only a few friends. It’s his responsibility. This keeps him busy, gives him space to work out what comes next.

Sherlock is actually sorry. This John doesn’t doubt. He’s not a sociopath, regardless of what he says.

John’s words at the aquarium were spoken in anger; he doesn’t blame Sherlock for Mary’s death. John is the one who brought her into their orbit. He can’t change that, but sometimes he thinks about what would have happened if Sherlock had returned six months sooner. Of course he would have been angry, and would have expressed how he felt about watching his best friend die, being abandoned for two years. Six months earlier, maybe he wouldn’t have paid attention to the new nurse, the one who kept flirting with him. 

He has no doubt that he would have come back to Baker Street if Sherlock wanted him. The compromise, as always, would have been on John’s part. Sherlock is never going to change. He will always treat John as a convenience, a habit that doesn’t require thought. 

Sherlock is rarely solicitous, never bestows compliments, only flatters someone if he’s being manipulative. The speech he gave at the wedding nearly knocked John over. Maybe Sherlock was only trying to do what was expected of him, but it was unexpectedly touching. 

Sitting there, hearing the two people who love you most, he’d had this thought: I would have waited for you, if I’d known. 

In his own way, Sherlock does love John. He also knows how to manipulate John, to get him to do what he wants. To keep John in the dark when he doesn’t trust him. 

Loving Sherlock has always meant giving something up. It means following him into danger. John isn’t sure he can afford that any longer, not with a child to care for. 

He has to be sure.

It doesn’t surprise John to see Sherlock at the funeral. Mrs Hudson sits with him, and Lestrade joins them. Molly slides into the pew, whispers something to Greg. It’s a protective entourage; they all know what John said.

Harry is home, watching Rosie. John sits alone, in the front row. 

Sherlock has texted him daily, and John hasn’t replied. That’s why Sherlock is here. He wants John to accept his apology, for everything to be as it was before he ruined it all by dying. Not that Sherlock understands it this way; he doesn’t think that dying ruined things. He’s convinced that he had to do it, that John would have died if he hadn’t. In his mind, there was no alternative. 

Maybe he’s right, but for two years, John carried the weight of grief. That’s just feelings, sentiment; Sherlock wan’t dead; he was saving John, saving the world, winning the game. He left John behind, let him grieve, because that was the only way to solve what happened at Barts that day. 

Sherlock will still leave John behind at crime scenes, run heedlessly into danger, and probably get wounded at some point. He will question John’s intelligence, talk to John when he’s miles away, text him impatiently while he’s treating patients. He will dismiss John’s concerns as frivolous, insist that sentiment makes him weak. He will break John’s heart again and again. That’s just the reality.

And John could break his heart, too. He has a temper, and letting go of anger is hard. Will that anger still be simmering in a year, two years? It’s hard for him to forgive; even in death, he hasn’t really forgiven Mary. 

Can he say he forgives Sherlock and really mean it?  

John prayed for a miracle, and hit the ghost when he returned. Sherlock didn’t hit back; he made a joke. He missed the point. 

But he pulled John out of a bonfire. His look of panic is something John won’t ever forget.  

He tricked John into forgiving him—but has also tried to be worthy of that forgiveness. 

He has expressed his love for John in front of a hundred people. 

These are not the acts of a heartless man.

Sherlock needs him. Maybe two years away was as hard for him as it was for John. 

Does John need him?

He imagines a life without Sherlock. He weighs it against a life without Mary. One is possible, one is past.

His wife was a master manipulator. He’s only beginning to realise the extent of that. He’d had doubts, but couldn’t put words to them until he was in Leinster Gardens, hearing her admit that she’d shot Sherlock, that she would do anything to keep John in the dark about who she really was. 

The woman he fell in love with saved him from despair.

The woman he’d married was a facade. 

He never forgave the woman who shot Sherlock. 

The woman he went back to gave him his daughter. 

So. Mary’s gone, and what he feels about that is a confusing mixture of guilt and sorrow—and relief. At some point, he loved her. Or the idea of her. He chose her. 

She made choices as well. She chose death, rather than allowing Sherlock to take that bullet. When John came back to her, she understood that he would never completely forgive her, that he was doing it for Rosie. She’d chosen to save Sherlock, to die rather than live with John’s grief over losing him a second time.

Sherlock didn’t kill her. She chose to die.

But when he stood at her grave, he didn’t ask her not to be dead.

What he wishes now is that they’d never met, that he could rewind time and make a different choice. That she was still alive, a stranger living somewhere else. 

But then he wouldn’t have Rosie. He loves his daughter completely, protectively, without rhyme or reason. He wants the best life for her, the carefree childhood he never had. And he imagines her growing up without a mother—with a father who has chosen to be alone. 

He pictures her, a child with pigtails and a stubborn streak. A teenager able to go toe-to-toe with her father and still see reason, take a small step back when she’s wrong. A young woman with curly blond hair and a teasing smile. She leaves for uni, and he’s alone again. He grows old, and remembers.

Does he need Sherlock? 

Absolutely, desperately. Like air. 

Can he trust Sherlock? 

Probably not. And he won’t change him.

He misses Sherlock. Whatever they have been to one another, his heart wants him. 

Is it worth the risk?

He’s standing in the church reception hall, drinking a cup of terrible coffee. Sherlock is across the room, looking at him. His expression is sorrowful, not the fake sorrow he can put on during a case, pretending he cares. His hands are stuffed in his coat pockets and he’s slouching against the wall, watching John.

Coworkers from the surgery express their condolences. Mrs Hudson hugs him tearfully. Lestrade tells him they need to get together over a pint. He accepts their sympathy, makes small talk because that’s what people do. All the while, he feels Sherlock’s eyes like a magnet, pulling on him. 

As the hall begins to empty out, he can resist the pull no longer. Sherlock looks up, surprised, as John walks towards him. His pale eyes fill with tears. 

John has given up so much already. He doesn’t blame anyone but himself. Maybe he’ll never fully trust Sherlock, but he’s already forgiven him. 

Setting aside all his objections, laying down his anger and his regret, he surrenders.

When he pulls Sherlock into the hug he’s always wanted, this time Sherlock hugs back. John makes deductions. He can smell a cigarette, maybe two (nervous). He feels his ribs, still too prominent (unhappy). He’s trembling with the emotion he hates (love). The world may have lost a fine actor when Sherlock Holmes became a consulting detective, but this is not acting.

“Please come home,” Sherlock whispers.

John smiles into his shoulder, his own tears beginning. “Oh God, yes.”

[kiss-me-muchoo]

𝐖𝐞’𝐥𝐥 𝐛𝐞 𝐬𝐚𝐟𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 || 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐠!𝐂𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐮𝐬 𝐒𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐱 𝐅𝐞𝐦!𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

part one: we’ll be safe and sound || part two: isn’t it delicate?

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲_ Lucy Gray Baird was once your best friend. But Coriolanus Snow arrived and it was you who had them both charmed up. Where Coriolanus returns to the Capitol thinking he killed two women. Only to be surprised to realise that he doomed the bright prospect of his future.

𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬_ ANGST, kinda Lucy Gray x Coryo x reader, chasing, blood, slight gore if you imagine some scenes, poisonous berries, mentions of aphrodisiacs, drowning, violence, this gets slightly dark.

𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞_ this is one of my favourite fics ab Coriolanus so far. Main songs are Safe and Sound (Taylor’s version), can’t catch me now again and triste verano lol. Part two is going to be the aftermath of this btw

♪ ♫ awful Coriolanus Snow playlist ✰ Index (+ fics here)

__________________________________________________________

The water was warm. The soft rocks at the bottom made it slippery to stand still. But you did your best to stay there, looking at your friends laughing and playing where the water was deep.

“I can’t do it.” You say, shaking your head.

“You’re such a baby. Of course, you can!” The girl beside laughs at you and gently pushes you.

“Lucy Gray! I swear if you push me again I’m killing you” she laughs harder.

“Lucky me I know how to swim and you don’t”

“Relax. Just take my hand, I’m not letting you drown” Slowly, you take her hand, letting Lucy Gray guide you deeper into the water.

“I’m closing my eyes” you warn her. She rolls her eyes and laughs. The voices of your friends and the splashing sounds closer. At the same time, you feel the water has reached your chest. And it sends you on spirals.

“It’s okay. Just let go…” You’re holding Lucy Gray’s hand too tight. But as you reach further, you start making a big attempt to float. That’s when Lucy Gray grabs both of your hands to help you.

She finds your furrowed brows and insecure face funny and cute at the same time.

After some existential nights, the young girl questioned if she had ever felt such a strong connection with anyone as she did with you.

No. Never.

“Lucy Gray!” When she comes back to reality, she smiles shocked. She had dropped your hands but you had managed to keep floating. You were swimming.

“See? You did it!” Some of the members of The Covey cheer and you smile and laugh at their jokes.

“Told ya’. You’re just a baby” You poke your tongue out and she just makes fun of you.

“So funny. Shouldn’t you be at the market helping Maude Ivory to sell the necklaces we made?” Lucy Gray rolls her eyes again.

“Shouldn’t you be home?” It’s noon, almost dark. And yes, you should be home.

“I should.” To Lucy Gray, it was a disappointment to see that you never shared anything about your family or home. She just knew your mother’s family was from District 4, nothing else.

“Go home. I don’t want you to get scolded.” She was too sweet. Too sweet that you questioned if Lucy Gray Baird was your best friend.

“Petal, I’m almost eighteen…” one of the girls threw you a towel as soon as you made it out of the lake. After thanking her, you slip into your black sundress, which captures your alleged best friend’s attention.

“Why the black dress?” As a colour lover, you supposed Lucy Gray was hating your dress.

“It was the first thing I grabbed,” you admit, drying your hair with the towel.

“It looks like you’re going to a field funeral.”

“Maybe I was. In case I happened to have died in the lake” you joke, making her splash you. Lucy Gray noticed at that moment that you used many words that sounded too educated.

“Do you trust me so little?” She asked as she watched you leave.

“You know I trust whoever is loyal to me.” And with that, you disappeared through the trees.

There was something on you that intrigued Lucy Gray. And soon there will be two.

…

One night, at the hob, Lucy Gray is performing with The Covey and you are seated, smiling at her and your friends. Then all of a sudden, a certain blonde and tanned boy reaches for you.

“Y/N!” You hear your name and once you turn, you spot your two new friends.

“Sejanus, hey!” He offers you a little hug but it’s nothing compared to when Coriolanus Snow got closer.

“Coriolanus…” he literally falls into your open arms, his arms snaking around your hips with so much disguise that it makes you blush at the intimacy.

“I’ve told you… you can call me Coryo” You smile at him, inspecting his charming blue eyes that still made you get lost like the first day.

“Right… Well, it’s nice to see you, Coryo” he wants to chuckle. As Sejanus gets lost to get a drink, the blonde man takes a seat beside you.

“How has your training been? Hopefully not too hard.” You ask and wonder. Coriolanus was a peacekeeper in training. You met him almost three weeks ago, and somehow he made you very happy.

“I’m used to it now. The first days were the worst” you nod, turning back to see Lucy Gray and cheer for her.

Meanwhile, Coriolanus looked at you. Even your profile was a mystery to him. There was something about you that made him feel at home. Maybe it was your mannerisms that were very… Capitol. And that’s the thing, he didn’t know you. Yet, there was something that urged Coriolanus to unveil you. And that has started to make him question his feelings for Lucy Gray.

The moment you knew Coriolanus was Capitol, you started putting everything in a balance. And as you spent days talking outside of The Covey House and the lake, you realised you had started to put an eye on him.

When you turned to see the young man, you were surprised to see him already looking at you.

“What?” You ask, smiling. He replies by looking down, cheeks slightly flushed with pink.

“Nothing.” Your hand sneaks around your neck, and you feel it naked. You have lost your necklace.

Coriolanus sees how you start looking at the table, then the floor, looking out for something.

“What happened?”

“My necklace. I think I lost it… damn it” he starts helping you.

“Maybe it fell at the entrance” he suggests. So together we leave the hob. All under the fixated look of Lucy Gray. Who kept singing but the feeling on her chest made her uneasy.

The necklace doesn’t appear.

“It was just a necklace. But…” you sigh, leaning against the wall of the alley. Just a golden chain, no pendant, nothing.

Coriolanus can only see your features under the moonlight, ignoring the necklace issue. You have a beautiful dress under an oversized cardigan. With or without the necklace, you look gorgeous.

“It was a present. From my sixteenth birthday”

“Have mine.” You look at him before giggling. He takes his tag, a silver chain with his name on it. The young man thinks you would like him even more by offering his tag to you. He wants you to become closer to him. But the offer could be seen as wrong.

“I can’t take it, Coryo” he gets closer and the proximity makes you avoid his eyes. Only to land your vision on his hand taking yours.

He slips the tag in your palm, it’s still warm.

This is the most intimate moment you’ve shared with him. And you don’t know how to feel about it.

“At least until you get a new necklace” he suggests, offering a little smile. You can see he has no moles around his face, barely visible freckles maybe. His skin is very clear and his lips…

As you’re too focused on analysing his face, you accept the chain. And for some reason, you let him play with your cold fingers.

“Until then…” he leans closer, and the air suddenly feels fogged. It could be just another humid summer night.

But no, it was because Coriolanus Snow was less than two inches away from kissing you.

His free hand was ready to land behind your neck, just to slightly push you towards him and finally discover what your lips felt like.

“Where were you two?…” the side door of the hob opened. And like two volts, you and Coriolanus separate from each other. You grasp his tag tightly around your hand in a fist.

Lucy Gray had seen the interaction.

“Just looking for y/n’s necklace,” Coriolanus said first, walking away from you.

“Oh. Well, we were just waiting for you two. They want to start a round with beers” the girl said, rolling her eyes and giggling, pretending very well.

“Let’s go then…” Coriolanus walked past her, smiling at her like nothing happened. You tried to do the same. But Lucy Gray grabbed your forearm, stopping you from entering the hob behind the young man.

“Say the truth. Are you falling in love with him?” You frown, slightly irritated at the question.

“Of course not. I barely know him.” You replied a little too harshly. She nodded, silently believing you.

“You know I’ll never be the woman who wrecks a relationship.” She takes your word a little wounded. Seeing how you enter the hob quietly.

She just stares at the sky. You had been a good friend and she trusted you. Lucy Gray was having a little crisis. She questioned at that very moment if she actually loved Coriolanus.

Certainly not. She didn’t trust him at the beginning. Seeing him almost kissing you, was making her not trust him at the end. And Lucy Gray knew. You were so loyal to ever intentionally get involved in some affair. You preached to Not do what you don’t want to happen to you.

But the truth is that you would wreck a relationship. Unintentionally, but twice.

…

It was you who discovered a pomegranate tree near The Covey House. The branches were long and the season of pomegranates was until late summer, but somehow, in August, the tree was blossoming a couple of red beats.

Near the house, the nomad group had built some locations to make their lives easier. Like some stations to wash clothes and eat. Maude Ivory was sick, she started with a sore throat and she developed a stomach infection later. So you suggested picking their laundry. And since you spent more time with The Covey rather than your family, it wasn’t rare for Coriolanus to find you folding some dresses that were once hanging on a tightrope between two trees.

He stepped on a branch and it made you jump startled.

“Gosh! You scared me!” you squeaked after seeing Coriolanus standing there with his peacekeeper uniform. He grinned, leaving his little backpack on the table. He spotted a little basket filled with pomegranates.

“You picked all this?” He asked, pointing at the basket.

“Yes. It was a big surprise to see pomegranates in August. They start their season at the end of the month or September.”

“I never thought you would be that kind of girl?” You frowned laughing, turning back to fold the dresses into another basket.

“What kind, Coriolanus?” Shortly after, you know he is behind you. You can feel his breath in the nape of your neck, and it sends shivers to your spine.

“The kind who climbs trees and folds laundry while singing” your cheeks immediately go red. He had heard you sing previously.

“You heard me?”

“Indeed. Very pretty voice,” he said after sensing how embarrassed you were.

“I don’t sing. And you really shouldn’t be here. Lucy Gray was looking for you” You state firmly. Realising how much anyone could misinterpret the situation if they find you almost tangled up with Coriolanus Snow behind you.

“She was gone when I arrived here.”

“Oh…” you say, taking the basket with the laundry. When Coriolanus sees that you are also going to grab the one with the pomegranates, he stops you.

“Let me help you…” he takes the one with the fruit.

“Thank you.” He grabs your hand again, and it makes you weak. But you remember your dear friend. And the loyalty you preach.

“You can’t do this, Coryo. Not to her, not you. And not to me…” he sighs. Honestly, he didn’t want to hurt either one. But it was you who he was always trying to describe. It was you making him laugh so much. And it was you who made him feel like… home. Like…Capitol.

“You make me feel different.” You roll your eyes.

“And how did she make you feel in the first place?” They met at the Capitol. While you prayed for Lucy Gray’s survival at the Hunger Games. Boys could be liars.

“Lucy Gray made me feel like I had an option away from home.”

“But… you make me feel like I can have both. I can have this…” he says looking down at the pomegranates and folded laundry.

“And also… what I had there.” You have to look away. You see the trees and how some leaves fall because of the breeze.

“You’ll have to choose one day…” he nods, but he’s so close to you. He can see every detail of your delicate face. So as much as he tries to resist the urges, he ends up leaning closer. Your lips brush his and it’s magical. You really want to kiss him too.

“Doesn’t have to be today. Right?” His comment makes you almost retreat. And before you can walk away he pulls you to his chest again, finally kissing you.

He’s soft, yet passionate and intense. His right-hand finds comfort in the back of your neck while the other lands on your chin, deepening the kiss. For you, it’s an automatic response to put your arms around his neck.

As the kiss turns more desperate, the hand on your chin ends up pushing your lower back and you have to suppress a moan when you feel the clear outline of his manhood poke at your lower belly and part of your pelvis. It’s not enough to the fire you both initiated, but you have to stop.

Both of you pant for air and somehow he ends up smiling.

“Until the day you choose. This never happened.” You say firmly, but slowly, and you also smile at him.

Your smile was enough to keep him calm on the way back. Unconsciously, both of you feel like silly kids. Shyly walking side by side with baskets in your hands.

“So you couldn’t swim?” Coriolanus asks after some minutes walking to The Covey House.

“I couldn’t. Most of my family is from District 4. It’s embarrassing, to be honest.” He assumed you were also from there. And he couldn’t help but think that District 4 was closer than the 12 from the Capitol. Immediately he brushed away the thought.

“But Lucy Gray taught me. Kind of a violent teacher, but it was still great” you admit laughing. And Coriolanus was blushed. Surprisingly, he found himself on the verge of being jealous. Yes, of Lucy Gray teaching you how to swim.

Through the trail, one of the boys from The Covey appears, he looks too sweaty and tired, gasping and desperate.

“Y/N! Is Maude. She has a lot of fever and we don’t know what to do” You immediately worry, starting at a faster pace, followed by Coriolanus.

“Where is Lucy Gray?” You ask. The boy shrugs guiding you to their home.

“We don’t know. She’s nowhere near.” You sigh.

As soon as you make it inside, you find the girl lying on a couch, sweating and panting. Your heart broke as you kneeled beside her.

“Maude? You are going to be fine.” She seems to have identified you and slowly nodded.

Coriolanus follows you as you run to their improvised kitchen. You mix some herbs and boil them with water.

“Coryo, please hand me the honey.” He looks around to see a glass with honey and hands it to you.

And then, Coriolanus swears he fell in love with you as you treated Maude Ivory, immediately making her rest.

…

One night, Lucy Gray is oddly quiet. You know something’s up. So when you gently caress her shoulder, she lets out a long breath before spilling everything.

“Coriolanus shot Billy Taupe and the mayor’s daughter.” Your eyes widened, before letting a shocked gasp.

“What?” Lucy Gray nodded, confirming the facts to you.

“He did it to protect me and Sejanus. But…”

“This is bad. You know how this district is. Rumours will spark, the people will talk…” you spiral about it too panicked.

“I don’t want you nor Coriolanus to get in more trouble. What if-“

“It’ll be fine. We’ll be safe…” she hugs you, hearing how you tried to hide your sobs from her. She continues to share what happened and where the murder weapon was. She encourages you to keep the secret and play pretend until the waters soothed.

The waters only get worse. Like the tides form hours before a tsunami. After a peaceful morning, you find Lucy Gray at the market. You eat half a sandwich with her and you share that your mother was worried about the rumours. Including the fact that the authorities were starting to turn their heads towards Lucy Gray. She acts calm and used to have people talking about her. But being accused of murder was something different.

And it only gets worse when you two get closer to the chaos. Where Sejanus Plinth and the man who hid the murder weapon were hanged for treason. Lucy Gray takes your hand as you cover your mouth in shock.

You are able to see Coriolanus. The panic on his face is evident enough to make you feel uneasy. And that’s when Lucy Gray plans something.

You listen to her tell Coriolanus about leaving the districts. There are feelings of nausea, sadness, and stress washing all over you. That is abruptly cut by the couple turning to see you.

“Did you listen, y/n?” Lucy Gray asks. You stay quiet.

“Come with us. Please” she adds. You look at Coriolanus. His face doesn’t express anything, but he really wants you to agree. He knows it is a bad idea, he knows that is dangerous. But he wants to have you too.

You have plenty of reasons to stay. A little family, a home, a future. Which was certainly unsure for your dear people. They had nothing to lose.

Half of you were unsure, afraid of growing up and not being able to make it. So you had two options. And you weren’t ready to make a decision.

“Please, y/n. You’re my best friend. I can’t make it without you” Time never passed apparently. Lucy Gray and Coriolanus were still looking at you, waiting for some answer.

Your tongue gets loose before you can’t think clearly.

“I’ll come.” Coriolanus sees how the girl hugs you tightly. And he knows there’s no way back. He doesn’t know what to expect about this.

After agreeing to meet in the hanging tree, the three of you part separate ways.

You don’t think much about it. Because if you did, you would start analysing, and probably you would stay.

Coriolanus is too busy in the barracks to even remember. But he can’t help to think about you and Lucy Gray in a balance, knowing he was lingering too much on your side.

And Lucy Gray understands that in the long term, you’ll either grow old seeing her and Coriolanus being together. Only if it didn’t turn out the other way, where Coriolanus ended up taking you and it was Lucy Gray who would have to bear it.

Either way. She would leave with the only two humans he could trust. Or so she believed.

…

Your boots are dusted. You stare at them, a bitten prune in your right hand a little knife in the other. The way he grabs her chin makes you feel uncomfortable… and jealous.

Coriolanus didn’t kill his old self. That was for sure. You have your own theories, but you refuse to add gasoline to the fire. Not when you have made it outside of District 12.

“Not the best time to throw allusions, Coryo,” you say walking past them, separating the couple. You hoped to have soothed the tension. But you knew Lucy Gray had decreased her trust in the boy.

“You’re right. Sorry…” Coriolanus accepts looking at Lucy Gray. Then to you and your silly headscarf, your long silk dress, and fishing dark jacket.

“We really needed her. Right?” Lucy Gray throws the words, making Coriolanus frown confused. And that’s when he questioned if the girl also had some feelings for you, other than being best friends. Because the way he was on the verge of smiling at the sight of you was the same way she was looking at you.

“She will prevent us from killing each other” he attempted to joke.

“Or be the reason why we kill each other,” Lucy Gray said. Coriolanus disliked the comment.

And so on, for the rest of the walk, it’s you making the air lighter. Your smiles made Coriolanus forget the offer of moving to District 2. Even the situation where his grandmother and Tigris were in. But Lucy Gray reminded him of his errors and his new upcoming country life. Your random comments about plants that are poisonous and others that work as medicine or aphrodisiacs make Lucy Gray blush and keep focused. Knowing that having you by her side was a good sign.

You lean to pick some violet flowers, and both Lucy Gray and Coriolanus look at each other to then look at you.

“Medicine, poisonous or…?” You giggle, noticing how Lucy Gray was avoiding saying the word.

“Saffron. An aphrodisiac, actually,” you answer, looking at her blush and Coriolanus’ little smirk.

“Some threads of this with warm milk or wine and…” Coriolanus can’t help but laugh briefly. You ignore the way he looks at you. The cheeky look he offered you and how you evidently looked away, blushed.

Lucy Gray caught a glimpse of your necklace. She stopped blushing as soon as she looked carefully. It was Coriolanus’ tag. Dangling between your breasts and shining under the last rays of the sun. It was getting cloudy. Likely, a humid rain was coming.

“I’ll take the lead from here.” Lucy Gray says, her tone a little more cold.

She starts walking away and Coriolanus takes the opportunity to help you stand up.

“You should take some…” when you understand what he meant, you punch his arm.

“You’re insane, Snow” he laughs and cynically goes to trace your face with one of the flowers.

“I think I’ve made my decision.” You turn to look at Lucy Gray, who’s even further then. Then back to the blonde guy with gorgeous blue ocean eyes.

You don’t want to hurt her. Lucy Gray deserved better. But you couldn’t deny that if the days kept passing, you would completely and blindly fall in love with Coriolanus Snow.

“We won’t do anything about it. Yet…” you say, sliding a little bunch of the violet saffron flowers inside your bag. Coriolanus shakes his head. There’s a big smile on his face, returning to walk before he jumps there to kiss you.

…

When the rain starts you decide to find the lake. Under the rain, the dark underwater conditions made it desirable to fish. Fish were more active and hopefully, you would be able to bring something to have for dinner that night. The cabin was very near. Coriolanus stayed there and Lucy Gray came to the lake with you. She was quiet, watching how your feet were underwater, and you sank a sharp branch constantly.

“I have one!” You happily yelled, watching how the poor animal squirmed.

When you leave it in a little bag with Lucy Gray, she stops you.

“Lucy Gray?”

“I swear I won’t ask again. But please be honest, y/n.” She starts and it makes you frown confused. You drop the branch, waiting for her question.

“Do you love him?” She finally asks.

You remain quiet. But you keep your word.

“I don’t know…”

She nods, looking at the damn tag on your neck. She should’ve known.

“That doesn’t mean I’ve been acting behind your back or that I will” you add. Because it’s true. None of your encounters with Coriolanus were set by you. It was he who always looked out for you.

“Not yet.” She spits, giving you a harsh look. You sigh, tilting your head, hands on your hips.

“Are we going to ruin everything for a man?”

“I don’t know. Are you?” She asks with a sarcastic smile.

“I won’t do this, Lucy Gray. And you shouldn’t either. Not when we’ve come this far already.” You say looking away from her, grabbing the branch, and walking away.

“Alright. I’m going back to the cabin. See you there?” She asks to surrender.

“Sure.” You hear her footsteps leaving. And you can finally breathe, your eyes water and you question everything.

The long days working with The Covey, helping them to make handicrafts to sell at the market. The nights laughing nonstop with Lucy Gray and giving her to drink when she shouldn’t, how she braided your hair and caressed you. All the good performances she gave and how good the celebrations were.

Then the days you were able to have long walks with Coriolanus, getting to know little but something about his life at the Capitol. The nights you sneaked at the barracks, and both spent hours drinking and saying silly things. The soft touches he started giving you. How he cared for you and always wanted you to be okay.

You realise they are the most important people in your life outside of your family. They are the strongest connections you’ve ever made. And you didn’t have the heart to ruin it or sacrifice it.

Those thoughts are long gone after you hear some shooting. You drop the branch again and you start running towards the cabin. You forget your boots and the fish. It’s the panic of knowing something bad has happened that reigns in your head. Some dry leaves hurt your bare feet but you don’t care.

You literally jump the stairs of the cabin. And once you open the door, you spot Coriolanus with the rifle in one hand. A knife on the other. That forbidden rifle.

You see some dry blood in his arm. An evident bite was there.

“What happened?” You rush to inspect his arm.

“Snakebite” but he’s fast enough to turn and start giving you pecks across the face. And once his lips brush your chin, you can’t take it anymore.

Neither him, he finally kisses you like he never ever did.

It’s desperate. While you kiss him back, many questions keep flooding your head. And you can’t fully concentrate on his lips. So you back away.

“Where’s Lucy Gray?” He remains quiet. Slowly, you look down. Until your eyes land on the rifle. You start walking backward, shaking your head. Tears forming again.

“No…” you whisper as he tries to get closer to you again. Coriolanus wants to scream and tell you everything is going to be okay. But he knows it’s not true. He sees how you’re starting to look shocked. And he realised how smart you were, how fast you connected the dots.

He makes you sit on the creaky chair of wood. He offers you a dark brown glass, where he pours some of the water. Slowly, you take the glass, hoping to calm yourself with some water.

Once you drink a sip, you see a crushed berry. Quickly you spit the water, throwing the glass as it shatters into the floor.

It was a Lily of the Valley, a poisonous berry.

“YOU POISONED ME!” You scream. He opens his eyes and enters in panic.

“No, y/n. It was an accident!” The urge to run increased. Probably what your dear Lucy Gray tried to do. It makes you finally cry.

That crushed berry was an accident. Coriolanus told Lucy Gray to wait for you, to prevent cooking anything that was poisonous from your collection.

“WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?” He stops you, and as soon as he touches you, your reaction is violent. You keep squirming, trying to run away from him.

He drops the rifle, but the hand with the knife keeps dangerously brushing your temple. And Coriolanus wants to stop fighting so badly, worried that he could hurt you even more. Also, he panics as he knows the poison could be spreading.

He can’t be alone. You were his remaining hope.

“PLEASE STOP, Y/N!” But you don’t.

“YOU KILLED HER! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU!” Suddenly both of you stop. You touch your face and your whole palm is covered in blood.

Another thing Coriolanus never meant to. The knife had made a deep cut, and the scarlet kept flowing from that side of your face, covering your silk dress with spots.

“It was an accident. Y/n…please”

An accident… he wanted to kill you.

You run. You run as fast as you can. Towards the lake, wherever. As long as you could be away from Coriolanus.

He runs too, he chases you. Making you feel like his prey. You try to ignore the fear that keeps building up. You ignore the blood threatening your vision from the left eye.

“STOP, Y/N!” Coriolanus screams.

“GET AWAY FROM ME!” But you don’t stop, you reach the old wooden platform at the lake. The rain splashing against the surface of the lake is loud, but not enough to silence your sobs of anger, fear, and pain.

Coriolanus also fears. He knows he’s a monster, but he didn't want to be one around you. Maybe it was his karma. He believed Lucy Gray placed his mother’s scarf on top of that snake. You believed he had purposely placed the crushed Lily of the Valley at the bottom of that glass.

He keeps running, you won’t go anywhere in that wood thing.

You turn to see him. And it destroys him. Your face and drenched dress. All covered in blood and rain. Your red and swollen eyes. He had broken you in less than twenty minutes.

And looking at his eyes was your ending. Because you slipped. Coriolanus saw how your weak body fell into the water and he ran faster.

But he didn’t jump. It was too late.

Soon he realised your body would never make it to the surface.

He cried, he screamed in that lake. He fell on his knees and cursed at the way things happened. He lost his head when Lucy Gray was gone, and he returned even more stressed as he thought you had also run away. But you came straight to his arms, hoping to see everyone was fine. And he just kept cursing, wishing he had given you a different glass.

Some minutes later, he goes back to the cabin. He takes the rifle carefully wrapped with a blanket and takes a raft.

As he lets the rifle sink into the lake, he wonders where your body had ended up. But he accepts it was probably better to let you rest peacefully underwater than disturb you.

In his head, he truly fell in love with you. Lucy Gray had been an enigma for most of the time, only to reveal her true nature in her final moments. And you, Coriolanus realised you were the real mystery.

Just like your death.

He took all the flowers you had collected and sprinkled the lake with them. His eyes watered once again. Thinking about what could’ve been. And after a minute of silence, he leaves. The lake, the cabin, the outsides of the districts.

With two remaining memories; Lucy Gray’s earring and a single saffron flower you promised to give it a try with him.

Coriolanus swears that he actually needed you. But you’re gone.

…

Ending up back in the Capitol makes Coriolanus feel like Lucy Gray’s death was worth it, actually. But yours makes him feel guilty. He could’ve asked you to come with him. To forget about everything that happened on the 12 and start a new life. With the Plinth fortune and Gaul’s help on his side, Coriolanus accepts the only missing piece is you.

The saffron flower rested between the pages of his journal, now dry. But the color was vivid as the day it blossomed.

Coriolanus is a new man. Who had let go of his past, but not the memory of you. He mourns your death the first week he comes back home. And he tells his grandmother that from now on he will only wear her white roses.

A symbol of peace, hope, and innocence. Which he had lost a long time ago. But it reminded him of you. Especially the hope, which was what you took away from him when you died.

So he accepts the invitation from the annoying childish girl Livia Cardew. The golden blonde was always a shy yet smiley girl in class. But Coriolanus never paid much attention to her. Until he learned Livia’s older cousin was a famous and respected politician. So he agreed to come with her to the Inauguration Day. President Ravinstill was too depressed and down after his son died at the hands of a rebel attack. So he had to retire. And Coriolanus knew it was a great opportunity to look out for contacts and form new comrades.

“You look amazing,” Tigris said, brushing her cousin’s shoulders, inspecting his dark blue suit.

“Maybe because you did this,” Coriolanus said, happy to see the young woman smiling again. After the bittersweet comment of saying he looked like his father, there had been a shift.

“With some help,” she says, admitting all the hard work was not from her hands. Now she had a little atelier where she had help and started new fashion trends at the Capitol.

“Even so, you designed it. Thank you, Tigris” he smiled at her.

“Are you still going with that girl?”

“Livia? Yes… Why?” He asked, looking at himself in the mirror.

“I don’t think she’s the one Coryo. She’s a child” Tigris admitted, arms crossed and avoiding looking at the man.

“She’s my age, Tigris.”

“Still… allow me to say this but, she doesn’t seem to be what you need” Coriolanus sighed. Of course, Livia Cardew wasn’t what he needed, she just had some contacts and a good reputation from her family. But they had nothing in common.

Coriolanus Snow needed you. An alleged district woman, who didn’t even know her last name or background. Just the sweet girl who seemed to be the remedy for all aches.

“I know she’s not the one” and Tigris knew there had been someone else than her cousin’s tribute. Something else happened. But she wouldn’t ask him.

“Listen, I’m just going with her to the inauguration, but this doesn’t mean I’ll take her for granted,” he says, pushing away his memories from you.

“Say goodnight to Grandma’am for me, please” Tigris nods, briefly smiling once again before kissing his cheek and wishing him good luck.

The celebration had been very ostentatious. With a lot of people cheering for the new president. He seemed young, with a mature beautiful wife. There was a rumour that he was District 4 governor and was Mr. Ravinstill's best friend. That said a lot about why District 4 was wealthier than District 2 or three compared to before.

Nonetheless, the Capitol’s citizens seemed to be embellished by this new president who promised a new start for everyone in Panem.

Soon after the Inauguration Ceremony, only the wealthiest and finest members of the Capitol were invited to continue the celebration in a mansion near the hills. The view was amazing and the remaining minutes of the sunset were gorgeous up there.

Coriolanus had barely tasted from his posca. After you, he started to pay more attention to poison. He saw some classmates, like Festus, Clemensia, Vypsania, Hilarius, etc. A side of him wants to get closer and say hi, but Livia appears beside him, eating a little pastry.

“Imagine living here and being able to see this view every morning, evening, and night.” She says. Coriolanus hates her purple dress and red lipstick. As he thought, Livia was ridiculously trying to look mature.

“It’s a great view.” He replies coldly. The city was finally looking brighter, modern, and illuminated.

He turned to see the profile of the girl and noticed she had some cream on her chin.

“You have some-“ Livia understands and quickly wipes it away, smiling at him. She was pretty, but not his type.

“Better?”

“Yes.” The crowd suddenly starts talking, capturing the couple’s attention. So when both Livia and Coriolanus turn towards the mansion, they see two peacekeepers opening the doors from the biggest balcony. And the new man who had the crown of president appeared, followed by his wife. And then what seemed to be his family.

The guests started a round of applause, looking up from the giant patio. Coriolanus finally took a little sip of his drink.

“Dear friends and honourable guests. It is my joy to say that the inauguration ceremony was a success. My family and I feel extremely blessed and thankful for all the support we have received” the man started his speech. Coriolanus was mentally taking notes. As that was the man he would literally have to beg to become the Capitol’s governor one day. And hopefully, then become president.

“This is going to be a period of change, evolution, and a new start for the history of Panem. I look forward to meeting all the involved staff and personnel to make this real” he sounded honest, yet, like a dangerous species that you had to be careful around.

“For now, I’d like to introduce my sweet and dedicated daughter, who shall not be judged by her young age. But to be admired for the position I’m giving her, as chief of staff.” it was able to be heard on the microphone. He said the name, but no one heard.

And the first thing Coriolanus saw between the lines of the railing were some weird heels and the layers of a tulle dress.

Then a satin top with some soft knitted sweater, with shiny buttons. A delicate golden necklace and some dark brick red lips.

Coriolanus Snow almost dropped his glass. His face went pale and Livia had to borrow the glass from him.

“Are you okay?” She asked worriedly. Coriolanus nodded, but he had an evident nausea forming.

“Y/n. Come here, darling…” the new president said with a smile. Putting an arm around his daughter, proud of showing her off.

The president’s daughter was you.

He couldn’t believe it. He saw your body drowning. You drank poison, and the cut on your temple. How could you have survived?

That didn’t matter. There you were with a shy smile. Innocence is long gone. Coriolanus only saw the mystery, the danger in your face.

Seeing you there, breathing, as much as he wanted to have you alive before, was going to curse his existence.

“A toast for everyone here. To begin this new era with the right feet!” Your father said, raising his glass.

Everyone did it then.

“For the president!” The guests cheered in unison.

Fireworks started, making everyone turn to the sky. Even Livia walked a little past Coriolanus, but he stood there looking at the balcony. Eyes set on you.

You spotted him. And it stopped your world.

He looked even more beautiful than he did in 12. Longer hair, perfect weight gained. Clean and elegant suit. Now you know everything about him. And it broke your heart. You had healed through the trauma of what happened in the lake. Nobody knew, besides you and him.

You hoped to keep it that way. But you had no compassion left for a man like Coriolanus Snow. Who killed your best friend, almost killed you, and loved you the wrong way.

You knew he would be scared to see you alive. He would end up begging on his knees at the slight error he committed. He would have many questions, that time would answer for him.

Your days of being a loyal and sweet girl were gone. Coriolanus had stripped you bare from any trace of trust, unconditional love, and innocence.

You stare at him, and he looks shocked. He looks so scared and… frail. So you greet him back with a smile, sipping at your glass one last time, before looking up at the fireworks.

He really thought that it was the end.

____________________________________

Minitaglist: @rockstarbfs @gracieroxzy @il0vebeingdelulu @coconut-dreamz @angelscrime @maryvibes @justacaliforniandreamer

part two? yey or nay?

[averseunhinged]

hii! Just saw your promt post, and I was wondering if you could do either Jealous!Klaroline or Klaus comforting caroline after something bad happens to her? sorry if these are too bland 😭😭

hi! thanks for the prompt! i had a lot of fun with it. i'm not sure if this is what you had in mind, but i hope you like it. it ended up technically being both prompts in one.

cw for light angst, (kind of mild, i think) jealousy, klaus's issues, caroline's issues, death of a parent, grief, and it's pretty gooey by the end. we went the full-ass gamut in 2k words. no magic babies. very loose adherence to canon. title is from rock of gibraltar by nick cave & the bad seeds.

for the next thousand years

Caroline was wearing color again.

She'd draped herself in mourning black since she'd surprised him at Rousseau's nearly a year ago, still in her funeral dress with her severe hair barely mussed, but barefoot and ghastly bloodless, holding onto her humanity in a white-knuckled grip.

"My mom's dead," she had said, and he'd scooped her up as she collapsed. Cami had quickly ushered them out the back while Caroline began to weep. "How does anyone survive feeling this?" she'd sobbed into his neck as he carried her home.

How does anyone survive feeling this? he still wondered.

Caroline was in color again, a brick red cocktail dress, the close-fitting pencil skirt a demure knee length, but the scooped neckline was risqué. She was laughing and vibrant, witty and magnetic. No one she spoke with could take their eyes off her. She was a charming force of nature, and she'd spent the evening on his brother's arm.

Oh he wasn't stupid. He knew there was nothing going on. Caroline had gifted him with proud, beaming smiles, whenever he caught her eye, and a thousand years at one another's side let him easily read the encouraging looks Elijah had shot him, but there was an additional significance to them Klaus didn't understand.

Still, it was Elijah who ushered her around the room, making introduction after introduction, her hand tucked into his elbow, or his at the small of her back. Klaus could imagine what people thought of them. How charming they were. How perfect for each other. What a lovely couple.

The glass in his hand cracked. He slumped further down at his table in the corner. Rebekah had done a marvelous job fashioning a more modern version of a speakeasy in their home. The lights were warm and low and made everything seem soft-focus, and the crystal glittered under them. There was a live band playing and--

They were doing the damn foxtrot. He didn't know Caroline could foxtrot.

Maybe he should have guessed this would happen. She had been just a small-town cheerleader when they met. Nothing and no one in the grand scheme of things, but she'd still drawn his attention swiftly and irrevocably. He'd known she'd be transcendent once she made her way into the world. Only, he had thought he would be the one on the dancefloor with his arm around her waist.

He was being ridiculous of course. Even if Elijah had been a serious competitor for her affection, rather than an older brother enjoying needling the younger, Klaus wasn't doing himself any favors. He had experience in these matters after all. A long, sullen pout wasn't likely to steal her attention back. He needed to dredge up a bit of the charm and joie de vivre that made her halfway tolerate him in the first place, but the longer he lurked and watched, the more he felt on the verge of causing a scene. In this case, discretion truly was the better part of valor. He liberated a full bottle of bourbon and another tumbler from the catering staff and made a swift exit.

On his way out of the ballroom, he brushed past Camille and tried to do his best impression of someone who very much did not need to talk about his feelings. She saw the bottle of bourbon in his hand and the look on his face and groaned.

"I really don't want to play wise bartender tonight," she said, slightly tipsy.

He rolled his eyes. "So, don't."

"Okay," she agreed to his surprise. "You need to get your shit together."

"Excuse me?" he snapped.

"You didn't want the wise bartender. So, you get your friend, Cami, who is also friends with the source of your angst. I know more about what's going here than you seem to. This is supposed to be a special night, and you're being a dick."

Klaus continued his escape without acknowledging her. Occasionally, it was necessary to concede the last word, if one wanted to avoid eating one's friends.

Out on the balcony, he poured himself a drink and let the guilt gnaw at him. Cami was right about one thing. This was a special night. He wished he could undo this mood he found himself in, but the harder he tried, the more he risked sinking into certain violence. After the first glass, he left it on the table and went to lean on the balcony railing. He shut his eyes, breathed in the night air, and tried to let the sounds of his city unwind the chains around his spine.

The tap-tap-tap of high heels, divorced from the sounds of partygoers and merrymakers, on marble and then hardwood, pulled him out of his attempted meditation. He'd know the sound of her gait anywhere. This was the quick step of anticipation with a dash of nerves, rather than the sharp staccato of impatient annoyance.

"Did my brother run out of important people clamoring for an introduction?" he asked, directing his question toward the view the moment he smelled the sweet, seductive frangipani oil she'd recently begun using as a perfume.

"Oh boy," she muttered under her breath.

There was the delicate clink of glassware on the metal table. He smelled the crisp, heady scent of an excellent champagne before he heard the pour. A glass appeared under his nose, held by a perfectly manicured hand, nails painted gold just a touch paler than the wine. He took the glass from her and ducked his chin to hide the smile that threatened at the appearance of their thing. They touched their glasses together with a crystalline ping.

He made a thoughtful noise after the first sip. "Marie Ledru? I'm surprised we're serving that."

"We're not. I heard it was your favorite, so I got one out of the wine cellar earlier."

Wine cellar was dubious nomenclature for a dungeon where they also happened to store their spirits. He was shocked Caroline ventured down there. It had been left off the initial house tour, since the last thing she'd needed was to be assaulted by the scent of blood and death.

"Well, Elijah's just full of prodition tonight."

"I have no idea what that means," she admitted. "But it was Rebekah, actually. She practically had to draw me a map, because she made Cuvée Goulte sound like a cat choking, and I couldn't begin to guess how to spell that."

"Bekah's French has always been enthusiastic," he laughed into his glass, the bright effervescence of the wine working to lift his mood.

Or perhaps it was the company.

"I know I've been a total disaster since I showed up here," she said. He made a dissenting noise, but she steamrolled over him. "And I'm not exactly sorry about that. My mom deserved to be mourned, and I needed to do that somewhere," she trailed off as her voice tightened until it was barely audible.

He tried to observe her in his peripheral vision without making her feel studied. She was blinking rapidly, her head tilted back as she looked up at the sky. Light pollution made the stars nearly invisible, and the party had purposely been held on the night of the new moon, but she seemed to look beyond, far off to somewhere he couldn't begin to imagine. Lifting the glass to her nose, she breathed in slowly. Her eyes slipped closed. She smiled, small, but true.

She took a sip and held it, tasting it, before beginning again. "I needed to be somewhere no one would judge me for how I grieved. Whether I was doing it too fast or not fast enough. Too publicly or not publicly enough. If I cried as charmingly as Elena does. Mystic Falls is where I come from, and I'll always love it, but I can't spend the next however many years wondering if I'm living up to whatever they think I should be."

"I understand," he said quietly, with more compassion than he typically had, hoping the small undercurrent of disappointment was hidden from her.

"No," she said, and there was an edge of desperation to it that worried him. "I'm still messing it up. I know this wasn't what you had in mind. It hasn't exactly been the reunion you imagined."

She wasn't wrong, but she wasn't right, either. He'd wanted her to come to him when she was ready. Not just for him. He'd wanted her to be ready for herself. Ready to be who she truly was.

He leaned into her, resting his shoulder against hers. "Caroline--"

"I've been trying to be better," she continued before he could disrupt the point she was winding her way towards. "I've been spending a lot of time with Cami, because she gets how it feels to be totally alone in this one specific way. We have friends, sure, but no more family. Not just blood relatives. The real kind, who know everything about us and love us anyway."

It wasn't a notion he enjoyed thinking about. Whatever their disagreements might be, despite the way they irritated him ceaselessly, he held his siblings tight to his chest, hostages to his greed. Caroline had no such ties remaining, and he had no way of giving them back to her. Instead, he wrapped his arm around her, as though he was anchor enough to stop her from floating away.

She left her champagne on the edge of the balcony and burrowed into him, beneath the protective wing of his jacket. In heels, she was too tall to tuck herself under his chin the way Rebekah did when she was younger. Caroline wound an arm around his back and gripped his shirt hard enough to leave wrinkles. She cupped his neck in her other hand, fingers inching into his hair, and tucked her nose into his cheekbone, her forehead to his temple.

Klaus wanted to abandon his own champagne to hold her close, but couldn't bring himself to close the circuit. Instead, he took a sip, hardly tasting it around the distraction of the woman pressed against him.

"I know I've been useless since I got here," she whispered into the soft skin near his ear, her voice so very small, "and not at all the girl you wanted in Mystic Falls. Elijah was already helping me with the financial stuff; so, I asked him to help me learn the ropes in New Orleans, too. I wanted to--"

His glass toppled down into the garden below. It was a waste of fantastic champagne, but he couldn't bring himself to give a damn with her in his arms.

"--prove I belong here," she was still saying, even as he fluttered kisses onto her cheeks. "And I might not feel exactly like the same girl I was before, but I'm still the best parts of her. I'm still something. I'm still--"

"Everything." He pulled away just far enough to see the way the tears she fought were catching in the soot of her blackened lashes. "You're everything."

She looked at him as though he was both ripping her wounds open and sewing them closed. It's all for you, he'd told her once, and longed for a time when she'd accept the tribute he was offering. He'd never dreamed she'd give the same in return.

When she kissed him, it was like that day in the woods outside her hometown, with all the joy of reconnection and none of the sorrow of an imminent parting.

In a while, once they'd had their fill of soaking each other in, he'd take her back inside to their guests and show her off on the dancefloor. If there was anyone else who simply had to meet her, they’d best enjoy doing it with him attached like an additional appendage, because he wasn't letting her out of his arms again that night. Or for the next several days. Or perhaps ever, if she would allow it.

"Happy birthday, Caroline," he pledged against her lips.

How does anyone survive feeling this? she'd asked all those months ago.

Like this, sweetheart.

Exactly like this.

[cheemscakecat]

A Little Emesis Blue Headcanon

I always thought Fritz’ reaction to burnt Spy was… interesting.

Now, he’s obviously shocked to see it. But I have a theory that he wasn’t just thinking about past respawn failure victims and their injuries when he saw Spy.

I think the plague doctor means different things to different mercs, because they’re sharing a nightmare. And in Fritz’ POV, the plague doctor is a nightmare version of his silent personality. They both move eerily smoothly, they both don’t speak, and despite the quite personality having no mask, he doesn’t emote much.

There’s a lot of fire imagery around Dr Ludwig in this movie.

There’s candles on the casket he’s trapped in, and the Plague doctor is the only person around to put them there. The fact that he put so many on a rickety wooden casket implies that he wants the candles to burn down and set the casket on fire. Causing burns everywhere.

Yet again, we see something evil with a mask, using fire to attack Fritz. Note how the M burn is on the right side of his face and very close to his eye.

You know who else has a mark under his eye?

The quiet one. It’s under his left eye. Something must have happened to it, otherwise he would have equally red bags under his right eye.

In addition to Fritz having the burn on the other side and more of his cheek, the eye injury can’t be credited to the roulette scene. All the worst carnage was on the back of Ludwig’s skull because of the placement of the gun barrel.

So what happened to funeral Medic?

When Fritz sees the plague doctor, he’s always in the dark. He also seems capable of controlling shadows. This leads me to believe that the quiet Medic must be able to visit Fritz in his inner world.

In DID [formerly multiple personality disorder], there’s something called a headspace or inner world. Personalities can interact with each other and sometimes, the Core personality which is what Fritz probably is.

Inner worlds vary a lot in how many settings there are, if there’s fake townsfolk like NPCs, and how much the personalities can control their environment.

My best guess at the moment is that wherever Fritz was when he encountered the quiet Medic in his inner world, it was very dark and the quiet one had powers related to the dark.

Maybe most of the other personalities can’t access the part of the mind where Fritz is at, but the quiet one can. That might help explain why he thinks he’s schizophrenic and is so afraid of the personalities being evil.

Let’s be real, funeral Medic is very off putting even to the audience; imagine that but it’s using your face. Now imagine being Catholic and believing in demons. You probably have a light in your hand, because it’s dark, right?

I think Fritz saw this for the first time and threw a lit candle or lantern directly at his face. Leaving the red scar under his eye and making Ludwig afraid of the quiet one coming for revenge.

That would explain why Plague doctor was reaching towards his face and making smoke/shadows creep around. It would explain why Pyro chose to brand him on his face. And it would explain the look he gave burnt Spy.

”It’s you!-Wait no, he healed.-And I don’t smoke, who’s this guy?”

[shatcey]

Choose your true love (Silvio)

Sariel Silvio

(I really did take too few screenshots, so it's mostly going to be text)

The event starts with Belle talking to Silvio on the balcony by the sea. For me, this background is forever associated with Liner event with William… This scene is just burned in my memory…

She tells him that she wants to be his maid. Like… I watched you from afar, you've been through a lot right now, and you need me. Where was the flashback of the queen's funeral (yes, it happens just before Valerio disappears), when Valerio and Emidio bickering. Silvio tells them that this is not the place for fights, you're princes, behave yourselves. Very mature big brother. There was no more scene, just Belle's thought, that he looked very tired so she couldn't stay away any longer.

Silvio was used to women trying to get close to him (for selfish reasons), so he wasn't ready to accept her kindness as it is. But she is very persistent. A some random woman came and, ignoring her (after all, she is only a maid), starts to hitting on Silvio…

Don't be ashamed of your tastes, sweety… There's nothing wrong with that.

Belle once again insists that he needs her… to shoo women for instance. And if he needs someone to comfort him (it was after the funeral, in case you forgot), she can do it too. So… he called her cheeky and agreed.

They went to his room and….. well… he got down to business as usual… It's a woman, and he knows what they want from him, right?..

She insisted that he looked tired and needed to rest… he needed to sleep. Just rest, I'll stay here and...

He still doesn't believe her, saying she probably wanted to steal something from him while he was sleeping. She replies that she doesn't need anything from him, she only does it because she loves him.

And then someone knocked on the door. It was Carlo who brought the documents that His Majesty ordered Silvio to prepare… for the next morning (I hate this daddy so much!). Silvio tells Carlo to go to bed, he will take care of everything himself. Carlo reluctantly leaves. Belle asks to be allowed to help him, she can organize documents (or latters not quite remember) so that it is easier for him to work. Silvio doesn't really trust her, but he agrees that there is a lot of work, and he doesn't mind helping. They only finished at dawn.

Silvio commented, that despite how suspicious she is, she indeed is very helpful. They went outside for breakfast, where his Majesty noticed that Silvio spends time with women instead of working (actually, when this guy shows up, my hands itch… and I'm a very peaceful person, I can't even imagine slapping someone). Belle was protecting Silvio… "You bastard made him work, and he did it all night!" Right after saying that, she suddenly realized that she probably shouldn't talk to the king like that.

I secretly dreamed that she would hit him… alas…

The King snapped back… "Who is this woman?" Silvio said she's his personal maid and in his disrespectful style finished

They returned to Silvio's room and he praised her for having the courage to talk to King like that. She insisted that he needed to rest and she won't let him work anymore… She took him to the bed and he made her lie down next to him. He asked her if she was joking when she said she loved him. She replied that no, she was serious. And then he said that she knows nothing about him…

I don't remember if she told him that she was his future fiance or not… But I doubt he would believe her anyway...

But when she began to fall asleep, he ordered her...

She wakes up and Silvio is nowhere to be seen. So she goes looking for him. He and Carlo are in the hall discussing work.

She realized that it was HER Silvio and said that she had an odd dream or something because she was worried that he was working too much lately… He returned the documents to Carlo, saying that it would wait, and if anyone objected, just kick them. I really like to see Carlo do so…Damn, I wanna see Carlo at least!

Something like that. As I said, it was a while ago, and I don't remember much. But it was a very sweet event that showed how stubborn and determined Belle is when it comes to Silvio. I really love this girl. And I think Silvio was genuinely upset about his mother's death. No matter how terrible she was, she was still his mother. And immediately after that, he was forced to solve the problems of everyone around him… No wonder he looked so downed. There wasn't conformation that Belle really was in the past, but I like to think that she was and helped him a bit. He really needed.

And only because I like it… one of the lines Silvio said in this event

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

🔝 Start page 🔝

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[starberry-cupcake]

I have made up from last time that was about only one chapter, this time we have 5 in a row. We finished act one, fam!

previously, in harrowbean the ninth:

this happened

I want to also thank you for all your nice comments and replies, I read every single one, I promise ♥

ch. 7 to 11 summarized terribly, here we go:

it's time to cross the river

difficult task to perform

as someone who lives literally surrounded by rivers, in every direction, I can relate

my rivers don't carry ghouls though, as far as I know

I mean, there are ghost and cryptid legends, but not ghouls that stick to the windshield of a spaceship like bugs

like these ones do

so harrow and yandere twin aren't doing fantastic

yandere twin loses it in like the first 2 seconds

harrow sees the ghosts of all the ninth kids who died for her to be alive

there's water also, but that part sounds very relaxing, actually

getting covered by water but not needing to breath

I'd be there forever tbh

but we can't, because ghoulies

mercygirl is still doing sound effects like kronk

btw we're changing her name to mercygirl because it's what I've been calling her now

I have been told by a number of you that mercygirl is your camilla so I apologize for disrespecting your blorbina

I might do it again, if the situation arises, though

mercygirl is piloting the ship and emperor the fool is just chillin' until he realizes harrow is walking about and doing theorems, which they didn't think she'd be in a state to do, so they didn't tell her not to do it

these people half-assing plans, who would have thought

mercygirl calls the emperor john

emperor johnnyboy tries telling harrow to come back from her state because she's in too deep and it's becoming dangerous

mercygirl stars talking about the death of cassiopeia (another name that's easy to remember)

says cassiopeia had a ceramics collection, which makes her worthy of all my respect

harrow was thinking "five", idk what it's about

next thing we know, we're back to our gideonless retelling of gideon

in this version, teacher explains things

he says the house was inhabited previously by "ten normal human beings of the Resurrection, though half were blessed already with necromantic gifts"

I'm tired of MATH

he says they left blueprints, he tells them about the Sleeper, he tells them how not to awaken it, he tells them about the trap door, he tells them what's under the trap door, he asks them to work together...

you know what this is like

it's like reading gideon was entering a new game and skipping every tutorial they give you

and reading this is like clicking every NPC's info and reading all that they say

ANYWAY, here is where ortus 1...

wait, this is going to be confusing

I want to call ortus from the ninth "ortus 1" and the new guy "ortus 2"

because ninth ortus was the first to show up

but new ortus is actually older and also is ortus the first

we're gonna go with ortus and lyctor!ortus, for now

so, as I was saying, this is were ortus starts becoming much more insistent in these "flashbacks" about him not being the right choice

which, he's not wrong

we know he's not wrong

and harrow is saying stuff like "unless you can summon matthias nonius" (matthias nonius is becoming a recurrent thing, let's remember harrow compared gideon to him at one point)

and ortus goes "I don't understand why you chose me" to which harrow says "there was nobody else" and ortus exasperatedly says "you never did posses an imagination"

VERY IMPORTANT THING

a skeleton turns around when they're walking and says "is this how it happens?"

we'll come back to that shortly

REMEMBER IT

(I know you all remember it, you've read this already, just act like I'm dora the explorer and play along)

next chapter starts in not!dulcinea's funeral

I'm sad I used the oliver queen grave meme already, I can't use it again to express my feelings

I'm gonna use the steel magnolias scene where they laugh at the funeral instead

so, we are introduced to the famous augustine who's name I will remember

there's some conversation about first and second generations and about not!dulcinea being chosen, and Emperor Johnny Bravo says "we were all there to meet her, all sixteen of us"

MORE MATH

I guess she was the last one of these, but maybe we knew that already, I feel we knew that already

apparently, not!dulcinea was the most reluctant to slurp her cavalier, but that didn't stop any of them, not even her, so

Emperor Johnny Quest says "for god's sake" and harrow thinks "the god who became a man and yet still invoked himself, apparently"

when she's right, she's right

that's better commentary than I could make

I have to respect augustine a little bit because he asked "which one of the kiddies did her in?" and I thought that was hilarious

he is called the saint of patience, which makes my previous comment about them being named via sarcasm very correct

it's like captain planet or the power rangers but chosen as funnily as possible

they start summoning lyctor!ortus by saying that he's interested in "you-know-what", which is both suspicious and childish and the vibes of these lyctors are all over the place

augustine thinks something's wrong, which is an understatement at this point, but ok

lyctor!ortus comes in as if summoned by the gossip and harrow calls him "the next terrible part of your life" which is saying something

lyctor!ortus comes with news of the seventh beast or whatnot that's trailing them

harrow bleeds from her ears and smashes her head on the next available surface to pass out

the mood

who could blame her

this lyctor job is terrible

it's like the end of drop dead gorgeous and harrow is kristen dunst

I'm not explaining that, in case you haven't watched a classic

we are back to the "flashbacks" and we've got a special appearance from the fifth

*studio audience claps and cheers*

they say they prefer to look into books than going downstairs, which is something one would consider if one had known what the fuck was downstairs from the start

abigail also does sound effects like mercygirl, it's catching on

abigail finds a piece of a recipe note that mentions an M and a Nigella

still no G&P

we know nigella is the cav of cassiopeia, the ceramics collector

I remember nigella's name because of the cook, which makes it funnier that it's a recipe

M could be mercygirl

abigail also gives harrow a note

abigail says that she'd like to summon the ghost of a lyctor but she's not sure how that could work or where they go when they die

ortus, magnus and abigail, in this gideonless version, are a polycule

I am convinced of that

while they're talking, magnus says "is this really how it happens?"

REMEMBER I SAID WE'D BRING THAT BACK

IT'S BACK

abigail starts telling harrow that she's got the energy of a lot of dead kids in her and harrow storms out

harrow gets angry when ortus calmly agrees about things and she doesn't want to look into why

I WONDER WHY THAT IS

harrow looks at abby's note again and now there's text on it

it's a longer version of the note she found before

it's a rant

it mentions dead eggs, implantation, some guy being sent after the OP, said guy taking pity on OP

OP is mad about all of this and doesn't use punctuation

what ortus reads isn't what harrow reads, once again

NOW THIS BIT

"ortus, I need a cavalier with a backbone" "You always did and I am glad, I think, that I never became that cavalier"

the gideon points keep adding up

harrow then goes to sleep and is like this

final thing in act I, in chapter 11, is harrowbean stabbing not!dulcinea again, which

always make sure, it's like resident evil in here

just in case, let's stab her a bunch of times

so, are these "flashbacks" happening in real time whenever harrow isn't conscious?

is it her trying to remember what actually happened?

or is it her trying to hide it?

was there actually a longer period of time between the defeat of not!dulcinea and the emperor Jon Arbuckle coming to pick them up?

a period of time in which harrow learned things that made her write those letters?

and in which something happened regarding gideon?

is the note of the implantation also related?

why was gideon born in space?

of course I'm not asking you, please don't spoil anything, I'm just asking the void of desperation and chaos right now

we'll see if any of this gets answered soon or if I just get more questions

also, guess who wasn't mentioned

see you on the next one!! I'll try to get back to the awesome replies I've been getting soon ♥

[lov3-lik3-ghosts]

could you write a enoch o’connor x reader or enoch x olive fluff? movie ver 🙏

Strange Trails

Pairing: Enoch O’Connor x fem!Portman!reader.

Warnings: Not beta read. Use of Y/n. Movie adaptation. No scenes with Enoch (he comes along in the next chapter).

Summary: Your Jacob’s sister and have come along with him to uncover Abe’s tales and held secrets, though you didn’t expect that the cute boy from your favourite childhood stories would become the source of your affections — and you definitely didn’t think that boy would begin to quote the music album you’d discreetly slipped him.

Format: Series — Part One.

Word count: 6.3k

request guidelines | Following Strange Trails

The death of Abe hit you in a different manner than it hit anyone else. The grief held off for the few weeks it took to arrange his funeral and wake, only a pit in the bottom section of your stomach that flared whenever you caught a glimpse of his smiling picture.

Jacob had reserved himself from you for the second time in your lives — the first being when he stopped trusting in the law that was grandpa Abe’s tales and you continued to live on in the weary dreamworld of childhood that it was for years to come. You’d repaired your relationship years ago, into something not quite the same but just as close, even this closeness didn’t stop the fragments of past hurt and fresh grief from seeping through the cracks.

Abe and Jacob were always close. A bond between boys that bound them into a more understanding relationship, a more loving one, and you couldn’t imagine what hell your brother bore with him after having found the eyeless corpse of someone so dear. Except you and Abe were close too, and it was hard for you too, yet you refused to fall into the pits that were holding him hostage.

You invested all your time into the planning of his burial, the built-up summer homework and ignoring the breakdown Jacob was suffering. You disregarded your sorrow and felt the disrespect curl at your gut when your father, Abe’s son, acted like Abe’s death was nothing more than an inconvenience to his mundane, dead-end life of watching birds. You looked down your nose whenever your brother chose you as his target for lashing words and cutting accusations of not caring, when all you felt like you were doing was caring so much.

You festered in the thick, murky depths of woe, mourning in the ringing silence of it and going through the motions of life with a certain robotic unfeeling.

You kept it up for a good while, all polite smiles and brief embraces for anyone with an ounce of sympathy to spare; then the funeral happened. Abe’s picture sat on a large splintered easel, an easel you’d picked out knowing he’d have picked that very one for all its rough edges should he have had the choice, and he’s smiling that crooked smile you only ever saw once in a blue moon.

Beside that, Abe’s sleek coffin is entrapped in bars ready to lower him into the higher floor level of Earth's layers and it’s then, when the casket is left all them feet down and the first shovel of dirt is flicked over it, that your resolve shatters.

Your chest pangs with an oddened palpation filled with anguish and loss and it travels quickly through to your stomach and churns it more viciously than anything before. Your throat lumps and clenches, the sadness awaiting to manifest into loud, uncontrollable sobs that would no doubt rack through your entire body; you try to swallow it down, try to save yourself and your family some dignity, gulping harshly. You fail.

The cry fields across the graveyard with piercing suddenness. You're the first to cry, or at least the first to let it be known, even Jacob stood beside you stays stoic — blank-faced and numb. He glances at you, the infamous trademark blues that only a handful of Portman’s carried flickering with their first kind emotion he’d had for you in weeks, all sympathetic and soft-centred.

You and Jacob were close growing up, you were each other's first friends, the first person the two of you would choose to share toys or snacks with, you’d shared a room for a while and you’d shared a womb once upon a time too; so even in the times you weren’t friends, Jacob would always be the first to remember that once you sobbed for the first time, it was end game. He wasn’t just some friend, he was your brother first, always.

His arm draped over your shoulder, pulling you into his side and letting you bury your face into the black of his suit despite knowing it’d stain with makeup. He stares forward with his eyes welling and you hear as he swallows thickly but the tears don’t fall. You continue to choke through your grief. And the two of you ignore the condescending pity the rest of your stoic-faced disconnected family convey at the emotional display.

“It hurts.” You gasp out silently, hand resting above the placement of your heart. “It hurts. I’m sorry, Jake. I’m so sorry that you- that we- he shouldn’t have- not like this. Never like this.”

“You don’t have to apologise to me, Y/n.” He whispers. “We both lost him. You lost him, too.” This is the sanest you’ve seen your brother since the accident, the sanest you’ve felt since, and you have a brief moment of hope that flushes through your grief and visualises into a happier future. A future where Abe Portman didn’t die from a brutal attack, where Jacob Portman didn’t close off when you most needed him not to, where you didn’t have to take on so much responsibility all the time.

But that is a future that can no longer have a chance to exist.

Abe Portman is gone. Jacob Portman closes off to cope. You were always going to be forced to pick up the slack.

That’s the natural order now. Not much change, you could deal with it. You had too. You always picked up the slack, Jacob always closed off; Abe wasn’t always dead.

When you and Jacob parted at the funeral the last of the comfort parted with it, clinging to your heart with a suchness that it almost ached. You’d tried to weasel your way into his time, hoping for even a semblance of connection and understanding that you knew only he could offer but Jacob’s grief was a wild, springy, spiral that sparked with a drive of madness and a hunger for answers. Yours better resembled a hazy daydream that clouded your reality and took away your normal sensitivity to life and its breathing tendrils, yours doesn’t spark alight so much as it sparks out.

You have no such madness. No such drive.

You’d prefer your brother's version, alive and reminiscent rather than your dead and grey but your brother’s had caught up to him, so at the very least you were left be for your drabness. Reminiscence for Jacob meant retelling and seemingly harbouring a certain belief into the tales Abe loved to tell you as children, and as much as you sympathised with him for the therapy he was forced into, you would do just about anything to recall the faces and the names and the peculiarities and the stories of the children at the orphanage like Jake seemed too. You would do anything to have your grandpa back like that.

Your parents worried too much about Jacob’s state of mind to really pay attention to your withdrawn one which really felt like both a blessing and a curse all at once. On one hand, you wanted some doting and comfort, you wanted some companionship in a world that suddenly seemed so big and lonely. On the other, you had much more free reign to garner a way to cope and much more time to laze and mope and actually use your newest coping mechanism. Music.

There was so much to music that it felt like a never ending learning curve that you could obsess and consume without ever running out of materiel. Your family were more well off than most and so you could afford the luxury of getting the things your mechanism beckoned for; the guitars, the keyboards, the vinyls, the Walkman tapes, the drums, the speakers — you had a growing collection that slowly began to overtake the span of your room in a comforting display.

You’d had some of it before Abe’s passing, gifted to you by him to sate his own love for music and share it with someone he knew could appreciate it. A modernised vinyl player had been assigned a seat on the surface of one of your chest of drawers long before with a box filled with records on the floor beside it and an electric guitar had hung on your wall since you were only twelve.

Your grandpa had been the one to teach you how to strum the strings and play the chords and he’d done so while learning alongside you; those were easier times filled with peals of laughter and burts of wisdom whose memories left a melancholic river of longing streaming through your blood and down your face. Still, you played and you listened and at first you had to force yourself to enjoy something so associated with him but eventually it became your solace. Eventually, it was everything you needed.

Eventually, the memories stopped clouding your heart and your eyes and music was something that kept Abe’s memory alive and unhindered by your grief. It was his, and it was yours, and you carried it everywhere you went.

••

Having to go through the house of a lost loved one was an experience you wouldn’t wish on anyone. To see the home where he had lived look so lifeless and unlived in was just another drive home of his loss — your loss.

It didn’t stir your heart and churn your stomach like his burial had, you didn’t give throaty cries and cling desperately to your brother like you wanted too. This fostered a sting, a finality and a reminder. Abe is gone and he’s not coming back.

Your grandpa was a hoarder. He didn’t collect in a way that gathered in the entrance of each room and was left to cake itself in layers of moulding gunk but every spare nook garnered papers and maps and trinkets that to an outsider seems pointless. That to your dad, seemed pointless.

You and Jacob fought restlessly for the possession of any items your father picked up, one thing that meant nothing to Jacob meant something to you and vice versa, but Franklin had no attachment to any of it and most of your fight was lost simply because of that. You knew most of the things you wanted to keep didn’t actually have any vital virtue but they were all things you knew Abe treasured and in extension, you did too.

There were black bags lying all around you, filled and fastened and ready to go into the skip. Your throat did that funny clench and clamp you’d become accustomed to whenever you thought about throwing them away, thought about how his entire life was bagged and going to be discarded like it was all nothing. Like his life meant nothing.

You had to keep reminding yourself that your grandfather wasn’t the things he kept, that throwing them away wasn’t tarnishing his memory, that parting with them wasn’t parting with him. Abe didn’t live on through the hoarding of his past keepings, he lived on through you, through Jacob, and through anyone else that remembered him.

The only thing that Franklin had no argument for was the pictures that had either you or your twin in them and the stashed money kept in the oddest of places. It was to your guys’ uncommon luck that you caught a glimpse of the familiar sleek dark leather that belonged to a box your childhood yearned to have back, after your father had left the room. You’d opened it with a tense jaw and a cautious glance over your shoulder, knowing if you were seen with it it would be snatched from your grasp without a gallon of sympathy.

The monochrome pictures inside were just as you remembered, aged and weathered and fading, they were of a proud woman and orphaned children doing absolutely impossible things that as a child had left you wondered. A woman with a pipe silhouetted before a tall window and angled so you couldn’t decipher a face to recognise; a boy no older than yourself now holding a young girl you briefly remembered to be his sister, with only one arm — the most baffling thing about that photo however, was that the girl held a ragged rotound boulder overhead with a dainty hand and both smiled at the camera like it was the easiest thing they could ever think to do.

A boy clad in shin length shorts and a striped shirt and a thin jacket and bees, hives of them making home up the left of his torso and trailing along the left of his face, he was perfectly calm — stoic even and looked into the camera seemingly fed up. There was one of a seemingly unremarkable boy, dressed in the sophistication of an ironed suit and the curl of a derby hat, one hand rest in a pocket and the other hung loose by his side and he smiled faintly with his head held high; the visual oddity of him was the circular metal of a projector slotted over the crevice of his eye that, when you looked close enough, had small dials that allowed a ‘zoom in, zoom out’ factor. You remember thinking as a child that he didn’t look peculiar at all and more like a character on the fast track to becoming some sort of evil genius with tech gadgets; Abe had had to explain to you time and time again that looks could be deceiving. That sometimes the most unpeculiar looking people were the most.

The next photo you picked up was another boy in a suit, this one was less pristine with a knitted vest warming atop his shirt and an open overcoat, he sat laxly back against the wood of an armed chair with his feet resting on the kicked up balls of his dress shoes; a tweed cap, pointed forward to face the mirror reflecting the front of him, hovered metres above his collar. His invisibility had made him one of your favourite children to hear of when you were younger, the tales Abe had of him going nude to frighten the other peculiars and the locals would have you in stitches for hours; the memory made you huff a melancholic breath.

You shuffled the pictures around, moving to pick up the next one before hearing the light pound of footsteps creaking along the floor. In a panic, you dropped the ones you held back into the box and latched it back closed with haste, shoving it into the opening of your backpack. The bag lay crumpled by your feet as you spun around, schooling your posture to a strait-laced force formation and feigning innocence through wide eyes.

Jacob stood before you, looking between yourself and your bag with a half smirk. “Found something good?” He whispered, nodding down at it curiously. You tensed, following his gaze, you stared in silence.

You knew you could tell him safely, Jacob wouldn’t tell your dad about anything you chose to keep, but these photos were different. These photos would cause a boundless battle between the two of you that would end with more lost love and ceaseless hostility than you could ever handle.

For a moment you looked at him; he’d want these so wholly if he saw them, maybe perhaps he’d treasure them more than you would, but you’d never been selfish, you never kept something for yourself, and this was something you don’t think you could give up.

Shrugging through your answer, you speak lowly, “Photos. Nothing too great, just thought that dad might start to think we’d gathered enough of ‘em.” Your brother seemed satiated by your answer, turning on his heel and hunching over another bland moving box with a hum, but that didn’t stop the twanging guilt from cramping its claws around your heart and throat. It didn’t stop the way your mouth stuttered open to spill the honesty behind the first lie you’d ever told him.

“Hey, Jacob?” You call, truth dancing its delicate waltz along the tip of your tongue, readying to spin its way out, but your mind flashes with all the consequences that could come hand in hand. He could run with it, drive himself madder quicker than he already was after you inevitably lose the fight for possession, or he could do something drastic — suggested by his therapist — like burn them for closure. Neither were worth the trouble you foresaw.

When Jacob called back in affirmative you scrambled for something else to say, routing through all the conversations you’d wanted to start with him since Abe. “He loved us, you know? Loved you.” It was a stretch because you knew he was more than aware that your grandfather had loved him, loved the both of you more than anything, some lousy and futile attempt at consolation that you’d thought up when you hadn’t had the time to truly feel it for yourself, but you’d have to roll with it now.

“I know.” He turned back to look at you, an eyebrow climbing high on his forehead as if to say it was obvious.

You blanked, a bubble of panic hazing your thoughts. There wasn’t anywhere you could really take this conversation, Abe had loved you, and that was that; you loved Jacob though, and the two of you hadn’t really said that since before you’d turned double digits, now seemed the perfect time to remind him.

“I love you.” Jake’s face contorted, looking at you with affronted confidence, you figured he’d found it frivolous that you’d spoken it because the two of you had sworn up and down as children that the other would always come first — no matter the situation. Neither of you ever broke promises. “I- I just mean that I- we haven’t said it in a long time and… I just thought now would be a good time to remind you. In case you forgot.”

“Forgot?” He asked. “I’d have to get hit in the head to forget, idiot.”

You smiled, “You sure? You were clearly dropped on your head loads as a baby, probably built up a resistance.”

Your brother scoffed, looking to the side into an open box and taking pick of a small plush before lobbing it at your head with a smirk. You dove to the side with a squeak, stepping over your bag with twisted steps and landed halfway down the wall with your hands curling into the plaster. Jacob guffawed, wheezing out breaths as he bent at the knee, open palms hitting his thighs in exasperation.

“Ass.” You snicker, separating yourself from the wall. The plush he’d thrown at you landed by your feet, having hit the wall when you did; it was a fluffy blue thing, discoloured with age and matted by years of use, the stuffing was worn down, it’s arms and stomach more deflated than full and one eye had undoubtedly been stitched messily back in.

There was a darkened stain by its nose, blood red and grossly crisping the curls by its snout. You faintly remember the moment that caused it, a small nosebleed you’d bled after a failed game of pirates that ended with Abe tucking you and your brother into bed, the bear nestled between you. It was well loved and another thing you and Jake had shared. Your throat clogged.

He watched as you bent down, wrapped your fingers around the strap of your bag and the teddy before straightening again with a grin. “Look,” Your thumb and index fingers imbed into either side of the bear's head, wiggling its face at Jacob’s. “It’s Bobby Bear!”

He rolled his eyes, feigning an itch on his nose to smother a smile behind a hand and turned back around to the boxes. You sat Bobby on top of the photo box in the backpack, adjusting him to look more comfortable before zipping it closed; the forming fondness zipped in there with it, ready to be reopened when you were back in the relief of your room.

“Y/n?” Jacob asked. You hummed, looking at the back of him. “I love you, too.” His words were tentatively uttered, a cautious chitter of the affection he’d earlier forgone. Your face softened, a warmth inflaming your chest; your brother was a recluse, even in his best of times and affectionately inept, him expressing verbal emotion was as rare as a cat befriending a bird, and just as heart stirring.

His shoulders tightened the longer you stared, squirming under the weight of your muteness. You bit down a teeth-baring grin, cruelly letting him stew in the anxiety for a few long moments before breaking it.

“I know.” You said and rucked your bag over your shoulder, planning to take place in your dad’s awaiting car. You brushed a hand along the blade of Jake’s shoulder when you walked by him, an action you’d both reciprocated since high school — a way to say “I love you” that put the two of you at ease. His shoulders fell.

••

You lay spread eagle across the span of your bed, staring blankly at the ivory pebbledash of the ceiling above you. Your shoes were by your door, still tied into double knots after having been toed off the second you’d walked through the frame and covered by the blue of your dropped jacket.

Today had been trying, a churning rollercoaster ride of emotions and oldened memories and fights for possessions — old wounds had been loosely stitched close and fresher ones torn savagely agape. Abe’s house would never again be easy to be in, a house that was once so full of floundering life was now haunted with the ghosts of love and loss and the weight followed you even now, far from the once home.

Heaving a shuddering breath, you looked to the closed sack beside you. The culprit to your fib lay within, awaiting your curious melancholy with a beckoning lure; you lugged yourself up to pull the bag closer, tugging the zip open and gently manoeuvring the box out.

The golden latch clicked lowly as you unlatched it, the metal glistening against the dim light of your bedside lamp invitingly, a siren song to your desires that you tug open gingerly. The photos you’d earlier shuffled through had been placed so hastily back into the coffer that they were flipped the right side down, revealing the looping calligraphy of your grandfather's handwriting you hadn’t previously known inked them.

Spreading the turned pictures along the fold of your comforter, you briefed over the dates and names.

Peregrine; 1940. Victor & Bronwyn; 1939. Hugh; 1939. Horace; 1938. Millard; 1940.

You paused with a staggering pulsation of shocked disbelief. These were their names — the names of the children you’d longed so desperately to recall, the names you’d spent weeks racking your brain for, smothering the throes of envy towards your brother for having the one obtainable thing you wanted.

Peregrine. Abe always spoke of her with a deference, eyes glinting through the rules she’d ingrained into him — the matron of the children’s home. He never referred to her by anything other than Miss or matron, aside from the one time he’d called her the bird before quickly deferring into an invisible tangent, so you were left with only that to refer to her by.

The longer you looked at the names, the more the tales refilled your head, stringing along in flash memories.

You didn’t have many for Victor and Bronwyn, only Abe’s descriptions of their brute strength; for Hugh, you recalled how often he’d use his bees to his advantage, eluding the others with a colony to bypass them; for Horace, you had a handful more — your grandfather having taken the time to fill your head with more of him whenever you expressed how unpeculiar he seemed in comparison — all about his interest in style and his gentlemanly nature and his dreams, now that you were older, the prophetic element to his peculiarity was much more intriguing. Millard’s tales were favoured between you and Jake, told on repeat to induce bellyaching laughter, Abe would laugh with you, choking over the words in breathless stutters — they were all of how Millard would go nude to startle the townspeople and the other children.

You huffed a watery chuckle. The photos still in the coffer beckoned when you looked at them, ageing corners yellowing and curling. The top seated one didn’t bring forth any recollection, only a chill that raised the hair on the back of your neck. Two children, dressed in extravagant all white, covering them down to even the tips of their fingers and the full shine of their eyes; the masks they wore run the full globe of their heads, leaving only two small slots for seeing and breathing, and looked to be made of thick paper mache. They were pressed side by side, one arm thrown over the other's shoulder with their heads tilted to face the taller photographer and when you flipped the monochrome the names there were nonexistent, replaced by only: The Twins; 1939.

Abe never showed you this photo. The longer you looked at it the more you understood why. Still now, at seventeen, it made you swallow and place it downwards. You were never good with faceless, masked, oldened pictures — the unknown lying beneath it always made your mind run rampant with images conjured from the darkest parts of your imagination, like a fear of monsters under beds. The fact that they were peculiar only fueled the fear; the twins could actually be something made of nightmares under their masks.

A blonde stood in the next picture, hair falling in perfect waves. Her dress hung loose, patterned with spaced flowers, collared with a Peter Pan style most popular in the 1920’s and lengthing down to her mid calf. In her hand hung a thick platform boot, buckled with just as thick metal clasps and patterned with swirls — it looked like it weighed a ton but she held it like a weightless overcoat, looped through a finger. The matching one rests a few feet behind her, just before a patch of fallen, autumn browned leaves. She floated above the ground, bare feet hovering in a cleared circle, arms hanging by her sides, and an even smaller circle of shade just under her.

The boot in her hand acted as an anchor, stopping her from floating up and up, through the tress of branching trees and into the abyss of the sky. Her peculiarity you remembered: aerokinetic, or at least, that’s what your grandfather had once called it. The back of her photo read: Emma; 1940.

You froze.

Surrounding her name wrote a plethora of heart-shapes, calligraphed in the same deep black ink as the other pictures, some were coloured where others lay empty but you imagined all were done with a certain absentmindedness. The same absentmindedness you brained when you’d fallen infatuated with a boy.

No other photo had them and you felt the piercing tendrils of something like distrust creep around you. Had Abe hid things from you and Jacob? Things that mattered, deeper things than a lost puppy love. Was she a lost puppy love? Your father and aunt always gave your grandfather sideway glances when he claimed to love your grandmother, scoffing under their breaths and whispering about “funny affairs”. You’d assumed they meant sketchy people at the time, peculiar people, your young mind naive to the bedtime stories. But now, the word “affairs” had a whole new meaning to you and you couldn’t help but wonder if Emma was “funny affairs”.

Was this why he never let you hold the pictures? So you didn’t glimpse the back and piece things together?

With a furrow between your brow, you collected the spread monochromes and placed them back into the box, lightly latching it closed and sliding it under the space between your bed and the floor, leaving the unseen for another day. Going through the motions of getting ready for bed with a robotic remembrance, your mind ran a mile a minute, all your thoughts clouded with everything he’d ever told you.

You’d always idealised him. Abe could never do wrong, if there was a man to make the sky, he hung the stars and lit the sun, if there was a word you followed without question, it was forever his. You knew it was childish, the type of endless trust you give to the instruction of your mothers words as a tot, but until now he’d never given you a reason not to take his word as law — biblical.

How many times had Abe evaded information?

When you lay down, under the comfort of your blankets and against the plush of your pillows, your body relaxed from a tense you hadn’t realised had taken you. Your eyes fluttered, forcing themselves closed, weary from the emotional turmoil that was your day but your mind wasn’t quite as ready to settle. You try to push the distrust down, hoping maybe it’ll flow out of you with sleep, but it has already paced its way through the previously impenetrable force of your idealisation of him, aflame with your fathers forever distrust.

How often did he lie to you, if he did at all?

The tendrils deepened, running murky red with betrayal and cutting its sharp knife-like point into the depths of your gut.

Did you ever truly know him or was he a man of well spun lies and secret lives?

••

Your birthday came quickly. The excitement that usually took home in your chest wasn’t there at all, rather diminished by a hazy cloud of something akin to sorrow.

The initial shock-horror of the accident had slowly been dwindling, evaporating in such a way you barely noticed, but in its place lay the wanting of Abe to be there for your milestones — and everything that came in between. This was your first birthday without him and the third time it sunk a hollow home into your chest.

Your parents had arranged a surprise party, more for Jacob than for you, that was turning out to be more of a family gathering. The living area was crowded with the subsections of your extended family — cousins you’d never met and aunts and uncle’s you could just barely remember. You’d been lucky enough to be able to slip off through the archway of the door closest to the party, falling just shy of an unfamiliar woman, who had been following you around all night and trying to start a conversation.

Jacob’s walls are lined with posters of things you’d never been able to take interest in and trinkets gathering dust atop his own chipped chest of drawers. He’d never been particularly messy, like Abe he had an organised clutter of things that seemed otherwise useless piling on the spare shelves of his open closet, but his floor was kept clear. The only thing that stood out amongst his space was the drawn blinds; Jacob was one for daylight when you were children, the curtains never stayed closed long enough for you to lay in and he’d go around all your house pulling the curtains aside and hooking them back, seeing a change as small as this reminded you just how hard the loss of Abe was for him.

Footsteps creaked along the floor outside the door, coming along in a rushed pattern. A fleet of panic took your breath. Surely the same lady from earlier wouldn’t go as far as to follow you in here, surely she wasn’t that desperate to talk with you. The doorknob twisted and clicked open in the same second. Jacob’s body slipped between the small gap of the frame, his hair and shirt dishevelled the same way yours had been. You let out a breath.

He hadn’t noticed you perched on the edge of his bed yet, head thrown back against the door and his eyes squoze tight, his grip on the handle didn’t loosen, twisting and turning it round and back again.

“Uncle Mayan?” You ask. He flings himself backwards, headbutting the door with a resounding thwack, and groans as his hand flies to cradle the crown of his head. Your eyes meet his, swarmed with mirth and Jacob’s face twists with irritation and relief.

“Yes.” He mithers, shuffling the distance to his bed and slouching to sit atop his crumpled duvet while still kneading his scalp. “What are you doing in my room? I know you're a lazy ass but surely not enough to not walk two doors down.”

“Shut up.” You roll your eyes, shoving his head forward with force. Jacob screeches and sends his elbow into your ribs. The hit tethers over your skin and pulses pain up your side, when your hand touches the area it’s already tender and you’re sure it’s already blooming with irate reds and blues. “Asshole,” You snarl. “That’s gonna bruise.”

“Don’t start what you can’t finish, Y/n.” He smiles sarcastically, still rubbing the back of his scalp.

“That’s it.” You sneer playfully. “You’ve waged war.”

Jacob raises his brows, “You already did that when you scared the crap out of me.”

You huff a shallow breath, narrowing your eyes at him, “I was only in here to get away from an aunt I don’t remember ever meeting before. She wouldn’t stop following me around and I already talked with her for twenty minutes. I don’t think she even told me her name.”

Jacob wheezes a laugh at your misfortune, falling back into his bed. “You deser-”

A knock resounds on his door, three light raps against the wood. He springs back up as your fathers sister enters without waiting for his say. When you look at him, he looks as enervated as you feel.

“It’s Aunt Susie.” She smiles, making her way over to you almost sheepishly. “I’m so glad you’re in here,” Her blue eyes reflect off the encroaching daylight, peaking through the shutter, when she looks at you. “Thought you guys might want to open this one.”

You shuffle closer to Jacob when she sits on the edge of the bed, giving her more space to settle. The small, book-shaped package she’d walked in with rustles its brown paper when she softly hands it over to you. You hold it with a frown, looking puzzled between the gift, Jacob and her. Susie’s grin softens as she fills in the pieces. “It’s from your grandpa. Found it while I was packing up.”

Jacob swallows lightly as he takes it from your hold, thumbing the curt edges when he looks to her, lips parted. “Thanks.” He says softly.

Susie huffs a small laugh, pushing up from the bed with her hands and making her way out the open door. Jacob looks to you when the soft click of the door sounds, his eyes round. You can only gesture to the gift in his hands.

The rip of the paper echoes louder than it should when he tugs it free, somehow thrumming louder through you than the thump thump of your soaring heartbeat.

As you suspected, when Jacob pulled the paper back a hardback book reveals itself. The cover isn’t much to marvel over, shades of blue and white forming a pretty picture on its front but its title folds your brows.

The Complete Essays and Other Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Abe was a man of many interests. Sailing, history in most its forms, music, storytelling, geography, travelling; but through all of that never once had he expressed an interest in poetry, not to you.

Jacob parted the hard cover from its beginning page, the spine creaking lowly under the movement and you smothered the returning hollowness that wove your heart to scoot closer. Abe’s handwriting drew your eyes the moment you saw the yellowing page, calligraphed as beautifully as you always remembered it and addressed to your brother.

To Jake, and the worlds he has yet to discover. From Grandpa xx

Only your brother. Your heart sank.

Jake took no notice of the drop of your shoulders or the swallow you choked through, absorbed entirely in the final gift your grandfather ever gave him. He turns the next page to a photograph slotted between, one of a tall hill, buzzed green grass and mounted with darker trees. There’s a line of differently coloured brick buildings just below the slope and before what seems like a small beach of grainy sand or a white paved walkway leading into a clear-watered section of a larger bay.

Cairnholm. The word is written in clear letters in the lower left corner of the photo and you wonder briefly if that’s what this place was before Jacob flips the card over to more beautifully looped letters. The silence lingers thick in the air as you both read.

My dearest Abe,

Emma flashes through your mind like a peregrine falcon, quick and fleeting and dauntingly beguiling. You hope terribly that your grandfather hadn’t been stupid enough to leave evidence of an affair so cruelly for your brother to find; you bearing the burden was enough.

I hope this card finds you well. The children and I yearn to hear your news. I do hope you will visit us again soon. We should so love to you see you.

With admiration, Alma Peregrine.

Unmistakable relief floods you in waves. Peregrine. The matron.

Jacob doesn’t utter a word for the two minutes more you stay sat, only flips back and forth between the words of Abe marring the opening page and the loops of Alma’s postcard. You leave his room with a heavy heart, ignoring the calls of your name from the bustling living room behind you. No final gift to awe over, to mourn with.

You wonder if he hadn’t found one yet before his unfortunate demise or if it had been chucked with the rest of his things considered insignificant and frivolous.

The slam of your door does little to quench the unbridled rage tightening your mind.

~ 𐀔 ~ 𐀔 ~ 𐀔 ~

Likes, comments and reblogs are extremely appreciated and very encouraging!

I do not give permission for my work to be reposted or translated (on this site or otherwise).

[appleciderp]

I literally cannot stop thinking about how Price and Ghost are most likely only a few years apart.

Like the "Good to see you again, Simon." scene hurts me more because of it.

Imagine Private Simon and Price, they both don't really know what they're doing but they want to do what's right. They share the same barracks, and they encounter each other, but they don't really talk yet.

Then Price gets a promotion to Lance Corporal and has Simon in his lil section, they become friends at this point, cracking jokes and spending time together.

After a few promotions on either side, Price can say that Simon is definitely his closest friend in the Army.

And Price doesn't hear about Simon for a while. He gets a promotion to Officer Cadet and Simon isn't there for his promotion, which unsettles him. But Simon was always a bit introverted and quiet when it came to his private life, it's not like he expected anything.

Between his officer training, Price manages to corner Simon when he's back on base, and he tells him that he had to settle his family affairs. Don't worry, it's all solved.

Then Roba happens, and he mourns Simon. He meets Tommy, Beth, and Joseph at the 'funeral', offering them his condolences.

But a few months later he overhears the whispers from other officers about Simon not actually being dead, that he dug himself out of a grave with Vernon's jawbone. They're calling him Ghost now, they've given quite a few promotions for the whole ordeal, but he isn't on base yet, anger management issues they say. Price doesn't blame him.

Then he hears about his family.

He hears about his revenge.

He doesn't see Simon again. He does meet Ghost, and he thinks the nickname is apt. The man was a husk of who he once was. There's an occasional quip, he still talks as he does. But he's not happy, he doesn't have a smile that tore through his face anymore.

They get deployed for more missions together occasionally. Price does see his face once or twice, the same as before but marred with concerning scars. Price still considers the man one of his closest friends, but there's a wall he's trying to break down, but it's getting built up again as soon as he can take a brick out.

The harder he tries the higher the wall gets built. Ghost no longer takes missions with him, with anybody in fact.

Price's biggest concern is that he'll never know if anything happens to him, Simon is dead. He's going to die behind enemy lines and he'll never know.

So he throws himself into work too, helping with training new recruits. He meets John MacTavish; friendly, cocky, hot-tempered, quick-witted, with a deadly aim to boot. He doesn't want the military to crush yet another person as it did Simon, so he forces him to be better. Stronger.

Looking back he probably let his own emotions make him too strict on the kid, but he doesn't regret it.

He hears through the grapevine that his callsign is now Soap, dumb as shit, but then he hears the why. The boy's so quick and efficient at clearing house. Pride swells up in him.

He's a Captain now, he heard that Ghost got Promoted to Lieutenant not too long ago. He meets Kyle, another young hot-shot Sergeant, he reminds him of Soap, and he mentally reminds himself to check in on MacTavish.

The kid's good but lacks experience. Prefers to do what's good over what needs to be done. He didn't miss him heaving after tossing the hostage over the edge of the railing in Picadilly Circus or the color slip away from his face as they tortured information out of the Butcher.

There were things he could protect Kyle from, but as they were; Price always knew what he'd pick when looking at the trolley problem.

After the whole ordeal is done, he wants to make a task force, so he asks Laswell for files. He tacks on Simons, hoping that he wouldn't ignore a direct order. But if Simon worked for him, he'd know if something happened to him.

He's surprised when Simon accepts. He's not when both Soap and Gaz do.

He can't help the smile when he sees him for the first time in years. They chat, they joke, they go on a few missions, and Ghost reluctantly opens the door to Simon again.

When he and Ghost talk about the teamwork required to get Alejandro's base back, he can't help the pride that seeps through his pores. When he removes the mask and lets these people in as well, he knows that, for the first time in years, this is Simon. He's back.

It takes another few months to realize what had lit the fuze, so to speak.

Of course, it was the demolition expert.

[are-you-fucking-with-me-rn]

okay so I always wanted to work on a show soundtrack so here's some songs I would put in s2 because since its probably maybe not gonna happen these can be canon in my head

Stupid Cupid by Connie Francis - okay so imagine if you will. The episode starts out jarring, maybe some payneland smooching out of nowhere, makes you go back to the last episode thinking you missed a scene. But then Edwin opens his eyes, he's lying on the ground or something, and is immediately thrust into the middle of a fight scene(this is where the song starts playing). He had just been temporarily knocked out and had some dream sequence or something idk. The fight scene is in a fancy restaurant or smth and it's close to Valentine's day and it's all decorated with hearts and stuff. This song is diegetic, playing in the restaurant.

Flaws by Bastille - I'd probably put it during end credits/end of the episode. It feels very transitional to me. It's a song on the Charles playlist so of course it's gonna play after a scene with Charles heavy lore or something. Maybe Charles's dad dies, and the song starts at the beginning of the funeral scenes. Then, long after everyone's already left, Charles goes and stands in front of the gravestone and his mom is just there kneeling in the grass in front of him and doesn't know he's there and yeah. It's like, the start of Charles's Actually-finding-peace-and-confronting-trauma arc or smth.

Girls on Film by Duran Duran - good for a montage of like Crystal adjusting to having rich, showy parents. She thinks maybe if she helps them out with their big projects, which she assumes the old her didn't do, maybe they'll start seeing her and caring about her like parents should. Going to grand openings and being photographed/interviewed, being in the public sphere all the sudden. Crystal's overcompensating for being a major jerk in her past life and is now bending over backwards to be nice to everyone (which, from experience, isn't exactly healthy either)(aka she's gone the "obsess-over-being-good-enough" route that Charles's gone down)(yikes).

The Killing Moon by Echo and the Bunnymen - I honestly have no vivid images for this one. I just like the song, I think it matches the mood of the show. Maybe something about Crystal and David? A final confrontation? Cus I saw someone (I'm sorry I forgot who) say they thought it would be interesting if Crystal's powers get "contaminated" by David cus he's still buried by the tree. So like a final standoff.

Swan Upon Leda by Hozier OR Eurydice by Eugénie - I think s2 would be more about Charles' journey the way s1 was more about Edwin BUT i'm also curious about Edwin's life. Something happens where Edwin maybe ends up at his old house, or relives his memories and it's all in slow motions and more calm than Charles's in ep4. They're not all bad, but Edwin was different and outcasted and the likes. George Rexstrew said himself that he thought Swan Upon Leda described Edwin really well, but also Eurydice gives off a sort of melancholy floatiness that fits with a boy 100+ years dead reliving an upbringing that now seems to foreign to him, and yet is ingrained in every part of himself.

Since listening to music is my #1 hobby, I will probably find more songs down the line and add on, but this is what I got for now.

[alex51324]

That Tweet, take 2

OK, so my first reaction to That Tweet, by Djenks, was as follows:

My money is on DJenks realizing that he shat the bed & now furiously trying to write himself out of the corner he's in. (My second guess is that he basically already knows there won't be a Season 3, but there's some network or business-related reason for not announcing it yet.)

But now that I've had a bit more time to think about it, I am kind of seeing a scenario where he could've intended it to be a fuckery all along.

Step one is that we imagine him being a bit disappointed by how Lucius's death fooled absolutely no-one. It's likely that he was planning for the reveal that he was alive to be a much bigger moment than it actually was; maybe he even has some Big Reveal ideas that he had to put on ice once it became clear that there was very little actual suspense surrounding Lucius's fate. This is, obviously, since I don't know him personally, a big hairy guess, but it seems like a very plausible reaction for someone to have, when they put a lot of effort into planning a surprise and it falls flat because everyone guessed it.

Step two is him deciding to sell Izzy's "death" a little harder, with the emotional death scene and the funeral (where we do not actually see the body, and a mourner, Wee John, is missing) and all. It's laying it on a little thick, in my opinion, but again, we did all confidently (and correctly) assume that Lucius was alive based on the evidence that "this show wouldn't do that" and "The Stede-Ed reunion won't work if he's really dead," so you can see how a showrunner could, hypothetically, get to--

Step three, is Djenks opening up his socials at the crack of dawn on Thursday morning, expecting to see reams of speculation and analysis about how Izzy could have survived, and being genuinely shocked to instead find seas of angry and devastated fans suggesting that he should perhaps give up television in favor of a career in going and fucking himself.

Step four, realizing that he drastically overshot the mark re: creating genuine suspense over character death, he tweets out a big obvious hint.

I don't love this interpretation--for one thing, there is nothing in the episode we saw that would provide a plausible in-universe reason for faking Izzy's death. It would be pretty easy to create one--have Prince Ricky No-Nose vow personal vengeance against Izzy Hands in specific for calling him a syphilitic cunt/his role in foiling the "end of piracy" scheme--but we did not see anything like that. To make the funeral scene work as a fuckery, it would be necessary to insert a flashback between the "death" and the funeral in which A) this happens, and B) the other characters find out about it. That's a cheap trick that I personally hate--the old, "Haha, I made you feel a thing by deliberately withholding context"--but again, if it's an overcorrection for the complete and abject failure of the effort to create suspense around Lucius's fate, I guess I can live with it.

If Izzy's death is a fuckery, that addresses a lot of the other problems with the finale. First, Ed and Stede's obviously-doomed, harebrained scheme to give up piracy and be innkeepers (in a dilapidated shack, on an island where we see no other people or settlements) is plausibly funny, as long as we aren't thinking that Izzy died for it.

Second, the tonal whiplash of going from the funeral to the wedding is also fine if everyone involved knows perfect well that the guest of honor at the funeral is actually recuperating just offscreen.

(Thirdly, there's Captain Frenchie--I haven't seen much discussion of that, but the only problem I had with it is that I can't think of any moments from the season where he stood out as being a leader for the crew. I might've missed something; he's not one of my particular blorbos, but it wouldn't have taken much, just something you can look back on and see how it was setting up him becoming captain.

And, crucially, we do have those few little moments of setup for Frenchie as First Mate to Captain Izzy. Frenchie was there during the dark days, during which he presumably underwent some skill development, pirate-wise, and definitely bonded with Izzy to some extent. We see him holding Izzy's hand during his breakdown, and he presumably helped hide him and definitely lied to Blackbeard about it, and then how they were sitting in the cell on Zheng's ship--it isn't a whole lot, but you can look back and see why it makes sense for Izzy to pick him.)

Making Izzy's death a fuckery doesn't do anything to fix the way the whole Zheng thing fell flat. (Why give her a massive fleet in the first place, only to take it away? Why did we get those scenes of ships being towed across land? What was she doing selling soup on the Republic of Pirates? For that matter, why did she come to the Caribbean in the first place, after becoming Pirate Queen of the Chinese seas?) It doesn't help with how Ed and Stede keep repeating the same beats of getting closer, then running away, then reuniting without ever talking about their relationship or their issues. It doesn't address why the Kraken Era had to go that dark, if the whole thing was just going to be smoothed over in the space between episodes 4 and 5, and how Ed never really takes responsibility for any of what he did.

However, middle installments of trilogies are notoriously difficult to write, and it isn't particularly fair to judge them before you get to the last part. Most of the weak points could look better in hindsight once we know how it all turns out.

(And, not for nothing, as long as Izzy is alive, we can still get something where Ed reckons with the Kraken Era, and particularly-but-not-exclusively what he did to Izzy. I don't see how that works with a dead Izzy, though--it's too easy for Ed to keep minimizing what he did and offloading blame onto him.)

There isn't a whole lot of evidence for an Izzy Lives scenario. All we have is:

This Show Wouldn't Do That (which, recall, was point 1 in why we didn't believe Lucius was dead. However, it is weakened by the absence of point 2--unlike with Lucius, the person who "killed" Izzy isn't a character we're expected to like or root for.)

No body at the funeral. I initially interpreted the funeral as being intended as proof that Izzy was really dead, a sort of "don't get your hopes up, guys," after what happened with Lucius. But again, if we're thinking about the framing of Izzy's "death" as an overcorrection to how completely non-fooled we all were by Lucius's, maaaaaybe not? I mean, if he really wanted to hammer the nail into the coffin, we would have seen Izzy lying in the grave, or his body being sewn into a shroud of sailcloth (as was the custom), or something. (Also, point 2b, the unicorn did have two legs.)

No Wee John at the funeral. There are certainly Doylist reasons he might've been left out--maybe the way the shooting schedule worked out, it saved money or some other resource to just leave him out of that scene, something like that. But for an in-universe reason, "somebody had to stay back and nurse Izzy" makes a lot of sense. (I mean, if this show operated on real-world logic, someone would have had to stay with the ship, but that's never been a concern before.) Wee John helping Izzy with his makeup for Calypso's birthday was presumably a bonding experience that involved some vulnerability on Izzy's part, so it would be weird for him to just nope out of the funeral, but plausible that Izzy would find him acceptable as a caregiver.

Stede and Ed's conversation over Izzy's grave could, just barely, make sense as a conversation about how Ed and Izzy are now on separate paths, with no particular guarantee that they'll see each other again. It takes a certain amount of massaging to make it fit, but it almost could? (Except Zheng's part really doesn't--unless the grave actually contains someone Ed cares about, or she isn't in on the secret that the funeral is a fuckery.)

I'm not in love with any of this, or even particularly convinced by it--my enthusiasm for any Season 3 is going to be pretty dampened, unless the announcement that it's been picked up includes the information that Con O'Neill has a contract to appear as a major character in all 8/10/whatever episodes--but IDK, I guess it's maybe not outside the realm of possibility? Ish?

[classicanalyzer]

The Acolyte - The Acolyte (Episode 8) Thoughts

"I think the Jedi are a massive system of unchecked power, posing as a religion, a delusional cult that claims to control the uncontrollable...Not the Force. Your emotions. You project an image of goodness and restraint, but it's only a matter of time before one of you snaps. And when, not 'if', that happens, who will be strong enough to stop him?... The majority of my colleagues can't imagine a galaxy without the Jedi. And I can understand why. When you're looking up to heroes, you don't have to face what's right in front of you." Senator Rayencourt.

"You poor girl. You've been through so much. The Jedi have failed you. I am going to make this right. But I need your help...I need you to help me find someone...A pupil of mine before he turned to evil." Vernestra Rwoh.

We end the show where it began chronologically, Brendok.

I love how Rayencourt makes good points about the Jedi trying to claim that they can control their emotions and present themselves as pure good with no flaws. What he said also legit sounds exactly what will happen to Anakin in the future. He's even proven right about the former with Sol given Episode 7 and the latter with Vernestra lying in the end. Props to his actor, David Harewood, for doing an amazing job.

I love how Bazil is the bad vibes checker of this show. I'm so happy that he lived.

MOTHERFUCKING DARTH PLAGUEIS! I legit said what the actual fuck when he appeared. His appearance makes a lot of sense and given how the twins were created using the Force, ofc he would be interested in them. I also love how the music used in this scene was very similar if not a reprise to the choir used in "The Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise." I also legit do not care about if people complain if his age isn't similar to Legends. Well, first of all, there is no set age in Canon. And second of all, I legit do not care.

I also love the ship chase sequence. The CGI looks really well done in there. You feel the ship's weight and the impact of the asteroids.

The show also continues the theme of visions not appearing as they are. The Acolyte killed the Jedi without a (physical) weapon, however, Osha was mistaken. The Acolyte happened to be her.

Also props to Amandla Stenberg for portraying the twins so well. I felt the intense heartbreak and betrayal as Osha realized that Mae was right and the intense hatred then regret after she murdered Sol. The Bleeding of Sol's Lightsaber was so chilling to see.

GOD SOL'S DEATH HITS ME REALLY HARD. I legit got Infinity War PTSD when he told Osha "It's okay" as she was killing him (He couldn't even tell her that he loves her which broke my heart). While we all know it was an understandable accident given what happened (even their mother didn't blame Sol for thinking her attempted protection of Mae was an attack), it didn't change the fact that he killed their mother. Vernestra summed up his character pretty well (despite framing him). Sol's biggest flaw was that he loved Osha so much that he now sees the misunderstanding of killing their mother as something he had to do and covering up Brendok because of the Vergence. I do like how she knew Sol was truly good and well-intentioned despite his flaws and mistakes as she gave him a Jedi funeral.

"He was a kind, brilliant, compassionate man. And he did a terrible thing... A mistake he lived with for so long it twisted his mind. He justified every step with the love he had for your sister." Vernestra Rwoh

THE CHOREOGRAPHY IS SO GOOD! I love the Lightsaber and martial arts fighting in this show. Qimir's change to single blade stance after failing to get past Sol's indomitable defense is so good. Osha's and Mae's fist fight was also amazing and tension filled.

The reveal that Qimi was Vernestra's apprentice was smth I also guessed after Episode 6 which explains why she's in this show. I wonder what she will do when she sees him again.

Despite me knowing how horrifying Sol's death was, I can't help but feel happy seeing the siblings reunite and at peace. It was even more sadder as Mae has to forget Osha to protect her sister. Even I got sad seeing Mae forget the pledge as more of her memories got erased.

Ironically, Mae and Osha switch roles by the end of the show, with Osha being Qimir's Acolyte and Mae being utterly confused about why she's arrested by the Jedi. In a sense my guess about Mae having a redemption arc did come true...but just like the vision, just not in the way I had expected.

I really love how this show critiqued and explored the Jedi without bashing them. We see that they're truly a force of good and have the best of intentions...however those intentions can blind them to what's right in front of them. The Jedi are still sentient beings just like anyone else. We see how their complacency and desire to keep their image good blinds them to the rise of dark forces which includes the emerging Sith Order as the Grand Plan of the Sith takes shape. I had so many chills as Osha and Qimir looked at the sunset with the Acolyte theme playing.

The music in the finale is so good, especially during the fight and emotional scenes. This score really nailed it amtophseric-wise. I love the more creepy reprise of the witch coven's chants from Episode 3 during the credits.

A great season finale and season of SW TV. I really hope Leslye gets her multi-season show because the Acolyte has the potential to be an amazing multi-season show. She truly gave it her all in this season. I also trust her to make that Old Republic show as well.

"Sorry to disturb you, Master. We need to talk." Vernestra Rwoh.

[10underoot2]

My take on the saddest scene in Queen of tears yet. This is the long version I'll post a shorter one for those who don't want read so much. I love this scene so much cause It always makes me feel so many emotions and I'm so scared years down the line I'll forget why I love it so much. So here's everything it makes me feel and what I think it makes these two feel as well.

We can't start this scene without context. It's set at the end of the day. It's the same day the audit report came out. The same day Haein went to the funeral of her employee. And the same day she met Hyunwoo for a brief while and obliterated him.

Haein To Hyunwoo: 'Why did you send the flowers? And the condolence money? Stop playing. You digust me. Even if I forget my memory down the road, I will never forget what you did to me. You let go of my hand when I was the most helpless. I will never forgive you. Try all you want but I will resent you till my dying breath. So all you need to do is stay still and get lost when I tell you to.'

Cut to the end of the day when she's almost home and Hyunwoo sees her in the rain.

First things first, notice how he immediately places the jacket despite hearing her say just a few hours ago that his really heartfelt gesture is insincere as she claimes to hate him. Hyun woo knows that anything he does now she'll think of it as a fake act and not genuine at all. Yet he really did not care. He said F that, I'm still gonna take care of you. [From this point on everything italicized is my commentary on their emotions/actings or just my thoughts]

HI: 'What about you? How did you know I was here?'

He hasn't caught on. He thinks its one of her moments where she's just came to and is offering him a tidbit just cause he's there. After their last conversation the tone, the question, the happiness to see him doesn't make sense to him.

HI: 'Did you maybe recognize this Umbrella? Do you remember giving it to me? I was really dumbfounded back then.'

An umbrella I don't think he's seen in 3 years or knows that she's held on to. The fact that she randomly caries it is ndjdjsjdj. Girl, literally just came back from dinner 😭. She carries the umbrella HE GAVE her 3 years ago when he told her he likes her. Gah this woman and her love.

HW: 'Hae ina...'

I think he's a little dumbdounded by her behaviour at this point. He's calling her cause something's off. He's catching the trace of that bubly, beautiful Hae in he fell in love with. Something he hasn't seen or experienced in 2 years. He's detecting the warmth and happiness of their collective past.

HI: 'Don't give me that look -

The look of worry and pain? The look of thousands of un-said emotions? Insert as many as you can here after looking at Hyunwoo cause imagine what she did see to ask him not to give her that sad look. It's a look she recognises having been married to him all these years. So she continues to reassure him;

'I can go to Germany and receive treatment.'

And here it clicks. Oh. She doesn't....... remember. But how - why is she still so kind to me? Surely she said she'd never forget that she....hates me. She's smiling at me now as if nothing in the world is wrong. Like this disease is nothing but a mere pebble in their way.

BW: 'Haeina.... '

He's so confused and dumbfounded. He can't comprehend or understand. It is this really happening? Maybe he just needs to call her and she'll come back to like she always does. Is it really that bad now? Why isn't she coming back to herself?

HI: 'Why do you keep calling me?'

He's hardly holding it together here and then she moves forward to touch him. Softy and gently pats his shoulder dry just like she probably used to. There couldn't be a surer sign that she cares. But that's not all she then wraps her hands around his holding the umbrella. Physical touch. He's forgotten the last time she was so unrestraint in her touch. Believing that he is indeed hers, like she had every right to touch him. Was it 3 years ago? Nothing could have prepared him for what comes next;

'Right you know, Ye-na right? She got into a car accident two days ago......[continued whole story]'

And I think this is what truly, utterly breaks his heart. He can't hold it in any longer.

Her sickness is at the forefront here. He's reliving a conversation with his wife he's had a few days ago. His meticulous, amazing, sharp CEO wife is repeating a conversation to a man she's sworn to hate.

The particulars of the conversation are ringing in his ear again. That's what he tried to do when this wife - who loved him so softly, loved him enough to hold onto an umbrella from 3 years ago, loved him enough to remember her love for him even when she's forgtting her memories - told him that she was going through a disease so terrible. And the worst part ... He wasn't there for her, he's made her think he hates her.

HI: 'Are you crying?'

HW: 'I'm sorry' It's all he can say. There's nothing else to say really. What excuse can he give. He's just filled with regret and so so sorry.

HI: 'What are you sorry about?' She says it so softly while touching him AGAIN. She's so oblivious to any fault of his in this moment. She asks him in a 'what have you ever done to be sorry about' tone.

She hugs and he truly lets go. Does he remember being hugged like this? Probably not. It's been 2 long years. Does he finally remember what made it all worth it?

HI: 'Are you really that worried?' He must be mentally wreaking himself. Yes I am this worried. But I can't show you just how much. Why wasn't I this worried before?

'Dont you worry.' How can he not?- this episode she's having is far from comforting and he knows this disease isn't getting any better at this point and he's running out of time so fast. So much is going through his head. But then she delivers the final blow in all her innocence;

'Baek Hyunwoo, I love you'

She love me....shes loves me? She loves me! She loves me. She. Loves. Me. She loved me...... All this time.

Doesn't it hurt so bad to forget, Hyunwoo?

HW: 'I wish this moment wouldn't end. I wish you'd continue to smile at me without knowing the truth.' [proceeds to bring her up to speed]. There are times when people completely forget things even if they're not sick. I was the same. I had forgotten it all.'

Favourite line. It backs everything I've written above because that's literally why he's been brawling his eyes out these past 2 Minutes. Also captures all his emotions and bad decisions so perfectly. He'd simply forgotten and that made all the difference.

When he tells her about the divorce here, isn't he essentially telling a Hae in so totally in love that he's divorcing her: somewhat exactly liek it happened in Germany. Doesn't her reaction make so much sense now for us and for Hyunwoo.

Also I think this is a big stretch but respect was a major reason in him telling her the truth and bringing her up to soeed about them but maybe another was that he couldn't bear her looking at him with so much love after all the bad decisions he had made.

When she refuses to believe him he says: 'Then try to remember what I did to you and how much you resented me.' It's physically painful for him to say it but I think it's also him trying to get her to find her will to live again. What he doesn't see is that he didn't need to. This scene is really screaming Haein's thoughts 'I love you and that's reason enough for me to fight to live' but I guess he really misses out on it in his grief.

Totally side note but he was such a bastard for what he said to her in Germany while trying to get her to live. It's literally so painful to watch especially as a flash back here.

The step back she takes after realizing and remembering. I wonder did she remember she told him I love you not a few moments ago? I think she does which is why she's even more embarrassed, hurt and angry.

HW: 'Haeina -'

HI: 'Stop I remember now. I remember how much you hate me and how miserable your life has become. It must have been entertaining to watch me not remember anything and spew nonsense.'

He's so confused here help. He can't help but betray his true feelings. He's desperate to have her not misunderstand but why he just made her remember her hatred for her.

HY: 'No, Haeina I wasn't -'

HI: 'I was miserable because of you too. It wasn't just you. I was miserable too. I can't spend the rest of my life next to you I want a divorce let's separate our ways.'

Do you think this was because she realised his malice towards her in this scene when she remembered back what he had said to her. Haein remembered everything - how he was miserable, how he was making her miserable despite her loving him - and just said enough. Time to let go for all our sakes. Time to end his suffering maybe he'll resent me less like this. Please notice her tears afterwards cause she's clearly in so much pain. She doesn't want divorce him because she indeed does still love him. Also Haein must be so confused cause he said he wanted to divorce me so why is he crying now?!

This is why this scene is the most heartbreaking scene for me in this series yet. It's so painful.

Also this scene is set in rain, has a beautiful transition from when he first asked her to marry him, and reminds me of the pride and prejudice confession scene as well. Enough reasons to like it I guess.