#Thena here devoting her heart and soul to the man

[softquietsteadylove]

in your latest piece of the receptionist au thena feared that gilgamesh would fall in love with somebody else one day. what if gil has a business meeting with a woman who wants to lay a hand on him. and one day thena wanted to grab something from her desk and has to see how this woman is kissing gilgamesh and Thena runs upstairs, tears in her eyes. and after gil is done with his crime business for the day he wants to spend some time with thena but she's avoiding him. he tries to talk to her but she's so angry and sad and so scared. she thinks gil has enough and doesn't want her anymore. some angsty fluffy drama :)

Thena taps her pen on the desk. Gil is in a meeting with some woman who runs casinos...or something. They have profit shares to discuss, and Thena has no reason to barge in on them.

No excuse, really.

She doesn't want to feel this way. It's not as if she would have any reason to feel insecure with someone as wonderful as Gil. For a hardened criminal, he really is the most wonderful partner she could imagine having.

Maybe that's it, though--the criminal part. Maybe she worries that he misses this life. He's been thriving since they came back to Korea to do some business again. So much so, that they extended their visit. And Thena can see some of the worries that settled into him since moving to London lift off of him.

Does he miss being a crime boss? Does he feel too suffocated in London, stuck in her flat all day, playing househusband for her?

Thena stands abruptly, determined to just...just...just ask if he needs anything before she runs out to the store. It's a lame excuse, but he's been a meeting with that woman for an hour, now. And Thena saw clear as day the way she looked at Gil.

Thena knows very well that Gil is a desirable man. She doesn't expect other people to be ignorant to it, after all. But it would be nice if she hadn't seen the woman literally lick her lips at the sight of him.

Thena opens the door, ready to ask if he wants a convenience store drink or something. But what she sees - before the door is even all the way open - is that woman, freely and happily leaning over Gil in his chair. Her hands are on his arms, and she's...she's kissing him.

Thena turns. She walks towards the elevators, practically sprinting the second half of the way. She slams her fingers against the buttons, desperate to escape what she just saw.

It's burned into her mind, though. That woman's silken black hair, the perfect ivory of her skin, her petite and willowy form. Her lips on Gil's. Her lips touching Gil's lips. Her hands on his arms--arms he uses to hold her every night, after work, after dinner, in their shared bed-

She storms off the elevator into the penthouse above his office. She feels absolutely sick, her breath coming in short gasps and her tears stinging her eyes. Her hands are shaking. She walks through the penthouse and directly to their bed, throwing herself onto it and pulling the covers up over herself. She curls herself up into a ball, trying to ignore Gil's half of the bed with his scent still clinging to it.

She doesn't know how long she lies there for. Obviously she's not doing a very good job as his receptionist, but fuck that. Fuck all of this. And fuck that woman for kissing her Gilgamesh like she has any fucking right.

She used to think about this, she reminds herself. She used to feel like such a lost little fawn when she first moved to Korea, literally trying to rebuild her life from the ground up. And then as she fell in love with her boss, her life got...rebuilt around that--around him. And the thought of having to see him fall in love with someone would plague her when she was harbouring those quiet feelings from afar.

She wonders if it would be as painful as this is now.

"Naekkeo?"

Thena sniffles, staying wrapped up in her cocoon of sheets and duvet. She could have left the building, she supposes. She could have locked the bedroom door and told him to go fuck himself. But why didn't she?

"Thena," Gil calls out softly as he walks into the bedroom. He takes cautious steps, trying to gauge how she's doing. "Sweetheart, will you look at me?"

She stays closed off. She doesn't hear him walk away, though. "Why?"

"Please, Gongjunim?" he tries again, with a different petname for her. He moves closer, sitting on her side of the bed at her feet. "I don't know what you saw-"

Thena stretches out her legs, giving him a bony kick right in the hip. She hears him grunt and finally pokes her head out. "You mean that associate of yours kissing you?"

Gil nods, and she wonders if she expected him to try and deny it or not. She wonders if she wishes he had at least tried to deny it a little. "Before I kicked her out?--yes, she did kiss me."

Thena throws herself against her pillow again.

"Baby, please," Gil sighs, leaning over so he can push the duvet down and brush her hair away from her face. "You know I don't want anyone but you."

She does know that, but she doesn't feel any less stupid over it.

"I told her to get away from me," Gil whispers, pressing light kisses wherever she'll let him. "That I'm very happy in my relationship with you."

Thena slowly turns over to look at him.

He sighs, more able to see now that she's been crying. He pulls her up to him, brushing his thumbs over the reddened corners of her eyes. "I'm so sorry, Thena. You know I would never do anything to hurt you."

She does know that.

"I love you," he whispers, kissing her softly, one hand on her waist and the other tangled in her hair, just the way he likes it.

Thena pulls away from him, and the devastated look on his face is almost enough to wipe away the vision of that woman all over him. "I can still see her, leaning over you-"

"I'm sorry," he whispers again, obviously prepared to keep on apologising as many times as it takes. "It came out of nowhere!"

Thena levels a look at him that makes the hardened crime lord shrivel. "Nowhere, Gil?"

He catches her meaning and offers her an impish smile, "come on, Sweetheart. You know what I'm like with that kind of thing."

Yes, she has extensive experience with how dense he is to someone having feelings for/being attracted to him.

"You really didn't notice," Thena glares, crossing her arms at him. He rests his chin on the hand on top of her knees, looking like a dog being scolded. "The hand brushing, the light arm touches, the eyelash fluttering?--none of it?"

Gil stares right up at her with those big dark eyes of his, "no. You think I can notice anything about her while you're in the room?"

Thena rolls her eyes in a huff, determined to stay strong and not get all charmed and fluttery over his cute little remarks. "You're terrible."

He winces, drawing up his shoulders, "a terrible boyfriend, maybe. But I'm telling you the truth, Naekkeo. I had no idea that woman was going to come onto me. Because I only have eyes for you."

Thena leans back against her pillows again, still crossing her arms and now pouting. He's so good at making himself at home in this heart of hers. She gives him a frosty side-eye. "You know, most women wouldn't care for your explanation. They would see you kissing another woman and that would be it."

Gil looks at her with hope in his eyes. He keeps his arm wrapped around her knees as he holds up a finger, "y'know, I don't consider it a kiss. She...put her mouth on mine."

Well, it does sound a little better when he puts it that way.

Thena takes in her loyal, devoted househusband, looking at her with puppydog eyes and a pouted lip. He knows she won't make him sleep on the couch. The only other time she'd tried it, she just brought him back to bed - because she couldn't sleep without him - anyway.

Gil senses her defrosting and leans forward, "I'm all done work for the day--what do you wanna do? Anything you want, baby. Are you hungry? D-Do you want me to take you to the spa?"

Thena cracks half a smile, if only at the sight of Gilgamesh - a major crime lord of Seoul - suggesting cute little things he can do to earn his forgiveness. She's going to make him work for it, but still.

"You name it," he smiles eagerly as she sits more upright against her pillows.

Thena maintains her right to withhold kisses from him, crossing her arms again and raising a brow. "I suppose I am hungry. I was about to ask if you wanted to order something when I walked in on you-"

"Okay, you got it!" he rushes, scrambling to stand off the bed and lean down to kiss her cheek and pull his jacket on all in the same second. "I'll get your absolute favourite, baby, you stay here--relax! Why don't you get into your comfy clothes? I'll bring food, and some wine, and we can spend all night here, okay?"

"Mm-hm," she smirks at him as he dashes out the door.

"I love you!"

Thena curls up under the blankets again. She will get changed into her comfy clothes, and she knows he's going to come back with a massive floral arrangement, and chocolates, and probably even more than that to go way overboard. She pulls out her phone, laying it on his pillow as she types.

I love you too. Hurry back xo

[intothemultifandom]

– 𝐋𝐄 𝐓𝐎𝐋𝐎𝐀 || 𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐨𝐫

SUMMARY: If you were only ever created to serve Arishem, it did not feel like it. Not when you’d grown to cherish your people in the South Pacific and the entirety of Earth as reverently as you did and not when your heart, artificial or not, belonged to a man from beneath the sea. PAIRINGS: Namor x Eternal!Reader TAGS/WARNINGS: fluff ; light angst ; spoilers for Eternals (2021)

If you were only ever created to serve Arishem, it did not feel like it.

Not when you’d grown to cherish your people in the South Pacific and the entirety of Earth as reverently as you did and not when your heart, artificial or not, belonged to a man from beneath the sea.

In the aftermath of Ajak’s death, of Sersei’s frantic call that detailed what was happening–it didn’t take you too long to gather your belongings, to retrieve all the documents you needed just in case before you rushed behind your house, down the pathway and towards the secluded formation that was hidden deep behind your home.

In the cove you’d created decades ago, he waits for you as he always does. Somehow always finding his way back to your little hideout, again and again, as devoted as the waves that lapped at your shore.

Skin beaded with water, dark eyes pinned on you, always on you–the man you find does not match the names he’d been given over the past five hundred years, a fraction to your own existence. 

K'uk'ulkan. Niño sin amor. Namor. 

Legends only ever depicted him as one of two things: The merciless feathered serpent god worshipped by a long existing culture or the child without love, he who would light the world aflame if only he was not shackled to the ocean. 

Here in this refuge you’d created, however, you’d learned that he was more than just that. Had spent nearly four hundred years unearthing every cavern of his mind, body and soul.

Without saying it, you know his worry has guided him through the currents today. 

“I came to make sure you were unhurt after the Earthquake,” he says lowly, lacking the teasing lilt he often greeted you with. “But it seems you might know more than me already...”.

The armour you wear is dappered in metallic [favourite colour] with [complimentary colour] accents, something he has not seen before in all of your years together.

Wearing it not even a week after the world felt Tiamut’s movement is all the evidence he needs, a damning fact that the tremors felt all over the world are more than what they are. 

Slowly, Namor rises from the water and as he does, sea-foam bubbles around him, the worry you weren’t even aware had begun to fester dispersing just the same. 

“I take it this is not for pleasure?” he continues, his nonchalance contradicted by the twitch of winged ankles. 

“I’m afraid not,” you reply in lieu of your normal greeting.

His eyes linger on the glow of your hands, of the way your shoulders and arms are taught in a way he is unfamiliar with and you’re warmly reminded that he is not the only one who has been made bare before in this cove. 

As detailed as you can, you explain to him what you had learned in the past few hours: Arishem had created your family to evolve the human species, not for their own betterment; but so their progression could provide enough energy for a Celestial to emerge from the Earth’s core once the Deviants were eliminated.

The world is ending, you reveal, almost choking on the cold, ugly truth. 

When Sersei had explained it the first time, between rasped breaths and soft cries, you didn’t allow yourself time to lament what it all meant.

But now, seeing what you’ve come to consider the architect of your very being in front you, the truth unravels in a way that you cannot deny what it is.

An anchor that will drown you, or has drowned you already, considering all you’ve lost before. The people, memories, the love. 

"We’ve never fought a Celestial before,” you admit, thinking of Thena, anguished and desperate, the echo of infinity seared into her gaze, before you think of your people and of him. “But we want this planet to be our last. I want it to be my last.” 

It is not the words, but they might as well be.  

In an instant, Namor grips your wrist, pulling you back into him as you huff with surprise. 

His arms band around your waist, keeping you caged where he can nose along the column of your neck, hear the hitch in your breath at his closeness.

“If this is then true, tell me why I shouldn’t persuade you to stay with me?” he growls lowly at the base of your throat, easily shifting between calm and not, as fluid as the sea. “I could compel you to stay here where it’s safe, where you can stay here with me,”.

You can’t help but groan under the ministrations of his teeth on your skin when he begins to nibble, hands moving towards his face as you summon every ounce of sensibility in you to turn his head away. A hard feat, given the way your blood sings as slivers of his siren melody bleed into his words. 

“Because though you would rather see the world burn, you would protect your people by any means necessary,” you gasp, feeling your fondness for him swell when he stills, caught.

For Talocan, Namor would protect his Kingdom by any means and at any cost. Even if he despised the rest of the world and would gladly burn the surface asunder, he would not condemn his people to burn, too. 

You and your family, as splintered as they’ve come to be, are the greatest gamble he can take to save them and everyone else. Even if it means he can’t join you.

Silent in his defeat, Namor–sweet, enchanting Namor– tilts your head to his languidly, leaning forward and bringing you in a kiss that makes you both want to leave and surrender yourself to him all at once.

Humming, he slots your mouths together even more as he shifts you in his arms, and you have to swallow the moan the bubbles in your throat once he pulls away, fingers digging into the flesh of your hips. 

“The ocean has given me many miracles, mi puksik’al. But it has also given me many tragedies...” he says hoarsely, after a moment.

Leaning his forehead against your own to stare you deep in the eyes, it’s a wonder he’s only ever been called cruel and monstrous things when he all he is is bewitching. Wondrous even as he pleads: “I cannot afford one more, [Your Name].” 

As he breathes, you press your nose against his and do the same. Feeling your heart break and mend all at once as you take life from his breath. 

When you first landed on Earth, you found that there was no greater resource on the planet than its ocean. Deep, vast and endless. A force that could give as easily as it took away. 

You’d revered it and its various forms the same way you did the man before you. Perhaps less than him now, you admit in this moment, when he leans back and brushes his lips against the crown of your head. 

“Come back to me,” comes the murmur. “Meent’ uts”.

Closing your eyes, all you can do is nod as you take in the scent of salt and tears, rasping, “E lele le toloa ae ma’au i le auvai” as you surge upward to breathe him in once more. 

NOTES:

Since all the Eternals all belong to different ethnic groups, Reader is Polynesian. I imagine her living somewhere on the island of Niue, as it is a coral atoll and has natural coves and chasms already though you can imagine otherwise.  

The way Reader “takes life from his breath” when pressing their forehead against Namor’s references the Maori people and the action of the hongi, which recalls the Māori legend of the creation of the first earthly woman, Hineahuone. She was formed from clay by the creator god Tāne, who then breathed life into her nostrils.

“E lele le toloa ae ma’au i le auvai” is a Samoan proverb meaning that life may take someone far from home but they will always return. Case and point: Reader and Namor. 

E lele le toloa ae ma’au i le auvai = The toloa bird flies far, but will always return to the water.

I am not an expert in the Mayan/Yucate language, which I believe is the main language Namor speaks, but I’ve taken the following translations from various online sources and apologise sincerely if its not quite right. Please correct me where I’m wrong and I’ll note it down for future reference. I’d also appreciate any reputable linguistic sources for all my fanfics moving forward, but anyway:

mi puksik’al = my heart

Meent’ uts = please