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targaryenrealnessdarling · 6 months ago

Text

Flower Faced

Aemond x wife female character

Summary: a series of diary entries written by Aemond Targaryen following his tumultuous marriage and the realm's descent into war | word count: 13k~ | warnings: angst, smut, infertility, chronic illness, war, character death, wife features is described briefly, spoilers for f&b

15th day of the 4th moon, 128

They have made me a husband. A prince wed to a flower plucked too soon.

She stood before me by the Septon, trembling in her silken gown, her face pale as the moon. I was told her beauty would make up for her lack of standing. That her delicate disposition was proof of her good breeding, a prize unfit for a mere second son. How fitting, then, that it was to me she was given. A scrap for a scrap.

I find myself wondering how she might have appeared in better health, had her frame not been so thin, her skin not so colourless. She is the image of a flower wilting in the frost. I cannot fathom what my father intended when he arranged this match. Did he think her weakness would breed strength in me? That I would look upon her frailty and find myself tempered by pity?

Perhaps it is too kind to assume that my father put any thought into the matter. The one of little importance.

I feel nothing but irritation. A prince needs heirs, and she is as likely to bear a child as a winter rose is to bloom.

She retired early tonight, her maids fretting over her as though she were a babe in swaddling clothes. Preparing her for the bedding no doubt. Several lords approached me thereafter asking for a ‘bedding ceremony’. I fear her gentle heart would have given out if such a thing were to actually happen.

They tell me her name means ‘grace’ in the ancient tongues of the Reach. Grace, indeed. She moves as though her bones might shatter beneath her weight, her steps feather light. I suppose if I were to be truthful and perhaps kind, which I do not know why I should, I would admit there is a beauty in her fragility. Such is the beauty of a fine layer of ice on water in the early winter, easily broken with a mere breath to its surface.

I have no need for beauty, and no patience for weakness. Yet weakness is what I was served, wrapped in lace and trembling upon the bedsheets.

When consummation was inevitable, I thought I might snap the poor thing in two when I fucked her. She is so slight, so frail, as though the gods built her of spun glass and good intentions alone. She did not cry, though I expected it. She lay beneath me as one might endure the bite of a leech, silent, resigned, and still.

I despised her for it.

Not for her fragility, but for her acceptance. For the way she stared at the canopy, her lips pressed into a pale line, her hands gripping the sheets as if she feared being swept away by my storm. I do not know what I wanted. A protest, perhaps. A tear. Something to remind me that she was alive, that I was not bedding a corpse.

When it was over, she whispered, “Thank you, my prince,” so softly that I nearly thought I imagined it.

Thank you. For what? For duty? For what she believed was kindness? She did not look at me as she said it, and yet those two words have haunted me since.

It has been three nights now, and I have not returned to her chamber. Mother, ever dutiful, had broken fast with me the next morning to ensure ‘the act’ had indeed taken place, of which I confirmed it had. But she pressed no further on the matter, as if that was all that was important.

I tell myself it is for her benefit, that I do not wish to worsen her condition. But the truth, if I am to be honest here, is that I do not know what to do with her. She is no adversary, no equal, no dragon.

She is a flower pressed flat by the weight of its own stem.

2nd day of the 5th moon, 128

The rain has not ceased for a fortnight. King’s Landing reeks of soiled hay and wet stone. I've kept to my chambers to avoid the rancid air, but the storm intrudes all the same.

She has been ill again. The maesters tell me that her disposition is weakened, the damp worsening her condition. It grates on me relentlessly to think that something as simple as rain is enough to set my sickly wife abed for days on end. As if she is made of sugar and will dissolve if she steps outside for a single moment.

I half-expected to hear of her passing this morning when I visited her. Pale and fragile as she appeared when her maids opened the curtains. And when she rose out of bed to look out the window, it was painfully, like a stubborn plant forcing its way through frozen soil.

I asked her why she did not wish to rest.

Her smile was as weak as her body.

“Once these rains have washed away, the grass in the Reach will be as green as those in the Seven Heavens.”

She thought of her home even now. She did not consider King's Landing her home.

Since she uttered those words, I have tried to see it as she does. To see past the filth and shit of King's Landing and imagine the fertile fields and warm sun. As she hails from the Reach, she is drawn to flowers, hence why I noted that day that there were so many strewn about the room in various vases.

They wilt in the damp, just as she does.

Sometimes I find myself watching her more often than perhaps I should. I reason that as much as I loathe it, she is my wife. Whether she notices my watching her and says nothing or is ignorant to it, I do not know.

She moves slowly, as if not to shatter her fragile bones, but not out of fear I now see. She is afraid of little I have noticed, though she has every reason to be. A girl as sickly as her wed to a prince known for his temper, gods, she should tremble when I blink.

But she does not.

I regret I spoke harshly to her. Told her to rest. Save her strength. To let the flowers wilt if they must.

And before retreating back to her bedsheets at the will of her maid, she said.

“Even wilted flowers have worth, my prince.”

I had no reply for her.

11th day of the 6th moon, 128

She looks better today. Has done for several days in a row, much to the maesters relief.

The flush in her cheeks was neither from fever or strain, but life. And seeing her now as opposed to how I had often known her, she was beaming with it. Whether it was out riding or the gardens, she would routinely ignore the advice of those who cared for her health to bask in the sun, if only for a mere few hours.

Her breath was even, her voice was clear.

For the first time since our wedding, we spoke freely.

I had not meant to stay for long, truly. But we walked through the gardens on a warm early afternoon. Although I had to stop every few paces to allow her to bend to retrieve some half-wilted flowers so she might place them in her basket.

She said the maesters said she will likely never be strong enough to bear children. At least healthy ones, or ones who would draw breath once born. That feminine melancholy drifted over her face for a moment, as if she suspected I already knew that truth myself.

And truly I had. It was why I had made no attempt to bed her since our consummation.

I did not know how to respond. Usually women speak of such matters with carefully shielded delicacy, whereas she spoke plainly. But I could not bring myself to express the disappointment I should have felt, or the anger that had simmered beneath the surface for so long.

Anger, perhaps not. Weary, maybe.

My answer was not one she would have expected. That I never asked for children. But in my stupidity, I had in fact said, I never asked her for children.

It seems I have driven an already sheathed blade even deeper.

My words may have been misshapen but they were the truth and that is all I have to offer her, is it not? I hold no love for her, but I would never deny such a fragile creature as my wife what I would give any other.

She said nothing. She lowered her lashes and the silence that followed was so unbearable I considered leaving her altogether.

I never asked her for children.

True enough, I suppose. But even I can see how little truth matters in the face of what I’ve taken from her.

I know as well as anyone, what I have actually expressed is that I expect nothing from her.

And perhaps the latter is more cruel.

14th day of the 6th moon, 128

Tonight, we coupled for the second time in our long marriage.

I had avoided her bed for months, claiming duties, council matters and brief bouts of illness that she no doubt didn’t believe as reasoning for my absence. Though after a time, people were beginning to whisper, so I had no choice but to comply. And there was a time where I believed my own mistruth, that I was sparing her. But in truth, I did not wish to see her fragility laid bare again.

She never protested, and likely never would.

So I went to her.

Her chambers were lit by a single candle dotted at several points around the room. She sat at her vanity, pulling her hair free of tight braids and pins. Her hands were so small and pale, I wondered if this small action itself did not overwhelm her delicate nerves.

It was she who broke the silence.

“Have you come to pity me, my prince?”

I almost turned away then.

She let me unlace her gown, let me bare her to the dim firelight.

It was less frantic though no less awkward. She held me as though she feared I might vanish, and I let her. Perhaps it was the wine, or the quiet of the hour. When I touched her, she shivered. And when my lips accidentally brushed against her neck, she tilted her head back. The floral perfumes she had applied to her skin felt too much of a distraction.

When I finished she looked up at me. It has always unsettled me, her ability to look upon me without flinching. I am a dragon and she is a petal, and yet it is I who wilts beneath her gaze.

Even the bloodiest of injuries had no such effect on me.

- - the day of the 8th moon, 128

Aegon celebrated his nameday swiftly as he usually does. It is the third time in one month where he has had to be dragged from celebrations because he is unable to handle his wine. He had of course revelled in the attention, called for songs, dancers and yet more Dornish Red, as if he had not had enough.

The lords humoured him. The ladies pretended not to notice. Father was not even in attendance, it was mother and Helaena who sat diligently at the top table, faces sullen as if they held the weight of the Realm on their shoulders.

For my part, I watched from the shadows, as I often do. My appetite for such things is thin at best, and thinner still with the murmurs that reached my ears tonight.

They speak of her. My wife.

“Too weak to attend,” one said. “She’s been frail since the wedding,” said another.

I could feel their eyes upon me, their pity or curiosity or judgment, I could not say which was worse. It felt such a disservice for others to remark upon her the way I have.

Nobody was as shocked as I to see her when the doors to the hall opened. There she stood, walking carefully into the light, bathed in a dress that was not crimson, not dark, never. But red all the same, as if she had thought of honouring the house she wed into but not yet willing to loosen the reins on herself entirely. The colour was pale, muted, a shade more suited to her, though it did little to disguise her frailty. Truth be told, she does look sickly in red.

I knew she had wanted to wear it, though. That was why she had chosen it.

For a moment, I thought she might collapse under the weight of the eyes and silence on her.

I thought to rise as she approached me, but for some reason I did not. She inclined her head to me so faintly I doubt anyone else saw, and I saw her locks were adorned with jewellery she had not usually worn.

She inquired as to the whereabouts of my brother, no doubt asking whether the celebrated prince was on his very own nameday, but she did not seem downtrodden when I informed her he had retired to his chambers. As if it were a mere formality.

“Shall we dance, husband?”

I thought to refuse her, to spare her the strain, but the look in her eyes silenced me. And I could not very well be seen to refuse my own wife. She extended her hand, pale and trembling, and I took it without a word.

I thought it would embarrass me, this spectacle before the court. Her weakness had done so before, and I had no doubt it would do it again. But I could not bear to say the words aloud, not when she had dressed in my house colours for me.

I led her to the centre of the hall, her small frame so light beneath my guiding hand that I wondered how she had summoned the strength to stand, let alone to dance. When I placed my hand at her waist and we began to move, I noticed almost immediately that she was struggling to keep pace with the beat. Her breaths were short, shallow, her fingers tightening on my shoulder as though holding herself upright by sheer force of will. Still, she did not stop.

“I hope I have not made a spectacle of us,” she whispered.

I only said there was no need for her to apologise.

When her steps faltered again, I acted without thinking. I lifted her slightly, guiding her feet onto mine so that she would not have to move. She blinked at me, startled, but did not protest. For the first time that evening, her breaths seemed to ease, her grip on my shoulder loosening ever so slightly.

I kept my gaze forward, refusing to meet the eyes of the court. If they found it amusing, I would not give them the satisfaction of seeing it bother me.

I told her that when I was born, it was said I was half the size of Aegon, but twice as fierce. He had cried louder, but they said I fought harder. That perhaps it was the cruelty of the gods to make those of us born weaker feel as though we must prove ourselves twice over.

She studied me, with her soft eyes, but I did not meet them. I regret that now.

When I lost my eye, I told her, they pitied me. Looked at me as if I were a thing to be mended, or worse, endured. And that is I imagine how she feels when they look at her.

She said nothing for a moment, but the faint pressure of her hand against my shoulder told me she had heard.

“Yet, you have made yourself strong. Where I have not.”

For a moment I could only stare at her. But when I found my voice, it was hushed, so that others dancing around us might not hear.

“Strength is not always shown through the sword.”

She replied with nothing.

Perhaps we are not so different, she and I.

19th day of the 10th moon, 128

She is with the maesters today.

I knew this but I found myself in her chambers regardless.

Aegon, in his perpetual state of drunkenness, had the gall to make a joke of it. Saying that she was with child. The court laughed of course, unable to tell the difference between a joke and insult. I am grateful she was not present to hear it. And for the fact that I did not defend her.

Her desk was an array of papers and cuttings as if she had left in a hurry. Lately she was more tired than usual, and instead of chills and shakes, she was hot to the touch and feverish. Perhaps nobody will understand her condition truly, but I am told that she has been this way since birth.

Lately I have found that practicing with the sword does not steal my attention the way it used to, so there I found myself, looking through the smatterings of paper and flowers, and I doubt it will be the last time.

A leather bound notebook sat snugly atop everything else, the pages fanned out as though abandoned mid-turn. I thought perhaps it was a diary, not unlike the one I keep myself, somewhere to keep my thoughts and worries if they arise. But the little writing that was present was descriptive, brief, and so feminine in its curves and loops that I could barely read it.

When we were first wed, and for several months since then, I had watched closely and from afar as well as she insisted on walks through the gardens, even despite the advice of the maesters. She could not be stopped. She would fill her basket slung over her elbow with wilted, near-dead flowers, the petals curling inward, their stems drooping,

I had not thought to ask her why then. Why she collected such things if they were already so close to falling short of bloom.

The flowers are pressed between the pages of a book, their fragile shapes preserved as though she has defied time itself. Beside them, in her careful script, she has labeled each one, names I recognise, though I have never cared to remember them before. A rose, a poppy, a sprig of thyme, rosemary. Even weeds have found their place here.

She has always been given to sentiment, to seeing beauty where others would not bother to look. It is a softness I have long struggled to understand. But she has made them more than what they were, given them a purpose beyond their fleeting bloom.

It was an evening primrose, its pale petals pressed so thin they seemed almost translucent. Beneath it, in her neat script, she had written:

“Evening primrose. For quiet devotion.”

And below that, a date, the day after we were wed.

I stared at it for a long while.

And as I stand there, I realise I have never seen her hands tremble when she writes.

I cursed myself when I returned to my chambers and remembered I had not restored the book to the page I found it on. She will know I have touched it. Her sacred little book.

27th day of the 12th moon, 128

The Keep is more quiet than it has been in months, as the year comes to its close. The usual tensions of the Realm remains, as does my father, who is more akin to a walking corpse than a man most days. He can no longer walk up the steps by himself, and my mother does not have the strength to assist. Even Aegon has managed to hold his tongue of late, though I suspect it will not last.

She has been visiting Helaena more often than usual as of late. Seated together in her solar, embroidering, their voices soft and indistinct, like the murmuring of a distant brook. A casual observer might have mistaken them for sisters, though I doubt either would care for the comparison.

“Soft in the head,” Aegon says of Helaena. “Soft in the body,” he says of my wife. He does not mean it as a compliment, though he says it with a grin, as if he expects me to laugh. I do not.

Though I don’t agree, the two do share a certain gentleness. An ethereal charm that I am not able to form into words. They are both easily dismissed, glanced over in a crowd of boisterous and overzealous personalities. Dismissed by those too blind to see. Aegon, is one such fool.

When I approached, Helaena looked up first with her pale eyes that were so familiar, but said nothing. And my wife, to my surprise, greeted me warmly, and seemed surprised to see me. When I spoke to Mother later, she insisted that my wife was a good influence on Helaena. And that she has a calming presence. One she says I should feel grateful for.

I did not tell her that I am.

2nd day of the 1st moon, 129

The belly of King’s Landing celebrated the turn of the new year more so than any within the Keep. The thunder of laughter and dancing seemed to stir the very grounds beneath me. The merriment of the season seemed to warm the chill in the air, and it seems almost everyone has felt its embrace.

She surprised me tonight.

I had not expected her, not at this hour, and certainly not in such a state. Her usual pallor was touched with faint color, her step more certain than it had been in weeks. There was a lightness to her gaze, an energy that I had not seen in some time, and for a moment, I thought her appearance a trick of the dim firelight.

I motioned for her to sit, though she declined, choosing instead to stand near the hearth. For a while, neither of us spoke.

But then she said she had been thinking about her place here, at the Keep and by my side, as my wife. I waited, unsure of where this conversation might lead.

“I know I am not the wife you might have wished for,” she continued. “I know what the court says of me, of my frailty, my weakness. And I know what it is to be a man of your station.”

Her meaning became clear, though I did not wish to hear it.

“If you were to take a mistress.”

I did not mean to startle her by interrupting, but I could not bear to hear the rest. Had she no respect for herself? That she would assume I am so restless that I cannot stay one moment without bedding another woman, simply because I am afraid she will break beneath me? What could I say? That I did not desire anyone else? That the thought of betraying her, even in name, made my stomach turn?

And then she asked why. I offered the only truth I could manage.

“I do not know. I only know that I do not wish to. Is that not enough?”

She replied with a simple, but quiet, “it is.”

She did not stay long after that, but she lingered yet in my mind as she does now, writing this entry at the hour of the wolf. Sometimes when I look upon my delicate wife, it feels as if she is other-worldly, plucked from some distant place and planted right here to wither in the sun. She seems less a creature of flesh and blood and more a whisper of something eternal, a soul untethered by time.

There is a stillness about her, a quietness that feels unnatural, as though she is not bound by the same rhythms of life that govern the rest of us. She exists in the space between moments, the breath held just before the candle flickers out.

She is not a woman to me, not entirely. She is something deeper, something I lack the words to name. Perhaps that is why I cannot bring myself to stray, why the thought of betraying her feels like a sin greater than I could bear.

Indeed why not? I could not answer her then, and I doubt I could answer her now.

5th day of the 2nd moon, 129

Am I not a man, but a beast.

She accompanied me this morning to break my fast. Something we now often do to please Mother.

She sat across from me, the light through the windows pebbled across her face, showing how the flush that had decorated her cheeks was starting to fade. A fleeting bloom I did not wish to see vanish.

She picked at the honeyed bread with delicate, little bites, savouring its sweetness. I hardly touched my breakfast. I find it difficult to eat in the morning. But here I sat, too focussed on the golden sheen of the syrup upon her lips.

When she licked the honey from her lips and fingers, I felt a sharp, sudden pain to my chest.

I do not know what possessed me then.

One moment, I was watching her across the table. The next, I was upon her. My hand tangled in her hair, my tongue licking along the seam of her lips to taste the sweetness that lingered there. She gasped against me, I remember her warm breath, startled but pliant.

It was not quick, though it was desperate, as if I could mold her body to mine, as if I could press all I was, all my essence into her fragile frame. My hands gripped her waist, her hips, her thighs, heedless of her delicacy.

I was a creature of need, of raw, unchecked hunger. And her sweet cunt tightening around me was the only thing that could sate it.

Her breath hitched as I fucked her, but said nothing. Her hands held my shoulders, as if to keep herself steady. I did not stop to think, to question.

When it was over, she lay beneath me, her breathing shallow, her hair tousled. And for a moment I could not bring myself to move. I stayed inside her, relishing the warmth of her sweet womanhood, breathed in her scent at her neck, and felt I might weep.

She smelled of vanilla and amber.

What have I done?

I did not dare look at her, but equally she said nothing.

I fear I have hurt her. Both in body and spirit. And yet, I cannot regret it. Though now I must wonder if she looks upon me with fear, with pity.

6th day of the 2nd moon, 129

I sought her out today.

The guilt has gnawed at me. Sharp and aching. I thought she might be angry. Or worse, afraid.

She was in her chambers, a shawl around her shoulders to stay the chill that seemed to find her easily, a book rested in her lap. When I entered, she looked up, her expression unreadable.

I said I owe her an apology. Which was a difficult enough thing to admit to myself than to her.

She closed her book slowly, and moved to stand. The shawl made her look frail.

“For what?”

For that morning, I replied to her. For taking liberties. For being selfish and only thinking of myself.

She interrupted softly. “You have nothing to apologise for.”

She must have seen the confusion on my face.

“You did not hurt me,” she added. Then, almost as an afterthought, she added, “I was…surprised, perhaps. That is all.”

Surprised?

She answered that sometimes she felt undesirable. Repulsive. And the words from such a delicate, little thing were like a blade to my heart.

How do I tell her that I desire her more than I can bear?

She told me that she said nothing during the act because she felt it was improper for young ladies to desire such things. To enjoy them. And she had.

I only said that she is not simply a lady.

She is my wife.

She uttered so quietly I thought I might miss it.

“I did not think I could make you feel this way.”

Gods. She can.

She is not what I expected, not what I thought I wanted. But she is what I need, in ways I am only beginning to understand.

4th day of the 3rd moon, 129

Father is dead.

I've repeated the same sentence in my head for hours now, and yet they still feel hollow. Echoing like the toll of a dull bell. Everything has changed.

Though not unexpected, the whispers of his failing health have been constant for years. Even as long as I have been alive, I'd wager. But the finality of it. The truth. The realm will stir into chaos, as Mother had always warned us it would.

They mean to crown Aegon. They mean to gift him what Father had always upheld was Rhaenyra's.

Any whisper of treason is swiftly dealt with. Otto Hightower sees to it. Nobody is safe, it feels.

My wife has been locked in her chambers, barred from leaving as if she were a criminal. I am forbidden to see her, but I am told by the maesters that her condition is too delicate to bear the strain of what is unfolding around us. The stress, they claim, has worsened her already fragile health.

I am furious. The thought of her, alone and frightened, makes my blood boil. She is not a pawn to be hidden away while the realm burns. She is my wife, and I will not be kept from her.

Mother has tried to calm me, speaking of duty and order, of the chaos that would erupt if the truth of Father’s death were known before the plans are set in motion. But I see no order in this, only madness.

She does not understand. How could she? She has never known weakness, never known what it is to live under the constant shadow of her own failing body. My wife has. And now they confine her to her chambers, as though the isolation will preserve her.

Surely they must know it is not the noise of court or the weight of the realm that will break her. It is the solitude.

If they think to keep me from her, they are fools.

I will not allow her to be dragged head first into the mess Mother has made of this.

9th day of the 3rd moon, 129

Aegon is king.

The bells rang to usher in a new era. A new king. Grandfather had organised the crowds to gather in the Dragonpit, to witness the moment the conqueror’s crown was placed upon my brother's brow, and Blackfyre thrust into his grip.

For all his faults, Aegon is no stranger to spectacle. He held our great ancestral sword aloft, and the smallfolk roared their approval, blissfully ignorant of the blood that stains this crown and the chaos that will surely follow.

I stood beside Helaena. She was dreamy as usual, and barely looked in her husband's direction. She knew as well as I, that it all stank of desperation.

My wife attended, though she was likely too unwell to. It wasn't difficult to guess she had been spoken to by Grandfather, instructed what to do to appear as if she was supportive of this farce. But still, she insisted on standing by my side.

She had applied rouge to her cheeks in an effort to mask her pallor, but it did little to fool anyone. Her face was thin, her movements careful.

The smallfolk noticed. I saw the way they whispered to one another when their eyes fell upon her. They are a superstitious lot, always quick to see omens where there are none. A sickly wife at the hasty coronation of a king.

Her hands trembled as she gripped mine, her strength waning with each passing moment. I whispered to her that she should sit, but she shook her head, her resolve unbroken despite the frailty of her body.

And then the ground shook.

Meleys burst forth, the Queen-Who-Never-Was seated at her neck. And the smallfolk that were not stuck beneath her claws scattered like leaves in the wind. My wife’s knees buckled, her strength finally giving way. I caught her before she could fall, my arm wrapping around her waist as I shielded her from the chaos. Her breath came in shallow gasps, her fingers clutching at my sleeve.

But Meleys did not strike. Nor did Rhaenys speak.

I did not release her until the crowd began to stir again, until the danger had passed. Even then, I could feel her trembling against me, her breath shallow and uneven.

My house has been fractured. Our futures uncertain.

And all I can think of is her pale face, her trembling lips, as she said. “Are you alright?”

I could have laughed if I were not so angry.

12th day of the 3rd moon, 129

The maesters still hover over her, though I have been here at her bedside since the coronation.

She is more fragile than I remember, her breath shallow, her skin too pale beneath the warmth of the fire. Her gaze follows me everywhere, as if afraid I might vanish. Perhaps she sees me as fleeting too.

Perhaps she fears that I might not return.

I did not think I would be the person she would cling to. And at times I do not know how to feel about it. She has not changed, and yet I used to look upon her with contempt and irritation.

Could it be that I have changed?

I must go to Storm’s End soon.

The Baratheons are key to ensuring an alliance, to strengthen my family's claim to the throne by rallying the great houses of Westeros to our cause. I resent Aegon's rule, yes, but I do not wish to see my whore sister on the throne even more so.

Should that happen, my wife would be in danger as well.

It is Daeron who I must barter a marriage for. It is a necessary journey, one I cannot avoid, no matter how much my heart aches at the thought of leaving her.

She knows this. She knows my duty to the family, to the crown, and yet when I spoke of it, a shadow crossed her face. Her lips parted as though she wished to speak, but she remained silent. The fear in her eyes, however, was enough.

“Will you come back to me?” she asked me.

She is afraid. She fears for my safety, just as I fear for hers. And equally, though she does not speak it, she resents that I have been dragged into this cause.

I promised her I would return.

When I kissed her before I left, I did not want to let go. Her hand gripped mine as though she might shatter with the slightest breeze. She did not speak again, but I saw the unshed tears in her eyes, and it nearly undid me.

I do not wish to leave.

I do not wish to leave her.

- - - - - -

I am living in a nightmare.

She sleeps as I write this. So deeply I keep looking over my shoulder to make sure she is not stood right there.

The journey from Storm's End to Kings Landing was a blur. And when I returned and dismounted Vhagar, I was soaked to the bone from rain. I did not stop to speak to Mother. Could not bear to.

I had not meant for it to happen. But what does intent matter now? The boy is dead.

Lucerys Velaryon is dead.

His body fell from the skies, his dragon broken and bloody. And I just watched. Fear gnaws at me, but not for myself, but what this means for my family and all those that live under my protection. Rhaenyra will want vengeance for this.

My mother, grandfather, they will want for me to claim I wanted this, just so they might shift their judgement onto me instead. Claim that I began this war and not their scheming. They will whisper, I know they will, that this was revenge for the boyish quarrel that left me half-blinded.

And such has ended in his death.

It is not so simple. I know what I have done. I know what they will call me. A kinslayer. A monster. And worse, I fear that she, my wife, will see it too.

When I returned to our chambers, she was sat in a nest made of pillows, propped up to avoid strain. Hearing my arrival, she sat up straighter, though she looked weak, and shakily got to her feet despite my initial protests.

Her eyes still looked upon me with softness, as if I were deserving. And I was unprepared for her reaction. She saw me, soaked and trembling but did not speak. Did not ask what had happened, though she could see some turmoil in me.

Her hands, small and trembling, undressed me without rush. Stripping me of not only my clothes but the weight that slumped my shoulders. She did not judge, did not speak of what was so plainly written across my weathered face.

Her silence was a gift. One I did not deserve.

And yet I leaned into her touch. It was so warm against my skin. I even allowed her to remove the leather over my stolen eye. Something I rarely do in her presence.

I was bare, laying beside her, shaking. And she shed her clothes so that we might embrace without the confines of fabric. Her hands ran through my hair, untangling the salty strands delicately with all the patience in the realm.

“I killed him.”

I whispered it into the dark, without seeing her face.

“Lucerys. I killed him.”

She did not ask why or how. She slid closer, her tender breasts against my back, and ran her hands down my arm.

I told her everything. What I said. Threatened. How I flew after him in the storm. Vhagar.

Her voice in response had no anger. Only sadness.

“You returned to me. That is all that matters.”

12th day of the 4th moon, 129

I went to her chambers tonight as if the Gods had paved the path for me. I could not summon the strength to summon her to mine. Not after what I have done.

She did not question the shadows under my eyes. She simply welcomed me as she always does, with a tenderness I do not deserve.

When our bodies came together it was a communion of two souls. Deliberate. Not a conquest in the least. She is the only thing anchoring me to this world. And each scrape of her fingernails against my back felt heavenly. Kissing me softly. Tracing the scars that mark my body with the same hands that never tremble in my presence. Even now, when I feel I am beyond forgiveness.

For a night, I did not feel like a kinslayer.

14th day of the 4th moon, 129

I was not there.

I was not there. And I should have been.

I was with her instead. And in my place, it was Helaena’s chambers they reached. Their names I forget, but they were grotesque as if from some old wives’ tale. I cannot stomach to imagine their faces in my mind.

My nephew is gone. They made my sister, my blood, point him out, as if he were meats fetching a good price at the slaughter. If I had been there, in my chambers, as I was supposed to be, would I have been able to stop this? Could I have spared my sister the sight of her son’s blood soaking the stone floors?

I cannot think of it without bile rising in my throat.

The court is ablaze with questions, panic rippling through every corner of the Keep.

Where were the guards? How could this have happened?

I, too, demand answers. For all her faults, I never believed Rhaenyra capable of such an act, sending assassins into the heart of the Keep to put Helaena, of all people, in danger. But this? This cruelty? She has proven herself to have even less humanity than I once dared to credit her.

Helaena has not spoken and not emerged since. I do not know if she ever will.

I cannot protect my family, even in my own home. Though my wife reassures me, I feel like a kinslayer twice over. Even once I returned to her bed after the commotion had died down and Aegon too, she reached for me, and I let her. Her hands were frail, but somehow steady when they touched me. Like tiny little stems curling into my blood. Growing more and more. Like a gentle annihilation of the man I think I am.

She wept for the child. For Helaena, who would never again hold her son.

And I wept with her.

25th day of the 4th moon, 129

The boy was paraded through the streets, wrapped in silks and embroidered fabrics. My mother and Helanea followed, and any level-minded person would guess that this is desperation. Something I would not forgive grandfather for if he forced such a thing onto me and my wife, if we had a child of our own.

Aegon has ordered the ratcatchers put to death, every one of them, as if blood could somehow wash away blood. I doubt it will ease his conscience, if he has one left. He claims it is vengeance, justice. It is anger. It is shame. It is fear, thinly disguised.

At the council, I learned that Aegon had dismissed my grandfather as Hand. His replacement? Ser Criston Cole. A decision as reckless as it is insulting.

Mother’s face said what the rest of us could not. She sat in silence, her hands folded tightly in her lap, her lips pressed into a thin line. I said nothing either, though the weight of her displeasure mirrored my own. Criston may wield a sword with skill, but a Hand must have wit and reason. He has neither.

I know I hold little love in the eyes of my own mother now anyway. She looks upon me like I am a monster, as if I have been my whole life. As if this is not what she has made of me.

I returned to my wife afterwards. We rarely speak now, though her presence is a balm I cannot name. The illness has caught her chest again, I can hear it in her breath. She told me to keep my distance, fearing I will catch it, as if I care for such trivial things.

I stayed regardless, seated in the chair by her bed as the fire burned low. She did not scold me for it. She simply turned her head to watch me, her eyes soft, almost apologetic. I reached for her hand, and she let me take it. I can see the fear of what is to come weighs heavy on her.

This quiet between us. Is this feeling what those countless ballads harp on about? Could this marriage, born of resentment and difficulty, become love?

2nd day of the 6th moon, 129

Aegon’s hold on this war is akin to his grip on a cup of wine at the hour of the wolf. Slippery, at best. He sits in council and speaks of Harrenhal with such conviction, as though Criston Cole marching there will be anything more than foolishness. Daemon holds that cursed ruin, and we all know what awaits Criston if he tries to pry it from him. Yet Aegon seems blind to reason, drunk on his desire to pull victory from thin air.

I suggest a different course. Rook’s Rest. But he will not see reason. And of course it was met with hesitation. Aegon’s indecision is a rot that will take him black, and Mother’s silence does nothing to stay it.

They all think me hungry for blood and battle. Aemond One-Eye.

There is a part of me that longs to prove myself. To be remembered for something other than the boy who lost his eye or the prince who killed his nephew. My wife knows an Aemond the realm does not. The one that sits beside her as they lays coughing at night. She sees a man, a good one perhaps. Whereas the court merely whisper of me as if I am a dark shadow.

The realm will never know the man my wife sees. There is a power in them seeing only what I allow, what I need them to know. Strength. Fire.

Sometimes, I wonder if she mourns the parts of me that the world will never have.

She listens to me speak of my plans, hands clasped, seeing the fractures in her husband, the places where pride and vengeance run too deep to cut out. I wonder if she pities me for it. If she doesn’t, perhaps she should.

13th day of the 6th moon, 129

Rook’s Rest still burns, I'd wager. Though it has been several days since the battle. The wind still whips at me, I feel, as I watch Meleys hurtle towards the earth. Her dragonrider still pitched to her back.

Aegon does not relish in his victory. He lays near death, every breath a struggle. Not dissimilar to how I have seen my wife oftentimes.

I returned to her chambers as soon as I was able. The Keep feels hollow these days, and there I might find peace, where none exists inside me.

She looks frailer than she did when I left, though she insists otherwise. The maesters prattle about her condition, and I find myself snapping at them more than I ought. They are failing her. Everyone is failing her. Even me.

When she tried to rise from bed to greet me, I could not stop myself, I barked at her to stay put, the words sharper than I intended.

I hate myself for it. But the thought of her straining herself, of her fragile body bending beneath the weight of this cursed war...it twists something in me, something I cannot name.

She is mine. My wife. My delicate flower. The one thing in this accursed world that is still soft, still untouched by the poison of the crown and the war.

I will not lose her.

She, of course, asked what had happened. Having heard the unfortunate nature of the king’s condition. Having heard the whispers. I said it was recklessness. Incompetence. But she has always been perceptive.

She sees the darkness in me. The flicker of doubt that darkens her beautiful eyes, one she does not dare speak aloud.

But I cannot speak to her of the shadow that is cast over my heart. So instead, I spared hers, and told insisted it was Aegon's folly that lead to his downfall. Nothing more.

She nodded. But her gaze lingered on me. Searching. I know she does not believe me.

She reached for my hand, and I held hers too tightly. She winced.

I watch her even now, as she sleeps, her breath too shallow for my liking, her form too still beneath the furs. My mind races with thoughts I cannot quiet. What if she never sees me return again? What if I leave and come back to find her gone?

I will not let it happen.

19th day of the 6th moon, 129

The council have chosen me as their Regent. Me, over Mother. It is as it should be. For all her wisdom, her place is not there. Her gentle sex does not suit the burden of governance, no matter how much she believes otherwise. She clings too tightly to something she herself has denied Rhaenyra, and I will not stand idly by and listen to her hypocrisy.

The council at least know my worth.

Already I have begun to shape the crumbling realm back to stability. The first act began with Mother, relegating her to duties befitting of a Dowager Queen, and one she did not take lightly. It is not cruelty. Necessary. There is no place for soft murmurings of mercy at my council. She will understand in time.

The work is endless. The weight immeasurable, but one I wear with pride. I have longed for this. To show I am not weak, but formidable, with no time for distraction.

The realm needs me now more than ever.

28th day of the 6th moon, 129

Regency suits me well. It is a shame I was not born first.

The first real edict was to close the city gates, to forbid people from leaving and also to avoid our enemies sneaking past our fragile lines. King’s Landing must be fortified, protected from the vipers who would see us undone. Let the smallfolk whisper and grumble, their safety is ensured only because I am willing to make the hard choices.

Trade has slowed, of course, but I care little for the merchants’ squawking. Better that they lose their coin than lose their lives when Rhaenyra’s forces march upon us.

Though the power is intoxicating it is not without its burdens. I see the faces of the council as they defer to me, the uncertainty that flickers behind their eyes. They doubt my youth, my ability to lead, but they dare not say it aloud.

There are moments, fleeting though they are, when I wonder if I have already given too much of myself to this war. But I cannot dwell on such thoughts. The realm does not wait for doubt, and neither shall I.

7th day of the 7th moon, 129

I had nearly forgotten her.

The council chamber was quiet when she appeared, the hour so late that even the most loyal attendants had taken their leave. I sat, pouring over papers and maps, looking up as she stood at the doors draped in translucent fabric, her fragile frame looking almost ghostly.

She had come all the way from her chambers, weak as she is, just to see me.

For a moment, I was struck dumb, caught between guilt and irritation. I had not sought her out in days, too consumed by the weight of my duties.

I asked her, sharper than I intended, what she was doing here and that she should be resting. And she did not flinch, but I could see her eyes flicker downwards.

“I had to see you.”

It was as if she wanted to see if I still existed. And that I was not some otherworldly vision, told only through whispers and rumours. For she had not seen me in near a fortnight. Her voice was so soft that it struck a chord I did not need for it to resonate.

I could not say anything more than the realm expects more of me now. The demands on my shoulders. I cannot spare a moment.

Her voice strained. “I had to see you because otherwise I scarcely know my husband lives and breathes.”

Her words erupted guilt and irritation alike. Buried beneath a thin, black veil I have carefully fabricated.

I could only insist I do all this for her. To keep her safe.

“How is it for me, Aemond? All I see in you is this desire for power. You speak of the realm, of me, but this is just sheer ambition, and you are too blind to see what it is doing to you. And I will not be your excuse for how tightly you cling to what you seek.”

I snapped and said how could she know. She has not ruled and never will. She does not understand the burden I bear.

“Perhaps I don't understand. But I know the man I married, the one I grew to love. And all I see is him slipping away.”

Gods, she sounded so wounded I was not sure whether to resent it or pity it.

The man she grew to love.

I was rendered so shocked I could not say anything. Even when her eyes begged for a response. And she turned to leave, her steps weak and faltering with every second. And I did not help her.

I did not help her.

I cannot shake the look on her face.

I know I should go to her, but I cannot. Her weakness, her frailty, I am afraid it will take me down with it.

And the realm cannot afford more weakness from the crown.

24th day of the 7th moon, 129

Everything is unravelling.

Rhaenyra has thrown everything she has at us, now even her bastards ride dragons. It is a cruel mockery of what we were meant to be. Blood of the dragon, sullied by lowborn filth. And Helaena, sweet and broken, refuses to aid us. Her grief holds her captive, and I cannot rouse her from it. I need her dragon, but she will not hear me.

Today was unbearable.

The council drags their feet and the walls close in. The smallfolk riot in the streets from hunger, one Rhaenyra herself has caused but that they seem to forget.

I came back to my chambers after the council adjourned, weary and enraged. And there, on my desk, I found them. Snapdragons. Flowers of bold pinks and oranges, fierce and alive, their edges tinged with red like the tips of dragonfire.

She has been here.

There was no note. No explanation. The flowers spoke what she did not.

It is a reminder of who I am, or rather the man I should be. The man she loves, not the beast I fear I am becoming.

I stood there for what felt like an age, staring at the blooms as if they might speak to me. In that moment, I made my decision. I must go to Harrenhal soon, to face Daemon, but I will not leave without seeing her first. Without making amends.

When I went to her chambers, there were no maesters, but her fever was heightened, and so she slept with sheer clothing and no bedsheets. She looked like a nymph, laid there, her breasts visible through the fabric and flowers at each bedside.

Like she didn't belong in the confines of the Keep. She belonged out there, amongst the trees and rivers, to exist in breath and wind.

She looked up, rose from her gentle slumber, and looked at me. Her eyes soft and searching.

I kissed her and she did not pull away. She let me touch her, hold her, gasped as I slid her nightgown up her hips and nipped at her thighs to taste the sweet nectar that poured from her.

She was warm and heady, an intoxicating mix of salt and sweetness, like honey warmed by the sun. I drank from her as if parched, savoring the way she trembled beneath me, the way her body seemed to bloom under my touch.

Her breath hitched as I lavished her with my tongue, her fingers desperate as her nailed pulled pleasantly at my hair. Each sound she made was a victory, each shiver a testament to the power she held over me. For all my strength, all my fury, I was undone by her, reduced to this, worshiping at the altar of her body.

Even as she cried out I could not stop. And when it became too much, I rose, her flavour still clinging to my lips. And we coupled slowly, tenderly, for hours. Devouring her as if by doing so, I could take some of her kindness, and bathe me clean of the darkness that lingers within.

She is no fool.

“My love. Do not make love to me as if I will never see you again.”

I could not answer her. She knows I must go. To Harrenhal. Now on my own, if nobody else will assist me.

I felt her fingers on my cheek.

“If you cannot promise me that. Promise me this. Write to me. Wherever you are. Whatever you do.”

I could not find it in my heart to deny her such a simple thing. I will send her my words, if I cannot send my body, soul and love.

I realised right there, her small body spent in my arms how many weeks, months even, I had spent unappreciative of the flutter she always gave me. The unending kindness she would offer. The truth, even when I didn't want it.

I had forgotten to treat her with tenderness.

1st day of the 9th moon, 129

Harrenhal is mine.

The stronghold of the Strongs fell with little resistance. The castle itself, vast and cold, looms like a beast over the land, its ruins whispering of past glories and darker tragedies. House Strong is no more. I have seen to that myself.

Save for one.

Alys Rivers remains. She claimed she had visions of my coming, of my victory, and of greater things yet to unfold. She spoke in riddles, her eyes fixed on me as though she could see into my soul.

Her words, her presence, are tempting in their way. Alys Rivers is a beautiful woman, older than I expected, with a certain allure born of her confidence and mystery. She has made no secret of her willingness to warm my bed, to offer herself to me in exchange for her life.

But I did not take her. I will not.

I told her plainly that she would live for now because her visions may serve a purpose. Nothing more. Let her think she has some measure of power over me if it keeps her pliant and useful. Yet even as I write this, I know I should send her to the sword, for the danger she represents.

My wife would see it how it is. Desperation.

I have not written to her yet. Not my wife. Not the only soul who would calm the storm within me.

I will tomorrow.

For tonight, the shadows of Harrenhal linger too heavily, and the blood on my hands feels too fresh.

17th day of the 11th moon, 129

Now I know why Daemon left this wretched place behind.

Harrenhal is not a castle, it is a carcass. Its halls are hollow, its walls crumbling, and its very air feels like a curse pressing down on my chest. The fires that claimed this ruin have never truly died. They linger in the stones, in the bones of the dead, whispering their stories to anyone who dares to listen.

And I am here now, breathing it in. I thought it would feel like a triumph, taking Harrenhal, but it is not.

I have not slept well since my arrival. And when I do, the dreams come. Muddled and confusing. Vivid and cruel things that weave consciousness into sleep.

Last night, I dreamt of her.

She was in her chambers in bed, sickly, her skin pale and translucent. The maesters swarm her like vultures for flesh, muttering useless words and hovering instead of healing. Her eyes found me, tired and hooded, and it was not a look of blame or fear, but something that still reminded me I am not the man she needed me to be.

In her eyes I saw my regrets. Every harsh word I spoke. Every moment I turned away. Every time I let ambition and anger drown out what little light we had kindled between us.

I tried to reach for her in the dream, but the distance was too great. I called her name, but she did not answer. And when I woke, my throat was raw, as if I had truly been shouting in my sleep.

In another dream, I was between her milky thighs, lapping at her sweet cunt like I had been starved of it for years. She moaned so sweetly as she always did. And when she clawed at my scalp to pull me closer to her it felt different. She was stronger. Less tender.

And when I looked up, her nectar glazing my face, I felt my heart grow cold and hollow. Her skin was pale, yes, but her hair darkened into something akin to raven feathers, her eyes sunk back slightly, cheekbones sharpened. And the soft, lightly colour there morphed into stark emeralds, lips red and quirked upwards.

Perhaps Harrenhal is cursed. Perhaps it draws out the darkest thoughts, the deepest fears, and forces them to the surface. Or perhaps it is only me. Perhaps I am cursed.

I must write to her. She is my tether, the only thing that keeps me from being swallowed whole by the darkness here. Tomorrow, I will write. Tonight, I will try to sleep and hope the dreams do not return.

Dearest Wife,

I write to you from the cold halls of Harrenhal, a place that holds no warmth, no life. Not like your chambers do. The days here stretch long, the nights longer still. It is a place of ash and shadow, where even the air feels heavy. And yet, amidst the ruin, I found something unexpected, a winter rose, growing stubbornly in the cracks of stone.

I have enclosed it with this letter. It is small, fragile, but it persists. A reminder, perhaps, that beauty can be found even in the bleakest places. I thought of you when I saw it. Handle it gently, as you always do.

How do you fare, my love? I pray the maesters have been attentive, and that the chill has not worsened your condition. I think of you often, though I fear my words fail to capture how much. I see you in every quiet moment, in every breath of wind. You linger in my thoughts as if you are a part of me, inseparable and eternal.

I do not wish to burden you with the trials of this place, nor the weight of my duties. But know that I am well, and I will return to you as soon as I am able. Until then, take care of yourself, for I cannot bear the thought of you suffering in my absence.

Yours Always,

Aemond

4th day of the 2nd moon, 130

Alys spoke of visions today.

She said she could see two dragons coming together, sharing the same fate above the great God's Eye. Then my wife, she saw our reunion, my wife's hair lit as if from the sun of the Seven Heavens. She sounded so certain, as if recounting events that had already transpired. She was so confident, I almost believed her.

Almost.

She sees so much, so she claims. Watching the flames dance along her eyes is, in itself, invigorating to watch. Her gentle mutterings are welcome sometimes in the quiet, hollow hallways of Harrenhal. They linger, pulling on the threads of my mind as if I am to her whim.

She moves through this great castle as if she has been a ghost here for generations. Her gaze does not cower before me as many others do, but she stands close. Perhaps sometimes, too close. And I think myself weak for not dismissing her.

She is a woman who knows the route to survival, and I cannot fault her for that.

They are brief, fleeting. The times where I wonder if she offers herself for something more than just survival. When she hands me a raven, her touch lingers longer than it should.

I do not know what Alys Rivers wants from me, nor do I care to ask.

I have not written to my wife of her. How could I? How do I explain this shadow in my midst, this woman who speaks of futures I do not wish to see? I tell myself it is unnecessary, that Alys is nothing more than a tool, a means to an end.

And yet, I wonder if I am lying to myself.

Daemon is coming. That much I believe. Whether Alys’s visions are truth or falsehood, the outcome remains the same. We are on a path that cannot be turned aside.

When the time comes, I will be ready.

My Dearest Husband,

Your letter reached me today, and I must confess, I wept to see the winter rose you sent. Such a small and delicate thing, so rare. I pressed it into my own book, so it may keep company with my other treasures. Thank you, my love.

I have pressed a snapdragon into these pages also. Last spring, you commented that the colour of their petals reminded you of a dragon mid-roar, and I wished to remind you of simpler times, before the world felt so uncertain.

I have soaked these papers in the oils I apply to my hair and skin. Perhaps a silly indulgence to some, but I thought perhaps it might bring you some comfort, a memory of home in the coldness of that dreadful castle.

The maesters say the chill has caught my chest, though it has for many here. You must not worry, I assure you it is nothing more than the season’s cruel bite. I have taken my draughts and kept warm as you would wish me to, though the days feel colder without you here to hold me.

I hope this letter finds you well. Write to me when you can, even if it is but a few lines. Your words are a light in these dark times, and I cling to them more than I dare admit.

I hope you campaigns in the Riverlands fare well. Remember you are my husband first, not a shadow of war or duty. Please do not forget or lose grip on the man I fell in love with.

Yours Forever,

Your Loving Wife

- - - - 130

The quill trembles in my hand as I write. Ink smears before I can make sense of my thoughts. This entry will be illegible by morning, I am certain. It makes no sense— how could it? Dreams are madness.

Alys.

Her belly was swollen, a grotesque curve rounded with child, one of my blood. Not hers. Not hers! I could not look at her without feeling bile in my throat, the heat of shame.

And then my wife.

My wife!

She was there, crumpling to the ground, her grief splitting the air like a storm. Her screams. Gods, her screams. I have never heard her voice raised in such a way, never seen her face contorted with such anguish.

I wanted to go to her, to explain, but I could not move. My feet were rooted, and the air was thick, choking me. She looked at me, her eyes wide with betrayal, and I felt myself drowning in them. No. Not in them.

In water.

My lungs burned. My limbs thrashed. The surface was a distant shimmer, unreachable. I could hear her still, even beneath the water, her screams warped and muffled, but no less devastating.

I woke gasping, clawing at the air as if I could still feel the water pulling me under.

What does it mean? What does it mean?

Harrenhal speaks as if it has a clawing, fearsome mouth.

Kinslayer. Usurper. Liar. Monster.

I am all and none. All and none.

The water, surely it does not drown me, it must cleanse me.

But it cannot. Nothing can. Nothing will.

My Dearest Aemond,

I write to you from my bed, as I have found myself unable to rise for much of late. The maesters are vigilant, though they assure me there is no cause for alarm and that I should not tire myself by writing. They say it is only the season and my own weakness conspiring against me. I do not tell them how I feel the cold seep deeper with each passing day, but I tell you, my husband, because I know you will not dismiss my words so lightly.

News of the battle at the Lakeshore has reached even here. The servants whisper of it, though I hear only fragments. There seems to be a changing of guards here at the Keep, but I do not leave my chambers, so I cannot see why. Are you well? Please tell me you are. It has been too long since I last heard from you, and I cannot help but worry. You are so far away, in such a dangerous place, and the weight of it lies heavy upon my chest.

I would not ask this of you if I thought it selfish, but please, write to me. Even a single line would be enough to still my restless heart.

Take care of yourself, my love. Remember that you are not alone in this, no matter how distant we may seem. You are mine, as I am yours, and nothing, not war, not duty, not even death, can change that.

All My Love,

Your Wife

My Loving Husband,

Why have you not written? Why do you leave me in this silence? The days are long without word from you, and the nights are even longer. I wait, and I wonder, and I worry. Is it so hard to take up your quill? Is it so hard to tell me that you are well?

Please, my love, do not let this silence stretch any longer. Tell me you are safe. Tell me you are whole. Tell me anything, for I am desperate for the sound of your voice, even if it must come to me through ink and paper.

Do you think of me, Aemond? Do you think of the nights we spent in each other’s arms? Do you think of the flowers I left for you, the words I whispered when the world felt less cruel? I hope you do. I hope you remember.

I have tried to be strong, for you, for us, but I am alas not as much as you. Please, my love, do not leave me to this silence any longer. Write to me. Ease my heart. I apologise for my heavy emotions, the ink smudges because of my shaky hands, and they are not as steady as they once were. Do not think poorly of me for it.

I fear I am beginning to lose my sense of time. Did I already tell you the maesters say I will recover? Forgive me if I repeat myself. My thoughts seem to wander, but they always find their way back to you.

I love you, Aemond. It hurts more than breathing. Please let me hear from you.

Yours, always and forever.

Your Loyal Wife

My Beloved Wife,

I read every stroke of your ink like a blade to my chest, not because they wound me so, but because I imagine your voice. Reminding me what I have left behind.

Do you know, my love, how much I miss you? How much I miss the feel of your hands on me, grounding me when the storms inside threaten to consume me?

Do not lose hope, for I cling to it still. If you cannot feel my arms around you, know that my soul reaches for you, across all the miles that separate us. Hold fast, my love, until I can come back to you.

Do not think poorly of your emotions, nor of your trembling hands. They have always been steady enough to hold me, to steady my own restless soul.

I do not deserve you, my delicate flower. But I am yours, wholly and utterly. I will write to you again soon, I swear it. I will not leave you in silence again.

Please, take heart, as I try to do. Remember that I love you, more than I have ever been able to say.

Yours, now and always,

Aemond

My Dearest, dearest Aemond,

Do you remember our first days as husband and wife? How cold you seemed, how distant? I used to think you disliked me, perhaps even resented me for my frailty. I was so small and scared then, unsure of my place in your life, in your heart.

But I see now what I could not see then. You are a man of storms, my love, and I was too weak to weather them. Yet, even storms have their moments of calm, and it was in those moments I found the man I have come to love more than life itself.

I do not know if this letter reaches you, nor if I have the strength to write another. But I need you to know, that I am wholly, and truly, yours. Now and always.

Please, remember me kindly.

Forever,

Your Loving Wife

My love,

It has been too long since I last wrote to you. For that I am sorry. I did not mean to worry you.

Truthfully I have left Harrenhal behind, trawling the Riverlands to those loyal to my sister still, even now. I head towards a confrontation I cannot avoid. Daemon wants his fight, and as much as I would like to be by your side, this challenge cannot be ignored. He is a fool if he thinks he can stand against me, but I must prove it nonetheless.

Once that is done, I swear to you, I will return to your side. This madness, this war, it has taken too much from us both. I long for the peace of your presence, the quiet of our chambers, where only you and I exist in our own world.

I do not know what awaits me when I return. I do not know what has become of you, though I hope you are well. Please know that, despite the distance and the bloodshed, you are always in my heart.

I will write again as soon as I can. Stay strong, my love. Wait for me.

I am yours,

Aemond

My love,

I await your reply like a lovesick child.

I fear the worst with each passing day, each hour that I do not hear your voice. Have I lost you? Is the cold consuming you, or have you fallen into silence for some other reason I cannot fathom? Please, I beg of you, send me word. Let me know that you are still waiting for me.

I have prepared myself to face Daemon, though I care little for the confrontation. His challenge has become a matter of necessity, but I cannot shake the thought of you, fragile and alone, while I am here, so far away. I would rather be by your side, taking care of you, than facing that traitor. But I have no choice now.

I am desperate, my love. A few lines in your gentle hand would give me the strength of a thousand men. Without you, what am I but a man trawling this desolate, darkened land, lost forever without your light to guide my way.

Please do write. My cherished flower.

Aemond

My darling wife,

I woke to a raven today. The words written within it seemed impossible, a cruelty that no man should have to face. It tells me of your passing, of your death.

But I refuse to believe it. I cannot.

You are not gone. I would have felt you, felt your soul leave this realm. I would have felt the Stranger take you from me, and yet, there is only the emptiness. The cold distance that stretches between us, yes, but not your absence. Not truly.

Were such a thing to happen, my love, I would have felt a pain so deep in my chest, I would have cried out. I would have howled until my throat bled. You are too vital to me for your death to be a mere whisper in the wind. No, this cannot be real.

Do not let the maesters fill my mind with their lies. Do not weaken the fragile hope I cling to, the only thread keeping me tethered to this world. Please, I beg of you, let me hold onto the belief that you are still waiting for me. That when I return, I will find you where you belong, by my side.

I will nourish you, body and soul, as I should have from the very beginning. For I do not believe that the distance, the war, the bloodshed, it has not been enough to sever the bond we share. When I come to you, I will fix what I have broken in myself, and I will fix what has withered between us.

This war has broken me, my love. I have witnessed too much, done too much, and it has hollowed me out in ways I cannot even express. But you, you always knew how to heal. Your touch, gentle, sure could mend what no one else could. And so, I beg you, when I return, lay your hands upon me.

Fix me.

Make me whole again. It has been so long since I have felt so. Without your touch, your voice.

I will come for you.

Forever Yours,

Aemond

21st day of the 5th moon, 130

The winds howl so loudly now.

They sing on the eve of what may be my last. Daemon is here and he waits for me. One of us must fall, though I have reassured my wife that it shall not be me.

I write this now because I do not know if I will have another chance. If the Stranger comes for me, I will not meet him with words left unsaid.

To my mother. You were the first to see me, even before I knew myself. When I was a boy without a dragon, I ran to you, tears staining my face, and you held me as though that could mend what I lacked. The day I lost my eye, the boy you nurtured was forced to become a man. A bitter man. Perhaps I lost more than my eye that day. Perhaps I lost the better parts of myself. If I am to die tomorrow, know that I never blamed you for showing your love to me the way you did, and though I may not have shown it, I am grateful.

My sister. Sweet sister, I am sorry. Sorry for your grief, sorry for your pain, sorry for all the ways I could not protect you from this cruel world. You deserved peace, and all you have been given is sorrow. I hope that, in another life, I might have been a better brother to you. I hope you will forgive me for failing you.

Aegon. Brother, I have resented you for much of my life. Perhaps it was jealousy, perhaps it was anger, perhaps it was something I will never fully understand. But you are my brother, my blood, and for all our differences, I have never wished you harm. Not truly. If I do not return, lead this realm as you see fit, but know that power is a fleeting thing. Do not let it consume you as it has consumed me.

To my wife, my delicate flower, if you ever read this: forgive me. Forgive the times I was cold, the times I let my anger and pride obscure my love for you. Forgive my silence, my absences, my failures to be the husband you deserved.

I see you even now, though miles lie between us. I see your smile, rare but radiant. I hear your voice, soft but sure. I feel your touch, delicate but anchoring. You made me feel whole, even when I thought I was nothing but a shattered thing.

Daemon may take my life tomorrow, but he cannot take what I carry with me, the memory of you, the warmth of you, the love you gave me even when I did not deserve it. That is mine, and mine alone.

If the Stranger does not take me, I will come back to you. I will hold you, care for you, and let the world crumble as long as I have you. But if I do not return, know this.

I loved you.

With all that I am, with all that I ever was, I loved you.

The winds howl louder now. Perhaps it is time I let them carry me. And if it is to be so, take me to her.

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mochie85 · 6 months ago

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When The Ball Drops

Summary: A continuation of "Have Mercy." Loki tries so hard to get you to kiss him again but you resist him. Until he comes up with a plan on New Year's Eve. Pairing: Loki x Female Reader Word Count: Over 3.5k Warnings: Fluff, kissing, cameos from multiple Avengers, the use of Y/N

It had been weeks since you saved Loki’s life and brought him back from his near-death experience. Or as Loki fondly likes to call it, “the time you asked him out on a date.” He was relentless with his flirtations towards you. He would seek you out at all hours, multiple times a day, just to wear you down.

One time he caught you by the kitchen pouring yourself a cup of coffee. “There you are, my angel.” He slid on the side of the counter, pulling up right next to you. “I have a headache. Do you think you could kiss it and make it all better?” he crooned so sweetly.

“No,” you answered him flatly and walked away, sipping your coffee.

Or, that time you were kickboxing with Sam. While Loki and Thor just happened to be training on the mat across from you. Thor had knocked him down with a single blow. Loki immediately cried to you from the floor. “Darling! My brother doesn’t seem to know the difference between practice and actual combat. Could you spare me a kiss so that I can continue and teach him a lesson?” He lay on the floor with his hair falling from the loose bun he kept it in. His arms spread apart, looking up at you through thick, long lashes.

“No, Loki!” You were so irritated that you took your fighting gloves off and threw them on the floor. Missing his head by an inch. Loki didn’t even flinch as he watched you storm off in anger. “Go to med-bay if you’re injured!”

“My angel,” Loki purred this morning after a team meeting. “I seem to have a paper cut on my finger. Can you-”

“No! Loki I will not kiss you!” you asserted, gathering your materials to get out of there quickly.

“I was going to suggest you lick it. But if that’s what you prefer, I’ll take it as a consolation prize,” he smiled and puckered his lips towards you. Your palms had never itched more, wanting to slap the kiss right off his mouth. You growled in frustration as you turned on your heel and walked out.

Loki heard light chuckles coming from the end of the large meeting table. Wilson and Barnes were shaking their heads, having watched the whole scene play out. “Is there something that you two find amusing?”

“Ya, man. You!” Wilson answered.

“I’m glad my shortcomings amuse you,” Loki answered with a slight upturn of his lip.

“Let me give you some advice,” Sam said walking over to him.

“Not warranted. Nor requested.”

“I’ma give it to you anyway.” Sam clapped a hand on Loki’s shoulder and looked him straight in the eye. “You need to chill.”

“I beg your pardon?” Loki said astounded.

“The more you push, the harder she resists,” Barnes interjected.

“Stop harassing her,” Sam continued.

“You, constantly being around her, reminding her of that kiss, is not gonna go well for you,” Barnes added.

“Are you saying that she regretted healing me?” Loki questioned.

“No,” they both answer in unison.

“Anyone can see that she was smitten with you from day one!” Sam declared.

“And she wouldn’t just kiss anybody. She offered to heal my arm once, though,” Barnes said to Wilson. “I wonder if she would’ve kissed me then?” He said introspectively, biting his lip in thought. Loki sneered at the notion.

“But she thinks that you’re just teasing her. That you’re not sincere with your feelings and you’re just looking for a way to provoke or annoy her.”

“I honestly don’t know how I can make it any clearer for her that I’m interested other than to ask her flat-out naked!”

“NO!” they both screamed again.

“Well, it would've worked on Asgard.” Loki pouted, crossing his arms as he sat on the ledge of the conference table.

“I’m sure it would’ve,” Sam nodded sarcastically. “Look, do you really like her?” Loki gave him a sardonic look, appalled that Wilson would even ask such a question.

“Then prove to her that you’re worthy of her affections. Wait for her to ask you. That way you’ll know she wants you too and not just because she’s trying to save your life.” At this last drop of wisdom, Barnes and Wilson left Loki in the conference room, pondering ways to prove his sincerity towards you.

You hurried towards your room, scenes from the last moments with Loki replaying in your mind. How could everything have gone tits up in just a couple of weeks?! You left the meeting today exhausted more than ever. You weren’t sure if it was misplaced gratitude for saving his life or if he genuinely is attracted to you but you didn’t think you could resist Loki anymore.

You know he’s just mocking you about what happened. He doesn’t have any real feelings towards you. It’s in his nature to be playful. But every time he comes anywhere near you and he puckers those lips of his, your knees buckle and you almost give in.

Screw it! If he wants to tease you so badly, maybe you could call his bluff and kiss him back. Perhaps then he’ll realize that his joke had gone way too far and he’d stop. Yes! The next time he teases you, you’ll kiss him right back.

But he never did. After weeks of trying to get under your skin, he finally relented. Morning coffee breaks were innocuous and pleasant. Sometimes, he would have a cup waiting for you, just the way you like it. No quips. No lewd gestures about kissing. Just a handsome smile and a friendly, helping hand.

There were times you would see him walk out of the training rooms with Thor, holding on to his side in pain. You were ready for him to make a quick jab about needing your kiss to heal the ache. But none ever came. Only a quick, “Hello, darling,” in passing as he limped off in the direction of med-bay. You’ve missed your chance.

Days later, holiday lights still glittered around the buildings of New York. Remnants of Christmas still decorated Fifth Avenue. The frigid air nipped at your cheeks making you hold on to your faux mink tighter.

Tony’s New Year’s Eve party was different this year. No celebrities. No politicians. Just the Avengers, along with the friends and family that loved them. He had rented the whole rooftop of the Marriott Marquis, overlooking Times Square. Soft velvet settees were strewn across the space under a luxurious pergola and a fantastic view of the ball waiting to be dropped.

Lounging next to one of the many heat lamps, you wrapped your coat tighter around your shoulders. “So, who are you kissing when the clock strikes midnight?” Nat asked you, pouring you a glass of Bollinger. Her red lipstick was as bright as her hair. With one side of her fur falling down her shoulder, she looked like the classic Hollywood vixen, ready for her next close-up. Fitting for tonight’s Vintage Hollywood theme.

“I don’t know,” you lied, taking the stem from her hand. You knew exactly who you wanted to kiss tonight. “I haven’t really thought about it.”

“Liar.” She said so cooly. You smirked, chastising yourself for trying to lie to one of the world’s best interrogators. “I bet I could guess who!” She sang as you rolled your eyes.

“Even if I did want one of them to kiss me, that doesn’t mean that they will.”

“Come on. I’m sure one of them would love to snog you at midnight,” she chuckled. “An extra blessing of good health and fortune for the coming year…” She wagged her eyebrows and elbowed you.

“Oh, please.”

“Ok, there’s Steve.”

“Your ex?!”

“Ya!”

“No!” you exclaimed.

“He’s a great kisser.”

“Then why don’t you kiss him at midnight”

“We’re trying to get YOU kissed. Not me, remember? OK, what about Thing 1 and Thing 2?” She said pointing to Sam and Bucky.

“No,” you said laughing.

“Why not?”

“No. I just don’t see them that way. It’ll make for an awkward kiss.”

“How ‘bout Bruce?”

“Bruce isn’t even here.” You said looking around the party.

“Ok then, what about Thor?”

“He’s with Jane.”

“Why not try your luck with tall, dark, and stabby then?” she said pointing to Loki with her champagne flute. You snorted at her nickname for Loki nearly spilling champagne as you took a calculated sip. “Oh my god!”

“Nat! Please. Keep your voice down!”

“No one can hear me! It’s a loud party.”

“Yes, a party with superhuman beings who have superhuman hearing!”

“Good! Maybe he’ll make a move!” She said slightly louder, hoping to grab his attention.

“Shh! Shh! Keep it down!” you laughed as you tried to calm her. “He’s been making moves. But I think…I dropped the ball on this one.” You looked over to where Loki was standing, trying to see if he had caught anything that Nat was saying. He was standing proud, having a conversation with Steve. His long black coat fit him snugly while the fur lining of his collar accented his sharp jaw. His gloved hand squeezed tightly around the cane he was holding, making you wonder if he did hear Nat. God, to have that gloved hand wrapped around my neck.

“He’s staring at you.” You heard Nat whisper to your ear.

“What?!” you turned to Nat and then back to Loki quickly, meeting his stare. You were so caught up in imagining his hands that you missed his eyes on you.

You see Loki and Steve staring at both of you, saying things under hushed tones. “They’re probably looking at you,” you explained. “What’s the deal between you and Steve, anyway?” You changed the subject. “How long has it been since you guys talked?”

“A while.”

“How long is a whi-”

“Listen, since I don’t have anyone to kiss either, why don’t we just kiss each other at midnight? Deal?”

You paused at her ability to change the subject. You gave her a knowing look but allowed her to escape your scrutiny. “Deal!” you sighed, giggling as you clinked your glasses again and took sips readying for round two.

Loki smirked as he listened to your entire conversation. Up until now, he’s been patiently waiting for you to come to him. Giving you compliments. Finding small but lingering ways to touch you. He didn’t know if his tactics were working until he overheard your conversation with Agent Romanoff. He was confident you returned his affections.

Nerves shot through his entire body. Excitement and anxiety all rolled into one giant emotion he could not define. Who knew that Barnes and Wilson’s advice would work? “Tell me, Rogers, what is this tradition you guys have about kissing each other at midnight?” Loki asked as he watched you and Romanoff.

Steve followed Loki’s stare and saw you and Natasha lounging and laughing over a bottle of champagne. He remembered how he and Nat kissed at midnight last year, promising each other to try. But ultimately failing after six months.

“It’s a stupid superstition that doesn’t mean anything,” Steve said bitterly. Loki gave him a look to continue. “It’s said that whoever you kiss at midnight, will be your sweetheart for the rest of the year. Or if you’re already in a relationship, make it stronger.”

“I see,” Loki said contemplatively.

“It’s just superstition, Loki, don’t buy into it.”

“If you’ll excuse me, I have to find my brother.” Loki excused himself, already putting together details of a plan in his head.

“Thor! Thor…” he said pulling him aside. “Did you know about this Midgardian tradition of kissing at midnight?”

“Yes! Jane and I planned on it when the hour strikes. Who will be your intended, dear brother?” Thor asked happily. Loki looked at him pointedly. “Oh! You got the priestess to agree to kiss you?! That’s wonderful news!”

“Not quite. I need your help.”

“Get Help?”

“NO! For Father’s sake, if you throw me across the room, I will END YOU!”

“Alright, alright. I jest Loki. What can I do to help?”

“I’d like to kiss her at midnight, but too many people are vying for her attention. Too many variables. Too many options.”

“Don’t worry little brother, I’ve got this!”

Ten minutes before midnight, you can feel the buzz in the air as everyone scrambles to ring in the new year. You and Nat had graduated to the bar. Both of you nursing new flutes of prosecco.

Behind you, Thor rushes through the crowd looking for Steve. “Rogers, who are you kissing at midnight? Nat or Wanda?”

“Nat or Wanda? What do you mean?”

“Well, you have to kiss someone. Isn’t that your Midgardian tradition? And I figured you wouldn’t want to kiss Nat, I mean with your history and all…”

“Well, ya��” Steve rubbed the back of his neck, thinking about Thor’s proposition. “But what about Y/N?”

“Oh, Lady Y/N is kissing my brother.”

“Loki?! But, I…”

“Oh, I apologize. Did you want to kiss my brother instead?” Thor asked quickly. “I can look for him and change his mind. I didn’t know you had…”

“NO! No, I don’t. But, um…”

“Wonderful! So, Nat or Wanda?”

“I guess Wanda,” Steve shrugged. “Nat and I do have a history.”

“Perfect! I’ll let Wanda know.”

“Now hold on just a second…” Steve’s voice trailed away as Thor sprinted into the crowd. His eyes searched for the Scarlet Witch among the revelers and found her amidst a harem of men all rivaling for her attention.

“Wanda!” Thor shouted, frightening some of the men in the group. “Come. Steve says he wanted to kiss you at midnight!”

“I knew it! He couldn’t hide behind that shy act for long!” she said standing up and smoothing out her dress.

“Perfect! You should go to him right now, and make sure no one else claims him before you do.” Thor said. Wanda nodded with determination and marched her way over to Steve.

“Oh, come on Thor!” Wilson said behind him. “I was just about to ask her!” Thor turned to see Sam and Bucky amongst Wanda’s many admirers.

“Uh…you’re in luck, my dear friends. I know someone anxious to kiss you both.” Thor gleamed.

“Us both?” Bucky questioned. Thor pointed to where you and Natasha sat.

“Ooh, nice choice. But I doubt that Steve would actually like that.” Sam said.

“And I believe Y/N is already spoken for,” Bucky added, pointing to Loki walking in your direction.

“It is for Steve we do this!” Thor wrapped his bulging arms around each of their necks. “We all know how miserable both he and Natasha are right now. Make him a little jealous. Perhaps he’ll rise to the occasion and get back his true love.”

“His true love?” Sam questioned.

“For true love!” Thor repeated, squeezing their necks tighter.

“The things we do for our friends,” Bucky grumbled under his breath.

Meanwhile, Loki made his way to the bar where you and Nat were laughing. “Ladies,” he said in that low baritone of his. “I’m sorry to disrupt your merriment, but may I speak to you privately, Agent Romanoff?”

You and Nat exchanged glances as she raised her eyebrow. A smirk fell upon her red lips and that’s when you felt it. A sharp pang of jealousy that twisted a knife in your gut. You hoped that your smile was still plastered on your face. Lord knows Nat could spot a tell from a mile away and you weren’t as good at hiding it as she was.

Loki offered his hand and Nat took it, hopping off the barstool, hand in hand with the man you’ve been pining for. You waited till both their backs were to you when you turned back around to the bar and let your smile die.

“Can I get a shot of tequila!” you yelled to the bartender, holding up your hand. You watched as Loki led Nat to the middle of the room, his arm wrapped around her delicate waste. “Make it a double!” you said with a huff. The sight in front of you was too much to witness. You had accepted that you might not get to kiss Loki at all tonight, but to watch him kiss someone else would be devastating to you.

With nothing, and no one else, keeping you at the party you decided to leave. You ran from the party as quickly as possible with your head turned down, holding back tears and feelings of betrayal.

“Loki, I hope you’re not gonna ask me for a kiss at midnight. That’s a hard pass.” Nat started before he took her very far.

“No, my dear. I overheard your conversation earlier with our dear healer. I was hoping to alleviate your promise of kissing her at midnight by offering you an alternative.”

“What alternative?”

“Two, alternatives actually.” At this, Loki gently grabbed Natasha’s shoulder and spun her around to see Bucky and Sam by the DJ booth. Sam held his drink up to her in greeting, while Bucky just grinned.

“Two! Steve wouldn’t like this.”

“Roger’s is kissing the Witch tonight.” He pointed to where Steve and Wanda were talking. Jealousy burned inside Natasha. A quiet resolve cemented in her and she was set on making him pay for it. “But what about Y/N?”

“As I said, I plan to take charge of her kiss from midnight, and all her kisses thereafter,” Loki winked at her.

“Don’t play with her heart, Loki.”

“I should warn you of the same with your soldier, agent.” He bowed slightly as Nat sauntered her way over to the two soldiers waiting for her.

When Loki turned back towards the bar, his face had fallen realizing that you were no longer there. Panicked, he looked around and found a trail of your coat just as it disappeared inside the hotel. Loki looked at his watch- three minutes left. The crowd below started getting restless and the giant numbers on the large screen on top of the prismatic ball had started ticking down towards midnight.

“Darling, where are you going? The clock is about to strike.” Loki caught up to you at the elevators. You gulped at the sight of him coming towards you. Inside the lobby, the heat was almost suffocating, and Loki unbuttoned his coat to be less stifling. You watched as he removed his gloves, finger by finger, and stuffed them into his coat pocket. The action mesmerized you until you were face to face with him.

“Loki! Shouldn’t you be with Natasha right now?” You said as you looked up at the elevator numbers ticking by so slowly. You pushed the call button praying for the lift to come faster.

“She’s currently entertaining Thing 1 and Thing 2. If my memory of your conversation serves me correctly.” You stared at him in disbelief. You might have had too much to drink. But not enough to miss the implication of what that meant.

He knows. He overheard your conversation and he knows!

He placed his hands on your waist and pulled you towards him, leading you away from the elevators. Away from the notion of running.

His fingers were soft and warm as he cupped your cheek. “Since you’ve saved my life, I have plotted and asked several times for you to kiss me again, my angel. I will not ask again.” His lips were grazing your skin. The heat in his breath intoxicated you. You closed your eyes at the overwhelming sensation of being held by him. “I told myself that the next time we kiss, it would be because you asked me to. Not out of any obligation. But because you want me. As much as I want you.”

Outside you could hear the deafening roar of people counting down from ten. It melded with the electric buzz going through your body being held so close by Loki. “But I truly can't resist you any longer. I have thought of nothing else since you kissed me that day on the field.”

“Loki…”

“Please ask me.” Three.

“What?” Two.

“Ask me to kiss you.” One.

“Kiss me Loki-” you barely said his name when his lips found yours and held on tight. A slight whimper fell from your lips, and he reacted by holding you tighter against his body.

Your fingers were entwined in his hair, holding him close to you. You pulled away to catch your breath, and his lips followed yours—unsatisfied from the short amount of contact they had received.

This kiss was different than the last. There wasn’t a threat of losing his life hanging over you. Instead, the urge was from longing and desire. There was fire and vigor in his lips. And you consumed him easily like a starved woman.

“Happy New Year, my dear,” Loki exhaled between kisses.

“Happy New Year,” you giggled holding him tight.

⬅️ Have Mercy (prequel)

🏷️ Tags in the comments

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batmen-and-birds · 15 days ago

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Adopt me once shame on thee, Adopt me twice shame on me

Jason getting readopted as Red Hood and without either side knowing about the other's identity would be SO funny and honestly, the question of how isn't that hard to answer. It goes a little something like this:

Bruce, did not want to force young Jason into an uncomfortable environment/places where he could also be recognized even while undercover. Thus never letting him see or interact with the Matches Malone persona. Jason obviously hides his face and identity not only from the batfam but from his employees too. His plans are carefully hidden and any motive besides hurting the Batman and his new Robin are unknown.

So Bruce wants to know more about Red Hood and infiltrates the crime boss' gang to figure out his next move. Problem is- the moment they work together for a longer than a week Bruce realizes that the Red Hood is an obvious TEEN. A smart, competent and dangerous one but still. He then tries to connect to RH, now hoping he can bring him on the right path. Ofc Bruce is still riddled with grief of loosing Jason but the new kid crime boss reminds him too much of his son to stay away from too long.

Red Hood, sees a hard working, well connected henchman and promotes him to a higher position. With time he slowly bonds with this vaguely dad-shaped henchman and is getting comfortable with the mpan's paternal mannerism towards him. Jason learning that Matches hates the Joker's gut just as much as he does, bc that clown murdered the man's son helps immensely. Honestly, Jason's kinda impressed when the man confesses to nearly successfully ending Joker himself and only failing due to a series of unlikely events.

Then offers Matches a bigger role in his whole Revenge Plan, which Bruce reluctantly agrees to hear out.

Jason *presenting the most intricate murder board in existence*: -and Then I'm going to get Robin in his base in L.A. and beat the shit outta him. Just to show him I can, y'know? If the little bird really wants to fly that badly then he should expect someone to pluck him from the sky sooner or later! Matches : ...what if Batman is there? Jason: Well, Batman doesn't really care about his kids like you do. Y'know, letting them run around at night... but he IS paranoid as fuck... and Nightwing could.... now thinking about it...*proceeds to take down the board in frustration* UGH! Matches: Do you want me to bring you some tea while you to think about your plan some more? Jason: ........yes please

#Jason: God! I wish my dad was like you #Matches (Bruce; his dad): I mean i could adopt you if you'd like #Jason: what #Bruce: what #fic ideas #ofc there's a LOT of angst given the situation at hand #them adopting each other again just before the big show down would be so messed up #dc comics #dc #batman #bruce wayne #jason todd #matches malone #batfam #dcu #batkids

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moraymiso · 9 months ago

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✧ — you were only seventeen

i’m so normal about them. rest assured i will draw an exuberant amount of more teenzai angst. i will be known as the teenzai angst drawer trust

based off that one arcane poster <3

#addri convinced me to post this #ofc the first art i draw of him is angst #teenzai is on my mind 24/7 like i rant about him daily atp #he was only a kid :((((#bsd #bungo stray dogs #bungou stray dogs #bsd dazai #dazai osamu #osamu dazai #fifteen dazai #dazai fifteen #bsd fifteen #bungo stray dogs fanart #bsd fanart #bsd art #artists on tumblr #anime fanart #arcane

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castielscaplan · 2 months ago

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Heartbeat

Summary: dean's in love with your belly.

Warnings: Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Protective!Dean, Established Relationship, pregnant reader, Mild language, pregnancy themes, soft!Dean

WC: 627

Read on ao3!

A/N: idea came from a prompt from this list!

Your feet hurt.

That was the first thing Dean noticed when you walked through the bunker’s door—shoes in hand, a scowl between your brows, and your other hand bracing the small of your back. The pregnancy was nearing its final stretch, and your body had made its rebellion known in every possible way.

Dean was across the war room in two strides. “Hey, hey, come here.” He swept the shoes from your grip and helped you ease into a chair like you were made of porcelain. “You’re supposed to be taking it easy.”

“I went to the store, not war,” you huffed. “I’m pregnant, not made of glass.”

Dean crouched beside you, hands already on your calves, fingers moving to rub the arches of your aching feet like it was second nature. He was obsessed with touching you lately—not in a weird way but more like he couldn’t believe you were real. Couldn’t believe this was real.

“I just don’t like you carrying anything heavier than a craving,” he muttered, pressing a kiss to your knee before looking up at you with those damn forest-green eyes. “You okay?”

You softened. Always did with him. “Yeah. Just tired.”

He nodded, reaching up to cradle your belly with both hands. Your shirt was stretched tight over it now—his shirt, really, soft cotton with an old Zepp logo, permanently claimed by you months ago. His thumbs traced light circles on either side of the bump, reverent.

“You know,” he said quietly, “I can feel her kick now. Stronger than yesterday.”

You smiled. “She’s definitely your kid. Already throwing punches.”

His jaw ticked slightly, and there was that look again—the one you were starting to recognize. It wasn’t just awe. It was something deeper. He looked at you like he was scared the world would take you from him. Like he was scared of being happy.

“I keep thinking I’m gonna wake up,” he confessed, voice low. “Like this is all some dream I’m not allowed to have. You. Her. A home.”

You reached down, fingers sliding into his hair. “It’s not a dream, Dean. You built this.”

He leaned into your hand. “No. You built this. I just… I’m the guy who got lucky.”

You both were quiet for a moment. Then his hand shifted again, thumb brushing just under the curve of your bump.

“I’ve got this list,” he said suddenly, eyes still fixed on your stomach.

You blinked. “List?”

“Of things I wanna do before she’s born. Stuff I wanna be ready for. I, uh…” He looked a little sheepish. “I read all the books. Sam caught me watching a diaper tutorial on YouTube the other night. Thought I was watching porn or something.”

You laughed, heart swelling.

Dean grinned, rubbing the back of his neck. “I just wanna be good at this. Better than I ever had. You know?”

You cupped his cheek. “You already are. She’s lucky, Dean. We both are.”

His eyes shimmered just a bit. He didn’t cry—Dean Winchester didn’t cry, at least not where you could see it—but you felt it in the way he kissed your palm, slow and grateful.

He stood and pulled you into his arms, careful but close. “Swear to God, Y/N, I’ve faced monsters, angels, Lucifer himself—but nothing terrifies me more than the idea of not doing right by you and her.”

You leaned your head against his chest, hearing the steady thump of his heart.

“Then stop worrying,” you said softly. “You’re already doing everything right.”

His arms tightened just a little.

And when the baby kicked again, right against his ribs, you felt him smile against your hair like it was the best moment of his entire life.

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damneddamsy · 4 months ago

Text

falling | joel miller x fem!oc (part iv)

MINIMUM VIABLE HOPE—The smallest form of belief, enough to go on.

summary: It's a day out on the town, and Jackson has much more to offer than just a home and traded goods. Perspective, comfort, and a nice helping of lovesickness—all of which catch Joel's eye.

a/n: did you know you can only mention fifty people in a post? that's just plain boring. and no more than five people in a comment? RUDE. and did anyone else see that SNL episode with Pedro and his hip thrusts, and just fucking die? yeah, me too. also - i had so much FUN writing this chapter, the feels, the angst, the yearning, the loooove. thank you all so much, and I hope you like this long ass chapter!

Joel didn’t like looking in the mirror for too long.

It wasn’t vanity—never had been—but it showed too much. Told the truth in ways he didn’t much care for. The deep lines, the greying scruff, the years stacked on top of each other like weathered wood, each one heftier than the last. He preferred the delusion, the easy forgetfulness that came with living day to day, not thinking too hard about the good ol' days or how much he wished time hadn't gotten his hands on him. But today?

Well, today he damn near felt good in his own skin.

The clothes, that Leela generously offered, helped. Goddamn, they smelled amazing. Fresh. Worn but not ragged. The denim was sturdy but soft, the fleece underlayer warm and snug. The shearling jacket fit like something out of another life—one where he had more time, where he cared about how he looked. Even his boots, though a little tight, made him feel like he was standing taller. He couldn't even pronounce the brand of the damn thing—French apostrophes, all that fancy bullshit—but whatever it was, it smelled nice, felt nice.

Oh, for sure: Ellie was bound to give him shit. Tommy even more so.

But really... he couldn't give a flying fuck. Today he felt like he was Joel from Texas again. Like he wasn’t some worn-down relic with a bad knee and a worse past.

On the note of Leela, the big, white house across the street was officially back in order. Finally functional after hours of wrestling with the complex fucking wiring, one of the few cons of such a massive home. Not that it had been much of a fight after the resident brainiac showed up—Leela had already pinpointed the problem in minutes and quietly rattled it off like it was second nature. All he had to do was be her muscle, follow along and weld it. It was more attractive than any love or sex this world had to offer.

Catching his reflection again in the front mirror of Leela's home, Joel ruffled the front of his hair, combing down the longer strands at the back, brushing at his jaw, at the scruff that had grown heavier these days, adjusting the collar, smoothing out the sleeve.

He hadn’t meant to get this caught up in it, hadn’t meant to feel this—what, good? Yeah, good. Christ, what a joke.

He’d just turned to grab Maya's baby blanket off the couch, the breathy voice from the stairs made him stiffen.

“Jesus, Joel.”

He looked up.

Leela was halfway down the staircase, cradling Maya against her chest. She wasn’t wearing the usual loose nightgowns or sweats she’d holed herself up in for months. No, this time, she was in clean, fitted jeans, and a long-sleeved shirt in that same soft blue he liked on her. Her hair was brushed smooth down her back, tucked behind her ears, not tangled and loose like usual.

For the first time, he really saw her. Not just the soft, exhausted mother. Not just the lonely woman who never let anyone too close. Her. Tall and breathtaking. Arch calves, thighs, the swell of her hips, the softness at her love handles that hadn’t quite gone away after childbirth.

And because life had a twisted sense of humour, because the moment was already damn near suffocating from seeing her, she had to go and hit him with—

“I thought you were my dad from the back.”

Joel took that one like a sucker punch straight to the gut. He had to fight the instinct to wince, to let it show. At least she didn’t say granddad, he reasoned, trying to patch up what little was left of his dignity. Small mercies.

He exhaled, fixing his fist into the coat pockets, forcing himself to smirk. “Yeah? He must’ve been one hell of a good-lookin’ guy.”

Leela huffed out a laugh, resting the baby’s cheek against her shoulder. “He loved suede. A huge show-off.”

“Well,” he drawled, tugging at the sleeve, “that's where we disagree. At least the man had taste.”

“He also loved polka-dots,” she pointed out.

He clicked his tongue. “I take the fifth, thanks.”

That earned him another laugh, light and easy, like he’d actually said something funny. He didn’t think too hard about how that was probably all he was to her—just some seasoned guy lending a hand. A reliable acquaintance. Nothing more, nothing less.

But then, feeling excluded, Maya let out a breathless little giggle—one of those soft, airy sounds she always seemed to save just for him—and he feared for whatever was left of his soul, crushing.

Maya was grinning up at him, tiny fists wriggling in her mittens, legs kicking against Leela’s side, looking like a baby worth a thousand pictures in a camera. Bundled up in a white cotton onesie, all warm and snug, her beanie perched on her head with those stupid little ears sticking up like a baby bear. Everything was a size too big like she was still growing into the world.

Joel clutched at his chest, mock-staggering back. “You’re breakin’ my goddamned heart, doll,” he murmured, unable to resist a toothy grin, as he held out his arms for her. “Look at you. C’mere, beautiful girl. G'morning.”

Maya squirmed excitedly, tiny mitten-clad hands grasping the air, and as Joel habitually pressed a warm kiss into her cheek, tempted to steal four more, he caught a glimpse of the gold ‘L’ embroidered on the chest of the onesie. Leela’s old hand-me-down that had survived the test of time.

“Lost an eardrum trying to get her into that,” Leela admitted.

She shook her head but passed Maya over, cracking her knuckles absently as she stretched out her arms, unease becoming her. He adjusted Maya against his side, settling her little weight against him. That was her seat for the rest of the day today.

Then, as if debating something, she asked, “Do you really think it’s fine? Bringing her outside? I'm worried she'll fall sick or...”

Joel arched a brow. “I told you. You’re not goin’ there without me, and Maya’s not goin’ anywhere without either of us.”

Leela chewed on that, still unsure.

Maria had been insistent about her showing up, about giving her insight into the lightning harvester with workers—the innovation she’d designed, the one they were planning to station right outside the dam. The whole quadrant was already in progress, groundwork was being laid, and people getting involved. The biggest project Jackson had taken on in a long while.

Even after Joel had warned Maria that Leela was banged up and still on the mend, she'd cherry-picked the argument and cornered him by labelling him an 'overbearing son of a bitch who was getting on her last nerve'. He'd essentially shut up after that since Maria still scared him witless.

"Look, I've got the kid. You do your thing," Joel said, adjusting Maya as she wriggled against him. "I'll just hang back at the square with Tommy and the rest, stay close by. I'll check up on you after."

Leela pressed her lips together, clearly thinking it over.

Joel tried his hand at persuasion. “Y'know, you've been holed up here for three months.”

Leela blinked. Like she was only just realizing it. Her brows furrowed, fingers lifting as she counted—one, two, three. Each number dropped a new rock in Joel’s stomach.

“More, actually.” Her voice was distant like she was doing the math in real time. “I delivered Maya at home. Nearly... eight months now.”

Eight months. Eight months since she’d stepped beyond these walls, since she’d breathed fresh air, and been around people.

He hadn’t let himself think about it before—hadn’t wanted to—but now the image was there, unshakable. Leela, alone. Covered in sweat, spasming in pain. Bloody, weak, feeling like she was dying, like the walls were closing in, like no one in the world could help her. The raw struggle of it.

His stomach turned. No—Maria would’ve made sure she had someone. She had to have. Someone must've heard her.

Joel was aware of what that kind of loneliness did to a person. How it made you shrink, made you start believing that was all there was—that the world outside didn’t need you anymore. And she’d stayed in here. For eight goddamn months. That wasn’t living.

He cleared his throat, forcing the thought away. No use stewing in it.

“Well,” he muttered, his hand reaching for the door handle, “’nuff said. Let’s get this show on the road.”

People in Jackson knew Joel Miller.

Same as Maria. Same as Tommy. They knew him for his angry brow, the way his mouth rarely broke from that grim, set line. They knew the sharpness in his eyes, the way he cut through a room without saying a word. They knew he was a hardass bastard. He didn’t make small talk. Didn’t go out of his way to be liked. He knew he scared off plenty of folks just by standing there, arms crossed, expression set like granite. And that suited him just fine. People left him be.

So seeing him now—walking through town cradling a baby instead of a rifle, with a woman most thought was a ghost at his side—that was gonna be the topic of the damn day.

He could feel the looks, hear the murmurs, the way conversations stuttered as he passed. And he did not give a shit. Let ‘em talk. Let ‘em wonder.

It wasn’t like he was breaking news—his neighbours saw him come and go from her big white house as he pleased. Enough times that people could put two and two together. But this? Out in broad daylight, baby in tow? Now what the hell was going on?

Joel wasn’t the kind of man people expected to be carrying a baby. Much less one that looked at him like he hung the damn moon. And yet, here was Maya, snug against his chest, her tiny fingers curled into his fleece collar, drooling on his coat like it belonged to her.

And Leela—well. She was another matter entirely. She wasn’t just quiet. She was tense. She kept close, but not close enough to touch. Her shoulders were drawn up, her hands flexing and unflexing like she was trying to shake off the feeling of being watched.

And it wasn’t hard to guess why.

People hadn’t seen her in months. Half of Jackson had probably forgotten she even existed. The other half had started whispering about why. Joel had heard it in passing, plenty of rumours. Theories. That she was still sick. That she was holed up with her baby because she was too ashamed to be seen alone. That she was broken, not quite right in the head.

He knew better. He knew she was just trying to get by. Trying to put herself together while holding onto a child that didn’t feel quite like hers yet. And this? Being out here? This was the most out of her comfort zone she’d been in a long time.

Joel kept a steady pace, letting Leela take in what she hadn’t seen in months. He pointed things out as they walked—the grocery store with the fresh carrots now, thanks to the greenhouse. The bar with the good music. The repair shop he visited often. The little barbecue place that always smelled so mouthwatering it was damn near criminal.

He did it all for her. To keep her focused on something else—something that wasn’t the way people watched her. Wasn’t the way she was already winding herself up, bracing for something bad that wasn’t coming.

Joel kept a close eye on her, shifting Maya in his arms, pretending not to notice the way her breathing went uneven. The way she stiffened every time someone got too close. The way she gripped Joel’s elbow a little tighter like she had to remind herself he was still there.

Then, like it was nothing, like this was any other day, he muttered, “Y’ever had barbecue before?”

Leela blinked, like the question startled her. “Yeah?”

“Yeah?” He echoed with a smirk, shifting Maya higher in his arms who was listening to his voice drum in his chest. “That didn’t sound real confident.”

She let out a breath, still gripping his jacket tight. “I have, just… not in a very long time.”

“Well,” he drawled, eyes on the path ahead like this was already settled, “when you’re done with work, I’m takin’ you out. Get you a nice smoked brisket. A big slice of pecan pie with cream. How 'bout it?”

Leela glanced at him, agape. “I don’t... you don’t have to—”

“I know,” he cut in. “I want to.”

She didn’t say anything. A moment later, he felt her hand slip lower, brushing against his wrist. Just a light touch, nothing much. But Joel knew what it meant. The world around her was too much, too fast, too loud. Drowning in the noise of it all.

So, soft and low, he asked, “D’you wanna head inside for a bit?”

Leela barely hesitated. Just nodded once, fast, reaching for Maya like she needed something to anchor herself.

But Maya wasn't having it at all. She whined a stubborn noise, little hands grasping at Joel’s coat, face burrowing into the material, refusing to be handed off when she had just gotten cosy.

And maybe Joel imagined it—but he thought he saw something in Leela’s eyes splinter, that little rejection cutting deeper than it should’ve. A flicker in her dark eyes she buried quick. It looked a hell of a lot like hurt.

But she didn’t say anything. Didn’t react. Just let her hands fall, face blank and turned for the closest door.

Joel followed without a word, close enough, an arm outstretched around her, never touching, his presence simply a buffer between her and the rest of the world.

Inside, it was quiet. The clothing store, he quickly realized. The shelves were full but mismatched, stocked with whatever could be traded, salvaged, or repurposed. Nothing had price tags—Jackson ran on barter. Jackets, boots, canned food, and old records. Everything was up for negotiation. You talked it out with the shopkeep and settled on a fair deal.

Leela didn’t say a word. Just let out a slow, shuddering breath, stepping into a corner aisle, hidden away, and pressing her slick palms against the wooden shelf.

Joel watched her quietly, stroking Maya's back. Eight months locked up in that house, barely speaking to a soul. Now, she is back in the thick of it, remembering how to breathe in open air. No wonder, she looked like she was trying to find her footing. It made sense; people forgot how to be around people.

It was something he'd seen before. The way a person stepped out of the dark after too long, how the world suddenly felt like it could swallow them whole. Some folks got jumpy. Some shut down. Leela was somewhere in between—standing still, silent, stiff as a board, like she was trying to keep herself from bolting.

He’d seen that before, too.

Her fingers curled into the edge of the shelf at her back, grip tightening, knuckles white. She shut her eyes, breathing slow, deliberate—like she was trying to disappear inside herself. Trying to access some space within herself where the world wasn’t pressing in on her.

Yeah. He knew that look all too well now. She was trying not to cry.

Joel shifted his weight, glancing down at Maya, who was blissfully unaware, busy gumming the edge of a scarf she’d pulled off the shelf.

He cleared his throat. “Hey.”

Leela flinched—not much, just a little twitch of her shoulders—but it was enough to tell him that, for a second, she’d forgotten where she was. She blinked, pulling back from wherever she’d gone in her head, and looked at him.

Joel didn’t do the whole let's-address-this-nonsense, so he reached for the first thing that might pull her back. He grabbed an old record from the shelf and held it up. “Wanna put that fancy record player to use?”

Her expression softened instantly. She reached for the record, fingers tracing the edges like she was handling something precious. He eventually noticed the label—The Beach Boys, Wild Honey. What was with him, her and the sixties music?

“I have this one,” she mumbled.

An unsurprising turn of events. “’Course you do.” Joel sighed, sliding it back onto the shelf. "Hard to spoil a rich girl.”

She huffed out a laugh, tired, but at least it was real. She picked up a cloudy snow globe next, giving it a shake, eyes tracking the upending snow inside. “Don’t care for money anymore.”

Joel watched her, watched the way her fingers moved over the glass, trying to wipe away the dust. The way her shoulders had started to relax, just a little. He figured now was a good time for a distraction.

He tipped his chin at her. “You’re sittin’ on a gold mine, darlin'. You got salt. Basil or whatever.”

Her head tilted. "Seasoning makes me rich?"

"You ever eaten twenty years’ worth of QZ ration packs?" He scoffed, thumbing through the record covers. "Tryin’ to remember what real food tastes like while chewing expired crap they call 'dehydrated bolognese'?"

She actually laughed at that—not a breathy little huff, but a real laugh, short and amused. Then her eyes picked up that spark, a sharpness brightening her. “I make my own salt, actually. It’s a chemical reaction. It's fascinating, the sedimentation from caustic soda and—”

Joel lifted a hand to interrupt her, making a 'whoosh' motion over his head. “Alright, you lost me at ‘chemical.’ But if you got some to spare, I'd love to start saltin' my eggs in the morning.”

Her grin widened, but before she could respond, the door clattered open.

Maria swept in like a windstorm, hardly stepping inside, just enough to hold the door open. Clipboard in hand, she scanned the shelves, eyes flicking from one thing to the next, already onto whatever task she had next.

When she finally spotted Leela, she barely paused. “C’mon, kid, people are waiting for you. Let’s go.”

Leela stiffened, a shallow breath catching in her throat.

Joel caught the way her fingers tightened around the snow globe. The way her gaze flickered toward the door, then away just as fast—like she couldn’t look at it too long like it was something too bright, too overwhelming. She had just started breathing again.

He was about to say something—tell Maria to give her a damn minute, at least—but Leela nodded at her before he could get a word out. “I’ll be right there.”

But he saw the way her throat worked, how her hands wouldn’t quite let go of the shelf behind her. Then, she glanced back at him. A flicker. Hesitation. Like she was searching for something—a push, a reason to stall.

Joel had no goddamn clue what to do with that. Flash her a thumbs-up? Offer some dopey, generic shit like, “You got this”? None of it seemed right.

Maya—still happily oblivious, still gnawing on that damp, probably filthy scarf—grinned up at her mother with a gurgle, all gums and trouble. Her small hand finally reached out to her mama like her own little vote of confidence.

Leela’s expression softened, melting at that. She pressed a kiss to Maya's mitten, cupped her cheeks, and pressed another kiss to her head, lingering for a moment, breathing her in. “Don’t miss me too much, baby girl.”

And Joel—who was just holding the kid, who had nothing to do with that kiss—felt it all the way to his goddamn toes, until he curled them tight.

His throat closed when Leela straightened, and before he could react, she reached out, squeezing his shoulder. A quick thing, warm, shocking and grounding, there and gone.

“Take care of her, Joel,” she murmured.

She didn’t wait for a response. Didn’t hesitate this time. Just turned and walked toward the door, already steeling herself for whatever was waiting outside. Maria scarcely gave Joel a second glance as she hooked an arm around Leela’s shoulder, guiding her down the street, toward the dam.

Joel let out a slow breath through his nose, shifting Maya in his arms. Take care of her. Like that was even a question.

So, this was it. Joel hadn’t done something like this in a long time.

Running errands. Moving through town without it being about work, about survival, about making sure no one was about to freeze or starve. Just walking, going slow, letting himself ease into the rhythm of a day.

It was stupid how much he liked it. Maybe it was Maya in her room that was his arms, the warmth of her little body tucked up against him, the soft sighs and quiet sounds she made as she drifted in and out of sleep on his chest. Maybe it was the feeling of just being—going from place to place with no rush, no urgency, no reason to keep his hand near a weapon. It had been a while since he felt this liberated.

And yet, for all that, it was also the most uncomfortable he’d ever been. Because everywhere he went, people noticed him.

Or more specifically, they noticed her.

Maya was the newest baby in town, and in a place like Jackson—where everyone kept track of every fucking thing—that meant she was an instant celebrity.

It started at the main square. Joel had barely stepped inside before an older woman behind the counter lit up, clasping her hands together. “Oh, well, would you look at that.” She leaned forward, peering at Maya like she was a new puppy. “Aren’t you just the prettiest little thing?”

Joel braced. He was never good at shit like this—casual conversation, polite interactions. But he was prepared to nod, maybe mutter something noncommittal. Didn’t get the chance.

Before he could step away, the woman moved in.

“Can I see her?” She was already reaching like she might touch her, and instinct had Joel stepping back, moving Maya’s weight against his chest, his free hand flexing at his side.

The handsy woman noticed, laughing lightly. “Don’t worry, hon, I won’t take her from you.” But then she looked up, past Maya and her face dropped like a corpse wearing boots. “Oh. Joel.”

Yeah. Exactly. People never approached him. They let him pass, they let him do what he needed to do, and they didn’t ask for more than what was necessary. But now? Now he had her snug to his chest, and people suddenly thought they could get in his space, that they could smile at him like he was one of them.

“Right,” Joel muttered, clearing his throat. He took a step back, putting more space between them. “Gotta—uh. Got things to do.”

And he left before she could say anything else.

But it kept happening. Like having a baby made you instantly likeable. Erased everything that people deemed you unlikeable for.

A pair of young women on the street whispered to each other behind their hands. The Miller baby. Even some guy he didn’t know—a carpenter or a repairman or something—told over his shoulder to his friend while passing him, “Is that the little Miller baby?”

He didn’t answer. It wasn’t. But he hated how the words stuck to his skin, how they lingered. Feeding him false truths.

Maya, for her part, handled the attention in the same way she handled everything. She stared, wide-eyed, for a few seconds before burying her face in his chest, hiding against him.

Which—fair. Joel had the same damn instinct.

After a while, he just stopped slowing down, stopped making eye contact, and stopped acknowledging the people trying to grab his attention. By the time he hit the shop that traded in home goods, his patience was running thin.

He bartered for his coffee first. Priorities. He was low on supply, and he didn’t feel right starting a morning without it. Then, a stop at the shelf where he found some candles. The kind that a hifalutin name, like lavender or some other flower he couldn’t name. He wasn’t proud of what he’d had to trade to get them, but if they helped Leela sleep, he figured it was worth it.

Then, while shifting the baby bag on his shoulder, he saw it—some worn-down, wooden playthings on one of the shelves, a sad little collection of toys no one had much use for.

The kid had nothing. Leela didn’t seem to know enough to engage her in play. Honestly, Maya’s biggest laughs came from him, from just seeing him come in through the door and the way he bounced her when no one was looking. She didn’t have a stuffed animal to chew on, a rattle to shake, nothing. That sat wrong with him.

He reached out, fingers brushing over a carved horse with rounded edges. But before he could test it in his palms, Maya twisted in his arms, a tiny frown forming on her face.

The warning signs.

Joel sighed. “Ah, shit. Really, sweetheart?”

The fussing started slow—grunts, little unhappy noises, fidgeting with her mittens. It was hunger, he knew that much, and he hadn’t exactly planned on stopping somewhere good for it.

He glanced around, eyes landing on the worst place he could think of to feed a baby. He looked up to the sky instead, hoping for some cosmic assistance. Test him, test him, and test him again.

The fucking bar.

Well, then. It should be empty at this time of day. He'll take what is given.

Joel stepped in, scanning the dimly lit space for judgmental stares, the door swinging shut behind him. No one. It smelled like old wood and stale beer, the kind of place that felt settled into itself, like it had been standing for a hundred years and would stand for a hundred more. Even Tommy was behind the counter, rummaging through shelves, looking for something that clearly wasn’t there.

Joel exhaled sharply and shook his head. “Caught you at the right time.”

Tommy barely glanced up. “Look who it is. Papa Joel.” Then he did look, properly this time, and his smirk widened. “And look at you. Hell, you wearin’ cologne?”

Joel grunted, shifting Maya higher in his arms. “Shut up.”

“Not my fault you look—” Tommy gestured vaguely at all of him, “—like you popped outta Sears catalogue.”

Joel scowled. The swanky clothes. Right. But leave it to Tommy to make a damn thing of it.

Instead of answering, he settled onto a stool, already halfway to getting Maya’s bottle ready. She'd gone quiet, watching him move, which was never a good sign. Not for long, anyway.

Joel gently adjusted her in the crook of his arm, tucking the bottle against her lips, and that was it. The instant it was him feeding her, the second she got comfortable, her hands started roaming. She did this thing every single time. Feeling. Grabbing. Claiming.

And today, like always, they landed on the scar on his wrist. That big, pale line that ran jagged up his wrist into his forearm, from a blade that had nearly done more than nick him. A raider that he'd shivved in less than two seconds once the bleeding started.

In cruel irony, Maya was obsessed with it. She smoothed her tiny mitten over it, again and again, like she was trying to figure it out, her hand bare speck against the scar. Then she started digging her little hand into it, gripping it like she could peel it off him like it was something separate from his skin.

If Joel took his arm away when she got her claws in, her hands floated after it, waiting. A small whine, and she even gave up on the bottle.

“What?” he asked her, a single brow arched. “Aren't you hungry?”

She moved her head when he tried to push the sipper against her lips. Little smartass. A small, give-it-back-coo, brows furrowed, fists still waiting within her mittens. He missed seeing those little fingers already.

“Yeah, yeah. I ain’t goin’ anywhere, baby girl,” he sighed, letting her have his hand again. His voice was barely above a rasp, more to himself than anything. Not like she could understand, anyway. But talking to her—talking at her—had become something natural. Like breathing.

Immediately, she latched onto it again, tiny fingers curling around the scar like it belonged to her. Just let it happen. Couldn’t do a damn thing with her around. She had all his attention.

The silence between them stretched, like something Joel could settle into. Maya kept her hold on him, even as she finished eating, even as her round eyelids drooped with sleep.

His free hand, the one that had been absently nursing the cold whiskey glass, came up to trace down her nose. That tiny little twitching nose. She scrunched it at the sensation, gave the smallest little sigh—then she was out. Just like that.

Ahead, Tommy took a sip of his drink, still watching. Not saying anything. Not yet.

Then, after a beat, he sighed. “So, you’re really gonna do this?”

Joel blinked, caught mid-motion, his fingers coming up against the cool glass of his drink. He knew what Tommy's 'this' implied, he didn't even have to point it out. Joel hadn’t thought about it, not in words. Not in the way Tommy was asking. But the question hung there between them, waiting to be acknowledged.

His first instinct was to scoff. Shake his head. Deflect. Like he always did.

But instead, he just sat there.

Maya was still curled against him, warm and impossibly small. Her fingers had loosened in sleep, no longer gripping his wrist so fiercely, but every now and then, she’d twitch, like she was reaching for him even in dreams. Like she knew exactly where she belonged, in the arms that were always ready to catch her.

Joel swallowed, jaw working, eyes fixed on the grain of the counter. He could feel Tommy watching him, waiting.

Then came the shrug. That half-assed, useless shrug. A non-answer, because he wasn’t ready to say it out loud.

Tommy snorted, shaking his head. “Bullshit.”

“Ain’t that simple. You know how it is with her mom.” The words came out rougher than Joel intended like he was trying to shove them between himself and whatever his shitty brother was about to say next.

Tommy, of course, wasn’t buying it. He leaned against the bar, arms folded, giving Joel that look—the one that said he was already ten steps ahead, already seeing straight through the seven layers of crap. Joel hated that damn look.

“It’s already simple,” Tommy said, voice even. “You just don’t wanna admit it.”

Joel scowled, shifting Maya higher in his arms, adjusting her like it was nothing. Like she wasn’t the thing anchoring him in place.

“The hell does that mean?”

Tommy huffed a laugh, shaking his head. Then he just gestured—a lazy flick of his fingers toward Maya, toward the way she was curled into Joel’s chest, tiny and warm and completely at home.

It made Joel pause. The way Tommy was looking at him. The way he didn’t say what he meant, just let the silence speak for itself.

Joel swallowed, jaw tightening.

“It means you already decided,” Tommy finally said. “You’re just waitin’ on someone else to say it first, you pussy.”

Joel’s fingers curled tighter around his drink. A muscle jumped in his jaw. Because Tommy wasn’t wrong. He fucking hated that Tommy wasn’t wrong.

This was what he did. This was how it always went. With Ellie. With Sarah. He didn’t decide—he just let it happen. Let them carve out their space in his life, let them claim him before he ever had the guts to admit it. Because once you said it—really said it—that was it. No taking it back. No pretending you could walk away.

And Maya… she was already there. Already in. And fuck. Tommy must’ve caught the shift in his expression, because his posture eased, his voice dropping into something quieter, something real.

“Y’know,” he said, softer this time. “I’ve missed seein’ you like this.”

Joel exhaled sharply through his nose. “Like what?”

Tommy tilted his head, studying him. “Like you still give a damn.”

Joel scoffed. “That’s real cute, Tommy.”

“I’m serious.”

And Joel knew he was. Could hear it in the way Tommy’s voice had lost its usual sharpness, in the way he wasn’t teasing anymore.

Tommy wasn’t just looking at him now—he was seeing him.

The way Joel had melted into this. How he hadn’t put her down, hadn’t even tried. How his hand, scarred and mangled, still rested against the small of Maya’s back, gently rubbing circles as if he needed to make sure she was still there.

Joel looked away. Something crawled up his spine, sharp and unnameable. He didn’t like being seen. Not like this. Not even by Tommy. So he went for the easiest thing—the simplest way to cut the tension.

A half-hearted mutter. A low, unconvincing, “Yeah, well.”

Tommy’s smirk returned, slow and knowing. “Poetic,” he drawled.

Joel shook his head, finally taking a drink. “You talk too damn much.”

Tommy chuckled, tapping his fingers against his glass. “Yeah, well,” he mimicked before his voice softened again. “You don’t gotta say it, Joel.” He gestured toward Maya, still curled against his chest, safe, home. “You’re already doin’ it. Even if you got fuckin’ old.”

“Guess I had to, didn’t I?” he muttered, adjusting Maya against his chest, making sure her head rested easy against his chest.

Tommy didn’t argue. Didn’t need to. They both knew the truth of it.

Joel had aged in ways Tommy never would, in ways no one who hadn’t lived what he lived could understand. His life had been gunpowder, dirt and blood. But still—there was something about this, about sitting here, not rushing anywhere, not killing anything, not surviving, just existing.

Something about her. She had her little hands on his shirt, curled tight in sleep, and he knew without a doubt that when she woke up, she'd reach for him again.

Yeah, this was what getting old was.

It wasn’t so abnormal anymore, Joel thought, being here like this. A weekend evening, in nice clothes, at a restaurant, beer in hand, sitting around a table with family. Nothing left to rock the boat.

For a long time, this kind of thing had felt impossible. Something for other people. Other lives. Even in Jackson, even after all these years, he still sometimes caught himself expecting the old rhythm—always waiting for something to go wrong.

But here he was. Sitting in a booth at the barbecue joint, letting the warmth of the moment settle in. Maria was talking a mile a minute, Tommy was stretched out beside her, looking half in disbelief, and across from him—Leela cradling Maya, quiet as ever.

Joel took a slow sip of his beer, tearing his eyes off her, half-listening as Maria went off, excitement lighting up her face.

“—seriously, I’ve never seen anything like it,” she was saying, gesturing so wildly she nearly knocked over Tommy’s drink. “Fixed the whole irrigation backup in minutes, Joel! Got the system running smoother than it ever has, and on top of that—this little Einstein somehow managed to work out a whole fucking ration adjustment in the same damn hour.”

Leela’s face went warm. She waved a hand, dismissing it. “It wasn’t that complicated. The whole system just needed a pressure bypass to reduce cavitation in the main feed lines. And the rationing—honestly, it was just a matter of optimizing caloric allotments based on intake efficiency per household.”

A stunned hush.

Tommy blinked. Joel just stared in amazement. Maria narrowed her eyes like she was trying to do the math in her head.

“Right,” Tommy finally muttered, dragging his drink closer to safety. “I totally knew what all that meant.”

Joel huffed a laugh, shaking his head. And a little proud of her. “Christ.”

Leela frowned, looking between them. “It's all just calibration.”

Maria snorted, nudging Tommy. “I think that just proved her point.”

She was surpassing expectations with Maria fuckin' Miller. That had got to count for something. It was rare, too, to watch her this spirited, this excited. Even rarer that Tommy wasn’t the loudest one at the table.

"Well," Tommy said, smirking as he raised his glass. "Guess it's good to have a genius in your corner sometimes."

Joel smirked too, but his gaze flickered sideways again, back to Leela. He couldn't help himself to another look, and another, and another. Total headcase conduct.

But she wasn’t looking at any of them. She sat beside him, holding Maya close, not engaging much, just keeping her eyes down, drifting between the door and Maya in her bouncing lap. Every now and then, she’d offer a thin, polite smile—one of those distant ones, not real, not reaching her eyes. Present, but not fully there.

Joel noticed it all. The way she sat just a little too stiff, the way her fingers fidgeted lightly against Maya’s back. The way her shoulders didn’t fully relax, even though she was surrounded by people she trusted. She was clearly still agitated with something. Maybe the attention? The restaurant? The smell of the food? Perhaps Maya? Or was it himself?

Joel sipped his beer and let his eyes linger on her for a second longer, about to change the subject, before Tommy—that big-mouthed bastard—broke the moment.

“Leela’s birthday’s comin’ up in a few days, right?” he said, nodding toward Joel like he expected him to confirm. “You two got plans?”

Joel damn near choked. He shot Tommy a glare so sharp it could’ve gutted a man. Wanted to kick him square in the balls. What was this little shit implying? And her birthday? He didn’t even know. Then again, he wasn't big on celebrations anyway.

Leela, to his relief, didn’t seem to care much. She just shook her head. “No plans.”

Maria, of course, had other ideas. Plans. To put that unused, exquisite dining room in her home to good use.

“Dinner, then,” she announced, already scheming, her face bright with it. “Your place. You don't have to lift a finger, the menu’s on me.”

Leela hesitated. “Um...”

Joel was ready to witness Maria take a licking for the first time ever. He could see the wheels turning in Leela's head, the way her fingers curled into Maya’s blanket. She looked down at the baby, who was happily slapping her little hands against the table, amusing herself, laughing that hiccuping laugh, at the sound.

Joel couldn’t help but smile. He reached out, brushing his knuckles over Maya’s chin, and she let out a delighted squeal, and tried to catch his hand before he returned it to his glass.

Leela exhaled, barely a smile on her lips, blindsiding him with: "I think that'd be nice. I could make something, too. With seasoning." And she flashed a knowing grin at Joel.

He bit his smile into the rim of his beer glass, meeting her eye. "Amen."

“Sweet,” Tommy grinned. “I’ll let Ellie know.”

When the food arrived in a leering waitress's arms, Joel didn’t touch his plate right away. He was too busy looking at Tommy’s. A full rack of ribs, juicy, glistening with sauce, looking like the best damn thing on the table. Regret burned in his gut.

Tommy, the smug shithead, was already smirking, rolling back his sleeves. “Something wrong, big brother?”

Joel grunted, reaching for his beer instead of dignifying that with an answer. His brother had no one to impress, Maria was well-versed in Tommy-isms. Joel had played it safe. Ribs were messy. Hands-on. Fucking delicious. If he were alone, or if it was just Tommy, he’d be going to town on them.

But with Maya switching from his lap to Leela's lap half the time? With Leela, this smart, stunning girl, sitting beside him, barely eating, her shoulder brushing his every now and then? He’d gone for the safe, decent option. A nice slab of brisket. Neater. Quieter. Civil. Less of a goddamn spectacle.

Across from him, Maria was already chatting about something—town expansion, hydroponics for the greenhouse, that kind of thing. Leela was listening, but not really. Not engaging entirely. Her gaze stayed down, distracted.

And then there was Maya. For all her adorableness, she was being an absolute menace. Squirming. Reaching. Grabbing. Her big eyes were all stubborn, yet curious. Joel felt her shifting in Leela’s lap, wiggling against her arm, determined to smack her little hands onto her mother's plate.

“Maya, please,” Leela whispered, exasperated, nudging her hands away. Even positioning her farther on her lap.

Of course, it didn’t work. Maya let out a loud, insistent whine—real dramatic-like. Another scream of objection, fists squeezed like she was throwing a fit, and smacking for the plate again.

Maria chuckled. “Kid’s got some lungs on her.”

Leela huffed a small, tired laugh, but Joel could see her struggle even if it was hilarious. Trying to keep handsy Maya at bay while attempting to cut her steak one-handed. She wasn’t doing a great job of it. Fork in one hand, knife awkwardly angled in the other, barely making progress.

Joel didn’t think about it. Didn’t need to.

He just reached over and swapped their plates. Simple. Quiet. Didn’t make a thing of it. Just slid his brisket—already cut—toward her, nudging it a little farther from Maya’s reach.

Leela stilled. And glanced up at him, astonished.

Joel kept his eyes on his own plate, reaching for his knife. Shrugged, like it was nothing. “Go on,” he urged. “The best thing you'll put in your mouth.”

Tommy cleared his throat, catching onto the innuendo. Joel imagined sticking his knife into his eye.

Leela hesitated. Then, after a beat, he heard the soft clink of her fork against the plate as she speared a piece. A grateful smile came alive on her face while she chewed, a genuine one. He'd learned to tell the difference now.

“Thank you, Joel,” she nodded.

Joel nodded back, a tight smile stretching on his lips. Took a bite from his plate. There was nothing else to be said. The message was clear: I've got you.

Oh, Joel didn’t miss the looks either. Maria’s subtle smirk behind her glass. Tommy’s full-blown, shit-eating grin. The two of them watched like they were studying a goddamn exhibit every time Joel so much as glanced at Leela or reached out for Maya.

Fuck them. He ignored it all, chewing through another bite of steak, keeping his focus where it needed to be. Maya was calm now. Full belly, busy little hands—playing with his own hand now, like it was her favourite toy in the world. Leela, finally eating without interruption, though still too quiet.

Joel didn’t say a damn word about any of it. Even when Maria started up again.

“What I'm saying is, that the town’s growing,” she said, wiping her mouth. “More people settling in every month. It’s getting to the point where we’re running low on homes.”

That got Joel’s attention. His chewing slowed, a sliver of suspicion creeping in. Tommy wasn’t looking at him. That was the first red flag that he'd learned from one of the more recent dinners in the Miller household.

“Couple of new families coming in next week,” Maria continued. “One’s got three kids. You believe that? Haven’t had that many young ones in Jackson in a long time.”

Joel grunted. More people. More mouths to feed. Meant the town was growing, sure—but also meant more risk. Running this place with a tight ship was already starting to show. And Maria wasn’t done.

“Thing is, if we keep expanding at this rate, we’ll have to start repurposing old homes.”

There it was. Joel was halfway through his beer when he heard more of this.

“You know, Joel,” Tommy started his tone too goddamn casual to be anything but questionable. “If push comes to shove, we could always put your place up for new tenants.”

Joel’s grip tightened on his glass. He didn’t blink. Didn’t look at Tommy right away. Just kept chewing slow, steady, like he hadn’t heard a thing.

Because he knew what this was. He knew Tommy and that arrogant little edge in his voice, the way Maria was staying too quiet, swirling her drink like she wasn’t waiting for impact.

It was a set-up. Fishing. Looking for a reaction. Confirming some inside hunches. And Maria took the shot before he could load his own.

“We’d put you up at ours, sure enough,” she said, breezy, easy.

“No kidding. You're family, can't just chuck you on the street as much as I want to,” Tommy added, mockingly, grinning like a jackass.

Joel set his drink down with a little too much pressure, the sound a noisy thud. Finally, finally, he levelled a look at Tommy. He didn't need to say a damn thing. Because whatever was on his face? It was enough.

Tommy coughed, glancing away as if he felt the heat of it. He knew what would follow if he spoke another word. Maria, to her credit, held his stare, only raising an eyebrow.

Joel’s jaw flexed, real slow. The urge to tell them both to go straight to hell was right there, burning at the back of his throat. And he would have. Would’ve shut the whole damn thing down, hard. But before he could, Leela beat him to it with—

“I have spare rooms in my place,” she said, casually. Like she was discussing the weather. “If that happens, Joel could take one. Stay as long as he wants.” She used Maya's arm to motion a wave. “Maya would love that, too.”

More silence. She was just full of surprises today, wasn't she?

Tommy, who had been bracing for impact, looked like he’d tripped over his own damn feet. Maria, mid-drink, paused. Chewed on her cheeks. Like she was recalibrating the entire situation.

And Joel? He didn't even know what to do with that. For a second, all he could do was stare at Leela, completely gobsmacked. What she'd suggested was to take it to the next level, in the most casual way. Yeah, just stay with me and my kid, forever, I guess. Doesn't matter.

Leela didn’t look up. Didn’t seem to notice what she’d said. She just kept wiping at Maya's mouth and hands who'd started to entertain herself by blowing raspberries, and bouncing her gently like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Joel exhaled through his nose. A slow, heavy thing. “It's all a big 'if',” he muttered, edged with finality.

Maria recovered first. Pulled a face that said she was perfectly fine with it. “Yep.”

Tommy, still catching up, pressed his lips together. “Just wanted to make sure of something,” he muttered. “Pretty sure now.”

Joel didn’t ask what. Just picked up his beer again, and took a slow, measured sip. His glare at Tommy, though? Firmly in place.

They left the restaurant together, in cackles of laughter that was at the expense of Joel's face, making their way up the same street where their homes resided, boots crunching against the frozen dirt road. The air was sharp, biting, but Joel barely felt it.

Maya had run herself ragged. After all her theatrics inside—her constant wriggling, the battle for the damn steak, the way she’d made herself known to the entire damn restaurant—she’d finally given in.

“You feelin' cold, baby?” he murmured.

She was in his arms now, bundled up and warm, her bunny-ear beanie snug over her head. Her tiny nose was red from the cold, her cheek pressed against the fabric of his jacket, picking at a loose lint on his sweater. He tucked closer, safer, pressing a warming kiss into her sleepy head.

Joel caught up with Maria before she could reach Tommy and Leela ahead. His breath came out in slow, even puffs, but inside, he felt a little less steady. Hadn’t planned on asking. Hadn’t even realized it was sitting there, coiled tight in his chest, until the words were already forming.

"Hey," he said lowly, his voice carrying that weighted kind of hesitation. "Can we talk?"

Maria arched a brow before smirking. "If you’re about to chew me out, it was Tommy’s idea. You know we haven’t had new people settle in for months."

Joel barely registered it. Just shook his head. Not about that.

His gaze flicked toward Leela’s back—small, quiet steps beside Tommy’s like she wasn’t all the way there. His jaw tightened before he spoke. Carefully.

"At the dam today." He paused, feeling the words thick on his tongue. "Did she seem… alright to you? Seem a little off?"

That smirk faded. Maria exhaled, her face shifting into something more careful. "Wouldn’t stay in the room with all the workers," she admitted. "Spooked her out. After that, I just let her stick by my side in the office."

Joel frowned.

"Must’ve been a trigger," Maria added, quieter now.

He only nodded. He didn't need to say what they both already knew.

He watched Leela a little longer, the way her hands stayed tucked inside her coat sleeves, the way she wasn’t engaging much with Tommy’s easy conversation. There was something… too still about her.

"She’s been quiet all night," he muttered, mostly to himself.

Maria nudged him lightly. "She’ll be fine, Joel. Baby steps."

Joel pressed his lips together. He wasn't a believer in the process of baby steps. Either you healed or you rotted in the filth of guilt or devastation for the rest of your life.

Maria gave him a sideways glance, one of those knowing looks. "You look good together."

Joel let out a breath. Not quite a scoff. Not quite anything. "Thought lawyers didn’t bullshit," he muttered.

Maria shrugged easily. "I don't. Sure, you’re," she cleared her throat, shooting him a look. "Let’s say ‘well into your prime’—and she’s… not. But I can tell she trusts you absolutely."

Joel said nothing. Only bit down the small grin that broke through his lips, staring at his boots. Coming from Maria, point-blank like that, it meant a lot.

Up ahead, Tommy was acting like he hadn’t just pulled that shit back in the restaurant, talking easy, hands in his pockets, like he was the picture of innocence.

Joel narrowed his eyes. Yeah, alright. That jagoff needed to be put in his place.

He picked up his pace, stepping just ahead of Tommy, and without breaking stride, swept his leg out.

Tommy didn’t even get a chance to balance before he was airborne—arms flailing, momentum carrying him forward—a sad, "What the fuck!"—then crashing face-first into the snow with a solid thud.

Maria burst out laughing. Full-on, bent-over, hands-on-her-knees laughing. Leela, though—she gasped, her eyes going wide, clearly more horrified than she needed to be.

Joel just kept walking, adjusting Maya, who let out a startled little giggle like she understood the exact kind of justice that had just been served.

"Fuckin' deserved it," he grumbled.

Maya was bawling at the big white house’s door, tiny fists clutching his shirt like letting go might break her little heart. And maybe it would—maybe that’s why Joel hesitated, his hands hovering at her back, torn between unwinding her grip and holding her tighter. Damn it, he didn’t want to go, either.

If he peeled her off him and stepped away, she’d do the sweetest thing that always got him—cover her eyes with her hands like she’d seen her mother do, weeping like his leaving was the greatest tragedy of her small world.

“He’ll come back tomorrow, Maya,” Leela tried, rubbing absently at her belly. “He has to sleep, too.”

Maya wasn’t convinced. She wriggled in her mother’s hold, stretching her arms out toward Joel, demanding, no—pleading—to be held. Then she wailed, loud and unrestrained, the kind of cry that could bring a whole street to a standstill.

Joel exhaled, a smile creeping onto his face despite himself. God, this girl was breaking his heart.

Leela shifted Maya against her chest and patted her back. “Do you want to stay a while?” Her voice was softer now. “Until she falls asleep?”

Joel didn’t even pretend to hesitate. His arms were already reaching for Maya, lifting her effortlessly out of Leela’s hold. The moment she settled against his chest, her tiny hands fisting into his shirt, her cries turned to hiccups, then sniffles.

“Gonna be a handful when she gets older,” he muttered, pressing a kiss to her damp cheek.

Leela rubbed at her eyes with the heel of her palm, stifling a yawn. “Gosh, please don’t remind me.” She nodded toward the stairs. “I’m gonna get changed. Help yourself to anything.”

Joel watched her retreat up the steps, back hunched with exhaustion. At the landing, she disappeared into the hallway, and he found himself standing there a moment longer than necessary, listening to the creak of the floorboards as she moved through the house. He liked that about her—the way she kept reminding him to make himself at home like she knew he hadn’t quite figured out how to.

Maya was still sniffling, the last remnants of her earlier tears damp against Joel’s shirt. She stirred against him, adjusting in his arms like she was making herself right at home. Safe. Where she belonged.

Joel smoothed his palm over her back and felt the way she breaths puffed against his collar, her little chest rising and falling in a slower rhythm now. She was alright. He did that.

"You missed me already?" he murmured, rubbing a thumb under her damp eye.

She didn’t answer, just breathed out a soft, shuddering coo.

Yeah. That was about what he thought.

He bounced her gently as he moved through the living room, shifting his weight as he glanced around, looking for something to keep her mind off whatever had gotten her so worked up in the first place. His eyes caught on something up on the shelf, half-forgotten.

That record player he'd been gawking at for weeks. Not just any old thing, either. Glass case. Dark mahogany. Expensive. Fancy, like the rest of Leela’s place.

There was already a record inside. Percy Sledge. Gold, fucking gold. The glossy cover sat neatly on the side like someone had meant to come back to it and never did.

Joel exhaled, dusting off the lid before flipping it open. “Haven’t heard this in a long time,” he muttered, mostly to himself. Then, glancing down at Maya, "You wanna hear some music, baby girl?"

Maya blinked up at him, her earlier tears forgotten, and let out that breathless little panting laugh she did when she was excited. Her small hands clapped together in that uncoordinated, barbed motion that made her look like she was still figuring out how her own fingers worked.

Joel grinned. “Yeah, me too.”

He brushed away the dust, set the needle down, and let the music cut through the quiet.

The room filled with the low, honeyed croon of Percy Sledge, velvet-smooth, drifting through the air like something out of a different time.

Joel felt her still in his arms, eyes going wide as she stared at the record player, completely awestruck. Like she was trying to make sense of where the sound was coming from.

He poked a finger into her squishy thigh. “Never heard real music before? You like it?”

Maya was so curious, watching the record spin, producing music, head tilting in that goddamned adorable way of hers, like she was putting all her baby brainpower into figuring it out.

Joel’s chest ached. It was a deep, familiar thing, the kind of ache that came from having too much and knowing it was, perhaps now, all his to keep.

He shifted Maya in his arms, kissing the top of her bunny-eared beanie. She smelled like warm blankets, like home, even though he’d never had a home quite like this before.

"You wanna dance with me, darlin’?"

She gasped, her whole body jerking in excitement, arms flailing like she couldn’t believe her luck. Then came that breathless, hitching laugh—the one that made her whole face crinkle, her tiny chest heaving like she could barely keep up with herself.

He’d never heard her laugh like this before. Was that the first?

So he lifted her high into the air, listening to the way she squealed, legs kicking like she was soaring. That same laugh again—bright, bubbling over, pure sunshine—rang through the room as he pulled her back into his chest, then did it again. Twice. Thrice. Oh, his back was going to pay the piper, but for that laugh, it was fucking worth it.

She was weightless, and for a moment, so was he. The world didn’t feel so heavy when he had her in his arms like this.

His eyes caught on something in the doorway.

Leela. She was watching.

She had changed into that same white nightdress, the one with the pearl buttons he liked more than he should. Loose fabric brushing just above her ankles, a sleeve slipping off her shoulders. She was leaning against the doorframe, arms folded, fingers touching her lips like she was trying to trap the smile already there.

Joel didn’t stop moving, just slowed a little, swaying Maya in his arms, pretending his breaths weren't constricting at the look on Leela’s face. If he stopped, the moment might end, and he wasn’t ready.

Leela wasn’t looking at him, not exactly. Her eyes were on Maya, wondering, at the way she was still laughing, still catching her breath, little fingers clinging to the fabric of Joel’s shirt like her whole world was nothing but him and the feeling of flying.

He'd never had anything like this. Complete, natural, all his. Could this moment get any more perfect? And then he had the thought—

He wanted to dance with Leela.

It settled deep in his chest, curling between the cracks. Maybe he’d wanted that for a while now. Maybe that was why his hands always hoped to reach for her when it was without Maya, why his pulse kicked up when she got too close, why he always noticed when she was around—gentle, cautious, like someone who didn’t want to take up too much space.

He huffed, dipping his head to whisper against Maya’s temple—"Gotta give your mama a turn, huh?"

He lowered Maya onto the couch, kissing her nose, making sure she was snug, and safe between the sunken cushions. She was already grabbing for her baby blanket, nibbling on the edge of it, still watching him with that shining little grin. That was enough confidence to power him up.

Look, Joel knew better than to ask Leela. Knew better than to give in to his wants. She’d probably turn him down. Politely. And somehow, that would hurt worse, brushing him off like a stranger.

But he asked anyway. He turned around and didn’t say a word—just held out his hands, halfway to her. Not a grand gesture, nothing obvious, just enough that she’d see it and she’d know. He wants her close.

Leela’s gaze flickered, something changing. Her lips parted, just barely, and for a moment—a long, slow, aching moment—he thought she might step forward, might meet him where he stood. A silly pipedream.

Yeah, Joel was too goddamn old for his heart to be pounding like this. Like some stupid kid, all restless hands and reckless hope, hoping the girl he liked would share that feeling with him. It had been a long time since someone made him feel like this. Hell, he wasn’t sure he ever had—not like this. Not with a girl this soft, a life this easy, a feeling this whole.

He blamed that when she looked away, the moment unravelling.

Blamed the gap, the years that stretched between them, the life he’d already lived, the losses already burned into his bones. The grey in his hair, the angry brow, the lines on his face. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Ever. Not for him, not anymore.

Then—why did he still want? Why, after all these years, after everything, did he still feel this?

The way the muscles between his ribs fluttered when she hesitated. The way his palms itched, waiting, wanting for their other half. The way he caught himself hoping—hoping like some love-struck fool that she might step forward.

He exhaled slowly, convincing himself it was fine. Telling himself he was being ridiculous and she didn’t owe him anything. He should’ve known better, should’ve kept his hands where they belonged, brought his anticipations down a notch... anyways, what else could he offer this stunning girl? His cold, dead heart? His bloodstained hands?

And then she did. She moved a little, leaned off the doorway. She took a few slow, quiet steps forward. Hands knotted behind her back, shoulders tense, reluctant to give in.

His breath hitched in his throat.

She wasn’t looking at him—not at first. Her eyes dipped downward to the boots on his feet, flickering uncertainly, almost like she was working up the nerve to do something.

And then she glimpsed his hands. The callouses. The mangled skin. The years of work, of war, of violence. Of a life that had been anything but easy. The way his fingers curled just slightly, as if he wasn’t sure if he should be offering them in the first place.

For another moment, she hesitated. And he thought, yeah, that’s about right.

And then—oh-so-slowly—she slipped her hands into his. Her fingers were slender against his, lean bones cradled, swallowed within his own, her skin cool and soft where his were rough, ruined. It had been so long since anyone had reached for him first.

He didn’t move right away. He took his time to feel this, remember this as if the next moment she'd vanish into mist. The way she fit there, the shape of her hands in his, like it wasn’t a mistake. Like she wasn’t regretting anything.

All those lifetimes, chipping away parts of him, making space for her hands to be there. If that didn’t scare him more than anything.

The scratchy record spun on, Percy Sledge’s voice melting into the room, velvet-smooth. What am I living for, he sang on, if not for you?

Joel swallowed thickly.

Slowly, he guided her hand to his bicep, barely pressing down. She was tense, wound tight like she’d bolt if he moved too fast. So he didn’t.

"You good?" he checked in.

She nodded, glancing up, baring a gentle smile.

His own hand skimmed her hip—ginger, mindful—before settling there. He let her other hand hang from his grasp, mid-air, not forcing it, not demanding more than she was willing to give. Leela was stiff against him because evidently, this was too much for her. As if it had been too long for her, too. Perhaps she was afraid of him. Of this. My god, it burned.

So he eased. Dipped his head, rested his nose against her hairline, and began to sway to the tempo. Joel couldn't cut a rug or shake his hips to save his damn life, but he could feel. Shit, he felt so good.

Leela was right there. Right where he wanted her, but not as close as he wanted, although he completely dwarfed her. He could feel the tension in her frame, that deep-rooted hesitance like she wasn’t sure she was allowed this.

Joel knew that feeling all too well. So he let her lead without leading. Let her find the pace. Even if it was fucking killing him.

Even though his body ached to pull her closer. Even though his fingers jolted where they rested against her hip, wanting to dig in, to hold, to keep. He wanted her warmth squeezed to him, her weight resting against his chest until he couldn't breathe.

He’d spent years running on instinct, relying on his gut, making quick decisions with deadly precision. But he’d never been this meticulous about anything before.

And then—he felt it. The shift. It wasn’t big, not something he would've noticed a while ago, but now he did. The way her breath came just a little easier. The way her grip steadied, not quite clinging but not pulling away either. She was letting herself be here.

And for the first time in some time—Joel wanted to feel, too.

So he let himself move with her. Not well, not smooth, not anything he’d want anyone else to see.

She laughed like he'd cracked something open in her, when he pulled her in, twirling her under his arm, snaring her against his chest before she could stumble. She laughed again when he spun her out, her head tipping back, black hair spilling like a dark halo.

"Never been spun around, my ass," he muttered against her hair as he spun her back into him, arms curling around her waist, anchoring her to him. "You're a natural."

Leela laughed, breathless, cheeks lifted high into her eyes. "Practice. Mom and I used to spin around for hours when it got lonely."

Joel stilled for just a second. He could picture it then—little Leela, small hands clutching at her mother’s as she twirled, all giggles and untamed joy. A warm, glowing memory, but edged with the kind of happiness you cling to when there’s nothing else.

He hummed low in his throat, muffling a smile. Leela’s fingers curled against his back.

"Joel?"

"Mhm?"

She hesitated, just a beat. "I think you look really handsome today."

He stopped moving altogether. A strange, sharp sensation twisted behind his ribs—maybe arrhythmia or some shit, might as well happen—akin to surprise, confusion, and too damn soft to name.

He was handsome to her. Not tired, crude, or old. Joel Miller was handsome to her. The prickling memory from that morning, her mistaking him for her father went up in smoke.

For a second, he considered brushing it off, making some dry remark, giving himself an out. He wasn’t careful about much or the kind of man who tiptoed around what he wanted. Life had burned that out of him long ago. But right now, he was careful.

So, Joel did what he could; he held her tighter, closer. Let her know he’d heard her.

And when he finally spoke, it was a little rough around the edges. "Thank you, darlin'."

Leela smiled up at him. And Joel—he let himself smile back.

As Percy crooned about his love growing stronger and his lover becoming a habit, they actually danced. However slow it was, there was a wildness to the way she moved, arms outstretched, the hem of her nightdress catching air, cheeks catching the low lamplight. The sharp pivot of her foot against the floorboards, the way her body dipped and twisted, loose and natural. She looked so young, so different from the woman he’d met all those weeks ago, that quiet, anxious thing who always kept herself tucked away.

This was the Leela he was falling for.

And he was so fucked. But for the first time in a long time—he was glad he was.

Joel barely had time to react before she was in his arms, knocking the wind out of his chest. Not swaying anymore, not laughing—just holding.

Her arms locked tight around his waist, cheek pressed firm against his chest like she was bracing herself. Like something in her had finally tipped over, finally let go, and she needed something to catch her.

Goddamn it, Joel wasn’t sure what to do. How to process this. She didn’t do things like this. Not the Leela he’d come to know. She was cautious, always. Kept her distance. Kept everything measured. Even when she let people in, it was guarded. Always one foot out the door, always ready to pull away.

Now, she was holding on. Holding onto him.

Joel hesitated, feeling all of her against all of him, the heat, the muscle, the softness, the realness.

Then, slow and steady, he let himself move. One arm curled around her waist, the other settled at the back of her head. His fingers slid into her hair, clutching her close—not just to comfort her, but to reassure himself. She was here. He was here. They were here.

She wasn’t trembling, but she was tense. Her grip on him was taut, almost desperate. Holding onto something bigger than just this moment, nails digging into his sweater, something that must’ve been clawing at her for God knows how long.

"I needed this a lot," she muttered, voice barely above a whisper, muffled against his chest.

Joel swallowed. Shifted just enough to angle his chin over the crown of her head. "Anytime."

That was all he could say. Because what else was there?

He didn’t know how to tell her that she could stay like this for as long as she wanted. All night, all day, that whatever had been weighing her down before—whatever had kept her small, kept her afraid—it wasn’t going to touch her here. Not while he was holding her.

Although he wished the song could last forever, reality came a-knocking, and they answered. There was nothing awkward left to pick up, just a dreaming baby girl on the couch cushions.

After placing Maya in her crib and squeezing three deep goodnight kisses into her head, Joel left to cross the street. He turned around to see Leela by the big oak door, watching him go, a meaningful smile alive on her face. She waved him goodnight.

The heat in his cabin hit him first as he entered, sighing. Thick and suffocating. The fire in the hearth had burned too hot again, filling the place with a sticky kind of warmth that made his skin prickle.

Joel shrugged off that expensive shearling jacket, tossed it somewhere, and rubbed a hand down his face. It was too damn quiet. No soft breaths ghosted across his skin. No little palms clung to the fabric of his shirt.

Just the crackle of fire. Empty arms. The twisted sheets on his bed. And himself.

Joel sat down at the edge of the mattress, forearms braced against his knees, head in his hands. A million hazy thoughts swirled, smouldering, yet all he could look upon clearly was wanting to close the gap and kiss that girl in her living room.

Was this what he wanted? Would he really go through with it? If it all went to shit—if he fucked it up, if they got hurt, if she regretted letting him in—there’d be no one else to blame, but him. He would have done this to himself, some sort of screwed-up self-sabotage he thought he earned. Someday, when he kicks the bucket, all he is going to leave to that family is grief. Or not even that? Was he worth the suffering? Would they spare him a thought?

His fingers unconsciously drifted down, brushing against the cracked leather of his watch strap. That old, broken dial. The last thing Sarah had ever given him, the last vestige of her memory, hanging off his defeated body.

The hands were still stuck in place—frozen, unmoving. Just like he’d been for all those years. Until now.

Joel exhaled, slow and heavy, dragging a hand down his face. He was already in too deep.

And maybe—maybe he didn’t want to climb back out.

{ taglist 🫶: @darknight3904 , @guiltyasdave , @letsgobarbs , @helskemes , @jodiswiftle , @tinawantstobeadoll , @bergamote-catsandbooks , @cheekychaos28 , @randofantfic , @justagalwhowrites , @emerald-evans , @amyispxnk , @corazondebeskar-reads , @wildemaven , @tuquoquebrute , @elli3williams , @bluemusickid , @bumblepony , @legoemma , @chantelle-mh , @heartlessvirgo , @possiblyafangirl , @pedropascalsbbg , @brklynln -> @kaseynsfws , @prose-before-hoes , @kateg88 , @laliceee , @escaping-reality8 , @mystickittytaco , @penvisions , @elliaze , @eviispunk , @lola-lola-lola , @peepawispunk , @sarahhxx03 , @julielightwood , @o-sacra-virgo-laudes-tibi , @arten1234 , @jhiddles03 , @everinlove , @nobodycanknoww , @ashleyfilm , @rainbowcosmicchaos , @i-howl-like-a-wolf-at-the-moon , @orcasoul , @nunya7394 , @noisynightmarepoetry , @picketniffler , @ameagrice , @mojaveghst , @dinomecanico , @guelyury , @staytrueblue , @queenb-42069 , @suzysface , @btskzfav , @ali-in-w0nderland , @ashhlsstuff , @devotedlypaleluminary , @sagexsenorita , @serenadingtigers , @yourgirlcin , @henrywintersgun , @jadagirl15 , @misshoneypaper , @lunnaisjustvibing , @enchantingchildkitten , @senhoritamayblog , @isla-finke-blog , @millercontracting , @tinawantstobeadoll , @funerals-with-cake , @txlady37 , @inasunlitroom , @clya4 , @callmebyyournick-name , @axshadows , @littlemissoblivious } - thank you!! awwwww we're like a little family <3

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peachsayshi · 1 year ago

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✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄ blessings ⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

↬ summary: nanami kento tries to be the perfect husband and father but when a tough night fighting curses ends badly it results in nanami snapping at his daughter.

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ minors / ageless / blank blogs (dni) ↬･tags: nanami x female reader; hurt/comfort; nanami has a daughter; domestic drama; being a jujutsu sorcerer is hard; momotarō is a famous Japanese folk tale :c ↬･ wc: 3,383

↬ notes: hi, everyone! I'm currently not really active at the moment so please don't feel disheartened if I haven't been responding to your messages or tagged posts. I'm taking a small break and only coming online for a bit to catch up on some messages, read fics or queue posts. I'll be back to properly posting and interacting soon but in the meantime I wanted to share that I finished up this draft over the weekend. I was actually debating if I should post this but then just decided to go for it! sending all my love xx

nanami’s head is heavy, completely clouded with despair, and it tints his brown eyes a shade of murky gray. the walls of his beautiful home feel narrow, almost claustrophobic, which explains why he’s struggling to catch his breath right now. stepping into the hallway, he instinctively peeks into the dining area to find you and his daughter eating dinner together. she’s sitting on the chair, her legs far too short to even touch the ground, holding a half eaten onigiri between her small hands. you are by her side, sneakily tidying up after her as you brush away the stray beads of rice trickling onto the table.

a little glow blooms in nanami’s heart at the sight of you both but there is a vicious creature residing in the pit of his stomach that veils the bright light away.

he quietly takes off his jacket, his bruised fingers loosening the tie around his neck. he clears his throat before announcing with exhaustion to you both that he’s finally home.

your eyes meet his, the muscles on your face falling immediately. he can practically feel the blood rushing through your veins as worry washes over you. the reaction makes his chest uncomfortably tight, but he knows that he can’t hide his expressions around you like he used to.

you both move together so fluidly now, like a single body of water that ebbs and flows to its own natural current.

he escaped the night’s fight with a few cuts and a couple of bad bruises, but there is currently a student on shoko’s table who barely made it through. the young man arrived at jujutsu tech only a couple of weeks ago, but his naive and charismatic qualities turned into fatal flaws in the world of sorcery.

he bit off more than he could chew by trying to take on a special grade curse.

shoko promised nanami that she would heal the boy, but admitted there was only so much she can do in regards to the aftermath of his injuries. the sorcerer couldn’t bare to leave him behind, but gojo refused that he stay and insisted that he return back home to his pretty wife and adorable daughter immediately.

“I’ll handle things from here,” is what his superior said, while nanami’s guilt climbed up his throat.

that student was his responsibility...

...and he failed him entirely.

“papa’s home!” his daughter chirps. the pitch of her voice ringing in nanami’s ears to pull him back to the present and far away from the scene where life and death were dancing together in a tango. “papa, look, look...mama and I made onigiri!”

her feet bounces up and down, and there’s a touch of a pink against her cheeks when her mouth stretches into a beaming grin. the innocence in her eyes makes nanami falter and he can feel himself falling deeper into the abyss. for a minute he resents himself for selfishly bringing such a beautiful thing into this world, only to gamble with the fact that she may potentially be in his shoes one day.

he begs for that outcome to never happen, beseeches whatever higher power above him that exists to spare her from this life. she should never have to go through this, never have to experience these heartbreaks that only wither a person down.

“I can see that,” nanami replies in a low voice before shifting his attention to his feet.

right now, he can’t stomach an ounce of her purity, and it radiates around her like a halo. she's so unbothered by his presence, so completely unaware of the sudden change in the atmosphere around her...

“we made tuna, salmon, and veggies...” she babbles on.

“how nice...” nanami curtly interrupts, before anxiously running his fingers through the strands of his messy blonde hair.

“which one do you want, papa?” she questions eagerly, pointing her sticky hands at the plate to show off the selection of triangles.

“sweets,” you interject just as nanami turns on his heel to walk in the other direction, “how about we finish up eating our dinner, and we can save some for your daddy tomorrow...”

“nooo!” she whines far too loudly, which forces nanami to stop dead in his tracks. he glances over his shoulder to see her puffing out her bottom lip with disappointment, “you said...you said we make it so we eat together!”

she’s only six.

she can’t perceive that her father is struggling to hold himself together. deep down inside nanami knows that, but it isn’t enough to keep his cool. he doesn’t know why his daughter’s insistence causes him to pinch the front of his brows with annoyance or why he shoots a frustrated look in her direction.

he doesn’t know why he’s suddenly picturing shoko calling the student’s parents to deliver the news that the man who was supposed to protect their child was unsuccessful in his duty.

he doesn’t know why he feels at fault for everything that happened, even though the circumstances of the events were completely out of his control.

he doesn’t know why he’s imagining himself on the receiving end of a very similar call, or why he can’t stop picturing his precious daughter on that table instead…

all of this pummels into him, and the monster emerges out from it’s cave.

“be quiet and stop making such a fuss.”

his voice comes out sharper than expected, and the expulsion of his frustration allows him to see the crystal clear picture before him.

the room is dead silent.

your face is in full shock at the hissing tone of your sweet husband snapping at his darling baby girl who he only ever speaks to with a gentle voice.

what truly unravels nanami is the look that his daughter is giving him - her angelic features are sullen, but her eyes remain wide with surprise. her bottom lip is slack, and the only sound he can hear is her uneasy breathing. her eyes, the most beautiful gems in existence, twinkle as tears begin to form and she tries to quickly blink them away before turning her attention back to her plate.

nanami doesn’t know he managed to stop time itself but the three of you remain frozen in place.

he regrets his words immediately.

he wants nothing more than to pull his precious girl close into his chest and smother her with apologies. the part of him with sense tells him to follow through and make things right with her, but instead he begrudgingly continues to wallow in his own self pity as he walks over to his room.

･ﾟ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･･ﾟ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･

the house is unusually quiet now, the music of domestic joy morphing into hushed murmurs and whispers outside your room door. you settle your crestfallen daughter into her bedroom before moving to check on your husband next.

fresh out of the shower, nanami is seated on the edge of the bed with his exhausted eyes pressed firmly into the palms of his hands. he exhales a heavy breath, his dirty work clothes still piled just outside the bathroom, and your heart nearly collapses seeing him in such a state of disarray.

you kneel before him, two hands sliding across the soft material of his sweats as you brush them along his thighs before carefully bringing them up to circle around his wrists.

“kento?”

he allows you to pull his palms away but your throat constricts when a band forms tightly around your neck. you swallow the lump with an upturn of your brows as you are greeted with red, exhausted eyes. you cup that handsome face in your hands, your thumbs sweetly motioning back and forth across his cheeks as you try to soothe the tension away.

after all this time together, it hurts you to see that he still tries to hide his tears. nanami constantly holds himself to the highest standard, always ensuring that he can solidify himself as the rock for you and your daughter to depend on through thick and thin. it’s so rare for you to see him crack, to watch him crumble under the overbearing weight of the things that he is burdened to carry.

“you had a rough night,” you point out in a low, sympathetic voice and he simply just nods his head in acknowledgement.

his eyes flutter close again when you lean forward to press a tender, reassuring kiss on his brow. “you want a talk about it?”

the way his voice shakes makes you shiver, but you tentatively listen as he relays the events of the night before finally concluding that satoru called him only a few minutes ago to reassure him that the student in question is alright.

“he lost an eye, but at least he’s alive...” he concludes somberly, the warble in his final statement prompting you to wrap your arms around his neck as you pull him in for a protective hug.

nanami receives it with gratitude, strong arms circling around your waist as he buries his nose into the crook of your shoulder and breathes in.

your scent is a reminder of his permanent sanctuary.

a safety, a reassurance of home.

you stroke his blonde locks between your fingers until he exhales, "i'm so sorry," he breathes, "I...I didn't mean to snap like that..."

a tiny smile tugs at the corners of your lips, and you unravel yourself to cup his jaw into your palms once again. "I appreciate the apology, but I don't think I should be on the receiving end of it..." you hint sweetly.

nanami closes his eyes guiltily. "I'm a horrible father."

you click your tongue with disappointment, your face falling as your disapproval pinches between the space of your brows.

"you're just human," you remind him defensively, "you're a wonderful father, the best man that our daughter can look up to"

"did you see the look on her face?" he replies, his voice unnaturally small. the tender expression he gives you is filled with regret, and it's enough to make your heart ache all over again.

"kento," you contend, "don't do this to yourself. we're both going to have days where we mess up, but that doesn't mean that the problem can't be fixed."

you thread his hair between your fingers, like your brushing through rays sunlight. "she's waiting for me to read her a bedtime story," you explain, "but I'm sure she would rather be with you instead..."

"I doubt that," your husband replies as he reaches for your hand to kiss the inside of your palm.

"we will always love you, kento," you answer back, "unconditionally. on your good days and your bad ones"

he didn't even know how desperately he needed to hear that, for your certainty to remedy away all his sorrows, until they actually left your lips.

your husband's throat tightens, tears pricking his eyes once more but he hides them away when he leans in to seek out a kiss from the woman whose heart he deeply adores.

･ﾟ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･･ﾟ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･

nanami leans his shoulder against the frame of his daughter's room. his heart patters lightly, making him realize that he might actually be nervous. it's strange, he thinks, that he would feel hesitant to approach his own child considering that he was her guardian but nanami had never allowed his professional life to fracture into his personal one like this before.

she's seated on the floor next to a pile of books and her stuffed rabbit secured tightly underneath her arm. there's a warmth in his chest when when he makes note of the soft toy, because he purchased that himself the day she was born and the pair have been inseparable ever since.

he clears his throat, bringing his scuffed knuckles to gently knock on the door.

"my love?" he calls out to her.

his daughter perks up, her breathing changing slightly as it rises and falls with a hint of apprehension. she glances over her shoulder to see him.

"where's mama?" she asks, her question shattering the man into a million pieces at her subtle dismissal.

"taking a shower," he answers cooly, "but I'm here to get you ready for bed..."

her lovely eyes refuse to lock into his own, and she simply tucks her lip between her bottom teeth to avoid giving nanami a reply.

she looks so much like him when he was a child. he remembered when his parents used to scold him too, and how he would also hide away in his room. the only difference is that nanami's parents were far more traditional - a time where elders were never submissive to young hearts.

"may I come in?" he requests politely, ensuring that his daughter knew she had a choice if she wanted to speak to him.

her nostrils flare slightly while she considers him, but to his relief she nods her head eagerly.

nanami steps into her room, always feeling largely out of place amongst her things. "did you find a story for bed?" he asks.

she again quietly nods her head and picks up her favorite book; a compilation of japanese folktales with beautiful illustrations. you both have been reading one for her each night ever since she got it it as a present from her grandparents.

he crouches on his knees to meet her at eye level. "you've really been enjoying this one, haven't you?" he carries on, hoping to coax more words out of her.

“yeah,” she replies in the same mousy voice of uncertainty. she shifts her attention away when she stands on her feet, clutching onto the stuffed bunny tightly while her other hand swings the book by her side.

“and what tale are we reading tonight?”

she shrugs her shoulders with indifference, a hint of pink blushing her cheek. “I dunno. I…I can just until mama is ready…”

nanami visibly slumps. her rejection an entirely new painful experience that he's never endured before. he scratches the back of his head anxiously, finding himself at a loss for words. the seconds pass, an awkward bubble surrounding both father and daughter. it’s only broken when nanami exhales a sigh, and reaches his hands towards her waist to draw her into his frame.

“darling,” he addresses tenderly, “can you look at me?”

“no, you were mean…” she blurts out, her bottom lip trembling slightly.

nanami’s heart sinks.

that’s the first time he’s ever heard those words from her lips.

“I know,” he murmurs shamefully.

her mouth forms into a tiny button of a pout but she meets his eyes for the first time as he acknowledges his behavior.

nanami arches forward to kiss her forehead, “I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that, sweetheart. I’m so sorry if I upset or scared you”

she fidgets with the book in her hand. “did you not want onigiri?” she asks, her innocence tugging the corners of her father’s lips into a small grin.

“it wasn’t the onigiri, my love,” he reassures, “daddy just…had a bad day at work…”

“why was it bad?”

nanami sighs once again.

she still doesn’t know that he’s a sorcerer. you’ve both reduced his position to her by simply explaining that nanami “helps and protects people".

thankfully your daughter doesn’t pry too hard to ask any further questions.

“someone I know got hurt. so, daddy was a little shaken up when he came home…”

"shaken up?"

"scared, my love"

his daughter shakes her head in disbelief, “nu-uh, you never get scared, papa” she rebuts.

nanami huffs out a laugh, flashing her a full grin now as he brings his fingers to his chin to to ponder her sweet statement. he quirks his brow and cheekily replies, "we can't all be brave like you," in an attempt to lighten the mood.

his daughter narrows her eyes towards his hand, her mind instantly distracted with other things already. "you got hurt too papa!" she gasps, dropping the bunny by her side to point at his knuckles.

nanami glances at his fingers covered in red marks.

"wait!" she exclaims as she places the book by his side. "I have something!"

she spins on her heel and rushes towards one of her drawers. meanwhile, nanami just takes her in with his love soaked eyes, watching as she rummages through her stuff with determination until she scurries back his way.

"got it!" she squeaks with a smile, and to his surprise she jumps right into his arms with such nonchalance it nearly make him crumble on the spot.

your voice echoes in the back of his mind: "we will always love you, kento. unconditionally. on your good days and your bad ones"

"mama bought it for me," she explains, regaining her father's attention once more.

nanami rests his cheek on her shoulder, and inhales her powdery scent as he keeps one arm warmly secured around her waist. he watches her peel off the plaster of the band aid, lbefore grabbing his hand and placing it unevenly over his knuckles.

"now a kiss!" she adds, as she brings his hand to her mouth and exaggerates a loud "mwah" sound for emphasis. "mama says the kiss is what makes it all better"

nanami instantly feels significantly better from this remedy of love. he extends his digits out, and looks at the hot pink "hello kitty" band aid that now rests comfortably on his knuckles.

"thank you, my darling," he coos and peppers her cheek with a few kisses before turning her to face him once again. "you made me feel a lot better"

she flashes him an equally large smile in return, showing off her missing teeth.

"I did?"

nanami chuckles as he scoops her up in his arms to give her a well deserved bear hug. she laughs as he stands on his two feet, and sheds away any lingering thoughts of apprehension that may have stuck.

"you always do," he reassures, his soul vibrating back to life when he feels her return his embrace. “you think you can forgive me for how I spoke earlier?”

“yeah,” she confirms and squeezes him just a little tighter. "I love you lots, papa"

"oh, my angel," he hums, "you have no idea just how much I love you too..."

･ﾟ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･･ﾟ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･

after winding down from your evening pampering session, you decide to pass by your daughter's room to check on your little family. you peer through the cracked door to find nanami spread out on your daughter’s bed, with your daughter curled into side and her head resting on his chest.

“did I come from a peach too like momotarō?” you hear her ask, but your heart flutters at the sight of your husband’s pearly whites.

you’ll never get over how much you love seeing him smile with such genuine emotion.

“no,” you hear nanami reply calmly, his finger lightly holding the page open. “you remember your mother explaining how you used to live in her stomach first?”

“oh yeah,” your daughter replies with a hint of disappointment over the fact that she was not birthed from a piece of fruit as mentioned in one of her favorite folk tales.

“shall I carry on?”

“uh-huh,” she answers and she readjusts her position to get even more comfortable. "I think if we look hard enough we might find momotarō..."

"you think so?" your husband wonders with honest curiosity.

"I know so, papa!"

"how many peaches do you think we need to check?"

"hmmm," she mumbles, "maybe a million?"

"a million?" your husband dramatically replies, "that's a lot of peaches don't you think,"

"I mean, it's less than a billion..." she responds quite matter of factly.

you catch his gaze from between the door that’s ajar. his expression fully relaxes, and you smile knowingly in his direction at the sight of father and daughter making up.

“papa?” his daughter questions upon his sudden silence, but your husband keeps his focus on you as he hums in acknowledgement before replying, "you're not wrong, but it'll still be quite a challenge to cut through a million peaches..."

"we might need some help," your daughter adds on.

you blow him a secret kiss as to not interrupt further, and quietly close the door before heading back to your bedroom.

#[peach is away.💌]#[peach queues.🧡]#nanami x reader #nanami x you #nanami x female reader #nanami x ofc #nanami kento x you #nanami kento x reader #nanami kento angst #nanami angst #nanami hurt/comfort #jujutsu kaisen angst #nanami fluff #jujutsu kaisen fan fiction #jjk fluff

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sa2-sonic · 2 months ago

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His chili dog fell to the floor. Hes not coping well

#theres no story for this tbh just sad #i wanted to practice expression and then the thought of sonic having a crash out came. and who do u take me for ofc im drawing that #i dont even usually draw angst #more realistically. sonic having a crash out during/after sonic prime #does this mf even process anything. i dont think he does #sonic the hedgehog #shadow the hedgehog #sonic #sonadow #rumaiq art #sketch

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kamaluhkhan · 1 year ago

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THE GRUDGE (or: the 7 things luke castellan hated about you)

read part two GET HIM BACK! (or: the 7 reasons you want revenge on luke castellan)

pairing: luke castellan x child of nemesis!reader (gender not specified)

word count: 8.5k

summary: luke hated your guts. he really did. he just hoped that no one could tell how, even after all this, you're still everything to him.

warnings/disclaimer: luke's POV. spoilers for the lightning thief and season 1 of pjo. some heated make-out sessions but no actual smut - MDNI / 18+. mentions of blood + death + alcohol. luke is 19 during tlt but i wrote this with him + reader being 21 by the end of this (this is important for the next part lol). anyways, luke + reader share clothes and lots of intense emotions they maybe possibly don't process in the best way. lots of ANGST - it's a greek tragedy fr!

author's note: welcome to my new hyperfixation! this fic is LONG but i hope she's worth it ♡

♪: the grudge by olivia rodrigo

(i. you have a sharp tongue)

fourteen year old luke was overwhelmed when he first stepped into the hermes cabin. it was loud and overcrowded and no one really seemed to care that they had a new cabinmate. the head counselor showed luke to an empty bed at the back, told him to get settled in, and left without another word. luke dropped his backpack before collapsing on the mattress. it was so thin that he could feel the springs dig into his back.

"you'll get used to it."

luke sat up to see you climbing through the window.

you had a band-aid stuck on your chin, chipped nail polish the color of blackberries, and leather combat boots that looked way too heavy to be wearing in the heat of summer.

“the shitty mattress?”

“i meant the whole chaos of cabin 11, and the way things work around here in general. if you can get used to the shitty mattress, all power to you.”

your tone was friendly enough, playful even. you smiled at him so comfortably it made luke nauseous.

“good to know.” he tried to smile back at you, but his heart wasn’t in it. “i’m luke, by the way.”

“yeah, i know. i’m —”

“y/n!”

you seemed entirely unfazed as the blond who called your name stormed over to you. you rolled your eyes, something only luke could notice, before turning to her.

“someone stole my candy.”

“i’m very sorry to hear that, maddy. gotta be careful around here.” your voice dripped like poisoned honey, deceptively innocent and sweet.

maddy was not having it. she huffed at you. “it was you, wasn’t it?”

“that depends. did you cheat at poker last night? again?”

some of the chatter throughout the cabin paused, heads turning to listen in.

“what? n-no!”

“then you have your answer, maddy.” you exaggerated a sigh, as though you had already won the fight and were annoyed that she came back for more. “now, if you’ll excuse me, i have a new camper to show around.”

chiron had already given them a tour, but luke didn’t protest when you grabbed his hand and pulled him out of the window with you. your hand was warm in his as you dragged him along to the corner of the cabin where a poorly made ladder waited for you.

“come on.” you started climbing, and only stopped to look down when you realized luke wasn’t following you. “best view of camp. trust me.”

a shiver passed through luke. trust didn’t come easy to him. he also didn’t particularly want to return to a stuffy cabin where all he would do was count reasons he did not want to be there.

so, luke followed you. he sat down next to you on the roof and looked out at the sun shining on his new home, but he couldn't help but be slightly bitter. the gods had gotten all of you into this life of endless danger and battles and monsters, and this was all they had to offer in return: a summer camp.

it just didn't seem fair.

there was something else he noticed then. what was it that chiron had said? camp half-blood was supposed to be a safe haven for all demigods.

“i don’t get it. there are only twelve cabins, but aren’t there, like, a million other gods?”

you straightened your posture then, and turned to luke with a newfound interest.

“camp half-blood only has cabins representing the twelve olympians. apparently, they’re the only ones important enough to have children worth recognizing, and they can’t even do that half the time,” you explained, impertinence laced throughout your words. it seemed like something you could never quite get off your chest.

every demigod knew that the gods didn’t appreciate sarcasm. they didn’t particularly like being called out on their bullshit, either.

you didn’t seem to care; you even rolled your eyes up at the sky, as if challenging zeus himself.

“anyways, that’s why the hermes cabin is so crowded. it takes in campers who are unclaimed or whose parent doesn’t have a cabin at camp. like me.”

“so, who’s your godly parent?”

you fiddled with the leather cord on your neck. it held a few clay beads like the other campers, but there was one silver charm he noticed only you wore — scales, by the looks of it. you clutched onto it.

luke realized that, despite your own advice, maybe you resented having to get used to the way things worked around here, and having to hide your resentment. maybe that was worse than having to sleep on an uncomfortable bed for the rest of your life.

"nemesis. goddess of revenge."

"that's....hardcore."

you scoffed and moved on to twisting the silver ring on your index finger. "a lot of people take it that way, and i think it scares them a bit.”

“so that’s why you’re extra nice to new campers, huh?”

“no, i was just in a good mood today.” you smirked.

“guess i was just lucky, then.”

luke couldn’t help but smile at your laugh — sharp, biting. you nudged your boot against his sneaker, which shifted you closer to him, shoulders practically touching.

“what people don’t understand is that it's more about balance, you know? you do good things, and good things happen to you. at least, they should. you do bad things and….” you pulled out an outrageously big bag of candy, dropped it between you and luke, and winked at him. “you face the consequences.”

“that makes sense.” luke leaned over to grab a handful of gummy bears. “like karma.”

“yeah. exactly.”

you bit the head off a red bear, both of you chewing in silence before you added:

“by the way, i’m sorry about your friend.” you swallowed and caught luke’s gaze.

chiron warned him that word would travel fast around camp about what happened to thalia, and luke had prepared himself for anything — anything but your reaction. there was no pity in your eyes; instead, there was a hint of rage, as though thalia had been your friend, too.

“she deserved more.”

luke’s eyes caught the glint of a knife strapped to your belt. he took another handful of the candy you stole, and he thought about the fire and fearlessness behind your words, and, despite everything, it felt right to be with you then and there.

“yeah,” he finally whispered back. “she did.”

we all do.

neither of you said those words, but the suggestion was there, and it felt like a promise.

(ii. you hold on to every stupid, little detail)

“slow down, tiger.”

your voice echoed throughout the arena, and if luke had been fighting a real opponent, it might have gotten him killed. instead, he just stopped mid-swing, sparing another straw dummy from losing its arm.

“left hand,” you noted as you walked past him towards a bench. “you, my friend, are in need of a break.”

luke loosened the grip on his sword. the only time luke fought with his non-dominant hand was when he had overworked the other. he must have switched an hour ago, but judging by how heavy his arm felt, it could have very well been two.

his curls were stuck to his forehead with sweat, his shirt soaked through. he could feel a dull pain behind his eyes, and luke was worried that if he stopped to catch his breath, he would pass out. or, even worse, have to face the reality of the shitty news he’d gotten early that day.

“come sit with me,” you urged. “you’re exhausted, tiger.”

luke bristled at your nickname for him.

sure, luke loved that there was something only you called him, a secret kept between you in plain sight, but it was also a reminder that it was harder to hide behind the hero act when you were around.

everyone else at camp figured the nickname was a playful attempt at calling him strong and charismatic. the truth was that luke once told you that his favorite cereal as a kid was frosted flakes and that he would dream of playing sports as well as tony the tiger. for better or for worse, like most things, you wouldn’t let it go.

case in point: if it was anybody other than you trying to get him to take a break, luke could have just brushed them off with a charming smile and continued swordfighting until his arms fell off, but in the two years since meeting you, luke had never met anyone as stubborn and convincing. like him, it seemed you were willing to fight and shed blood to get your way. luke was never really in the mood to make you bleed, even when feeling like he could burn the entire world down, so he usually gave in to your demands.

as soon as he sat down next to you, you handed him an orange flavored energy drink — his favorite. anything other than water was hard to come by at camp without the enchanted goblets in the dining pavilion, or the right connection in the hermes cabin. he ran out of his stash the other day, but you must have noticed and gotten one of the stoll brothers to smuggle more in.

“thanks,” luke said, ignoring the jolt of electricity that passed through him when your fingers brushed together briefly.

the two of you looked out at the sword arena, and all the straw dummies that luke had destroyed. you wait for him to take three big gulps of his drink before speaking again.

“i guess chiron and your dad decided you weren’t ready for a quest.”

luke exhaled sharply. “how did you —”

“the only time you’d skip out on capture the flag is if something really shitty happened.” you looked down at luke’s clenched fists, and that seemed to be all the confirmation you needed. “you promised annabeth you'd be there, and it's not like you to let her down."

fuck. he had completely forgotten that tonight was annabeth's first time as team captain. this entire week, she had been prepping a winning strategy. it wasn’t like annabeth needed him to win, but luke was her big brother, and he should have been there. you were right — he had let her down.

the realization made luke’s day go from bad to worse.

"i told her you were helping a new camper with an emergency. she didn't believe it, but she adjusted her strategy and we still won.”

“well, thank the gods everything worked in the end,” luke grumbled.

“don’t thank the gods,” you quipped. “thank annabeth chase for her brilliant mind, and me for covering for your sorry ass.”

when luke didn’t indulge in your usual playful banter, you moved closer to him and brushed some curls away from his eyes. your skin warmed his forehead, and the small gesture made him feel better than he had all day.

“look, i’m not going to give you some bullshit inspirational speech about how the gods don’t get to define what a hero is, or how you don’t need a quest to prove that you’re worthy of being one. we’ve each been through that before, and i have a feeling this won’t be our last time, either.”

“then why are you here?” the question came out harsher than luke had intended it to.

“because she’s trying her best to hide it, but annabeth is really hurt that you didn’t show up for the game. i figured the least you could do is suck it up, come to the campfire, and make her those signature luke castellan s’mores. you could probably use one, too, since you haven’t eaten anything since breakfast.”

you were right, again. luke was exhausted, he was furious, but most of all, he was starving.

later that night, luke sat next to annabeth and vowed to make her as many s’mores as she wanted. you’d gone to sit with the hephaestus kids, trying to convince beckendorf and nyssa to join your cabin’s post-campfire party at the beach, even though they had to work in the forges early the next morning.

when chiron made his weekly speech, congratulating the winners of capture the flag and thanking the gods for keeping everyone safe, you and luke caught each other’s gaze from across the fire. you rolled your eyes and luke bit back a smile as you turned back to beckendorf. he noticed your knees were practically touching. did you sit that close to everyone?

luke was looking at you for so long that the marshmallow he was roasting fell into the fire, despite annabeth’s warnings. she handed him another one.

"you should tell her how you feel," annabeth said. "stop being a coward."

whether it was the smell of burnt sugar, the heat of the fire, or annabeth’s comment, luke started to feel dizzy. he did his best to shake it off, asking annabeth for a play-by-play of her strategy earlier that night, but he couldn’t quite get rid of the thought of you.

(iii. you don't care if your clothes are stained with blood)

“i just….i can’t fucking believe you, luke.”

“i don’t get why you’re so upset — you’ve never cared about quests before.”

luke was hoping to break the news to you after capture the flag. unfortunately for him, word travels fast around camp.

annabeth had the two of you scouting the east side for the flag, while she and some other athena kids took the west. you hadn’t found anything so far, which meant that you’d spent the better part of an hour bickering over luke’s choice of companions for his quest. a choice that included charles beckendorf and chris rodriguez, and purposefully did not include you, much to your fury.

before you could continue arguing, luke heard the sound of footsteps approaching. he looked over to you, and you already had your shield and sword at the ready.

a few red defenders emerged from the trees. one charged at luke, but you stepped in so he could deal with the other two. one of his opponents went down fairly easily, but the other put up much more of a fight. metal clashed behind him as you kept fighting as well. you might not have been as skilled a swordfighter as luke, but he knew that you could hold your own, at least until he was finished with the person in front of him.

luke parried his opponent’s strike, causing them to take a step closer. he was preparing to disarm them, just as he heard you yelp and stumble to the ground. it only took a millisecond of his attention, but it gave his opponent the opportunity to elbow him in the face. luke felt a crack upon impact, and pain radiated from his nose; he powered through.

he had to finish this fight, and he had to do it fast. you needed him.

his ears were ringing as he finally knocked over his opponent, kicking away their sword and keeping his foot on their chest. luke turned around to see you having turned the tides, the blade of your sword dangerously close to your opponent’s neck.

you locked eyes with luke, and you both understood — it was time to go. the two of you ran through the forest, as far away as you could before having to stop and catch your breath.

luke removed his helmet to get some air, and dropped his weapons. you did the same. you looked at him, brows furrowed.

“your nose.”

luke licked his lips, tasting blood. the triumph of winning that last fight overshadowed the ache of his potentially broken nose. in fact, he liked the image of a ruthless warrior emerging from the glory and gore of battle, that even though he did not bleed ichor like a god, he still had power.

you, on the other hand, didn’t look impressed. instead, you stepped forward and offered the sleeve of your shirt to wipe away the blood.

“you don’t have to —”

“i know you think you’re a badass walking around all broken and bloody, but you shouldn’t deny your admirers your pretty face,” you teased.

it was no secret that luke had numerous admirers around camp, a fact you loved to tease him about. he was sure that you relished in how flustered that made him. all you had to call him was pretty boy, and luke could be reduced to a blushing mess.

it was pathetic how much power you had over him.

“besides, i wouldn’t have gotten out of that last fight if you hadn’t taught me that disarming technique earlier. i owe you. it’s what we do. we take care of each other, right?”

he couldn’t argue with that.

a few moments of silence passed as you cleaned his face. something shifted as you worked, the flirtatious grin fading away. when you pulled away, your sleeve was stained a dark crimson.

“just tell me honestly,” you finally murmured. “why don't you want me to join your quest?”

luke was genuinely taken aback by the softness of your voice, now devoid of its usual fire. you wouldn’t meet luke’s eyes, but being that close to you, he noticed they were slightly glazed over.

he had expected you to be angry at his decision. he expected you to yell and argue and try to change his mind. luke hadn’t expected you to be so hurt. so broken.

he hadn’t planned on it, but luke decided to tell you the truth then.

“look, karma, if you come with me, my heart wouldn’t fully be in the quest. i’d be so caught up in….well, you.”

a pause.

“is that a bad thing?”

“not usually, no.”

you smirked a little at that, and luke’s heart skipped a beat. it also made his decision even clearer.

“but i need to be focused for this. i need….” he let out a deep sigh. “i need to prove myself. this is my first real chance, and i can’t fuck it up.”

you met his gaze and smiled brightly at him, your signature spark of confidence returning.

“you won’t.”

you reached a hand up to play with his necklace. luke hadn’t noticed how close you’d gotten until your fingers started tracing over those four clay beads. it made his entire body burst into flames.

“i’ve been wanting to do something for a while. and, aphrodite save me, it might be really stupid, but —”

luke took a lucky guess as to where you were going, and crashed his lips against yours. aphrodite knows that he'd been wanting to do that for a while, too.

he often got drunk on the adrenaline of battle, the glory of winning, but nothing was quite like the rush of kissing you for the first time.

it was messy and urgent, both of you aware that, at any moment, you could be interrupted. your noses were bumping together, teeth clacking against each other. the metallic tang of blood lingered on luke’s tongue, but neither of you seemed to care. you even bit his lip slightly, as if you wanted more. armor sat heavy and cold between your chests, preventing you from getting closer. luke had never loathed the protective gear more.

he made up for it by lodging one hand underneath your jaw, and snaking the other beneath the celestial bronze, beneath the cotton of your shirt, admiring how your pulse quickened under his thumb when he grazed the soft skin of your stomach. you tangled your hands into his hair, nails scraping against his scalp. he groaned and felt you smirk against his lips.

luke had kissed a few people before, sure, but never like this: like a knife to the gut, and if you pulled away, luke would surely bleed out and die.

it wouldn’t be a hero’s death, in the traditional sense, but at least he’d die happy.

how many heroes could claim that?

when luke ran out of air, feeling like his lungs were burning, he had to pull away.

you glanced down at luke’s kiss-bitten lips, then back to his eyes. luke flushed under the intensity of your gaze.

“just promise me something, tiger,” you whispered, voice hoarse.

“anything.”

“come back alive.”

luke leaned forward and placed another kiss on your lips, this one much gentler than before.

“i promise.”

(iv. you love like a scar that won't fade)

the nightmares were getting worse.

luke woke up in a cold sweat, taking gulps of air in an attempt to steady his breathing.

“luke.”

your whisper did little to quell the pit of dread growing in his stomach, but it did enough to bring him back down to reality.

he was at camp half-blood (fuck the gods of olympus), in the hermes cabin (fuck you, dad), in a bed next to yours (fuck, if he could tell you what — who — was going through his head, he would).

“i’m…i’m fine,” he murmured back, voice catching slightly on the lie.

like clockwork, you shifted from your bed to his, slipping under the covers. it didn’t matter that it was a hot summer night, and the minute your legs touched his, he could feel himself starting to overheat.

your thumb brushed over the thick edge of his scar, up his cheekbone to the corner of his eye. it had been a year, living with this reminder. a reminder that he had failed, just as much as his father and the olympians had failed him.

luke tried to pretend that he didn’t come back from his quest as a shell of who he once was. after all, it was meant to be his shining moment as a demigod, meant to gain him all the glory and father’s praise he once wished for.

what a fucking joke.

every morning, luke would crawl into a different skin. he welcomed new campers and taught sword-fighting. he laughed with chris and his other siblings and strategized with annabeth for capture the flag. he would be the easy-going, charming, skillful senior counselor who respected the gods and honored them in everything he did.

again: a fucking joke.

nights were different, though, with you so close to him, you who could always see right through him.

every night, luke was a fourteen-year old boy again, with so much rage and resentment he didn't know what to do with it.

of course, you were always you - a bleeding heart underneath layers of armor. you didn't care about fate, or the gods, or the titans. you cared about justice, you cared about what was right and fair.

most of all, you cared about luke.

“you were screaming,” you told him, voice barely cutting through the soft snores and sleeptalkings of your other cabinmates.

“sorry,” he managed. looking at you in the dull moonlight, luke noticed the deep shadows under your eyes.

“it’s fine. you just….you scared me, tiger.”

your hand still rested on his cheek, and for a second, luke hoped you would kiss him, but you didn’t. instead, you told him to try and get some sleep, and sank further into his bed before closing your eyes.

for the hundredth night in a row, luke hoped you couldn’t hear his heart hammering in his chest as you fell asleep next to him.

since coming back from his quest, luke didn’t have it in him to suggest being anything other than friends, and you didn’t push it. there had been a few....moments between you, sure, but nothing more.

luke thought you might have changed your mind, because who would want to be with a bitter, worthless, wannabe hero? then again, that voice haunting his dreams…. luke could change that.

but, at what cost?

(v. you protect people as ruthlessly as a starving dog)

luke could hear you talking to percy jackson outside. though he couldn’t quite determine what was being said, as much as he tried.

you entered the bathroom and instantly caught luke’s eyes in the mirror. you were wearing your faded pyjama shorts with cartoon crows, and a flannel shirt that luke had a sneaking suspicion might have been his. you smiled at him before setting up at the counter, one sink between you.

“what was that about?” luke asked after spitting out a mouthful of minty toothpaste.

“oh, nothing.” you were searching through your toiletry bag for something, and seemed to come up short. “hey, do you have any extra dental floss?”

luke threw some over to you. as you effortlessly caught it, he noticed your knuckles, bruised and bloodied.

“what happened?”

you finished flossing and briefly examined your hands before pulling out your toothbrush.

“it’s not a big deal,” you assured. “some ares kids were picking on percy, and then they started pushing him around, like, really pushing him around, so….”

“....you decided to send them to the infirmary.”

you squeezed some toothpaste on your brush before continuing. “i don’t need you to lecture me about how i shouldn’t be fighting with other campers because i’ve been here longer and i should be a good role model. you know what a good role model does? not let kids beat up other kids and think the worst punishment they’ll get is no dessert for a week.”

luke watched carefully as you jammed the toothbrush in your mouth and brushed with such force, he was worried your teeth might dislodge. he knew that you would shed blood for someone you loved, and that you didn’t particularly care if you had to break rules in doing so, because you believed that what was written was not necessarily what was right.

in fact, luke loved that about you.

no, it wasn’t the fighting that luke cared about — it was who you were fighting for.

percy was a good kid, he really was. luke just didn’t want you getting attached.

“i wasn’t going to lecture you. i’m guessing chiron already did?”

you nodded and spat out what looked like a combination of toothpaste and blood. you rinsed your mouth until the water lost its pinkish hue. once you were done, luke continued his train of thought.

“i just didn’t realize you cared so much about him.”

“about percy?”

luke could tell that he didn’t have your full attention. you were packing your stuff back up, accidentally tossing luke’s dental floss into your bag, but he had more pressing matters to deal with.

“yeah. the kid’s only been at camp for three days, and you’re already acting like his guard dog.”

you finally turned to luke and glared at him.

“maybe. but percy’s sweet and he doesn’t seem like the type to put up with bullshit. he’s been through a lot, and annabeth seems to like him, too. as far as i’m concerned, percy’s one of us, and i’m not going to let anyone push him around.”

luke raised an eyebrow at you. “he’s sweet?”

“yeah. like, just now, he gave me some blue raspberry jelly beans as a thank you. said his mom used to work at a candy store. he also wanted me to apologize to you for him. he feels bad about beating you in sword-fighting earlier.”

you scoffed, like you resented luke for having to apologize to him on percy’s behalf. you definitely did not appreciate that guard dog comment. luke clenched his jaw, seething over what you had just said.

satisfied with his reaction, you gave luke that nauseating smile of yours, tilted your head towards the exit. a truce, because you never liked to fight with luke for too long, and a order, because you knew luke would always follow.

the two of you began walking back to your cabin in the warm mid-june air.

“i wouldn’t say he beat me,” luke huffed. “it was beginner’s luck.”

“sure, tiger. it was beginner’s luck that disarmed the best swordsman we’ve had in the last 300 years.”

you nudged luke’s shoulder with yours, but he recoiled from your touch.

“are you trying to make me feel worse?” luke tried his best to avoid snapping at you, keeping his tone measured.

“i’m just saying that maybe the kid has natural talent and that doesn’t make you any less talented. there’s no need to get jealous.”

luke resisted the urge to growl at your suggestion.

to be clear, he was not jealous. it’s just that luke had spent years of blood, sweat, and tears getting to where he was then, and percy jackson had just gotten to camp.

and, to be even more clear, luke was not jealous of how you were already defending percy with your whole body and your whole heart, the way you did for him.

by then, you reached the front of the hermes cabin. luke could already hear the commotion of what he would need to deal with as soon as he walked in. the burden of being head counselor, one he approached with an elastic smile that could snap at any moment.

you tugged on luke’s sleeve before he could open the door.

“hey. are we okay?”

luke looked down at your fingers grasping the fabric of a sweatshirt he was just realizing was yours. your nails were painted a dark red, now chipped after a week of wear. you had begged luke to paint his nails then, and once again, he gave in. he even started to like the purple you had chosen just for him, so deep it was almost black. the same color you were wearing the first time you and luke met.

he smiled at the memory — a real smile, no plastic — and then smiled back up at you.

“we’re fine, karma.” and he moved to enter the cabin. luke could hear the threat of an argument bubbling up, what sounded like a petty one over a prank gone wrong.

“wait.” you tugged at his (your) sweatshirt once more. “there’s something i wanted to talk to you about, about tomorrow night—”

“annabeth called a meeting during free time.”

“yeah, i know, it’s just —”

“she’ll run through strategy for capture the flag then.”

“one of the aphrodite senior campers asked me to the campfire,” you blurted it out, and luke decided to ignore the sound of a fight breaking out from behind the wooden door.

what in the name of hades were you talking about?

“they asked you out? like…like a….” luke didn’t even want to speak the word, scared it would make it real.

“a date,” you said casually, as if that one word didn’t rip luke’s heart in a million pieces. “i said yes.” an admission that took all those pieces and set them on fire.

sure, in the seven years since you and luke met, you’d each talked about boys, about girls, about dating and kissing them and going further. but there was something about this one that felt different. something about the way you told him.

“but, listen, i wanted to let you know it’s not —”

“good for you,” was all luke said through gritted teeth before someone started calling his name again, louder and more urgently, and he had to duck inside.

(vi. you taste like burning cherries and righteous anger)

your team had won capture the flag, of course. the biggest news of the evening, though: percy jackson was the son of the sea god.

he was a forbidden child, the hero of the great prophecy.

everything was falling into place.

all luke should be thinking about is kronos’ plan, and his role in it, and how a world without the gods of olympus was that much more in reach.

unfortunately, for the time being, he was so consumed by you.

you, from across the campfire, sporting cutoff denim shorts and fresh wounds from the game earlier. you, who had wrapped your knuckles in gauze, concealing their bruising, fixed the chips in your nail polish and stacked rings on your fingers. (for the record: luke had gifted you the one on your left thumb.) you, with dark lips that whispered too closely and laughed too loudly with a child of aphrodite— jordan li.

you hadn’t so much as looked at luke since congratulating each other on another win. when chiron announced his weekly gratitude to the gods at the start of that night’s campfire, you didn’t punctuate your resentment with your usual eye-roll or biting remark. you were too busy giggling at something jordan said.

luke wanted to be the one to whisper jokes in your ear. he wanted to be the one you left lipstick stains on later, along his jaw and down his neck. he wanted to be the one who kissed the blade mark on your shoulder and the bruises on your knuckles.

and yet, hours passed and it seemed that the thought of luke had never so much as crossed your mind. he found himself at an after hours party with a few senior campers on the beach. a lethal recipe: a poorly crafted bonfire, some contraband drinks and you in jordan li’s lap, playing with their hair and pretending luke castellan did not exist.

meanwhile, luke had katie gardner’s full attention. she was talking to him about the strawberry season, potentially leaning a bit too close into luke’s personal space, definitely flirting with him.

luke could have done a lot worse than the head counselor of the demeter cabin, who always smelled like fresh lavender, whose eyes were the bright green of spring grass and whose lips tasted like golden honey.

the problem was that luke only wanted you, and his eyes kept sliding over to where you were kissing jordan’s cheek, and he accidentally called the girl he was kissing by your name, which did not make her happy.

katie threw her drink in his face, told him to wake the fuck up, and walked away.

a chorus of gasps and chuckles erupted as luke stood there, diet coke and vodka seeping into his shirt. the commotion seemed to capture your attention, because you suddenly appeared next to luke, an empty bottle of cherry soda in your hand.

“rough night, tiger?” your voice, that nickname, made luke sick, his face twisting into a frown. you don’t seem to notice or care. instead, you switched your bottle with luke’s and took a sip.

“looks like you were having a pretty good time,” luke practically sneered. “where’s your date?”

“they went to bed.” you swallowed a mouthful of beer, grimacing at its bitterness. “gods, this is terrible. you and i should go on the drink run next time — we have better taste.”

“so, are you and jordan like a thing now?”

you gave luke a smile he didn’t quite understand, but made his stomach churn in ways only you could. “would that be a problem?”

“of course not.” he answered way too quickly for that to be true.

“let’s get out of here,” you suggested. “i think katie is about this close to strangling you with a tree branch.”

luke glanced over your shoulder to where green eyes glared back at him.

nowhere could luke find it in him to care. he wasn’t even sorry. he just shrugged, took the bottle back from you, took his first sip all night. luke almost gagged (because of course you were right, and the stoll brothers had better fake ids than they had taste) but he suppressed it.

“no. i’m good.”

biggest lie he ever said. like there wasn’t anger caught in his throat and jealousy swelling between his ribs.

“go find jordan,” he taunted. “kiss them, show them a good time! isn’t that the reason why you got all pretty?”

you narrowed your eyes at him carefully. your nostrils were slightly flared, and luke took a bit of pride in being able to rile you up.

“look, we haven’t really talked lately, and i think we should.”

“go find jordan,” he mocked once more. “almost all the aphrodite kids are here, and i’m sure you can be quiet enough to sneak into their cabin and if you want a quick fu—”

“luke.” you clipped his name, obviously getting to the limit of your patience with him. “if you want to stay here all night and be an asshole, you’re welcome to. you should know, though, that your happy-go-lucky hero mask is starting to crack and i don’t know if you could deal with the fallout from it shattering completely.”

you leaned in close and whispered that last part, very aware of the chattering that stopped and the eyes that watched the pair of you anxiously. luke was usually good at hiding that part of himself who wanted to burn the world down.

in ways you didn’t realize, you were right: he couldn’t risk revealing it, not now.

not yet.

“do whatever you want, castellan,” you spat out his last name, the combination of letters foreign in your mouth.“i��m leaving.”

luke should be proud of himself. he waited a whole two seconds before following you like a stray dog.

luke didn’t know if he’d ever felt you that enraged by him, and it horrified him. it also made him hungry for more.

“i’m not sure that jordan would want the two of us alone together at night,” he shouted after you, words echoing into the starless sky.

“gods, enough about jordan!” luke practically ran into you with how fast you turned around to confront him. “i was helping them with that stupid aphrodite tradition!”

“you….” luke faltered, all the snark leaving his body. “what?”

luke remembered silena beauregard once explaining the rite of passage to him: to prove themselves, a child of aphrodite had to make someone fall in love with them, and then break their heart.

“why…why would you agree to do that?”

you had reached the dining area by then, and you sat on one of the steps leading to the pavilion. luke stayed a few feet away, looking at you cautiously.

“jordan and i are already friends, and they figured a fake relationship would be the way to avoid anyone from actually getting hurt in the process.”

“you seemed so…so into it, though,” luke stammered, the memory of you in jordan’s lap, laughter bubbling from your lips, still fresh.

“it’s called acting, dumbass.” the camp didn’t rely on electricity, but there were enough torches around that luke could see you roll your eyes. “anyways, i was trying to give you a heads-up last night, but you wouldn’t listen.” you took a deep breath. “and, honestly, i didn’t push it because….i figured i should test a hypothesis.”

a hypothesis? you’d known annabeth for too long.

“what hypothesis?”

you hesitated.

“it doesn’t matter. fuck, this was stupid,” you muttered, and without another word, stormed through the dining pavilion, a short cut to the hermes cabin. your footsteps fell heavy against the marble, and luke’s not far behind.

“what hypothesis?” he asked again.

nothing but rushed footsteps.

“what hypothesis?” luke finally yelled.

third time was the charm, because you stopped in your tracks and faced luke once again. a fire burned in the bronze brazier, where campers were forced to offer up portions of your food to the gods at every meal. its roaring seemed to captivate you, and the flames danced across your face, illuminating all your curves and edges.

“i’m angry at the gods,” you stated.

this caught luke off guard. from the day the two of you met, luke knew you shared that feeling. you’d gotten quieter with your rage as you’d gotten older. luke supposed he got better at hiding it himself, as well.

“i’m angry at the gods for letting bad shit happen even if they can stop it, and for building this world in the fucked up way they did. i’m angry at your dad for the way he’s treated you, but — you, luke castellan.” you finally met luke’s eyes with a gaze so sharp, luke almost felt himself bleed. “i’m also angry at you, and not just for your bullshit tonight.”

your admission felt like a punch to the stomach, and luke was left with no air to breathe.

did you know?

“you haven’t been the same since your quest,” you continued, words slow and deliberate, the way you spoke when you were worried your voice would shake. “and i’ve come to terms with that in the past few years, but you….you’ve never tried to ice me out before. you’ve been acting distant since december, and it’s been driving me insane. do you realize how much i miss my best …..” you swallowed the word friend. “how much i miss you?”

luke hesitated, because what could he say? i know i’ve been distant, but i’ve been busy trying to start a war between the gods. sorry babe!

would you hate him, if you knew?

you had to have known that, despite the distance, luke missed you. for tartarus sake, in the last two days, he’d driven himself mad at you calling a fourteen year old boy sweet, and he was about to combust at the image of you dating someone else, with little care as to the collateral damage.

"you can't just avoid me, makeout with katie fucking gardner, and then….” you trailed off, hiding your face in your hands. whether it was to hide embarrassment or tears, luke wasn’t sure.

a smirk spread across luke’s face at the revelation that he hadn’t been the only one jealous at the bonfire that night. it lit luke up with the confidence he needed to not completely fall to his knees in front of you, beg for your forgiveness for everything he’s done.

“why do you care if i make out with katie fucking gardner?”

as he waited for a response, luke walked towards you until your back hit one of the marble columns.

“why do you care if i’m with jordan fucking li?” you clenched your jaw and looked right through luke. a clear indication that you wanted him to break down first; it wouldn’t be you who yielded this fight.

“because i want to be the one you’re with.” at that point, luke was so close to you that he swore he could hear your heartbeat. he reached out and played with the hem of your shorts. “why do you care if i make out with katie gardner?”

“because.” you drew in a sharp breath when luke’s fingers brushed underneath the denim, across the warm skin of your thigh. you closed your eyes. “don’t make me say it, tiger.”

the desperation in your voice made luke want to do unholy things with you, to you. luke knew you didn’t think of him as a saint, and you never expected him to be one. the reality was that you weren’t much better, either. what was essentially an altar to the gods burned bright next to you, but it seemed neither of you had ever cared less about it than in that moment.

luke would watch olympus fall. he would dethrone the gods and watch their glass castle shatter and find glory in a new world. in the grand scheme of things, he was willing to lose this battle.

in fact, he would have rather betrayed the titan lord himself than waste another second not kissing your lips.

so, he kissed you, and you kissed him back with such force, such hunger, it was ungodly.

no, you certainly weren’t a saint — but you were divine, in the most brutal, intoxicating way. in the way you shuddered when luke lodged a leg between your thighs; in the way you threaded your fingers through the belt loops of his jeans to bring him closer; in the way the metal of your rings burned through the skin of his hip, right to the bone, which made him shudder, and you smile triumphantly against his jaw.

the more he tasted your smirk flavored by cherry soda and the ashes of nearby flames, the more he felt your feral teeth against his neck and your wicked nails digging into his shoulders, the more you tugged on his curls, the more luke thought: maybe.

maybe you would give into your seething resentment, live up to those eye-rolls and snarky comments that got you in trouble with chiron, on the edge of hot water with the gods. maybe you would join the titan army. maybe, just maybe, this time, you would follow luke.

and yet — maybe wasn’t enough if it meant he could lose this. luke wouldn’t risk it, not until he kissed every battle scar and bruise on your body, and you did the same to his.

“wait.”

it was the last thing luke wanted to do, but he complied. he took the opportunity to appreciate the chaos he created: your shirt in disarray, your lipstick a mess, your chest heaving and desperate to catch a breath.

“i promised jordan that we’d keep up our charade for a week, two at the most. do you think we could keep this…” you tightened your fist around the fabric of his shirt. “a secret until then?”

luke responded by pressing his lips to yours once more, because there were definitely worse secrets to keep.

(vii. you wouldn’t hesitate to make him bleed)

luke had just left percy jackson to die.

he should be leaving camp, now, but he needed to see you one last time.

the universe works in mysterious ways, because you were out on a run through the forest, and you crossed paths before he even had time to wonder where you were.

“hey, tiger.” you smiled as if this was a regular afternoon. the two of you would teach your afternoon activities, sneak away during dinner so luke could kiss you in that spot that made you gasp. “wanna join me? i was just wrapping up, but i could be convinced to go longer.”

for a second, he was tempted to. very tempted.

“i don’t have much time.”

you seemed to notice luke’s sullen mood and you dropped your playful demeanor.

luke explained: the messages from kronos in his dreams, him stealing the lightning bolt and helm of darkness to start a war between the gods and framing percy. the plan to destroy olympus that luke had pledged his life to.

percy was surprised at what luke had done, and luke could imagine that the rest of camp would be, too. luke was the golden boy of camp half-blood, everyone’s big brother.

you, on the other hand, didn’t express any sense of shock.

“luke.” you said his name like you weren’t quite sure it was poison. “i’m going to give you five seconds to tell me that you’re joking.”

five seconds of silence passed. you took a few steps back from luke.

“i….i should have told you sooner.”

“yeah,” you scoffed. “you should have. but, you didn’t. did it feel good, having the titan king whispering sweet nothings in your ear? all the lies about how this war is the only way to get the glory you so desperately want? it’s fucking delusional.”

“it’s not delusional—”

“yes, it is!” you glared at him. “you’re on the wrong side of a war you made the mistake of starting.”

luke straightened his posture, thinking about how hypocritical you were being.

“isn’t this what you’re all about? revenge, karma. your mom will probably join us, too. don’t you want to see the gods finally get what they deserve?”

“not like this. i can’t believe how desperate you are, to believe that kronos is going to make everything right. it’s pathetic,” you spat. “i’m not saying the gods don’t deserve to be taken down a notch. their fucking obsession with power and glory….it’s sick and twisted, but i don’t think your titan king is any better. i don’t think you are any better.”

“it’s time that the gods fall. this is the only way, even if it isn’t perfect,” luke countered. his voice was firmer now as he absorbed your anger. your mother was the goddess of revenge, but you clearly didn't understand the sacrifices, pain, and blood that was required to make the world a better place.

luke just needed to convince you.

“we’ve talked about this for years,” he continued. “nothing is balanced! there’s no justice here, for anyone. we can build a better world where we don’t have to burn our scraps and throw ourselves at monsters to get attention. we can fight together like we always have. y/n, i love—”

“don’t,” you snapped. “don’t you fucking dare. you should have died on your quest.” your voice laced with venom. one hand gripping the knife you always kept on your belt. “that dragon should have fucking sliced through you and saved us all the trouble.”

something pricked in the back of his throat, down to his stomach.

“you don’t mean that.”

“i do,” you promised. “at least you would have died with all of us thinking you’re a hero instead of the traitor you really are.”

you grabbed your knife, took a fighting stance.

“i’m not going to fight you,” was all luke could say. he noticed your hand tremble, and you tightened the grip on your knife to prevent emotion from slipping through your invisible armor.

in that moment, you have could slice through luke, and it would hurt less than everything you just said, less than the murderous look you were giving him, like he was just another monster you wouldn’t think twice about sending to tartarus.

luke didn’t even have a chance to unsheathe his sword before you charged at him, but he quickly had you pinned to the ground, the tip of your own knife pointed at you. he hesitated. the blade pressed harder against your cheek than he intended, enough to break the skin and let a few droplets of dark crimson escape.

“please come with me,” he pleaded. you didn’t answer, but you did seem surprised by the softness of his voice.

a few moments passed, the celestial bronze still between you. luke waited for you to see his way, to yield to his proposal.

you didn’t. instead, you took advantage of the situation. you wrapped your leg around his and flipped your position. in the process, you regained possession of your knife. without the hesitation that held luke back, you sliced through his cheek, deep. luke bit his lip to suppress a groan, tasting blood. your gaze set his whole body on fire as he waited for your next move. that was when you glanced down at his camp necklace, and the new clay bead added to commemorate this summer.

a turquoise trident.

“percy told me he was on his way to see you,” you realized. “what did you do?”

luke didn’t answer. he knew then that a choice ran through your head.

and it stung, just a little, watching you sprint away through the trees in a last ditch effort to save percy’s life.

there was a small, pathetic part of luke that wanted you to choose him, even if it meant you would have plunged the knife into his chest.

#this is my baby fr #really feeling the tragic hero vibe down to my core #will prob do a part 2 from reader's POV!#ofc inspired by get him back! bc nemesis!reader....#percy jackson #pjo fanfic #pjo series #luke castellan #luke castellan x you #luke castellan x reader #pjo x reader #luke castellan angst #luke castellan imagine #percy jackson and the olympians #luke castellan smut #saf writes #Spotify

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zu-is-here · 2 months ago

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last date

[4/17] Swap by popcornpr1nce

Murder by ask-dusttale

#zu art #comic #murderswap #murder!sans #us!sans #swap!sans #underswap!sans #birthday #undertale #undertale au #utmv #dustberry #come along come along with me #come along now come along and you'll see #what it's like to be free #;w;#(chaotically created a playlist for them while drawing xp #''happy birthday'' Zu says and draws the most angst ever #((post) dark) cream tops ofc but them? they're lulled in the depths of my heart

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desireangel · 10 months ago

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Bad Things | Aemond Targaryen

Summary: Aemond is plagued with doubts and seeks refuge in the one place where he is at peace with himself; between his beloved wife's legs.

Pairing: Aemond x fem!reader

Word Count: 2.6k

Warnings: MDNI, 18+ only!! this is so in Aemond's thoughts, self doubt, lack of remorse, smut, oral (f receiving), talk of sex, slight breeding kink, Aemond is lost in his head and obsessed with eating his wife out, Aemond may be prince regent of Westeros but he is king of eating pussy, unedited, hmm kinda just porn really - let me know to add anything if need be!

Author's Note: Came home drunk (typos??? potentially. unnecessary droning on??? potentially.) after a couple cocktails and had the urge to erm write. About oral sex specifically, of course. Anywayssss, enjoy (I hope!) - xoxo kisses!!! <3

Masterlist!

Sometimes Aemond let his mind wander to all that could have been and all that could come to be had he only made his decisions differently. He seldom felt regret - never felt as if he would change the things that have led him towards the path of greatness he was on. But what ifs and the memory of failures are as stubborn as a newborn plague and Aemond was just as vulnerable to illness as those whom he revered and those whom he detested.

It was warm under the light of the setting sun, a kiss on his skin as Aemond rested against the balcony at the window and watched over what he longed to have for himself. If things had been different, at any time and any place, where would he be now?

The thought of living his life without his injury had come to sicken him but it lingered at the back of his mind. Had certain moments taken a different turn, would he still feel the need to drive people to respect him through fear and prove himself worthy at every chance he could find? Aemond swallowed at the thought. And he stood there, looking to the skies as if the clouds could free him from the suffocation of the feelings that had haunted him since the night he lost his eye.

Feelings of failure, feelings of defeat, feelings of fear and feelings of humiliation.

Even after meeting you, and understanding that loving you meant different things - things he wasn’t familiar with, things he wasn’t sure he was capable of becoming familiar with - the lingering thought of what if was all consuming.

Aemond could hear you coming seconds before you were beside him. He was thankful you stood by his side, silently and wordlessly as your eyes dragged across his face, analysing what you could of his thoughts from his perfected emotionless expression. Quiet moments like this, where Aemond got lost in his mind grew fewer at each move he made within this war.

But here you both were, silently in each other’s company. Aemond was a passionate lover. But he was also at times a cold and imperfect partner. And some of those times where he retreated into himself, although he had rarely lost control of himself in front of you, left him vexed at your presence.

Because to Aemond, you were perfect. Frustrating at times but that was often the fault of his own lack of patience and tolerance. You were, at the end of the day, too perfect. He saw your compassion, your empathy, your kindness. And he saw your strength, your wit, your fearsome loyalty.

And here Aemond was, unable to even regret many of the times he acted without any of those perfect things. After the fate that Lucerys had met, Aemond found he could not find it in himself to feel remorse for much else.

You let your fingers graze along the leather sleeve on his arm, your light touch burning into his skin through the fabric. He closed his eye and kept it closed for minutes of silence that felt like hours before he spoke lowly.

“I have done bad things.”

You sucked in a breath. “Would you be here today if you had not done those things?”

“No, you do not understand me. I cannot bring myself to care for some of the vile things that I have done. That I have caused. I should care, should I not?”

Releasing a long sigh, you shifted on your feet. Aemond knew that you were different to him. You didn’t agree with many of his actions and decisions but you knew there was nothing you could do except to be there when he needed you. It had taken time to realise you couldn’t change the way he thought, the way he felt, the way he reacted to things - you weren’t sure if you truly, deeply wanted to take on that burden.

As Aemond grew more honest with you, you had come to realise that when it came down to it he was not a completely good man. But he was good to you and while Aemond saw your strength, you knew you were weak when it came to him. Loyalty and love for your husband burned painfully in your chest no matter his imperfections and you never bothered to try to justify it.

“Perhaps if I had acted differently, somewhere,” Aemond’s words were rushed, a switch from his normally slow drawl. He would curse himself tomorrow for his moment of weakness but he couldn’t ignore the pit in his stomach. “Then I would not be the way that I am now.”

You stared at him for a moment. His expression was of ice and had you not known him the way that you do, then you would never have noticed the confliction in his eyes. “There is no use-”

“I know there is no use in thinking about what may have been, I know,” Aemond spat.

“Alright,” you paused. “But you will never know what could have changed. You made your decisions, you were the author of your own fate, Aemond. ‘Tis the way things go - we must face it. What difference would it make if things could have been different? You cannot undo what you have already done.”

Aemond’s jaw ticked and he moved so that his arm hung at your waist. You briefly glanced back inside at the servant who prepared your nightly cup of tea at your bedside. Aemond seldom made a show of your relationship when you weren’t entirely alone. Nevertheless, you didn’t let your mind linger on that fact.

He gazed down at you, his ocean-strong eye never failing to make your breath hitch and goosebumps to rise on your skin. You were relieved that he seemed to agree with your words. Aemond’s shoulders had lost much of the tension they held and the start of the sweet smile that was shared only with you played on his lips.

He had to try hard to believe what you had told him. Because here you were, no matter what he did and no matter his lack of conviction, at his side and wrapped around his finger. You were the calming breeze that cooled his heat, you were the shade that gave him relief from the scorching sun and you were the water that flushed the burn from his skin. Aemond was not one to be an emotional man but he knew that he had love for you and your endless, boundless support. And he dreamed of how he would share with you the world that will one day be at his feet.

“I shall share your bed tonight, my love.” Aemond’s words were as they always have been; smooth with honey but laced with venomous promises. You bit back a smile as he pulled you inside, addicted to whatever venom dripped from his words, from his eye, from him. “And that shall serve as all the reminder that I need to be sure I have not been so misguided that I have lost my way to no return.”

When he pressed his nose into the crook of your neck, dragging it along your soft skin, he inhaled deeply. Aemond thought for a moment of how perfect it would be if he could bottle your scent and keep it with him forever. A reminder of the woman for whom he wished he could become a good, honest man.

Your body felt so familiar to him that it made his mind turn quiet and Aemond could only think of having you closer, closer, closer. And it was never close enough, no matter how hard he squeezed at the flesh of your hips to pull you in, no matter how your breath tickled his skin and how your eyelashes fluttered against his hair as he dragged his lips over your shoulder and along the side of your neck.

If there were no roof atop your heads, you would have thought that it rained flames onto the both of you and to relieve the burn of it, you melted into Aemond, pressing yourself further into him and squirming for more as he grabbed at your nightclothes to toss them to the floor.

You tugged hopelessly at the buckles on his tunic, whining. “Get it off, Aemond.”

Aemond didn’t need to be told a second time because hardly a moment later he was as naked as you were, pushing you until the back of your legs hit the edge of your bed and you fell onto it gently. A strained groan fell from his lips as he let you pull him down with you, holding his face in your hands as he held himself above you with an arm beside your head. You gently removed the leather that covered his glimmering sapphire, sighing contently.

Admiring Aemond as he was, bare and honest and beautiful had become your favourite way to see him. Without the need to hide any part of himself from you.

Smirking, he let his lips graze yours softly. It was a stark contrast to the way Aemond’s other hand was roughly grabbing at whatever flesh he could hold, squeezing you and sending shockwaves straight through to your core.

You could barely get the words out of you. “Kiss me–Gods, kiss me.”

And he did kiss you, his lips desperately clashing against yours with a new kind of vigour. Aemond rarely kissed you with such force, such rage and such raw, unfettered need. But as his teeth knocked against yours, catching your lip in between and drawing blood, he entertained the thought that maybe he did regret something. All of the kisses he never had the chance to give you.

The air between you was charged with something sharp and electric, a primal energy that clouded your head and had you gasping Aemond’s name at the way he brushed his knuckle against your core. Normally, he would have taken his time with you. But despite the fact that you had the entire night ahead of you, Aemond was rushed and impatient.

“Always so ready for me,” he murmured, taking in a sharp breath as his fingers rubbed through your slick folds, pulling a soft whine from you. Aemond’s cock twitched at the perfect sound and he ground his hips against the plush of your thigh. He dragged the pads of his fingers teasingly up from the slit of your hole to the hood of your clit, drawing teasing circles so softly you could have been convinced his touch was a figment of your fantasies.

“Aemond, please-”

He shushed you softly. “Patience, my sweet.”

Aemonds lips, wet on your jaw, travelled down the expanse of your neck and over your collarbones. He nibbled at you, amused at the way you arched and squirmed, replacing his fingers with his cock and sliding it against your clit. When his lips met your nipple he sucked harshly with a flick of his tongue, giving your right breast hardly enough attention before turning to the other.

It sent shivers down your spine and you were sure Aemond felt you shudder against him when his lips travelled lower, leaving a wet trail down your skin until he was finally just below your naval. Aemond turned his head, his teeth pinching the flesh of your thigh harshly, just above where your thigh curved into your pelvis. You squealed.

“Hm,” He chuckled darkly, smiling up at you and shaking his head with a deep tsk when your legs instinctively moved to shut. His hands groped at your thighs and pushed them up so that you were folded yet entirely spread in front of him. “I will fuck you with my tongue first. And my fingers. Then I will fuck you with my cock and fill you with my seed, only after I have made you quiver and shake from the pleasure of my mouth on your perfect cunt.”

Aemond’s eye dropped to your sopping cunt and his words coiled in his throat, coming out as a muffled moan. You gasped as he lewdly spat, his head falling downwards in an instant, wave after wave of pleasure stealing the oxygen from your lungs as he sucked on your pussy, tongue weaving across your clit and back down.

All of the loud doubts that plagued his mind turned into whispers of incoherence the moment his mouth met the velvety skin of your womanhood, Aemond’s favourite place to lose himself when his thoughts became unbearable. The tangy, sweet taste of your arousal pulled a deep growl from his chest and when your hips jerked against his face, he wrapped a strong arm over your hips to hold you in place.

As Aemond’s tongue dipped into you, his lips latched on the expanse of your cunt, you let out a cry, your hand falling to his hair and pulling hard. Your body was hot with desire, thighs squeezing your husband’s head as he greedily feasted on the most intimate parts of you. He pulled away for one quick second to catch his breath before burying himself in you once again, the obscene smacking sounds of how he relentlessly sucked and lapped at your slit.

For such vulgar noises, they had become increasingly beautiful.

“I dream of staying here forever,” Aemond’s words were muffled, difficult to hear over your own whimpers and the movement of his lips on your folds had you bucking to follow his mouth. He hid his grin in your wetness. “I can do no wrong with the taste of you on my tongue.”

The pleasure that Aemond always submerged you was almost becoming overwhelming and you lost the ability to form sentences, muttering and mumbling in response. He could decipher his name, falling for your flushed lips so many times, and his eye flickered up to watch how your body climbed to the highest point of satisfaction where such a sinful act became heavenly.

You were always beautiful, Aemond thought. But you were at your most beautiful when you came undone for him, lost in the throes of bliss and grasping at him as if you could not live for another second without his touch. He carried you through your orgasm, unrelenting as he greedily devoured every part of your pussy, looking up at you with his darkened eye and shining sapphire, strands of his hair that had come loose sticking to the wetness on his jaw. Aemond relished in the strangled, melodic sounds that you made for him.

When you jerked away from him with a squeal, so sensitive when the tip of his tongue flicked against your clit that your hips bucked suddenly, Aemond pulled away while chuckling and placing featherlight kisses along your shaking thighs. He watched how your cunt continued to clench around nothing as you came down from your orgasm, the messy mixture of his spit and your arousal glistening under the light from the lamps.

You let yourself relax into the bedsheets and moved to close your legs, tugging Aemond to meet you for a kiss and giggling when he stopped to quickly wipe your slick from his face. But before your knees could come together, he caught them, settling himself in between and you could feel the steady heat from his hardened cock grazing across the outside of your slit.

“I think my pretty wife believes she is going to have a restful night,” Aemond teased against your lips, sliding a hand down between your bodies and spreading your folds once again to make way for his fingers. You shuddered against him with a mewl. “You are mistaken, my love, if you believe I will not have you full of my seed by the time I am done making love to you. I am a man of my word, am I not?”

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targaryenrealnessdarling · 11 months ago

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Rage Becomes Her

Aemond x bastardTargaryen!female

Summary: of all the Targaryen bastards he could have underestimated, it should not have been her | Word Count: 3.8k~ | Warnings: smut, Aemond being a fat douche, mentions of sex work, angst, oc described as having Targaryen features

No day was as cursed as the day her mother looked between her bloodied thighs, glancing up at the faces of her friends and common women, with shame and fright. The babe between her legs was pink and crying, their skin glistening with afterbirth, and a tuft of silver hair atop their tiny head.

What was survival, when the Gods had bestowed a Targaryen bastard into her belly.

Her own daughter lived as her mother did, learning the ways of the body and pleasure. She could recall the first time a man leered at her. Only two and ten and barely formed into the shape of a woman. Somehow the silver sheen to her hair made men think they could have her before her ripening. Plucked from the tree too early.

If only her mother could have resisted the irresistible pull of greed. Purses of gold coins lined her pockets, paid to her with the virtue of her only daughter.

An income. Nothing more.

It was only when she died, that she formed her own protection. Madame Sylvi gave her more freedoms than the usual whores. Bestowed upon as her ‘choice’. Something she had known little.

The brothel was tucked away in one of the narrow, winding alleys of King's Landing, a hidden enclave where nobles and commoners alike sought the pleasures denied to them in the light of day. The air was thick with the scent of incense and the low murmur of whispered promises. Sweet ones, from between the lips of whores.

The men who paid for the service or fucking a young woman with silver hair were usually all the same. Drunken fools with egos far bigger than their cocks, eager to stick whatever they pleased between her legs to make themselves feel like men.

She rarely spared it much thought. She moaned sweetly and whispered hushed mutterings to inflate their already fragile masculinity. Did what she had to do to survive, like so many around her.

But she would be remiss not to think about her most recent patron. One whom she had stolen from Madame Sylvi, who did not seem particularly precious about the loss, seeing as the One Eyed Prince simply crossed the threshold to her room instead. As long as business was within her four walls, she was content.

He was, at first, quiet and required work and effort to calm his fraught and tense muscles. But like most men, the second he sheathed himself inside her, he was a man driven by the inescapable warmth of not only her cunt, but by the comfort of what it provided. However false.

The night is seared firmly into her memory. His body heavy with Milk of the Poppy, he staggered as he pulled his clothes off, and for some time he was unable to become hard due to its calming effects. And she saw the familiar pang of annoyance most men got when their fleshy counterparts would not do as the mind commanded.

She will never forget the look upon his face as she knelt in front of him, took his heavy manhood in her palm and pressed her lips to the shaft, stroking upwards with her touch and tongue. Beneath him like this, his face angled and sharp, one could be mistaken he was a statue. His skin resembled such porcelain. Made smooth by the hands of the Gods themselves.

He had looked upon her as if she were an entity of the Seven Heavens. And when she took him into her mouth, his breath hitched, and his hands instinctively tangled in her hair. The sensation was overwhelming, a blend of pleasure and relief that washed over him in waves.

She moved with an expert's grace, her rhythm steady and unhurried, drawing soft moans from his lips. For a moment, the world outside ceased to exist; there was only the warm, wet heat of her mouth and the exquisite torture of her tongue. He closed his eye, surrendering to the pleasure, feeling the tension in his body slowly melt away. Aemond's grip tightened as he guided her movements, lost in the sensation and the raw intimacy of the act.

He fucked in very much the same way. With urgency. As if someone were to take her away.

Was it some necessity this great man needed, away from the bustling court and the duties of his birth?

Or she reasoned he fucked her because he was simply bored of Sylvi.

But as it became more and more regular, she began to realise that her forbidden parentage played a more significant role than she had first thought. He wanted someone who looked so like his ideal, but someone who ultimately was destined to remain, steadfastly, inferior.

Aemond Targaryen pushed open the heavy wooden door, its creak swallowed by the hum of conversation and laughter inside. He pulled his hood lower, shielding his face from prying eyes. Though he was a prince, here he was just another man seeking escape. Several women crowded him, offering wine, their bodies and services with doe eyes and lips framed with rouge.

The back of the brothel was shrouded with silken curtains, providing no real privacy but rather giving one the security of feeling it. Pale pinks, lilacs, warm amber glows bounced off the stone walls, a warm emanating through the space as if walking through honey, and willing to be drowned in it. It was a dangerous feeling indeed. The warm, sticky call of a woman’s body.

The first time he saw her he did not like her. The whore with silver, golden hair. She had a bastard’s taint on her bloodline despite its noble sheen. There was a part of him that refused to admit that despite the muddied nature of her birth, that she was beautiful. He was still willing to be held by Sylvi back then, cuddled against the woman’s breasts like a babe.

It was different now.

Sylvi regarded him, using her body as somewhat of a shield, to part him and the heavenly depravity that lay across the threshold. She said nothing, and simply extended her hand, to show her palm. Aemond noted the surprised look in her knowing eyes when she felt the weight of the purse, the familiar tune of coins ringing true and greedily.

She fetched a hefty price compared to the others. One Aemond was willing to pay for her company.

When he pulled the silks aside and stepped within her lair, she was seated as usual, upon a chaise draped with rich fabrics, her posture relaxed and yet alert. Her hair, so much like his own, caught the flickering candlelight, like looking up to the stars when one was too deep in their cups, only to find the silver light stretching across their vision.

Only the muffled music was heard, and the rapid thud of his heart.

The fabrics lay like water on her skin, cinched at her waist. The translucent material had her rosy buds perk beneath it, the glimmering and blushing shade of pink almost alike to her own flesh in the low and intimate amber light. She did not need to show herself to entice, he thought.

“My Prince.”

She greeted with a soft, warm melody of enchanting, in a manner that eased his shoulders but not his soul. He regarded her face the same way Sylvi did to him. One eye glazing over her familiar features.

His motions were easy to memorise. He would do no more than was necessary, as most patrons did. He would strip from his clothing, lay between her thighs and take her roughly. Preparation for someone as lowborn as her, and getting paid for it, was no necessity for a customer, nevermind a prince.

There were glimpses where it was enjoyable. But Prince Aemond was guarded, sometimes so much so she hardly thought him capable of the act. But he would surprise her. And once he was done, he would lay beside her, and he would talk, with only their flesh as comfort.

Sometimes, like right at this moment, he would just lay beside her, running her bright locks, ruffled from their salacious acts, through his long and slender fingers. She often thought he looked like a lost soul, eyepatch discarded and bared in this wretched place for her to lay her eyes upon. And then another thought lay under that still. The thought that this man before her had such hate in his heart for his half sister’s children, and yet visited her every other evening to sink into the haven that her own existence offered.

An existence she was sure he internally loathed.

But it seemed he loathed himself more than anything else.

“Do you dream of being more than you are.” Not a question. An inquisition shaped as a demand.

She hesitated, knowing that her answer must please him. "My dreams are inconsequential, my prince. My only desire is to serve you and to bring you comfort."

He smirked, satisfied with her response. "It is the natural order of things. Your role here suits you, providing solace to those of us born to higher stations."

She felt her brows furrow in annoyance, but tried to soften her features, his keen blue eye boring into her face. Your role here suits you. And what was that exactly? A whore who merely existed to be a sheath for men’s blades whenever it suited them. A vessel, nothing more.

"I would never forget, my prince," she said softly, her eyes downcast. "Your presence is the only thing that gives my life meaning."

Aemond reached out, his hand cupping her cheek. "Sometimes, I wonder if there is more to you than just your services to me."

Her heart quickened, but she kept her voice calm and composed. "I am whatever you need me to be, my prince."

Often, that was all it took to sate him.

He would always come back, in varying moods, and she felt the reins on her white-hot temper begin to slip, the flames rearing to the roof of her insides the more delicate insults came out of his mouth. Those among her argued that he cared for her deeply. But how can a man care for a woman and say such hurtful words in exchange?

A bastard, indeed she was. But her existence strayed the line between demanding some semblance of respect, drawn to her by the milky skin and pale hair that he recognised in himself. She pondered this contradiction endlessly. Why did he come to her, night after night, seeking her presence, only to remind her of her inferiority? What was it about her that captivated him, despite his disdain?

Her thoughts often wandered as she prepared for his visits, trying to unravel the mystery of Aemond Targaryen. Did he see something in her that he could not find elsewhere? Was it the shared blood, tainted as it was by her illegitimacy? Or was it simply the thrill of asserting his power over someone who mirrored his own visage?

“You seem troubled.”

“It is nothing,” his response was cool, followed by the discarding of his hood, only turning when she urged a decently full glass of wine into his hand.

“You forget, my prince, that I am well-versed in the art of reading men. Tell me, what burdens you tonight?”

Stealing the wine from his lips, he cannot help the wandering of his fingers, tracing the golden spun locks of her hair that glow moonlit as he touches them. “Your features betray you,” he muses, “do you ever wonder what it would have been like, had you been born legitimate?" he asked, his tone laced with condescension.

She hesitated, searching his eyes for any hint of sincerity, but found only the cold amusement that so often accompanied his words. "It is not my place to wonder such things," she replied, her voice steady. "My fate was decided long before I drew my first breath."

He tilted his head, studying her. "And yet, you bear the mark of our blood so clearly. It must gnaw at you, knowing you could never rise above your station, no matter how much you resemble the dragonlords of old."

"Perhaps," she admitted softly, "but we all have our roles to play, my prince. Even those born amongst lust and lechery."

Aemond's fingers continued their path through her hair, his touch both gentle and possessive. "You speak wisely for one of your birth," he said, a faint smile playing on his lips. "It is a pity you were not born to a higher station. You might have made an interesting rival."

"Or an ally," she suggested, daring to meet his gaze.

He chuckled, a low, rumbling sound. "Or an ally," he conceded. "But as it stands, you are here, and I am there. The order of things remains unchanged."

"And you come here to see me," she retorted, her gaze unwavering. "What does that say about you, my prince?"

“I enjoy you.”

"Or perhaps the dragon seeks something he cannot find elsewhere."

Aemond’s expression hardened, his pride pricked by her words. "Do not presume to understand me. You are here because I allow it."

"And you are here because you need it," she countered, her voice a seductive whisper. "What drives you to seek solace in the arms of a bastard? A whore?"

He pulled back, his eyes narrowing. "You speak too boldly-"

"I speak truth," she said, her gaze unflinching. "Something even a prince cannot escape."

Aemond regarded her for a long moment, a mixture of contempt and fascination warring within him. She was a puzzle, a riddle wrapped in the enigma of her bloodline. He hated and desired her in equal measure, drawn to the mystery of her existence.

She let out a breath, surprised when his fingers wrenched around her face, tugging her towards him. But her expression never faltered. “I wonder who is the depraved cunt who sired you,” Aemond murmured, deep and low against her face.

“Prince Daemon or the late King Viserys, it does not matter. Half of the whores on the Street of Silk knew the shape of their cocks-”

Aemond's grip tightened, his eyes blazing with fury. "Watch your tongue," he hissed, his breath hot against her skin. "You may have Targaryen blood, but you are still a whore. Do not forget your place."

She winced but refused to look away. "And yet here you are”. Her voice was steady, defiant, challenging him despite the pain.

His eyes narrowed, the fury in them warring with something deeper, something he could not name. "I am a man who indulges in his whims," he said, his voice low and dangerous. "Nothing more."

"Is that all it is?" she whispered, her voice softening, searching his gaze. "An indulgence? Because if that's true, you wouldn't keep coming back."

Aemond's grip loosened slightly, his fingers trailing down her cheek. "You know nothing of my reasons," he said, a trace of vulnerability slipping through his hardened exterior.

He looked at her for a long moment, the conflict within him evident in his eyes. "You remind me of what I am and what I can never escape," he said finally, his voice a raw whisper. "The blood we share, the legacy that binds us. You are a mirror, showing me my weakness. The weakness of my House."

"And you, my prince, are the reminder of what I could have been. The life I was denied, the nobility I can never claim."

Aemond's hand twitched, a sudden urge to pull her close, to feel the warmth of her body against his, but he forced himself to remain still. He could not afford to show that side of himself, not to her, not to anyone. In another world, she might have been born legitimate, a sister to him, one he could wed, bed and breed at his leisure.

And yet.

"You speak of nobility as if it is something you could ever grasp," he said, his voice softer, yet still laced with condescension. "You will never be more than what you are now. A whore, a bastard, a mere footnote in the history of my House."

Her eyes flashed with quiet anger, a smouldering fire that burned beneath her calm exterior. How dare he speak to her this way? He knew nothing of the struggles, the pain, the countless indignities that had shaped her life.

"How fortunate you are, my prince," she said, her voice measured but tinged with bitterness, "to never have known the struggles of those who are less fortunate. To speak so easily of things you can never truly understand."

Aemond's gaze hardened, but he did not interrupt her.

"You may see me as nothing more than a whore and a bastard," she continued, her words steady, each one a dagger aimed at his pride. "But you know nothing of the world outside your gilded cage. You have no idea what it means to fight for every scrap of dignity, to claw your way through a life that was decided for you before you even drew breath."

Aemond's jaw clenched, his eyes burning with a mix of anger and something he couldn't quite name. "You forget yourself," he said, his voice low and dangerous. "You forget to whom you speak."

"And you forget, my prince," she shot back, her voice unyielding, "that respect is earned, not given by birthright alone. And certainly not because you have a dragon."

A silence fell between them, heavy with unspoken truths and simmering tension. They stood there, locked in a battle of wills, neither willing to back down, both caught in the web of their shared blood and conflicting worlds. There was a strange respect in his gaze. As if he had seen the same flames that captivated him.

Slowly, she reached into the folds of her dress and pulled out the purse Aemond had paid her that night. She held it out to him, her hand steady. "Take it back," she said quietly, but firmly. "I don't want your coin."

He stared at her for a long moment, the purse heavy with silver between them. Slowly, he reached out and took it from her hand, his fingers brushing against hers. The touch was brief, but electric, a spark that neither could ignore. He could not help the smile that rose to his face, testing the weight of his coin in his palm. Looking down upon the woman in front of him with a cold but unyielding respect.

The events of that night lingered in Aemond's mind, gnawing at the edges of his thoughts. The war was intensifying, and the tension within the Red Keep was palpable. It was during one of these tense small council meetings, that Aemond found his thoughts straying.

“Prince Daeron’s dragon, Tessarion, has at last taken to wing. Your brother expects to join the fight soon.”

He half listened to Lord Wylde, his head half turned, eyes darting to listen to the cries of the smallfolk so loud it was as if they were in the room. Screams. Cries of terror.

“Dragon!”

“Get inside!”

“And when he does…the Hightower host will be unstoppable.”

He acted on instinct, feeling the hot whips of something he would not admit was panic at the back of his neck. The doors gave way to a bright, sunny afternoon. His one eye squinted to peer into the blue abyss, narrowed to the appearance of a great beast.

A dragon, its silver scales gleaming in the sunlight, descended from the sky.

Silverwing.

And there, riding atop the great beast, was her. Her silver hair flowed behind her like a banner for war, and her eyes, filled with determination, met his with an intensity that took his breath away. Aemond's mind raced, understanding dawning on him as he realised the implications.

Rhaenyra's recruitment of Dragonseeds had borne unexpected fruit.

She guided Silverwing to soar over King's Landing, her movements graceful and confident. She made several passes, almost as if she were flouting. The dragon's powerful wings created gusts of wind that rippled over Kings Landing, sending leaves and dust swirling, with smallfolk and merchants knocked off balance.

Aemond stood there, watching in a mix of awe and resentment. There was a part of him that couldn't help but admire the sight, the sheer power and majesty of the dragon, her commanding presence. But another part of him burned with anger. The idea of a bastard riding a dragon, flaunting her newfound status above the city, challenged everything he believed in.

What did that make him? How was he special if bastards could claim dragons? The exclusivity of his birthright felt tarnished, the unique status of House Targaryen diluted.

She seemed to sense his gaze, turning Silverwing to circle back and hover momentarily over the Keep. Her eyes locked onto his, a silent challenge in her gaze. She was revelling in her newfound power, asserting her place in a world that had tried to deny her.

Aemond's grip tightened on the hilt of his sword, his knuckles turning white. He liked her, there was no denying that. She fascinated and infuriated him in equal measure. But the sight of her riding Silverwing, basking in her defiance, stoked the flames of his inner conflict.

As Silverwing ascended higher, leaving King's Landing behind, Aemond's eyes followed them until they were mere specks against the sky. He stood there long after they had disappeared, wrestling with the tumultuous emotions swirling within him. Admiration, anger, attraction, and resentment collided in a storm that he couldn't quell.

The sun was setting by the time Aemond reached Vhagar. The great dragon stirred, sensing her rider's agitation. Aemond's resolve hardened as he climbed onto her back. With a command, Vhagar spread her immense wings and launched into the sky, the force of her takeoff shaking the ground below.

The flight to Dragonstone was swift. The wind whipped through Aemond's hair, his mind racing as fast as the dragon beneath him. He couldn't let this challenge go unanswered.

As Dragonstone came into view, the outline of Silverwing against the darkening sky confirmed his target. He urged Vhagar to increase her speed, but the older dragon's pace couldn't match Silverwing's agility. Aemond's frustration grew with every beat of Vhagar's wings, the gap between them refusing to close.

She watched him, the man who had insulted her, bedded her, wronged her, as he turned his great beast mid-air, her own dragon purring against her touch atop the peak of a tower of Dragonstone. Even from afar, she could sense his frustration, the simmering anger that radiated from him, and she revelled in this unique reaction, savouring the way it felt.

For a moment, their eyes met, and in that silence, a thousand emotions passed between them. He glanced back over his shoulder, watching as she sat firm atop her beast, the wind whipping her hair around her face. The tension in the air was palpable, but there was also a sense of resolution, a quiet acknowledgment of the lines they had drawn.

That this was no surrender.

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