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#Night Terrors Chapter 5
redwing4life · 6 months
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ASHES TO EMBERS MASTERLIST
PAIRING: Firefighter!Neighbor!Bucky x Fem!Reader
WARNINGS: Night terrors (Bucky), copious amounts of fluff, angst, smut, firefighter bucky is a warning in itself
SUMMARY: When an unfortunate event forces you to confront the crush you’ve had on your neighbour since you moved in, you learn that Bucky knows you better than you know yourself. As the two of you grow closer, how does he deal with his past without pushing you away?
CHAPTERS: 5 - Ongoing
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tap whichever chapter title you want and enjoy reading <3
ONE: Forgotten Alarms
WARNINGS: Mentions of night terrors, trapped in small spaces, brief mention of reader being worried about bucky holding her weight, nothing else other than bucky being cute af
SUMMARY: When you get stuck in an elevator with your neighbour (who also happens to be your crush), you discover your interest in the firefighter isn’t as one-sided as you thought.
TWO: Shadows
WARNINGS: Fluff, talk about night terrors, ALPINEEE, reader continues to be oblivious, bucky being a flirt
SUMMARY: After yesterday’s elevator fiasco, you’re left with the guilt of overstepping in Bucky’s business. He could barely look at you when you went to the firehouse to thank the crew, so it’s fair to say you’re surprised when he turns up at the cafe you work at.
THREE: For You
WARNINGS: Mention of night terrors, Bucky being upset, fluff, flashbacks containing the death of a child, plenty of unholy thoughts, half naked bucky, dirty talk???, sexual tension, please let me know if i’ve missed something!!!
SUMMARY: You find Bucky at his most vulnerable when he’s sent home from work at 2 in the morning. While doing everything you can to comfort him, you realise you’re falling for him.
FOUR: Home Cooked Meal
WARNINGS: Smut (finally) - dirty talk, pet names, oral f and m receiving, fingering, tit play, praise kink, hand kink?, ball play, hair pulling, unprotected PinV sex, aftercare, reader and bucky have dinner, swearing, fluff, let me know if i missed anything!
SUMMARY: You surprise Bucky with a home cooked meal after his shift, and it’s the best damn thing he’s had in years. The pasta was pretty good too.
FIVE:
a/n: please lmk if you know the creator of the ai bucky images, full credit to them!!!!!
comment if you’d like to be added to my ashes to embers taglist 🧡
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lacedinweb22 · 1 year
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Miguel O'Hara Masterlist ⋆˚。⋆୨୧ 🕸 ୨୧⋆。˚⋆
taglist sign up turn notifs on --(tagging sometimes fails so turn on notifs to be safe >:D) 18+ Mature setting toggle on --to avoid missing the NSFW 18+ stuff 😼 Requests must be from 18+ AGE IN BIO 🤬 Wattpad- lacedinweb22 🏴‍☠️
Vampire Next Door- (Miguel O'Hara x fem reader) Your neighbor is strange, to say the least. Miguel O’Hara: Alchemax’s newest scientist, genius, most sought-after bachelor … and according to your wildest suspicions … a vampire?
Chapter 1: New Girl *✩ Chapter 2: Night Terror ✮༻ Chapter 3: and I remember her... ˚○◦˚. Chapter 4: Just a Dream °✥ Chapter 5: watching her sleep ❦︎ Chapter 6: Noise Complaints *ੈ‧ Chapter 7: Seven Minutes in Heaven ♱☽🦇☾♱ Chapter 8: About Last Night °✧*:・ Chapter 9: Beginnings of Someone Else ⋆。𖦹 Chapter 10: Once Bitten, Twice Shy °❆˚₊⋆ Chapter 11: New Year, New Me ❅˚⋆୧ Chapter 12: ⊱From the Outside⊰ Chapter 13: A… vampire ♱❦︎₊°
Headcanons -
On Your Period nsfw 18+
Pudge and Cuddles nsfw 18+
Desperate to Breed, Desperate for Your Scent nsfw 18+
your neighbor, stoner Miguel nsfw 18+ ✥°o。
Miguel babies you when you’re sick ⁺‧₊˚ nsfw 18+
Blurbs-
dirty, drunk blurb nsfw 18+
dirty, drunk blurb part two nsfw 18+
morning sex blurb ⋆:°* nsfw 18+
One-Shots -
Miguel talks you through it nsfw 18+
Miguel knows how to… nsfw 18+
Valentine’s Day ❦︎⋆˙ nsfw 18+
good kitty - Spidey catches Kitty. Miguel x Black Cat (reader) nsfw 18+
good girl - nsfw 18+ You're trying to study but Miguel has other plans. face r*iding included >:)
just a quick study break... - nsfw 18+ You've been studying for hours and decide it's time to rest your eyes and take a quick break. You're awaken to an even better study break.
daddy's coworker - nsfw 18+ Your father leaves you at home with his coworker (your little crush). He works in your father's office, and you... distract him.
clean me up - After your first time together, you and Miguel take a bath.
feeling guilty - pt.2 of ⬆️ Miguel feels guilty and cleans up your wounds.
rough night - nsfw 18+ Miguel comes home from work roughed up. You offer your care, but he really only needs one thing.
Entangled (university AU)- After years of friendship, Miguel's recent changes become increasingly noticeable and suspicious to Y/N, causing them to stumble upon the truth of Miguel's secret identity and the revealing of their feelings for each other.
Ch. 1 "are you... jealous?"
Ch. 2 "Drunk and Crushing" pt.1
Ch. 3 "New Ride" flashback
Ch. 4 "Knight in Glitching Armor" flashback
Ch. 5 "Drunk and Crushing" pt.2
Ch. 6 "Stung by Jealousy" flashback
Ch. 7 "Web of Lies"
Ch. 8 "You're... Spider-Man"
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mphoenix-7 · 2 months
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Bitter Allies [Soap x Reader]
Chapter 10: The Cabin: Day 5 (pt.1)
Summary: You and Soap both struggle to sleep. You have nightmares all night while Soap tries to rationalize his feelings and help you cope with the nightmares.
Word Count: 6,821
Warnings: NSFW, 18+, swearing, angst, strong language, slight smut, nudity, graphic description of blood in nightmares
A/N: I had a few comments on Wattpad asking for a specific scene for this chapter, so I modified the chapter to include that. Please enjoy, like, comment, and reblog 🫶🏻
Masterlist | <- Previous | Next ->
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Bitter Allies • Part 10
No matter what he does, Soap cannot get to sleep tonight. It not like he's too hot, and he wasn't horribly uncomfortable in his bed either. Yet, he's been tossing and turning for hours. While there was no way of telling time, he knows it has to be past midnight at this point.
He's not completely clueless as to what's keeping him up though. Any time he tries to quiet his mind, it always end up wandering back to the woman lying silently in her cot a few feet away from him. He can't stop thinking about you. About what happened today, or in this case, what happened yesterday. Within the last twenty-four hours.
It wasn't even the fact he faced off with a black bear. Hell that didn't really scared him much. He was a well traveled soldier was this point and had survived the wilds of Russia. He'd learned how to handle wild animals of all sorts. No, the thing bothering him was feeling like he almost lost you today.
Having sex with you just the day before had opened his eyes to new feelings he felt towards you. It was easy to push that down with time and put his walls back up. He could just call it a mistake and move on, pretend like it meant nothing. But something as drastic as hearing you scream in terror, begging for him to get to you, looking so frightened and small and vulnerable, shaking and sobbing as he held you... it was different than just having sex.
At least with sex, he could blame his new feelings on the fact you'd done something so intimate. He felt different towards you cause you made him feel good, because sex makes people feel closer to each other, because it was exciting and fun, because he normally didn't sleep around just for fun, so doing it as a one time thing was confusing for him. There were a million excuses to explain how he felt. But with what happened with the bear, he couldn't fully rationalize those feelings.
When he heard you scream, his blood ran ice cold. He'd never felt such panic at the thought that you might be in trouble. Even thinking about it now makes his heart beat a little faster. Then when he finally got to you, and you looked so scared, something in him just snapped. He wanted to protect you, but not in the same way he wanted to protect his brothers and sisters in arms. He couldn't explain it.
Once that bear had run off, all he wanted to do was get to you. Make sure you were ok. The thought of you being hurt filled him with dread. It wasn't like that with his other squad mates. If the 141 boys got hurt, he'd be worried and concerned, but with you he'd almost felt sick. He didn't think of himself as sexist, but maybe it was because you were a woman. But he'd worked with other women before and never felt that way about one he liked let alone you, who he couldn't stand.
Then when you started trembling, he could have died. He had to fight off the urge to wrap you up in his arms and hold you close to him. He probably would have had you not been naked. Even if he could brush or excuse everything else, this was one thing he couldn't explain. He had never felt such a stong urge to want to hold someone. The only other time he could think of having a feeling that strong would have been when his sisters got scared when they were kids. He'd certainly never wanted to hug Ghost or the others or any other female he'd worked with.
Then of course once you got inside, and you wouldn't shut up about how you almost died, that kept bringing up all those feelings tenfold. He couldn't stop thinking about himself not being fast enough. Not getting to you in time. Feeling panicked, filled with dread, wanting to hug you close to him and never let go.
He couldn't make sense of it. Had these feelings always been here, and they'd just been hidden behind layers and layers of hate and resentment? And when you'd finally cleared your minds, is that when it could finally come through. God... did he actually like you? And more than just another teammate.
Soap growls, slapping his hands over his hands and dragging them down. He was going insane. This cabin was making him absolutely insane. He wanted to go back so desperately to when it was simple, but there was no turning back now. Hell, he still had the rest of today with you and then two more days past that. But maybe it wouldn't be so bad. You had "started over" after all. You'd even done that stupid little bid of reintroducing yourselves to each other.
A huff leaves Soap as he thinks about that. Fuck it'd been so fucking cute. Your annoyingly adorable pout when he didn't shake your hand right away and even more adorable look when he had. He'd never thought of you as cute. Annoying fit, but not adorable. Something had changed, and he didn't like it, but he did.
He glances over to where you lay, fast asleep and breathing peacefully. You're on your side facing him, his liner pulled up right to your chin. It's so dark out he can't really make out your face. The wood stove between your cots, which normally did have a fire going during the night, was currently not being used. It was a warmer night, so he decided there was no point in starting a fire. The only light source was coming from the moon, but it was only a half moon. It barely illuminated the room.
Soap is about to give up on trying to sleep for the night and go to the kitchen and draw or maybe journal for a bit. Or as Gaz would say, write in his diary. Whatever you wanted to call it, writing things out helped get stuff off his mind.
He's about to get out of bed when he hears a faint whimper from your side of the tiny room. He stills for a moment, looking over at you when you do it again. Your cot makes the God awful creaking sounds it always makes whenever you move the slightest bit, and Soap watches you curl into a tight ball. You're starting to breathe heavy, taking very small gasps, and he knows you're having a nightmare.
You sound like you had right after the bear attack, only on a smaller scale. He frowns at he listens to you, only able to tolerate it for a few seconds before he's slipping out of bed and taking the two quick steps to your side.
He kneels down, able to see your face a little better now that he's closer. It's pinched up, your brows furrowed and lips turned downward in a frown. He feels the longing in his chest once again to hug you close to him and comfort you, but he won't let himself. Instead, he places a hand on your arm, giving you a very gentle shake to try and wake you up from whatever is plaguing you.
"Oi, lass." He whispers softly. "Hey, States. Wake up." He adds a little louder when you don't come out of sleep the first time.
You startle awake, taking in a big gasp of air and jumping. Your hand flies out to grab at his arm, and he lets you sit up. Your eyes are widened in fear, and he quickly tries to calm you down.
"Hey, easy." He tells you gently. "You were having a nightmare."
"O-oh.." He hears you weakly mutter. "I'm sorry, did I wake you up?"
Soap frowns at your question and shakes his head. "Nah, I was already up."
"Why are you still? Can't you fall sleep?" You ask, and he knows he can't tell you the real reason why he's awake. That he can't sleep because you were tormenting his mind.
"It's just a bit warm is all. I'm too hot to get comfortable." It wasn't a complete lie, just a half truth. "I'll be fine. Go back to sleep, aye?" He gets up, moving back over to his cot and setting down. He hears you mumble an "alright" before your cot starts squeaking again as you settle.
Soap stares up at the ceiling, you now in the forefront of his mind once again. All those odd unexplainable feelings from earlier had resurfaced, and he had to push them all back down once more. He just needed to sleep it off. Maybe his mind was just tired, and he wasn't thinking straight. That had to be it. He'd think more clearly in the morning.
He tries to sleep, but he still can't get himself to drift off. Cursing softly and kicking his blanket off in frustration, he fishes out his journal from under his pillow and gets up to go into the kitchen. It's not much brighter out there, but the small table sat by the window allowed for slightly more light to come in.
Opening his journal to a new page, he begins to scribble his feelings into the book. He writes about the argument from the morning, about the things he said to you. He writes about hearing your voice and how it made him panic. About the bear, how small you felt, about the moments right after and how he hates that you make him feel this way. He hated you long before this, and now he just had more reasons to add to that. More reasons to hate you.
But then why can't I hate you...
The last words he wants to write in his journal don't make it down onto the paper as his attention is torn away from the book. A sob is coming from the bedroom. Standing before his mind can catch up, he opens the bedroom and peaks inside. You're asleep again, he's pretty sure, back on your side and sobbing. Your breath has a panicked rhythm, more so than before.
And then, if it wasn't hard enough, he hears you call his name in a mumbled and slurred speech. Pleading with him, crying for him, and it's like his heart being ripped from his chest. Like he's reliving the encounter with you, and he can't stand it anymore.
In a few quick strides, he's back to your side, gently shaking you awake again.
***
Big black sharp claws, a horrible pain in your stomach, blood staining the clear water, guts floating up right before your eyes. Your guts. The pain is intense, feeling like a burning sensation. You scream, hands gripping onto black fur and pushing away the animal that is trying to bit at your throat. Your arms shake as you struggle to hold the beast back. You scream again, this time for the one man you know is here to help you.
Please, you don't want to die like this...
The bear's head turns and bites your arm, pain radiating where its teeth sink in. You let go, ripping your arm free, but also ripping the flesh from your arm and leaving the bones bare. You don't know how you haven't passed out yet.
As you look at your arm, screaming in horror at the all too real visual, the bear lunges, teeth sinking into your throat. Your head is pinned to the side as the pain sinks in, as breathing becomes harder.
Through your tears, you see him. Standing on the side of the lake shore, looking out towards you. His arms are crossed, his expression stern. You beg him to help you, the words coming out even despite the animal crushing your throat. You plead, reaching out your mangled arm to him, but he turns away. He disappears into the trees, leaving you behind.
You thought you could trust him... you remember starting over... why was this happening?
The bear forces you under water then, its large body pinning you to the bottom on the lake, head thrashing as it tears at your throat. You gasp, somehow able to breathe in the water, and when your eyes open it's pitch black.
The pressure is still on your chest, the burning in your stomach and neck, but you're able to move better. Maybe it let you go, but you can't see anything. You sit up, gasping and blindly grabbing at the air in front of you to grab the bear before it can get you again. You miss every time though until it grabs your arms again, and you cry out as you duck away, fearing it's going to get you again.
As you duck, your head sits something solid, and you pause. The pain starts to leave your body, besides your head, and you realize you're not in water anymore. You make out a window that has a tiny bit of moonlight shining through it and realize you'd hit your head right on the frame. Then your ears start to work and you hear someone saying your name.
"States please! You're having a nightmare! Lass, you're just dreaming, it's alright!"
You immediately recognize the Scottish accent, but you don't quite interpret the message he's giving. The freshest memory you have of him is of him walking away while you got mauled. You rip your arms away, trying to get away, but you can't. A hard wall blocks you in.
"No!! Get away! You left! You fucking left me to die!" You scream at him, still not in the right mind.
He puts his hands on your thighs by your knees, rubbing soothing shapes with this fingers. "Shhh, it's alright. You were having a nightmare. You're alright. Please, calm down. It's alright." He coos over and over again. "Just a nightmare. Deep breaths. Come back to me, hen."
Your breathing starts to slow slightly as your mind separates reality from dreamscape. Memories of what actually occurred flood your head, but now you're just left with the raw feeling of terror from what you made up. You cry, hands covering your face as you remember the fear, the pain, the feeling of teeth and ripping flesh.
You feel yourself move, being pulled into Soap's chest. His large arms wrap around your body and hold you firmly against him. He guides your head to lay on his shoulder, forehead tucked against his neck. You don't fight it, maybe because you're still kind of out of it, maybe because it feels nice. He's so warm, he's whispering gentle things to you in a deep voice, and his hands rub soft circles on your back as you sob.
"I've got ya... It's alright now. You were just dreaming. Just a nightmare." He repeats, one of his hands gently cradling the back of your head and bushing softly through your hair.
"I-I-t-it was-s hor-horri-ble..." You finally choke out, beginning to hyperventilate more than cry.
"I know... I know..." Soap says softly, holding you a bit tighter while you struggle for air. "It's ok though. Just breathe for me."
"It attacked me... I felt its teeth in my throat, and it cut me open, and you were th-there..." You're just making yourself upset all over again as you recall everything that happened. "You just watched. You wouldn't help, and then you left me..."
"Oh hell, lass..." Soap frowns as he listens to you somewhat explain your dream through broken words. "It wasn't real, hen. It wasn't real."
"But it felt real..." You whimper.
"Hey, look at me." Soap says gently, moving his hand to your chin and pulling you away from him just slightly. Your eyes meet his, and you can just barely make out the whites from his bright blue irises. "It was not real. I know it felt like it, but it wasn't. I know we fight a lot. I know we are a pain in each other's asses, but listen to me. You are still 141. I will always have your back. No bear is going to get you on my watch. You hear me? Don't you think for one second that I would just leave you. When I heard your scream, I never run so fast in my damn life to get to you."
You're left speechless when he's done. How do you respond to something like that? It was so sweet, so heartfelt, so not the Soap MacTavish you knew. You'd been seeing small glimpses of this softer side of his, but nothing like this. His words are a soothing balm to the terrors you dreamt of, and you've never been so grateful to have him here with you.
"Soap..." You whisper, holding his gaze and allowing your body to ease itself of tension. "Do you really mean that?"
"Of course I do." He drops his hand from your chin, settling it on your hips instead. "I don't want you dead. I don't not like you that much."
You laugh softly, probably because you're exhausted. It was a long day, and to top it off, nightmares sort of took a lot out of you. At least he didn't hate you. He wouldn't be here holding you in his arms if he did.
"Thank you." You tell him softly. "For everything. For coming to save me, for giving me your shirt, for making me soup, and calming me down, and... I really appreciate it."
"Don't do that. You don't need to do that. My mum would have beheaded me if she knew I didn't help a lady in distress. Plus, I just couldn't stand the sound of your cot when you thrash around." He grumbles, but you know he doesn't mean that.
"Well, my parents wouldn't be happy if I didn't acknowledge it." You throw back at him. "Plus I don't want to hear you bitch about how I never even said thank you."
"Brat." Soap chuckles. "Go to sleep. Don't need you to be grouchy tomorrow."
You're smiling, but it quickly fades at the idea of going to sleep. Despite Soap making you feel better, the nightmares still tickles at the back of your mind. Just waiting for you to shut your eyes so it can take over once more.
"I... I might stay up for a little bit." You say slowly.
"I know you're exhausted. You had a stressful day. Get some sleep, lass." He tells you softly, trying to gently push you to lay down, but you don't let him.
"But what if I have another nightmare?"
Soap pauses for a moment when you say that. You can't make out his expression in the dark, but you feel like he's clenching his jaw. There's a beat of silence before he continues.
"Then I'll be right here." He assures you. "You'll be alright."
"Well, I don't want to keep waking you up."
"Eh, you haven't yet. Still hadn't been able to get to sleep. Don't worry about me though." Soap starts to gently nudge you to get you to lay done. You're a bit reluctant, but you let him. You sink back onto your cot, the springs creating a symphony of whiny metallic screeches as you do. "Fucking hell, I hate your bed so much." He grumbles.
You roll your eyes, sighing heavily. You would argue more with him about your squeaky cot, ask him how he thinks you felt having to sleep on it, but you're actually pretty tired. So you opt to just lay back and hope you won't dream at all.
"Alright. But if I wake you up though I'm not gonna feel bad." You yawn softly.
"Yeah whatever, you-" Soap pauses to yawn as well. "Probably wouldn't have regardless." He finishes.
You giggle a little bit. "Goodnight, Soap."
"Night, States."
***
You're not sure what time it is, but you wake up in a cold sweat, Soap gently shaking your arm. Your cheeks are damp, and it still takes you a second to figure out that you're not dreaming anymore. Although you are getting quicker at coming around with each time he wakes you up.
You still grab his wrist in a death grip, breathing heavily as you look in the dark at him. He's still shushing you softly like he had the other times, though he sounds a lot more tired now. You're definitely waking him up.
"Hell, States. You're fine. Just another nightmare." He says, rubbing his face with his free hand when you won't let go of his other hand immediately. "It's alright, lass. Can you let go of my arm?"
You blink a few times, coming back once again. His words take a few seconds to register, and you release him once they do. You're far past feeling guilty now. You've woken him up a few times now. The nightmares are not letting up or going away.
"Sorry... Fuck what the hell is wrong with me..." You sigh, drying your cheeks on your shirt as you sit up. This was probably the fifth time now. It had to be close to 0400 but it's too hard to tell. The room was still in total darkness, so you know it's not quite 0700 yet.
Soap sighs softly, stinking down to sit on the edge of your bed, making the springs make a horrid noise. "There's nothing wrong with you. You're just dealing with a lot. Processing stuff. You'll probably be fine tomorrow."
"I want to be fine now." You complain. You felt bad for keeping him awake. If it was just you, you wouldn't care, but this was exhausting for Soap too.
"Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. Only thing you can do is just go back to sleep."
You can tell he doesn't really want to stay up with you. He wants to sleep, and you can't blame him. He's been up all night essentially and any sleep he is getting is being interrupted. You're honestly surprised he hadn't snapped at you yet.
"The sun's gotta be rising soon. I think I'm just going to stay up." You say, pushing the liner down and pulling your legs free.
"You don't know that. Could be only 0200 for all we know." He counters, but he doesn't push it. "But if you wanna stay up for a bit though that's fine. I just wanna sleep. I'm fucking tired."
You frown, watching as he gets up and drags his feet as he walks over to his side of the room. "I know you are. I'm sorry."
"Eh," Soap waves a hand back towards you as he crawls back into his cot. "It's fine. You can't help it." He yawns, the sound a little obnoxious and dramatic. "Just don't stay up too long." He adds, already half asleep the second his head hits his pillow.
"Alright." You agree, not even sure he's heard you. After a few minutes, he's already softly snoring.
You carefully try to get off your cot, wincing as the squeaking from the springs echo in the quiet room. Soap's snoring continues on uninterrupted though. Normally, you moving even the slightest bit would make him wake up and gripe, so that was a testament to how out of it he truly was.
The rest of the walk to the bedroom door is silent in comparison once you're off your cot. Even the slight squeak of the door hinges is nothing. Once you're in the kitchen, you can breathe a sigh of relief, glad to finally give Soap a little time to actually get some sleep. Though now you're cursed with trying to find something to do to occupy your mind.
It's far too dark to do something like read. You could use the flashlight, but you don't want to waste the batteries on something like that. You'd rather have it for emergencies. Cooking was also out of the question. The pots and pans and the smell of food would probably just wake Soap up again. Plus it was dark still. It was a little hard to cook without being able to see what you're doing.
You can, however, make yourself a drink. It was just a mixture of purified water from your cantina and a cherry flavoring packet, but it was something to occupy your mind for a few seconds and gave you something somewhat tasty to drink.
You set about digging through the box for the flavor you want, finding what you hope is a red and not an orange packet. When you tear it open though, a strong scent of cherry confirms it was the right flavor. You mix it into some water, trying to stir your cup quietly. Every time the spoon hits the side of the metal cup, it sounds so loud in the quiet night air.
You're about done with your stirring and are about to go sit at the little table when you hear a stick snapping somewhere outside. You inhale sharply, your body going tense. You try to rationalize with yourself that it's nothing. Just a deer or something else. But of course your sleep deprived, stressed out, overactive, brain thinks it's the bear.
No matter how much you tell yourself it's nothing and to calm down, your heart rate just keeps getting higher and higher. You can't make yourself calm down. Even if your rational brain knew it wasn't in danger, that didn't keep all the sensors from firing off.
Then you hear another twig snap, this one closer to the cabin. A horrible shiver runs up your spine as you imagine it is the bear. Smelling you from outside, right outside the door. It could just bust down that door and get you. And it's dark out, its fur would blend in so well that you wouldn't even see it coming.
That's enough to set you off. Your hands shake as you try to place your cup down somewhere it won't spill. You just want to be back in your bed. Right by Soap. An extra door between you and whatever else is outside.
The cup doesn't quite make it though. What was most likely just a crab apple from a nearby tree falls and lands on the roof by the deck. It rolls from the roof and hits the deck, making a thumping sound, which makes you jolt. Your frazzled mind doesn't think it's a nut though. You imagine it's the sound of a bear knocking something over outside while it makes its way up onto the deck.
You are in full panic mode. Water spills over the rim of the cup as you jump, and you hurriedly set it down. Once your hands are free, you bolt back into the bedroom. You don't mean to, but you end up slamming the door in your hurry. It doesn't immediately occur to you how loud it was, but it was enough to wake Soap up.
The poor Scot jumps awake, the loud bang nearly giving him a heart attack. He's on high alert as his eyes search the darkness for what caused the loud sound. He's drawn instantly to your dark figure by the door, and he can hear you breathing heavily but quietly.
"States?" You hear him ask hesitantly. "What the hell? What's wrong?"
You flinch when you hear his voice. You'd managed to wake him up yet again. Though you feel an odd mix of guilt and relief. You hate to admit it, but there is a part of you that is happy he's awake.
"There.. there's something outside..." You say softly, as though the imagery thing out there would hear.
"What?" Soap asks. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"There was a noise! I heard something on the porch and-and-"
"Oh Christ." Soap sighs. "Lass, it's probably nothing." He tries to reassure you, but you don't budge. Your tense figure stays standing in the middle of the room, arms wrapped around yourself as you watch the door.
"But-"
Then you hear a loud bang, and your heart jumps to your throat. It definitely came from outside. There was no way something in the kitchen had fallen over. You quickly back up until you're at Soap's side, tears collecting at the rim of your vision. Your heart is pounding, and you're doing everything you can to not have a full panic attack.
"See! I told you! What if the bear is back!?" You cry out.
Soap up on his feet instantly. Seeing him so alert only makes you want to panic more though. If he is this ready to go, then it really could be that the bear was back.
"What are you doing?!" You ask him, unable to keep the panic from your voice.
"I'm just gonna go check it out. I'll be right back." He tells you rather calmly. You're anything but calm though.
"No! Don't do that! What if something happens?!" You grab his arm before he can leave, making him look back at you.
"I doubt the bear is back. That thing was scared shitless. Just stay here. I'll only be a minute." He gives your hand a little pat, and despite any further protesting from you, he leaves to go check the sound out.
You have an internal debate with yourself on if you should go with him or not. You are terrified to face off with that black bear again, but you also don't want Soap to be by himself if it is back. Sure, he scared it off the first time, but you wanted to have his back like he had yours. After a few seconds of going back and forth in your head, you finally give in and rush after him.
"Soap! Wait up!" You sigh, running to catch up with him in the kitchen.
By the time you get there, Soap has already grabbed the flashlight and is shining it out the windows on the side where the banging sound had come from. His hand is cupped by his eyes as he looks around.
"I don't see anything out there." He assures you as you stand close to him, too scared to look for yourself.
"Well the bear is black. Kinda blends in right now." You mutter, chewing on your lip.
Soap huffs softly, standing up straight again as he looks back over to you. "Most bears sleep during this time. I am pretty certain it's not out there.
"Then what was that loud sound? Huh?" You worry, frowning at him. Soap groans, and you watch in confusion and then panic as he goes the door. "Don't fucking go out there! Are you crazy?!"
He's already out the door though, shining the light outside and looking over the porch. You manage to make yourself go to the doorway, watching him helplessly as he scouts it out.
"There's a bucket out here that's been knocked over. It was pro- Jesus! Fucking!" Soap jumps suddenly, taking a quick step back towards the door, which makes you jump.
"What?? What?!?" You shout, bouncing on your heels slightly as you try to make yourself stay and not run. You feel like your heart is going to explode it's beating so hard.
Soap takes a deep breath, placing a hand over his chest to calm himself down. "Just a fucking raccoon. Scared the shit out of me. See, have a look." He motions for you to come look as he shines the light.
Your feet stay firmly planted, but you do strain to look outside, and you can see a raccoon in the middle of the yard, its eyes glowing due to the light shining on it. It's frozen in place, on its way back to the woods. Then it suddenly turns and runs the rest of the way back.
"It probably just knocked that bucket over. Looking for food or something." Soap pieces together, turning and heading back inside. He shuts the door and places the flashlight back on its shelf. "No bear though. Come on, let's get back to bed."
You still haven't left your spot, trembling as you still don't feel safe. You know it's irrational to think the bear is still out there, even though Soap just proved it was most likely just a raccoon you'd been hearing, but you can't help it. The only thing that makes you move is when Soap comes over and gently grabs hold of your hips, trying to pull you away from your frozen state.
You resisting at first, but it doesn't take much for Soap to get you walking back to the bedroom. Your arms are folded over your chest, shivering both from fear and because the opened door has let some of the chilly night air in.
"Fuck. You're shaking again." Soap sighs, his hand rubbing your back as he guides you through the bedroom door. "You need to relax and stop working yourself up."
"I can't help it!" You frown, your exhausted mind breaking down a bit. "I've had fucking I don't even know how many nightmares about it now. I'm so tired, but I'm scared to sleep. But if I stay awake, then every little sound makes me imagine the bear just stalking the outside of the cabin! I just want to sleep..." You let out a little sob.
"Oh, States... you're killing me." Soap sighs, giving your back a few pats. "Here, come give me a hand real quick." He leaves your side, and you watch him out over to your cot. You're confused at first and then wince as the railing of your bed make jarring sounds as he moves it.
"What are doing?" You ask him, plugging one ear to help mute the sound.
"I'm moving your cot next to mine for the night." He explains. "Come give us a hand." He walks around to the side and gives it a push, essentially doing all the work himself. The beds are already close to being next to each other.
"You really don't have to-" You try to protest, but with a final shove, the beds are now side by side, almost creating one mattress.
"There." Soap sighs, crawling over yours and settling onto his own. "Come on. I'm tired." He pats your mattress firmly. "Get your ass in this bed and go to sleep." He grumbles, readjusting his pillow and blanket while he speaks.
"Was that really necessary?" You question, though you really don't feel like arguing.
"Yes." Soap says firmly. "Now I don't have to keep getting up.  You have another nightmare, I'm just going to kick you. You start blabbering about a bear, and I can just slap you."
His explanation, though a little harsh sounding, makes you smile a bit. He was clearly doing this so you felt safer. Also probably cause he truly was sick of you waking him up, but the sediment was there. Slowly, you walk over to the bed and sink down onto the mattress, fidgeting until you get comfortable. It pulls a long groan from Soap.
"That sounds even worse up close..." He complains, making you smile again.
"We could trade cots you know." You offer, getting a dry laugh from him.
"Yeah, not a chance. Sleep tight, States."
"Sweet fucking dreams." You mumble back.
***
You're out in the middle of the lake, the sun is shining on your back as you scrub your front with a wash cloth. The water is warm for once, you notice. It feels like you're taking a regular bath back at your parent's home in the US, expect for the fact you're outside. You're completely unaware of your surroundings, not paying any mind to what's around you as you bathe. It's so peaceful out, you don't feel the need to.
A twig snapping somewhere off in the distance breaks the visage of peace. You gasp and quickly turn to scan the woods for any dangers. All you see is the lush greenery. The only movement is from the wind blowing through the leafs. You want to go back to bathing, but you just can't shake the feeling that something is with you.
Then a pair of red eyes can be seen in the middle of out of the bushes. The red is a stark contrast to the green leafs, and you find yourself freezing as you stare into them. Slowly, the eyes get closer, a nose and head appearing as a snarling bear shows itself. You gasp, feeling yourself shrink down. The fear that had been clawing at you starts up again, making your heart pound in your chest.
Then, you feel something behind you. Something sharp grabs onto your sides, teeth sink into the side of your neck. You scream, trying to get away, but the thing behind you pulls you back, not letting you escape so easily. Terror fills you, and you think the bear has somehow gotten behind you. But then the bear talks.
"Sorry, love. Didn't mean to frighten you."
A deep Scottish drawl fills your ears. You pause as the sharp, what you thought were claws, smooth out and turn into warm palms. The teeth biting down on your neck ease up, and the stinging feeling turns into the warm press of lips. You're confused for a long moment.
"S-Soap?" You question, trying to look behind you. It's hard to turn your head though when the person's head is pressed into the side of your neck, leaving delicate kisses over where teeth had once been. You know it's him though.
"Soap, th-there's a bear! We need to go!" You try to urge him, completely ignoring the fact that you're naked and he's kissing you. "It's over there! Please! It's going to get us if w-"
"Don't you worry about that. It's not gonna get you as long as I'm here." He promises, a hand sliding up your body and cupping one of your breasts. His thumb circles at your nipple, pulling a gasp from you.
"What the hell are you doing?" You question him, grabbing at his hands as they cup your breasts. You look down, the sight making you feel heavy all of a sudden. "We need to get in the cabin." You attempt to leave, but Soap tightens his grip, pulling you firmly against him. You feel his firm, definitely naked body, against your backside. Even more shocking, you can feel an even firmer something else pressing into your lower back.
"You're safe with me, lass. Nothing is gonna try to harm you as long as I'm here. So you can relax. I've got you, hen."
He starts to kiss at the side of your neck once more, hitting every spot that makes you weak in the knees. Your eyes remain on the tree line, scanning for that bear. There is no sign of it now though. There is no longer a feeling of fear. Just a warmth and a feeling of safety. You start to involuntarily relax, putting more weight back onto Soap and letting him hold you.
"There we are..." Soap whispers to you, his hands starting to dip lower now. It slides down your stomach, fingers teasing the sensitive skin just above your pelvis. "You're safe. Not gonna let anything get you, bonnie."
You sigh, eyes fluttering a little as you feel his hips begin to rub against your ass. His member is thick and firm against you and slippery from the water. He's starting to breathe in your ear, the puffs slow and steady, matching the intensity of his movements.
"You gonna let me take care of you? Let me make you feel good. Let me help you relax a little bit." He whispers to you softly, his kisses trailing up the side of your neck, sucking little hickies here and there.
You're finding it hard to focus on anything but him anymore. The lake, trees, cabin, bear. All seem to fade into the foreground. You want to talk, but it's like your tongue had gone numb. It feels heavy in your mouth, all senses dim. It only to heightens every touch, kiss, and movement of him. All you can manage in response to him is a soft hum.
Then wordlessly, you feel his slick member dragging down along your backside and settling between your legs. He feels so hot against your throbbing need. You feel yourself arching to try and move his cock head to your entrance. It nudges it softly, making your whimper. You can feel him probing, his swollen tip poking around, looking for its way in. And when he finds it, and starts to sink in, you vision gets blurry, and the dream starts to fade.
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flowerandblood · 10 months
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The Man in the Black Mask
[ Amor • Aemond x Psyche • female ]
[ warnings: angst, violence, assassination attempt, mention of the murder of multiple people, descriptions of murders ]
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[ description: After she is attacked in a fair by a strange man and narrowly avoids death, her father the king decides that from now on she will be watched over by one of his 'ghosts', a assassin acting on his orders, wearing a black mask. The man follows her like a shadow, accompanied by their past, which keeps her awake at night. Gothic horror love story, angst, sexual tension, very dark Aemond. ]
This story is several requests combined into one: sworn protector x female; Amor x Psyche; Phantom of the Opera! Aemond x female. I took the liberty of creating a completely new story from this, having only elements of each of these requests.
Series & Characters Moodboard
Lady Walford Moodboard
Gothic & Horror Sensual Moodboard
Part 2 - The Man with the Empty Heart | Part 3 - The Man with the Lost Soul | Part 4 - The Man with the Cold Lips | Part 5 - The Man with the Deep Scar | Part 6 - The Man with the One Eye | Part 7 - The Man with the Golden Gift | Part 8 - The Man in the Black Crown | Part 9 - The Man with the Bloody Sword | Part 10 - The Man in the Black Gloves | Part 11 - The Man in the Death Cloak | Part 12 - The Man with the Pearly Hair | Part 13 - The Man with the Fiery Gaze
* English is not my first language. Please, do not repost. Enjoy! *
Next chapters: Masterlist
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Her father, the King, only realised how many enemies he had after a man dared to attack her while she was strolling around the fair during one of her walks. He wanted to get closer to her and slipped a dagger out from behind his cloak − if it hadn't been for the woman selling fish and her shouting, she wouldn't have noticed him or the steel gleaming in his hand.
She did what any other person in her position would have done, which is to say, she screamed in terror, stepping back, bumping into a wooden makeshift table full of vegetables, which toppled over with her − the assassin gave up at the last moment, terrified by the sudden outbreak of panic, and disappeared among the crowd.
Some elderly man helped her up, the knights of her father's guard rode up on horseback, alarmed by these frightened noises. One of them, Ser Lucas, her father's friend from his youth and the great rebellion furrowed his brow as he saw her face.
"Princess?"
She wasn't sure if her father was more furious with her or with the man who had tried to attack her. He commented on her irresponsibility and disobedience, her recklessness, and expressed outrage that her guards had not even noticed how she had escaped them.
"I just wanted to see the fair, my King." She said in a trembling voice without looking at him; she stood before him with her hair loose, wearing a beautiful navy blue gown with sleeves that reached to the ground − her shoulders were bare, on her hips a delicate golden belt made up of tiny eyes in which sapphires were framed.
"That's enough." He said agitated and impatient, raising his hand in a gesture of frustration, his dark hair and beard adding to his seriousness, his brow furrowed in anger. "Until you learn prudence, one of my ghosts will not leave your side."
She looked at him, horrified, and then turned her gaze to the man standing beside him, a few steps behind his throne, his figure hidden completely in shadow. He was dressed all in black, a hood over his head and a black mask on which a single tear was outlined under his right eye.
It was said that it was molded so that the people they were killing would have the feeling that they had compassion for them, that they were just a tool used by someone else.
People called them ghosts because they weren't seen on a daily basis – or at least that's what it was believed. They were forbidden to take off their mask or speak to anyone but her father, and were his principal emissaries that found his enemies, invigilated them and killed them.
Since the days of the rebellion and the overthrow of the earlier king, her father was perpetually in fear of an attempt on his or his children's lives, so he found, she supposed, people desperate or fond of killing, those who owed him everything and had no reason to betray them.
She passed and saw them extremely rarely, only during sumptuous feasts in the company of guests or gatherings of magnates from all over the country.
They stood then by her father's side, as always in the shadows, though invisible, constantly reminding her of their presence with their very posture, menacing and stony, the people around them afraid to look at them.
She didn't know how many of them there were in total; they were almost identical and differed only in height, besides that they wore the same clothes, masks, hoods and black leather gloves, probably to avoid staining their skin with blood.
The thought that someone like that was to accompany and guard her sent shivers down her spine − she had feared that her father would now know of her every move, that she would never leave the fortress again.
She lowered her gaze, saying no more, listening to his orders to find the man who had attacked her, whom she had described in detail to the other ghosts.
She left, feeling that if she stayed there another moment she would vomit.
It seemed to her that these black hooded figures were sucking the life out of everyone around them, that they were a walking harbinger of death and misery.
That night she heard his voice for the first time.
Her guards were outraged when he dismissed them.
"You are not a King, by what right do you command us?" Asked one of them, a cold, deep, mocking voice answered them.
"Shall I inform the King that not only are you incapable of guarding his daughter, but you refuse to obey his orders?"
She heard someone's growl and an unclear voice full of impatience, the clack of steel and armour proving that they had walked away − she was left alone with the cold murderer outside her door.
She pressed her lips together, felt her eyes burning due to the gathering tears at the realization that she had never felt more alone and abandoned than she did now.
She wriggled in bed, as she did every day, unable to fall asleep. It was raining loudly outside and she looked towards the window, seeing nothing but darkness. She felt small and even though she was lying under several thick furs, she was cold.
She rose slowly, putting a soft cashmere shawl over her shoulders, lighting a candle that illuminated her chamber with a pleasant, warm glow.
There is a man behind that mask, she thought.
He was not a ghost.
If she made any kind of bond with him, she would stop being afraid of him.
She walked to her door and stood in front of it for a long moment, feeling her heart pounding hard and fast. She swallowed hard and opened it with a loud creak of old wood.
Her candle instantly illuminated his figure − he was standing exactly opposite her door, leaning against the wall with his hands clasped in front of him. She wondered if he was asleep in that position, but after a moment she noticed something behind the translucent black material in the area cut out for his eyes, a blue iris staring at her.
She looked at him for a moment, wondering if he would move, but he stood like a statue − it seemed to her as if he were made of stone.
Was he supposed to stand like that all the time?
Her father had told her that he would gift her his one ghost.
Would they be exchanging? After all, he had to sleep at some point.
"What's your name?" She asked uncertainly, softly, wanting to sound as open and honest as possible.
Silence.
A long one.
"How am I supposed to address you if I don't know what your name is?" She asked again, looking at him pleadingly, asking him to let her at least get a little closer to him, to be able to give him humanity.
Silence.
She pressed her lips together and thought something else would make him speak.
"Should I complain to the king about you not answering my questions?" She asked lowly, wrinkling her eyebrows, wondering where she had got the courage to speak to this man in this way. A shudder went through her when she heard him let out a breath, as if he had given up, resigned.
"Call me any name you see fit." He said in a low, deep, indifferent tone, as if the fact that he had to speak to her frustrated him incredibly and he didn't understand what she wanted from him.
She felt a tightening in her throat at the thought that there was no more human thing than being given a name − it was the first thing given to a child at birth, and he renounced it.
"Shall I name you?" She asked shaking her head, not understanding what he was implying − he turned his face to the side, despite the mask she could feel the growing impatience beating from him.
"Yes. My Princess." He added after a moment, his words razor-sharp, cool, angry, mocking. She had the impression that he treated her interest as something completely unnecessary − apparently it suited him to remain in the shadows and he had no intention of coming out of it.
She looked at him with pain mixed with disappointment and thought he reminded her of one of the horrific mythological beasts her mother had once read to her about before bed, a great mighty dragon that sowed death and destruction.
"Vhagar."
She heard the word she had spoken echoed, followed only by the sound of rain, and felt that there was something final in what she had done.
"I will always treat you with respect and I will never make you do anything to humiliate you or offend your good name." She choked out with difficulty, wanting him to understand that they were condemned to each other and that this in itself was a misfortune, however, it would be even more so if they both pretended that he didn't exist, that he was just her shadow that followed her everywhere.
He did not respond.
She closed herself back into her chamber only walking towards her bed feeling that her legs were trembling. She lay down on her bed covering herself with thick furs, frozen and terrified, closing her eyes, praying to the gods to show her mercy.
That they would not lock her away in this cold, stone fortress forever until her father claimed to have found a suitable candidate for her to marry.
As she did every day, she also prayed for someone else.
Someone who had lived in this chamber before her.
The next day she got up awake, a terrible headache accompanying her from the moment she opened her eyes. She sat down at the table, covering herself with her shawl − overnight the wood in her fireplace had burned out.
She lifted her gaze as she heard the door to her chamber open, her servants entering with golden trays on which they served her breakfast.
She saw Vhagar follow them inside, his hands entwined behind his back − it seemed to her that his footsteps made no sound, that he could sneak up on someone silently.
"You're supposed to taste everything first." He said to one of them dryly and emotionlessly − the girl looked at him apprehensively, clearly already knowing stories of men of his ilk and what they did.
"My Lord?" She choked out, clearly not understanding what he was asking her.
"Anything the Princess wants to eat or drink − you are to taste it first. This is how it will be from now on with everything you bring her. Do you understand?" He asked coolly and insistently, and she nodded, lowering her gaze, pale.
"Is this necessary, Vhagar?" She asked looking at him with a furrowed brow − he turned his face towards her but answered nothing. He looked back at her servant after a moment.
"Begin."
"I've lost my appetite. Take this away. You can eat it all, let it not go to waste." She said raising her hand, allowing them to leave turning her head to the side, looking blankly at her wardrobe standing on the other side of the chamber.
She saw out of the corner of her eye that he hadn't moved from his spot, that he was looking at her, his aura giving her shivers.
She knew he was about to say something.
"My Princess…" He started and she turned her face towards him. "…are you going to eat your meal, or do I have to shove it down your throat?"
She looked at him with huge eyes, feeling her heart pounding fast.
She thought with horror that he was mad.
"That is all, Vhagar. You may leave." She said in an unobjectionable voice, clasping her hands in her lap, trying to hide how much they were trembling.
He stared at her, his black tear-streaked mask seeming even more frightening and mocking to her, cold and lifeless.
"Mmm." He hummed, though it sounded more like a purr, bowed barely visibly and left her chamber.
She let out a loud breath, burying her face in her hands, feeling a desperate burbling in her stomach from hunger, thinking that she would not give him the satisfaction of letting him dominate her life, ordering her servants around, locking her in a cage.
She asked her servants to help her dress − she put on this time a light-coloured gown with a fine gold belt around her hips made up of tiny chains, some of her hair pinned back in a bun, some falling down her bare back, her sleeves reaching all the way to the ground.
She walked out of her chamber without looking at him, without telling him where she was going, hearing that he immediately moved to follow her.
Her shadow.
She saw the ladies of the court looking at her, terrified of who was accompanying her, as if she were being followed by death itself − people turned their faces away and froze in silence, not knowing what to do, how to react to this unwanted sight.
She headed for the main castle library hearing him enter behind her − he stopped at the door when it slammed behind them, standing in front of it with his hands folded behind his back.
She was starving and decided to distract her mind with some reading. She picked up a few books on the history of her kingdom, sitting down at one of the large oak tables right by the window to get more light. She opened one of the books in front of her, looking for the chapter that interested her.
"You may sit down, Vhagar." She said dispassionately, not wanting him to think she expected him to stand there like some stone pillar, but he didn't move from his place.
An hour passed before he spoke to her, snapping her out of her reverie.
"You need to eat." He communicated a little more softly than before − she felt him looking at her, but she did not lift her gaze to him, uninterested.
"My servants will not taste my food. You yourself watch the cooks and what they put on my platters." She replied with reserve, answered by a long silence.
"Very well."
She looked up at him, sighing quietly, his face turned towards her − she knew what was the reason for his impatience, what he was afraid of.
What would the King think if it turned out that under his watch she had begun to refuse food and starve herself? How would that reflect on him as her protector?
She rose from her seat, putting her books slowly back on the shelf, returning to her chamber without changing another word with him.
As she sat down to supper with her father, her younger brother, and his closest associates, the King immediately asked her what she thought of her new sworn protector, who stood behind her chair right next to the wall, as usual, hidden completely in the shadows.
She swallowed loudly a piece of the roast she had just had in her mouth, noticing with a kind of discomfort that her father spoke of him as if he had given her a thing, not a man.
"Thank you, Father, I do indeed feel safer in his presence." She lied, clutching the wine cup in her hand and taking a loud sip from it, wanting to end the subject quickly.
The King nodded, looking impatiently to his confidant secretary, a companion to all the major battles won during the rebellion.
"Has Prince Aemond's body been found at last? It's been eight years, for goodness sake." He said sternly, impatient; as far as she understood, only his body of the entire Targaryen family had not been found after the great massacre that had taken place in the fortress where they were now feasting.
Lord Ronan grunted loudly, shifting in his seat, blinking rapidly as if thinking of what to answer.
"We are getting closer, my King. We're searching the city's underground, likely to find his corpse soon. The cut of the sword fell right on his face, he couldn't have survived that." He said with a certainty that was filled with the need to sound as convincing as possible, which did not escape her or her father attention.
She lowered her gaze, setting down her cup with a loud clang of steel on the wooden tabletop, looking down at her plate, losing her appetite completely.
The entire royal family slaughtered in their beds after her father at the head of the army stormed into the fortress, elected by the people to rule after the inept reign of King Viserys.
"With apologies, I will retire to my chamber. My King. My Prince. My Lords." She said bowing in turn and moved ahead, not waiting for her father's permission − she heard rustling behind her, she knew her ghost had not left her side.
They walked in silence through the dark corridors of the fortress illuminated only by the warm light of torches − she knew the way to her chamber by heart. Her mind, however, was elsewhere, wondering what would happen if Prince Aemond lived.
If he came in with his army and slit their throats as her father had done to his family.
She stood in front of the door to her chamber, glancing up at his tall black figure towering over her like a cold shadow.
"Thank you for your devotion, Vhagar. Rest now." She said turning her head and opened the door, but stood in half step, surprised to hear his voice behind her.
"How does it feel to sleep where she slept?" He asked with a kind of excitement, as if the thought of it gave him satisfaction.
She felt her heart start pounding like mad, a cold sweat on her back at the thought of Princess Helaena bleeding to death in the bed she was now sleeping in.
She looked up at him − in the light of the torch she could see through the black fabric his blue irises, his pupil looking at her in such a way that she had the impression that he was a predator who was looking at his prey, whose entrails he was about to tear apart.
She was silent for a long moment.
"Horrible." She said dispassionately lowering her gaze.
"I imagine her lying in my place and all I can think about is that the same thing will happen to me one day." She muttered, feeling his heavy gaze on her − there was some kind of tension between them, though she didn't know why. "I pray every day for her forgiveness."
"Ghosts do not forgive." He said coldly, as if stating some foreboding, indisputable fact − she looked at him with a pained expression, furrowing her brow.
"What else can I do?" She asked in a trembling voice, but got no answer, his black mask with a tear running down his cheek looked at her indifferently.
"Sleep well, Princess."
_____
Aemond Taglist:
(bold means I couldn't tag you)
@its-actually-minicika @notnormalthings-blog @nikstrange @zenka69 @bellaisasleep @k-y-r-a-1 @g-cf2020 @melsunshine @opheliaas-stuff @chainsawsangel @iiamthehybrid @tinykryptonitewerewolf @namoreno @malfoytargaryen @qyburnsghost @aemondsdelight @persephonerinyes @fan-goddess @sweethoneyblossom1 @watercolorskyy @randomdragonfires @apollonshootafar @padfooteyes
491 notes · View notes
oddheadd · 7 months
Text
Frostbite °• : ⁠。 - Chapter III
Skinwalker/Wendigo x reader
CW: Gross things like rotting :P
SMUT!! Rough sex, voyerism, non-consentual at the end(?)
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I couldn't sleep last night. The screaming kept me awake.
Screaming? It sounded animalistic, the broken voice desperately wheezing and calling for attention. I laid there helplessly, clutching my pillow and worrying about wether I locked my doors or not. I was too scared to check them, so I just kept staring at the curtains, my heart almost popping out of its place as I tried to look away from them.
I couldn't, and at about 5-6 am, when the screaming had stopped, I dozed off. I later woke up at 4 pm, and weirdly enough, I was inspired to write some more. I put my nightly terror into descriptive paragraphs and created a monster.
One with long, grey, skinny limbs and hair thin enough to see it's pure white eyes... Rotten teeth caging the slithering maggots in its hollow mouth.
I take a deep breath and close my laptop. I grab my phone and see that Nathan had texted me last night.
"Do you drink?"
I can't help but smile and instantly start typing.
"after whatever the hell happened last night, I do."
I put my phone away and make myself a quick meal. My phone buzzes.
"And what happned?"
I chuckle at his misspelling.
"I heard someone or something screaming. I couldn't sleep all night :("
He answers quickly;
"Jackals?"
And I answer just as fast.
"Kind of... It had an artificial echo to it? Don't know how to explain."
I purse my lips and put my phone down. Taking a bite out of the poor excuse of a meal.
"You could demonstrate, when I take you to a bar in the town."
Smile grows on my face as I reread his messages. I should go, what's the worst that can happen? So, we text each other the details and it's a date!
I leave the cabin and decide to look around the village this time. Ain't no way I'm going into the forest after last night.
I try my best to remember the way home as I walk past the other cabins. I admire the architecture - simple, but charming nonetheless. Then I spot a girl, no older than nine looking at me through the window. I smile and give her a wave.
She stays still and keeps staring at me. My hand falls back to my side, and so does my smile. I avoid her gaze and keep walking. I take a few pictures and maybe make a few angels in the snow, before I see an old woman, just barely walking. I approach her. - "Hello, want me to walk you home?"
I get a better look at her face. It's wrinkled, as if her skin is melting off her face. Her eyes are marble like, despite being as dark as coals. I can barely make out her lips that stretch into an uncanny line. Her hair as thin as the monster's that I made up.
She looks at me before her face scrunches up, even more, into a scowl. - "...What are you doing here?" - My mood falters.
"...I used to come here as a child... My mother passed and I decided to visit for a while." - I explain myself. She raises an eyebrow and grabs my arm for support.
"(Your mother)'s kid. You've... Changed, quite a bit."
I tilt my head. - "Do I know you?"
"You'd always steal from my brother's cherry trees. You used to be an annoying, little rascal."
I chuckle awkwardly. - "I get that a lot. So you live down the road?"
"You've become... A very appetizing person." - She says, avoiding my question. I try not to think about her weird wording.
"...Thank you?" - I say after a long pause.
"I used to be like you. Maybe my skin was healthier." - She scoffs, bits of her saliva falling out of her mouth. - "...Not fair... At all." - she sighs.
I stay quiet as she rambles, a little more comfortable now that we've approached her cabin.
"But whatever it wants, it gets." - She says. She tightens her grip. - "Count yourself lucky, being able to serve it like that."
After that I head straight to my cabin. I can't wait to drink with Nathan tonight.
Now as I stand in the snow, my ass literally freezing off, I start to feel disappointed. He promised he'd pick me up, but now I'm getting worried he got lost and mauled.
Tiny snowflakes start falling, adding onto the already layered snow that's coating the ground. I sigh and check my phone again. My frown intensifies, when I see there's no new messages.
I almost fall off the bench on the porch when I see a figure in the corner of my eye.
"Jesus, Nathan. Do you always have to scare me like that?" - I rest my palm on my chest, dramatically so.
He flashes me the Cheshire grin - "Sorry."
I get off the porch and shove my hands into my pocket, a wave of disappointment washing over me when the pockets are just as cold.
"I thought the huge deer got to you." - I tease.
He narrows his eyes. - "I'm at the top of the food chain, you don't have to worry about stuff like that." - He brags and gives me his hand. I take it with a snort, his hands as cold as mine. - "I don't think we can make it to the Bar, it's too far away. And, it's getting dark."
I pout. He chuckles. - "But I know how to make it up to you~" - He says and takes out a flask from his coat.
I raise an eyebrow. - "Charming."
I then walk back to the front door of the cabin and unlock it, going inside. - "Come on in, I'm freezing." - I complain and look at him.
He follows after me with a smile and looks around. - "It's pretty cozy in here."
I chuckle and sit him down onto the couch. - "I think we have some old wine in the attic. Try not to miss me too much."
"Don't worry, I'm patient." - he smiles softly.
I turn on the flashlight on my phone after a hard struggle against the attic door, coughing my lungs out when the dust flies around in the air. I climb up and start looking around the boxes for the wine.
I smile when I finally find it. There's two blood red bottles with no distinct label on them, so I pick them up. My smile falls as I see a... Doll? It's made out of straws, clearly resembling a human body. I pick it up and inspect further. Is this a hex? I put it back down and get up, chills running down my spine when I notice a big red symbol on the wall. I stare at it for a while before turning around and leaving with the bottles in my hands.
I have a guest right now, I'll deal with it later.
On my way, I grab go into the kitchen to get glasses.
"I only have mugs and teacups, no fancy glasses." - I say before grabbing the cups and sitting next to him. He throws his arm around my shoulder.
"I don't look like the fancy type though, do I?" - He chuckles and I shrug.
I pour us some wine and sip from my cup. - "So, why did you move here again?"
"Nature always called out to me." - He shrugs. - "And you, Y/N? What's your job and why did you come here?"
I purce my lips. - "Well, I'm a writer. I've written some stuff but nothing special, really. I wanted to write a horror book and came here to set the mood, ya know?"
"And how's that working out?" - He tilts his head.
I sigh. - "I'm having the worst writer's block I've ever had. Barely wrote a few pages."
"Let's see then." - He says, and I hesitantly agree. I grab my laptop and open the file, handing it to him.
I stand up and approach the fireplace, tending to it as he reads for a while.
"It's great." - He smiles and I look back at him.
"Is it?"
"A little complaint... You're trying too hard to explain all the details. Reading is all about letting people warp characters and places into whatever their mind makes up."
"...That makes a lot of sense, actually." - I sit back next to him. - "Can you help me?"
He eyes me and nods.
I don't know how much time passes, but we're now sitting on the floor and already have finished the second bottle of wine, now taking turns on taking a swing out of Nathan's flask. I've been taking notes, typing away furiously.
As I let out a deep breath, I look up from my laptop screen and the whole room starts spinning. I grunt and put the gadget away, placing my head in Nathan's lap. He chuckles and strokes my hair. - "Are you alright?"
"...A little tired. And dizzy." - I pout. Nathan just keeps smiling and sits me up again, making me look at him by taking my chin in-between his fingers.
I keep looking into his eyes and his smile never falters, only getting closer to my own lips. I instinctively close my eyes and part my lips a little, almost melting into Nathan's arms when they connect with his.
My heated cheeks heat up even more when he lays me down onto the soft, warm carpet and lets out a deep groan.
Then I can't even comprehend what happened, when I look to my side and see both mine and his clothes on the floor. Then I feel his erected cock, rubbing against me and realize I'm not wearing any underwear neither. I look back at him and pull him into a kiss again, moaning in delight. He then pushes it inside of me, spreading the walls to make more room for himself and and starts gently grinding it deeper out of me.
I lose track of time and what's happening again, and this time feel him mercilessly thrusting his hips against my ass, almost steaming air of heat spreading into the whole room while his rough fingers caress all the right spots. I let out moans and whimpers in-between my breaths, while he muffles his in my collarbone.
"Don't stop... Fuck, Nathan..." - I moan out his name and he looks up at me.
He then runs his fingers through my hair pulls my head back, giving me a view of the rest of the room, before he buries his face into my neck and leaves a trail of sloppy kisses.
I get closer to cumming, feeling myself spasm and squeeze around him, before I notice something in the windows. There are people outside my cabin... They're chanting something while drawing a symbol on the windows...
It's the same symbol as the one in my attic. I huff and try to stop Nathan but he can't even see my expression with his head buried into my neck. I shut my eyes and try my best not to cry... And soon enough, pass out.
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starlightdreaming · 6 months
Text
Lucifer Morningstar x Reader! Ch. 4!
Fandom: Hazbin Hotel!
Content warning: more blood! *Niffty’s manic laugh* i guess maybe some comfort this time (not from Lucifer lol) also more angst but a smidge bits of it, also LONGESTT CHAPTER YET and small implications of Season 1: Ep. 2 of Hazbin Hotel. (not proofread)
Synopsis: after waking up in hell, you try and find help of any kind.
Further note: I LOVED WRITING THIS CHAPTER SMM U HAVE NO IDEA (sorry it took a while) ENJOY READING MORE THAN I ENJOYED WRITING I!!/! - ✨Lolo💫
Chapters!: Chapter 1 ✧ Chapter 2 ✧ Chapter 3 ✧ Chapter 4 (you are here) •<•)b ✧ Chapter 5
this chapters song is:
(optional but recommended to improve reading experience!!:!)
。・:*:・゚Lululuna・゚:。*:・。
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“Lucifer, do you want to play with the stars with me?” You ask him, him turning to you and taking your hands into his, him looking at you with loving and caring eyes, you looking deeply into his as well, “I’d love to!” He says, dragging you to the oak tree you had agreed upon to be your hangout spot from now on.
You both rolled into the grass together, told stories at night and used magic to display your dreams of creations, everything was perfect, he was perfect, everything felt perfect.
“I never want to see you again,” He snapped, “And I fucking mean it.” He says as he looked at you with pure hatred in his eyes, oh those eyes, once full of love now full of hatred. Your heart began to beat harder as it ached, ‘this whole mess was your fault wasn’t it?’ you thought as your breath hitched, staring at those eyes he gave you, oh how you never wanted to see them again but here you were. You tried to breathe again but you just couldn’t, those eyes were staring deeply into your soul, you just couldn’t find a way to breathe as you began to hyperventilate, your body felt frozen in terror as you stared back into those careless, dull, hatred fueled eyes, breathe, breathe, breathe!
You sit up quickly, coughing out golden blood before gasping for air desperately, coughing out again before regaining your composure, groaning from the metallic taste in your mouth, you looked down at your hand to see the lavender blue star Emily gave you, seeing that was your only comfort now, it was stained in gold blood as well as you winced in sharp pain behind your back, you look at your back to see a lot of damage was done to your wings, golden blood covered all your feathers as you can see the clear cut Sera did, she attacked your two middle wings as they now seemed split, it made your skin crawl from how horrible they looked, you then looked up to the sky, your stars were barely raining anymore stardust, trying to heal your injured state, they began to fade, if it weren’t for the sentient stars you made during the extermination, you don’t think you would have survived the fall.
You looked at your stars with a tired and weak smile before they could crumble away into dust, thankful that your creations saved your life, you then looked at your surroundings, seeing cities in the distance, followed with screams and cars crashing, you sat for a moment trying to endure the pain that was coursing through your body, you held a wing to ease the pain but all you felt was a wet liquid that now covered your hands, more blood. You needed to find help or something but who in Hell would want to help? Maybe you could try and find a place to stay or hide so you could focus on healing yourself, you didn’t have any attributes to regeneration, so you needed to try and find someone or something to stop the bleedings.
You recovered a bit of mana from resting but it wasn’t enough for you to completely focus on healing since you weren’t very good at it, you decided to try and finally get up but your body was so sore you stumbled a few times before you could manage to even stand, you slouched to your side, limping as you tried to walk out of wherever you even were.
You decided to try and seek help in the city, hoping there might be a blessed heart willing to assist you but just a precaution, you made a little bit of stardust and with Emily’s star she had given you, you made it sentient with the little bit of mana you had left, thankful for her gift and her warm comforting smiles.
The little star chimed to life, floating around you, it was your only sort of defense it wasn’t much but it can for sure pack a punch you wanted it to, you hugged yourself as you limped toward the city, a trail of golden blood dripping behind you as your wings dragged behind you. The lavender blue star floating next to you calmly.
Upon entering the city, you expected monsters and sinners to be in chaos but… no one was here. “Hello?” You called softly, walking into the city, the emptiness making you feel uneasy, the star chimed next to you for comfort, floating around you as it kept watch of your surroundings, “Is anyone here?” You called out again more loudly, “please, can anyone help me?” you begged, not receiving a single answer in the abandoned city.
You held yourself more tightly as you walked, leaving a trail of gold as you looked around, high and low, left and right, you’d hear a sudden noise but it the source or cause would be long gone before you could turn around, I guess it only makes sense seeing as you were an angel and it was extermination day to them, the lonely and uncomfortable silence made you feel like an outcast, something you were used to in a way but it still hurt nonetheless, tears formed from your eyes but you tried to not let them escape from how lonely you felt in your situation and once again, you feel completely helpless as you walked down the empty streets, the silence was completely loud.
You wiped your tears as you passed by stores, broken glass and blood, it really showed a difference between Heaven and Hell, it made you wish you were back in your bed for all eternity, it was better than the pain your were enduring currently. You passed by a store full of televisions, you looked at it- it being the only thing that was making noise in the silent city, you watched the screens as it showed a thin waisted lady in red, her voice loud and clear, “Greetings, my name is Katy Killjoy, here to discuss to you about last weeks extermination, after deep analysis and investigating, we can officially confirm it was canceled thanks to an none other than an Angel itself!” She says before it showed a video of you making it rain stardust in stars in Hell’s skies, dragging every exterminator back into Heaven, your eyes widened as you didn’t expect to be shown to all of Hell.
“And thanks to that, we now have more information about how our deadline is cut in half, down to six months! do you know what that means Tom?” She says as she turned to face him, giving him the chance to finally speak, “yes it-“ “it means we are completely fucked!” she shouts through the screen, your mouth agape from shock, Adam and Sera- despite trying to stop them, they decided to continue this meaningless chaos? the thought of Sera ignoring your words, your voice, it made your blood boil unexplainably, especially on how she tried to kill you behind Heavens back.
You were so frustrated and in so much pain because of her, it made you want to cry and lash out at her angrily but trying to kill her back, the thought of killing her made a smile crawl to your face but you shook that thought out immediately, it was not the answer. If you tried to use violence like she did, you were no different than her and that’s worse than the thought of her death. You snapped out of thought to look at the television again, it was another video of you, of how you fell from the sky, you stared in shock again, they really have their eyes on the skies don’t they? It was you falling practically to your death! but that made you realize, oh- they evacuated the city because you arrived.
That alone, made you realize how lonely you are now, no one was going to help you, familiar feeling eh? history just doesn’t seem to stop repeating itself with you. Your head began to ache as your stomach grumbled, all that stamina you had used was getting to you for sure now but there was nothing you could do, you didn’t have food, shelter or any help, there was nothing here in this place of damnation for you. You were pathetically helpless, at rockbottom, completely.
You wiped the tears that escaped, your lavender blue star pressing against your cheek for comfort, it chimed to you, trying to tell you something, you gave it it’s attention, floating toward the window full of televisions, “Welcome to the Hazbin Hotel, where all sinners are welcomed and redeemed, if you want to escape the extermination and get up into Heaven, please head to the building on the top of the hill in the pride ring.” A White haired woman spoke, with other figures who stood there and a glitched out man who was facing away from the screen which was quite concerning- but that wasn’t important, what was important was that they were willing to help and once again, that small sliver of hope reignited in you as you smiled to yourself weakly, you just had to go find that hotel, if they didn’t accept you then… maybe you could just live in a box? that thought made you shudder, not the box but the fact you would be out of luck.
You tried to find the hotel, quickly limping down the streets as you tried to find that said hotel, “Can you help me find it?” You ask your star as it chimed, swiftly floating up in the air, looking around, it wasn’t long before it went back down to you and started guiding you as followed, gold blood still following behind you, you tried your best to keep it together, try to make it to the hotel, it wasn’t much long as you panted heavily up the hill, once upon making it, you collapsed in exhaustion and pain, you sat at the door for a moment to recollect yourself.
It took awhile but the sentient star waited with you patiently and that was enough for you to get back up on your feet, you took a deep breath before knocking, stepping back from the door, hugging yourself in anticipation, shaking a little from exhaustion.
The door opened and you saw a tall blonde female, she looked down and gasped in surprise, “Welcome!- oh- oh my gosh, are you alright?” she says quickly, cutting her introduction off after seeing your terrible state, “Is… this the Hazbin hotel?” you ask politely and kinda desperately, “Yes, yes this is! do you need uh, do you need to come in for a moment? theres a trail of blood coming from you.” She pointed out with concern, “please.” You say weakly and nervously to the stranger in front of you, feeling completely light headed from the blood loss, you felt like you were going to faint any second.
“Oh goodness, just sit here for me okay? I’ll go get something real quick-“ she stammers before running back inside after making you sit and lean on to the door, you waited as you heard the same voice shout “Vaggie!” and “Emergency!” You rested your eyes as you leaned your head against the door, you began to hear static, and it got only louder the longer you had your eyes shut but as soon you opened your eyes the static disappeared, ‘that was weird’ you thought as the tall lady came back and immediately tended to your wounds with another person behind her, you backed away when the blonde tried to touch you, “Oh don’t worry, i’m just trying to help.” She says as she waited for your permission this time to tend to you, her smile was oddly calming and it let you give in as you slowly turned your back, allowing her to touch your wings, the purple female also assisting her, you winced in pain after some places they touched, a “sorry” escaping one of their mouths as they kept going, you all were silent the whole time before the blonde moved to sit in front of you, leaving the other lady to focus on your wings.
“My name is Charlie.” She smiled at you, reaching her hand out for you to shake, you looked up to her, her red eyes staring back at you, “Y/n.” You say as you took her hand to shake, “Nice to meet you, Y/n! Now if I may ask, why were you so injured?” She asked, you looking away, “Oh uhhh, I fell..?” You say not tell her the full truth, she tilted her head confused, “fell? fell from where?” she said confused, “Uhhmm, fromm.. Heaven?” You laughed coyly, as she gasped, “You’re fallen?” She says quietly, “I guess,” pausing now acknowledging that you were actually fallen now, “yeah, I guess so.” you finished, feeling a little ashamed.
“Vaggie, are you almost done?” Charlie asks as she looks over your side to see that she wrapped your last wing up, a tug was felt and you winced a bit, “Yup, finished.” She says after she tied the last knot, Charlie bend down to help Vaggie up before they both helped you up, “Thank you.. for helping me.” You say with a tired smile, your star bouncing on your head, “Oh who’s this little guy?” Charlie says pointing to the star that chimed, “Oh this one of my creations or like a child of mine, same thing.” You say as you put the star in your hand, “I could only make this one sentient because im so tired.” You say, your eyes obviously showed that to them, black circles and all, “Well we can give you a place to stay in the Hotel!” Charlie smiles as she walks in the building, you following after Vaggie but as soon as you stepped into the building, your exhaustion you endured collapsed all at once, making your face plant into the ground with a ‘plomp’
The stared at you in surprise, “Oh, she was that tired.” Charlie responds, walking up to you, “are you alright?” she asks as you just muffled a reply, “foof.” “Uh, what was that?” Charlie asks, turning you to the side, “food.” you say, falling back into place, “Oh, okay just one sec.” She says before getting up to running off, leaving Vaggie to watch over you, she crossed her arms as she stared at you, “So uhh, who’s dis?” A new voice spoke, “Fallen angel, probably same one from the extermination on the news.” Vaggie replied as someone spat out their drink of something, you didn’t bother to get up to look up who was talking, too tired to care, “the hell you mean the angel from da news?” the voice shouted as you heard something rapidly approaching your body but your tiny star pushed them back, launching whatever was going after you, “That thing just launched Niff across the parlor! why are you allowing angels into this place?” The voice shouts again, “Angel, look at her, she’s defenseless, well, except that thing.” she pointed to your star.
Your star stuck to your back, trying to move you but it ended up just dragging you across the floor as everyone silently stared, “Okay i’m back!” Charlie says with a plate of food, walking to you and giving it to you after your star dropped you to the floor again.
You raised your head, resting your arms as you ate on the floor, not caring who’s watching, she also gave you water and that made you feel all the more better, with something finally in your system you managed to sit up, looking up at your surroundings, seeing everyone stare at you in silence, “uhh, hi.” you say awkwardly, with a small wave, as one of then waved back at you.
“Are you feeling alright now?” Charlie asked as you nodded, “Yeah, I just really need to rest, if you would let me please?” You ask as she gave you a hand to help you up, you thanked her as you tried to pat down your tattered dress, it was completely stained with blood from sinners during the extermination and your own as well, “Maybe let’s get you cleaned up?” Charlie asks as she took your hand to help you up the stairs, Vaggie following, “We can introduce you to everyone else once you’ve recovered.” She offers as she guides you down a hall, taking you to a room that was themed with red and black, “you can rest here,” she says as she walks into the room, you following suit along with your star.
You sat on the bed before falling back into it, your sore body finally feeling that euphoric comfort of a bed for who knows how long, your small lavender blue star rested on your head as you stretched a little, feeling your muscles ache, it hurt so bad it felt so good, “Do you need spare clothing or anything?” Charlie asks, Vaggie standing at the front of the door to the room, “Yes, if you wouldn’t mind.” You say shyly, sitting up again, you weren’t used to such hospitality, “thank you.” You say genuinely, extremely grateful that you found this place in this upside down world, “It’s no problem, you just get some rest alright? Vaggie can you go get something from my dresser?” She says, Vaggie nodding and leaving the room.
“So, can you tell me what happened? about why you’re here perhaps?” She questions, trying to start a conversation in the meantime, waiting for Vaggie to return, “Oh.. that..” you say looking down, away from her gaze, “oh! you don’t have to tell me anything if you want to,” she says, seeing how your expression has changed, “no, its just- it’s kind of a lot? I’ll just cut it short.” You smile at her, waving off her sudden intrusion of a question, “long story short, I asked for for a job and my, err, ‘manager’ gave me one,” you say scratching your cheek, the thought of Sera made you itch, “it was the extermination and I was so shocked on how Heaven was allowing the people to slaughter, so I used up so much of my power to drag every exorcist back to Heaven, leaving a bit of healing, hoping some sinners would recover,” You say as you as you rub your shoulder, still feeling guilty about the lives you witnessed being lost from the angels attack, “I’m really sorry about that by the way,” you apologized on behalf of the angels, “I tried to talk to my leader and it just got.. messy.” you sigh, Vaggie walking back to the room with clothes in hand, Charlie held your hand into her own, making you look up her, her comforting and sympathetic smile made you feel at ease from your riled up stress and tension, “hey, its alright,” she says, trying to soothe your nerves, “i’m just surprised an angel actually went out of their way to stop the extermination, it’s a complete first for anyone in hell to witness,” She smiles again, “i’m really glad you did, it shows that maybe not all angels are as bad as they seem.” she finishes, Vaggie walking up to you both giving, putting the clothes next to you, on the bed.
Charlie stood up, taking Vaggie’s hand into hers, “We’ll leave you alone for now, feel free to join us when you’re ready.” she waves as she leaves the room, closing the door behind her.
You got up from the bed after she left the room, changing out of your tattered dress and robes, the clothes they gave you were kind of big on you, the shirt was maybe too big, it was like a short night gown on you but you weren’t complaining since it was comfortable, the pants didn’t even fit so you tossed them to the side along with your tattered dress, wanting to deal with it later, you jumped into the bed, sighing in relief again, you laid on your stomach as you hugged the the fluffy pillow, the coolness of the sheets making you feel relaxed, best feeling ever.
Your star chimed as it floated off your head again, it was telling you it was going to keep watch as you slept, that was enough for you as you quickly drifted off to sleep, hugging the pillow as comfort.
✧•✧•✧•✧•✧•✧•✧
“look at that one, it looks like a duck!” Lucifer says under the oak tree, pointing to the clouds that drifted by, “Yeah, it does!” You say in awe, “that’s cause I made it be.” he giggles, showing you his pure golden light in his hands, you admired it as you giggled as well.
He laid in the grass as he continued to stare at the sky, his smile was so pure and full of life, “I’m so glad you came into my life, Luna.” He says before looking at you with adoration in his eyes, you stared back at him with a sparkle in your eyes, sitting up next to him, “everyone in my life thinks i’m a problem and avoids me cause of that,” he vents, looking back up at the blue sky, “and ever since you came along, everything just feels so… right.” he smiles, as you continued to stare at him with doe eyes, “I don’t think I could ask for anyone better, you are the first person to believe in me and my dreams for so long and I don’t think I want to lose you,” he says, sitting up and looking back at you, taking your hands into his own, “ever.”
You smiled at him comfortingly, “I don’t want to lose you either, Lulu.” you say as you look back into his eyes, you both stared into each other’s eyes, the silence between you was calm and comforting, “hey I know!” he says, brightening more from an idea, “lets make a promise,” he says, leaning closer to your face, “let’s promise each other that no matter what happens, we will stay together, we will help each other out in the time of need.” he says, pulling out hand in front of you, his pinky finger out, waiting for you to intertwine your finger with his.
You look down at his hand, back to him, you smiled more, “okay, I pinky promise.” you say as you brought your pinky out to hold into his, you both stared at each other with admiration for one another before he quickly pecked your forehead, leaving a warm kiss, your eyes widening in surprise at the sudden gesture, “I love you, my Luna.” he says, you felt your face heat up as he gave you a closed eyed smile, it became silent for a moment again before you spoke, “what’s a love?” you ask, breaking the silence as he looked at you bewildered, going back to smiling at you gently, “maybe one day, you’ll understand.”
✧•✧•✧•✧•✧•✧•✧
Your eyes fluttered open, as you groaned from a nights rest, you laid there for a moment before sitting up, groaning from the soreness in your body, you rubbed your eyes as you looked around, beginning to remember where you were. Upon waking up, your lavender blue star chimed as you awoke, happy to see you awake, you put your hands together for your star to rest in your hands, “oh, hey there,” you smiled tiredly, as it floated down into your hand, your used a bit of your mana to make cosmic dust, feeding the little star as it began to glow brightly again, after feeding it, it went to rest on your hair, seeing as your aren’t completely defenseless anymore.
You say in the bed looking around again before turning to your dress, it wasn’t filthy or dirty anymore, it looked clean and new, curious, you shifted out of the bed and went to collect it, they must have cleaned this for you while you were resting, you smiled, thankful for that, seeing as walking around in a shirt and undergarments in public was rather… explicit and embarrassing.
You turned around in the, realizing there was another door in your room, you went to open it curiously, behind the door was a sink and a tub, a personal bathroom, you smiled about that, you can take a bath without any worries now. You went into the bathroom, locking the door, deciding to take the chance to clean the blood and grime that stained your body. You sat on the hem of the tub, your clothes and bandages discarded, you were now scrubbing yourself clean, trying to avoid your wings soaking into the water, after cleaning your body, you focused on your wings, trying your best to not make them sting in pain as much as they already did in the contact with water, you washed them carefully and delicately.
After your relaxing bath, you changed your set of clothes, careful to not hurt your wings that looked like an absolute mess, the feathers were everywhere but you didn’t really bother with them, you’d groom your wings when they were healed up enough, with that thought out of the way, you went to leave the room, walking past a dresser with a mirror, you halted for a moment, stepping back and looking at the glass, your reflection showing, your hair was absolutely frizzled, your eyes were covered with black circles, like you just put black eyeliner around your eyes, you looked like an absolute mess and thing is, you were, emotionally and physically.
You saw a brush on the dresser, you decided to try and brush your hair, trying to look a little more presentable, a small chair sat underneath the dresser, pulling it put to sit down, focusing on your tangles.
You sat the brush down, looking at your now somewhat more clean state, there was nothing to do about the bags under your eyes, so you would just have to let that go, you got up from the chair, pushing it back under the dresser and walking to the door, exiting the room.
You explored the vast empty halls, taking in the details the hotel had, heading down the hall to the lobby, recalling that Charlie said you could join them anytime when you were ready, when you turned the corner, you saw some of the demons gathered in the corner of the lobby, you stood there quietly observing the people who were doing their own things, after scanning around the room, you saw Charlie talking to Vaggie in the parlor, on a sofa, it wasn’t long before Charlie spotted you as well and waved, “Over here, Y/n!” she calls to you, getting up to walk toward you to the stairs, you smiled nervously as everyone’s attention turned to you as you walked down the said stairs.
“How are you feeling?” she asks after you took your last step down, “I’m feeling much better, thank you,” You replied with sincerity, “and thank you for your hospitality.” You say as you bowed a little in respect, “just to make sure,” a male voice spoke as you turned away from Charlie’s to follow the voice, “you ain’t here to kill us right?” a tall feminine male asks, approaching you. You were taken back by his question but it made sense for them to worry, seeing as angels were sent to slaughter the poor souls, “what? no, i’d never-“ you tried to explain, being cut off quickly, “seeing on the news, she was the one who stopped the extermination, I don’t think those are her ideals, Angel.” Vaggie deadpanned to him, defending you.
Charlie laughed awkwardly, “Before we go into details any questions or details, how about a few introductions?” She asks, seeing how the atmosphere quickly turned, she guided you to the parlor, calling everyone to gather around, “Okay, so we have a new uhh,” she pauses trying to think, “guest at the hotel,” She says pointing her hand toward you, you waving shyly, “This is y/n, she arrived here yesterday as we all know and saw but welcome her nonetheless.” she smiles, only you getting stares and glances, “And these are our staff and residents,” she says, showing you the other three that were there, “this is Husk! our bartender,” she pointed to a cat with wings, who only stared at the distance, unfazed, “this is Angel, who is our single resident aside from you,” she says, pointing to the tall male who only scrolled through his phone before smiling and waving at you, “this is Niffty.” she says, pointing to a short woman with one eye who was staring into your soul, she ran up to you quickly, “are you an actual angel? why do you have so many wings? do you casually just wear eyeliner like that?” she says, pointing out your darkened eye bags, intruding your space, you only smiled nervously at her, she was asking to many questions before you could answer them, “and lastly, this is Alastor,” she says as you look at a man covered in red she pointed at, you were surprised about the male since you hadn’t seen him at all until now, he looked at you with an intimidating and intense gaze, smiling at you, making you feel uncomfortable, “he is our facility host.” She says, clasping her hands together with a smile.
Alastor walked up to you with a cane and his hands behind his back before bending down slightly to greet you properly, “it’s a pleasure to meet you, dear.” He says, stretching his hand out for you to shake, his hands had red sharp like claws making you hesitatingly take it with a nervous smile, “pleasure..” you say, shaking his hand lightly, you got more nervous than before when you began to hear radio static coming from him, the same static you heard when you first arrived here.
“With that out of the way, I was wondering- since you’re an angel and all- what do you think about sinners and redemption?” Charlie asked as Alastor backed away, trailing off to do his own thing as Charlie began to speak to you again, “what do you mean?” you asked curiously, requesting she’d go into more detail, “Well as you see, I began this project a few days ago,” she says, sitting next to you, summoning a pile of paper before taking one in her hand to show you hand-made drawings.
“What I want is to save my people and I thought maybe if they were given a second chance they could be redeemed and go to Heaven,” she says as she points to the drawing but your mind trailed off as soon as she said, ‘my people’ “wait- wait-“ you tried to cut her off, “your people?” you asked, “uhh, yeah?” she answered, confused about your reaction, you then stared at her, noticing her facial features, red cheeks, white skin and blonde hair… Your heart began to twinge a little from the thoughts that began to bubble your mind, “What’s your name..?” You ask, hesitatingly, afraid to find your suspicions might be correct. “Charlie… Morningstar.” she answers, putting down the drawing to respond, your eyes widened as you leaned back from her for a moment before leaning toward her, “You’re Lucifer’s daughter?!” you shouted completely shocked and somewhat… hurt? You felt a pain that couldn’t be explained in your stomach.
“Yeah, my parents are Lilith and Lucifer Morningstar,” she states, answering the truth you tried to avoid for so long, you were just lost in thought as she began to ramble about then both, “and that is why they call me the princess of hell- oh, are you alright?” Charlie asks genuinely, seeing the hurt expression on your face, you snapped out of your thoughts as you shook your head, putting up a facade, “huh? yeah- yeah, I was just surprised, sorry.” you tried to exclaim, “I was just not told about any of this is all, y’know? since being in Heaven and all?” you tried to excuse, not really convincing yourself, Alastor gave a side eye to you, interested on how you were baffled from the mention of Charlie and her parents, “Where are,” you trailed off, hesitating to finish your next question, “your parents?” you asked, nervously.
Charlie looked away from you, thinking momentarily before speaking, “My mother has been gone for quite a while,” she says as she looks back at you with a tinge of sadness in her eyes, “she’s only been gone for like.. seven years now? but i believe she’s off on some sort of business trip,” She says as she tried to smile and wave it off like it wasn’t a big deal, “and my father… we don’t talk much.” she says as she hugs her arm, rubbing it slightly and awkwardly at the topic of her parents but to you, knowing that they don’t have much contact, it all just put your nerves at ease, you don’t think you could handle randomly seeing either of those two… ever.
You sighed, regaining composure, “sorry if I intruded on your personal life,” you apologize, looking at Charlie, “I uhm,” you paused, thinking if you should tell her anything about you, “you see, I used to be best friends with Lucifer,” you smiled, “and I am just happy to know that he’s alright.” You say with a half lie, you weren’t happy about him and Lilith, you never were and you never wanted to let him go like you did, like you had to.
Charlie smiled from surprise, “wait, are you Luna?” she asks, the name being said in so long, you felt rather uncomfortable with it, “I don’t really go by that name anymore but yes, I used to be..” You admit, trying to avoid saying the name yourself as it became more of a haunting of the past. She jumped in her seat on the sofa with a radiated smile, “my father told me so many stories about you when I was younger!” she says as she began to shake in happiness, “it’s so nice to meet you! I didn’t even know it was you!” she continues as she shook your hand suddenly, surprising you with her sudden enthusiasm, “he told me how you’re the daughter of the universe, the way you make stars and constellations align,” she began to ramble, “he even told me about the stars you make are always and are more beautiful than any other angel would ever create.” She smiles as she leaned in toward you with admiration.
You sat there with mixed feelings again, Lucifer said all this about you? the compliments she stated out made your heart flutter and you didn’t know why, surely he’d hate you by now after everything you did? the thoughts began to stress your mind and you just didn’t want to deal with them, you look down at the desk and remembered Charlies hotel project, so you decided it was best to change the subject, “I’m glad he seems to see me that way,” you smiled, “but how about you tell me about your project? I think we trailed off.” You stated, pointing to her drawings, she gasped as she picked up her paper drawing again, “that’s right! as I was saying before, I was thinking of maybe we could try and redeem sinners and try to bring them to Heaven! that way we can stop overpopulation in Hell,” she continued as you listened, taking a liking to her idea, “and if we find a solution to the overpopulation,” she says, bringing up another paper for you to see, “we can end all these exterminations and everyone will be smiling and happy!” she finishes as you smiled to her ideals, “So what do you think?” she asks as she puts down the drawing and looked at you eagerly awaiting your answer, “I actually think this is a great idea!” you say as you sit up in your seat eagerly, loving the idea of second chances, Charlie smiled more at your response as she squeed in excitement, having an angel finally agree on her passion project, “I’m so happy you believe in my cause!” she shouted in happiness, Vaggie smiling that someone else agreed who was the same as her.
“I was so upset when I found out extermination was allowed, it’s completely terrible as a whole.” you say as you leaned back into the sofa in distaste for the thought of ‘divine judgment’ amongst Charlie’s people, “So do I! None of them deserved what was given to them.” she says as she frowns, “I agree,” You say empathetically, “If you would let me, I’d like to stay and help with your cause.” You offered, Charlie smiling once again, “Really?” She asked with pure joy, “Yeah! I believe this could work!” You say with full confidence.
This made Alastor raise a brow at you and Charlie as he subtly listened in your whole conversation, he turned away with a ‘hmm’ as he thought to himself, he then shadowed up behind the sofa you and Charlie sat, nudging Vaggie away a little, “So we have a new staff member now?” Alastor smiled, Vaggie rolling her eyes at Alastor and walking around the sofa to sit next to Charlie, you blinked at him in surprised from his sudden join in on the conversation, “Yes we do!” Charlie says as she sat up, to gain everyone’s attention to announce you were now part of the crew, “everyone, everyone, I’d like to announce that we have a new staff member on our team!” She says as she points to you, they weren’t very enthusiastic as you had expected but not really expected them to but it really didn’t bother you since you preferred to avoid attention. Not to mention that Alastor had left the lobby before Charlie even began.
“We can discuss what you can do later,” Charlie says to you, before heading toward the middle of the lobby to pace around, “right now, what we need to do is discuss how we can try and bring sinners in,“ she began as Husk walked off to the green creepy area at the back of the lobby, drinking whatever green glass he held, “extermination is coming in six months instead of a year, it’s no big deal, just a little set back,” she says as a cat appears and follows her before jumping over to the sofa to sit next to you, you stared at it in surprise as it tilted it’s head at you, blinking its one eye and all you could process in your mind is- oh my stars its so cute.
You stared at the cat as it walked further to you, you didn’t want to move to touch it, afraid it might run off, she sat right next to you, you hesitated to pet it but it leaned into your touch and you never felt so much serotonin fill your body all at once, you pet her head gently as the kitty purred and you were squealing on the inside as you continued to pet her. You picked up the black cat, carrying her in your arms as you walked toward Charlie and Vaggie, “don’t you think if the next extermination deadline is sooner than expected, wouldn’t sinners be desperate?” you asked, while petting the cat in your arms, “yeah,” Vaggie thought, “maybe desperate enough to try and do anything to escape the extermination.” Vaggie spoke with a smile appearing on her face making Charlie gasp, getting the idea she was leading on, “this is the perfect time to recruit more sinners for the hotel!” she shouted, raising her arms in the air, you smiling as you thought the same as well, only to frown when the kitty jumped out your arms, feeling the world shatter again inside your soul.
“Cute idea and all,” Angel says, tapping through his phone, “but you really going to go out in all of this?” He asks, showing a video of demons screaming through the city with fire everywhere, “well, it’s not like people are just going to show up on our doorstep-“ she says before being cut off from a loud explosion, making you jolt in surprise, hiding behind Charlie and Vaggie.
Everyone ran outside to see what the ruckus was about, you following last, you weren’t sure what to expect being new in Hell and all but when you saw outside was a massive war machine and Alastor at the top of one of the hotels balcony, talking with the attacker who damaged one of the hotels walls.
Well, needless to say, your ‘first day’ in Hell was going to be quite the ride to your new step in your new fallen life but you couldn’t complain, it was much more freeing than it ever was in Heaven.
✧•✧•✧•✧•✧•✧•✧
TAGGLISSSTT YIPEEE:
@ag-cookiebat800 @meow-meowo @kyo-kyo1 @darling-may-i @pink-apples001 @sparkleyfishies @mollzaj @glowymxxn @hyperkaiperrose
thank you for reading!!:!/!
AMERICA YA :D
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silverdreamscapes · 4 months
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I swear people in this fandom are too funny. Because how can people say on one hand that they didn’t pick up on anything romantic between Elriel until the bonus and then say elriels lack reading comprehension and don’t pay attention to the text or details. Wtf, clearly if anyone lacked reading comprehension it was you and not elriels lol. Because we didn’t need a bonus chapter to literally spell out for us that Azriel and Elain wanted one another.
What did you think “A mate will know what is wrong with Elain” and then Azriel being the one to figure it out was about?
What did you think Azriel being the first one to notice Elain was missing and “I’m getting her back” were about? The fact that Sarah had Azriel as the one to go on a suicide mission to save her and not her mate?
The fact that Elain is the first and only person that Azriel has willingly let hold TT, his most prized possession? “I saw the painting in my mind: the lovely fawn, blooming spring vibrant behind her. Standing before Death, shadows and terrors lurking over his shoulder. Light and dark, the space between their bodies a blend of the two.” Pretty sure elucien and Gwynriel didn’t have a moment like this.
Why is Elain the first one to hold his scarred hands and call them beautiful?
Why do you think Azriel was clearly upset about spying on Lucien because he didn’t want to see what he and Elain did together? “Azriel’s Siphons guttered, the stones turning as dark and foreboding as the deepest sea.”
Why is Azriel associated with a place called Rosehall of all things? A place more than likely belonging to his mother.
Why do you think Elain buys gifts for Azriel but not her own mate? That she’s the one who causes Azriel to actually laugh out loud and it’s a sound unlike anything Feyre has heard before?
That he stays up until whatever fuck o’clock in the morning just to listen to her garden plans and stays with her even after everyone goes to bed.
If Lucien is supposedly what she needs because of “sunshine” then why is Azriel the one who actually takes her to the gardens and spends time with her in the sun enjoying peace and quiet and not Lucien? Why have Feyre ask Rhys “what if the cauldron is wrong”.
Why is Cassian confused pretty much throughout all of ACOSF because of Azriel’s behavior? Why he doesn’t sleep at night, why he avoids family dinners, why Elain smiles shyly at Azriel and has to look away, why Azriel seems so concerned over Elain’s wellbeing when he learns Nesta and Elain had a fight, why his shadows gather likes snakes ready to strike Nesta for insulting Elain?
And most importantly what about the fact that Cassian and even Mor notice that Azriel no longer looks at Mor longingly and appears to be over her? Azriel’s feelings for Elain were the catalyst and reason for him moving on from Mor after 5 centuries, and it wasn’t Gwyn his supposed mate who he actually met two years prior to Elain? Hmm…weird.
Or what about Azriel following the sound of elain’s laugh to another room and sharing a charged look between them? Or Azriel not being able to go into the family room because of “who” was in there “His secret to tell, never hers.”
Not sure how you missed all this, as well as other examples I didn’t even list, and then have the audacity to say we have no reading comprehension. Elriels didn’t need a bonus chapter to literally spell out for us that Azriel’s secret was Elain. I didn’t need it explicitly stated by him that he wonders what she looks like when he penetrates her, or that Elain gets wet just from him touching her neck of “offer and permission” to pick up on what Sarah has clearly been hinting at for multiple books. He wants her, she wants him, but there’s a mating bond in the way which complicates everything. It’s really that simple.
If you couldn’t pick up on that, then it’s you with the reading comprehension problem not elriels. They actually have romantic setup unlike Elucien where Elain loses her boldness around him. Or Gwynriel who have an off page rescue, and off page dagger lesson we never hear about, an off page bonus, and a regifted necklace meant for another woman.
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black-widow134 · 5 months
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Got back into reading fanfiction again, here are some (more) of my favourite dadneto/magneto family fanfics;
(will be adding to the list)
Every cloud has a silver lining (and a scarlet one) // 53851 words // 10 chapters - https://archiveofourown.org/works/37596463/chapters/93843133
To the stars who listen… // 91686 words // 20 chapters // Magneto (xmen apocalypse) fic - https://archiveofourown.org/works/31485110/chapters/77883419
The Night Shift // 30113 words // 7 chapters // dadneto — https://archiveofourown.org/works/33331009/chapters/82772923
Edge of Nineteen // 4900+ words // 4 chapters - https://archiveofourown.org/works/29933331/chapters/73678035
The Witch's Vindication // 41433 words // 17 chapters // xmen evolution fanfic — https://archiveofourown.org/works/23212645/chapters/55570771
The Adventures Of Young Peter Maximoff // 35071 words // 13 chapters — https://archiveofourown.org/works/23684482/chapters/56861197
Twin Troubles // 26k+ words // 9 chapters — https://m.fanfiction.net/s/12423578/1/Twin-Troubles
The beginning of something familiar // 10k+ words // 5 chapters — https://m.fanfiction.net/s/11955883/1/The-Begining-of-Something-Familiar
Late Again // 132498 words // 19 chapters — https://archiveofourown.org/works/7082626/chapters/16097917
Five Times Quicksilver Doesn’t Tell Magneto He’s His Son and the One Time He Does // 11855 + words // 6 chapters — https://archiveofourown.org/works/19247407/chapters/45770434
Tiny Terrors // 26144 words // 9 chapters - https://archiveofourown.org/works/32943280/chapters/81760546
Peter Maximoff v Life, Terrorists, & Awkward Family Conversations // 13764 words // 1 chapter — https://archiveofourown.org/works/6890533?view_adult=true
Reverse Star Wars // 8k+ words // 7 chapters - https://m.fanfiction.net/s/11956321/1/
Infinite Variations of a Summer Day // 76,953 words // 12 chapters - https://archiveofourown.org/works/30764972/chapters/75935630?view_adult=true
No Escape from Reality // 73,360 words // 15 chapters, unfinished - https://archiveofourown.org/works/35173735/chapters/87638068
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pastel-greene · 6 days
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The Daughter | king!sukuna x curse user!reader
Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 - Need | Chapter 6
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Summary: The mother of curses happens upon a blind child and decides to impart a portion of her power to them as an experiment of sorts. The power morphs the child in their image until they are part curse and part human. So what happens when they get employed by the King of Curses? Will humanity bloom as newfound emotions flow between the two? Or will they usher in an era of never ending terror?
Notes: not all of this will be canon, it will be loosely based off of the jjk universe :) taglist is open, comment your request on any chapter to be tagged in future ones
Genre: female reader, fluff, angst, ‘loads’ of smut, violence, sukuna true form but like not with the weird face lmao just double set of eyes and arms, dark reader
Warnings: profanity, explicit smut (two dick sukuna, sadistic sex, biting, oral m & f receiving, pet names, more to be added), violence, depictions of gore, dark minds cause yk, mentions of rape, toxic relationships, chaotic neutral reader, trauma, possessiveness from reader and sukuna, torture, vampire themes (reader’s blood is infused with the Mother of curses so if a curse user is to drink it it basically gives them a temporary stat boost bc what can i say vampire sukuna seems hot), cannibalism (no I don’t support it but it is true to his character), and more to be added as story progresses
Word count: 6.7k
This work contains mature content, so absolutely no minors I will block you if I find out :)
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It had been a few weeks since you and Sukuna had talked. You had continued attending various meetings and hearings alongside him to snoop in people’s minds. Word had already spread of your presence. A woman with a shirt adorned with gold buttons sat beside the king and gave him notes. Notes that led to death. When people came in with their heads down, you could feel their gaze linger when they realized you were there. The way they grew tenser, their thoughts becoming a dark jumble. It was fun really, the amount of fear you and Sukuna put into people when together.
When it came to you two, he kept to his word of taking things slow. He often showed up at your door to take you to his chambers to share dinner. You hadn’t had sex but you had been teasing each other. Your ass “accidentally” grinding into him at night or you “not noticing” your boob had slipped out of your nightgown during the night. Him whispering your name into your ear in the morning, voice gruff, and arms wrapped around you. Or the way his tongue danced along your neck before he would bite you, one hand pulling in your hair, two on your hips, and the other resting beside your breast. His scent would completely encapsulate you, his touch would make your body forget how to breathe. You both pushed but neither had broken. It almost felt like a competition now, a stupid one that you weren’t sure was possible to actually win. That’s why you were sitting in a meeting with the King, thighs clenched together and thoughts a mess. Messy thoughts telling you to use cursed energy to tease him, touch along his body. Caress all the places you couldn’t. If Uruame wasn’t there you really might’ve. Instead, you sat frustrated and waited for the meeting to end.
When everyone was finally dismissed from the room, you let out a groan. Sukuna turned his head to look at you, his smile growing evermore. “You may look up now, since you’ve been such a good girl for me”, he said. Gods you hated it when he first called you that, made you feel like an animal. Now that asshole had made you subconsciously like it. You looked up at him, eyes carved by features of anger, but irises soaking with whispers of lust. You wanted to tell him to break, to touch you, but if you did then you would be the one to break. So instead you moved yourself into his lap, legs straddling him, breasts pressed against his chest, arms around his neck, and head resting above his heart. You thought about when he fucked you like this, his extra mouth moving between your clit and nipples as his cocks hammered in and out of you.
“Who gave you permission to crawl on your King like this?” His voice was teasing, he knew how much you wanted him right then. He wanted it too. He had already been caught on multiple occasions with his pants forming a tent. Just yesterday he was in a hearing without you and ended up growing hard during it. The peasant talked about how he was starving and blah blah blah. All he could think about was being inside you again, hearing you call out for him as he fucked you until he was satisfied. He thought this little game you two were playing was stupid, but he also refused to lose. He wouldn’t let you know he wanted you as much as he did. His hands let themselves free to explore your body, purposely getting close but not on the spots you wanted him. He chuckled as your body responded to his touch, arching into it in a plea for more. A chuckle that made you immediately get out of his lap.
“Asshole”, you said while straightening your clothes out.
“Asshole? And here I was calling you a good girl and letting you sit in my lap. If you want me to touch you further, all you have to do is ask. I won’t even make you beg.” He remained seated on his place on the floor but pulled you closer as he spoke. His face was just a few inches from your ever-clenching cunt. As you looked down at him you thought back to when you told him you wanted to ride his face and drown him in your cum. His face would look so shiny and pretty. You ran your fingers through his hair, his eyes rolling closed as you massaged his scalp, before leaning down next to his ear.
“That’s where we differ then, Sukuna, I will make you beg to touch me. To stick your fingers inside me, to let your tongue taste the effect you have on me, to put your cocks back in their warm cozy homes, to feel them suck you in and drench you in my cum.” You punctuated your last whispered sentence by biting his ear. A small puncture wound opened up and blood began rushing to escape. You pulled away as the first drop beaded and prepared to descend. You gathered it on your index finger before sliding it into your mouth. Blood trailed on your bottom lip as it slid in and your cheeks hollowed as you pulled it back out. A loud pop resonating in the air. You pulled your bottom lip into your mouth and let your eyes roll back as you sucked the remaining blood away. A small moan reverberated through your chest, muted by your closed lips, but loud enough to be effective. The very obvious bulge in his pants twitched from the show you were putting on. His hands gripped tighter on your body, his eyes dark and drooping with need. You pulled from his grip and told him good luck with the rest of his schedule. He watched as you walked out the door, wanting to rebuttal or tease you back, but his voice was overshadowed by the war raging between his ego and hormones.
You walked along the palace halls feeling a little better. You were still extremely horny, but you felt a bit better after making sure he was equally miserable. You could already see the sun setting through the windows, the back-to-back meetings you sat through these days had messed with your sense of time. You stretched your arms over your head and attempted to yawn away your body's growing ache. The cushion you sat on in your meetings was an absolute poor excuse for a seat. You wondered how Sukuna sat on his for hours day after day without any signs of pain. Maybe he had a better one, you’d have to check next time. If it was, you would have to steal his until he got you a new one. You turned the hall to your room and were greeted by fewer servants than usual. Two of your male servants were missing from the ensemble and the remaining women looked down in fear.
“Where are Itto and Hiro”, you asked as you stopped in front of them.
Their figures all seemed to stutter at the question, bodies tense and breathes withheld. “T-they have been moved to different jobs ma’am”, Aoi said.
You blinked a few times at Aoi in disbelief. If you had to guess, Sukuna was killing of any possible threats to his courting you. Which part of you found hot, but the other part was pissed that you just lost two perfectly good servants for nothing. You gave a stiff nod to the remaining servants and entered your room. Orange light whispered across your floor as a notice of the sun lowering in the sky. You pulled out a bottle of sake Sukuna had gifted you and poured yourself a drink. Being with Sukuna was fun and of course came with endless perks, but also felt a little suffocating. With him killing your servants, you began to wonder if you were going to be segregated from men altogether. He had promised to try not to be possessive, but here he was doing the exact opposite. You sighed before taking your glass to a seating area in front of one of your windows. You looked out across the palace, the intricate architecture, neatly kept foliage, hurried servants, and river that outlined one side. It was grand. Most people would kill to be where you were, to have the King “properly” courting you. The way he had started to dote on you by giving you his time. The way he actually listened to you and was actively trying to respect your boundaries. The big scary monster he was known to be taking off a mask that not even he knew he wore when he was around you. However, most people that challenged him were slaughtered on the spot, never giving him the chance to truly learn how to interact with another.
There was a lot in common between you two, but he was definitely more bloodthirsty. Not that you had never killed over an insignificant reason, but you did it a lot less than him. You wondered if you would grow to be more cruel as you aged. From what you had heard, Sukuna was at least over 100, which would make him roughly 3 times your age. In the 27 years you had been on earth, you had been through a lot and there were definitely times you thought about annihilating every being that infected the surface. When you met Ieiri, that was exactly your plan actually, but she changed it. She made you realize there are some people that actually deserved to live. Then you meant Kento and it solidified your thinking. They became two unexpected lessons given to you. You would never hurt them, in fact, you would show the depths of hell to anyone who dared lay a finger on them. Like the guy who tried to force himself on Ieiri or the drunk patron who attempted to break a bottle over Kento’s head. Two lowly parasites that believed they had a right to harm those under your protection. Two vile infections that still lay in your realm being tortured and healed without stopping.
You took a drink as you thought of Sukuna’s threat to them. The night of the incident, you had sent a very eager Miro to inform Ieiri to keep her guard up and not to slack on training her energy with Kento. You had also sent various curses to help protect and prepare them for an event that might never come to pass. But should it, you would be ready. You ran your fingers across the smooth clay container. Anxiety and anger swirl inside like the liquid in your glass. You closed your eyes and took a few deep breaths. Sukuna would probably come for dinner and there was no use getting into a fight over an issue that had already been as resolved as it would get. It would only make things tense between you two again and there was obviously no benefit to that. You opened your eyes and leaned back into your chair, the plushness of the cushions enveloping your body in the warmth of comfort. You rested your drink in your lap as your lids fell with the sun. You knew you should stave off the urge to curl up and instead get ready to meet with Sukuna, but something about falling asleep when you weren’t supposed to made it all the more inviting.
Your eyes open but are greeted with the abyss. You go to touch them but a loud rattle of a chain echoes throughout the space. The smell of musty pine overwhelms your senses and panic sets in as you realize where you are. Underneath you sprawls a plush bed covered in various body fluids. You have no idea how long he has kept you in his private room this time. How long doesn’t matter here. Nothing matters here. Even if you died it wouldn’t matter. No one would ever know, ever cry. Just another human discarded by their fellow people. You hear footsteps awakening creaks in the stairs— his footsteps. “Oh Angel” “My Little Dove” he calls out. Pet names given for your appearance. An appearance you’ve never even seen. Apparently, one that screams pure, one that makes others want to defile you. The handle jiggles on the door and you feel the air change as it opens. You want to start crying and were internally screaming and wishing you could run. But if you cried or screamed it would simply enhance his pleasure. He liked the sounds you made for him. If you got out and ran it would be pointless. You had no idea where you were, nor could you see, and you had nowhere to go anyway. He would just find you and laugh as he punished you. Mock as you reached out blindly to try and shield yourself from his attack. You could feel the dip in the bed as he got on and began his nightly onslaught. You drifted off into your mind, disassociating from your physical being. You walked into the darkness within yourself, but this time you saw light far away. Your eyes widened and your pace quickened as you charted towards it. As you grew closer you saw colors, colors outlining shapes you didn’t recognize. Each with different layers. It was beautiful. But in the middle stood a girl. Her hair was dark and crawling in the air. Her eyes were a deep black that mimicked endless voids. Her jaw drooped to the point it pulled her cheeks taut. Her head tilted toward the side as she noticed you. She beckoned you closer, not with any motion, but with a feeling deep inside you. You slowly approached her and she gestured towards the lights around you. You looked around at it all and realized these shapes were people. You began to feel the colors, the feelings embedded in them. For the first time, you felt like you could actually see. You looked back towards the girl and noticed she was already staring at you. Her mouth didn’t move but you heard, “Let me in”, from a raspy voice of a woman who seemed much older than the one before you. Apprehension crossed your thoughts, but what was the point of being scared? What was the point in fearing the unknown when the known wasn’t worth being in? So you said yes. The world around you started spinning, your hair whipping in your face as hers erratically lashed the air. Her face glitched between a hanging mouth and a smile dripping with black goo. Fear crept in you before you were pulled back to reality. Before you, the man assaulting you was in view. You could see the outline of his form and the emotions that made up his psyche. You could see his hands reach out to touch you. You were no longer in the dark, but seeing didn’t resolve the fear and pain you felt currently.
Sukuna walked up to your door, eyes dismissing the servants, as he reached out his hand and knocked against the wood. He listened closely but there was no answer. He shifted on his feet, eyebrows knitting his features into a confused look that was losing patience. He knocked again and called out your name, but again there was no answer. A frustrated breath slipped through his lips as he decided to just open the door. He called out for you again as he entered the room, but quickly silenced himself as he spotted you curled up by the window. You sat in your chair, legs outstretched, hands meeting in your lap to hold a glass, hair falling in erratic waves left from being up the whole day. Your lips lay slightly parted as calm breaths filtered in and out. All of Sukuna’s previous frustrations melted away as he watched you. This was the most vulnerable he had ever seen you, and he was shocked that he didn’t see it as an opportunity to attack you. Instead, he found himself wanting to be at your side and guarding you so that you could sleep in peace. He slowly approached you and knelt down. He could see the slight wear under your eyes that had appeared after your coming here. He wondered how tired you felt and how differently you lived prior to the palace. He knew bits and pieces from when he had Uruame stalk you, but not enough. He wanted to see what happened throughout your day when you were fully unrestricted. What made you laugh, what made you cry? What trouble did you get into and what were the kind of people that you spared? He knew you could be just as evil as him, but he also knew you could be more benevolent than he saw the need to be. A few days ago he watched from afar as you healed a cat and then proceeded to bring it food and water the following days. But he also watched a servant’s legs snap the wrong way when they tried to run the cat off. Such an unpredictable anomaly that had walked into his palace and turned everything upside down for him. He reached to move a stray group of hair out of your face but was abruptly stopped by your hand. It pulled his wrist while your other reached up for his throat, holding him close with a death grip. He looked into your eyes and noticed they were vacant of the color he was used to, instead they were blacked out completely. Just like when you threatened to kill him.
“Hey, it’s me, it’s me. I’m not going to hurt you”, he said as he looked into the voids. Your grip loosened as you blinked. The black receded until all that was left were the same tired eyes he was used to seeing, slowly lighting up in realization.
“Oh shit sorry, sorry. I didn’t mean to”, you scrambled to say as you let him go. You had never done well when people unexpectedly touched you while you slept. Especially when you were having flashbacks.
Sukuna watched you as you let him go and your face flushed with embarrassment. You weren’t usually a jumpy person or one to easily spook, but there seemed to be an exception when you were sleeping. He didn’t know much about your past, not even Uruame could find anything out, but you had mentioned being owned previously. Not that he knew how anyone could overpower you, but there were few stories where people enjoyed being owned. He was sure it tied into that somehow, but he wouldn't press the matter.
“No, it's my bad. You know what they say about poking a sleeping bear”, he said with a smile as he rubbed his wrist. Had he been a human or even a lower-grade sorcerer, he was sure it would be cracked if not fully broken from the force you applied.
You smiled back at his joke before your eyes widened in surprise. You felt wet fabric cling to your leg and realized you must have spilled your drink in all the commotion. “Awh, dammnit”, you said as you got up and observed the wet spot going from your upper to mid-thigh and a little on the floor.
Sukuna also noticed the mess and got up with you. “Here I’ll clean it since I’m the one who scared you”, he said as he went to grab a towel.
“No, it’s okay. It’s my fault for freaking out anyway”, you said as you followed him to get a towel. You tried to reach to grab it before him but he instead grabbed your hand and used another to grab the towel.
“Let me do it”, he said as he looked down at you. You wanted to rebuttal but nodded instead. There was a certain softness in his eyes almost akin to pity. You didn’t exactly appreciate pity nor did you understand why his eyes were so full of it so you just looked down. He led you over to the bed and put one towel beneath you before leaving your side to clean the spot on the floor. You watched as he knelt down and sopped up the little bit of liquid. It felt weird seeing him clean. The fearsome King knelt down on the ground cleaning up a mess you made. Once he got it, he walked back over to you and felt the wet spot on your pants.
“You probably want to take these off. They’re too wet for the towel to dry”, he said while his hands moved to the small tie on the side of your pants. He pulled the string and started pulling them off your hips, telling you to lift up to let them pass under you. You did as he said and were left with your bodice and underwear. He sat between your legs and wiped the towel across your skin. His hand grabs your leg and moves it up to get your upper thigh. You could feel your clit start throbbing as he neared it. You looked down at him, the care he applied when cleaning you. The way his eyes gave off no motive other than rectifying his mess. You reached down and cupped his face, gently nudging it up to look at you as your hand moved under his jaw. You garnered the attention of all four of his eyes as your thumb caressed his face.
“What is it”, he asked as he looked up at you. He had never seen you look at him the way you were. Lust swirling in your eyes but an unfamiliar emotion dancing with it. It was akin to need but not in the same carnal league as the lust. It was deeper, he could feel it radiating from you. Like it was welcoming him in.
“It is still sticky. I think it needs to be cleaned up differently,” you said as your thumb slid across his cheek to his lips. You wanted him, but you needed him to take it at your pace this time. You wanted to stay in control in order to fight the feeling your nightmare left behind to eat away at you.
His eyebrow quirked up as he caught your meaning. He tossed the towel to the side before rubbing his thumb along your thigh. “I think you’re right, it is still pretty sticky here darling”, he said while grabbing your hand and kissing it before leaning down to your thigh. He had never felt the need to care for someone, to show them love, but right now that feeling swelled in him until he couldn’t help but let it flow out. He didn’t know if it was because he was feeling your feelings or if it simply stemmed from him, and he didn’t really care. He looked up at you before licking a long stripe up your thigh. The face you made for him and the way your breath hitched had him wanting to stop time. To stay in the moment that you looked at him as if he was the only one in the world, the only man for you. He wanted everyone to know that these moments with you belonged to him, that you belonged to him. He didn’t care if some people saw it as a weakness. Anyone that dared state is as one would be thoroughly re-educated by you and him together.
You looked down and watched as he lapped at your skin. Your skin sank into his mouth as he sucked on certain spots, dark little marks blooming in his wake. You couldn’t help a moan that fell out when he bit one spot, his tongue quickly cleaning up the blood that greeted him. “You seem to be making more messes rather than cleaning”, you said as your fingers threaded themselves through his hair, pulling it tightly earning a low groan from him.
His lids lowered as his gaze kept yours. “My deepest apologies. I suppose I will have to take more time focusing on every inch of your skin. Assuring there is absolutely no mess left behind”, he said in between strokes of his tongue. The mouth on his hand joined to suck the sensitive skin right before where your thighs met your pelvis. His thumb and forefinger held the seam where they did.
“Naughty King. You’re making an even bigger mess with what you’re doing”, you said as you scratched his scalp tenderly.
“Hmm is that so? Where is said mess baby girl? I’ll make sure to clean it too”, he said as he kissed over the bruised areas and massaged his thumb right beside your pubic bone.
“You seem to have gotten my underwear wet, Kuna. Too wet to be dried. I think they need to come off and the area beneath needs to be cleaned.”
He looked up at you and smirked. “Is this your way of admitting defeat by asking me to touch you?”
You raised your eyebrows in faux shock and exclaimed, “Oh no, of course not. This is simply you sticking to your word and cleaning up the messes you’ve made. Are you saying you’re the kinda King that goes back on his word?”
“Ohoho careful there brat”, he said as he ripped your underwear off. He pulled you close and sank his lips down to around your clit. He sucked in sharply without warning as his tongue started swirling rapidly. You instinctively wrapped your legs around him and arched your back to increase the suction being applied. “You should know better than to question me as a King. I think I am being more than generous right now, no?”
“I think you’re focusing on one spot for too long. Such lack of diligence when it comes to cleanliness”, you retorted while pulling his mouth off of you. “Put your tongue out flat.”
His tongue darted out to gather the mess you had left on his lips, “Such a bossy little brat tonight”. He laid out his tongue as you instructed before surprising you by stealing a lick across your spread labia. The sensation only lasted a minute before you were using his shoulders to lift yourself with your legs, one hand balancing you on the bed and the other in his hair as you pushed your cunt against his tongue. You let out a slow moan as you started by slowly sliding yourself up and down across his tongue. He groaned as he watched you use his to pleasure yourself, something the King wasn’t used to happening. But the way you sucked on your bottom lip as your hooded eyes watched where you two connected had him more than happy to be used by you. He watched the way your stomach muscles flexed as you moved on him, felt how you twitched against his tongue and smelled the arousal that began to pool on his chin. You were so breathtaking like this. He felt the emotions you had wrapped him in begin to change as the uneasiness you originally felt faded away. Sukuna had given you control of the situation and didn’t fight you on it. He didn’t make you cower before him or wantonly obey him. He wasn’t perfect, but fuck it was so attractive that you could see him trying to change for you. The emotionless monster showing you sides that didn’t exist before you came into his life.
Your grip tightened on his hair as your pace started to quicken. The sensation of his soft yet textured tongue constantly touching every part of your folds and rubbing your clit bare and through the hood was driving you insane. Your vision felt like it was spinning, you were starting to have a hard time focusing as the tension inside your abdomen grew. You were close and you both knew it. When your thighs started to shake and your rhythm started to falter, Sukuna’s hands found their way to your thighs and waist as he helped stabilize and guide you through your orgasm. Small cries left your lips as the pleasure took you over, Sukuna’s tongue working to milk every last drop of his orgasm. When your vision returned to normal Sukuna was still lapping up your cum. Tongue dipping into you to pull it all out and venturing to your other hole on occasion. You tried to pull away as overstimulation seeped into your muscles, but he kept you in place. “Hold still baby, I need to show you how serious I am about keeping my word”, he said in between licks.
You whined a little in protest but he just smirked at you. His fingers rubbed where they held you in an offering of comfort as he continued to absolutely devour you. He alternated between greeting every crevice of your labia and clit with his tongue, to swirling his tongue around your ass and pointing his tongue inside. The sounds in your ears started to blend into a high-pitched ringing tone as your cheeks grew red with warmth. Your legs were visibly shaking on his shoulders and your hips bucked without order from your mind. Your orgasm began to creep up on you again, but you halted it by pulling Sukuna onto the bed and flipping him under you. His features contorted in confusion as he looked up at you, face glistening as your juices dripped down his chin.
“Fuck, Kitten. I thought I was the one cleaning you. Why did you make me switch? Don’t tell me you grew too hungry for the taste of my cocks that you couldn’t wait”, he said as he looked down at you. He had propped himself up on his elbows and stuffed your pillows behind your back so he could watch you. His hair stuck up all kinds of ways from where you played with it, his lids were heavy with lust, and his ever-darkening eyes peered through them to watch you.
“I just thought it was unfair to make you do all the work. You are my King, after all, it is only fitting I assist you however I can. And your poor pants looked like they were about to tear from all the strain”, you said as you rubbed him through the fabric. You could hear his breathing pattern become interrupted as your fingers traced the shapes. Your nail lightly raked over the bottom one, following the engorged muscle that protruded from the bottom side. A growl reverberated throughout his chest, followed by slightly profane praises for your work. You looked up at him as you slid your body along his crotch until your mouth found the string holding his pants up. You reached your tongue out for it, the tips grazing the lower part of his abs making them suck in. You felt him twitch against your chest as you gripped the hindrance with your teeth and pulled it undone. He watched in lust-clouded awe as you began you pull his pants back. Your mouth kissing, sucking, and licking at the newly found skin. Once you pulled back to the point his cocks were almost revealed you told him to lift his hips so you could get the rest of the way down. “Oh? I thought you said you were going to assist your King yet here you are barking orders to me”, he said while smirking.
You raised your eyebrows and tongued the inside of your cheek before letting out a small chuckle and ripping his pants off. His lips almost managed to form words, but yours found your way to his cocks before they could come to fruition. Tatters of his pants flew across the room as you laid yourself between his legs and started licking his bottom cock. Your tongue traced the outline of it over and over while your lips sucked on the tip. Heavy sighs and low groans reverberated through him as you continued your work. You turned your head and pulled in the underside of his cock and started moving your head up and down. Spit fell from the corners of your mouth as you looked up at him. (E/C) irises swirling with lust and untold plans as your lips peeked from both sides of his cock. After a few pumps like this, you pushed your mouth down onto his tip and filled your throat up. His cock completely cut off your air supply as you sank down deeper onto him. You used your hand to stroke the parts of the base you couldn’t fit and watched as he started to play with his other cock. He pushed it down slightly so that your face ran along it as you pleasured the other. You pulled away from him and used your energy to pull his hands above his head and pin them there.
You moved yourself up to eye level with him, cocks brushing against your dripping entrance and boobs draping against his chest. You licked along his jaw and neck, cleaning yourself off of him before moving back over his face. You playfully kitten-licked his lips before saying, “Keep your hands here or I stop what I am doing, okay?”
His head pushed up as he quickly took your bottom lip between his teeth, biting and pulling it back before releasing it to pop back to its original position. “Such a brave brat ordering me around like this. Does fear never visit you”, he asked while meeting your gaze. His eyes feral from the predicament of being tied to your bed while you so eagerly pleased him.
You dipped your head to his ear, kissing where it met his neck before pressing your lips to his earlobe. “Fear knows better than to show its face to a predator, don’t you know we feed off of that”, you asked before slowly pushing your body back down to where it was. A hearty laugh rocked his chest at your question. The fire in his eyes seemed to be stoked by what you said, their colors seemed to burn with fervor as they closely watched all of your movements. You lowered yourself back to your original position between his legs. Your hand slid his lower cock between the valley of your breasts as you began sucking on the top one. Hand pumping him up and down once it was covered in enough spit to allow your hand to freely roam.
His toned abs flexed when his tip fell victim to the suction in your mouth and he sucked the remainder of your cum off his lips as he watched his other cock fall between your tits. It slid so nicely, the spit it was once coated in now creating a shiny layer on your breasts. He watched as they jiggled as they crashed against his pelvis with each bob of your head and felt the way the friction made you moan against his cocks. The feeling of it shooting from your throat down the one inside your mouth, and the feeling of the vibrations coming from your chest spreading to the other one had him pushing his hips further into you. He watched as tears swelled in the corners of your eyes as you gagged around him, fresh spit slipping past your lips and pooling at the base of his cock. He waited for the repercussions of his actions but was never meant with any, so he continued pistoning his hips into your throat. Sounds of skin slapping skin and choked gags filled the room as he fucked your throat and tits. It was so fucking erotic. Never had he had someone take him like you did, never had he allowed someone to take control like he did with you. And fuck he was starting to think about how much he was missing it. This was almost as sexy as when you ate his finger. He thought back to that day, the way you both were covered in blood, the violence you endured from each other in search of your own releases. Those thoughts mixed with the present situation had his cock twitching in a pretense of his release.
You watched through blurry eyes as his features started to pull together, his eyes narrowed, his lips parted, his body restless. You opened your mouth fully to allow him full access to your throat as he chased his orgasm. As his rhythm began to falter, you picked it up and guided him into nirvana. He groaned your name as he buried himself fully in your throat and started cumming. It poured down your throat as the other one shot it all across your face and chest. You kept swallowing as it kept flowing into you, it started to feel like it would never end. After the last rope shot down your mouth you pulled off of his cock. You looked like a filthy whore as you stared at him through lashes covered in cum. Milky white stains covered your face, ropes slid off of your face to your already cum covered chest, some falling right back onto his cock. He watched as your fingers began to scrape it into your mouth, your peeking out to lick it off of your fingers. You dropped your mouth to let him see how it gathered on your tongue before swallowing it and coming back out clean.
“Fuck, why do you have to be so sexy baby”, he asked as he sat up, your magic dissipating from around his wrists allowing him to touch you.
“I want you inside me, Kuna. I’ve been wanting it. Been thinking about how full you made me feel last time. It’s been so long, I want you inside me again”, you started to whine as you crawled up onto his lap. Two of his hands found their places on his hips, while the other two cradled your head. He was all for fucking you senseless until you coudln’t bare to not have his cocks inside you, but he also knew you hadn’t eaten since early in the morning. And since some stupid part of him remembered and cared about that he told you no.
“Not right now, pretty girl. I came here to eat with you and what we have eaten so far, isn’t quite what your body needs,” he said while standing up with your legs still around him. You started to protest but he simply quietened you with a kiss. He walked into your bathroom to find the tub empty, as if forgetting it wasn’t like his. He looked down at you, “I am going to take us to my bath, okay? I promise it won’t be like last time. I just want to get you cleaned up before we eat.” You were genuinely caught off guard by how sweet he was being tonight. It almost made you feel like you were talking to an imposter.
“Why are you being so sweet to me?”
He looked as caught off guard as you when you asked that. He blinked at you a few times before looking away. “Honestly, I don’t know. Never have a felt the need to care for something like I do for you. Never have I felt guilty about hurting someone like I do when I think about how I killed you. I don’t understand it, but I also don’t hate it. You have at least proved yourself to be worth caring about, so…”, he trailed off. You reached up and caressed his face before kissing him. Maybe he really wouldn’t be a bad partner, maybe.
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Taglist: @missroro @roxytheimmortal
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vampyrial · 6 months
Text
A World For Her Alone | Sisyphus
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16
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cw (chapter specific): child neglect, very vaguely implied forced prostitution, death, abuse, poisoning, suicide, mentions of pregnancy and childbirth, arranged marriage, infidelity
pairing: claude x fem!reader
summary: we take a brief intermission from claude's suffering to examine what the fuck is wrong with reader's family
author's note: me and my husband we're sticking together🎵
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Claude lingered around your parents’ manor like a ghost after you died. In the middle of the night, every night, he found his way to your bedroom, standing at the foot of the bed you’d died in, remembering the shape your body formed in the sheets. The room still smelled of your blood and sweat, though the room had been cleaned up by the maids as soon as your body was taken out of the room. Your absence was starker than your presence. After the funeral, Diana expressed that she wanted to go home, heavily implying she would leave if he came with her but Claude was no longer beholden to her wants. He had no reason to care whether she came or went.
He was wielding grief as the knife he held up to cut deeper into himself in hope that if he only suffered enough, his hands would wash clean of your blood. But in the end, he had already decided to live, if only because he could do nothing else. Morbid thoughts plagued him, swirling around his head like unquiet spirits begging him to give in. He thought perhaps he should cause his own ruination and this time, live with it. He thought he should make for certain that both of your houses are set aflame and collapsing on top of the lot of you, to bury and burn your sycophant parents, his helplessly selfish wife and even his own child. He thought that nothing should be spared from complicity. He knew not anymore if he truly believed that it would save you, or if this was what some divine terror was willing him to do even still, but he began to long for punishment. It became catharsis, the thought of being punished.
He roamed through the house you grew up in, searching for any trace of you that survived, as if some inkling of you would help him to save what had already been lost too many times. Even so, it was automatic for him at this point, no longer even really a choice. He had no direction, only frantic need pulling him toward the doomed task. He was trying to get to the dregs of a goblet of wine which never ran dry, he kept drinking until he was sick but never satisfied, never finished.
Your parents’ manor was an eerie place, he’d always thought. Wind blew in from an opened window in the hall and the house seemed to breathe, and its hollow bones creaked softly. Despite her gentle ultimatum, Diana could not actually follow up on it, she must have known that but she believed better of him at the time and thought that everywhere she went, he would follow her like a lovestruck teenager again. There were things to be done at manor that she could not neglect as its lady even if he chose to neglect his own duties. She had come into her own as a marchioness, no longer the shy and unassuming lady that lay in bed sick day in and day out. She would not leave the territory without management though he knew she desperately wanted him to come back home. She seemed dazed to return home without her husband for that purpose, for the lament of a sister she had infinitely more right to grieve so egregiously. Even after all those years, the silly girl was only just beginning to grow aware of the disparity of marriage.
Somehow he felt it was hard for her to reconcile that she wasn’t a precious young lady anymore. Even as he was mired in a pool of half catatonic grief, she dared ask him to leave with her because she truly expected he would do so if she did. Had she not grown out of the habit of expecting to be near worshiped no matter what that her parents instilled her? He remembered how she was after your funeral, when he was sitting in the dark of a guest room. She had come to him, tried to hold him, to kiss him; believing all this would be a comfort and not a further indignity. She’d had arrogance enough to look hurt as he pulled her from him and recoiled from her touch. She must have still believed she was the cure to all ills because she was once more in a house where she was always treated as though she truly were.
He found his way to the library where you’d spent much of your life, if Felix’s word was truth. He brushed his fingers along the spines of the books, looking for the one that he left his missive in, the one Diana read and did not want understand. He searched through the categories of books that contained subjects you three would have studied together as he could not remember which particular book it was, but even after pulling all the books and flipping through the pages, he couldn't find the letter. He wondered if you had ever even set eyes on it once before Diana got to. Had it been your catalyst to run away? Had you read the note and understood that the effort of trying to be happy at his side was a fool’s errand? Was he again the cause of your downfall?
As he gave himself to thought of you, he continued looking through your family’s collection of books. It was all fairly standard and even a bit utilitarian, lacking any of the fanciful novels so beloved by many young nobles. He assumed if there were any, they’d be in Diana’s room because they’d be bought for and read by her alone. But there was something that struck him as he roamed around the shelves, his eyes scanning aimlessly for a book that looked as if it had been perhaps been misshelved. It was subtly tucked into the highest shelf but it still stood out to him eventually among droll guides, needlework books and encyclopedias emblazon with gold lettering. It was hastily bound looking more like a journal and it was worn, unlike the rich and well maintained leather of the other books and it was small, leaving a wide gap between the top of the shelf and the top of the book. Its spine did not read a title.
When he pulled the book, he understood what it was. Its title read “The Princess and The Knight,” signifying it was some common, tawdry romance novella. Still, he began to read it, the absurdity of its place in a house so heavy and serious intriguing him. Could this book have belonged to you? Could it have been an escape for you who was locked firmly out of girlhood when you were only just betrothed? When he’d read the title, his mind flashed with the memory of your face as Felix’s body fell into the dirt in front of you. He remembered how fiercely Felix had protected you even in this life. The rage and grief in his voice when he came for retribution. Though he knew you were ever dutiful and if there was love between you and Felix, it was never more than courtly, maybe you had seen this book and it had reminded you of some place where it could be more.
The story revolved around the love affair of a princess from a bloodline with an affinity for magic fleeing her country at wartime and being assigned a knight from the neighboring kingdom she sought refuge in. The two began a passionate and sanguine love affair in secret, all while living under of the tension of war and the threat of both of them losing everything to their love. But when the war was won, thanks in part to the wits of the two characters, and peace spread over the kingdom, she and her knight were able to be wed and live happily ever after. He had been searching for you in the pages, interpreting the knight and the princess, looking for traces of a love you might have had once. He had been looking for you so closely in every word that he hadn’t realized the grander scale of things until the end; when he flipped over the last page to read the epilogue, on the blank side of the page he saw a sketch. 
The drawing was finely, intricately done in ink and resembled…Diana. The owner of this book had drawn Diana so vividly, yet there were a few differences in the likenesses of the two. This woman had long spools of curly hair spilling over her shoulders and a mole near her gently smiling lips. She was older than Diana must have been when the book was written. She looked like the heroine that had been described in the novel. For some reason, he found himself fixated not in awe or admiration but in mind numbing shock. He could feel the love that went into each stroke of the pen and a knot formed in his stomach the longer he stared. It was uncanny in a house like this, to find anything that should mark vulnerability or simple folly. He recalled an occasion where your father had gifted her a portrait he’d made of her and their daughter. Though two different mediums, the style looked so similar. From what Claude saw, it seemed that your father seldom made art of anyone but Diana. Your father surely had not been so passionate about a throwaway romance that he had ignored his bias and poured so much love into an image of the heroine.
The only one who could be so brazen as to have a romance novel among his books wherein which they lovingly drew an almost intimate image of a woman, worn with the spine slightly bent from being handled so many times— not even properly hidden away, would be your father. Your father who paraded his illegitimate child, born from a mistress. The revelation gave him pause. What did Claude truly know about Diana? He couldn’t remember having ever asked her if she’d known her mother because she so resolutely accepted the countess as her only mother. But this woman sketched onto the page of a well loved romance, was this her mother? She looked as if she could be. Portraits of Diana hung in exposed parts of the house, he did not seem to care that the custom of having an illegitimate child was to have them separate from one’s “official” family, to not love a child born of one’s own lust so openly. Even if one had a particular love of their mistress and child, he would simply put them up in a nice mansion close enough for him to come and go but your father had your mother raising his illegitimate child. He celebrated her birthdays lavishly and even allowed her to go to the academy. He absolutely refused to hide her, to show shame in her. So why was this woman Claude presumed to be Diana’s mother who was clearly beloved by him even now, shut up in the back of a romance novella?
A thought occurred to him then, that perhaps the otherworldly force pulling him into Diana, entangling him in her was not otherworldly at all. Perhaps it had not originated in him alone as some primordial curse formed around him before there even was a him. He thought of just how besotted he was with Diana the first time he met her in each life, how the greater part of him felt foreign. He thought of your mother’s unusually devoted love for a child that wasn’t her’s, a product of her husband’s disloyalty. Something inside him thought that the answer lay at Diana’s feet. In her very blood, he was convinced, was the answer. 
Such a tenderly written romance, signed with a carefully drawn illustration of the woman who could be Diana’s mother. The part of “The Princess and The Knight” which struck him so was the bit about the princess possessing capacity for magic. It was not mentioned much nor utilized greatly in the plot but it made an impression. Magic users had decreased over the years, their powers waning until they were unheard of entirely. To anyone else who read the novella, it must have given the story to a bit of fantasy but to Claude, it was almost uncanny. He could not take it for an unassuming romance. To him, the story hid some truth under its veneer, for it was no coincidence that the princess resembled Diana so and that it ended up under the same roof as her, worn with years of eager hands flipping back over the pages. The princess’ power was never described in detail but if she were based on a real woman, then perhaps she had something to do with his situation.
He might’ve gone to Diana right then for answers but he feared his body might be taken over again at any time. He did not want to see her, did not want to feel the familiar paralysis of affection reaching up through his body. He did not want to see himself bed her again while the memory stood frozen in his eyes. Each time he saw her after he’d been set free, he’d worried that it would happen again. That his body would betray his mind and he’d never find anything of substance to end the cycle of misery the two of you shared. And he was committed to the task of trying, even if he could never succeed. He was ready to succumb to the greater sense of careworn madness he found in you.
He decided to explore the unattended corners of your home further, thinking there would be— must be more. If ever Diana’s mother had lived here, someone left a trace that he intended to find. He might’ve asked your father directly but as much as he was a lickspittle, something told him that your father would be afflicted by the same paralysis of mind that he had when he belonged to Diana. Unable to share the love he held for her but unable to hide it either, culminating in a pathetic sort of half-baked defensiveness. He wasn’t likely to get anything out of that, even you hadn’t been able to get anything out of him when he was like that. Worse still, he might try to cover up all that he kept that ever indicated Diana’s mother had lived there once, that she had a name and a face. And then what?
No, it was better this way. Better to find it all before he got the chance to hide any of it.
Your parents were still in the house, seemingly without intention of asking him when he was going to leave but there was still a bit of anxiety in the air when they entered the room. He could tell that they very much wished for him to return to their daughter and make her happy again as she was destined to be. It was awkward that their son-in-law had a longer bereavement than your sister did. But still being the cowardly sycophants they were, they could not ask him to leave for her sake—only “encourage” him by tossing out little updates on Diana. “Diana and our grandchild miss you very much,” “Diana takes ill so easily when she works so hard, we should hope you’ll be well enough to go back to her soon,” “Diana sends her love and wants you to know she’s there for your sake.”
Claude wouldn’t care if Diana’s life hung by a thread and he was all that could spare her, frankly and he brushed off all responsibility in favor of giving himself to his task. It was shameless, he knew, but he’d given up everything inside of the barren, hollow shell of his self to save you. It was a task that had already and would yet again supersede death, birth and the enveloping void he fell backward into each time his life was ended. He waited until they inevitably visited Diana, likely to calm her worries with lukewarm supplications about his grief, to go searching in the other parts of the house uninhibited. For, even if the servants were to tell their lord and lady, he’d already have looked through every corner he intended before they’d have a chance to move things around to better hide them.
He started with Diana’s old room. When he walked in, he was surprised to find it was left exactly as childish as it had been when she was only a young miss. Just the scent of the air turned his stomach, heavy and cloying with a pungent smell of medicine that was still sitting on her night stand in a small white bottle. He frowned as something fell clumsily into place. It hit him like the stray sour note of a violin. He recognized the bottle. Where did he last see this bottle?
For how preoccupied he was with the revelation taking slow form, he did not realize that Felix had entered the room until he heard the distinctive sound of a sword unsheathed. He did not turn.
“Felix.”
“Lord Claude,” Felix acknowledged, his voice struggling to keep its softness. “I might’ve known you’d be here. You truly cannot help yourself, it’s like a sickness.”
“Yes, it is very much like that,” Claude agreed easily. “But I’m not here for what you imagine I am.”
“I’m not so sure it matters, my lord.” Felix’s voice was flat.
“Nor am I. But I need you to let me live just as long as it takes for me to make sense of this.”
Felix went quiet for a moment but nothing about the situation made Claude think it was because the knight was going to hesitate. On the contrary, he was sure that his sword would swing just as neatly. “Do you know where I found my lady chained up, my lord? There are places, you know, that they bring women who had no other place to turn. You must know. You were at her side every night when we brought her back, you saw what toll it took. You saw what had been done.” Felix took a shallow breath. “You’re asking me to spare you so that you can make sense of whatever it is your farce of a marriage is built on? When my lady was given no such pardon? I know you’re the head of your house now, honored knight of the crown and you must think yourself above your treatment of others but I assure you, this will be the last time you ever assume so.”
Claude held still, his voice firm even as fear raged through his body. It was not fear for his life or of Felix’s wrath, it was the fear of failing, yet again, to make any movement in saving you. “I know how you think of me, Felix. I know that I have failed my wife. I know that I deserve to die here and now but even so, I can’t.”
“That is no problem, I’ll do it for you.”
Claude smiled joylessly to himself at the devout knight’s words. How could you have been judged so harshly in that life for wanting to run away with him when he so clearly had a loyalty akin to love for you? “You don’t understand. You cannot possibly. But answer me this, do you know who Diana’s mother is?”
The question puzzled Felix but he stood resolutely, ready at any moment to fell Claude’s head. “Everyone else in this household has care for Lady Diana. My duty was to serve my lady, I was the only one and I did not ever lapse. You’re asking the wrong person.”
“Felix, I do not ask for my wife’s sake. I know how this will sound but I’m trying to find out just what exactly it is that Diana holds over me and everyone else. I’m trying to figure out what exactly she is. You have seen it, haven’t you? The disparity between how people treat my wife and how they treat your lady. Do you think it natural to love a daughter born from an affair more than one’s own?”
He heard Felix laugh bitterly. “You believe her to be a succubus? Is that your excuse?”
“No. I believe her to be something worse.” Claude laughed as well, though his was more hysterical than anything. “She rules everything, Felix. Even in death. No, especially so in death. I have lived this life many times. I have died and returned back to the day that I first met her at the tea party. And when I do, I am taken over by her. It feels like love at first, it really does. But then intrusion. And then a curse. It is a cycle of death and resurrection, for myself and for the lady.”
Felix was silent and Claude continued on. “In one such life, she ran away with you, you know. It was raining the night we found you two. You were holed up in some abandoned cottage out there in the countryside, the one with the patches of white clover in the yard and a missing shingle on the roof.”
“What are you saying?” Felix’s voice wavered with near disbelief at the picture he painted but he held firm.
“My knights killed you where you stood and took the lady back to my manor. Your betrothed visited her. She had asked to speak to the woman who had been responsible for your death. She told me you two had planned to get married once the lady and I were finally married and settled in. She could not even mourn you properly because you were compelled to run away with the lady and killed.”
It is clear that Felix still thought Claude had lost his mind but what shocked him was the truth seeded into his madness. How could he have known the intimate arrangements of their betrothal and marriage when even their families had not known the cause for delay? This was not knowledge he could send an errand boy to fetch him nor an illusion he couldn’t hope to keep up, this was lived. It was memory.
“What does that have to do with Diana?” Diana was more likely a seductress than a sorceress in Felix’s opinion. Such a thing as a time loop, how could a girl so weak and childish create something like it?
Claude turned slightly, slowly toward him. “I don’t know yet myself. That is what I seek to find out. So that I can perhaps end it, for the lady at least. I don’t need anything Felix, not Diana, not my child, not my house. All I need and want is for the lady to stop suffering. I only beg you not to hinder me. When the time comes, I swear I will die on my own.”
Felix had no idea what to make of it all. Much of what Claude said seemed stilted, frantic and half thought. Yet he could not help but feel there was a certain sincerity to be had even in the worthlessness of Claude’s promise. And in any case, he was not entirely unfamiliar with the concept that Claude explained but all that it implied, he was not ready to believe. He sheathed his sword again finally and Claude turned to face him with the medicine bottle in hand. “Have you any idea why this would be in Diana’s room? It’s medicine that the lady took before.”
Felix’s eyes widened slightly in surprise. “It’s used to treat severe infection. It’s not supposed to be used by just anyone who gets ill. Lady Diana should not have needed that medicine, it would take effect like poison if not administered to someone battling a harsh infection. The doctor sent one of the servants to fetch it in town.”
“Yes, but this bottle is dusty, it’s mostly emptied out and the liquid inside it has congealed. It’s been sitting here for years. The medicine inside is aromatic. It has a distinct smell, doesn’t it? The lady’s room still reeks of it even with the windows opened up. Every time I went into Diana’s room when we were young, I smelled it, I tasted it. That means she was not only taking medicine she did not need but taking it regularly.” Claude said aloud, more to himself than to Felix who had bristled at the way he implied he and Diana were. “Was she…ever even sick?”
“Of course she was. Perhaps madame gave her the wrong medicine. She would not have poisoned herself, far be it from me to defend her but she did not desire to be sick. She seemed to envy the lady for her health, as she saw it.”
“…it was the lady’s mother who administered this medicine?” Claude questioned as new pieces fell together in his mind.
“I only know that the madame came to Lady Diana before bed to give her medicine. I do not know that it was that medicine, I did not see it.” Felix paused. “What is the significance, my lord?” He asked, annoyance creeping into his tone at the extensive talk of Diana.
“I intend to find out.”
He had wished to creep into the madame’s bedroom quickly and easily but the door was locked so they’d needed to fetch the key. Claude was shocked at the amount of sway he had over the servants of a house he was not a part of for the head maid simply handed over the key when he asked for it, albeit hesitantly as though she thought she might be scolded for doing so. When he took in the room, it was tidy and rather plain by aristocracy standards. The room seemed to have a chill about it, there was a draft somewhere that made it feel colder than the other rooms.
He began to pick carefully through her things, looking in every corner of the room for anything hidden. It was all mundane, droll and typical until he reached the last drawer of a dresser that was locked. Sure enough, nine bottles of unopened medicine neatly lined into rows of three. When he tried to pull the drawer out all the way and see what more he could find, it was caught on something that had been pressed against the top. Claude reached in to feel for it and pulled down what looked to be a simple leather bound, worn and yellowing journal.
Immediately he began to read. He was a bit startled at himself when he realized that he was eager to read the contents of his mother-in-law’s mind. He wanted to know how she saw you. How she justified treating you the way she did to uplift a child that was not her’s. A pitiful part of him just wanted there to be reason. He wanted cause for the rift in the relationship. He needed to believe there was a because to your suffering.
But what he read was not as he suspected. In neat, small lettering on the first page, it chronicled her life back to when she had been perhaps 19 years old but it was dated some ten years later. A reflection on her younger self written seemingly less as a journal and more a memoir.
“The princess had always been so gracious a mistress that even her tasks sounded like gifts.
When it was her time to return to her duties in her own kingdom, she resigned to it with great grace. However, she understood that the opposite would be true of her beloved knight. This fragile man only smiled in her company, protected her with wild fervor and once told her that he felt divinely guided to her. That to him, she was the symbol of god’s forgiveness and in serving her, loving her, he saw his life’s purpose. Oh, the princess lamented to me how dark a life her knight had lived, how the blood he shed as a knight haunted him with guilt. How his father had been of a violent sort in his efforts to transform his only living child into a knight of some worth to bring more prestige to their house and in his efforts to vent his own turmoil over his wife taking up with men of far more money, status and legacy than he. Her knight resembled his mother and so became the target of the ire he could not give his wife for the great protection being a mistress to such men afforded her. His mother knew what his father did, she did not care so long as it were not her. My heart came to soften for him too, the more she told me.
He had been a quiet man, shy and quite unknowingly sweet for his reputation as a ruthlessly skilled knight. He opened up to my princess like a flower toward the sun. He loved her so madly that she knew even though it was inevitable, he never intended to be where he could not protect her and stand at her side. The princess feared that their duties as princess and heir to a county respectively would give way to the knight’s devotion. She feared he’d kill himself trying to reunite with her or simply deteriorate under the burden of his own isolation but her own life was dedicated to more than just one person. It was her nation, her home of people waiting to see her return that she could not abandon. So in her stead, she asked me to stay in the kingdom and marry him. To give him a countess and to keep watch of him for anything he might do to interfere in both their duties.
It was a great honor she had given me entrusting someone so precious to me and given me a title higher than that I had been born with, I still feel that way now but I was foolish then and I did not understand the nature of what I was being asked to do. Nor would I until after it was already done.
You see (and it does, still pain me to even write such a silly thing), I did, at the time believe that I would become close to my husband. I viewed it as a matter of course, for I was far from a home I could never return to and he had no one. We were, for each other, the last traces of the princess. Though I could never think to hope for the kind of love that he gave to the princess, I believed that commonality could be nurtured into love or kinship. I wished for someone to turn to as my heart was sinking faster than a stone the longer I spent from my home. I believed it would happen. I believed he would become someone to lean on.
Though the first months of our marriage were cold, I managed to coax him into trying to have children as was our duty. I saw this as progress both in the way of our relationship as well as keeping him from the princess. I viewed even our coldness then as a sign of something beginning. It was only once, afterward, I think he worked very hard so that I would not ask him to do it again. But even so, I found that I was with child soon. I was a stupid girl then, I believed a child was what we needed to grow closer. I brought this news to him with a smile, I must have looked like an idiot.
My husband’s expression, I can never forget it. He was horrified at this revelation. He looked at me as though I’d announced a death. He looked at me as though I had wounded him. Then his beautiful eyes sparkled with unshed tears and his expression reverted to a weak, helpless smile as he said all the right things in his wavering voice.
It was then that I realized he would never love me. He was horrified at having a child with me, it was sheer terror and dread on his face when I told him. Perhaps he thought that I would not become pregnant at all, he would have preferred it that way. I hadn’t the relationship with him to truly comfort him, to know intimately what he feared about my child. I was useless in that way.
Through the following months, my apprehension was near unbearable. I kept feeling my stomach sink in dread, I kept waking up thinking that I would be home. I kept thinking that I had done something irreparable but I could think of nothing which was actually within my control. Therefore, when I finally gave birth, my relief that it was done with was greater than my joy. But that was alright with me because I had intended to deal with things in my own way."
From there, she went on to describe her rigid attention to being a diligent countess for a few droll pages. But at last, Claude came to another thing of significance. Your father had been summoned to court for political matters regarding the civil unrest which had not been quelled with the end of the war. Your mother could not follow him and leave a newborn alone so she had no choice but to simply trust in your father. She would come to regret that.
"My princess appeared like a bolt out of the blue months later. She was dressed as a peasant and had a somewhat bashful smile on her lips. Although I had missed her, all that I could think in seeing her was, "She should not be here."
But we brought her to the study so that presumably, she would tell us why she had returned when she had surely sworn that she could not. She took off her cloak and then I understood without her needing to tell me. I saw a little bump on her otherwise thin body and I was overcome. When my husband had returned to court, he had not been officially permitted to see my princess but they had met anyway and she was now with child. She had waited until she was just about to start beginning to show in order to take leave from court on the pretense of recovering from illness at her villa in the countryside.
I had been given the task of minding him but I had clearly failed. I should have gone with him no matter what. I should have taken the chance and left my child so that I could have prevented this. But my princess looked at me as faultless and took my hands in hers to assure me that she regretted nothing. She comforted my husband who apparently also knew nothing about this pregnancy until then. She knew his fears like the back of her hand, she knew exactly how to soothe them as I hadn't. He did not even have to speak. She simply knew.
Until then, I had not known that my husband dreaded having children for fear they would be cursed and afflicted with the same moral decay that his own parents had; and because he feared that having a child would bring the same thing out of him. Even if I had known, the princess was the perfect one to comfort him. She asked him if he believed a child born of her could be wicked and of course, he said no. She spun such sugary images of their child together for him with her eyes shining with joy. She told him that their child was special, that she did not fear him becoming a parent like his own because their child would change everything about being a father for him. It surely helped that my princess was glowing as she said such things, that the excitement radiating off of her grew stronger with each passing moment. He could not deny her, could not bring himself to contradict her words because he would always believe in her even if he did not believe in himself.
It went unsaid that the princess would be entrusting the child to the both of us. I had much apprehension about taking care of two babies rather than one and the secrets to be kept piling up above me but I could not complain, it had been my job for years to make everything work. I could not stop then when my princess needed me most. In any case, her presence in the manor brought life to a place that had become so eerie to me. She was the only flame in the dark and we were huddled around her, trying to preserve an ounce of warmth within ourselves. She was joyful through her pregnancy, she could not stop talking about the baby she was to have. The more she chattered, the more excited I became too as though I had any right to be. This was true of my husband too, who tentatively felt the kicks of his child and smiled, genuinely smiled as the princess did. I could see that he loved that child.
She slept in the master bedroom with him, after he left each day, I went in to help her get ready for the day. It was though I was still her maid and I suppose I wanted to be, would rather be that than a wife. But I could not bring myself to complain. I was not unlike my husband, I viewed my duties to the princess as somewhat sacred. I was as honored as I was anxious to raise the child.
On the day Diana was born, my husband was at my princess' side the entire time, as though he could protect her as her knight again. I could only marvel at him. When I had given birth, he stood at the foot of the bed stiffly and asked me what I intended to name our daughter, if I was alright and then told me that if I needed anything to have the butler prepare it at once. After Diana was born, my princess was still beautiful, perhaps even more so in her vulnerability. She held the most beautiful baby I had ever seen, close to her chest as my husband looked down at the both of them with sheer joy. It was as though all the happiness in the world existed between those three. My Diana had been born out of love and so it was easy to love her.
I left my own daughter to the maids in favor of caring for Diana when the princess rested. Her little ruby eyes and her head of soft blonde hair captivated me. Each coo or cry had my focus in a fraction of a second.
I had not yet considered the greater implications of her birth until my princess brought it to me. Diana had been born with an inordinate affinity for magic. The princess, as a member of the royal family had the capacity of a mage, it was kept secret through the death of magic that through her bloodline were those capable of miracles. I only knew after years of my proximity to the princess. This child, born in the time of civil unrest, when the queen had not yet been blessed with a child and the civil war had still bitterly divided the houses, was capable of being seen as a potential figurehead that could be used as a pawn in a new round of rebellion.
It was for me and my husband to put her above all things. Above even our own child. That, to me, went without saying for I did love Diana as my own daughter. But the princess knew that anything could happen and she used all of the strength of her magic to cast a spell over her that would be held with Diana's own great magic. My princess nearly expended all her energy to do so. Magic, she had once told me, was seen as a weak form of power because it relied so greatly upon emotion. It was the transformation of want into will. I knew not the details of the spell which bound my mistress' daughter. All my princess said was that her precious Diana would live happily, that for all the odds against her, she still had odds in her favor."
Claude felt numb as he turned the pages. He was in shock, suddenly the environment of the room felt too harsh and stimulating but he was glued to the journal. He could not dare stop reading it no matter what truths arose. So he flipped the page and read every single entry even as his hands trembled.
From then on, it was Diana, Diana, Diana. With each entry, she recorded a measurement which he assumed was the amount of medicine administered and her symptoms. She fretted over whether it was right to give her more or to give her less. She wrote about denying Diana's requests to go outside, to go to the theatre, to do much of anything besides stay in bed. It chilled him to the bone but more than that, perplexed him. He was staring at a page where your mother had seemed to write sloppily, hurried and anxious when he heard a voice.
"Lord Claude?" It was your mother, standing in the doorway.
He looked slowly up at her, at a loss for words and unable to reconcile the cold mother she was to you with her joy at being Diana's proxy mother. Unable, still, to understand why she was poisoning the daughter she loved so much.
"My lord, you should not be in here," she said softly but in her blank expression, it was apparent that she knew what he was there for. "It will look strange to others, for you to do something like this."
"You poisoned Diana," He was keenly aware of how delicately she was trying to dance around this subject but he was unwilling to indulge her.
Your mother did not even blink. "You must understand me, Lord Claude. Please understand."
"What is there to understand? You neglect your own daughter and fawn over your husband's illegitimate daughter only to poison her."
Your mother shook her head slowly as if she could not believe what he was implying. "I love that girl," she said, moving deeper into the room and shutting the door behind her. "Diana is my little princess. She is my only daughter."
A rush of rage ran up his body, carrying an unbearable desire to hurt her. "She's not your daughter at all. She's the daughter of a woman far more beloved than you."
But your mother could only smile helplessly. "Yes, but even so, she is my daughter in heart. You must trust me when I say that Diana was hopeless before."
"Hopeless?" His brow furrowed and a cold feeling creeped up his back, extinguishing his fury and replacing it with a kind of fear for the woman in front of him. "She wasn't hopeless, she was able to wed me, to live happily." He said it not as a defense of her but as an accusation.
"That poor girl. In the first place, she already had a weak constitution, because her magic was stronger than her body but it was the perfect excuse to keep inside and away from the eyes of those who would want to hurt her. But it was my eldest daughter who kept planting false hope in her. She even sent Diana before my husband to beg him to let her go to the academy because she knew very well he could not say no to her." There was venom in her voice, a sneer on her face. Claude rose to stand slowly, not knowing what he was going to do.
"He cannot say no to Diana because he loves her so, no, he loves her mother so," she sighed. "All the other one did was cause troubles. Diana had already given up but she roused such hope in the girl, false hope, cruel hope. If she had not been able to marry you...I do not know how we would have protected her. If my daughter was still alive, everything would be ruined. It was you who saved her, my lord. That is why I beg of you, don't judge me. You know that Diana is special. You must know."
"I did not want to save her, she did not need to be saved."
She remained with that pitiful smile on her face. "My husband is weak to her. He will...he will never forgive what I've done to our- his little princess. He won't understand. He will think that I have killed my princess. You know, he almost sees them as one in the same." She reached onto her desk, picking up a letter opener. "Diana will be hurt if she knows. I ask that you let the girl live her life believing as I told her. She deserves that much. I let her believe what I did because it was in her best interest. Please take care of her."
Before he could react, your mother plunged the sharp end of the letter opener into her throat.
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demonic0angel · 6 months
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More Jazz Forms (click for clarity)
TW: disturbing content, body horror
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1) Head only Jazz
+ She is a head that walks on a bunch of mysterious tentacles. She’s inspired by a CN novel called “Let the Villain Go” in a chapter where a demon pops up and is described as a head that walks on tentacles (I may be delulu and remembered it wrong).
+ Around 900 feet tall. Most of the height is her tentacles, but her head is still around 100 feet tall.
+ Jason is a little obsessed with how huge she is. When he is away, she stays standing over his apartment like a creepy water storage tank. Nobody can see her except liminals and ghosts, so she remains undetected by Jason’s side.
+ She is generally peaceful and doesn’t move much. She is a relatively quiet being with no explicit ability to defend herself or attack. I imagine her to be very dreamy, despite her piercing stare.
2) Celestial Object Jazz
+ She is a quasi-stellar radio source, AKA a quasar :)
+ Impossibly large and infinite. She is so big that her gravitational pull is pulling apart a piece of the universe. Jason thinks that she’s beautiful, and he looks for her every night. He uses special technology to see her on Earth and when he can, he sneaks onto the Watchtower to look at her.
+ The mass of the black hole that she is made of is around 150 billion solar masses. She is located extremely far from the Milky Way within the largest galaxy of the universe. Since she is technically both the black hole and the gas that surrounds it, she won’t be fading for awhile.
+ Her origin is unknown in this idea (but is related to her siblings, who have all become celestial objects themselves). Her existence is extremely old and that is partially Clockwork’s fault.
3) Corrupted Jazz
+ She has become corrupted from years of ectoplasm, death, and generally instability. The tentacles that come from her stomach is actually just pieces of her soul that are trying to reach for others. She calls for help, but no one but Jason has been reaching out.
+ She cannot be around people for too long, or she causes insanity, violent mood swings, headaches, auditory and visual hallucinations, paranoia, nosebleeds, and general weakness, even if they cannot see her. Jason is somewhat resistant to her, but she heavily restrains herself so the effects of her existence won’t hurt him.
+ She tries to stay away from Jason, but bc she’s so clingy, she watches him from a distance. Her presence brings shadows and darkness, so he’s also been getting a reputation of scaring criminals to pissing themselves whenever he comes by.
+ Her body is covered in shadows, but she glows a little from the ectoplasm, so her silhouette can be vaguely seen.
4) Monochrome Jazz
+ Inspired by Lady Dimitrescu and Hachishakusama
+ She dresses in all black and her skin is pale as well. A hat and face mask cover all available skin on her face. Any skin below the neck is also covered.
+ She is around 9 feet tall. She stalks Jason whenever she can and always follows him around. She is extremely hostile and dangerous and does not hesitate to attack when she feels even the slightest bit threatened. She is also completely mute.
+ She is both a ghost and an urban legend, hence why she looks like that. Underneath her mask is a mouth of razor sharp teeth like a moray eel.
5) Wolf Jazz
+ Inspired by Jason’s Red Hood motif that is similar to Little Red Riding Hood. That’s also why I associate Jazz with so many canine themes :)
+ Black fur, several pairs of eyes, and two sets of deformed ears. I am debating whether or not she also has 3 pairs of legs.
+ She follows Jason around like a dog, but does not behave like a pet. As such, he can’t order her around unless she wants to listen to him. Thankfully, she likes cooperating with him and the two of them terrorize the criminals of Crime Alley.
+ She is around 5 feet tall when standing on all fours, but when she stands up on her hind legs, she is around 9 feet tall. She is very fluffy.
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redwing4life · 6 months
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Shadows
CHAPTER 2 | ASHES TO EMBERS
PAIRING: Firefighter!Neighbor!Bucky x Fem!Reader
WARNINGS: Fluff, talk about night terrors, ALPINEEE, reader continues to be oblivious, bucky being a flirt
SUMMARY: After yesterday’s elevator fiasco, you’re left with the guilt of overstepping in Bucky’s business. He could barely look at you when you went to the firehouse to thank the crew, so it’s fair to say you’re surprised when he turns up at the cafe you work at.
WORD COUNT: 3813
PREVIOUS CHAPTER // NEXT CHAPTER
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5 months ago…
Rain patters against your windows, dancing with other fallen drops as they race to the bottom. You’ve always found downpours to be comforting and tonight is no different.
The fan of your laptop whirrs along to the sounds of the movie you’ve been waiting to watch for weeks, only now getting the chance to after spending most of your time at the cafe, helping with renovations.
Surrounded by soft pillows that muffle your giggles, you reach for your phone to check the time. 01:54. Since when was it that late?
You reach to put your phone back, deciding to finish your film before calling it a night, when you hear a muffled yell. Slamming the space bar to pause the movie, you sit up in your bed adorned with a frown.
The silence that greets you leaves you questioning if you made it up. You clench your eyes shut, as though you’re blinking away your delusions, when a guttural cry travels through the thin walls of your apartment, tightening your muscles into a flinch that snaps your eyes wide open.
Your blood runs cold at the sheer terror laced within the following whimpers, adrenaline sending your mind into overdrive. Thoughts run rampant, dragging you through all the possibilities you can think of as you slowly piece together enough to understand what’s happening.
Your new neighbour, James. The firefighter. It’s his screams flooding your home.
Worry consumes you, sending you throwing the sheets off your body before you clamber out of bed. The hardwood floor is cool beneath your feet as you rush to your kitchen to grab your keys. You don’t even bother to put shoes on, hurried by the growing volume of James’ shouts.
You make quick work of unlocking your front door and ignore the voice in your head telling you it’s none of your business. You’d be damned if you don’t check on him, no matter how little you know him.
Raising your fist, you knock on the dark oak door of your neighbor’s apartment and pray he answers unharmed.
“James?!” You call through the door, not caring if you disrupt anyone else in the building.
With several more knocks, the muffled screaming comes to a halt and a small wave of relief washes through you.
You listen intently for any sign of the firefighter. “James?” Your voice is a little quieter now that you don’t need to shout over his bellows. You raise your hand to knock once more when the door suddenly opens.
Bucky Barnes stands before you in just a pair of shorts, sweat pooling above his brow line. Drops run down the valley of his chest, following the trail down to his abs. His chest is heaving up and down, up and down, lungs guzzling oxygen as though he’s been underwater for hours.
“God, James- I- are you okay?” Your eyes study the man in front of you, scanning every inch of his face with a worry that Bucky’s never seen from a stranger before.
“Fuck, y/n, I’m sorry” He shakes his head, “I- I just had a nightmare, I didn’t realise I’d been screaming.”
Shame tugs at his features, a frown nestled between his brows that you find yourself wanting to trace - to run your fingers over his cheeks till his heart stops beating so fast.
“It’s okay, really. I was worried, I didn’t know if you were hurt or...” Your words trail off, gaze falling to your feet as a light blush creeps up your neck.
You suddenly realise you’re wearing a tank top and shorts, hardly appropriate attire for a midnight conversation with your next door neighbour. One you may or may not have a school girl crush on.
“I’m okay,” Bucky rubs the back of his neck nervously, “I really am sorry for disturbing you, it won’t happen again.”
The desire to comfort him and tell him that it’s okay for him to have problems is clawing at your heart, but you remind yourself that living next door to him doesn’t mean you have the right to impose yourself on his life.
“You don’t need to apologise, James. I was still awake so it didn’t bother me, i’m just glad you’re alright.”
Your confession almost makes your neighbour blush. He wipes the sweat soaked hair from his forehead and smiles at you, but you see the way it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.
“Thanks for checking on me, doll.” God, will you ever not swoon at that name? “I hope you sleep well”
Eyes raking over your frame one final time, Bucky reaches behind him ready to shut the door.
“You too, Barnes. Goodnight.”
“Night, sweets.”
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Present day…
A dull ache ripples through your shoulders as you carry the final bag of coffee beans to the storage room. Soft jazz plays from the radio on the counter and you hum along, accompanied by the scuff of your trainers on the tiles.
It feels like a lifetime has passed since this morning when you dropped off some cakes at the firehouse to thank the crew for yesterday. They were more than happy to take them off your hands, though one particular firefighter didn’t pay you so much as a glance.
You and Bucky have yet to speak about the events of the elevator; guilt has followed you like a lost puppy, a constant reminder of your colossal fuck up.
While you understand why Bucky is being cold to you, it hurt when he avoided you like the plague this morning. Against your best efforts, Steve saw how your eyes kept wandering back to your neighbour, offering a sympathetic smile when you returned your attention to him.
You did get to meet the crew properly which was lovely. Sam, who clearly has a knack for annoying Bucky, told you all about how he beat him in their physical exam last week. You longed to hear Bucky’s laugh at Sam’s remarks but were forced to settle for his silence.
After leaving the firehouse, you vowed to forget about your neighbour for the day, focus on work and not let your thoughts run you into the ground, yet here you are, daydreaming about him as you’re surrounded by flour and coffee beans.
The cafe is bathed in the orange and pink glows of sunset when you return from the storage room; emerald leather booths reflecting the few remaining beams of sunlight. It took you and your boss a week to build those damn things, but a satisfied grin settles on your lips at the sight of them.
“My back hurts just looking at ‘em.” Your boss, Sophie, chuckles from her armchair in the corner.
“I don’t think mine ever stopped!” You laugh.
It’s your usual closing routine; Sophie does the paperwork while you tidy up. Although you do work for her, the pair of you are good friends and you enjoy the quiet evenings talking nonsense as you wrap up for the night.
“How’s things with the hot firefighter next door?” She asks.
A scoff escapes you, “He won’t even look at me after yesterday.”
“What? I thought getting stuck in a lift with you would be heaven for him!”
Sending an incredulous look her way, you let your hair down from its messy bun. “You’re hilarious.”
Sophie rolls her eyes. “How is it that you get the hot firefighter pining over you and you can’t even see it?”
“Pining?” You shake your head, “Soph, we barely talk!”
“Then why is about today walk into my cafe?”
You barely get chance to process her words when the bell rings and a rush of cool air sweeps the room. You spin on your heel, faced with the man himself.
“James?” Your brows furrow, mouth ajar.
Bucky waves awkwardly. “Hey, doll.”
“What- Um… what are you doing here? We closed at six.” Words stumble over each other as you try to string a sentence together. Your heart, as usual, thuds like thunder in his presence.
“I came for you.” Bucky’s eyes bore into you, a hopeful expression on his features. “I thought m-maybe I could give you a lift home and- and we could talk?”
You hold his gaze, watching intently as he tilts his head slightly; it’s painfully silent while you endure a battle of your heart and your brain.
Your brain pleads with you to say no. To remember that nothing good could come of this and to spare yourself the embarrassment of being told to leave him alone.
Your heart, however? Well, your heart has already taken off your apron and walked out to his car.
“Okay,” You nod once. “I’ll be out in five.”
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Awkward silence envelopes Bucky’s old beat-up four-by-four. The worn leather scratches the skin of your palms that have yet to leave your sides, ready to bolt at any moment.
Heat trickles up your neck with every stolen glance from Bucky and though he’s desperate to finally meet those pretty eyes, you’ve not raised them from your lap since you hopped in five minutes ago.
The firefighter clears his throat, “How was work?”
“Busy” You reply, biting your cheek lightly. “How was yours?”
A sigh rolls out from the drivers seat and he runs a hand through his hair. “It was a calmer shift, for once.” A content smile settles on his lips.
“No trapped elevators today?” You raise a brow, stealing the quickest of glimpses at your neighbour. Who could blame you when he’s running his hand through his hair like that? God, you’ve always wanted to do that.
Bucky laughs. “Not today. Think i’ve had my fair share for a little while!”
You breathe a laugh and Bucky’s grin widens, finding it hard to focus on the road when you’re sat looking so beautiful in his passenger seat.
The car rolls up to a red light before you start playing with your fingers.
“I’m so sor-“ “I need t-“
Your voices blend together as you begin speaking at the same time, drawing a nervous giggle from you.
“You go,” your cheeks burn crimson.
Bucky takes a shaky breath, eyes now trained on the road. “I need you to know that yesterday wasn’t your fault.”
Small tendrils of hair fall into your face when you tilt your head to the left. “No, James, I shouldn’t ha-“
Words die on your tongue as Bucky places his warm hand on your thigh; you try to focus on his voice and not how his hand is spread so fucking far across your jean-clad legs.
“Please, doll, let me say this, I- I need to say this.”
The sheer vulnerability that ripples from the base of his throat makes you want your heart to stop beating so loud, just so he’d have all the silence he needs.
“I’ve never been one to solve my problems, I just deal with them. I get on with life with this huge fucking shadow over me and, god, I dunno, I resign myself to a life in the shade.”
Bucky scoffs. “You were the first person to see it… the shade, I mean.”
It’s like your ribcage is turning to lead, heart heavy knowing he’s talking about his nightmares.
“After you came to check on me that night, it was like a weight was lifted from my shoulders. And that was enough to stop them back then.”
Absentmindedly, his fingers roll beneath his knuckles, fist tightly clenched on your lap. “But the dreams came back and that weight came back and it was heavier than before.”
“It was like a knife to the stomach when you brought it up yesterday because I finally had to admit that I never got over my problems, i’ve just been existing with them. Knowing that you knew of my shadows wasn’t enough anymore and I took it out on you and I’m so fucking sorry, doll.”
Bucky’s breath hitches in his throat when you reach your right hand to rest on the one on your thigh. The sparks beneath your touch beg him to look at you; blue eyes meet yours, swarming with an emotion you can’t quite figure out. With your hand still laying on his, you drag your left one up and down his forearm, tracing the veins and the valleys like its second nature.
It doesn’t evade either of you that it feels so right to have your hands on him, for you to comfort him this way.
His name falls from your lips and Bucky’s stomach flutters. He loves that you’re the only person who calls him James, though he knows it’s only because you don’t know to call him Bucky.
“James,” You say again, eyes flitting to the road briefly, “the lights are green”
Oh. He thinks, biting back a frown as he turns back to the road and is forced to pull his arm away to release the hand break. But your eyes never leave his face, not once.
Not when some dumb fuck cuts across the road and Bucky has to slam on the brakes. Not when you turn down the street of your apartment. Not even when the car comes to a halt and he kills the engine.
The heat of your gaze has the firefighter’s heart racing, far too aware of your silence. He steals a glance of you at the corner of his eye and can’t bear to feel so naked before you; he turns away and goes to pull the door handle when he feels a hand wrap firmly around his bicep.
“James, wait” You plead, squeezing his arm slightly. “I didn’t get my turn to talk.”
Reluctantly, Bucky eases back into his seat, his body rigid with apprehension. He utters an apology and you take a deep breath.
“Every single night that I heard you screaming, I’ve wanted to go running to your door, just like that first time.”
A sad smile tugs at your lips as you release your grip on his arm. “I hate knowing you’re on the other side of the wall, so hurt that even sleep can’t hide your pain.”
You watch his eyes clench shut while you talk. “Yesterday, in the lift, I couldn’t hold it in anymore, I had to bring it up. It was selfish, really. It became so unbearable pretending that I don’t hear you at night that I confronted you without care of what that might to do you. I brought it up when you weren’t expecting it and that’s on me. I’m sorry, James.”
Bucky shakes his head lightly, going to argue but you continue. “I know you’re sorry for being cold, and you don’t need to be. I understood why you shut down, even if it hurt.”
“I’m still sorry, though” He admits, “I shouldn’t have said such harsh things.”
“And I shouldn’t have acted like I know everything. I don’t.”
You both share a laugh, the air in the truck lightening at your confessions. Those bright blue eyes fall to your lips, a relieved smile left from your giggles.
“Hey,” He breathes, eyes hopeful, “do you- do you wanna come meet Alpine?”
Bucky’s heart melts at the way your grin widens at his question.
You nod vigorously, “Yes, I would love that.”
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James Bucky Barnes’ apartment is not what you expected.
When you step inside, warmth greets you with haste. Soft lamps illuminate the room from various corners; the light bounces off the few plants and various decorations while the long windows on the far wall begin to reflect the light as night falls.
“Do you want a drink?” Bucky asks, stepping around you when you still in the middle of the open plan room, a mirrored layout to your own.
“What’ve you got?” Your eyes wander up and down his frame as he walks to the kitchen, pausing at the rippled muscles of his toned back. He’s still in his work gear; a navy blue station t shirt, dark grey utility pants and heavy black boots. And as always, he looks thigh-clenchingly good.
“Uhh, I’ve got some beer, coke, water,” His head peeks out from behind the fridge door, “or I have some coffee or hot cocoa?”
You gasp playfully, “You got hot cocoa?”
Bucky raises an amused brow, a grin toying his lips. “You want one?”
Your hair slips from behind your ear as you nod and shuffle your way to the kitchen. Butterflies swarm your stomach at the sight of Bucky tinkering away with your drinks, his back to you as he works. Thoughts of a life with him as your boyfriend flash through your mind but you shake them away.
Spinning around, you scan the apartment for any sign of Alpine, only to come up short. When Bucky notices your searching eyes, he pulls a stool out from beneath the little island and stretches a hand out to you.
“Climb up, doll.” He grins.
“What?” Confusion laced within your voice, much to your neighbours amusement.
He jerks his head toward the refrigerator, or more specifically, above it. Curiosity fuels your movements and you take Bucky’s hand, helping you up onto the stool. Ignoring the adoring gaze from the firefighter, you look to see the infamous white cat, curled up in a ball above the fridge.
“Aww” You coo, catching the cat’s attention. She pushes herself up onto her paws and tentatively walks to the edge to get a closer look of you.
Bucky watches closely, “She loves it up there, dunno why” He helps you down from the stool when Alpine climbs down onto the counter.
“You’ve got a good little hiding place, huh?” Her fur is soft beneath your fingers as you stroke her head, lightly scratching behind her ears. She nestles into your palm and purrs, eyes closing at your attention.
“You were quite the hot topic at the station today, ya know?” The firefighter says, throwing a cheeky glance over his shoulder when he returns to making your drinks.
“Oh, really?” You walk back to the small breakfast bar and lean against it on your elbows, head tilted in curiosity. Alpine scurries away to the couch now that your focus is on Bucky.
“Yep, some of the guys talked about ya all day.” A blush creeps up your neck, much like it always does in Bucky’s presence. “It’s not often we get a pretty woman come in with the best cakes in town.”
You didn’t think it was possible, but your cheeks only grow hotter at his words. Pretty woman, huh?
Bucky turns back to face you and places two cups of hot cocoa on the counter.
“You don’t get thank you cookies?” An innocent frown pulls your brows together and Bucky swoons.
“Oh, we do!” He smirks, “Just not always from pretty women.”
Oh dear lord, help me.
Your neighbor pushes a mug closer to you and continues, “And they’re not always the best cookies.”
A snort of a laugh escapes you as you wrap your hands around the cup, “Well i’ll tell my boss you liked ‘em.”
It’s hard to describe the way you feel in this moment. It’s both familiar, yet exhilaratingly new; Bucky, the apartment, Alpine, the steaming mugs of hot cocoa, it’s all so peaceful. You feel whole in his presence, as though the missing piece of the enigmatic puzzle of your life has been filled.
Conversation flows for hours, the sky turning dark outside the tall windows, though you barely notice - too invested in your neighbour and the discussions you share.
The more you learn about him, the more you see him becoming a part of your life. If Bucky’s doting eyes are anything to go by, then you can guess he feels the same.
The buzz from your phone vibrates across the countertop, dropping you back into reality.
“Jeez,” you mumble, “it’s nearly ten.”
Bucky chuckles, “We have been talking for a while, sweets.”
You hum in response, reading the text from Sophie.
‘How’d things go with the hot firefighter?’
Praying said hot firefighter can’t see the text himself, you quickly turn off you phone and place it back down.
“I- um” You stutter, distracted by the sight before you; Bucky stretching his arms up behind his head, revealing a slim stretch of skin beneath his shirt. Eyes wide at the dip of his adonis’ belt and the glimpse of a happy trail, you scramble to regain your composure. “I should start heading home, James.”
When he shakes his head and breathes a laugh, you frown, “What?”
“You’re the only person who still calls me James.” He confesses.
“Well what else would I call you?” You ask.
“My friends call me Bucky.”
You smile to yourself. “Bucky…” You test it out, oblivious to the hitch in his breath when you say his name. “Would you like me to call you Bucky?”
Your question poses more of a challenge than you expected and the firefighter places his hands on his hips, adorned with a frown.
“You’re welcome to call me either, but i’d rather you choose.” He says.
“Oh, that’s a lot of power, Barnes” Your grin widens, a mischievous glint in your eyes.
He scoffs playfully, “James or Bucky, doll, I’m not giving you free rein. So which is it?”
Pushing yourself off the breakfast bar, you step backwards and look around the apartment before turning back to your neighbour. “You’ll have to wait and see”
Before you know it, Bucky is stood right in front of you, his chest mere inches from yours, his breath fanning across your cheeks as he looks down at you.
“Oh, really?” He cocks his head, eyes pinning you to the ground.
You fight the urge to gulp at the close proximity; your heart is racing and mouth slightly ajar.
“Mhmm” You nod slowly, finding your feet in this new dynamic. Bringing a hand to his chest, you tap against it twice. “Gives you a reason to invite me over again.”
Bucky revels in the feeling of your hand on his body, desperate for more. He doesn’t even care if you can feel how his heart is beating as fast as yours, too lost in the moment to give a shit.
“I don’t need a reason to invite you over, doll”
Sweet Jesus.
After a moment too long, Bucky escorts you to the door. You give Alpine a quick head scratch on the way.
“I’ll see you in the morning?” The firefighter asks as you walk to your apartment down the hall, leaning against his door frame.
“You know it!” You reach you door and turn to grin at him.
“Don’t forget to set your alarm, sweets” He teases, drawing an eye roll from you, and steps back into his apartment before closing the door.
Following suit, you rest your back against the wood and throw your head back. What a fucking day.
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NEXT CHAPTER
a/n: second chapter done and released a day early ;) hope you enjoyed it, the end is a little rushed but i’m happy with it. as always, my dms and asks are open if anyone has any questions or suggestions for this fic or any other fic ideas. love, red <3
comment if you’d like to be added to the ashes to embers taglist 🧡
taglist: @armystay89 @rabbitrabbit12321 @mishkatelwarriorgoddess @harrystylesandthegoobs @zannemes @noonespecial90 @pank0w @blackbirdwitch22 @wintrsoldrluvr @pingpongfingfong @belleofthebooks @larienjenova @chaosbarelycontained
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irenadel · 2 months
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And if the devil… 10/10
Aemond Targaryen X Maid!Reader TW: For the aftermath of DV Thank you to @barbieaemond for letting me use her beautiful gifs to make this lovely fic banner. As promised am tagging @prettyduckling22
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9
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It is raining heavily when the queen finds you. The lantern she holds aloft barely lets her and her father see you and they dare not come any closer. Her son’s dragon is wide awake, making a dreadful rumbling sound somewhere deep in her gullet. There is a soft, hazy glow all along the beast’s underbelly, like dying embers, like a fire you make the mistake of considering dead.
Alicent feels like her entire body has been turned to lead, soft and infinitely heavy. She hears her father hold his breath and knows, at least, she is not alone in her terror.
He does not leave her. He holds her shoulders steady and Alicent is grateful for that.
“Aemond…”
When Vhagar picks her head from the ground, moves it like Alicent imagines avalanches must move, she is still making that wrathful, rumbling sound. The ground shakes with it. Her legs feel like they will not carry her weight and she wants to weep, like a child, when the dragon opens her mouth to breathe hot and humid and carrion-like upon her.
She wonders if this was the last thing her son saw with both eyes, before that terrible night where it had all begun to go wrong.
“Try again,” her father whispers in her ear. Always try again. Never a moment’s rest.
“Aemond please,” she croaks out, the feeble light of her lantern trembling in the wind. “I’ll be quick.”
The dragon makes another noise and Alicent finds it to be the most awful of all, for she feels it, to the bottom of her belly, a heavy, nauseous weight, a near human moan of pain. When Vhagar cocks her massive head to better look at her, Alicent nearly cries in fear until she sees those eyes. Always they had seemed beady and lizard-like to her, predatory and unknowable, but now they just seem miserably tired.
For a moment she feels ashamed.
I trusted you with him, the ancient, watery eyes of the dragon Vhagar seem to say to her. I trusted you with him and always you have failed me. First the eye and now this…
She breathes the words between near-clenched teeth and it is a wonder to her that the dragon seems to understand as she turns from her and to her father behind her. She advances without him, without even looking back at him, unable to explain the price of going under the great dragon Vhagar’s wings to him.
He would not have paid it anyway. He has never paid it for her.
When she finds you and her son laying against the wall of stinking, warm scales she almost pays it again. She covers her mouth and traps the words behind her fingers. 
I’m sorry, she wants to repeat, but finds she cannot. Not when confronted with her son’s bloodied face years ago, not now that he doesn’t look at her, you in his arms, wrapped in his green cloak, kept warm by dragonfire, dry by one leathery wing held close to the dragon’s body. She barely recognizes you in the gloom under Vhagar’s shadow. Ugly, scrawny thing that you had been. Remarkable only for your strange coloring and the princess’s favor. You had made Helaena happy and thus the queen had tolerated your ill manners. You had been smart and obedient and made yourself scarce when you had become a problem and Alicent had been grateful for the discretion if for nothing else.
Now she feels ill looking at the blood upon your dress. She cannot tell much else with her single lantern’s light and she almost doesn’t dare whisper it: “Is she alive?”
Aemond’s hand stops, halfway through caressing your short, matted hair. There’s dried blood all over one side of your face, your temple and cheek having already swollen black and blue. Your eyes are closed, your hand holding onto the prince’s neck is swollen too, white-knuckled and clenched.
He still does not look at her.
“You can leave now,” he answers and Alicent does not know his voice in that moment. Wants to shake some sense into him as she has done to his brother so many times. A man’s voice, with a petulant boy’s demand.
“She needs a maester, Aemond,” she tries again, not even knowing if it would not just be wiser to let this all die down. Let things take their natural course and help her son mourn, later, once the danger is over.
Aemond is speaking to you, low and gentle, in a soft, kind tone Alicent hasn’t heard from him since he had both eyes. Some of it must be High Valyrian, the rest Alicent cannot recognize. There is a cadence to it, like music. Through it, she hears Vhagar howl again, sees the pebbles on the floor jump with the monstrous vibration of it all and knows she cannot.
Who knows what would be left of her boy if she lets him lose one more thing?
“I’ll bring the maester here,” she capitulates, kneeling down besides the two of you, just to get a better look at you. A fever, she feels when she dares put her hand on your ruined cheek. But you breathe at least. When she gets up to leave, she feels the tug of her son’s hand on her wrist, terrifyingly strong and uncaring, but is glad that he should at least look at her now.
“It was a lost babe,” he says, his voice that of a man, she realizes now, because all emotion is gone from it. Alicent’s heart turns to ice. “A beating and a punch to the gut.”
She had not fled Vhagar when the hoary old thing had turned to her, but she flees her son now. You and her son.
Things have a price, the septons had said sometimes, when she was young and naughty and free. She thinks of Aemma Arryn and her own four living children. She thinks of her daughter, white-faced and grim in spite of the healthy, beautiful babe she had borne. When she ignores her father’s imprecations, when she drags a young and discrete maester to the seaside cliff where Vhagar nests, when together they try to pry you from Prince Aemond’s arms and succeed only in getting him to carry you gently, ever so gently, back to the Red Keep, she thinks of the price of things.
An apology she will never speak to her child but only to his dragon.
A girl’s life. A boy’s soul.
She is done letting her son pay the price and she tells her father as much. He can handle the gossip and the angry lords. It matters little. If he cannot, then perhaps her son’s dragon will.
The prince waits.
He watches a young, redhead maester unstick the clothes off your body and sponge the blood off your skin. Grand Maester Mellos is too important to bother with you.
He listens and seethes. His mother behind him, eyes moist, looking to him though he cannot answer them.
The young maester tells you the blows to the head are the most worrisome. That and your coming cold. He does not use the word babe when he says there should be no lasting damage, it was an early pregnancy. He gives you willow bark tea for the pain and makes you sweat out the rest of your fever. Rest and food should put you to rights, he says to you. He speaks only to you, firm but gentle, not to the prince standing besides your bed, sword-straight and impassive. He is too cautious and well-mannered to let more than pursed-lips betray his anger at whatever royal mistreatment has befallen you. He has no qualms in telling you to call him if you were to have need of moontea, even with the queen and prince balefully looming over him and his patient. Aemond almost likes him.
The queen tries once to suggest moving you out of the prince’s quarters. She does not try again.
The prince waits.
He will allow no servants to tend to you, no one but the queen and maester. When necessary, he will change the linens on his bed himself while you sleep, the way you had taught him to do with his own royal father. It frightens him, how deep your slumber is.
The prince sleeps as close to you as he dares, curled up like a dog at the foot of his own bed. He crawls in it when you are asleep, unwilling to give you the chance to chase him away, soaking up your lingering warmth, too ashamed to ask for it, too desperate to forgo it entirely. He almost thinks he need not bother.
Because the prince waits and still you will not speak.
Your face has gone from black to green to a sickly yellow. You sit in a prince’s bed. You eat the bread he gives you and drink the stew he spoons into your mouth. Sip the warm tea he brings you while you stare at the sheets and say nothing.
Aemond is too miserably aware of how low he is willing to stoop for your voice to attempt speaking to you himself. He has considered it all. Shaking it out of you, with a shout and a curse. Dragging his brother to this room and killing him for you, for himself. Bringing his sister here. Her children. Taking you in his arms again and taking you to Vhagar, flying across the sea, to anywhere that will make you speak again… smile again…
You are slipping from his hands, as far away as you were during those first few days when he would skulk outside closed doors and steal away snippets of your voice, low and husky, singing foreign nonsense to his niece and nephew.
But he is too tired now to summon the outrage he used to feel, at you owning comfort he could not reach.
So the prince waits… until he can wait no more.
“Please,” he says to you, as you sit and stare. “Please…”
You still say nothing. But you do look at him. You reach for his hand and he lets you have it, for as many hours as you need it, even as it grows numb in your grasp. You hold its warmth to your belly, as if the blood of the dragon could thaw the cold residing in there now.
He looks at your glassy eyes, your white-knuckled hand and his own on your belly and he knows what he must do. He should have done it long ago, the first time he had ever seen the blood on your split lip, the bruises on your pale skin. He should have known better than to let himself be distracted by the beauty they revealed to him. He kisses your forehead before he does, trying not to tremble at the brief taste of your skin. He is a man starving, with hunger’s implacable ruthlessness.
When he returns, he drops your cousin’s severed hand upon your lap. The hand that took a prince’s son from him. Prince Aemond One-Eye himself, a bruise of his own on his face, hair wild, eyepatch and dignity forgotten. What he will never forget again is the sound a man makes when Valyrian steel cuts through his flesh and bone.
You do not understand. For a moment you are so stunned and angry it knocks the numbness right out of your lungs. You look at your prince, watch him fall to his knees, lay his head on your lap, besides your flesh and blood, and almost forget to make sense of the words when they come out of him. Westerosi is only your second tongue after all.
“I would have you sing again,” he says with the hoarse rawness of a man who has just discovered all his cruelty to be bravado. “I would have you laugh again.”
And it is awful, to think Aemond would not know that there is no blood that could buy back your soul. Awful but not surprising, that he should not know pain and sorrow could only beget more of themselves. You had known this of him, the first time you had ever seen a sapphire hiding pain. You try not to think of Angus, still a boy, still as much a boy as Prince Aemond himself. You try not to think of what a hand means to a working man and not to a prince. You try not to think of the bridges he has burnt or the ties he has severed for you forever more, when he severed tendon and marrow.
Because if you start thinking of it, you will find yourself fiercely glad that he did.
You will find within your breast a cry of vicious triumph, that sounds to your mind like a Dothraki screamer. Nothing that could ever bring you comfort. Nothing that could ever pay for the death of your dreams, or your hopes, or your love for a boy who had been your boy until he wasn’t.
Nothing that would help.
But still, Aemond had done it for you. Useless, the mother you had barely known had called it in the far reaches of your memory, when men beat their breasts and swear death to you.
Useless perhaps, but he had done it for you.
He lets out a sob when your hand runs through his hair.
“You have no coin,” you say to him and he near cries in relief at the sound of your voice. “To buy back my joy. There is no joy left for me in the world. I have nothing.”
You’ve taken it all from me, you do not say. With black steel and my kinsman’s blood. No hope now, to go back home.
Good.
You think of getting up and not looking back. You think of sailing the poison water and finding your way back to the land of your father, to endless grass and sun-baked earth. You see life unfurling before you, empty and safe. A man maybe. A strong rider who would give you strong children instead of moontea and grief. Small, boring children that do not eat your insides with fangs and claws and fire.
Aemond burrows his face into your lap and crushes your borrowed shift and sheets in his bloodied hands.
You know you cannot. You have no home left but him.
“You’ve nothing I want, Aemond One-Eye. Nothing to pay me with but one thing.”
You see him whip his head off the bed to look at you, the nightmares and dread written clearly on a face too young and beautiful to bear them, warring now with desperate hope. You take this face into your hands, this face you have cherished and cursed, and hold it close to yours, grip tight enough to keep your hands from shaking.
“You,” you breathe and he reaches back for you, hands flying to your neck and gripping you as close as you grip him, choking back a cry of savage joy. “You are the only thing I will ever want again. The only coin I will take. I have nothing but you, nothing. So you will pay me with your life. Swear to me… swear you’ll live forever.”
Easy promise for a king’s son, you think. Easy to think you would go first, of toil or hunger or sorrow. As long as he lived it would be alright.
“I swear,” he answers as he lets you taste the tears off his lips. “Forever.”
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I almost cannot grasp I am done with this. It's been consuming my life for the last couple of months. I've been virtually possessed by the idea and I am just glad I was able to surf the wave until I could finish it. Extra chapter and all. I think I've got a couple more Aemond porn one-shots in me that I've started and will probably try to finish. Some Helaemond X Reader and some Aegond X Reader if anyone wants to hear a little bit more of this verse... or at least the shoddy AU I have to conjure to get the pretty Targaryen people to fuck without killing each other. Thank you so much to everyone who commented and left likes. ...not that I will ever admit to obsessively refreshing AO3 and tumblr for likes but yeah... You guys are the best T_T thank you
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ohtobeleah · 2 years
Text
Terms Of Endearment // Bradley Bradshaw
Series Masterlist
Summary: They always say when you aren’t looking for love it tends to find you. So when you and your daughter turn up in Fighter Town, Bradley Bradshaw is instantly infatuated. With reluctance to trust and harbouring a bad past, you don’t make it easy for the fighter pilot to love you.
Warnings: Will be allocated to appropriate chapters. Bradley Bradshaw x F!reader. Jake Seresin x Platonic!F!Reader.
~ Terms of Endearment Main Masterlist Link ~
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1. Matchmaker // Jake Seresin decides to take your love life into his own hands when an opportune moment falls into his lap.
2. Sunny Side // Rooster picks up your daughter from daycare.
3. Pillow Cases // After looking after your daughter for the afternoon, Rooster questions you about the pile of unwrapped Christmas presents in the closet. Your response? Something he’ll never forget.
4. Branded Father Figures // Bradley stays the night only to join in on a tradition Jake Seresin had been keeping a secret. Learning a few things about your past.
5. Christmas Crisis // Jake spends Christmas with his family and is told an ugly fact. Bradley spends Christmas Eve and morning with you and Dot—enjoying the calm before the storm.
6. The Calm Before The Storm // After Christmas lunch at Penny and Pete’s house, you and Bradley venture home. But don’t make it without a hitch.
7. The Clash // When Jaidyn Dolan moved to town Bradley Bradshaw gears up for the fight of his life. Having your back without question.
8. In Shades Of Terror // Things between you and Bradley and you and Jake reach a boiling point when Jake returns home, he finds himself spilling the beans about how him and Bradley knew about Jaidyn being in town.
9. To Build a Home // You’re finally approved for your own home through staff accommodation. But when you find out who your neighbour is you’re at a loss for words.
10. Biggest Stans // We see just how long Jake Seresin as been your biggest stand for and Bradley asked an all important question. If you’d consider moving in with him.
11. Trifecta // Jaidyn’s on a revenge driven path that’s only just the beginning.
12. Chase That Feeling // An unhinged Jaidyn causes chaos as Jake meets a woman who’s willing to put her front foot forward and Bob plays the hero card.
13. Dammed if you do, Dammed if you don’t // Jaidyn takes the games he playing to a whole knee level while Jake and Bradley do all that they can to get the higher ups involved.
14. Unlikely Savours // Jake and Bradley butt heads over what they need to do when Jake gets a call. Everyone’s racing against the clock, to find you and get to Dot.
15. Bringing in the reinforcements // Bob makes a call to someone he knows will be able to help and Amilia stalls Jaidyn to give Jake enough time to reach Dot.
16. It’s been a long, long day // Jake and Bradley reunite after having gone their separate ways. You need surgery and it’s not a good prognosis.
17. Not So Malice Intentions // When you wake up from surgery to find out Jake wants to keep Dot from seeing you for a first days, all hell breaks loose.
18. Cowboys & Apologists // When you wake up from being heavily sedated to a stranger but familiar man sitting in the corner of your room—you don’t take well to the carbon copy of Bob Floyd
19. It’s Personal // A week passes you by and you’re still in the hospital. You miss your daughters third birthday, Bradley goes in to bat for you against the Secretary of Defense and Jake has a run in with an intruder.
20. Yellow Polkadots // In the aftermath of Jakes unexpected intruder, decisions are made that bring you and your baby girl back together. Bradley struggles with a hard interior design decision & Jaidyn gets comfortable in his finale plot to end your happily ever after.
21. Heaven // (Part One) (Part Two) (Part Three) Discharged from hospital after suffering severe injuries from a near fatal run in with your ex has you high strung and on edge. For good reason too, you should always trust your instincts because no one around you is safe from the chaos that transpires in our final two part finale.
~~ Complete ~~
Concepts & Blurbs
-> Marked // Jake sees the infamous cattle prod mark your ex left behind.
-> Bobby Bear // Robert Floyd left this world too soon. But does Odette see his ghost when she’s a little girl?
-> Lessons in Love & War // On one of your first shifts back at work after the events of ToE. Odette is plagued with an illness that sends her to the emergency room with a very panicked Bradley Bradshaw.
-> Bath-time // Bath time isn’t always an easy feat when your little girl is afraid of baths. But they do make for some core memories.
-> Tunder Storm Sleep Overs // With a heavily pregnant wife and a toddler afraid of a raging thunderstorm outside. Bradley kicks into his favourite mode. Dad mode.
-> Easter Time // You don’t have an Easter Bunny—you have an Easter Rooster.
-> The sex positive couple // You and Bradley are busy getting it on when your daughter wakes up from hearing noises in the night. Afraid you’re hurt she calls for you.
-> Baby R // Riley Carole Bradshaw makes her big entrance to the world when Jakes in Texas and Bradley isn’t sure if he’s ready to be a dad twice over.
-> The Eternal Mark // When at the Abbott Ranch for thanksgiving, the sound and sight of a cattle prod has you feeling like you’d been thrown back in time into the arms of the man who swore blind he was going to kill you.
-> From Tooster to Rooster // The first time Odette calls Bradley Rooster and not Tooster.
-> Dots Promise Ring // Odette forever keeps the promise ring Rooster gave to her as a child. But one day she throws it away.
-> The not so real dad dad // Young, dumb and oh so impressionable Odette Bradshaw freaks out after the police show up at a house party she snuck out to. Calling her uncle to come get her didn’t go according to plan.
-> Sticks & Stones // The one where Rooster finds out about the time you absolutely let loose on your daughter during her teenage hellion years while he was on an eight week deployment. And the one you find out you weren’t the only one who kept parenting secrets.
-> Dots Pot // Bradley knows his oldest daughter smokes weed on the roof. I’m an attempt to stay hip with the youth he joins in—only to be left a paralytic on the couch. Outsmarted and out numbed.
-> Fruit of my loins // Odette Bradshaw is full of existential dilemmas about who she is and where she fits in. In an attempt to figure herself out, she goes to see the man who never wanted her in the first place.
-> Brother & Sister love // The dynamic between the Bradshaw siblings.
-> Uncle Jakes second wedding. // Jake has a no kids wedding and Odette isn’t too happy about the situation. Giving him one hell of an attitude about it.
-> Jake & Amilia // A glimpse into the fuck around that is Jake Seresins first marriage to a woman called Ellie who would never be Amilia.
-> Dot & Chase - The Dagger babies // Odette Bradshaw isn’t the easiest girl to get along with, and doesn’t Chase Fitch know that. -> Dot & Chase 2.0
-> What does Odette do for a living? What Nicky & What Riley Do for a living. The Bradshaw’s siblings go leaps and bounds in their respective careers. From soccer players to aviators to lawyers.
-> The Commanders Daughter // Odettes TopGun instructors.
***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~
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flowerandblood · 10 months
Text
The Man with the Cold Lips
[ Amor • Aemond x Psyche • female ]
[ warnings: sex content, oral sex, fingering, smut, angst, domination, violence, trauma, mourning ]
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[ description: After she is attacked in a fair by a strange man and narrowly avoids death, her father the king decides that from now on she will be watched over by one of his ‘ghosts’, a assassin acting on his orders, wearing a black mask. The man follows her like a shadow, accompanied by their past, which keeps her awake at night. Gothic horror love story, angst, sexual tension, very dark Aemond. ]
This story is several requests combined into one: sworn protector x female; Amor x Psyche; Phantom of the Opera! Aemond x female. I took the liberty of creating a completely new story from this, having only elements of each of these requests.
Series & Characters Moodboard Lady Walford Moodboard Gothic & Horror Sensual Moodboard
Part 1 - The Man with the Black Mask | Part 2 - The Man with the Empty Heart | Part 3 - The Man with the Lost Soul | Part 5 - The Man with the Deep Scar | Part 6 - The Man with the One Eye | Part 7 - The Man with the Golden Gift | Part 8 - The Man in the Black Crown | Part 9 - The Man with the Bloody Sword | Part 10 - The Man in the Black Gloves | Part 11 - The Man in the Death Cloak | Part 12 - The Man with the Pearly Hair | Part 13 - The Man with the Fiery Gaze
Yesterday's trailer and the panel with ewan did something to me, so I think that dark aemond is the most appropriate thing I can give you today and that's it. It begins!
* English is not my first language. Please, do not repost. Enjoy! *
Next chapters: Masterlist
_____
Although she knew it was dangerous, after what had happened she forbade telling the King about what she had discovered. Some part of her hoped that Prince Aemond was alive − she was willing to help him regain the throne if only he would agree to spare her brother's life.
She spent the rest of the day alone in her chamber, covered in thick furs, thinking hard about what had happened.
About Vhagar.
He told her she knew his name, so he must have been someone she had seen on a daily basis before. Her discovery frightened him enough that he was willing to kill her − however, did he really want to do it out of fear of her father's wrath and the fact that he would lose his position, or was it something else?
She bit her lower lip at the thought that a part of her suspected she might be working with the Prince, to be his liaison, a devoted servant who by some miracle had managed to get into her father-king's closest guard.
He gave up the idea of murder because he knew that even if he had faked her suicide − the King would have blamed him for not watching over her and he would have lost everything, so he came up with another excuse, hiding himself behind sheer terror, hoping that she would believe him.
However, what purpose did what happened between them afterwards?
She pressed her lips together, feeling the heat in her body at the memory of that overwhelming feeling of fulfilment, that wonderful tickling and tension rising in her lower abdomen with each of his thrusts.
She placed her hand on her womb, swallowing hard at the thought that he had come inside her, that she could expect a child because of his seed.
She squeezed her eyelids shut, trying to breathe calmly, thinking only of how much better it would have been if he had let her die that night.
Her father had demanded, despite her objections, that she join the funeral feast in her mother's honour, so she walked reluctantly down to the great hall, her ghost following her at a greater distance than usual.
She thought that he himself was horrified by what had happened between them and the consequences that might follow.
She sat down at the table next to her brother, her father smiled at her and she reciprocated the gesture, thinking with amusement about how easy it was for her to pretend.
"There she is, my daughter. My treasure, my greatest support." He said with a pride from which her throat squeezed.
Only a few years ago she would have believed his words.
She felt him grasp her hand and she reciprocated the embrace, stroking his skin with her thumb.
"She's no longer a child and I've decided it's time to find her a suitable candidate for a husband." He said lightly, she felt her heart stop, the smile disappeared from her lips, on her face only pain mixed with disbelief.
They were at a feast dedicated to the funeral of her mother, his queen, and he was discussing her marriage.
"I ask that willing lords report to me on this matter." He said contentedly, letting go of her hand, and she closed her eyes, trying to calm herself.
She felt him standing behind her, felt his menacing, dark aura, and wondered what he was thinking.
If he imagined her lying in bed with another man, letting him sink deep between her thighs.
She left the feast quickly that evening, explaining to her father that she was tired, which he accepted with understanding. When she stepped into her chamber her servants helped her to pull off her mourning gown, once again offering her condolences, blowing out all the candles one by one.
She lay comfortably under the thick layers of furs, looking out the window at the cloudless sky full of stars, thinking about what had happened, unable to believe that by some miracle she was still alive.
As she began to slowly fall asleep she shuddered suddenly; she heard the door to her chamber open − Vhagar stepped inside without a word and closed it quietly behind him.
She watched with a rapidly pounding heart as, with an unhurried, lazy step, he approached her windows, untied the curtains and covered the only source of light with them, repeating this act until complete darkness fell around them.
She could see nothing but blackness.
She heard the sound of steel hinges opening, then the sound of a belt being unbuckled and the rustling of robes falling to the floor.
She lay still, her lips parted in horror and disbelief, felt once again this familiar, throbbing sensation between her thighs and embarrassing, sticky wetness.
She listened to his footsteps, the old wood creaking under his feet as he finally climbed onto her bed, she heard it bend under his weight.
She felt the touch of his big hand on her cheek and trembled, taking a deep breath, realising he wasn't wearing gloves, his warm breath wrapped around her face.
She tightened her hands on his bare, muscular shoulders as his fingers slipped into the ties of her nightgown and just ripped them open − she squealed when she heard the sound of the fabric being torn and a cool breeze surrounded her flesh.
"− I won't stop −" He said in a trembling, deep voice, so startlingly clear that shivers ran through her, her mouth parted wide in a helpless moan when she realised he wasn't wearing a mask.
She squealed loudly, her body arching all over, her hands clenched in his hair when she felt it, his cold, wet mouth clamped down on her warm breast, playing with her nipple, sucking and licking it, the spot between her thighs throbbing with pleasure and desire.
"− oh − oh, gods −" She mumbled out, never having felt anything like it in her life, his hands ripped her chemise off her and only then did she feel his whole naked body pressed against her skin − it was such an overpowering, shocking sensation that she was out of breath.
She wanted to enjoy every second of what was happening, his lips teasing her nipple with a loud click, clearly taking great pleasure from it, his hands tightened on her hips, forcing her to spread her thighs wider in front of him, her fingers stroking his hair − she thought with a trembling heart that they were unexpectedly soft and long.
"− we can't −" She choked out with an effort, wanting to retain the remnants of her sober thinking and decency.
He, however, only chuckled under his breath, amused, his hand from her hip slid down between her thighs − she whimpered loudly as his fingertips ran over her heat, collecting the moisture that had already managed to flow out of her, oversensitive and delicate.
"− should I leave you like this? − I'm not that cruel −" He hummed under his breath with a kind of excitement from which she quivered all over. She heard him raise himself higher on his elbow, his nose ran over her cheek − she gasped as she felt his fingers begin to apply more pressure, in sure, circular motions teasing the bud hidden between her folds.
All she could think about was that he wasn't wearing a mask, her hand rised involuntarily to touch his cheek.
"Tsk-tsk." He hissed as he caught her wrist − his tongue ran over her upper lip as his middle finger made its way inside her, searching with it for the spot he had rubbed earlier with his length. "Don't."
She mewled with delight and her body shook with a shiver of pleasure when he finally found it, her hips responded to his touch with desperate rocking, her mouth parted invitingly, letting his tongue deep into her throat, their lips joined in a sticky, loud, hot kiss.
She panted loudly along with him, stroking his hair as she felt him slide his finger out of her, impatient, his lips sucking and brushing her fleshy skin again and again as the tip of his manhood pushed against her swollen slit, thrusting forcefully inside her.
She clasped her hands on his bare back feeling the scars beneath them and cried quietly into his mouth, trying with difficulty to fit him inside her − he throbbed all over in arousal, her breasts pressed against his chest in the tight embrace of their bodies.
They both started to moan between loud, wet kisses as he began to root into her hot core − this time she was so wet that a few pushes of his hips were enough for him to begin slipping into her with ease.
"− mmm − that's it − so fucking good −" He panted into her mouth, gripping her hips tightly with his hands, stretching her tight walls with his length with every movement of his hips.
She moaned helplessly beneath him, stroking his hair, neck, shoulders and back, all sweaty from exertion, their lips finding each other in messy kisses over and over again.
"− fuck − do you really think I'm going to share what's mine? − that I would allow some mere, petty lord take you? − hm? −" He hissed out and she felt her walls clench tightly on him at his words in pleasure, heat surged through her lower abdomen from which her head completely spun, her helpless whimpering answered him.
"− p-please − I − ughmm −" She babbled, unable to focus on anything other than how he slammed his manhood into her, how wonderfully it teased the spot hidden in her walls.
She wrapped her legs around his waist, wanting to feel him closer, tightening her fingers on his back − she heard him groan low feeling it, speeding up, thrusting into her like crazy.
"− you want it, don't you? − my seed − deep, deep inside you − fuck, say it −" He breathed out between quick, deep, brutal thrusts − she felt him looking at her, felt his hot breath on her face, his forehead pressed against hers.
"− y-yes − please − fill me, fill me, fill me −" She mewled, both of them moaning loudly as a powerful orgasm shook her body, her core began to clench against him, forcing him to let go, his length twitching all over as his semen spilled deep inside her.
"− good gods, yes, take it −" He exhaled in delight, his thrusts sloppy and desperate, pushing his seed as deep into her as possible.
"− you're mine − I'm going to fill you every night − gods, you're going to bear me so many children −" He gasped in bliss, slowly coming down from his peak, the whimpers of pleasure coming out of her lips at his words − she wasn't sure she'd ever experienced anything like this in her life.
"− please −" She mumbled quietly like a helpless child, running her hands over his naked skin, wanting to remember that wonderful feeling − they were both hot and sweaty with pleasure, their bodies sticking to each other, her breasts pressed against his bare chest.
They both sighed when he finally fell on top of her, embracing her, their fingers sinking into each other's bodies, wanting to feel each other as much as possible, though she wasn't sure if two people could connect in any physical way more than they did now.
She could feel his loud, raspy breath against her cheek, the tip of his nose running over her hot skin, as if he wanted to check that it wasn't all just the result of his imagination.
"− stay − stay inside me −" She whispered, and he sighed quietly, as if relieved, with a gentle movement of his hips sliding his already half-soft manhood fully into her, hiding himself deep inside her.
Even though she knew it was wrong and irresponsible, that she couldn't trust him, that he was a traitor, she had never felt safer with anyone before, her eyelids closing involuntarily, having not experienced a peaceful sleep for so long.
"− don't open your eyes until I leave −" He whispered in her ear and she nodded, stroking his soft hair, her lungs filled with his scent, male sweat, steel, dust and fire.
His arms held her in a tight embrace through this night and many nights to come, making the days blend into one for her.
Each time he came to her he would cover the windows with curtains so that she could see nothing, and then sink his lips and tongue into the warmth between her thighs, groaning in delight as he felt how much of her moisture flowed out of her, only to end up rooting deep into her, as he promised, filling her with his seed.
He always rose before dawn − she could see through her closed eyelids that the first rays of light were sneaking into her chamber despite the curtains, that if she opened them she could see his face.
She feared, however, what she would see.
All she could think about all day was the night, what he brought to her along with the brutal, deep thrusts of his hips.
When he took her, he would say that he was her husband, that only he had the right to touch her, that she would only bear his children.
She was his.
He used to show this to her by standing closer than usual when she was eating or reading, by no longer leaving when she was taking a bath or changing, staring at her shamelessly, promising her servants in her presence that if they said anything to the King, he would end their lives.
"Vhagar doesn't mean it and he would never hurt you against my will. Am I right?" She asked coldly, frowning at him as the terrified girl tried to attach the long sleeves to her gown with trembling hands.
"Mmm."
When they were alone he would dare to approach her from behind as she sit, his leather-gloved hand running over her throat only to grasp her cheeks tightly and lift her face up, forcing her to look at him.
She stared into his eyes obscured by the dark material, at his mask, indifferent, cold, mocking, his thumb gently massaging her skin.
He didn't need to say anything − she could feel the tension between them quivering in the air, making her feel a throbbing inside her.
"Tonight I'm going to make use of those lips." He hummed softly, parting her lips with his finger − she closed her eyes, feeling that she couldn't last, her hand lifted swiftly the thick layers of her gown and slid deep between her thighs, sinking into her moist warmth.
He sighed quietly, looking down at it, clearly taking satisfaction from the fact that his mere presence made her unable to bear it, that she needed to relieve herself.
"− do you want it so badly? − me fucking those moist, sweet lips? − hm? −" He cooed, and she only whimpered, tilting her head back, resting it against his stomach, with a loud, embarrassing click rising and falling on her fingers, teasing her pearl at the same time, feeling her nipples grow hard with arousal.
"− please −" She mumbled, although she didn't know what she was asking for, they couldn't do it now − they had to wait until night fell, like every day.
"− you look wonderful like this −" He murmured, stroking her cheek with his thumb, his voice trembling slightly − she knew that he was already completely hard, that he was dying at the thought of being deep inside her at night. "− so devoted −"
She mewled at his words and felt him clamp his hand over her mouth, stifling her moans that escaped her throat as she reached her peak − she felt her walls clench hungrily on her fingers, wonderful waves of heat surged through her body again and again. She heard him gasp with satisfaction as he saw her body spilling in front of him on the chair.
"− mine −"
That night as they lay in complete darkness, both of them falling asleep, his nose snuggled into the hollow of her neck, his soft manhood deep inside her, she dared to ask him the question that had long been pressing against her tongue.
"Are you Prince Aemond's envoy?"
Her question hung in the air as if in the void; she felt his body freeze − for a moment he did not breathe, his fingers tightened on her soft skin.
Silence.
Long, cruel, cold.
"Yes."
She swallowed loudly, a shudder went through her at his words. He felt it and leaned in, placing a soft, warm kiss on her shoulder, his fingers squeezing her breast with affection.
"I want to help him. Can you convey this to him?" She asked in a whisper and felt him flinch all over, letting the air out of his lungs in disbelief − she felt him lift a little, his hot breath on her cheek.
"What do you mean?" He asked in a trembling, low, deep voice, as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing. She pressed her lips together feeling her heart pounding like mad.
"I will support him if he spares my little brother. If he agrees, I'll do whatever he wants." She said in pain, feeling a squeeze in her throat − his lips pressed quickly against her skin, greedily, violently, kissing and sucking her, his length throbbing hard inside her.
He began to move again, slowly rooting into her with a sigh of delight and relief, saying no more until they reached their peak together, panting loudly, their bodies heated and quivering with exertion.
"− be patient −" He whispered in her ear with such tenderness that she felt her heart squeeze, heat spilling over her lower abdomen. "− soon − I promise you, we'll be married soon −"
After what he said, she fell asleep filled with hope, with the fact that she wanted to believe his words, that he would really protect her, that perhaps a great bloodshed could be avoided this time.
That they would really get married.
She thought that now, that everything had come together in her mind, she could finally look at him − her future husband, the man who had taken her for himself, who brutally and indivisibly stormed into her heart.
That was why, even though she had sworn to him that she would not do so, hearing him get dressed in a hurry she lifted her eyelids.
She felt her heart freeze, her throat squeezed so tightly that she couldn't catch her breath.
He sensed something was wrong, subconsciously realised she had broken her promise and lifted his gaze to her, his hands clenched on the belt of his coat.
A large scar ran across his right cheek, in his eye socket not a blue iris, as it seemed to her when she looked at him through the thin black material, but a sapphire, glinting dangerously in the first rays of the sun, his lips clenched into a thin line, in his healthy eye pain, disappointment and anger.
"You shouldn't have done that."
_____
Aemond Taglist:
(bold means I couldn't tag you)
@its-actually-minicika @notnormalthings-blog @nikstrange @zenka69 @bellaisasleep @k-y-r-a-1 @g-cf2020 @melsunshine @opheliaas-stuff @chainsawsangel @iiamthehybrid @tinykryptonitewerewolf @namoreno @malfoytargaryen @qyburnsghost @aemondsdelight @persephonerinyes @fan-goddess @sweethoneyblossom1 @watercolorskyy @randomdragonfires @apollonshootafar @padfooteyes
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thechaoticdruid · 7 months
Text
This Bites (5)
Astarion x Chubby! F! MC
Plot: Astarion gets Winnie out a tight spot with a new power of his! Our two lovers continue to bond and get closer as Winnie searches for the cause of her vampire's appearance in the modern world. They also go shopping! YAY!
Content/Warning: Dog attack, Sexual humor and suggestive content, tooth rotting fluff, night terrors?, Astarion being soft, mention of dead animals, Brian being an asshole as usual..
Chapter 4: Back here
Chapter 5: Hold still.
Chapter 6: Shit.
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Winnie looked out the window, eyes wide as she saw Brian and Vanessa outside. Nessa was holding Ollie tightly to her chest as the little dog growled. The three of them were standing their ground as the same beastly dog from before approached. It was snarling with its lips lifted upwards to expose its sharp teeth, drool dripping from its jaws and onto the rope around its neck.
“Astarion, go to my room and hide in my closet I'll, I'll think of something.” Winnie stated.
“You want me to just let you go out there with that deranged beast!? Are you insane! That mutt will gnaw your leg off!” The vampire spawn snapped.
“We don't have time to argue! Go hide!” Winnie huffed before grabbing a broom off the nearby wall. The dog was huge and appeared to be a mix between a mastiff and Pitbull. Brian stood in front of Vanessa, shielding her from the dog as he shouted at it, trying to scare it off.  Astarion gritted his teeth. He didn't want Winnie to get hurt but following her out into the sun was a horrible idea. There definitely wasn't any way he could protect her as a pile of ashes. But he had to do something! That dog had a vicious look in its eyes, lunging with an intent to kill. Brian was able to kick it in the face and make it back up momentarily, but the beast was not backing down. 
Panic flooded over the elven vampire’s mind as he was frantically trying to think of what to do, if he had still been alive his heart would be pounding!  Then suddenly he felt odd…. There was this poof and everything around him got bigger.  No, he was smaller. His hands were replaced by these white little bat wings…
What in the hells!?
Unfortunately, there wasn't enough for Astarion to ponder his new form as Winnie had opened the door, holding the broom close to her as she prepared to try and help her family. Without thinking the small bat leapt up and grabbed onto the back of her shirt with his little claws, crawling under the back of her hoodie to protect him from the sun. Winnie didn't even notice him, too focused on the scene in front of her.  Her mother was safely locked in the car, away from the dog while Brian was doing his damndest to try and scare it away. It was safe to say that the canine was not the least bit intimidated as it snarled, slobber dripping from its jowls. 
Winnie soon rushed over, using the broom to separate herself from the aggressive mongrel. The dog lunged forward, biting into the broom with a bite so strong it threatened to break the wood. Winnie let out a startled squeak at the sight of the dog’s teeth.
“The fuck are you doing, Winnie!? You're making it worse!” Brian shouted. Though his voice didn't even register to Winnie as she was much too terrified of the dog to give a damn about what he said. The dog’s teeth clashed against the broom before it pulled back preparing for another attack when it noticed something peek out of the brunette-haired female’s hoodie. Keeping the hoodie over his head to shield him from the sun, Astarion peaked out at the dog with a tiny glare. 
The dog blinked in confusion before getting a whiff of Astarion's familiar undead scent and letting out a whine, tail dropping between its legs as it let out a bark.
“Smells wrong!” Astarion could hear the dog speak while in his new animal form. The dog suddenly turned and ran off, whimpering along the way. Winnie blinked in utter bewilderment. 
He just….Left? What the fuck was that about?
“Oh, thank goodness. Winnie scared it away!” Vanessa let out a sigh of relief. 
“I had it completely under control.” Brian huffed as Winnie’s mother suddenly opened the car door and got out. 
“Oh my God, that was close. Brian, we need to call animal control! That dog is dangerous!” She exclaimed, stepping out of the car. 
“It would probably be better if I shot that damn mutt.” Brian muttered. 
“Brian!” His wife crossed her arms. 
“Alright, alright woman! I'm getting my phone!” The brunette haired man huffed.
“Uh…. It might be best to go inside…? In case the dog comes back I mean.” Winnie suggested.
“I ain't afraid of no fucking dog…” Brian muttered under his breath as he fumbled with his cellphone.
“You're right, Winnie. Come on Nessa, let's go inside.” Winnie’s mother said before leading the young girl inside. Winnie quickly followed after them and moved ahead of them, hoping Astarion had gone and hid. The plump female was completely unaware Astarion had changed his form and hitched a ride inside her hoodie. The tiny white bat stayed completely still as his tiny claws stayed hooked into the back of her shirt.
“Winnie! Winnie! Can I play the new video game you got?” Vanessa asked, setting the dog down on the floor. Her eyes grew round as she looked up at the young woman pleadingly.
“Ah no kid, it's for adults. And I don't want your dad to get mad at me if you see something…inappropriate.” Winnie coughed and rubbed the back of her neck. 
“Ugh! It's not fair! I'm almost thirteen and this boy from my class is playing it!” Nessa huffed and crossed her arms.
“No means no. Goodness' sake, you're too young to play adult games.” Winnie replied sternly.
“And you're too old to watch cartoons but you still do it!” Vanessa sassed before storming off to her bedroom. Winnie rolled her eyes, muttering ‘brat’ under her breath. She turned to head back to her bedroom, but unfortunately Brian had come back inside and had her in his sights. 
“The hell did you say to my kid!?” He snapped, getting really close to Winnie's face, his nasty tar smelling breath hitting her like a brick.
“I just told her she can't play my new game because it's for adults.” Winnie huffed, eyes glancing back over to her room as she flinched away from him. 
“I saw her run to her room! You better tell the truth right now!” Brian raised his voice.
“Brian! Calm down! Winnie is telling the truth, I saw everything.” Winnie’s mother suddenly stepped in and stood between her husband and daughter. Brian muttered under his breath.
“Catherine, the girl is dangerously close to becoming a delinquent! I've seen those vile games she plays! They're not right!” Brian barked.
“You’re being dramatic. Winnie would never hurt a fly. Look, we've all just had a scare outside so why don't we calm down, go to our rooms and try to relax?” Catherine said before pulling Brian along. The middle-aged sack of piss continued to mutter under his breath, but inevitably gave in and followed his wife to the bedroom.  Winnie sighed in relief before quickly rushing to her bedroom, locking the door behind her. 
“Astarion?” She suddenly whispered out and looked around her room. “Astarion?” She called again before slowly stepping towards the closet, only to freeze as she felt tiny claws climbing up and down her back.
“What the hell is on me!?” She panicked, shivering in disgust before suddenly throwing her jacket off and onto the ground. Winnie looked in the mirror and checked herself but found nothing.
Brown eyes glanced down at her purple hoodie before noticing a little fuzzy white head poke out from underneath her coat. A little albino bat crawled out and looked up at Winnie with round red eyes. It immediately began to let out panicked sounding little squeak-like chirps and scurry towards Winnie.  She backed up a bit in utter confusion.  
" A bat? How did I get a bat in my jacket?” Winnie asked aloud. The bat continued to squeak at her as if trying to speak. He didn't try to flee or fly away which was very unusual. 
Then suddenly Maddie poked her head out from under the bed, slowly creeping towards the small animal. The bat turned to look over as the black cat prowled towards him, pupils enlarged and tail swatting back and forth as she prepared to pounce.  The bat let out a frightened squeak before attempting to crawl away as Maddie galloped towards him, pinning him down with her paw.
“Maddie no!” Winnie said trying to get her cat's attention, but the feline didn't acknowledge her.
She looked ready to bite down on the little creature until she got a whiff of his scent. Maddie sniffed him curiously before ultimately removing her paw from his little body. 
“Mew!” The cat began to purr before rubbing her face over the tiny bat. All the while Winnie was slowly trying to comprehend what was happening. 
An albino bat that Maddie seems to recognize as a friend?
Winnie had a gnawing suspicion, but it was so ludacris that she didn't know whether or not to trust it. Eventually the young woman knelt down on the ground and held out her hand. 
“Astarion…?”  She spoke up. The small bat immediately turned his attention to her before crawling over to sit on her hand and squeak. 
“This feels utterly insane…. but could you nod if it's you?” She asked. The little bat immediately nodded in response.
“How is this even possible? Spawn aren't supposed to be able to transform into bats.” Winnie sat down on the armchair, holding Astarion in her hands. He squeaked a few times as if trying to speak to her. “Star, I don't understand whatever you're trying to say…. All I hear are squeaks on my end…” 
Astarion’s ears dropped before Winnie scratched his head with a single finger. “You are very cute like this though.” The brunette-haired woman smiled.  “This could actually come in handy, but it would probably be best if you figure out how to change back…. Preferably when I'm not holding you of course.” Winnie stated before setting the small bat down on the bed.  
Astarion made a few little bat noises as he appeared to shake and strain a little in an attempt to turn back. When he changed before he was in a panic, so he wasn't sure exactly what he did that caused his transformation. Was it the fear of something happening to Winnie? No, that didn't seem right. 
Winnie sat on the bed beside him as she pondered exactly how this was possible. In the game he was only able to take the form of a bat if he ascended. And everything she'd seen indicated that Astarion was a spawn. Hell, he was even soft on her like he was with Tav in his spawn romance route. Could being in her world really give him new abilities? Winnie held her chin in thought before a theory formed in her mind. Astarion said that he fell in love with her over and over, and that he'd been reliving the games storyline repeatedly. That would mean that he's basically been experiencing all her save games .... maybe .... But Winnie never went through a playthrough where she ascended him…except oh….
There was this one time she saved before checking out the ascension route and it might have autosaved. Winnie was eventually broken out of her thoughts by a flash of red around the tiny bat before suddenly he grew back into his normal vampire elf form.
 “Gods below.” Astarion let out a sigh of relief. “I am certainly not accustomed to being so small and hairy….eugh…It felt unnatural.” Astarion shivered. 
“Oh, you figured it out! That's great.” Winnie smiled before looking over Astarion as he took a moment to compose himself. 
“This world of yours seems to get more interesting by the day. Although I'm not entirely sure what use this new form would have. Well other than allowing me to seek shelter from the sun from under your coat.” Astarion hummed.
“Bats can fly! It would probably be very useful if you needed to get somewhere quickly at night.” Winnie stated. “And the smaller you are, the easier it is to hide.” 
“Perhaps there may be some use to this form then.” Astarion smirked a couple ideas of sneaking around the house to torment Brian began to cook in his mind. 
“I'm still a tad concerned about how this happened…. It worries me a bit.” 
“What's to worry about? Obviously, my presence in this realm has opened up some wonderful possibilities.” Astarion chuckled with a smirk.
“I don't know how to feel about this…” Winnie looked off to the side. “Astarion, I should probably tell you about something I've been looking into. I've been quiet about it because I don't want you to get the wrong idea, but I've been trying to figure out what caused you to be well…Here…But I'm not trying to send you back! I promise!” Winnie stated. 
“Well, I do appreciate you telling me this. Although I'm not entirely sure why it's a concern of yours if you're not trying to send me back.” 
“Something caused it and I want to know why and if it's dangerous. Things like this just don't normally happen here. This isn't a magical place like the one you're used to.” Winnie sighed. 
“There you go worrying again. My poor paranoid darling. You know we should probably work on finding ways to relieve your stress.” Astarion grinned.
“Astarion.” Winnie pouted with an annoyed expression.
“What? I was just going to suggest a massage, perhaps a hot bath. Hells bellow, not everything I say is about sex, you naughty thing.~” Astarion crossed his arms but looked at Winnie with a mischievous grin. 
Winnie blushed darkly before rolling her eyes.
“We're getting off topic. The point is whatever caused this was not normal for my world and I want to know if it will affect us. That's why I've been trying to get to the bottom of it.”  Winnie huffed before falling back on the bed. 
“And what have you found?” Astarion, asked as he loomed over her. 
“Not much. I found the alias of someone who might be involved, but I'm having trouble finding more information about them.” 
“I know little to nothing about this portal device thing, but I'm willing to help well…somehow…” Astarion hummed and looked over Winnie with a sweet gaze.  
“Thank you. Though I'm not sure what would help.” Winnie hummed and stared up at the ceiling in thought while Astarion watched her, eventually laying down beside her.  
“Perhaps you could ask someone else for help? Someone from here.” The vampiric elf suggested.
“That would be a good idea, only I don't want to risk exposing you or looking like a complete lunatic…No one is going to believe that a fictional character came out of my computer….Ugh…” Winnie huffed before suddenly her cell phone went off in her pocket. She got a message from Becca asking if Winnie could cover her shift tonight since Becca had to babysit for her mother. 
Wait….Becca mods her games all the time. Maybe she'd know who ShadowMommy69 was at least…Or something about them anyway.
It wasn't a very strong lead, but at least it was something. Winnie probably wouldn't be able to actually talk to Becca in person until this weekend, but maybe she could figure something out. She needed to take Astarion to get some clothes soon anyway and stopping by to talk to Becca on the way wouldn't hurt. 
Winnie glanced over to see Astarion looking at her, eyes soft as his mouth stretched into an odd Grinch-like grin. “Eh…What's up with your face?” Winnie asked. Astarion blinked, broken out of his little dreamy daze. 
“Uh what? Is there something on my face!? Did I get a scratch while turned into that winged rodent!?” Astarion sat up, beginning to freak out and feel over his face.
“No, no, Astarion calm down. Nothing's wrong with your face, honey.” Winnie sat up and cupped his cheeks. His ears turned slightly pink at her pet-name. “It's just as pretty as always…” Winnie said, looking to the side with a blush.  “You just made a funny face is all.” 
“Oh…” Astarion calmed down, placing his hand over one of hers. His chest felt tight as he stared at her soft round face. He wanted to kiss her so badly. Winnie moved a stray curl out of his face before pulling her hands back and looking off to the side with a nervous cough. Her heart was racing. 
“Ah…So uh…We could continue watching a movie in here ... .I locked the door so no one should be able to barge right in and see you.” Winnie said as she twiddled her thumbs.
“That sounds wonderful, love.” 
~•~•~•~~•~•~•~•~•~•~~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•
A few days passed. Winnie filled in for Becca and had to deal with the usual, stocking shelves, cleaning and occasionally dealing with a Karen or two. When she was home she had to stay on her toes to make sure that neither Brian or Vanessa ended up walking in to see Astarion, luckily his new little form came in handy. He was able to quickly change and hide under the blanket or in Winnie’s pocket. He also may have begun using this form to sneak around the house when Winnie wasn't home and secretly torment Brian. Because if he wasn't allowed to kill the bastard he'd at least make sure his life was a living hell. He'd toss random spices or sometimes even dirt or garbage into the man’s coffee.  He also tossed Brian's phone onto the floor, allowing Ollie to get it and chew on it. The pale elf certainly kept himself entertained while his beloved was away, but Winnie of course always had something that would stick it's ugly head around the corner to terrorize her. 
“Where is everyone?” Winnie looked around, finding herself lost in the woods. She couldn't remember how she got here or what happened last. It was cold and dark. And something was very, very wrong. There was this sharp panic shooting throughout her body. She took a few steps through the forest before stepping on something.  A human skull. Winnie looked around her seeing scattered bones all over the ground. His breath quickened and she felt purr dread wash over her as this peculiar eerie noise filled her ears. It was almost like a mixture between scraping chalkboards and some really high off key piano being played super fast.  She held her head at the noise, eyes glancing around for an escape route from the forest before suddenly it went silent and there was this shadowy figure staring back at her.  She quickly turned to run, but her feet seemed to take her nowhere. Trees kept passing and passing but the figure was still the same distance away and if anything was getting closer. Winnie opened her mouth and let out a silent scream as the shadow suddenly lunged at her, quick as lightning. 
“Oh God…” Winnie gasped as she shot up from her bed, panting as a bead of sweat dripped down her brow. 
“Darling?” Astarion’s voice suddenly brought her out of her terrified state as she looked over to see him sitting criss-crossed on the armchair with Maddie curled up in his lap. He looked at her with worried eyes and a soft frown. “Are you alright?” 
“Mew…” Maddie suddenly piped up, eyes opening as she looked over at Winnie before hopping out of the elf's lap and stretching.
Winnie was still panting a little, heart pounding as Astarion got up and took a seat on the side of the bed.
 “My love?” Astarion placed his cool hand over one of Winnie’s. Winnie took a deep breath and tried to slow her breathing.
“Sorry I just had a bad dream…. Something was chasing me and I couldn't get away.” Winnie said, taking a few more calming deep breaths. “I-I’m sorry if I disturbed you…You should probably get back to your meditations.” Winnie turned to face away from him. Despite her trying to brush it off Astarion could feel her heart pounding in fear. He bit his lip as an idea came to mind.
“Would you like me to lie with you?” The vampiric elf asked softly. Winnie looked back at him curiously, a blush forming on her cheeks. 
“If you want to…” Winnie stated before shifting and scooting over closer to the wall. Astarion wasted no time getting in and under the covers next to the human female. Winnie stared over at the pale elf as she laid on her side. Astarion looked back with a soft smile forming as he tucked some hair behind her ear. 
“I'm here. I'm not going to let anything hurt you.” He said softly as he ran a thumb over her cheek.
Winnie smiled a bit, eventually allowing herself to move a little closer to him, shifting around to get comfortable. Astarion snuggles up against Winnie, wrapping his arms around her as she shyly lays her head against his chest. It's completely silent but there's somehow something comforting about it. Winnie nuzzled her face into the cool skin of his neck before closing her eyes. 
They stayed like this up until morning. By then Astarion was curled up around her rather possessively, even had one of his legs hooked around her hip. Winnie could feel his hand gently rubbing along her back, cheek resting upon the side of her head as he snuggled against her soft cushy form. Winnie’s face was still nuzzled into the crook of his neck, nose gently pressed against his faded bite scars. His body felt firm, not as cushy and comfortable as her own, but she didn't seem too bothered by it. Astarion wasn't even trancing anymore, his elven nature only required him to need four hours of rest. He was simply blissfully soaking up Winnie’s warmth, eyes half lidded as he hugged her against him. 
Winnie eventually let out a yawn as her eyes slowly blinked open. She pulled back from Astarion's neck just enough to see his face.
“Good morning, beautiful.~” He purred at her softly, voice barely above a whisper.
“Morning…” Winnie yawned out before attempting to sit up, but Astarion still had his arms wrapped around her.  “Astarion, it's time for me to get up.”
“Just stay with me a little longer. You're so soft and warm.~” The vampire cooed, nuzzling his face into her chest and making Winnie turn deep red.
“Brian’s probably going to get up and tell me to do some chores or something…Star…” Winnie huffed.
“I'll gut him if tries to take you from me.” Astarion murmured, face buried in Winnie's plump bosoms. 
“I do believe you'd have to let go of me first to do that silly.” Winnie hummed, absentmindedly playing with Astarion's ivory curls. “Come on, I need to get up.” Winnie stated before pulling herself out of his arms. Astarion let out a displeased sound as Winnie sat up in the bed. The pale elf begrudgingly sat up and looked back at Winnie and pouted with round puppy dog-like eyes. The messy haired female took a moment to stretch out before looking back at the pouting elf.
“Uh…Thanks again for this…I'm honestly surprised you'd want to comfort me over it…..Kinda seems childish needing someone to crawl in bed with me because I had a nightmare.….”
“Darling…Of course I'd comfort you…I know better than most how terrifying your own mind can be.” Astarion cupped Winnie’s cheek looking at her lovingly. “And…I love you…” 
“How can you be so sure of that?” Winnie asked with a sad smile. Her voice is melancholy and full of doubt. 
“Because you're you. You've went out of your way to help me without gaining anything from it and that's how I know you're the same person I fell in love with over and over.” Astarion said, slowly leaning in a little. Winnie smiled with a deep blush. She was honestly rather speechless and a little skeptical, wondering if she was actually dreaming at the moment. If she was, she didn't want to be woken. The brunette haired female found herself leaning in as well, their noses now just barely brushing against one another. Astarion puckered his lips, moving in to kiss Winnie.
“Hey Winnie!~” Footsteps were heard followed by her door knob turning. 
“Shit!” The brunette haired woman’s eyes widened. Just as the door bursts open Winnie quickly shoves Astarion off the bed and behind her dresser before zooming over to the door, making sure most of her room was blocked from sight. 
Nessa stood outside the room seemingly dressed and ready to head out somewhere. The twelve year old stood at about a little over four feet with long sandy blonde hair and brown eyes. 
“What is it, Ness?” Winnie asked, looking down at the young girl as she messed with a few strands of her messy brown locks.
“Dad said that you're supposed to take me out walking today since I'm gonna take Ollie for a walk.”  Vanessa stated.
“Ugh….Why can't he take you?” Winnie huffed in annoyance.
“Because he wants to take a nap and watch his superhero show.” Vanessa explained, “Come one, you can even bring Maddie.” 
“I’m pretty sure your dad said you couldn't be around Maddie?” Winnie hummed.
“We don't have to tell him.” Vanessa said mischievously. 
“Heh, okay. Just give me a few minutes to get dressed and get Maddie ready.” Winnie said, gesturing to her clothes. She was still dressed in the red boxers and black tank she always slept in. 
“Okay! But hurry please!” Vanessa said before Winnie quickly closed the door. Winnie turned and looked back at Astarion who was sitting on the floor rubbing his head with a glare on his face.
“You didn't have to push me.” He grumbled, quietly.
“I'm sorry…I panicked…” Winnie moved over to look at his head with concern. She didn't see any wrong, not even a red spot.
“So…You're going out? Off on a leisurely stroll with your little sister, hm?”
“Stepsister and yeah…I'd rather not put up with her running off to Brian right now.”  Winnie looked off to the side.   
“I suppose I'll just remain here and nurse my poor head and wrist you so cruelly injured.”Astarion said dramatically, gripping his right hand with a sad pitiful pout. 
“I said I was sorry and I really am.” Winnie looked back at him with a pout, grabbing his hand glancing over his wrist before kissing it. Astarion couldn't help but smile almost immediately at the sweet gesture. The softness of her lips pressing against his hand made his ears turn a little pink.
“Mm, I quite like that actually.~ Oh alright, I forgive you.” He said in a sweet tone before ruffling her hair.  “Now go on, it's probably not a good idea to keep the girl waiting.” 
Winnie nodded before grabbing some clothes from her closet and heading into the bathroom to change. Astarion sat on the bed as Maddie crawled out from under it and turned to him with a small meow, as if to say hello. The vampire just hummed as scratched the cat on her little head, eliciting a soft purr as her tail slowly flicked about.
Winnie exited the bathroom, dressed in a black and white t-shirt with a skull and some torn skinny jeans that hugged her thick thighs rather tightly. Astarion lounged about on the bed, red eyes admiring the voluptuous female’s legs and backside as she bent over to pick up her shoes off the ground before getting some socks and continued to get ready. Once she was fully dressed she grabbed a backpack before getting the cat harness and hooking it onto Maddie, who purred happily at the attention. Winnie hooked a leash onto the harness before leading the cat out the door, leaving Astarion to his own devices.
Astarion let out a sigh, a little regretful he didn't just change into bat form and go with her, but he had something he wanted to do.  He waited for Winnie to leave the house before sulking about the single story, three bedroom home. Winnie’s mother had long gone off to work, while Brian slept lazily on the recliner in their bedroom. Astarion crept onto the room, grinning sadistically. He slowly made his way over to the sleeping man before reaching into his pocket and pulling something out.  Astarion's brows knit together as he raised his hand high over the sleeping human, preparing to do his worst.
He then uncapped the marker in his hand and drew a well detailed sketch of a penis on the unpleasant man’s forehead. The vampire bit his lip suppressing a giggle before stopping to admire his masterpiece. He then proceeded to glance around the room, noticing some thumbtacks on a nearby dresser. He grinned ear to pointy ear before grabbing hold of them and placing them into Brian's shoes. He then casually strolled out of the room before returning back to Winnie’s room.
“GODDAMNIT!! AHHHHHHHH!!!!” Brian’s voice was suddenly heard.
~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~~•~•~•~•~•
Winnie walked along the sidewalk as Maddie padded behind her on a leash, inquisitive blue eyes scanning about for any sign of a tiny creature to prey upon. Vanessa walked ahead with a skip in her step as Ollie happily trailed behind her, tail wagging as his tongue hung out making it look almost as if the little dog was smiling. They stopped a few times because Ollie wanted to sniff a specific patch of grass a few hundred times or because Maddie got distracted by a bug, but eventually they approached the end of the street.
“Ooh! I have an idea! Let's go to the gas station around the corner! Please!” Nessa begged. 
“I guess we could, since it's not too far.” Winnie said before continuing up the road. The air was warm, but there was a cool breeze gently brushing through her hair. She could hear the ringing of wind chimes as they passed a couple of houses before spotting two men in their yard.
“Another dead possum. This is the fifth one we found in the last three days, Bill! And my wife said she found three dead raccoons in the backyard! I'm telling you something is out there killing all them critters!” One of the men said. 
“Oh fucks sake Daniel, it's just some coyotes! It's their breeding season, they're everywhere.” 
“Bill, coyotes would have dragged off and eaten the bodies! These possums don't even look like they have any bite marks on em. They're just dead…” Daniel insists. 
Winnie tensed up a bit as she overheard their conversation. Vanessa however seemed to just ignore the two men and continue along the sidewalk.
“So what? You think this is some monster roaming around at night?” Bill laughed.
Oh God…..I hope that's not my monster…
Winnie bit her lip nervously as she continued down the road with Vanessa. She took a deep breath and tried not to worry about it too much. She'd talk to Astarion about it later. Everything would be fine as long as no one saw him outside while he was hunting. Eventually the two females led their pets around the corner and to a small service station that sat just outside the suburbs. Winnie scooped Maddie up and let her hitch a ride in her backpack before entering the air conditioned filled shop. Maddie stayed curled up in Winnie's pack, but occasionally poked her head out to look around.   
“They always have good pizza here. We should get some!” Vanessa suggested, holding Ollie in her arms.
“Hmm….The adult in me says we should probably go home and eat to save money….But…The pizza lover in me is telling the adult to shut up.” Winnie grinned before they walked over to get two small large single slices. Oddly, just as Winnie went to pay for the food she noticed a man watching them out of the corner of her eye. He looked so familiar, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. He had combed back brown hair and was dressed in a rather stylish looking suit. He was looking at the two from outside the window of the store, smiling with a smug almost devilish smirk.
“Ma’am! That'd be 10.99!” The cashier said, breaking Winnie out of her trance.
“Oh sorry! I got distracted!” Winnie said before pulling out her debit card and paying for the pizza. Winnie and Nessa took their food before turning to leave. Winnie’s brown eyes immediately scanned outside for the man from before, but he'd completely vanished. 
It was almost as if he'd never been there at all.
~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•
“Okay….Brian, mom and Vanessa are asleep. Now we need to sneak out as quietly as possible.” Winnie said, running a hand through her hair as Astarion slipped on the black hoodie she had generously gifted him. 
“I am rather excited for our second date.” Astarion said with a grin. 
“We're just going shopping…It's not much of a date activity.” Winnie said bashfully.
“Of course it can. I'm spending time with you, that's all that matters really.” Astarion replied before opening the window and climbing out, stealthily and skillfully. Winnie grabbed her pack and purple hoodie before looking down out the window nervously. She really wasn't in the best shape for sneaking out of the house by her window. 
“Come on, love.” Astarion whispered from down below. The drop from Winnie’s window to the ground wasn't exactly far enough to be dangerous, but it was enough to be intimidating.
Winnie shakily stepped out and onto some pipes that ran along the house. She closed the window on her way out before attempting to climb down the rest of the way, nearly stumbling and falling on her face only to be caught by her vampiric companion. 
“Oh, look at you, trying to fall into my arms.~” Astarion teased with a wink before setting Winnie down. 
“Let's just go before I end up dying by tripping or something.” Winnie said, face turning pink in embarrassment. The two set off, getting onto Winnie’s motorcycle and driving down the street and out of the suburbs. Astarion wrapped his arms around Winnie's soft plump waist. He was a little annoyed by the backpack wedged between them, but tried to hold tightly onto his darling to the best of his abilities. 
Winnie zoomed up towards the city on her bike, slowly down as they reached the CornerStore. Winnie parked her motorcycle before getting off. The night sky was clear and the stars were shining brightly. Winnie walked into the store with Astarion trailing after her, red eyes curiously scanning the store. As Winnie went over to speak to Becca at the cash register, Astarion snuck over into one of the isles. He poked around at some of the merchandise for sale. The elf spotted a small colorful object that somewhat resembled the strange contraptions the people of Winnie’s realm traveled in. Astarion poked it inquisitively before nearly jumping five feet up as the tiny device released a loud repeating honking noise. Astarion quickly got away from the device in case it was some kind of magical explosive, backing up against the other isle in fear. Eventually the device went silent. Astarion let out a sigh of relief before continuing to inspect the isles, eyes growing wide with excitement as he spotted what looked like a dagger! Gleefully he snatched it up, hoping to swipe it and keep it for himself, but as he looked at it closely he realized something was off about the blade. It was quite dull and didn't appear to even be made of metal. The vampire pouted before tossing the fake dagger off to the side with a huff.  
Hells below, they don't even sell decent weapons at this place. 
Meanwhile, Winnie walked over and greeted Becca. “Hey Becca! I was hoping I'd catch you on your shift.” 
“Oh, Hey Wyn! What's up?” Becca greeted with a cheerful smile, long red hair done into a pair of  twin braids that hung over her shoulders. 
“Okay so um….You modded BG3 right, I mean I remember you saying you modded most of your games so I was just wondering?” Winnie said, nervously messing with a piece of her hair. 
“Yeah I did. I added some hair mods, got that anti-abs mod for some of the male characters…A cheat engine and the romance-” 
“Cheat engine! That's it! Do you remember who made yours?” Winnie said, excitedly placing her hands on the conveyor belt as she looked over at Becca. Becca had a confused look on her face as she noticed Winnie's enthusiasm when she mentioned the ‘cheat engine’.  She was about  to speak when she suddenly noticed Astarion sneaking around the isles. 
“Uh…. Winnie, is that your friend from the other day?” The redhead asked. 
“Ah crap, sorry about him. Star! Get over here!” Winnie huffed a bit. 
“Coming lover!~” Astarion said with a mischievous grin as he winked at Winnie. The pale elf sauntered over to his embarrassed human love who was glaring at him slightly.
“I knew he was your boyfriend! Winnie, why didn't you tell me?” Becca whined.
“Well….I-I…I-I…” Winnie sputtered nervously, trying to think of what to say when Astarion wrapped an arm around her. 
“My darling, wants to keep me a secret from her step-father.  She's afraid he wouldn't approve if he knew.” Astarion added. 
“Oh shit, I didn't think of that. Brian has always been a bigot. He'd probably pitch a fit if he found out Winnie was dating a British guy!” 
“Ah yes….That's exactly what I am….”
Whatever the hells British means…?
“Becca, the cheat engine?” Winnie pressed, looking at her friend with pleading eyes. 
“Oh yeah, hmm let me think…..”Becca held her chin for a moment. “Ah, Shadowsomething69…Yeah they deactivated their account. The mod’s gone now.” 
“It's…. ShadowMommy69….” Winnie cringed at the sound of the name coming out of her mouth.
“And I've been trying to find them and maybe get in touch with them.” 
“Oh? Is this person a friend of yours?” Becca asked.
“No, I've never spoken to them, but I need to. Kind of a private thing though…” 
“Hmm…My boyfriend Anthony might be able to get in touch with them. He's a modder and he's pretty active in the modding community, he might be able to tell you more. I think he's actually talked to them, but I'm not sure.” Becca hummed a bit before her eyes lit up as an idea popped into her head. “Ooh! Me and Anthony we're gonna go out to the carnival when it comes to town in two weeks. You two should come with! It'll be a double date! Then you can ask him there!” 
“Two weeks? I don't know-” Winnie began but was quickly intercepted by Astarion.
“That sounds like a wonderful idea! Don't you think so, my sweet?” Astarion asked, looking at Winnie with pleading puppy dog eyes.
“I guess…so…” Winnie sighed.
“Awesome! I'll text you the details later and come pick y'all up in my truck.” Becca smiled before suddenly some old lady walked into the store.
“Excuse me! I need help finding some cat food!” The old woman asked.
“Of course, right this way.” Becca said before leading the old lady off.
“Well, I guess we should go now.” Winnie huffed before walking out of the store with Astarion following after. 
“What's the matter, love? I thought you'd be thrilled to go on another date?” Astarion quizzed.
“What if something happens between now and then? Like some world ending bullshit happens because I can't find the idiot that made a vampire pop out of my computer.” 
“Sweetie, you're making me look optimistic. And that's worrying.” Astarion placed his hands on Winnie's face.  “I'm not going to let anything happen to you, my love. I swear it. And besides I've dealt with the end of the world once already, surely the second time won't be as bad as the first.” 
“Alright….But you do realize there are clowns at the carnival?” Winnie rose an eyebrow with a slight smirk.
“I…uh…Of course I do! But I'm not bothered by it! And I am certainly NOT afraid if that's what you are implying!” Astarion crossed his arms with a scoff.
“Okay….If you say so…” Winnie said with a mischievous giggled, “anyway we should get going. We've got shopping to do!” The human female said before hopping onto her motorcycle.
Astarion made a ‘hmph’ noise before getting on after her. The two drove into the city, being greeted by all the lights and noise of modern civilization. Astarion was still memorized by it all.
“These metal contraptions your people ride in, are they dangerous?” He asked as they zipped down the road, slowing down as they came to a red light. 
“They can be. But we got rules to help keep people safe when we use them. Different sides of the roads you're supposed to be on and places you have to slow down. It's all systematic I reckon.” Winnie mused, feeling Astarion grip around her waist. “Of course not everyone uses them.” Winnie murmured glaring at a small car that just drove out in front of the red light. Astarion continued to ask a few questions as they continued deeper into the heart of the city. Winnie tried to answer to the best of her ability while keeping her eyes on the road. 
About twenty minutes later they arrived at a large building titled ‘SuperStore.’ Winnie parked off to the side, taking a deep breath as she got off her bike. He'll, even at 8:00 at night this place was packed.  Astarion got off Winnie's motorcycle and quickly grasped the pudgy female’s hand in his as they walked into the store. 
“Hells!” Astarion squeaked as the doors suddenly automatically opened, squeezing Winnie’s hand slightly. 
“It's okay Star, just doors.” Winnie teased with a grin. Astarion rolled his eyes.
“I can see that now.” He huffed before the two ventured into the store. The ‘SuperStore’ had everything you could possibly need, clothes, food, furniture, toys, electronics, you name it. Though this was pretty much the reason it always had people packed up like sardines inside. 
Winnie didn't care too much for the crowds, they made her anxious, but she had to clothe her vampire so sacrifices had to be made. Thankfully his hand wrapped around her smaller one made her feel a little more at ease.  Winnie glanced up as she noticed the security camera and television screen that was on the security camera. She blinked for a moment noticing it looked as if she was holding onto thin air on screen. 
Huh, I guess vampires don't show up on camera.
Winnie immediately took Astarion to the clothing section and immediately smiled from ear to ear as she noticed him searching through the clothing with the giddiest of grins.
“Hm what about this?” Astarion purred and held out a black cropped tank and short leather jacket on a hanger. Winnie grabbed some jeans to go with the outfit.
“Here, try it with this. There's a room you can change in over there.” Winnie said before pointing at the men’s fitting room. She waited as he went to try it on, a shiver going down her spine. 
Winnie could feel eyes on her, as if she was being watched. Hunted maybe. However when she looked she only saw what appeared to be regular old SuperStore shoppers. No one particularly intimidating, unless you count some dude walking around with saggy pants that look like they were about to fall off. But Winnie still felt this uneasiness in the pit of her stomach. 
Just nerves. You're alright.
She mentally told herself. Eventually Astarion walked out of the fitting room in the outfit. He looked rather stylish and the cropped shirt exposing his abdomen was rather enticing. 
“Well, what do you think?” He asked.
“You look good.” Winnie said, shyly with a blush. 
Astarion crossed his arms with a pout.
“Just good? Really, you can do better than that!” He whined.
“More beautiful than all the stars in the sky. There, satisfied?” Winnie replied.
“A bit sappy for my tastes, but it'll do I suppose.” The vampire sassed, playing with one of his curls. 
“Okay okay, now go and get redressed. We've got more outfits to look for.” Winnie hummed, waving the vampire off. The process repeated a few times Astarion got an outfit he liked before changing into it and demanding satisfactory praise from Winnie. And if he didn't get it he'd act like a drama queen until she said something he liked. This continued until they had at least five different outfits that were to Astarion's taste. 
Dear God, I'm about to spend 200 dollars on this man….
Winnie mentally whimpered, already feeling the stinging pain of her bank account getting lighter. 
She pondered the possibility of eventually pleading with the vampire to get a night time job, but then the idea of all the chaos he could cause completely squashed that idea. Winnie sighed and pushed the dreadful thoughts out of her mind as she continued to look around with her vampiric love. The two eventually came up towards the jewelry counter as the elf’s red eyes scanned over some earrings. Studs and small hoops in particular. The ones he appeared to be interested in were gold naturally considering his rather painful silver allergy.   
“See something you like, Star?” Winnie asked. 
“I've always wanted a pair of these. Unfortunately my..ahem… previous occupations never allowed it.” Astarion explained.  Winnie sighed a bit, probably about to regret what she was going to offer.
“Would you like me to buy them for you?” Winnie asked begrudgingly.
“Yes please!” Astarion giggled before planting a kiss upon Winnie's cheek.  Winnie blinked, face turning red as the biggest dopey grin spread across her face. Her annoyance about the money completely vanished. She then proceeded to ring the bell at the counter and summon the jewelry department worker.
“Hello, how can I help you?” A middle aged blonde haired woman stepped up to the counter. 
“Yeah uh ... .my…. partner would like his ears pierced please…Also some earrings.” Winnie said shyly. The woman immediately looked Astarion over, eyes widening as she noticed his teeth.
“Goodness are those fangs? Crazy things you kids will do these days.” The woman said. Astarion looked as if he was about to say something, but Winnie quickly spoke up.
“Well you know fashion can be pretty crazy sometimes! My boyfriend definitely had a wild goth phase a while back.” Winnie chuckled nervously, “anyway let's just get the ear piercing over with…Gotta get home before it gets too late.” The brunette rambled on.
“Alright, take off the hood, son.” The lady said. 
“Winnie my hair.” Astarion murmured to her. 
“Alright I'll get it, just hold still, I'll get it!” She said, pulling down his hood and fixing his pretty white curls. 
“Oh, good lord those ears!” The woman gasped, “Are they real?”
“Yes, he had a birth defect as a baby. He's real sensitive about it though.” Winnie whispered out the last part and the woman just gasped and nodded. Astarion glared over at Winnie with an unamused expression. A little peeved she wasn't letting him talk. Winnie just smiled and laughed nervously. The lady approached him, taking out the earring gun as Winnie stood by, watching nervously.
“AH! FUCKING HELLS!”
Unfortunately elf ears were extremely sensitive.
~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~
“They look good, Star. Honestly you look really good.” Winnie complimented as they arrived home. Astarion was dressed in one of the outfits he'd picked out while Winnie had the rest packed into her trunk. 
“Everything looks good on me, darling.~” Astarion smirked, wind blowing through his snowy white curls as they rode home on Winnie's bike. Winnie let out a yawn, her eyes feeling a bit sleepy.  Winnie was so ready to get home and sleep.
Maybe even cuddle up with her vampire boyfriend again who knows? If she could just work up the courage to ask. Astarion had a pair of blood red studs in his elven ears which matched rather well with his eyes.  Eventually they reached the suburbs, slowing down as Winnie’s house was in sight. Slowly they pulled into the driveway, getting their bags out of the motorcycle’s little trunk and sneaking back around the house to Winnie’s window.
Astarion climbed up first and pulled the window open.
“Clothes, love.”  He whispered, before Winnie tossed him the bags. The vampire tossed them in before climbing back down. “Now you, precious thing.~” He purred, ushering for Winnie to climb up next. 
Winnie took a deep breath before climbing up, struggling a bit as she attempted to wiggle her way through the window, legs flailing a bit. Red eyes were glued to her plump rear end. 
As delicious as this sight is, I should probably assist.
Astarion placed his hands on the chubby female’s backside, pushing her up suddenly. She let out a squeak and dropped into her room, falling onto the floor with a huff.  Astarion swiftly climbed up after her, slipping in through the window with ease.
“And here we are, safe and sound!” Astarion sighed and stretched out while Winnie still laid on the floor, face down, ass up, as she tried to catch her breath from the climb up, panting like she had just run a marathon. 
“Um….Who are you?” A small voice suddenly asked from the other side of the room. Astarion looked over to see Winnie's twelve year old step sister, eyes wide with shock.
“Shit.” Astarion breathed out.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Man, I did not mean for it to get this long! So, what did you think? Did you know who the mystery man following Winnie is? Any concerns about Astarion making the neighborhood's critter population go down? Are you mad I had Astarion and Winnie's kiss interrupted? Oh, what am I saying everyone gets triggered by that trope lol.
~Druid
Taglist: @astarioffsimpmain , @marcynomercy , @iamsexytrash , @gaymistakeboi , @divineknightmare , @tinyfreakgirl , @tiedyedghoulette , @misscrissfemmefatale, @gianchan-de , @jaksfanficsaver , @the-disaster-in-waiting , @hp-art-studio , @im-just-a-simp-le-whore , @dajeong , @iamnotokei
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