#anyways!!!!!! i'm real excited for the next chapter!!!!!

[frodo-with-glasses]

Where have you been?

Uhhh, France?

(That’s a Hamilton reference, btw. I have never been to France.)

So! Another Hobbit Day is upon us. On this day last year, I’d promised you all that we would take another trek through LotR, with all new drawings and poems and fanfics. I fully expected to be finished with Book One by now, at least halfway through FotR. What actually happened is that the blog struggled through the first five and a half chapters of the book before suddenly going radio silent.

So what happened?

Well, as you might expect, real life happened. I won't go into the details here—since it has nothing to do with LotR—but I can explain in DMs if anyone is interested.

Basically, a change in my family led to a reexamination of what I thought I knew about my family, which led to a reexamination of what I thought I knew about myself, which kicked off an intense period of self-improvement.

Over the course of this past year, I began to unpack my family's abuse; I learned about boundaries; I started to unlearn my old people-pleasing tendencies; I reconnected relationships that were broken, reevaluated ones that were in the wrong place, and cut off ones that weren't good for me. I discovered there was a little kid in my head who's been waiting years and years for an adult to love her, and to take her needs seriously, and I finally have the chance to be that adult. And I'm happy to say that I've come to a place where I feel safer in my own head than I have ever been.

Probably very little of that is going to show through on this blog. It's all inward stuff; foundational stuff. But one thing that might affect you guys is that I left my (dreadfully overstimulating and stressful) part-time job, and I'm now working full time somewhere else. As much as I love what I do for a living now, working 40 hours a week does mean that I am become Boring Adult who does not have as much time for interneting. With my current schedule, there is no way I'd be able to sustain the intense schedule of "must post one drawing a day" that I had in the early days of this blog; and I don't expect myself to.

But! I would like to—slowly—get this train rolling again.

I find it hilariously apropos that the last piece of art I posted on this blog was of Frodo suddenly disappearing. From Merry's perspective, he completely vanished without explanation or warning. From your perspective, so did I.

But I find myself here again, on another September 22nd, and once again I'm beginning to feel that pull; that pull to read, and draw, and create, and share, and laugh with all of you. Life has calmed down enough for me that I once again have the mental space to think about pursuing my hobbies. There are so many things I want to do—so much to do with the time that is given to me. And I want this blog to be on that list.

My current goal is to post some new book art every other day. If that's too much, I'll adjust it. But if I find my groove and really get into it, who knows? We might return to your regularly scheduled Daily Dose of Frodo-With-Glasses. We shall have to see.

Anyway. If you've read this far, thank you! If you've stuck with this blog since the early days, thank you. And if you are one of that lovely core Fellowship that has had my back and prayed for me all along, I cannot thank you enough.

This past year has been an absolute ride. Not as difficult as a trek to Mordor, maybe, but not easy either. But no matter where I walked, I knew I didn't have to take the journey alone.

Anyway! Enough sappiness. Happy Hobbit Day! I'm excited to see what the next year has in store for us. 💚

[kaatiba]

i guess i should just accept that i am primarily a fanfiction writer. i've completed one (1) long-form original work in my whole life and it's increasingly feeling like a fluke. i've written two "collections" of prompt fills, which are very like fanfiction as you take someone else's idea and run off with it, but they're not short stories really, as they're not complete narratives, just expansions. fanfiction I can write quickly and easily and well and I almost always finish them. but I can't do the same with og work no matter how hard I try. And maybe that'll change in the future but I just feel like a failure and a fraud and a flop

[nerdgirlnarrates]

Found out I matched on Monday (🥳), but now waiting till Friday to find out where is KILLING me. The match has felt like this distant, looming horror for so long, and it's finally become real, and it's actually happy, and now I'm desperate to know where I'm going.

[bookishjules]

how does one explain that their silly little unpopular fanfic is the only thing keeping them going most days

[cherrygorilla]

The Mixtape Mysteries: Chapter 1 (Part 2)

Crazy Train - Ozzy Osbourne - 4:53

Yes, it is a ridiculous amount of time since I last posted anything to do with this (or anything at all really), but I've been dying to write for this story again, so I thought it would be a good way to help me get my groove back. Plus, I wanted to wait until Camp Wanamaker was done before I went back to working on Acting School Drop Out (because I feel like I might be able to use some stuff that's been mentioned in the next part lol). So, after months and months of uni stress that's kept me away from my google doc, here's the next installment of the story that's kept me going through it all.

Listen along with the gang here. Enjoy!

Heavy eyelids dropped over a pair of umber eyes trying, and failing, to focus on the computer screen in front of them. Whilst the radio often felt like Butchy's only co-worker, today it just seemed to be functioning as a lullaby machine - and the smooth, fade-out ending of Electric Light Orchestra's 'Evil Woman' just proved the point further. One second he was staring blankly at a page of pixelated text on a fuzzy screen, and then the next thing he knew he was drooling into the palm of his hand and almost falling off his chair at the sound of a car racing past his window. 

It's not even that he was tired - it was barely even 11am for Christ's sake - he was just so bored his brain was shutting down from lack of stimulation. And considering the latest turn of events, his body wasn't far behind. The roaring engine disappeared as quickly as it had arrived, leaving the incessant ticking of the plastic wall clock in its place. It didn't matter what kind of car it was, or where the hell it was going; all Butchy knew was that he wanted to be in it. Hopefully travelling far, far away from this crappy, dead-end town, and this shoe box of an office, that was more dust than desk, and smelled like a wet rat. 

Begrudgingly, he gathered himself together and finished typing out the latest file he'd been working on - something about trespassing in the old steel mill, he didn't care enough to look into the details. Tipping his head back, he rubbed his palms across his eyes, trying to press as hard as he could to draw some sort of alertness to the forefront of his mind. If anything, it just made him more tired.

One glance across his desk let his gaze settle on the dorky Star Wars mug Royce and Bentley had gifted him on his last birthday, and for the first time since he'd slumped in the splitting leather swivel-chair that morning, a ghost of a smile graced his features. He took a swig and drained the mug of the last of its contents: bitter, room-temperature coffee. Wincing at the taste, he picked up the next file to work on, but swiftly dropped it in favour of refilling his mug. After all, the walk to the coffee pot in the main office was the only change of scenery he got all day. Sometimes he watered the dying yucca plant beside him with the rancid liquid just so that he had an excuse to get away from his desk.

The tapping of keyboards and mumblings of the same, tedious phone calls he overheard every day met Butchy's ears as he lumbered down the hall and pushed open the office door. Lurking behind the frosted panel, caked in as much dust as the rest of the building, was the rag-tag reception team, consisting of three women Butchy had absolutely no intention of even looking at, let alone speaking to. He'd given up trying to make conversation with his co-workers pretty quickly after every meagre attempt on his end had been ignored. Most shifts passed without him uttering a single word. However, Lela ditching his ride that morning must have thrown him off more than he realised, because this shift was about to become an anomaly. 

"So I said to him: If you know so much about the damn sausages, why don't you cook 'em yourself?" 

"I bet he knows a lot about one kind of sausage."

"Oh Jen, pull your mind out of the gutter, you sound like a teenager."

"She practically still is one."

"I'm right though, aren't I?"

A strained sigh slipped past Butchy's lips before he could stop it. The nasal drones from the women behind him were enough to make his eye twitch at the best of times, but the added scraping of Jennifer's nail file made it inevitable. Before he could short-circuit altogether though, one of the adjoining doors to the main office was pushed open, and the conversation unfolding behind it immediately caught his attention. 

Heaving a sigh that put the young trainee's to shame, the fourth, and final receptionist, led the charge into the room - two officers hot on her heels. "Well, you'll just have to go alone then, won't you, gentlemen?" 

"We can't just 'go alone', the chief's the only one that goes on solo investigations. What if it's dangerous? What if we need back-up?"

"And what, pray tell, Officer Reynolds, is so 'dangerous' about a broken store window?"

"Well from the sounds of things it's a pretty clear-cut robbery. What if the culprit's still on the scene? What if he's armed?"

"Why are you assumin' it's a 'he'?" Jennifer piped up with a smirk, punctuating her question by blowing the acrylic dust from the tip of her nail. 

As expected, neither officer batted an eyelid at her interruption. 

"We got the call last night. You've got a higher chance of him sticking the damn window back together."

"But what if it's like that time when Old Man McRoberts'-"

"Enough, boys. I don't want to hear it," she finally snapped, slamming the stack of paperwork down on her desk so hard it even made her glasses chain quiver. Turning to the pair with her hands planted firmly on her hips, she continued. "Callahan, you're on patrol with Officer Powell; Reynolds, you're investigating that store window. Alone."

"But Fran, that never-"

"No, I don't want to hear another word. You're going solo, Reynolds, and that's that." 

"...Uh, I could go with you."

The whole office fell silent. Even Jennifer's nail file seemed to pause for thought. But all too soon, six pairs of eyes fell on Butchy, whose grip on his mug instinctively tightened under their bemused glares. He couldn't exactly blame them; even he couldn't believe that he'd dared to speak - let alone suggest such a thing. But then again, this was a perfect opportunity - perhaps the only opportunity he'd get (at least for the foreseeable future) to prove himself a worthy member of the team. Being stuck behind a computer screen all day was getting him nowhere - in fact, he was pretty sure he had even less respect now than when he'd first set foot through the door over a month ago. But working on a case, a real case, meant he could put all the skills he'd learnt in his training to the test - show everyone that potential he'd promised in his interview. This could be the making of Officer Bandoni. This could be his ticket out of that godawful, stuffy office. This could be-

"Oh my god, look at his face; he's serious."

God, he hated Jennifer. But he hated that cackling laugh of hers even more. 

"Jennifer," Linda, the crotchety receptionist to her left, scolded. If Butchy hadn't known better, with her brusque, hushed tone and sharp glare from over the top of her tortoise shell glasses, he'd have thought the woman was her mother. 

"Yeah right," Officer Callahan snorted. But a pause, followed by a brief glance in the new recruit's direction soon had his confidence faltering. "I- Oh…" 

"Hey, cut him some slack, Jen; the kid's still learning the ropes," Officer Reynolds piped up, ignoring Officer Callahan's attempts to hide his smirk by smoothing out his moustache, and instead sending the smarmy receptionist a blasé, yet stern frown. "Of course he wasn't being serious."

"Actually, I was," Butchy corrected. He set his mug down and stood his ground opposite the two officers, gently nudging his chin up and puffing out his chest in an attempt to outwardly show some of the confidence he was so desperately trying to scrounge together. At least that would help to mask the stubborn rage bubbling away in the pit of his stomach. The staff's dismissiveness was frustrating enough on its own, but being reduced to a 'kid' was downright infuriating. 'Kids' did not single-handedly raise their little sister. 'Kids' did not give up their weekends to go and work in a shitty garage for two bucks an hour all throughout high school just so they could have food on the table. 'Kids' did not shoulder the responsibility of four adults after stepping up to parent, not only his own sister, but the three boys next door too. Butchy hadn't felt like a 'kid' in years. He had always been the oldest - the most mature, the most dependable, the most capable… So for these six adults, who had barely given him the time of day in the month he'd been working with them, to stand there and tell him he was nothing more than a 'kid'...it was insulting. And he was determined to prove them wrong. "If you need another officer for back-up, and no one else is free, then why can't I go with you?" 

"Well, for one, you're not an officer-"

All Reynolds had to do was hold up a hand for Callahan to snuff out his snickers. "Because you haven't finished your training yet, son," he plainly explained. At least his withering look was softened by a bored tone. 

"But I've aced every part of the course I've completed so far," Butchy argued. "And this could be a chance for me to learn on the job, out in the field-"

"Son, let it go."

"You said, yourself, that I've got potential. Why can't I just show you-?"

"Look, kid, you're not ready - you won't be for a long time. I admire the optimism but we've gotta look at the facts here. And truth is: the dirt on Callahan's shoe's got more experience walkin' 'round a crime scene than you do. I know you want to get out of the office and get a taste of the action, but I can't work the case and babysit you at the same time. It's just not realistic."

'Babysit'? Butchy could feel the word in the palm of his hand as he clenched his fingers into a fist around it, crushing it, along with all its juvenile connotations. "I'm not a 'kid', I'm eighteen years old," he insisted, choosing his words and tone very carefully as he fought not to lose his cool. 

"Yeah, and I'm not a chainsmoker neither," Jennifer sniggered, appearing to have swapped her nail file for a cigarette during the confrontation. She took a long drag as her, deep, carob eyes latched onto his, lashes sprawling across a rough sea of streaky kohl, before letting the smoke leak out through her crimson-painted smirk. 

Butchy didn't know what was more nauseating: her attitude or the stench of tobacco hanging in the air. 

Officer Reynolds let out an exasperated sigh that soon stole back the trainee's glare though. "That's all well and good, but it's not gonna change my mind. You need more experience before you go out in the field, Bandoni," he explained, with an expression that told Butchy he was well-weary of the conversation now. "You can't learn to run before you learn to walk. It's just not realistic - if anything, it's naïve."

"But how am I supposed to get more experience when I'm stuck behind a desk all day?" 

Butchy's question was shot down though as the pair of officers crossed the room to the office's main door, back to their usual routine of barely acknowledging his existence. "If I'm not back by two for your CPR training, Officer Powell will handle it, okay?" Reynolds said as he plucked his hat from the coat stand in the corner and secured it atop his head of thinning, taupe hair. Knowing the new recruit wouldn't be satisfied with any answer he could give him, he'd just decided to brush the question aside altogether. 

And knowing that defiance, and further provoking, would get him nowhere, Butchy finally relaxed his hand, and gave a stiff nod. He silently watched the officers announce their departure to the room and felt his shoulders slump in defeat, his chest aching with betrayal. Officer Reynolds was supposed to be his mentor, the one who would take him under his wing as he learned the ropes - and yet he'd kicked him to the curb and spat in his face the one time he'd tried to do the right thing. At least that's how it felt to him anyway. 

"Bye boys," Jennifer trilled with a flirty giggle as the office door closed behind them. Tapping the ash from the end of her cigarette, she turned her vampish smirk to Butchy. "Nice little show there, Bandoni. And there I was thinking today was gonna be boring." 

Butchy's frown deepened as her scornful laughter battered his ears. The thick-headed she-devil wasn't worth his breath though - even the sickened huff that escaped his throat felt like a waste. His fingers once again closed, although this time they at least found the warm ceramic of his mug beneath them. Letting the heat seep into his skin, he took a deep breath in through his nose and tried to focus on anything else other than the anger boiling in his chest. At least the Star Wars mug, and the memory of receiving it, gave him something to anchor himself to: a way to discharge all the bitter resentment that had been steadily building for weeks, but had finally come to an ugly head. One more snarky comment from Jennifer and he'd have hurled the coffee at her sloppy up-do, he knew it - he could feel himself teetering on the brink. 

And yet, a friendly hand in the centre of his back was all it took to draw him back from the edge. "I should be thanking you," Fran said with a sympathetic chuckle, and roll of her eyes at the officers' expense. "I thought they'd never leave."

Managing a weak, but grateful smile to the receptionist, Butchy finally picked his mug up from the drink station and took his leave before he could draw any more unwanted attention to himself. Jennifer's squawking voice still rang in his ears as his footsteps pounded down the hall, desperate (for once) to shut himself away in his office. At least in there he knew he was safe from further embarrassment, even if the only thing waiting for him was a stack of files on petty traffic crimes. Apparently reading about speeding fines and parking tickets was all the excitement his life could afford him for the time being. But, for once, he actually found some comfort in that. 

"Well, Wuthering Heights, you were fun while you lasted, but I am not going to miss you," Vivien snorted, holding the worn paperback out in front of her, as if to address it like an old friend. 

The gentle chuckles that bounced the soft, chocolate brown curls beside her set her innocent little middle-school heart aflutter, and she caught herself clamping her lips shut in case it tried to escape. Craving the thrill of that sensation again, she snatched a shy glance in his direction before plastering the jovial grin back on her face. "Thank you for the 'A' though, Emily." 

"What are you thanking her for? We did all the hard work," Royce scoffed. "I wrote so many notes on the moors I'm pretty sure I almost gave myself Carpal Tunnel."

A snicker crinkled the brunette's nose. "Well you do have the neater handwriting."

"And you have all the good ideas," Royce chuckled, praying desperately that the prickling he felt across his cheeks wasn't what he thought it was. 

Stopping in front of a set of painted metal doors, Vivien turned to him with a disapproving frown. "Not all the good ideas." 

"Fine… most then."

Whilst Royce may have been able to keep his blush at bay, Vivien felt hers raging like a wildfire as she downplayed his compliment with an affectionate eye-roll and pushed her way out into the crisp autumn air of the Hawkins Middle parking lot. Hopefully a bracing breeze like the one that smacked her across the face the second she set foot onto the asphalt would help her systems stop running on overdrive, because right now she felt like a live wire about to catch light. One wrong move from Royce and he'd be fried to a crisp. 

Wrapping her free hand around the forearm that flanked him, protecting his arm from being barbecued should he decide to fondly bump her as they fell into stride once more, Vivien, composure regained, offered him a smile. "I guess that makes us a pretty good team then, huh?"

"Yeah, I guess it does," he agreed, holding her gaze for a beat and letting the sincerity of the moment swell alongside the tingly, warm feeling spreading through his chest. "...And we've got the A to prove it." Terrified by the sensation, he snorted out a laugh that shattered the tenderness of the moment just as awkwardly as how he almost tripped over his own feet because he was spending more time looking at Vivien and her freaking dimples than where he was walking. Damn his stupid hand-me-down sneakers from Miles and their stupidly long laces.

More awkward, cheerful chuckles tumbled from the middle schoolers' lips as Royce steadied himself again and they made their way over to the cluster of trees by the soccer field. It didn't take Vivien long to break the comfortable silence that had fallen over them though. "I don't know what we're going to do with ourselves now that project's finished; it completely took over our lives for like two whole weeks there."

"I'm sure we'll find something."

But Royce's laidback grin was the complete antithesis of Vivien's tense shoulders and skittish gaze. Then again, he had no idea what she was planning, or what her skating friends had been begging her to do for weeks. 

It couldn't be that hard, right? It was just one little question. She asked him questions all the time, this one didn't need to be any different. And besides, there wasn't really anything Vivien felt as though she couldn't talk to Royce about; he was her best friend, he was always her first port of call for anything that was bothering her - well, unless it was about something like her period; that was strictly for her mom…

But this was just a question: one that could very well have been asked without another thought had she not attached all the extra weight to it in her mind. And yet here she was, fighting her own tongue, trying to persuade it to recite the script she'd meticulously planned out in her head the night before, because for some reason it wasn't convinced by her promised ability to brush the sentiment off as 'just a friend thing' should Royce take it badly. And neither was her mind, really. 

Realistically though, what was the worst thing that could happen if he had a weird reaction? It's not like a meteor would crash out of the sky and strike them both down or anything, no matter how much she may want it to in the moment - she knew; she'd checked and it wasn't the right time of year for it. The worst that could happen is things might be a little awkward between them for a couple days, right? He wouldn't- 

-Actually, scratch that. Vivien didn't want to think about it. 

"Well, actually…" she began, before she could talk herself out of it any further. 

Vivien felt Royce's gaze land on her the second she stopped to clear her throat, which had become inexplicably scratchy ever since those last words had left it, clearly so reluctant to be said they'd dug their heels in the entire journey out into the cool, October air. And as soon as it did, it felt as though all her sweat glands released at once, adding a glistening sheen to her already crimson skin. Horrified, Vivien kept her gaze on the ground a few paces ahead of her to avoid having to find out if Royce had realised, and pushed her round, silver-rimmed glasses further up the bridge of her nose in an attempt to shield herself from further embarrassment as a result of her thirteen-year-old hormones wreaking havoc in her own body. 

Fearing that the longer she dragged this on, the more her subconscious would betray her, she swallowed her nerves and ploughed ahead. "Do you remember how you missed out on going to watch The NeverEnding Story this summer because you had to spend your ticket money on a new wheel for your bike?"

In her periphery, Vivien saw Royce's hand shift up to play with the fraying fabric of his backpack strap. He only ever did that when he felt uncomfortable. She didn't even have to look at him to confirm it either, the pause before he responded told her almost as much as his tone of voice did. 

"...Yeah, but what does that-?"

"Hey nerds!" 

Despite their disdain for the term, both Vivien and Royce's heads whipped around to try to locate the source of the voice, mentally cursing themselves for even acknowledging that the phrase could have been used to refer to them, let alone responding to it. But as green and brown eyes scanned a sparse sea of middle schoolers, searching for signs of anyone with ill-intent, they came up short. 

"Over here!"

The voice, carried on the wind, drew the pair's gazes to a figure, practically standing on the bench of a rotting, wooden picnic table to try to grab their attention and their disgruntled grumblings fell from their lips within seconds of one another, replaced by fond sighs. 

Bentley waved the duo towards him so spectacularly that, for all they knew, he could have been directing a plane to land. And whilst Vivien couldn't help but smile at the blond's boundless energy, she also couldn't help but feel a pang of disappointment with how easily Royce shelved their conversation by letting out an almost relieved: "Duty calls."

"Yeah," Vivien agreed with a forced smile and a breathy, awkward laugh to match his. Although it dropped from her face the second he turned his back to head over to the shaded seating area. 

Once he was a good few paces ahead of her, and she was sure he was out of earshot, Vivien let out a frustrated huff, so hot she was surprised it didn't steam up her glasses. "Goddammit, Bentley," she muttered, shoving her library copy of Wuthering Heights into her backpack as she started trudging along behind Royce. "I almost got through it all that time."

But Bentley was none the wiser to Vivien's grand plans; too excited by his own news to consider that the pair may have been busy. And besides, the easygoing grin his older brother shot him as he approached made him none the wiser. 

"You've gotta come up with something better to call us, Benny," Royce said, fondly shaking his head as he climbed the last few steps of the hill leading up to the picnic table, adorned by Bentley's friends, the contents of at least three up-turned pencil cases, and enough sheets of paper to paper mache a small child. Thankfully, the table was sheltered from the worst of the breeze, so the most that a stray gust could do was flutter the edges beneath the various, makeshift paperweights (dog-eared textbooks and unopened juice boxes) strewn across the splintering surface.

"Why? You are 'nerds'," the boy laughed as he bounced back down into his spot on the bench seat beside August. 

"We are not," Royce protested.

"It got you to come over here, didn't it?" Bentley replied with a cheesy smirk. 

Royce let out a slightly bitter sigh as he fumbled through a response. "Well- yeah, but it's… demeaning." 

"Then why'd you respond to it?" Kona snorted, apparently more focused on selecting the right shade of crayon than bothering to look Royce in the eye as she insulted him. 

The bluntness of the eleven-year-old's comment drew a snort of laughter from him before he could stop it, whether it was in amusement or incredulity though he'd never know. But the smile that threatened to envelop his disapproving frown stayed firmly in place as he said, "Because I'm so used to everyone else calling us it, that's why. And you shouldn't be contributing to the problem anyway; I thought we were all on the same side here."

"You calling us nerds, RJ?" Zack piped up with a challenging quirk of his eyebrow. 

"Pot calls the kettle black," Royce smirked.

"White boy says what now?" Zack retorted with a confused frown that soon gave way to a mischievous grin the second that Royce rolled his eyes and playfully ruffled his hair, insisting through shared laughter that the boy knew what he meant. 

"What are you guys doing up here?" Vivien asked with a breathy laugh of her own as she arrived at the picnic table and caught the end of the boys' friendly roughhousing.

"Having fun until you nerds showed up," Zack scoffed as he shoved Royce's chest in an attempt to get the older boy away from him. But the bubbling giggles that tumbled from his lips as Royce expressed his disdain for the name once more told everyone all they needed to know about how much he enjoyed the brunet's company - proved even further when he resorted to wrapping his arms around his torso and tackling him into a hug from his spot on the bench. 

"Looks like it," Vivien noted with a bemused chuckle. "What's all this then? You writing out your own comic book or something?" she continued, gesturing to the vast collection of paper spread out before the quartet. 

"We're designing our characters for this cool new game Gus brought in," Bentley raved, holding up his sheet of paper for Vivien to see. "Look at my guy, he's got a wand that's disguised as a paintbrush and this magic flute that lets him talk to animals." 

"Damn, Benny, that's so cool," she grinned, marvelling at the artwork with almost as much care as the blond put into creating it. 

"And look, here's the one I'm doing for Gus," Bentley continued, shuffling the papers around until he selected the right one. 

"You didn't want to draw out your own?" Vivien asked the boy, whose sandy blond eyebrows were furrowed in concentration. 

"Nah; Ben's better at art," August admitted, only glancing up from his work to shoot his oblivious friend a shy smile. "And I enjoy the planning part of it more anyway," he went on to explain. "So he's doing the drawing, and I'm filling out his character sheet for him." 

"Yeah, 'cause there was no way I was gonna be able to deal with all that," Bentley snorted.

"This looks like a lot of work for just one game," Vivien noted, inching another piece of paper towards her and finding it covered from top to bottom in meticulously written words, numbers, and the occasional, scribbled doodle. 

"Tell me about it," Kona scoffed. "I feel like we got extra math homework with this stupid number system we've got to work off of," she added with a huff that blew a straw strand of hair away from her eyes. Begrudgingly tapping the open, yellowing pages of an intricately illustrated book with the end of a pencil, she brought the thirteen-year-old's gaze to the table she was drawing from. 

"You guys are willingly doing math over lunch and you're calling us nerds?" Royce asked with a teasing incredulity that earned him further, playful bickering from Zack. 

"So what do you do with all this when you've created your characters then?" Vivien continued, feeling a fond smile tugging at her lips as Royce's unbridled laughter tickled her ears. Fighting the urge to swat the imagined sensation away, she focused her attention on the other children at the table. "What's this dorky wizard math game called?" 

"Dungeons and Dragons," Bentley explained.

Vivien’s ears perked up. “Dungeons and Dragons? That weird roleplaying game Riven plays with his sweaty high school friends?” 

“Who’s Riven?” Kona asked.

“My skating partner,” Vivien said, throwing the explanation away like a used napkin so that she could get back to the main point at hand. 

“Ew, so is he like your boyfriend then?” Kona teased with a devilish wiggle of her eyebrows. 

“No!” Vivien blurted, maybe a little too quickly if everyone turning to look at her was anything to go by. "No, not like… It's just- He's like my brother, ok?" she hurriedly tried to explain, trying to ignore the bile now creeping at the back of her throat the very thought alone had placed there. 

"Ok," Kona snorted, smirking to herself as she caught Royce's shoulders slump in relief in her periphery. Making the ninth-graders squirm was a favourite pastime of hers, and lately, all this girlfriend-boyfriend talk around them, despite making her want to hurl, had been a homerun every time. 

"I didn’t know Riven played DnD,” Bentley piped up, earning himself a grateful smile from Vivien for taking some of the heat off her. 

“Neither did I until he made us switch our practice days so that he could go play pretend with a bunch of dorks out the back of Eddie 'the freak' Munson's trailer."

"Riven's in that weird Hellraiser club?" Royce asked, bushy eyebrow raised in disbelief. 

"My sister says they're all devil worshippers," Zack mumbled.

"It's Hellfire," Vivien corrected. "And they're not devil worshippers - well, Riven's not anyway. As far as I know they're just losers in matching shirts who play make believe like they're still in first grade."

"It's more than just playing make believe," August dared to pipe up with a somewhat defensive frown, immediately toying with the corner of Bentley's character sheet the second the group's attention landed on him. A sideways glance in the blond's direction earned him a reassuring smile that breathed some much needed confidence into his lungs, and as he released it, he said, "There's this whole world you can build your own stories around with all these super detailed characters and a bunch of lore you can discover. I spent my whole weekend reading through the books my cousin gave me and that doesn't even cover half of it. It's like one big choose-your-own adventure story, but everyone gets a say in what happens, and gets to feel like they're a part of it."

A beaming grin and steel blue eyes, sparkling with excitement, found Royce with startling ease. "Doesn't that sound cool?!" Bentley enthused.

"...It actually does," Royce admitted, even surprising himself with his answer. 

"Hear that, Auggie? You didn't even have to mention dragons to convince someone that time," Kona snickered, firing the curly haired boy beside her a smirk. 

"Whatever," Zack scoffed, rolling his eyes. "You thought they sounded cool too," he added with an accusatory nudge of the blonde's elbow that had her cursing him under her breath for making her pencil skim across the page. 

Ignoring his friends' sibling-like arguing, so used to it by now that it honestly would have been stranger to acknowledge it, Bentley kept his attention, and his toothy grin, focused on his older brother. "I knew you'd like it! You're always borrowing those old fantasy books from the library and writing your own versions of them."

"Well- yeah, ok, but what does that have to do with this?" Royce stuttered, cheeks tinged pink with embarrassment despite Vivien's small, amused smile. 

"Well this is just like that! Gus wrote out our first campaign all by himself," Bentley gushed before leaning into the shying blond beside him. "That's like the story, right?" he checked in a hushed tone. And after receiving a confirmatory nod, he turned back to Royce with renewed enthusiasm. "The plot, the monsters, the bonus quests - he came up with it all!" 

Bentley pushed a stack of papers towards his brother, bound by treasury tags and bearing enough ink to have drained an entire pack of ballpoint pens. "Holy shit," Royce breathed as he picked it up and began flipping through the makeshift book, becoming more and more stunned with every turn of a page. "You wrote this whole thing by yourself?" he asked August, who timidly nodded. "In one weekend?" Again, the boy nodded, this time a little more eagerly. And Royce could see why. "...Wow," he marvelled, smiling as he watched the younger boy swell with pride. "This is really impressive, August."

"You put some serious work into this, huh?" Vivien noted.

"Yeah, I guess," August admitted as his steadily reddening cheeks were pulled aside by an appreciative grin. "It's not like I minded though," he went on to hurriedly explain. "It all came together pretty quickly once I got into it. Plus it gave me an excuse to shut myself up in my room away from my stuffy aunt and that stupid dog she carries around in her purse," he added, earning himself a bright laugh from Bentley that completely stalled his train of thought. Luckily, it was nothing that clearing his throat and refocusing his gaze on the blond's character sheet couldn't fix though. "I guess I just thought it would be something fun for us all to do together, you know?"

"Yeah, it sure sounds like it," Vivien said with a warm smile. But there was still a little, nagging thought hammering away at the back of her head, and she feared that if she didn't use this opportunity of an out as her last-ditch attempt at getting Royce alone before the end of the school day then that nagging thought would break right through her skull and puncture her brain with its pesky little pickaxe. And she needed all the brainpower she could muster to get through this, so she did not want to take any risks. "Anyway," she continued, snagging the attention of the table of eleven-year-olds as she clapped her hands together. "We'd better let you guys get back to planning. We wouldn't want to be the reason for you guys delaying your first adventure now, would we?" she asked rhetorically, firing a knowing look across at Royce that was not-so-subtly hidden behind a theatrical grin.

If Royce picked up on the intensity behind Vivien's gaze though, he didn't show it, instead remaining as blissfully oblivious as he always seemed to be when it came to her intentions as he took his turn to offer a fond smile to the table of his brother's friends. "You'll have to let us know how it goes," he said, before adding with a chuckle: "I'm invested now; it sounds awesome."

Breathing out a sigh of relief between her teeth as Royce rounded the picnic table to join her, Vivien kept her almost clown-like smile plastered to her face as she thanked whatever great powers were at work for making Royce ever so slightly more perceptive than the other, gormless teenage boys in their class. But just as she was inching her way back down the hill, and readying her opening line for the brunet once they were out of earshot of the eager little gremlins, one of them piped up with a perfectly pointed pin to burst her bubble. 

"Why don't you just play with us then?" 

Bentley's wide-eyed, hopeful grin was the only thing keeping Vivien from snatching up Kona's muddy jump rope and strangling him with it. Besides the years upon years of sibling-like friendship, obviously.

Forcing out a strained laugh, she managed a tight, "It's alright, Benny, we don't want to crash your fun." 

"You're not crashing anything; we want you to join in. Right, guys?" 

Ok, so Bentley can't read social cues… Good to know. 

It would have made things a hell of a lot easier if Vivien could have known about that before she set the wheels of her master plan into motion though, because right now she felt like they were so out of sync they were about to derail the handcar she'd strapped this grand idea of hers to. But even if she could have brought herself to get mad at Bentley, Zack jumped to the blond's defence before she even had the chance. 

"Yeah, we're gonna need all the help we can get because Kona can't add up for shit and I'm not about to let my guy Omar Scale Crusher die after I've spent all this time working out his stats."

"I can't add up for shit?! What the hell are you talking about? You're the one who got put in Math 2!"

"Only for a week! And I totally got a better grade than you on that test last week."

"No you didn't!"

"Did too!"

"Bite me!" 

As the pair energetically bickered about Zack's accusations, which Kona steadfastly claimed were built on entirely false foundations, Vivien found her frustration with the picnic table occupants crumbling away. After all, they weren't to know that she'd been practising for this lunchtime conversation with Royce for weeks. How could they? The only others she'd confided in were her three skating friends and the balding Big Bird stuffed animal from the end of her bed that had taken on the role of Royce during her many rehearsals. And she couldn't blame them for their excitement over the game either; even she had to admit that it sounded pretty cool. Plus, after hearing Riven rhapsodise about Hellfire's epic campaigns for weeks now, she was starting to get a little curious about the game and how it was played. 

"Omar Scale Crusher, huh?" she eventually chuckled, raising a quizzical eyebrow at Zack that soon ground his and Kona's squabbling to a halt. "How'd you come up with that?" 

"Isn't it sick? Auggie had this big list of names with cool meanings to help us decide."

After shuffling through the endless sheets of paper around him, August found the right one and went on to explain for a very enthusiastic Zack: "Omar means 'one who has a long life'."

"Yeah, so he'd better live up to his damn name! I'm not planning this whole thing out to have him die in the first round," he declared with a hearty laugh, before tagging on: "Plus my uncle's called Omar and he's awesome."

Vivien couldn't help her snort of laughter at the blunt innocence. "Very creative," she noted. "What is he then? Like a viking or something?"

"No, he's a wizard," Zack stated matter-of-factly. "'Cause why would I bother using a sword when I could just kill an enemy with magic?" 

"How come your guy's holding a sword then?" 

Royce's frank delivery, from over the younger boy's shoulder, had a laugh spurting from between Vivien's lips before she could stop it. And Bentley, August, and Kona were all quick to follow suit. 

However, as to be expected, the brash brunet soon scrambled a retaliation. "Well I'd still want one for backup."

"No duh," Kona chuckled as she finished shading in the metallic sheath of the dagger her character clutched in a leather clad fist. "Magic or not, you still need a weapon."

"Is your character a wizard too then?" Vivien asked Kona, but the incredulous snort the blonde let out could have told her all she needed to know on its own.

"No, Andromeda doesn't need to rely on magic to keep herself out of danger; her dexterity's off the charts." 

Before another argument could break out between Zack and Kona as a result of her roundabout dig at him, August decided to speak for the table. "Zack’s our mage, Kona's our thief, Ben's our Bard and my guy's a ranger."

"But you're the dungeon master too, right?" Bentley checked, mischievous blue eyes peeking out from beneath furrowed bows. 

August's own eyes were drawn to Bentley's the second that he'd opened his mouth, but the smirk tugging at his friend's lips was what captured his attention. "What's so funny?" he challenged through a chuckle that coaxed one out of Bentley too. "You don't think I could be a dungeon master?"

"I never said that," Bentley laughed. But the look the boys shared meant they both knew that's what his tone had implied.

"You didn't have to."

"Well can you blame me? It just sounds so menacing and scary. I know you read all those horror books and stuff, but come on, you're about as intimidating as Winnie the Pooh - who, last time I checked, was still tucked under your comforter next to your pillow and your old baby blanket."

Jaw dropped in incredulity, August lightly elbowed Bentley in the ribs. "I can so be intimidating," he retorted. But if he was pretending to be mad at the boy, his true feelings were soon revealed by the smile he couldn't seem to keep off his face.

"Yeah, well, we've yet to see it," Kona bluntly noted, which once again set Royce and Vivien off giggling at the sixth graders. 

"You sound like you've got a pretty well-rounded group then," Royce carried on, drawing the conversation back to August's point from earlier. "Are there even any roles left for us? Or are we going to have to start doubling up?"

"You can double up if you want, but there's still a bunch of classes that haven't been picked yet," August explained, flipping through the large book spread out before him until he got to the right page. "We've not got a druid, a cleric, or a fighter."

"What does a fighter do?" Royce asked.

"Fighters are weapons-oriented warriors, who fight using skill, strategy, and tactics," August recited from his handbook, bringing the group's attention to the detailed illustration of an armoured swordsman, wielding what looked to be an incredibly heavy shield with almost no effort at all.

The second Vivien's eyes met the page she knew it was game over; her imagination kicked into overdrive and tossed all other thoughts about how she could have been spending this lunchtime to the curb. Racing at a million miles an hour, her brain plucked ideas from seemingly thin air and began piecing together a muscular young woman, strong enough to knock an ox clean off its feet in one quick shove, although you'd never know it since her frame was cleverly disguised in roughened leather padding, tarnished silver armour, and rich, violet robes fashioned into a sort of cape. Her face was weathered, but kind, and her vibrant, emerald eyes sparkled with determination, and the promise of adventure. Like the picture in August's book, the woman carried a large, battle-scarred sword by its ornate handle, and kept a hefty shield vigilantly by her side, painted in, again, deep shades of indigo, violet, and the blood of her enemies, naturally. She also had a quiver of arrows slung over her shoulder though, nestled beside a crossbow, just peeking out from behind a head of flowing, chestnut locks. The heroine had no time for preening, so her hair was tousled with grease and grime from combatting the elements on her journeys, but as it fluttered in the wind, it was kept away from her face by intricate braids, weighed down by silver rings and stolen jewels of amethyst and topaz. She smiled at Vivien from the forefront of her mind, as if marking her territory there, and Vivien felt her heart skip a beat as she breathed out a quiet, and hopefully nonchalant: "Hmm…cool."

"That sounds like a good one for you, Viv. Strategy and tactics? You're great with planning stuff out," Royce noted. But one glance in her direction and his face broke into a knowing smile the second he clocked her eyes, glazed over in thought, and lips, parted in awe. 

"Yeah, and look, you'd make a great cleric," Bentley continued, pulling Royce's gaze away from Vivien, albeit reluctantly. Flipping the page of August's handbook, he excitedly tapped at a drawing of a tall man, draped in heavy, fur pelts and bronzed chainmail. A glowing staff was held in one hand, and a massive axe was thrown over his shoulder as though it weighed no more than a sack of flour. 

"Clerics are versatile figures, both capable in combat and skilled in the use of divine magic," August recited from the page after a light, nudge from Bentley. "They're also powerful healers."

"See? That's perfect for you! You're always helping patch us up if we fall off our bikes," Bentley enthused, undeterred by the amused chuckles that his brother unleashed as a result of what he thought was an adorably innocent explanation. 

"Yeah, and we could use a healer on our team, especially with those two and their lack of impulse control," August snorted as he gestured to Kona and Zack, who jumped at the chance to express their indignation. 

As the group of friends returned to jovially bickering amongst themselves, Royce and Vivien's minds were quietly whirring with ideas. Ideas which, upon glancing at one another, they soon realised were all too perfectly aligned. 

"What do you say then, losers?" Kona finally asked once she'd finished fighting her ground against the boys, snapping the eighth-graders out of their heads and bringing them back to reality with a knowing smirk. "Are you playing with us or not?"

Royce, as always, left the decision to Vivien. But the hopeful glimmer in his caramel eyes, paired with her own, itching curiosity made that decision all too easy. And besides, even if she wasn't spending time alone with Royce, she was still spending time with him. And that was good enough for her.

…For now. 

"Well… I guess one game couldn't hurt, right?" she said with a smirk that soon broke out into a grin as Bentley's face lit up like a firework display. And it only grew when she glanced across at Royce for one last confirmation that she'd made the right decision, only to find him beaming with almost as much enthusiasm as his brother. 

If this nerdy little game brought Royce this much joy, and was even half as much fun as it sounded, then Vivien knew it would be worth another few hours of crippling anxiety. Besides, she hoped that she could immerse herself in the story so much that she'd forget all about her predicament with the brunet anyway. But as they took their places at the picnic table, and Royce's sneaker brushing against her shin shot a jolt of adrenaline up her leg with such a force that she almost jumped straight back out of her seat, she knew that that was just wishful thinking. Covering up the brief waver in her cool, confident exterior with a quiet cough, she tried to refocus her mind on the endless streams of information August was unleashing on the pair of them.

"-and so the group our characters all belong to is called The Circle of the Emerald Torches, but part of the first campaign is about how we get our name, so I'll explain more about that later. Before you start, and before I give you your character sheets though, if you want to be in our party then you'll need to recite the Oath of Noble Heroes so that we know you're serious about this."

"Don't worry, we had to do it too. But it's so cool, you'll love it! And then there's a declaration of loyalty for you to sign somewhere too," Bentley tagged on before the boys started animatedly babbling amongst themselves about the ins and outs of their party's rules again. 

Shaking his head at the pair, Royce took the opportunity of them being distracted to lean over to Vivien and teasingly chuckle, "What the hell have you just gotten us into?"

Fighting the urge to roll her eyes at the boy, knowing that his enthusiasm for the game was a major driving factor in her decision to play, and that he was also well-aware of that fact, she looked him square in the face and hid her smirk behind a deadly serious, blank expression, "I'm pretty sure we just joined a cult." 

American History, Volume 2, lay open on page 38. And it had laid there like that for the past 45 minutes, having been abandoned by its current owner almost as soon as it had been removed from their backpack. Because instead of completing the assigned history homework, the desk's occupant was using their study hall period much more wisely: by shredding a solo, courtesy of Ozzy Osbourne, on possibly the most prestigious instrument of all: the air guitar.

Ethan's eyes slid shut, and a blissful smile curled his lips as he mashed the volume button on his Walkman with practised ease. Bar after bar of 'Crazy Train' pounded through his skull at a staggering volume, rattling what little of his brain was left in the mostly vacant space between his ears, helped along by the bopping of his head in time with the song's beat. When his fingers weren't plucking out riffs on imaginary strings, they were banging out the drumline on a drum kit that was just as real as his Gibson SG. And all the while, he was passionately miming the lyrics for his audience of the pencil shavings and dust mites that hugged the wall beside his desk. 

He felt the music in his bones. The bass line pumped through his veins. Every note that was played resonated through the chambers of his heart until it felt like the song was as much a part of him as his left arm. And the deeper he let himself sink into the music, the less aware of his surroundings he became - or the less he cared to remember them anyway. Until a sharp elbow to the ribs shattered his rockstar illusions, that is. 

Bleary brown eyes met earnest, steel blue, and held nothing but confusion for the several seconds it took him to realise that Miles’ mouth was moving without making a sound. 

“What?” Ethan bellowed, prying a wailing headphone speaker away from his ears as he leaned closer to the exasperated brunet. 

“Jesus, man!” Miles exclaimed under his breath as he reached across to his friend’s Walkman to frantically turn the volume down. “Are you trying to blow your eardrums out or something?” 

“That would be pretty metal, so maybe,” Ethan chuckled, entirely unphased. But Miles’ disapproving frown soon had him rolling out an explanation. “You’ve got a front row seat for my biggest show yet and you’re choosing to lecture me about volume control? I can care about my hearing when I’m in the retirement home.”

“You’ll be lucky if you make it to a retirement home," Miles snorted. "You've got the survival skills of a two dollar house plant."

Instead of arguing back, or even rolling his eyes at his best friend's dig, Ethan just continued chuckling along in agreement as he slid his headphones down to rest around his neck - still blaring out Ozzy Osbourne's vocals, although they were only just audible over the hubbub of chatter and laughter that filled the rest of the classroom. "What were you saying before anyway?" he went on to ask. "Did you want something?"

"Yeah, the answer to number four."

"Pfft, you think I've even made it past one?" Ethan guffawed, astonished and highly amused that Miles thought highly enough of him to assume he hadn't been shirking his responsibilities all afternoon. "I've got no fucking clue. What chapter are we on again? Abraham Lincoln?"

The mix of despair and disbelief Ethan was faced with when he glanced back across at Miles told him his guess might not have been as accurate as he'd pitched it to be. "...Are we not on Abraham Lincoln?"

"We haven't done Abraham Lincoln since freshman year," Miles deadpanned before letting out a chuckle of his own. "When was the last time you actually paid attention in one of Mr Bishop's classes?"

"Probably freshman year," Ethan noted with a laugh, slumping back in his seat and starting to rock on the back two legs of the flimsy, plastic chair. "I think the only chance I've got at retaining any of the information in that textbook for this month's pop quiz is if I eat it."

The look of reproach Miles shot the carefree stoner could have fooled any passerby into thinking that he was the boy's father, but he blamed that on the past however many years of having to act as a sole parental figure for two young boys - who, on several occasions, had actually proved to be far more mature than the lank-haired brunet before him. More often than not, Ethan felt like a third child he had to keep alive. And somehow, his lack of height was not one of the driving factors behind that reasoning.

"Oh come on, don't give me that look," Ethan groaned, ever the resentful teenager in their relationship. "You've not exactly been Mr Studious yourself today."

"What are you talking about?" 

"Well you've been stuck on that same question for the last twenty minutes 'cause you keep making goo-goo eyes at you know who," Ethan smirked as Miles' eyes widened in horror and his forehead started to prickle with sweat. 

"No I don't," he indignantly tried.

"I thought you said you were over her," Ethan teased.

"I am! It's not like that anyway," Miles muttered, then added. "And it's not been twenty minutes."

"It totally has."

"How the hell would you know? You've been listening to Motorhead since we sat down."

"Yeah but my fuckin' eyes still work," Ethan snorted, hitting Miles with a loving grin that had him rolling his eyes before Ethan had even finished his sentence. And yet, the boy's frustration did nothing to deter him from probing further. "What's the stalking for this time then? You know, if you're not trying to get in her pants anymore." 

Miles was at as much of a loss as Ethan. His eyes found the head of bouncing, blonde curls with almost no effort at all (likely a result of an entire study hall period of practice), searching for some sort of answer. But all he found was a dull, fluttering in his chest. 

Even the giddy, lovestruck butterfly that had been trapped in there for months seemed to have admitted defeat. 

Still, his gaze never wavered. He watched airy laughter spill from her glossy lips, and her nose crinkle beneath brilliantly blue eyes, framed by thick, black lashes and copious amounts of mascara. Whilst before, Miles could have eaten through a movie theatre's entire popcorn supply and still want to look just a little longer, in that moment he just felt empty. And that’s when he realised it wasn't actually Carrie herself that was occupying his mind, it was everyone else around her, and how she was treating them. Plucking a proudly presented flyer for a house party from one, impishly teasing another, waving at Sharon Frye on her way out the door, firing a flirty wink in jest at Steve Harrington after giggling at one of his jokes…

Miles was certain she'd looked at every other person in that room at least once since their study hall period had begun, and yet the closest her eyes had ventured over to him was when she glanced at the clock on the wall. Every thought in his head was plagued by her smile, or her voice, or her laugh… Had he ever even crossed her mind? 

"Do you think she actually cares about us?"

Miles hadn't been able to bring himself to tear his forlorn gaze from the blonde in question, but that didn't stop Ethan from snorting out an answer. "Well yeah, I'd hope so; we spend enough time with her." 

"Not by choice," Miles huffed. 

“Well she talks to us now, and that’s more than we could have said before we worked with her, so that’s got to count for something,” Ethan chuckled. “But if this is about what I think it’s about, then she absolutely cares about you, dude. Like way more than the rest of us.”

“You really think so?” 

“Dude, it’s like you two are glued at the hip. I can’t get you away from each other for shit once we close every night,” Ethan replied. And when Miles still looked unsure, he added, “Why else do you think I always get stuck cleaning the kitchen with Mick? She hates my guts!”

“No she does not,” Miles softly chuckled.

“Well I definitely don’t think she likes me, not like Carrie likes you anyway,” he retorted with a smirk and a wiggle of his eyebrows. “I’m telling you, man. There’s something there. There’s no way she’d laugh at your crappy jokes like she does if she didn’t at least have a little interest in you - I don’t care if Mick thinks it’s bullshit, I know I’m right.”

Miles just rolled his eyes, but a hopeful smile desperately pulled at his lips, no matter how many times he tried to dismiss it. “I don’t know, I think she probably just does it to be nice,” he mused, watching as Carrie animatedly responded to Rachel Price before turning back to resume her conversation with the girl sat beside her - the very girl that Miles still had an irrepressible urge to swap lives with: Juliet Harmon. Now faced with nothing but the back of her head, he quickly lost interest in the view. “…She seems to act like that with most people.”

“She definitely does not, man. Why do you think the entire marching band is scared to look her in the eye? She’s like one of the biggest bitches in school,” Ethan scoffed. But he paused when he realised Miles wasn’t laughing along with him. “Why does it matter how she acts around other people anyway?” 

“It doesn’t,” Miles huffed. “…Not really.” 

But the second he dared to make eye contact with his oldest friend, the floodgates opened and the truth came tumbling out. 

“I just…feel stupid for letting her get in my head, and for actually thinking that we had something special - that I was somehow different to all the other idiots who throw themselves at her to get a second of her attention. But here I am, thinking about her constantly, hanging onto every interaction we have like my fucking life depends on it, only for her to… Ugh, I don't know. I just…don't want it all to not mean anything to her, when it means so much to me - no matter how much I try to convince myself it doesn't. I mean, yeah, she's nice to me at work - really nice - but she barely even acknowledges me outside of All Skate… It's like I don't even exist, like she doesn't even realise I'm there. And it makes me feel like shit."

"She barely acknowledges anyone," Ethan absentmindedly mused. "I wouldn't take it personally."

"That's a lot easier said than done," Miles huffed dejectedly. There was something freeing about Ethan's nonchalance over Miles' feelings though; it made them feel less suffocating. And whilst he still felt entirely hopeless about the situation, he did feel a little bit of the pressure ease off as he rested his chin on his hand and let his mind start to wander. "...You think she actually considers us friends?"

"Sure; she calls us her work friends all the time."

"No but like her actual friends," Miles clarified. 

"Dude, I don't fucking know; the female mind is a mystery to me at the best of times, but hers is on a whole other level," Ethan scoffed in incredulity. "Do you not remember that like thirty minute debate I had with her about diet sodas? Actual insanity.”

Miles' quiet chuckling as he reminisced about what had started as an innocent question, yet progressed to a full-blown screaming match, with each participant equally as confused and frustrated as the other, was soon silenced by Ethan's next prompt though. "I know a way you can find out though…"

"...No!" 

"Oh come on, man. Don't be a sissy. It'll be so easy. And then you can stop getting hung up on all these bogus hypotheticals."

Miles' initial horror slowly dissipated as Ethan's reasoning started to lure out a far greater force from its hiding place in the corner of his brain: his curiosity. "...You really think I can just go up and talk to her? In class?" he asked, as his eyes once again found that jumble of golden curls. 

"Sure, why not? It's only study hall." 

Again, Ethan's nonchalance, which was only heightened by the fact that he was trying to balance a pen on his curled upper lip as he responded, did far more for Miles' confidence than any pep talk of his own could have. And besides, maybe he was onto something - maybe it really was that simple; it always was in his world. 

"It wouldn't be weird?" Miles double-checked. 

"Why would it be weird? All you're gonna do is talk to her. And we already established you two are friends, so what could go wrong?" 

Miles shuddered at the very thought. "So much."

Ethan glanced across at him, ready to fire out further encouragement like a sixth grader with a penchant for making spitballs, but when he clocked his friend's nervous fidgeting, he reconsidered his situation and gained a little clarity. "Ok…yeah, fine, stuff could go wrong. But are you gonna die?" he proposed.

"No," Miles begrudgingly mumbled.

"Are you gonna break something?"

"No, but-"

"Then how bad can it be?" Ethan cut in with a lopsided, optimistic grin before Miles could tie himself up in any more self-conscious knots. "Just get over there and scratch that itch that's been bugging you for weeks; it's not gonna stop until you do. And you'll feel so much better after."

It took Miles by surprise every time it happened, but yet again, it seemed as though Ethan might actually be…right. This question of Carrie's loyalty had been eating away at him for weeks now. And, as he'd stressed earlier, it was making him feel shittier and shittier with every day he let it drag on. Asking her outright was a definite way to get his answer… It was just going to require him growing some balls, as anything to do with All Skate's resident disc jockey apparently made his own shrink to the size of peas.

"...Just walk over and talk to her?" Miles checked. Although, between us, he was just stalling to give himself more time to muster some courage.

"Yeah, as a friend," Ethan confirmed. 

"You really think I can pull that off?" Miles asked with a dubious, but hopeful quirk of his eyebrow that had Ethan melting like a bomb pop that had been left out in the 4th of July sun.

"Absolutely," he grinned, totally enamoured by his friend's giddy trepidation, and the promise of a relationship he so steadfastly defended. "She's got a major soft spot for you, man. I see it like every night," he went on to reassure. "There's no way she's gonna blow you off. You'll be fine."

And as a result of that dopey grin, complemented by the ratty, chestnut locks, and vacant, dark chocolate eyes… Miles believed him. 

"...Ok, I'm going in," he breathed through a determined smile. 

"Atta boy," Ethan chuckled, fist-bumping Miles before tipping his chair back onto all four of its legs again, as though to signal the resolution of their predicament. "Go scratch that itch," he added, finishing their little handshake with a bolstering point before lifting his headphones back over his ears and disappearing back into his wildest rock star fantasies - totally oblivious to the disaster about to unfold right behind him as Miles took a deep breath and waded into the wild, uncharted waters of the female mindset. 

"So now that we know that y=7, we plug that into this side of the function, that we've already simplified, to give us this…which then means that we can carry this over here, giving us x=3." 

…Silence.

"Right?" Juliet checked, although the satisfied smile that had settled on her carnation pink lips as soon as she finished the sum was beginning to falter into one of desperation as she turned to her tutee. "Did you follow along ok that time?"

But all Juliet was met with was a glassy stare and an infatuated grin, smushed between two fists as its owner rested their chin on their palms. "You're so smart, Julie," Carrie breathed. 

Juliet just rolled her eyes, although she did little to hide the bashful blush tickling her cheeks. “Never mind that, did you understand how I worked it out that time?” 

"...Kind of?" Carrie tried, offering a lopsided, hopeful grin to try to lessen the blow.

If Juliet's exasperated huff was anything to go by though: it didn't work. But her frustration dissolved the second that she met Carrie's gaze. "Where did I lose you?" she asked with a gentle, patient sigh. 

"The whole reversing the function bit," Carrie admitted as she bit her lip and braced herself for Juliet's reaction. Although the blonde's expression never wavered, the dismay that flashed in her eyes soon had Carrie barrelling through an explanation. "I swear I was getting it before that this time, but then it all started to sound like you were talking in another language, and then I got distracted by that pretty way you write out the 'x' again, and then I just…"

"...Stopped listening all together?" Juliet teasingly offered with a fond smirk.

Carrie scoffed in mock-defence. "No, I listened the whole time, I just stopped taking it in," she went on to clarify. But as soon as she drew a giggle from Juliet's lips she melted into that same infatuated grin from earlier as she admitted, "I'd never stop listening to you. You know I could listen to you talk for hours."

"Even about algebra?" Juliet teasingly tested with an affectionate smile of her own. 

"Of course about algebra," Carrie gushed with a glittering honesty that soon had Juliet giggling again. "Believe it or not, this is the most I've ever understood a math module," she carried on, straightening up in her seat to help give her point a little more credibility, before tagging on a jovial, "And it's all thanks to you, smarty pants."

"Would you stop calling me that? It's so lame," Juliet protested, hiding her smile behind a frank eye roll. "And besides, I'm not that smart." 

"You so are; you're like the smartest person I know," Carrie gushed, never one to let her friends downplay their successes, much to Juliet's disgruntlement. The blonde's frown didn't deter Carrie from continuing to lovingly babble straight through her stream of consciousness though. "That brain of yours has to be huge - no wonder you get headaches all the time, it's because it doesn't have enough space in there."

Carrie's knack for making herself giggle never failed to make Juliet smile, but yet again she found herself trying to cover it up with a bashful roll of her hazel irises as she let out a sigh and attempted to get their conversation back on track. "You wanna try another question then?" 

"Don't try to change the subject," Carrie fired back with a mischievous grin. 

"I'm not, you are!" Juliet retorted, biting back an incredulous laugh. "We're supposed to be doing algebra, not Juliet 101."

Carrie's mischievous grin only broadened. "Now that's a class I might actually get an A in."

Rolling her eyes for the third time at her best friend's antics, Juliet teasingly tried, "What? Not an A+?"

"Maybe," Carrie smirked. "But then again, I might get distracted by my teacher." Her wiggling eyebrows soon had Juliet reprimanding her and attempting to draw her focus back to her school work, but Carrie's mind was already wandering off too far down a different path altogether. "...Do you think you'd ever wanna be a doctor, Julie?" 

The comment, that fell slap-bang in the middle of Juliet's offer to rewrite the steps of the previous algebra equation, baffled her into silence - so taken aback by the suggestion that she almost thought she'd misheard the golden-haired girl. "What? No," she spluttered, looking at Carrie as though she'd just sprouted a third nose. "Where did that come from?"

Juliet's confusion didn't seem to faze Carrie though, because her dreamy smile stuck it out through her whole, rambling explanation. "I don't know, I just figured you should use your big brain for a job one day. You know, like one that actually actually makes you think instead of just like a working a cash register, or stacking books or something. And you need to be super smart to be a doctor, so…"

Juliet was quick to shoot down Carrie's optimistic grin. "I do not have what it takes to be a doctor, trust me."

"Sure you do," Carrie defended. "I'd let you be my doctor."

"Oh well then hand me my diploma," Juliet sarcastically replied, once more fondly rolling her eyes and chuckling at her best friend's enamoured stare and incessant bolstering. 

"I'm serious," Carrie pressed on though, determined to get through to Juliet despite her doubtful smirk. "I'd trust you with my life, you know I would. I'd let you save my life any day of the week," she grinned. But, after giggling to herself and absentmindedly twirling her pencil between her fingers, when she finally latched onto Juliet's hazel gaze again, only to find it significantly less jovial, it was her turn to express her confusion. "What? You don't believe me?" she teasingly challenged, with a quirk of an eyebrow. 

But Juliet still didn't seem to be in the mood to joke back, as her lips fell in line with the horizon and her gaze darted to Carrie's right before finding her again. 

Ok, now Carrie was really confused. 

"Huh?" she murmured, clearly not as in tune with her best friend's thoughts as she assumed she was. 

However, this time, Juliet flicked her eyes to Carrie's right with a touch more resolve, and paired it with a slight, but very purposeful nod of her head in the same direction. And finally, Carrie seemed to get the message. 

Following Juliet's line of sight, Carrie turned to look over her shoulder, only to find herself face to face with a person that almost caught her off guard as much as Juliet's sudden shift in dynamic had. "Oh," was the first word to jump from her lips, startling her back into what Juliet lovingly dubbed as 'show-mode' as she rolled her shoulders back and fixed a brilliant smile to her face. "Hey, Miles."

The second that Carrie acknowledged Miles, any confidence he'd managed to trick himself into conjuring fled. And whilst he had a Herculean urge to do the same, he too plastered what he hoped was a convincing smile to his face as he finished his approach to the blondes' shared desk. "Hey, Carrie," he said, breathing a sigh of relief for even managing to get the words out. And yet, he still pushed a little further to add, with a nod of acknowledgement too, "Juliet." 

The entertained smirk that started pulling at the corner of Juliet's lips in response caught him off guard, and he felt his stomach gently clench in defence. But he chose to ignore it, returning his gaze to Carrie's bright smile - its familiarity putting him back at ease and igniting that usual fire in his chest that sent warmth spreading throughout his- 

Wait, why was she turning back around? 

"Right, where were we?" Carrie said, dazzling Juliet with a grin as she readied her pencil on the page. "I've got a good feeling about this next one; I think if you just take it slow-."

"Ahem," Juliet interrupted. Her gaze caught Carrie's once again and held onto it for a beat before she tilted her head forwards, signalling with her eyes that there was still something - or rather, someone - behind her. The confusion, almost disbelief, swimming in Carrie's eyes made Juliet have to bite the inside of her cheek to stop herself from laughing, and locking onto Miles' look of bewildered dismay just made it even harder. But luckily, Carrie was quickly able to decipher her visual message once again, with little prompting this time.

Turning around to find that, to her surprise, Miles hadn't just been greeting her as he passed by her desk, he was, in fact, standing there - well, expectantly shuffling from foot to foot anyway - Carrie remounted her smile. Although now, Miles realised, it wasn't so welcoming. It felt almost…uncomfortable.  

"Oh, sorry. Did you want something?" she offered. 

He did - desperately so. And yet, he felt as though the sudden shift in tone had already started to write out his answer. 

The hairs on the back of his neck started to twitch as the walls of his stomach steadily closed in tighter. But, determined to stand by his heart, and prove to himself (and Mick) that his feelings weren't all built on fantasies he'd created in his head, he brushed the unease away and stood his ground. "No, not really. I just thought I'd…stop by…see how it's going."

Carrie's smile faltered again, giving way to further confusion. "...See how what's going?"

"...Study hall?" Miles said. But the response came out as more of a question than an answer, which he supposed was down to the fact that he wasn't even sure of it himself. And despite his hopeful grin, which he feared was now looking more like a grimace, he couldn't seem to stop trying to rub the growing discomfort from the back of his neck. 

God, he hoped that he didn't have any sweat stains. 

"Oh, uh, it's going fine," Carrie politely replied. Although her awkward fidgeting with her pencil's eraser told a different story. "We're just going through the algebra homework."

It was weird; it wasn't as though the conversation was making her seem 'off', it was like…the very fact he was talking to her was so distracting she couldn't settle. She was the centre of Miles' universe. And apparently he was just an asteroid in hers: a misshapen hunk of space rock, hurtling past in the blink of an eye, and completely blindsiding her with his very insignificant existence. 

A fellow asteroid must have collided with him at some point, because he could feel this weird twinge in his chest, by his heart, almost as though the impact had chipped a corner off. He swallowed thickly, pushing the creeping discomfort away. "The one for Mr Moreno's class?" 

"Mhm," Carrie confirmed with a nod. 

"Oh, nice…" Miles trailed off with an awkward chuckle and what he feared was now looking like a rather desperate smile. And he was sure his expression only got worse when his gaze was pulled off-course by Juliet, who gave him a look that made him want to give up altogether. How her hazel irises had managed to harness the ability to hiss 'you are totally blowing this' in his ear, he had no idea. And yet, the urge to prove her (and everyone else) wrong gave him the motivation to plough on. "Well, if you still need any help with it later, I don't mind going through some of the answers with you at wo-"

"It's alright," Carrie bluntly cut in, slicing out a chunk of Miles' self-esteem as she did so. "Julie's got it covered," she added, turning to dazzle the blonde with a brilliant grin. 

By the time that grin made its way around to Miles though, it felt cold. And it seemed suppressed, like she hadn't really wanted him to see it. What he feared was the beginnings of a smirk were tugging at the corners of her lips too. And whilst he wanted to believe that it wasn't at his expense - some cruel inside joke the pair of blondes had whispered with their oh-so talkative eyes in the second that Carrie's back was turned - something in the pit of his stomach told him otherwise. 

"Thanks though," Carrie lazily tacked on, with a brightness in her tone that just felt hollow to Miles now. 

"No problem," he breathed. But there was a problem, and he was staring right at her.

Miles tried to find it in him to mean the smile he sent her, but he just couldn't. Somehow, what was supposed to have been a simple conversation between 'friends' had left him feeling more insecure than ever. Why was she so difficult to talk to? And was she making it so difficult? If they'd been at All Skate, cleaning the rink after their shift, he'd have had no trouble talking to her - their conversations flowed like the Mississippi River when it was just the two of them. And yet here, he felt like he was trying to coax water out of a rusty garden tap in the peak of a summer drought. 

He couldn't find the words to piece together what he wanted to ask - he didn't think such a sentence existed, not one that he could construct anyway. Carrie seemed hellbent on getting rid of him, which did nothing for his creeping fear that she was only nice to him at work because she had no other option for company. And the damn heat radiating from Juliet's pitying smirk had so much sweat running down his back he contemplated running to the nearest bathroom to wring out his underwear. 

And somehow, those glittering, sky blue eyes of hers still threw him a line - a glimmer of hope to cling to. After all, she'd surprised him before - countless times - maybe she'd be able to do it again.

Just as Miles was moving to open his mouth to try one last time though, he was beaten to it. 

"Was there anything else you wanted? Or was that it?" 

Any hopes of a redemption for the blonde were snatched from Miles' grasp, and the reality of it felt like a punch to the gut. Thoroughly deflated, he accepted his fate with a heavy sigh. It may not have been the outcome he wanted, but at least he had an answer now, and there was a silver lining to that, he supposed. 

"...No," he breathed through a forlorn, but relieved smile. "That was…that was all."

Miles felt he must have imagined the concern that flickered in Carrie's gaze - wishful thinking, he supposed - because the airy giggle and laidback grin she flashed him certainly didn't marry up with it. "Oh, alright then. See you later!" she chirped with a wave as he started the walk of shame back to his desk. Again, just as he was turning back to offer a farewell of his own though, she managed to get her words in first. "Don't forget your thick socks."

Miles stopped in his tracks. Now he was more confused than ever. The cheeky glint in her eyes, the knowing smile, the reference to a throwaway joke from their closing shift last night… Everything he'd just come to terms with about her vehement disinterest in him had been called into question with those five, simple words, and a wink that just about made his heart stop.

…Maybe she did really care after all. 

With his heart leaping up from its dejected slumber, Miles shot her a grateful smile and chuckled an earnest, "I won't." Breathing out a contented sigh, mind already racing with ways to talk to her about this more that evening, Miles finally felt his shoulders relax as he raised the hand that had been rubbing the back of his neck his whole time. "See you la-"

Nevermind, she'd already turned around to talk to Juliet again. 

Again the brunet was flummoxed. The only thing he felt truly confident about as he slunk back to his desk was the very thing he'd been warned of before wading into that mess: the female mind was a mystery. And he had never felt further from figuring it out.

Turning back to Juliet, Carrie couldn't help but shake her head and chuckle under her breath. "That was weird," she noted, tilting her head in the direction of her retreating co-worker.

But Juliet's eyes had never left the bumbling brunet. "Mmm… He's kind of cute," she mused. Although her prompting smirk was lost on her tutee, since her sapphire gaze was immediately pulled to the back of Miles' head.  

"Yeah." Carrie's breathed response fell from her lips with startling ease, so much so that it even surprised herself. Hoping to catch it before it slipped into Juliet's ears though, she shook the starry-eyed gaze from her head and scrambled together a cover-up. "Uh, yeah? I can try to set the two of you up if you want. You know, put in a good word at work and stuff." 

If she expected Juliet to accept her optimistic offer with open arms though, she was soon proved wrong.

"Yeah something tells me he's not interested in me," she snorted.

Carrie looked at her, perplexed. "What are you talking about? Why wouldn't he be? You're like a total babe."

"Oh come on, Carrie. Please tell me you know that he's got a major crush on you," Juliet said with an almost disapproving frown. "Like major major."

Carrie scoffed at the accusation. "It's not major," she tried, rolling her eyes in a further attempt to downplay the gravity of what Juliet was implying. 

"Carrie," Juliet pressed as she knitted her brows. "The guy could barely speak."

Caving under the blonde's hardened gaze, Carrie let out a resentful huff. "Ok fine, so he's got a little crush," she finally conceded. "What's so bad about that? It's not like anything's gonna happen; he knows I've got a boyfriend."

"Mhm… And what does Eric have to say about Miles?"

Carrie rolled her eyes so hard Juliet thought for a second that they might never come back down again. "Why does it matter?" she groaned, her skin prickling with irritation. 

"Well he's not exactly got the best track record when it comes to being understanding about you hanging out with other guys," Juliet sighed, with a sneaking suspicion that her tutee's frustration had been triggered by the mention of her boyfriend's name alone: a welcome sign that their relationship was as healthy as ever. Not.

Carrie scoffed as a bitter scowl settled into place. "It's not like I'm 'hanging out with him', we just work together. I barely talk to him during my shift anyway, only when we're clearing stuff up at the end."

"Oh yeah?" Juliet started, curiosity piqued. "And what happens then?"

"Nothing!" Carrie insisted. "We just talk - you know me, I can't keep my mouth shut even when I want to, so of course I'm gonna talk to the guy." Letting out a sigh to try to blow off some steam, she softened under Juliet's gaze and allowed the blonde to lead her through her haze of thoughts. And if Juliet's gentle nudge in the right direction wasn't already enough to do the trick, one glance at Miles' retreating form completely burst the dam. "We've been talking for like the whole last hour of every shift since I started - about school, movies, whatever really - it's like the only thing in that dump that's worth sticking around for. I kind of just did it because I was bored out of my mind at the start, but turns out he's actually really fun, and sweet too - you wouldn't believe some of the stuff he does for his little brothers, Julie; I've literally gone and cried in the break room before after he was telling me about it. It's that cute." 

"You cry at everything," Juliet countered with a fond, teasing chuckle. 

"Oh come on, not everything," Carrie retorted. Naively hoping that their conversation on the matter had ended there, she let her eyes settle on Juliet's again, only for them to inch open the floodgates once more with a simple bat of her lashes and a tilt of her head. "We just talk and…goof around," she tentatively began - defensive, despite her nonchalance. "You know, make each other laugh about weird things customers have said, or stupid things we did. It's not like we're fooling around or anything. And before you say it, because I know that face: no, I am not leading him on. It's all totally platonic, I swear."

"Ok…" Juliet softly trailed off, taking a moment to choose her words before raising her next point. "Does Miles know it's all 'totally platonic'?"

Carrie let out a groan of despair, as she always did when her best friend lovingly lectured her. "I don't know, Jules. I'm not a mindreader. He's not grabbed my ass or spiked my water bottle, if that's what you're getting at," she grumbled, before promising, "I've got it all under control, I swear."

Somehow, Juliet didn't seem to be buying it; as impervious to Carrie's confident charm as ever. 

"So Eric's totally chill about this whole thing with Miles?" she tested, arching a perfectly plucked eyebrow.  

"He knows I work with him…" Carrie mumbled.

Juliet nodded understandingly - almost too understandingly - in Carrie's periphery. 

"...And does he know how he makes you feel?"

Daring to challenge Juliet's calculated point with ignorant defiance, Carrie whirled around to meet the blonde's smug expression with a gasp of indignation, and an argument that fell away the second she realised that she didn't have a single word in her head to back it up with. Admitting defeat, she sighed and let her body slump, along with her hopes of her vindication in her best friend's hazel eyes. "Ok, yeah, fine. I know Miles has a crush on me," she confessed. Although the guilt laced into her words steadily morphed into hurt the more she tried to defend herself. "And yeah, I do lean into it sometimes because it makes me feel good about myself. Is that really so bad? Is it such a bad thing to want someone to be extra nice to you for once? Or to give you some positive attention?" 

"No, of course not," Juliet assured, assuming a fierce determination of her own. "I just think your boyfriend should be able to do all those things and more, and clearly he's not."

Carrie sighed, exhausted by the very thought of him. "This isn't about Eric."

Juliet sighed back, exasperated by her best friend's submissiveness, especially when she was usually so domineering. "How can you still want to defend him, Carrie?"

"Because, I love him, Julie," Carrie replied, finally finding the contented smile the thought of him should have immediately slapped on her face. "And because he's a good guy."

"Really? Because he's been nothing but a dick to you lately," Juliet flatly countered, hoping that with a little pushing her friend would see sense. 

"We've just had a couple of arguments, it's not a big deal," Carrie casually defended. "And they're all resolved now, so I don't know what you still have to complain about."

"Just because you had make-up sex does not mean that the problems were resolved," Juliet rolled her eyes before fixing the golden-haired girl with a more earnest look. "Did he actually apologise this time?"

"We talked it out first-"

"Did he apologise?"

Carrie squirmed under Juliet's gaze before muttering a reluctant, "No."

"Ugh," Juliet groaned, rolling her eyes again as she wound up to unleash a rant she'd been working up to for weeks. But, to her dismay, Carrie's defences beat her to it.

"Neither of us did, really. We just agreed to forget it and move on."

"How is that resolving anything?" Juliet asked with an annoyed frown that Carrie was starting to take personally. 

"Well I hadn't thought about it until now, so it must have at least kind of worked," she attempted to justify. 

But Juliet's nettled scoff told her that her stance on the matter wasn't budging. "You and Eric might as well speak two different languages; I've seen a pig and a fly communicate better than you two." 

The comment drew a giggle from Carrie's lips before she could stop it. "Don't try to distract me with your cute, Southern lingo," she said as the amused smile settled on her face and she affectionately bumped her friend's arm - the act bringing both their tempers back down to Earth. Before Juliet could launch into another lecture though, Carrie hoped to diffuse the situation once and for all. "Anyway, we worked it all out and everything's back to normal," she said. Although Juliet's questioning glance made her correct herself, "Better than normal. In fact, we're going to go look for Halloween costumes together this weekend," she finished with an optimistic grin. 

Now that was an improvement. For the first time since they'd sat down, Juliet found herself pleasantly surprised. "The Barbie and Ken costume's back on? I'm impressed. You two really must be getting along." Knowing how excited Carrie had been about the idea, she couldn't help but smile at the prospect of it finally coming into fruition. 

"Oh no, the Ken idea's long gone. I think he's going as a firefighter or something now."

Juliet's optimism shattered in a split second, and yet she stayed frozen in place, mouth hanging open in disbelief. "...You're kidding, right?"

"No, but I don't really mind. I'll just find something else to go as," Carrie sighed through a small, indifferent smile. If she'd spotted the disgust hidden in Juliet's eyes after her last revelation, she chose to ignore it. "It'll be fun getting to plan out my own costume anyway; I've got so many more options now. And plus, the Barbie one was only gonna be a pain in the ass to-"

"You're not even doing a couples one?" Juliet asked, far too concerned with what she was learning to care about hearing out Carrie's excuses. 

"He thinks couples costumes are lame," she explained with a huff. "Or at least that's what Adam told him anyway. He said he wanted to just do his own thing."

"But Carrie, you've been excited about doing a joint costume with him for like a whole year."

"So?" Carrie asked, with an eyebrow quirk of her own, shoving the accusation aside as though she was kicking an ice cube under the refrigerator. "It's just a dumb Halloween party, it doesn't matter what we wear; everyone will probably be too drunk to even pay attention anyway."

"Yeah, but it matters that he doesn't care about stuff that's important to you. He never has, and it's selfish, Carrie - super selfish…" Juliet trailed off with a frustrated sigh, praying that she might finally get the ditzy DJ to see sense. "You need to stop defending his shitty behaviour."

"And do what?" Carrie mumbled, unknowingly giving Juliet just what she wanted: a chance to unleash her anger with the infantile blond bozo and the mockery of a relationship he had roped her best friend into.

"Hold him accountable," she urged, hazel eyes blazing with passion. "Relationships should not have to revolve around making excuses and placating your partner with blow jobs - it's a fucking joke. I don't care about all the 'good times' you guys have, or all the memories you've made; the way you've been treating each other lately is appalling, and you deserve way better," she said, pausing to let Carrie absorb everything she'd just thrown at her before delivering the finishing blow. "And I know you know that too, because you're already looking for it in someone else."

Carrie's blood stilled in her veins. Sometimes it scared her how deeply Juliet understood her, and other times it felt comforting. This was not one of those times. 

She took in a slow, shuddering breath as Juliet's words seeped into her skin, carrying a deep sense of guilt with them. As much as she wanted to denounce Juliet's observations and stand by her own, joyously declaring her undying love for her boyfriend at the top of her lungs…her mouth made no attempt to move from its crestfallen frown. It couldn't, because she knew she was wrong. 

The despondency in the blonde's vacant, blue eyes soon drew Juliet down from her soap box though. This time she approached with a gentle, almost apologetic, smile as she entwined their fingers and began rubbing circles into the back of her tanned hand with the pad of her thumb. "I just want what's best for you, Car," she quietly promised. 

"I know," Carrie murmured, mustering a grateful smile as she squeezed her hand back, as though to say a 'thank you' her mouth wasn't quite ready to commit to yet. "I'm fine, Julie, I swear," she went on to profess. But when she started to get a sneaking suspicion that the statement wasn't all that convincing, she decided to switch up her tactic. "Now can we please get back to algebra?" 

The genuine laughter that tumbled from Juliet's lips was music to Carrie's ears. "There's a sentence I never thought I'd hear you say," Juliet chuckled as she picked up her pencil again. 

"I'll do anything to get us talking about something else," Carrie admitted with a woeful chuckle of her own. "And besides, I think I've got a better chance of wrapping my head around this than anything to do with my love life at the moment."

"Boyfriends suck, huh?" Juliet snorted with a knowing smirk.

"Try all boys suck," Carrie countered with a smirk of her own, at last feeling as though some of her signature confidence was leaching back into her frame. Although the pair's giggles took a few seconds to die back down, a mischievous glint remained in Carrie's eyes before she let them glaze over in thought. Mind idly wandering down untrodden paths, a wistful sigh escaped alongside a rogue proposal. "Wouldn't it make life so much easier if we could take them out of the equation altogether?"

Carrie was too lost in thought to notice, but the words that left her mouth forced an entire systems reboot in Juliet's brain. She had to do a double take, certain that she must have misheard her, or had at least missed the joking undertone. But no, the glassy, pensive blue irises held nothing but sincerity. And that confused Juliet more than ever. Her mind whirred with possible explanations for the brainless musings that definitely didn't sound as though they came from a girl in a committed, heterosexual relationship, but before she dared to question her on any, a tanned hand, the size of a frying pan, pulled her prospective interview subject right out of her seat. 

Carrie's eyes widened as she was whisked into a pair of cotton-clad arms the size of tree trunks, hardly able to catch her breath before it was being exchanged for someone else's. A faintly stubbled smile pressed into hers several times before she fully regained her bearings and was able to catch the frying pan hand from travelling too far south of her waist. "Eric," she giggled once she finally managed to inch their lips far enough apart to mumble a greeting against his skin. A subsequent flurry of kisses kept her from elaborating any further though. It was a wonder they didn't pass out from lack of air. 

"Hi, beautiful," he eventually greeted with a smitten grin. But their lips didn't stay apart for long as the dopey quarterback seemed hellbent on keeping his coated in his girlfriend's saliva. "You have a good study hall?" he mumbled, nuzzling his nose against hers. His roaming fingers shattered any hope of his interest in her life being genuine though.

Even if Carrie had wanted to answer Eric's question, his tongue was shoved so far down her throat she couldn't get her words out. "Eric," she finally gasped, jerking her head back from his with a breathy laugh as she felt his thumb start to lift the hem of her cheerleading skirt. "You're gonna get us both detention." 

"I can't help it," he chuckled, pulling her back towards him for another seemingly endless stream of kisses. "I missed you." And whilst a stupefied grin played at his constantly interlocking lips, something didn't feel quite right with Carrie. Her kisses were lazy, almost reluctant, and whilst her body normally felt like putty between his palms, today it felt…stiff. She seemed distracted. And because Eric's head was only ever swimming with thoughts of her, this worried him. "Hey," he gently prompted, nudging her chin with his knuckle to bring her gaze up to meet his. "Everything ok?"

Carrie's breath stuck in her throat, too scared of getting caught in the crossfire of two sets of brown eyes to dare to leave. Eric's sat beneath a pair of thick, furrowed brows, marred with insecure concern, and she could feel Juliet's boring holes into the back of her skull, begging her to remember everything they’d just spoken about. Tensions were high in her usually spacious brain - thoughts flying back and forth too quickly for her to make sense of as she tried to let her conscience guide her in the right direction. And although she felt herself inching towards a blonde ponytail-bolstered confession, her conscience's valiant efforts were all for naught. Carrie's fingers found purchase in the bristly blond hairs at the nape of Eric's neck, her cheeks were dusted in the scent of spearmint and the sweaty must from his football helmet. The profound warmth of his embrace seeped into her bones, and she curled up into it like a cat in the glow of fireplace embers - helpless to resist. "Everything's great," she promised, drawn in by the comfort of familiarity. "I just missed you too."

Disappointed, but not surprised by her best friend's decision, Juliet sighed as she tore her gaze away from the stomach-churning couple and began gathering together her and Carrie's things. She'd get through to her eventually, she had faith in the pit of her steadily grumbling gut. She just needed to be patient…or to find something that could drive a wedge between them once and for all.

"Ethan!" 

The pint-size pothead almost jumped out of his skin at the barked greeting, which actually felt more like an accusation than a 'hello'. He didn't know what was more offensive, the girl's tone or the fact that she'd interrupted his concert-for-one. 

"Jesus, Mick! You scared the shit outta me!" he cried. 

Rolling her eyes, Mick let go of the headphone speaker she'd had to pry away from Ethan's ear after he'd blatantly ignored her fifth call of his name, letting it thwack the side of his head. The look on his face as he recoiled in bewilderment did have a faint smile tugging at her lips though. But it soon disappeared when he slumped back in his seat and readied himself to tune her out again. 

Moving to stand in front of his desk, Mick didn't give him a chance. "Where's Miles?" 

"What?" Ethan squeaked.

"Where's Miles?" she reiterated, crossing her arms across her chest and nodding at the empty seat beside him.

"He's talking to Carrie," he revealed with a blasé wave of his hand in the vague direction of the pair.

Even with AC/DC blasting through his headphones, Ethan swore he heard Mick's face crack.

"He's doing what now?" she demanded, flames roaring in the mahogany logs that made up her irises. 

"He's just asking her something, it's no big deal," Ethan said - although his attempts to reassure the brunette were ham-handed at best given his lazy grin and total lack of concern. 

This was further backed up by Mick's growing urge to strangle him. "Can I not trust you to do anything?" she hissed. 

"What did I do?" Ethan squawked in indignation.

"Nothing - that's the problem! All you had to do was keep his mind off her-" 

"I don't know what fucking mind-control powers you think I've got, Mick, but that was a bogus plan in the first place."

"Oh so what? You just weren't gonna go along with it at all?" Mick scoffed. "I just said to try to keep him distracted."

"And I tried, so I don't know what you're getting all pissy at me for," Ethan retorted. "What's so wrong with him talking to her anyway? I thought 'working through your feelings' was supposed to be a good thing."

Scowling at him for using her own advice against her, she snapped, "Talking to her is not helping him distance himself from her." But when her eyes scanned the room for that familiar mop of coffee brown hair, the sight it settled on made her heart drop to her collegiate green Campuses. "And neither is a run-in with Eric Brennan."

Trailing back to his seat, muttering to himself about the mystifying female mindset and what the hell all of that could have meant, Miles soon realised he wasn't looking where he was going when he collided with what felt like a wall of meat. 

"Shit, sorry," he muttered.

When he looked up and saw who it was that had almost knocked him off his feet though, he realised his assumption hadn't been too far off.

"Woah, watch it, man," Eric guffawed.

The amused twinkle in his eye, and the smirk that blossomed as soon as his gaze landed on him, made Miles' stomach twist. Something told him that this interaction wasn't going to be nearly as quick as he'd hoped. 

"Miles, right?" Eric went on to ask, eyebrow cocked in recognition. 

"Uh, yeah," Miles stammered, although he was more confused than concerned at this point. 

"Why you in such a hurry, bud? You got somewhere to be?" he continued, a charming smirk still sitting proudly on his chiselled jaw. 

"I'm just going back to my seat."

"Oh yeah?" Eric probed, steadily turning up the pressure. "And why were you out of it?"

Miles immediately regretted the exasperated huff that fell from his lips, but he couldn't help his frustration. "Why does it matter?" 

To Miles' surprise, the jock didn't snap back at his remark - there was no sign of meat-headed defensiveness at all. Instead, the guy just laughed. "It doesn't," he reassured with a jovial smile. "I just thought I'd ask 'cause, you know, from here it kind of looked like you were going over there to talk to my girlfriend." 

Any relief that jovial smile had filled Miles with steadily leaked out as Eric's words sunk in. "I was just asking her about our work schedule," he explained with a careful, albeit tight smile of his own. 

"Yeah?" Eric tested.

"...Yeah," Miles confirmed. Although he could feel his bravery slowly shrinking under the hulking weight of Eric's arched eyebrow, he stood his ground, hoping that a nonchalant tone and a set of squared shoulders was enough to convince the dopey blond.

"Oh well, that's a relief," he said with another booming guffaw. Miles' wishes were seemingly granted as the warning smirk slipped from Eric's face, replaced with a laidback grin. "There I was thinking you might have been trying to make a move on her or something."

Miles managed to eke out a chuckle, more at his own expense than anything. "I wouldn't do that, man," he promised through a freshly starched smile. "I know you're both very happy together."

Eric's shit-eating grin must have been powered by at least three AAs with the way it lit up his face. "That we are, my man," he proudly proclaimed. "And that's good to hear 'cause I know you spend a lot of time with her at the end of your shifts, and she says you two get along super well, so I'd hate to think that you were getting the wrong idea or-"

"Not at all," Miles assured, cutting the blond off before he could drive the knife any further into his chest. Fixing a plastic smile to his face to cover up the wistful sigh that escaped between his teeth, he delivered an admittedly painful, "We're just friends."

Eric's rich brown eyes seemed to scan every inch of Miles for any sign of a lie before he proceeded, and the brunet's lack of acting skills left him squirming like a worm on a hook as a result. But the satisfied grin that soon surfaced, dropping the tensed shoulders to help it rise, told Miles the quarterback probably needed an eye test. 

"Good," Eric said with a contented sigh. "'Cause you and I both know that it'd be stupid to think anything else, right?" he went on to cockily taunt. "Like, no offence, but she'd have to be fucking insane to choose you over me… Right, Miles?" 

Although his ego was severely bruised, to save his face from meeting the same fate, Miles forced himself to maintain a smile, albeit reluctantly. "Right," he confirmed.

"That's what I thought," Eric smirked, finally satisfied that Miles had taken enough of an emotional pounding if his lazy grin and affectionate arm bump was anything to go by. "Alright, nice talk, bro. I might catch you tonight if I drop by to see her, ok?"

"I'll be there," Miles verified with a strained sigh. Finally daring to drop his gaze from the sturdy blond, he made his escape without so much as a goodbye.  

Apparently Eric thought he could take a little advice on the road with him though. 

"Remember, watch yourself, Murphy," he hollered.

But the words didn't even register with Miles, because the swift shove between his shoulder blades was so jarring his entire focus was dragged to keeping himself upright. 

Miles kept his eyes trained on the scuffed linoleum as he hastily lumbered back over to his desk, cheeks burning with self-hatred as he tried to push Eric’s no doubt smirking face out of his mind. It wasn’t until he heard a familiar voice that he finally dared to lift his head again. 

“Are you ok?” Mick asked, expression overrun with an almost frantic concern. “What was that about?”

“I’m fine,” Miles brushed off, retrieving his threadbare backpack from its spot, slumped on the floor in one swoop. Haphazardly shoving the books from his desk into the main compartment, he mumbled a quick, “Can we just go?” 

But Ethan’s glassy-eyed intrigue held him firmly in place. “Yo, what happened, man? Did he bust you for flirting with her?” 

“No,” Miles sighed, wearily shaking his head at the stoner’s excitement. 

“Did you flirt with her?” he pressed. 

"No, I just- ugh," Miles huffed, quickly giving up on trying to explain the situation he didn't even fully understand himself. "It doesn't matter. Let's just go."

"I told you to just forget about her," Mick sighed. 

"Yeah, well, that's a lot easier said than done, Mick," Miles retorted, returning her disapproving frown with a defensive one of his own. 

"Did you at least get some closure?" Ethan offered as he rose from his desk - partly from curiosity, partly to try to prove a point to Mick. 

Whilst Miles' tongue instinctively prepared to shoot Ethan's optimism down, his brain jumped in to tell it to hold fire. And after a few, brief seconds recalling the interaction, his answer soon changed. "Actually, I kind of did," he admitted with a chuckle of incredulity. 

"You gonna try to talk about it more with her tonight then?" Ethan asked, smirking to himself at Mick's look of disbelief. 

"Fuck no," Miles snorted with a nonchalance that took both of his friends by surprise. "I just want to forget it ever happened- just…move on."

"From her?" Mick asked, trying to hide the hopeful edge in her tone with a gentle smile.

Sparing the blonde in question one last glance over his shoulder, only to catch the tail end of her and Eric getting pulled up for their excessive PDA by their (up until now) entirely uninterested study hall supervisor, he let out a wistful sigh. A chorus of voices swelled in his head - Mick's, Ethan's, Carrie's, Eric's - each one telling a different side to the same story. He couldn't have picked one to listen to if he'd tried. So, in the end, his own took over, steering his heart down a path that promised the least damage in the long term, and that Carrie's indifferent dismissal of him had already forged in his mind. "...That's the goal."

[claratwelve]

okay i just finished watching the last 2023 special and i just have absolutely no idea how i should feel about that ending

[infinitethree]

OOC::

I'm saving the explicit reveal of what the pattern of the floor looks like for later.

That's because it looks like this (w/ a smaller 5-block star hidden under the table)

Aster has not yet clocked that it's a fucking star, nor is aware that Daz is gonna name their group The Council of the Star.

He's saving that for when he can give Aster a metaphorical gut punch/overrule his inevitable objections about it. He is sooooo normal and reasonable you guys, this is certifiably sane behavior <3 <3 <3

[imagines-for-the-fangirls-soul]

The Prince - Chapter Ten

A/N: Hello! I apologize that this is late, I meant to post last night but then I facetimed by bestie for 4 hours and got drunk. ANYWAYS, I present to you the final chapter of The Prince. Thank you so much for all your love and support on this story! I hope you enjoy this finale <3

Pairing: Jacaerys Velaryon x Reader Word Count: 4.6k Synopsis: Finally, we see the end of Jace and the reader's story.

Warnings: smut

Previous Chapter

Rhaenyra is understandably furious when Jace comes to see her the next morning. He had not wanted to leave you for long, so all he told her was a quick summary of the events in your room. She had wanted to rage, had wanted to know exactly everything that happened, wanted to see the proof for herself, but when he asked to postpone the meeting, she read the look in his eyes. It was fear. It was fading, but it was still there. Fear for you, fear for himself, fear that everything he had wanted was slipping through his fingers.

So she had let him leave, let him go to you, as long as he promised to find her first thing in the morning. Her rage had not abated in the night.

“If I could kill him again, I would,” she says, looking at the, thankfully, light bruising along his neck. Jace pulls back from her, not wanting the attention the bruises now gave him.

“Did you send word to the Iron Islands?” he asks.

“I sent a raven last night to his brother, the Lord Blacktyde."

“What does this mean for our standing?” he asks. Last night, besides his thoughts of dread that he almost lost you, he was also plagued by what the realm would think. Their position was still so new, to have an attack on his life so soon—

“The only thing the realm will know is that Lord Blacktyde attacked Y/N and the two of you fought him off,” Rhaenyra says.

“The two of us," Jace says softly. He brings his eyes to his mother's. She watches him delicately, like he might break with just a touch. "I'm fine, Mother," he says. She nods.

"I know."

"It looks worse than it is," he says. He wishes he could pull the collar of his doublet up, just to block them from her sight, and yours. Your eyes had been on the bruises all night long. "What of Y/N and I?” he asks. Rhaenyra smiles, her earlier rage ebbing away.

“Y/N saved your life, do you think I would deny her anything?”

“I was not sure,” he says, his smile spreading.

“I think it’s clear the two of you would do anything to stay together. I won’t get in the way. Before last evening, I had a few doubts, but after what Y/N did for you, and speaking with Baela, I trust this is the right decision."

"Baela?" he asks, furrowing his brow. "What did she say?"

“She seems excited about finding a new prospect,” she says. "Or a few."

"She does."

"You both have found happiness, and that is all I've ever wanted."

“Thank you,” Jace says, taking his mother’s hand with a smile. He feels more at ease, knowing that the events of last night only solidified your love.

The cool air of the gardens heals some of the pain inside of you. Of course, your hand still throbs after the maester had to redo your stitches. You are sore all over and have an angry bruise on your cheekbone, but amongst the flowers and the breeze, you feel light. The nightmare you lived in for years is over.

It doesn't feel real. Even after you went to your chambers this morning, looking down at the wet area the maids had scrubbed clean of Barun's blood, you still felt like you were dreaming. That you'd wake up and he would be waiting for you still.

You had woken up a few times in the night, startled from the dreams playing in your head. Jace had been there. His voice was still strained, but he said soothing words and held you close. He was the reason you could believe that it was over, that it would get easier.

He sent word for you to meet him in the gardens, but as you lap around the outer edge again, you still don’t see him. When you stop, its by the door you skipped out of months ago, to hide from your date.

Smiling, you realize where Jace is. You walk to the alcove with the fountain, the place where Jace first confessed his feelings for you. He is pacing beside the fountain when you walk up.

"Are you hiding from me?" you ask, jostling him from his thoughts.

"Never from you," he says, wrapping an arm around your waist. He left early in the morning, and he hadn't seen you until now. His eyes flit to the bruise along your cheek. It seems to only be getting darker as the day progresses.

"Jace," you say gently. His thumb brushes over the mark.

"He didn't suffer enough."

"It doesn't matter," you say with a shake of your head. "He's gone, and he does not deserve our remembrance." Against your better judgement, you look to the bruises along Jace's neck. Yours is darker, but his take up too much space on his beautiful neck.

"Y/N," he says, seeing the sadness in your eyes.

"I'm sorry, Jace. He never should have even come close to you."

"You never have to apologize for what happened."

"He hurt you."

"He hurt you, too," he says, a hand to your chin so your eyes meet his brown ones. "If this is the mark I must bear, so that he is out of your life, I'll wear them with pride."

"I don't deserve you," you say, a hand to his chest, your eyes starting to water.

"Of course you do," he says. You lean in to kiss his jawline once, twice. Jace is smiling softly when your lips meet his. The hand on your back tightens, holding you flush to him. When you pull back, Jace has a strange look on his face.

"What is it?" you ask.

"Do you remember the first time we came here?"

"Of course."

"You almost kissed me," he says, a shy smile growing on his face.

"That was a recurring pattern in our history, yes," you say. "But seems like we're past that." He smiles as he leans in again, his hand fisting in your hair, kissing your lips. He deepens it, backing you up until your legs rest against the fountain.

"Jace," you say, breaking away as he continues to kiss your face. You laugh when you say his name again. He breaks away, the smile still on his face.

"Sorry, just being back here reminds me of the last time, how much I wanted to kiss you back then," he says. "Sometimes, I can't believe this is real, that you love me back." You are smiling softly as you take his hand and kiss it gently.

"I know what you mean," you say. "It doesn't seem real. It's easier when I wake up next to you. Then I have the proof I'm not dreaming. I don't want to return to my chambers tonight."

"You don't have to," he says, squeezing your hand.

"It's not just the room," you say, "It's not being with you."

"I know, which is why I'm moving you into my chambers permanently."

"Jace, the message that would send--"

"What's wrong with a woman sharing the same room as her husband?" he asks. Confusion passes over your face for a moment, but quickly changes to amazement.

"What?" you choke out, the building emotions keeping you from saying much else. You need him to say it clearly, though.

"My mother has assured me that her blessing still stands. We can marry."

"Truly?" you ask.

"Yes," he says, pulling you close. "Doesn't this make you happy?" He studies your face.

"Oh, it absolutely terrifies me," you say with a laugh. "But it also makes me incredibly happy." He beams at you.

"You have nothing to be afraid of. Not when I'm at your side."

"I love you," you say, a hand to his face.

"I love you."

When he kisses you again, your arms wrap around his neck, and neither of you break away for a long while.

The wedding has been pushed until the bride and groom no longer have bruises marring their skin. The decision was also made that your wedding would be a private event. Although there would soon be a time when you would have to face the realm as princess, you want to stay in your bubble with Jace for as long as possible.

It's a lovely bubble to be in, too. To wake up next to him every morning, to learn more about him, to get to bask in his love and not hide away; you don't take it for granted for a second.

However, as the wedding approaches, the bubble gets closer to popping. You will only have five days of officially being his wife before you have to be presented as his princess.

Jace tries to keep your mind off of it, tries to keep you in the bubble. Still though, your anxious thoughts cloud your happiness.

Laying in bed now, you stare at the ceiling, imagining everything that can go wrong.

"What if they don't like me?" you ask aloud. Jace pushes out of the folds of your dress, wiping at his mouth.

“Why wouldn’t they like you?” he asks on a pant.

“Because I’m not what they expected, because our betrothal came out of nowhere.”

“No, it didn’t.”

“To the realm, it will appear so.”

“Y/N,” Jace say with a sigh, his hand tracing a soft pattern on your ankle. “They are going to love you because you will make a great queen. You are kind, smart, and not afraid to fight for the future of the realm.” He kisses your thigh and smiles. “Not to mention, you are so gods-damn beautiful, just a glance at you will have them bending the knee.”

“You exaggerate,” you say.

"I do not."

"You do," you say, "But I love you, still."

“I love you,” he says. “Now please, stop worrying and let me focus on what I was doing.”

“Yes, My Prince,” you say with a smile. You lay back as Jace’s lips meet your center, and this time, you let his mouth distract you from your worries.

Jace has never been happier. Watching you dance with his brother, he can't help the smile on his face. He hasn't been able to all day. From the moment he awoke, to when he finally saw you in your wedding dress, to the celebration now: his smile never fades.

The moment the song ends, he moves towards you, taking you from Joffrey's arms.

"Oh, hello," you say with a grin, falling into step with him.

"Hello," he says with a matching one.

"Joff and I barely finished our dance," you say.

"I didn't want to be apart from you any longer."

"Well I can understand that," you say. He kisses your lips easily.

"I'm so glad I can do that in front of everyone now."

"Me too."

"How does it feel?" he asks.

"Still so strange. Like I'm in the wrong shoes," you say. He shakes his head at you.

"There's something I've wanted to tell you," he says, "And I'm sorry it's on our wedding night, but I need you to know." You look at him nervously. "You've always been worthy. You didn't have to kill Barun and save me, you just had to be you."

You are silent for a moment, tears watering in your eyes. Your fingers are in his curls, playing carefully with them.

"I love you," you say.

"I love you."

"Brigitta," Jace says, his voice sensuously soft. "You are not needed for the night. I can help the princess undress." You look at him through the mirror in your bedroom, a sudden chill racing over your shoulders.

"Very well, Your Highnesses."

Jace doesn't even wait until she's left to come up behind you. His hand snakes around your waist, pressing his body into yours. He makes a sound low in his throat.

"I don't know if I will ever get used to that," you say, leaning your head back on his shoulder. He kisses your neck softly.

"Used to what?" he asks against your skin. His hands trail over your body, like it's the first time they've ever touched you.

"Being called princess," you say breathlessly. Jace's mouth closes on your neck, sucking gently.

"Why?" he asks. His hands move up to cup your breasts. He seems set on distracting you from speaking. He kneads them softly, eliciting a soft moan from you.

"Because I am not--"

"If you say anything about not being worthy," he says, breathless as he continues to feel your body, biting at your earlobe. "I will stop touching you."

"You can't comfort your new bride?" you ask, squirming against his body, the growing pressure there.

"I will do a lot to her," he whispers gruffly in your ear, "But pity her I will not." You grab at his hands, holding him still.

"Jace."

"Fucking look at you, Y/N," he says, meeting your gaze in the mirror. "You were meant to wear these clothes, this crown, this ring." He emphasizes his statement by squeezing your left hand.

"I was meant to wear this dress?" you ask. Jace grins.

"Not for much longer." His hand is gentle as it brushes your hair over your shoulder. Carefully, he pulls at the laces along your back. He moves agonizingly slow. Each time his fingers touch your bare skin, you shudder, until you are covered in goosebumps. Jace laughs against your skin.

"I love you," he says simply, then he lets your dress drop. "Princess."

"Jace," you start, but he cuts you off by turning you around, facing him.

"You better get used to it," he says. "There's no backing out now."

"I don't intend to."

"Good," he says, closing the gap between the two of you. He moves slowly, like he did your first night together. A hand in your hair, he explores your mouth easily. Your hands are on his chest, fiddling with the clasp of his cape. When it falls, it clatters to the ground. Jace pulls back from you with a soft laugh.

"Thank you, Princess."

"Stop that," you say, pulling him in for a quick kiss.

"Not until you're used to it," he says firmly. You loosen the ties at his side and he quickly tosses his doublet aside.

"This one, too," you say, a finger to the loose shirt he wears underneath.

"Yes, Princess," he says with a smirk. "I like when you tell me what to do." His shirt lands in a pile with your dress. His hand cups your cheek as he smiles at you, at your annoyance.

"I'm used to it now," you say, wrapping your arms around him. "You can stop now."

"It is so enjoyable though, Pri--" Your lips meet his, cutting him off. You want none of his slowness tonight. He can taste your need as your tongue slips into his mouth. He hums, bracing a hand on the back of your head to keep you close. The bed seems leagues away as he guides you towards it.

"Y/N," he says in breathless awe, watching your body as you sit on the bed. "You're my wife, my princess." A look passes over his face you know all too well.

"I know," you say, sitting up on your knees, so you are level with him once more. "Now, get up here and fuck your wife." He wraps warm hands around your waist. He speaks against your lips.

"My Princess." He crashes down on top of you, kissing you fiercely. You groan into his mouth, partially because of what he's doing, and partially because of what he called you.

He breaks for breath first, his mouth pink and smiling as he looks down at you. His arms bracket your face. You lean to the side and softly kiss his left hand.

"What is it?" you ask when he keeps looking at you.

"I can't decide between taking my time with you, or taking you roughly." He laughs at the whimper you make. "Slow it is."

"Jace," you say, gasping as his lips meet yours. He bites at your lower lip, eliciting another sound from you. His mouth moves down the length of your neck, leaving slow kisses in his wake.

He says your name, calls you princess, and tells you how beautiful you are, the entire way down your body. He stops at your hip, smirking at the face you pull.

"Y/N," he says lowly, smiling when your body jerks as he slide a fingers a finger through the wet warmth between your legs.

"Yes, My Prince?" you ask. He laughs.

"See, it's not so strange," he says. He adds another finger, both of them deliciously close to your clit, but never fully touching it.

"You were born into the name," you say breathlessly.

"So what?" His fingers slide inside of you. You moan, reaching for him. He holds your hand with his other.. You grip his hand as he pumps slowly. He kisses your inner thigh, slowly, slowly, moving his mouth to your center.

"Jace," you whine.

"Yes?"

"I--" His thumb finally grazes over your clit and you cry out.

"Tell me what you need, Princess." You roll your eyes, but it only makes him work his fingers harder. "Tell me."

"I need your mouth or your cock," you pant. Jace doesn't respond. The moment the words are out of your mouth, his is on your center. His touch is everything you want, and your body thrusts into him. You have devolved to a string of moans, swears, and gasps.

"You taste so good, Princess," he says against your skin. You can't even be annoyed, because when he's between your legs, whispering sweet nothings, it doesn't sound so strange.

"Jace," you cry out, when finally, the building pressure breaks in waves of pleasure. He rides you through it as always, a smile on his face when his fingers slide out of you. He moves up to your lips, kissing them sloppily.

"I'm never going to get tired of hearing my name on your lips," he says.

"I should just go back to calling you My Prince," you say. Your hand moves down to his trousers, working him through the fabric. His eyes flutter at your touch, and his intake of breath is near intoxicating.

"It means something entirely different now," he says, kicking his trousers off. When you touch him, the sound he makes has you smiling.

"You are My Prince," you say, kissing his lips slowly. Jace moans into your mouth.

"I need to be inside of you now," he says. You smile, nodding your head as you kiss him. You release your hand from his cock and he groans.

"So needy," you say, shifting on the bed, pushing him back until his back is against the headboard.

"Can you blame me, Princess?" he asks. You are shaking your head as you straddle his lap. Jace's hands are still greedy, grabbing at you anywhere they can touch. When you align his cock with your folds, his eyes are blown wide, filled with lust and love.

"I love you," you say.

"I love y--" He breathes in sharply as you slip him inside of you. He moans your name, and pulls your chest to his.

"Princess," he says breathlessly as you rock against him. Your arms are around his neck, giving him a view of your annoyed look.

"Stop with that," you say. He grips your hips, moving your body on his.

"I can't."

"I call you Jace, why can't you do the same?" You gasp when he shifts his angle slightly.

"Because you're finally my princess," he says, his breathing growing heavier.

"It's irksome," you say. His lips smile against your neck.

"I'm sorry, princess."

"Jace," you groan, grinding into him until he does, too.

"Let me do it, just tonight," he pants, "I want you to hear how beautiful it sounds." You don't respond, you just grab his face and kiss him. He holds your hips and drives your body against his. You are both quickly approaching your release, and Jace continues to moan 'Princess' into your ear. Per his request, you don't fight him on it. The more he says it, the less it seems ill-suited.

When he finally loses control and finishes inside of you, though, it is your name on his lips.

For a few moments, you are both silent, the room filled with only your breaths. You climb off of him, lying down at his side.

"So?" he asks.

"I could get used to it, I think. But only from your lips."

"That's a start," he says, leaning down to kiss you.

You stand along the balcony surrounding the ballroom, looking down at the throngs of people. The sight is beautiful. Ladies' ballgowns sparkle in the candlelight. Raucous laughter fills the room as wine is passed around.

The fact that all of this is for you feels incredibly wrong.

Just six days ago you were a title-less woman from the Vale, awaiting for you a life of nursemaiding, or marriage to a brute. It feels strange that now, you have what you have always dreamed about. What every young girl has dreamed about once in their life. You were married to a handsome prince. You were a princess. The rest of your life would be nothing but luxuries, and the juxtaposition is still jarring.

And somewhere, still inside of you, you felt as though you don't deserve it. That the life that had been laid out for you was the one you deserved. Your husband said otherwise, but in quiet moments like this, you feel out of place, like you don’t belong.

“Have I ever told you how beautiful you look in red?”

You startle at Jace’s voice. He walks to your side, laughing softly. He is dressed in his finest, as well. The doublet he wears clings to his chest in ways that have you thinking about leaving the party altogether.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” he says. He leans up against the banister rail, surveying the crowd with you for a quiet moment.

“What are you doing up here, Y/N?” he asks.

“Just making a plan of attack,” you say with a smirk, resting your hand on the railing. The wedding ring on your finger sparkles in the light.

“They’re going to absolutely love you.”

“Untrue. Do you know how many of these men I left in the garden or lied to about a cousin needing my help?” you ask. Jace laughs, shaking his head.

“I think they’ll get over it. Besides, you’ll be queen one day. Whatever bad feelings they may have about you, they’ll put them aside to earn your favor,” he says. Your jaw tightens, reality washing over you that this is to be your life now.

“Y/N,” Jace says, standing upright and taking your hands. He turns over the right palm, looking at the scar there. He frowns and rubs it softly with his own thumb. “You are one of the strongest people I know. You can handle anything this court wields at you.”

“I’m not so sure,” you say quietly.

“I am,” he says. “I’m your husband now, Y/N, you should trust me.”

“I do,” you say, stepping closer to him slightly, meeting his eyes.

“Then trust when I say you’ve got this. And,” he says, squeezing your hand softly, “If we do hate it, we can always return to Dragonstone.”

“I don’t want to run,” you say, glancing out at the crowd. “Just hide.” Jace laughs.

“They’re going to love you, just as much as I do,” he says. He puts a hand to your cheek, making you look into his brown eyes. “In that dress, how could they not?” he asks. You are smiling when he leans in to kiss you.

His hand trails down your back, squeezing your backside playfully. You laugh into his kiss, opening it up with your tongue. Jace backs the two of you out of the light, up against a pillar in the shadow. His mouth claims yours, his hands greedy on your body.

“And just think,” he says, breaking away breathlessly, “If the party gets unbearable, we can always sneak off to do this.”

“Why go to the party at all?” you ask, pulling him back to your mouth with a hand in his curls. He laughs, but you know he won’t let the two of you stay like this for long.

“Come on,” he says when he pulls away. “I want to show off my princess.”

He leads you downstairs, just outside the banquet hall. For another few minutes, you keep him occupied with your lips on his, but then he breaks off.

"I'll announce you in a few minutes," he says, squeezing your hand.

"Dragonstone is always an option?" you ask. He smiles.

"Yes, but you won't need it."

"I love you," you say.

"I love you," he says. You cling to his words, gaining courage from them. He slips into the low murmurs of the crowd, leaving you alone. You hope he will be quick, because you aren't sure how long your courage will hold.

"Your Highness." The voice startles you, and when you turn to see Baela, your heart beat doesn't slow. "I'm sorry, I didn't meant to scare you."

"No, no, that's quite alright."

"What are you doing out here?" she asks with a smile. You haven't seen her since the wedding, and before then it was only in passing, or in large groups.

"Jace is going to formally present me," you say. Baela looks at you strangely.

"You're not used to it yet, are you? The title?"

"Not at all," you say with a laugh. Baela does, too, and it makes you relax a little.

"It'll take some time," she says sagely. You nod.

For a moment, it looks like she might leave, but you will hate yourself if you don't say what you must.

"Baela, Your Highness," you say, "We haven't talked very much since everything changed."

"Y/N," she says, smiling as she steps closer. "I want to talk to you, too."

"You do?"

"I know we haven't gotten to know each other, even before . . . everything happened," she says. You look down at your feet. "But I want you to know I'm happy for you. You make Jace so happy. I couldn't ask for anything better."

"Thank you," you say, your voice thick with emotion. "And I just have to say I'm sorry, for taking this from you." She gives you an easy smile.

"Do not worry for me," she says. "This change has given me a freedom I didn't know I could ever have. You have given me that."

"I'm glad for it. And glad for you," you say. "Jace is lucky to call you a friend."

"Thank you, Your Highness. Good luck, tonight. It will go quickly, I think."

"I hope so," you say. She gives you a smile as she enters the ballroom, too.

You stand still for a few minutes, a weight lifted off your shoulders you thought might never be. Knowing that Baela holds no anger for you, makes you believe that the rest might come easily, too.

When a guard waves you towards the door, you are ready. Your husband is on the other side, your family is on the other side. When the doors open and you hear Jace's voice, you let out a sigh of relief.

“Please allow me to introduce my bride, Princess Y/N Velaryon.”

[flowerandblood]

The Lost Haven (4/16)

[ modern mafia • Aemond x niece • female ]

[ warnings: uprotected sex, drunk sex (with consent), incest obviously, smut, fingering, the angst, suicidal thoughts, description of cruel physical violence, bad, bad things ]

[ description: The vacation from eight years ago still haunts his memories and doesn't let him forget what happened between him and his niece, the daughter of his sister and Harwin Strong. Their paths separate and he immerses himself in his father's mafia world until the day she calls him for the first time since those events. Sexual tension, dark, dangerous, withdrawn, thirsty Aemond. ]

Author’s note: As promised, this is another, this time official modern version of The Fall from the Heavens. In this version, Daemon is not related to the family, but is simply Rhaenyra's husband and the leader of the second gang, Alys and Larys are also not related to each other, but Larys is Harwin's brother. I will partly refer to the original series, hiding some easter eggs, and some will be a completely new, fresh plot. As in every universe, only Aemond calls her Rhaenys and this is not her real name (she is unnamed character and the others also do not know that he calls her that). There will be a lot more brutality and angst in this version, so watch out. You can read this as a standalone story. Song used in this chapter: Every Breath You Take by The Police

Series & Characters Moodboard Aemond & Rhaenys Moodboard

* English is not my first language. Please, do not repost. Enjoy! *

Next chapters: Masterlist

_____

Over the next few days, Daemon tried to get out of her what had happened and who had put the rape pill into her drink. To his fury, she lied that some guy she didn't know had done it, afraid of what would happen if her stepfather declared war on Larys Strong.

She figured this man wanted just that.

Chaos that he would be able to cash in on, using what was happening to destroy them.

"I do not comprehend you. From now on, I or your mother will be dropping you off and bringing you back from your classes at the University. No meeting friends or going out until you come to your senses." He communicated to her coldly and she replied nothing, not having the strength to stand up to him.

It wouldn't do any good anyway.

Although she should have been worried and terrified, she felt a strange kind of excitement and tension because her uncle, whom she hadn't seen for eight years, had really taken her out of there.

He had really helped her.

She closed her eyes, remembering the touch of his warm, broad hand on hers and his voice, so different from his childish one, deep and low.

Her heart beat harder at that memory, a pleasant, familiar warmth rippling through her lower abdomen.

She felt she had to write him something and after hours of thought she simply wrote the usual thank you. She couldn't stop the feeling of disappointment that spread through her body when he didn't write her back, even though she checked her phone once in a while.

For some reason, she had naively believed that something would now change between them, that she would regain contact with him, that his person would return to her life making her able to finally close this difficult chapter of her past.

However, he remained silent, exactly as he had done for eight years.

She thought it would stay that way until it turned out that her grandfather was organising his sixtieth birthday party with pomp and her whole family was to attend.

"No." She heard Daemon's voice standing in the corridor, overhearing in silence their conversation which he was having with her mother in his office. "There's no way I'm shaking that whore's hand."

"Daemon. My father is dying. You can only show up for a little while and then lock yourself in a hotel room. None of us like it, but I don't want to say no to a man who may not be among the living tomorrow."

Although no one seemed to be happy about it, they were all going to travel there and with each day approaching the event, she was panicking more and more.

She was going to see him for the first time in eight years.

He had no Facebook, Instagram or any other social media accounts: she had no idea what kind of person he was now, what he looked like.

She was afraid that seeing him would make her feel disappointed, that something inside her would finally snap, that the thought that all was lost would make her fall into a state she would never get out of again.

In addition, no one but her knew about what Larys Strong had told her.

Otto Hightower had ordered the murder of your father.

How was she supposed to look that man in the eye?

How was she supposed to look her uncle in the eye knowing he worked for him?

Driving there in their big, black Mercedes she felt like she was about to throw up, her heart pounding like crazy, making her head spin.

"Are you all right? You're pale. I don't want to go there either." Said Jace, glancing at her over his shoulder from the front passenger seat.

Daemon, who had been driving while her mother, following behind them drove the other car, looked at her in the reflection of his mirror, throwing her a piercing, menacing look.

He knew she was hiding something, he could feel it, and the tension between them grew more and more.

When they arrived, they were all searched: no guns were allowed inside.

This was to give the guests some sort of sense of security.

As they walked into the great hall, she was overwhelmed on the one hand by how many people were there, but on the other she was glad to disappear into the crowd. She felt her heart stop for a moment when she spotted Aegon talking to his mother – his blonde hair was pulled back, his jacket carelessly thrown over his shirt, sunglasses on his head.

She spotted Viserys sitting next to him, she spotted Helaena, she even spotted Otto measuring her with a focused gaze, but she didn't see him anywhere.

She felt a wave of disappointment at the thought that he would not come.

As they sat in their seats, searching for their name cards, she felt she was on the verge of crying.

He won't come because of her.

He would never forgive her.

They were served starters and drink, the loud music and the conversations of the people around her made her feel like she was at a wedding, only the guests were individuals she wanted nothing to do with.

She saw how tense Daemon was, looking around the room impatiently, throwing Otto Higtower a warning glance once in a while.

She saw out of the corner of her eye that someone had entered the room and froze, recognising him instantly – he was looking at her, his healthy eye wide open, his nostrils quivering with each of his deep, anxious breaths.

She was taken aback by how tall he was, how drawn and sharply defined his jaw and nose were, his pale, long scar running from his eyebrow arch to his cheek.

He was dressed all in black, in a leather jacket and turtleneck tucked into belted trousers, his short hair, although visibly styled in a hurry, looked elegant.

She wanted to get up, to approach him, to thank him for everything he had done, but as she rose from her seat he immediately turned his head away, something akin to disgust flashed across his face, from which she felt a squeeze in her gut.

She watched, feeling like an idiot as he took his seat next to Aegon and turned tense, thinking that she needed to get out of this place as soon as possible.

She walked out into the garden and headed towards the pier, wanting to be alone – she felt like her heart was about to leap out of her chest, burning tears squeezed under her eyelids, wanting to run down her face.

He couldn't even look at her.

He just pretended not to see her.

She couldn't say why it hurt her so much, why she couldn't let him go when he wanted it so badly: she felt there were years of unsaid words between them, wrongs that had never been made up for.

There had been no apology or explanation from anyone's lips, nothing to help her get back on the right track.

She sat on the wooden platform, staring dully into the black surface of the water, thinking about how it looked in the starlight as if it were some disgusting, dark, dangerous thick mass.

She had a feeling that if she jumped into it she would be all sticky.

She shuddered as she heard someone's footsteps, convinced for some reason that it was Daemon who had come out after her, unable to bear sitting with all these people alone. As she turned over her shoulder she froze, noticing him and stood up quickly, terrified by his gaze, piercing and cold, his eye wide open.

Her heart pounded like mad, her breath heavy in her chest as she watched him pull a packet of cigarettes and a lighter from his jacket pocket, his gaze fixed on her face.

"− what were you doing there? −" He asked finally.

She shuddered to hear that his voice was exactly like the one in her dream: cold, deep and low. She swallowed hard, overwhelmed by how close he stood to her, that he had come to her, that he smelled of some intense, masculine perfume.

"− what do you mean? −" She choked out with difficulty, unable to take her eyes off his face.

He took his time answering − he leaned with the cigarette between his full lips over the flame, its tip lit red and hissed as he took a drag.

"− what were you doing in that club −" He hummed. "− looking for a new experiences? −"

Something in the way he said it, mocking and amused, made her feel discomfort and pain in her chest. She furrowed her eyebrows, unsure of what she should answer to such a brazenly asked question, surprised by his directness.

His lips tightened in displeasure, something in his gaze changed – she had the impression that his iris had turned completely black as he puffed out smoke with his mouth, the smell of tobacco filling her lungs.

"− I don't like to ask twice −" He said coolly, making an unpleasant shiver pass along her back. She swallowed loudly feeling that her whole body tensed, ready to run away.

There was something about him that she feared, as if he wasn't fully human.

You don't even know what monsters lurk in the shadows.

"− I wanted to find out how my father died −" She said finally, wanting to see how he would react to her words.

To her surprise, he burst out laughing, however, it was a downright chilling sound that had nothing to do with genuine amusement. He tapped his finger on his cigarette, causing ash to fly to the ground.

"− and what did you find out? −"

She looked at him with big eyes feeling her heart in her throat, wondering if she should tell him, if she should confront him.

Will he kill her for what she says?

Will he hurt her family?

Despite the questions in her head, it seemed to her that her words had left her mouth without participation of her will.

"− that your grandfather killed him −"

He stared at her for a moment, surprised, his hand frozen in mid-motion to his mouth as he laughed again – this time it sounded like a low chuckle.

"− who told you that? − Larys Strong? − was he the one who dragged you there? −" He sneered making her feel a cold sweat run down her back.

How did he know?

Seeing the look on her face he grinned in a way from which she felt a shiver sweep through her − her breath caught in her throat as he took a few steps towards her, towering over her with an expression on his face from which she could read nothing, taking a drag on the remnants of his cigarette.

"− it was Larys who reported him − after the death of his father and brother, all the fortune fell to him − my grandfather just passively looked on −"

She felt as if he had stabbed her in the heart with his words − the real pain in her chest made her open her mouth wide, her eyes filled with tears of horror.

Larys had used her like a silly little girl.

He had planned everything.

"− did you know about this? −" She muttered, for some reason wanting to believe he had nothing to do with it.

The smile disappeared from his face, as if her question had frustrated him.

"− everyone knew −" He replied. "− he passed sentence on himself when he started talking with the police − his days were numbered anyway −"

His answer made her simply move ahead, bursting into a sudden, hysterical sob, as if everything she had held inside her for the past days, months, years, had poured out of her like a dark, viscous, thick wave that could not be stopped.

Everyone knew.

She sighed and squealed when she felt his wide hand clamp down aggressively on her arm like steel tongs, turning her violently back towards him, causing her pain. She tried to push him away, panting and whimpering, something about his movements, his brutality, the ache he was causing her gave her pleasure.

Some part of her felt she deserved it.

Some part of her wanted him to kill her, to strangle her with his own hands.

She sobbed when his hand tightened on her hot cheeks, wet and red from the tears that flowed down her face, forcing her to look at him − his wide-open eye seemed completely black to her, his lips parted in a heavy, drawn-out breath swollen with excitement and rage.

He was so obscenely close, watching her as if she were some pretty, interesting, expensive object, the smell of his perfume, his sweat and his cigarettes made her dizzy, everything around them seemed blurry to her.

"− don't you miss your favourite uncle anymore? − hm? −" He breathed out at last, his words on the verge of a hiss, his face so close that the tips of their noses rubbed against each other once in a while.

There was a kind of desperation and helplessness in what he was doing, in his words, in his gaze fixed lustfully on her lips, as if he wanted to bite her.

The person in front of her had killed the boy she loved and she knew it perfectly well.

"− I don't recognise you − God, I don't recognise you −" She mumbled at last, feeling the warm tears of grief run down her cheeks.

She closed her eyes, thinking that he could do whatever he wanted to her − strangle her or throw her in the water – she would let him do anything as long as she finally stopped feeling anything.

She squealed in pain as his fingers dug into her tender skin as hard as if he wanted to break her jaw − he took a loud breath through his mouth and shuddered as if something in her words had broken him.

"− good − because I don't fucking recognise myself either −" He hissed out in a trembling, dispassionate voice full of pain from which she felt hot in her heart.

A quiet sigh escaped her lips as his forehead pressed against hers, accepting at last that his brutality stemmed from a need for closeness, a need to take by force what he was sure she would never give him of her own free will.

Something in his words and in his gesture of despair made her hands, clenched until now on his jacket, rise higher, to his neck and to his face, running slowly over his jawline. He sighed and shuddered, feeling it, closing his eyes for a moment, the grip of his fingers on her cheeks easing.

She felt her nipples harden under the material of her dress, felt the space between her thighs swell and pulsate at the thought of what she wanted to do.

The moan that involuntarily escaped his throat when her fleshy, moist lips ran over his sounded sweet and innocent, the lick of his tongue that was his response made them cling to each other in a violent, loud, sticky kiss.

It had nothing to do with a gentle caress because it seemed to her that they were simply trying to devour each other − their hands clamped down on each other's bodies as if they wanted to merge into one, their slick tongues meeting again and again between their teeth, licking and teasing each other with loud clicks of their saliva, stripping this act of any sense of innocence.

They knew it was wrong and that's why they wanted it so badly, so when his fingers tightened on her plump buttocks, pressing her against the throbbing bulge in his trousers, she felt her sticky wetness run down her thigh, her hands clenched on his hair, letting him know he could take what he wanted.

"− it's your fault − it's your fault −" He panted into her mouth between deep, passionate, messy, hot kisses, his lips beneath hers swollen and wonderfully wet – he tasted of mint chewing gum and cigarettes, something forbidden, strange, terrifying.

He was a monster, and she wanted him to devour her.

There was no longer a lamp to light for her.

"− mghm −" She mumbled as she felt his hips begin to roll back and forth, rubbing deliberately against her lower abdomen, his tongue thrusting again and again deep into her throat, telling her that he could fuck her, he could destroy her, he could take everything from her, and she felt a wonderful heat in her lower abdomen at the thought.

She wanted him to do this to her.

She wanted to know what it would be like to feel him there, deep inside her.

What it was like to have someone devour you with every thrust of his hips, every loud sigh of desire that was wrong in itself, what it was like to experience fulfilment on the brink of revelation.

"− are you sure you saw her here? −" She heard Daemon's voice and froze, pulling away from him instantly.

They looked at each other with big eyes, pale and terrified, panting hard and quivering as if they didn't recognise each other.

Oh God, oh God, oh my fucking God!

"− I'm here − I'm coming −" She called out in a trembling voice and ran towards them, towards the light, seeing the silhouettes of her step-father and her brother standing just inside the entrance where two evening lamps were lit.

Back to the light, back to the light, back to the light.

Oh God, oh God, oh God.

Daemon furrowed his brow as he looked at her, his gaze fleeing to the side, far away to the silhouette of her uncle standing in the distance.

"Did he do something to you?" He asked coldly.

"N-no. No, I just thanked him for what he did for me. Let's go inside." She lied, stepping back into the hall, struck immediately by the loud music, Every Breath You Take was playing all around her, dancing pairs of businessmen, gangsters and drug dealers made her feel like she was about to vomit.

Oh, can't you see You belong to me? How my poor heart aches With every step you take?

"Mum, excuse me, will you show me what room I'm going to sleep in? I feel bad." She muttered with difficulty feeling like she was suffocating, her heart pounding like mad.

His tongue deep in her throat, his heavy breath smelling of cigarettes and mint, his swollen lips pressed against hers as if he had been dreaming of this moment for years.

This is your fault.

Rhaenyra stroked her shoulder, worried, and rose from her seat.

"Are you sure? There will be birthday cake and wishing soon." She said softly, but she shook her head, the words of the song echoing around her had her on the verge of crying.

Since you've gone, I've been lost without a trace I dream at night, I can only see your face I look around, but it's you I can't replace I feel so cold, and I long for your embrace I keep crying, baby, baby please

"I can't make it." She whispered.

She and her mother went to get her backpack with her things from their car, and then they walked to the hotel part of the manor − the lady at the reception gave them the right key, and her mother escorted her to her room wanting to make sure she could manage.

"Do you need anything? Shall I give you some pills for a stomach ache?" She asked, but she shook her head quickly, opening the door with her card.

"No, thank you. And I'm sorry. Have a good night."

"Don't apologise, my love. Sleep well."

As she closed the door behind her she turned on the light and saw that her room was tiny: it contained a small toilet, and beyond that a single bed, a desk with one chair and a wardrobe for clothes.

She pulled off her dress, washed her face and teeth, then changed into her pyjamas, which were really just an oversized white T-shirt and panties. The night was warm, so she turned off the light and opened the window, lying down in bed.

She tried not to think about what had happened, about how wonderfully he had kissed, about how she had never felt with any boy she had dated what she had felt with him, after years of separation.

She thought she was broken, that she was attracted to something that would help her destroy herself.

Even though her whole body screamed for her to relieve herself with her hand, to sink her own fingers into her warm folds, leaking with desire, she decided that she would not do it, that she would keep the remnants of her dignity before herself.

She fell asleep only hours later from exhaustion, dreaming of him, of him coming to her, of him taking the pillow in his hands, only to press it to her face.

She shuddered, terrified, seeing only darkness around her, hearing some noise. Only after a moment did she realise that someone was knocking on her door.

"− Rhaenys − fuck −" She heard his unclear mumble indicating that he was barely conscious and drunk. Her shoulders lifted in some subconscious defensive gesture, her lips parted in a terrified, accelerated breath.

Oh no, oh, God, no, no, no, no.

She heard a rustling and a thump, as if someone had fallen over, her hands clenched into a fist on the fabric of her duvet.

"− I want to go to sleep −" He muttered so that she barely heard him. She covered her mouth with her hand, feeling that his words, his request, what he subconsciously wanted was tearing at her heart.

He wanted to return to that moment, to fall asleep beside her as he had then.

It frightened her how well she understood him.

She stood up on trembling legs, feeling that they were as soft as cotton wool, and walked quietly to the door, pressing the handle slowly. She looked uncertainly out into the corridor, afraid of what she would see – his silhouette sat on the floor leaning against the wall, his head bowed, a nearly empty bottle of whisky in his hand.

He was not coping.

"Come." She whispered.

He shuddered and lifted his gaze to her, his stare soft and dishevelled. He muttered something under his breath, trying to get up, but fell over, collapsing to his knees, his bottle falling out of his hand, spilling its contents on the floor.

"− fuck −" He growled, wanting to reach for it and pick it up.

"− no − leave it − come inside −" She mumbled quietly, afraid someone would hear or see them.

His body was heavy and numb, making her help him up with great difficulty − he had to grab onto the frame of her door and lean against the wall to keep from falling over, and after a moment he slumped down on her bed, sighing heavily.

She closed the door behind him, swallowing loudly, and walked slowly towards him. He only flinched when she untied his shoes and pulled them off his feet, but furrowed his brow, displeased when she tried to pull his leather jacket off him.

"− you'll be too hot −" She muttered, slipping it off his shoulders but unable to pull it from behind his back, which was crushing the material. She squealed, surprised, placing her hands on his chest for balance as he drew her down with a sudden, sharp movement, causing her to fall against his body.

"− come here − God, you smell so good −" He exhaled making her moist insides pulsate greedily around nothing, a pleasant, tickling sensation filled her lower abdomen as his fingers ran through her hair in a gesture she might call affectionate.

He forced her to bend over so that her body clung to his − his thighs parted so that she could feel what was happening to him, how hard he was because of her proximity, while his lips clung to hers with a loud, messy click.

He smelled of alcohol, the taste of whisky melting on her tongue with each of his wet, hot, hungry licks − his hands slid from her neck down her back to her buttocks, slipping under her panties, his fingers digging into the soft texture of her skin.

"− tell me to leave −" He gasped out. "− tell me to stop −"

She moaned softly into his moist lips, knowing that she should do it.

But she didn't.

She felt his erection pulsate hard beneath her as she let the motions of his hands guide her body, rubbing against the bulge between his thighs, her weeping cunt all hot and swollen with desire, leaking with longing.

How could she let him do this?

How could it be so pleasurable?

She got the answer to her questions when his fingers slid deeper between her legs − she squirmed in his mouth, simultaneously terrified and delighted when the tips of his fingers found her hot, throbbing slit, slowly teasing her opening.

"− shhh − easy now −" He whispered in such a way that she felt a tickling shudder run through her lips, nipples and insides making her wetness begin to drip onto his hand, the circular motions of his fingers pressing wonderfully into her sticky folds began to be accompanied by the quiet clicks of her moisture.

She moaned into his mouth like a helpless little child − he hushed her as if he wanted to soothe and calm her, one hand placing on her head, combing his fingers through her hair, the other teasing her puffy little bud, once in a while running over her entrance, making wonderful waves of heat flow again and again through their bodies.

Their kisses became deep and lazy as they concentrated on the movements of their hips, rocking them so that they brushed against each other.

She shuddered and squirmed, shocked when she felt the tip of his middle finger sink between her fleshy walls, soaking wet with desire, sliding in and out of her with the sticky sound of her moisture, making her hips roll back and forth, coming out to meet him.

"− uncle − we can't − we can't, we can't, we can't −" She mumbled out, feeling his tongue thrust deep between her mouth with his sigh of pleasure, repeating the movements of his finger between her lips, her hands roaming over his cheeks and hair, stroking him tenderly as if she loved him.

As if she loved him.

"− we can − we will − we need to prepare you properly − shhh −" He gasped softly, making her body arch in a spasm of pleasure, a helpless, girlish moan ripped from her throat as his finger sank fully into the hot, soft structure of her throbbing cunt.

"− please − it's wrong − God, it's so wrong −" She whimpered, feeling tears of terror begin to run down her cheeks, her hands clenched on the material of his black turtleneck, her hips falling and rising on his finger, seeking fulfilment.

They both knew it wasn't enough.

"− shhh − I know, baby − I will take care of you − I got you −" He whispered as his free hand from her head slid down between their bodies, undoing his belt and the button of his trousers − she cried out loudly as she felt him slide them down along with his boxers, his fingers slick with her wetness pushing the material of her panties aside, directing her swollen, pulsing slit at the head of his cock.

"− please, Aemond, please −" She mewled, trying to pull away at the same time and spreading her legs wider, involuntarily allowing him to open her wide on his thick, long erection.

"− let me − I need you −" He exhaled, tilting his head back only to look again a moment later at their bodies, at what he was doing to her, at the way he was forcing himself deep into his niece's body.

The experience was wonderfully painful and pleasurable, as if something that had remained empty had at last been filled, as if she was at last whole, as if his body had always been part of hers.

Her walls offered him only apparent resistance, clenching against him in delight, his quiet, helpless moans were evidence of how good it felt.

She let him sink into her fully, sitting up on top of him, placing her hands on his chest, surrendering − she tilted her head back as his hips with deep, sure thrusts began to slam his cock into her body, his fingers clenched on her soft buttocks.

"− I ��� ah − mghmmm − G-God −" She mumbled out, bursting into sobs, parting her lips wide, leaning lower, letting him rub her with each stab where she needed it − her silky walls began to throb around his erection, soaking him wet, their breaths heavy and hitched, full of helplessness and vulnerability.

She felt strangely full, with each movement of his hips deep inside her body realising what they were doing and how sickeningly pleasurable it was.

"− thaaat's it − that's my girl − fuck, so good −" He exhaled, drifting off completely into the world of his fantasies, with steady, deep pushes building their way to fulfilment.

She thought in disbelief, panting heavily, that the experience of feeling him inside her was something almost spiritual, a revelation of sorts, her body rocking to the rhythm of his thrusts without involving her will.

What they were doing seemed both animalistic and natural to her, as if it was obvious that it had to end this way.

"− just a little more − please, just a little more − let me cum inside, baby −" He mumbled softly, his hands spreading her buttocks apart, allowing him to sink deeper into her fleshy core − she leaned over him and kissed him, their tongues colliding, licking each other in the most ungodly, perverted, lewd way imaginable.

"− A-Aemond − Aemond-Aemond-Aemond − ah! −" She whined into his mouth as he wove his hand into her hair and sank her face into his neck, feeling her warm moisture run down his thighs − her moans and cries of delight were muffled by his skin as her cunt squeezed and sucked him deep inside her in a stunning, overpowering orgasm that shook her body like a wonderful, hot, tickling wave.

She heard him sigh loudly and tilt his head back, clamping his fingers on her flesh, his body convulsing several times as if he had suffered some kind of attack when his hot seed filled her insides at last.

"− God − oh my fucking God −" He gasped out, panting heavily along with her, their hips moving for a moment more in a subconscious desire to prolong this feeling full of relief and warmth.

"− oh, baby −" He whispered, stroking her head and buttocks as if she were a small child.

For some reason unfathomable to her, she was not indebted to him, stroking his torso, neck and jaw, snuggled into him as she had been then, many years ago, feeling at peace, feeling safe, feeling good.

She felt his hand slide from her ass under his back, slipping his leather jacket out from under them, with which he covered their hips. His hand returned immediately to her soft buttock, as if he liked the feel of her silky skin under his hand, his soft manhood pulsing gently deep inside her.

She didn't mind.

"− sleep − don't worry − I want this baby −" He muttered and she swallowed hard, smiling involuntarily, wondering if he even understood what he was saying to her.

I want this baby.

His drunken alter ego was ready to become a father if it turned out that she became pregnant.

She sighed quietly and closed her eyes, focusing only on his scent, on his heart pounding hard beneath her breasts, on his broad hands embracing her body.

She thought, feeling a strange lightness in her heart, that she hadn't felt this wonderful in eight years.

[quickstappen]

track 001: end of the beginning

A/N: hello, welcome to another smau i guess, enjoy? this is the real reason why the latest part of carved my name was up so late yall ;) oscar won his first race and i had to do something!! i'm sorry to all the carlos fans, but someone's gotta be the bad guy, yk?

masterlist | next

december 2020

liked by prema_team, arthur_leclerc and others

paola_sainz I can't believe it is time to go, it still doesn't feel real. Thank you for those amazing years together, for the memories and happiness, I couldn't wish for better team, better friends, I love you all and I'll miss you tremendously. Cheers to the next chapter in our lives.

see all comments...

prema_team We'll miss you vice-champ! Make sure to visit when you're around ❤️

↳ paola_sainz of course! I'll visit so much you'll get sick of me ;)

sainzssss_ noooooooo, what???

shithappens what. the. fuck.

carlossainz55 Excited for your new journey! Now you can spend more time in my garage 🔥😎

↳ paola_sainz yeah, im so excited too!

↳ quickstappen this seems... dry

↳ albono_23 right???

ilpredestinatox oh noo! you were the reason i decided to follow my dreams and go to college for mechanical engineering, i can't believe you're not gonna be racing anymore

↳ paola_sainz oh sweetie, i'm so glad you're following your dreams! dm me if you have any enfeneering problems - i can ask around and get back to you ;)

↳ nyoomf1 she's so sweet 🥹

arthur_leclerc I'll miss your annoying face you know? (only a tiny bit)

↳ paola_sainz acting like you won't see me at basically every race anyway (i'll miss you too) 🤍

↳ arthur_leclerc 🤍

view more...

february 2024

liked by arthur_leclerc, jensonbutton and others

paola_sainz does it ever drive you crazy...?

3 years ago i was broken beyond recognition, i lost my purpose and will to carry on, i thought that without racing i was noone. to think that the same girl just sold out her first collection of athletic wear is absolutely crazy, i can't believe how far we've come and i can't wait to see what else we can do

see all comments...

carlando333 girl 💀💀

↳ ilpredestinatox what do you mean, tf

↳ carlando333 Carlos literally just lost his seat for next year

↳ ilpredestinatox well, this is not carlos' page is it? she's not his keeper, she's allowed to be her own person

cuddlyxricc can she like,, read the room?

byelandoo lol, she does not care about the ferrari drama AT ALL

carlove55 are you gonna comment on the carlos situation??

shithappens she looked so happy when she was racing 🥺 i still can't accept that i'll never see her in a f1 car

↳ quickstappen right??

arthur_leclerc i am going to model the next collection

↳ paola_sainz don't know if you've noticed, but i make WOMEN'S athletic wear

↳ arthur_leclerc you just don't want to see me slay

↳ paola_sainz do not say slay ever again

charlosp1 💀

spanishxbabe so Carlos means nothing to you?

jensonbutton So proud! Brittany loves her set 🧡

↳ paola_sainz 🧡

charles_leclerc Knew you could do it Lola 🤍

↳ paola_sainz thank you for believing in me Charlie 🤍

view more...

liked by charles_leclerc, arthur_leclerc and others

paola_sainz oh baby, how good to see you again!

(also, charles_leclerc go and win me a race please, i don't know how many forza ferrari sempre's i have left in me)

see all comments...

shithappens i'm sorry, is that a man? with my wife?

quickstappen queen is back in paddock!

arthur_leclerc so the ones with me in them were not good enough to make it, but the random one with him tying you're shoelaces made it?

↳ paola_sainz guess so, try harder next time

screwderriaf1 she's so real for that, Charles for WDC2024

↳ ilpredestinatox GIRL, be so fr rn

↳ screwderriaf1 just let me dream man

carlando333 oh come on! she doesn't care about carlos at all! fucking snake, thinking she's better than him🐍

logansargeant nice of you to visit old friends

↳ paola_sainz we're literally going for lunch tomorrow?

↳ sheilaxf1 they know each other??

↳ lewibear yeahh, since her time at prema i'm pretty sure

charles_leclerc Yeah, no pressure right

↳ paola_sainz you know it ;)

charlosp1 did she really say that she wishes that charles won and not her brother who's fighting for his future this season 💀

redmilton Paola Sainz soft launching a white man in the year 2024 was not on my bingo card

cuddlyxricc sorry but first no comment on carlos' seat and now this? yeah no, not cool

elmatadorf1 traitor! rooting for charles when your brother lost his seat because of him 🐍

madi_races is my girlfriend in a relationship with a.... man??

predestined55 absolutely no honour, not surprised tbh after seeing who she hangs out with 🐍

darth_nando can we please stop mentioning Carlos in every comment section under her posts? it's so unnecessary

view more...

paola's messages:

YouTube, Screaming Meals | now playing:

↳ 01:52s - - - > - 04:37s

↳ 21:46s - - - > - 29:31s

↳ 52:14s - - - >- 1:08:11s

paola's messages:

madi's radio: okay look, the text between Spanish speakers.... i do not know Spanish and putting entire conversations through google translate is not the best, so let's just pretend they're in Spanish, yeah?

click here to be added to the hiding in the seams taglist!

DISCLAIMER: i do not know anything about this people, this is not real life, this is just something for fun, i do not know anythings about their life or personalities!

[h0estar]

i'm actually going to cry.

maybe the reason Anya suddenly revealed her secret to Damian, of all people, is because she felt guilty about knowing his deep desire for familial love. he didn't mention it, but it was painfully obvious in the way he looked at her with this soft, sad smile:

anya is so strong. i would've cried and hugged him 😭

but lo and behold, anya wasn't so strong after all. after trying so hard to keep her ability a secret, she told damian anyway – and without hesitation too.

crying... this panel is everything to me

personally, what Anya did was equivalent to a hug. maybe she felt bad... maybe guilty... maybe she wanted him to feel less alone... maybe she pitied him... maybe she sympathized... or maybe she felt it was the right thing to do. but in her own way, she definitely did it to make him feel better and less alone :')

maybe i'm just yapping. but the two of them are so similar in so many ways. Damian despite being part of a real family longs for real connection. and Anya, despite loving her family so much, secretly wishes what they had was truly real – a family not held together by a mission or conveniences, but just that, a simple family. they both just want a home man

this chapter was perfect in so many ways. these kids make my heart hurt, and i'm so scared yet excited for what Endo has in store for the next arcs <3

[wandanatsgf]

Sugar, Sugar Part 1

Pairing: WandaNat x Reader

Word Count: 2.1k

Summary: After losing your job, you are desperate to come up with some money. Your best friend Kate signs you up for a sugar baby app where you meet Wanda and Natasha, who eventually become your sugar mommies.

Authors Note: I've been reading so many sugar mommy!wandanat x reader fics that I wanted to make one myself. I know the beginning is a bit rough, but I'm just trying to set everything up. I promise it will get better!!!! There will also be plenty of smut in the upcoming chapters, this is just a warning for that now. And I plan on making many parts to this. I hope you all enjoy it!

Part 2 Part 3

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” you dramatically exclaim. You drape yourself across the old and slightly musty couch in your small two person apartment. Your work uniform rides up your body a little as you lay down, which you quickly pull down, covering yourself again. You pull your right arm over your eyes, trying to block out the light and the horrible day you just had.

Your best friend and roommate Kate laughs sympathetically at your dramatics. “I know getting fired sucks but there’s tons of ways to make money.” She moves your legs and sits down next to you, placing your legs on top of her.

“Like what?”

“Well you could mow lawns, dog sit, babysit, just until you find another job,” Kate suggests.

“I guess I could but I just don’t know if that would be able to cover my bills and let alone rent.”

“Well there is another thing you can try.” The tone in Kate's voice has you sitting up, removing your arm so you can look at her.

“You remember my friend Darcy that I told you about?”

“Yeah the super rich, successful one.”

“Well when she was in college she was a sugar baby,” Kate says before she cuts herself off to scold you.  “And y/n don’t give me that look just hear me out!”

“Ok fine, keep talking.”

“Well she got a whole bunch of money from it. She was able to pay off her student loans and she had some money leftover that she invested and y’know now she’s rich and super successful and hot and amazing. But that wasn’t the point.” Kate shakes her head at herself, scolding herself for getting off topic like she always does. “Anyway maybe you should try being a sugar baby.”

“I don’t know Kate.” Sure this would be a great opportunity for you, if you find someone that is, but do you really want to use your body to get money?

“You could just look and see what’s out there. You don’t have to accept any sugar daddy or sugar mommy proposals,” Kate says and you’ve got to admit that she’s got a good point.

“Ok what the hell,” you say, agreeing.

“Let me just get the sugar baby app name from Darcy and we can do this.”

A few minutes later the app is downloaded on your phone. You feel nervous but also excited. This could be a way for you to not have to worry about money, at least for a while. Maybe it would be nice to be taken care of.

“Ok it’s downloaded, let’s set it up.” The two of you create your profile and pretty soon you’re looking at sugar mommies and sugar daddies.

“What about this one?” You ask Kate. You pass her the phone, and from the look on her face you can tell that it’s a no go.

“Definitely not,” Kate says, her nose wrinkling up in disgust.

“Why not?”

“I know you, and that’s not what you want.” You have to admit she is right, you don’t really want some 50 year old with a penchant for “parading his girls around” as he called it, but you’re desperate and he is the best looking person on there so far.

You continue to scroll through the men and women, none of them really catching your eye until you see the profile of a beautiful red haired girl and an equally beautiful auburn haired girl. You would recognize their faces anywhere, Natasha Romanoff and Wanda Maximoff, the owners of the country's best security company.

“There’s no way this is real,” you say. “This has to be some sort of joke or something.” You pass her your phone and watch as her eyes go comically wide.

“There’s no way the Natasha Romanoff and the Wanda Maximoff are looking for a sugar baby,” you say. You practically scoff at the idea, but there’s still that little voice in your head that wonders if maybe the profile is real.

“There’s only one way to find out,” Kate says. She still has your phone in your hands and you watch as she types, until finally she stops.

“Katie what did you do?”

“I just messaged them,” Kate says innocently. You glance down at the message and it says, “Hi my name is y/n and I’d love to get to know you both and see if I’m what you’re looking for ;),”

“Did you have to add the wink Katie? They’re gonna think I’m like a whore or something now,” you whine.

“Oh relax you big baby. It’s fine. And besides maybe a whore is what they’re looking for,” Kate says, giving you a wink.

“Kate!” You exclaim. You lightly slap her on the arm.

“Owww y/n. You’re very feisty for such a tiny person.”

“Serves you right,” you mutter underneath your breath. The two of you continue to scroll through the app when you see a notification pop up.

Natasha and Wanda had replied to your message.

“Oh my god,” you say. You can feel yourself freaking out, even when you’re going into the texting part of the app and opening the message.

“Hi darling, we’d love to get to know you more too! We’re Natasha and Wanda, we’re both sugar mommies who are looking for a sugar baby to share. We work quite a bit, but we promise that we’ll still have time for you if things work out between us. Can’t wait to hear back from you,” the message reads. You show the message to Kate who responds with excitement.

But you can feel yourself freaking out on the inside even more now. However your doubts from earlier creep in and calm you down. There’s a big chance that this is just a catfish, but you still want to take the chance. Who wouldn’t want an opportunity to be with Natasha and Wanda?

“Help me come up with a response,” you tell the girl sitting next to you. After a few minutes of back and forth, the two of you come up with what you think is the perfect response.

“Thanks for getting back to me so quickly. I’m y/n, a sugar baby who is currently in college trying to pay off my loans. I normally have plenty of time on my hands and would be able to be around whenever you need.”

You cringe at the last part of the message, which was all Kate’s idea, but clearly it worked because a few minutes later you have a text inviting you out to get some coffee tomorrow afternoon and you say yes.

“You have to come with me though, just in case it’s like a catfish or something,” you tell your best friend. 

“Of course, I’ll sit in the cafe and just text me if you need me,” Kate says reassuring you. 

The next day comes too quickly and before you know it you and Kate are sitting in the cafe waiting for Natasha and Wanda. You’re sitting at a table in the back, while Kate is sitting at a table across the room from you. The minutes seem to drag on forever, making you even more anxious than you already are. Everytime the bell above the door goes off, you glance up, hoping it’s one of the girls walking through. You’re just about to lose hope when you see Natasha and Wanda walk in. They look so breathtakingly beautiful. 

“Hi Y/n,” Wanda says, being the first to greet you. She towers over you as she envelopes you in a hug, which you gladly reciprocate.  

“Hi,” you say back. It comes out quieter than you meant it to. You can feel your cheeks heating up, but gladly both women ignore it. 

“And hi I’m Natasha,” the red haired girl says. She also towers over you, but you like that about the two women. She also envelopes you into a hug. She smells like vanilla and smoke and it gives you a sense of comfort. The three of you sit down and the two women get straight to the point. 

“So as you know we’re looking for a sugar baby,” Natasha says, her voice a low tone. “We just wanted to meet with you today to go over some things and see if we’d get along,” she explains. 

“Ok that sounds good,” you agree. 

“Have you ever been in a dynamic like this before?” 

“No I haven’t,” you say, your blush coming back. You can feel your nerves getting worse as well as you fidget with a ring on your hand. 

“It’s ok to be nervous baby, we won’t bite,” Wanda leans in to tell you. She places her hand on top of yours, stopping your fidgeting. She places her hand in yours, which you gladly hold. 

“That’s alright, we’re pretty new to this too. But there are a couple of things we wanted to go over today. First, when do you have class?”

“Well Tuesday and Thursday mornings I have class until 11am, but besides that my days are wide open.” This answer makes Natasha smile, which in turn makes you smile. 

“What is it that you need help with?” You appreciate that Natasha is getting straight to the point, it’s doing wonders at calming your nerves.

“Mostly rent and some bills. I, uh, just lost my job and it’s been hard to stay afloat.”

“Well that won’t be a problem now that we’re here,” Natasha tells you, sending you a wink. The action sends a blush across your face, turning it a shade of pink. 

"I know this isn't exactly normal," Natasha says, "But we promise if today works out, which I think it will, we'll take care of you darling." Natasha's words make you smile. Normally you were never so shy around people, but the two women next to you really bring it out in you.

“Do you have any questions for us honey?” Wanda asks. 

“Yes actually. What is it exactly that I would be doing?”

“You would keep us company, go to some company functions with us, and,” Natasha says, her voice dropping low as she says the next part, “have sex with us when we want it.”

“But obviously we would work up to that part,” Wanda adds cheerfully. 

“Ok,” you say, taking all of that information in. You knew going into this that sex would be on the table, but it shocks you that these two beautiful women are wanting to do it with you. 

“I’m sorry if this is a weird question, but aren’t the two of you together? What exactly do you need me for?”

“Yes we’re together sweetheart, but we’re not the most compatible in the bedroom.”

“What Wanda means is that we’re both pretty dominant and we need someone submissive to fulfill our needs,” Natasha says. Wanda slaps her on her arm and lightly scolds her, making you giggle. 

“I can do that,” you say, letting both of them know that you want this. The thought of being submissive for both of them stirs a longing within you. You can feel a slight dampness in your panties and you cross your legs, hoping Wanda, who is still holding your hand, doesn’t notice. But of course she does. 

“You already feeling a little needy, baby?” Wanda whispers, her cockiness coming out of nowhere, but god does it turn you on. Her lips ghost on the outer shell of your ear, causing your breathing to become ragged. 

“Mhm,” you manage to get out. 

“You’re so cute when you’re needy. I can’t wait to see just how needy I can make you,” Wanda says. She leans away from you, but not before leaving a soft kiss on your cheek, making you go pink.

“Don’t kill the poor girl Wanda,” Natasha scolds. 

“I can’t help it, she’s just so cute,” Wanda says, like you aren't there, which just turns you on even more. 

“Yeah she is,” Natasha agrees. 

You don’t know what to say, too absorbed in your own lust, when Natasha speaks again, snapping you out of it.

“Here are our phone numbers,” she says, slipping you a piece of paper. You take the pieces of paper and program their numbers into your phone and you give them your number and they do the same.

“We’ll text you tomorrow to work out the details and set up a contract, assuming you still want to do this?” Wanda questions. 

“I do,” you reassure her. 

“Then we’ll talk to you tomorrow, detka,” Wanda says. The two women get up, both hugging you goodbye. You watch the two women walk out, having forgotten that Kate was also at the cafe until she comes up to you. 

“Oh my god,” Kate says.

“I know,” is all you say.

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to get two sugar mommies.”

[willalove75]

I swear I'm almost done with the next chapter of Alcina's New Maid but domestic!Alcina has had me in a fucking chokehold and I need to braindump this so I can move on😅

Tags: smut, tooth-rotting fluff, idk I think that's it if I missed anything lmk it's 3am and I'm exhausted lmao

Warnings: None.

A/N: I finished this at 3am and didn't proof-read it so please kindly ignore any errors. Maybe I'll edit this tomorrow, maybe not. Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

18+ Only Minors DNI

"I thought I told you to stay still." Alcina growls in your ear.

"You're taking so long!" You say with a groan, throwing your head back into the pillows.

"Shh." She says as she kisses up and down the side of your neck. "Let me enjoy being buried inside of you."

"Alcinaaa." You whine. "It's not even a real dick! You're just torturing me!"

"I'm imagining what it would feel like if it were real, my love. Your warm, wet cunt clenching around me, my hard cock throbbing deep inside of you." She says, dragging her teeth along your earlobe.

You whine out in protest once more, desperate for her to make any kind of movement. In defiance, you try and rock your hips into her but she stops you, grabbing hold of you and pushing them back down into the bed.

"Fine, I'll just pull all the way out then and we can go downstairs and watch a movie instead." She says as she begins to pull her hips away from yours.

"No!" You shout, crossing your ankles behind her hips and pulling her back into place. She falls back into you without putting up a fight, a knowing smirk crossing her lips as you wrap your arms around her neck so your bodies are flush against one another.

"So needy." She murmurs as she kisses along your jawline.

"For you? Always." Alcina smirks into your skin and continues to kiss every inch. "Please, just stop torturing me!"

"And what if I want to fuck you into the mattress? Or blow your back out?" She asks, nibbling on your neck causing your eyes to flutter shut.

"Yes! Please, anything!"

"What if I want to fuck you softly and just make love to you all night long?"

"You can have me any way you want me baby, just please fuck me!" You say as she lifts her head and looks into your eyes. A glint of excitement shimmering in her gorgeous grey irises.

"Any way?" She asks and you nod your head in response, taking your bottom lip between your teeth. "Mm, that's a dangerous promise draga mea. You spoil me."

"No more than you spoil me." You say before she presses her lips into yours.

Threading your fingers in her hair, you deepen the kiss as you pull her closer. Alcina leans down onto her forearms and slides her hands under your shoulders, pressing you further into her. Her tongue caresses your lips and you part them, eagerly inviting her into your mouth.

While she has you distracted with her skillful tongue she begins to rock her hips, causing you to sigh a moan of relief into her mouth. Thrusting at a steady pace, you keep your legs locked around her; the need to keep her as close as possible is just as strong as the need for her to fuck you.

Alcina pulls her lips from yours before you both run out of oxygen, the two of you gasping for air. Her hot breath comes out in pants against your skin and she buries her face into your neck before picking up the pace, fucking you faster and harder. The long strap sinks deeper into you as you roll your hips to meet each one of her delicious thrusts, causing both of you to moan. Each time you meet her thrust the back of the strap grinds against her clit and presses perfectly into your g-spot.

After one perfectly timed roll of your hips you hear Alcina moan into your shoulder and you let out a huff of pride.

"What?" She asks as she continues pounding into you.

"Nothing, I'm just glad you're enjoying this as much as I am." You say between pants.

"Mm, I always enjoy you, dragostea mea."

Sex with Alcina has always been mind-blowing, ever since the first time you slept together. Before you met you had your fair share of lovers, but you never felt such passion, such intense pleasure with anyone until her. From the very first date it felt like she put you under a spell. Never before have you met someone so alluring, so beautiful, someone who made things seem so impossibly easy. You had promised yourself long ago that you wouldn't sleep with anyone on the first few dates; but with Alcina, you found yourself tangled with her in her silk bedsheets only after the second date. The two of you pulled countless orgasms from each other all night long and to your surprise, instead of her kicking you out when it was over, she invited you into her shower and pulled you back into bed with her to stay the night. Part of you wanted to turn down her offer, fearful that you would wake up in this near-strangers home alone the next morning. But you saw the look in her eyes, the way she gently took her bottom lip between her teeth, looking almost bashful and all thoughts of turning her down fled your mind. So with her arms tightly wrapped around you, the two of you fell into a deep sleep.

When you woke up the next morning you were almost uncomfortably cold. It was then you realized it was because Alcina stole almost all of the covers, leaving you with just the corner of the bedsheet for warmth. As gently as you could, (it took more effort than you were expecting), you pried the comforter from her and curled into her warm body. She responded with a groan and a slight shiver, mumbling out "you're cold." in her half-asleep state.

"Well you did steal all the covers." You replied.

Alcina chuckled and rolled over to face you, with half-lidded eyes she held out her arms towards you, encouraging you into them.

"I'm sorry." She mumbled. "Come, let me help you warm up."

The two of you were almost hesitant towards the amount of intimacy you were showing each other so soon, but you curled into her and she wrapped her arms around you anyway. She jerked when your cold hands rested against her back and you immediately pulled them away with an apology. Taking your cold hands into hers, she held them in one of her large hands close to her chest while she brushed your hair out of your face with the other before threading her fingers through and resting it at the back of your head. Her legs found yours under the covers and she began to tangle them together, jerking once more when your ice cold feet met her skin.

Mumbling another apology, she shook her head at you and responded "no need for apologies, it is my fault after all. What a terrible host I am, leaving you to freeze in my bed. I should have warned you, I have a habit of being a cover hog."

Her morning voice was deeper and raspier than usual, as attractive as it was (and it was attractive) you also found it comforting. It was something you could listen to all day and never get bored of.

"It's alright, you seem to be making up for it now." You say as the two of you snuggle into each other.

"I could also make it up to you in other ways as well." She says, a smirk evident in her voice.

"I also wouldn't be opposed to that." You say, gazing into her sleepy, lust-filled eyes.

Alcina softly kisses you and rests her chin on top of your head.

"More sleep first, repayment later."

As you fell back asleep in her arms, you realized that you could wake up like this every morning for the rest of your life and never want anything else. At first the thought terrified you, you had only met this woman one other time, how delusional were you to think something like that? You did your best to push it out of your mind for as long as possible. However, every time you saw each other, every time you spoke, the word "love" always seemed to be lurking close by. It wasn't until months after you made your relationship official did you find out that on that particular morning, the same thought crossed Alcina's mind too.

That second date was years ago now, since then the two of you got married and you gave birth to your three beautiful daughters. Much to your delight, the passion between the two of you never faded - if anything, the fire burned brighter over time. Of course there were fights and disagreements, but the love you two shared always outweighed the bad. And the sex? Forget it. Once you had a taste of her you never needed anything from anyone else ever again. It was passionate, hard, rough, experimental at times, it was beautiful and full of love and no matter what direction it went in, there was always room for a little laughter and playfulness. It was something you've never had before and you cherished it more than anything.

Never in your life could you have imagined loving someone as much as you love Alcina. The thought could make your heart burst.

Hot kisses across your jaw and cheek accompanied by a deep, hard thrust brought you back into the moment. A low moan pulled from your lips.

"Where did you go there, draga?" Alcina asks with a husky voice.

She pulls back to look you in the eyes, examining your face to make sure you're okay. Her thrusts didn't falter, but you saw the concern in her eyes and the little crinkle that formed between her eyebrows when she was worried. Her grey-blue eyes shimmered and she nearly took your breath away.

Your lips parted but no words came out, your chest filling with love for the woman on top of you. Her hips began to slow and you held her tighter against you, silently encouraging her to continue.

"I - I was just thinking about how much I love you. How grateful I am for you." Pulling her closer, you brush your lips against hers. "I love you, Alcina. With everything I have."

Alcina's breath hitches in her chest and you can feel the stutter against yours. Pulling her down, your lips nearly crash together and both of your hips pick up the pace as they grind against each other. Her nails bury themselves into your shoulder blades while you reach down and grab her ass with one hand, pushing her deeper into you, and grab hold of the hair on the back of her head with the other.

The two of you swallow each others moans before parting for air again, panting and whimpering into each other as you both race to the edge.

"I love you, draga mea. I love you so much." She whimpers into your ear as you two continue to fuck each other.

Each time one of you moans a little too loudly the other one tries to shush you, fearful that your daughters will hear the unsavory noises coming from the bedroom. Your bodies glide along each other as a layer of sweat develops between you, which only spurs you both on more. Your ankles uncross to allow harder thrusts from Alcina, but you squeeze her hips between your thighs to keep her as close as possible.

Her groans rumble deep in her chest while your whimpers get higher, signaling to each other that you're both getting close.

"Fuck, Alcina, just like that."

"You're gonna make me come. I know how close you are, aren't you?" She asks, to which you respond with only a whimper. "Mph, fuck yes, I want you to come with me baby."

"Yes, oh god yes!"

Both of your movements become less calculated and more frantic, desperate to push each other over the edge. The orgasm you've built grows stronger and stronger before you're both fucking each other wildly, chasing your own and each others orgasms at the same time.

"Alci - I'm - I'm gonna -"

"Yes, yes baby yes!"

The grip you have on one another tightens as you both go flying over the edge together, tumbling down into a ravine of absolute pleasure. The strap sinks deep into your g-spot and your back arches off the bed, your eyes roll back into your head as you let out a silent scream. Alcina buries her face into the side of your neck, muffling her groan of release as the explosion from her bundle of sensitive nerves shoots through her body. Your bodies become one as you share your release. Limbs trembling around one another, nails biting deeply into skin, hips riding out the remainder of your orgasms, both for your own sakes and for each others. You swear you can feel Alcina's heart beating against your chest and you're sure she can feel yours as well.

As the waves of pleasure relent the two of you still your movements and the clouds in your mind slowly fade away, leaving the two of you panting against one another. The two of you lay in your post-orgasmic bliss for a few moments in silence, enjoying the feeling of your bodies pressed impossibly close together as the strap is still buried deep within you. Alcina's nails leave your shoulders, no doubt leaving little crescent shaped marks behind, as yours release from being buried in her ass cheek - positive you've left a matching set on her skin as well.

Alcina presses soft kisses into your shoulder and neck as you hold each other tight before she sits up enough to capture your lips in a loving kiss. With your attention on her lips, she gently slides the strap out, eliciting you to groan into her mouth. The wet silicone lays against your stomach as Alcina continues to kiss you. Before she pulls away completely she looks deeply into your eyes. Just from the way she's looking at you, you know exactly what she wants to say. Even though she doesn't have to, she says "I love you, draga mea. More than I ever have and ever could love anyone else. You make me the luckiest woman on this earth."

"You make me the luckiest woman on this earth. I love you so much, Alci."

The following morning you wake up to an empty bed, which isn't unusual since Alcina tends to wake at the crack of dawn. What you weren't expecting, however, was for the girls to be seated at the kitchen table and for breakfast to be made when you get downstairs. At ages nine and ten, Cassandra and Bela are happily eating their pancakes and waffles while your six year old, Daniela, is seated next to Alcina who is helping her cut into her waffle.

"Well this is a lovely surprise." You say as you walk over to Alcina and bend down to kiss her.

Bela and Cassandra make audible noises of disgust which are quickly silenced by one look from their mother.

"Sit down my love, eat." Alcina says as she gets up and makes you your morning cup of tea. She places a kiss at the top of your head after handing you your mug and returns to assisting Daniela.

It was a wonderfully pleasant breakfast with minimal arguing between the girls and much to your surprise, minimal mess as well.

The girls start to get themselves ready for school and Alcina gets herself ready for work while you wash off the dishes and place them in the dishwasher. Alcina walks up behind you, snaking her arms around your waist and presses a kiss to your cheek before resting her chin on your shoulder. She begins to gently sway back and fourth while she hums and you let out a giggle as you try to finish the dishes.

Alcina reaches in front of you and turns off the sink as her swaying continues.

"What on earth are you doing?" You say with a laugh, grabbing the dish towel and drying your hands.

Spinning you around, Alcina takes one of your hands in hers and places the other on your waist. She expertly leads you in a slow dance while her humming turns into her softly singing. Laying your head on her chest, the two of you bask in the spontaneous romantic moment she's created. For just a few moments, the world fades away and it's just the two of you - you and your wife, the love of your life, enjoying the peacefulness of each others embrace.

The moment doesn't last long - with three young kids and a business to run it never does. But for the few moments you both were able to get lost in another world together, you find yourself falling in love with Alcina over and over again.

[owliellder]

The Finer Details

Post DI! Leon Kennedy x f! Painter Reader

MDNI 18+

(Session 1, Session 2, Session 3, Session 4, Session 5, The Reveal)

Description: Leon realizes that retirement is in his best interest now that he's getting older. All of his accomplishments as an agent mean he's truly earned a painting to commemorate..

Warnings: Not Proofread, Age gap! (reader is anywhere between mid-late 20's and Leon is 40), Porn w/ Plot, Use of she/her pronouns, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Alcoholism, mentions of trauma/PTSD/depression, P in V smut (wrap it NEOW), Leon cries during sex 💔

Tags: Older Leon Kennedy, Younger afab!Reader, Leon is SAD but he is your muse, Crying, mentions of Leon masturbating, starts off with Dom! Leon and Sub! Reader, falls into switch territory because that man needs some serious TLC, Praise kink, Hickeys, Handjob, Nipple play, Oral sex (m! and f! receiving), and a heavy dose of Aftercare

Author's Note: I write these at work and I work nightshift all alone in a little gatehouse, right? I kid you not 3 coyotes were staring at me through the door and I didn't even notice. I saw them running by on the cameras but I honestly thought it was just a group of feral cats cause they were so small.

Anyways, thank you for 300 followers!! I'm geekin' out over that! And Friday morning the last chapter will be out 😈🙏

Cross-posted on AO3

Session 5: Finishing Touches

The word excited was a vast understatement when it came to seeing you again.

Leon's heart was thrumming against his chest as he stood silently in front of your apartment door. His hand was raised up halfway, ready to knock, but a sudden wave of anxiety was holding him back. He was at your apartment. Your apartment.

The drive over was relatively short, it was closer than your workspace, yet he felt confident the entire way here. Now here he was, frozen in place, worried his knock would be too loud or make him seem desperate, even. A ridiculous thought, obviously the man knew that, but it gripped his mind nonetheless.

You must've had a sixth sense, having opened the door before he'd built up the courage to actually knock, when all reality you just recognized the sound of his motorcycle at this point. The sweet smile you gave Leon was enough to draw him into your apartment. He was quick to take his jacket off since he was sweating bullets, hanging it up on the coat rack next to your front door.

You could tell he was nervous just by how jittery he was, it was endearing yet worrisome at the same time. Seeing how worked up you made him was adorable, but at the same time you didn't want him to feel uncomfortable around you.

"Sit wherever, Mr. Kennedy. My house is yours." You placed a hand on his bicep to try and ease him, smile still remaining as you watched him survey the living room. A quiet laugh fell from his lips as he trained his eyes on you. "It's Leon, please. Making me feel real old over here..." You rolled your eyes with a playful groan. It was just a formality you'd trained yourself to respond with when it came to clients. A hard habit to break since you'd never really dated any of them before now.

With a gentle pat, you slowly turned and walked off into your admittedly small kitchen where the faint sound of boiling water could be heard. It took a few seconds before Leon decided to follow you, not totally convinced to take a seat just yet. You glanced over your shoulder at him before turning back to reach up into one of your cabinets, pulling out a couple mismatched mugs. "You like chai?" He nodded, licking his lips at the idea of something to drink.

The man could only stand awkwardly a few feet behind you and watch as you grabbed a couple tea bags from another cabinet, setting reach bag in their respective mug. An electric kettle sitting atop your counter beeped once it reached the selected temperature, prompting you to grab the handle and pour the water into the mugs.

You covered the mugs to let them steep, turning around to lean back against the edge of your counter so you could look at Leon. He looked like a lost puppy, hands in the pockets of his jeans as he took in your kitchen. With a sympathetic sigh, you pushed yourself from the counter and looped your right arm through his, leading him out of the kitchen back towards your living room. "Get comfortable, I'll bring the tea over here, okay?"

He just let you lead him over to the couch, sitting down at your request with a meek nod. He really should be more confident than this, but he was far out of practice when it came to women. The idea of messing this up for himself was terrifying.

Leon's head followed you as you walked around to the front of the couch, watching as you set the mugs on the coffee table before sitting down next to him. He rested his hands on top of his thighs, eyes now stuck to the tea placed in front of him.

"Are you feeling alright? You look like you're gonna throw up." You meant this in a joking manner, even giggling a bit as you spoke, but Leon's head jerked away from the tea to look at you, eyebrows furrowed with worry as he shook his head. "No-.. No, I'm okay, just... Can I be honest?"

That kind of question never failed to make you nervous, and he was quick to pick up on that, clearing his throat after stumbling over his words. "It's... It's been a long time since I've done anything like this. Seeing someone."

Your mouth formed a small 'o' shape at his confession before falling back to that same sweet smile that you welcomed him in with. "You're right to be nervous, Leon. But hey," you paused to scoot closer to him, ".. I've had the privilege to learn a bit of backstory from you already, and after working with a few other agents before you, I have a general idea on just how taxing that kind of job can be."

Leon tightened his lips as he listened to you, worry still plain on his face. You were right and maybe that's why he grew to like you so easily. He didn't have to explain anything since you already knew the basic gist of it all, holding a level of understanding that most other potential partners wouldn't have.

You reached in front of him to grab the mug, carefully placing it in one of his hands before reaching further to grab the other, now having him hold the mug with both hands. He kept fidgeting with his jeans, clearly needing something to hold onto.

"I won't pry, the details of your job seem pretty intense, but I want you to know that I'll never turn you away, relationship or not." You'd grabbed your own mug now, looking down as you pinched your index and thumb on the paper end to the tea bag to jostle it a bit. "You've more than earned the time you have now to just be yourself."

Leon swallowed dryly, turning his attention down to where he was holding the mug in his lap. He didn't even know he needed to hear those words, but dammit were they definitely hitting home.

"Thank you." He managed to say, voice meek and slightly scratchy from just how dry his mouth had become. "You... have a way with words?" He breathed out a chuckle to which you followed up with a laugh of your own. Despite feeling so vulnerable and awkward, he still managed to make a joke.

You closed your eyes as you brought the mug up to your lips, taking a sip of the now perfectly warm tea before opening them again to give the man next to you a smirk. "What a charmer you are, huh?"

And just like every other time the two of you had been around each other, Leon started to relax by the hour; talking more, joking more, getting closer to you, and once you both finished up the tea, he held onto your hand with his own.

He followed you around your apartment when you excitedly asked to give him a tour. It was small, a very humble one bedroom, one bathroom apartment, but to Leon it was probably the most comfortable place he'd ever been. So similar to your workplace in terms of decor, but now it was full of your more personal items.

The smell of the tea from earlier was beginning to fade, making way for the smell of just you, such a pleasant and intoxicating smell to the man.

Your bedroom was the biggest culprit so far, the two of you winding up sitting on the edge of your bed. Shamefully, he'd zoned out as you rambled on about whatever, just soaking in the feel of your comforter beneath his hands. It was soft, but definitely not as soft as your lips were.

While Leon was zoned out, his eyes had gotten stuck again, this time on your lips as they moved. You were focused somewhere else, looking forwards, not really paying attention to where he was staring. He so badly wanted to kiss you again, the last kiss didn't last nearly as long as he would've liked it to.

Leon knew his words would fail him and he wanted to act before his nerves got the better of him, leading him to moving his eyes up to yours, his hand reaching to gently hold under chin so he could turn your head to face him.

The feel of his hand caused you to pause your ramble, letting him turn your head to face him. He looked so handsome with that wanting look, his eyes flittering from your own and back down to your lips.

He seemed to know what he wanted, so you opted to just let him slowly pull you closer into a kiss, eyes closing as your lips touched his. It was a little longer than the kiss you shared the night before, but after pulling away and seeing the shy smile you had, he couldn't help but pull you right back in.

His eyebrows furrowed, hands finding their way to your back to pull you closer, one between your shoulder blades while the other on the small of your back. You arched against his touch, letting him angle you the way he wanted. Leon's hands moved to make way for his arms, biceps flexing as he tightly wrapped them around you. He had to hold on tight, fearing he would lose his little slice of heaven if he didn't.

Your lips felt amazing against his, so soft and pillowy. And god, the way your skin felt when he shifted one of his rough hands up under your shirt. He needed more, all of you.

He let out a low groan, almost a growl as he nibbled on your bottom lip before moving down to your neck. He leaned back a bit so his shoulders were resting against the head of the bed frame, managing to pull you even closer so your chest was pressed up a little higher than his, his head buried into the crook of your neck.

You breathed out a shaky breath as his hands began to wander again, still underneath your shirt. They went up and down your back, moving down to occasionally squeeze your waist. You made the prettiest sounds when he did.

Leon felt so needy, holding onto you like this, for dear life. He couldn't help it. You were his lifeline right now.

His lips trailed along the underside of your jaw and down the front of your throat, making sure to leave a trail of hickeys in their wake. He could feel you swallow and the vibrations from your moans, loving how alive you felt in his grasp.

You ran your fingers through his hair before gently tugging him away from your neck, tilting his head back ever so slightly so he was looking up at you. He was panting, breath cold against your spit-covered neck. You gave him the most endearing look, one hand trailing down to cup the side of his face. You didn't want him to worry even for a second.

"I'm not going anywhere." You whispered, running your thumb along his bottom lip before bringing him into another kiss. His grip on you loosened enough for you to carefully slide down and settle your upper half into his lap.

Leon's lip quivered as he watched you, hands trembling once you'd slid out of his grasp. Your words were comforting, but he couldn't hold onto you the way he wanted when you were down there. Though, with the way you rested your cheek against the bulge straining in his jeans, he wasn't all that worried anymore.

You watched your hand with a lazy smile as you stroked him over his jeans, both arms resting on his thighs to keep them spread apart. Leon needed love and care and you were more than willing to help him make up for the lost time.

After unbuckling his belt and pulling it off, you unzipped his jeans, sitting up to pull them down in the front. You looked up at him through your eyelashes, silently asking for permission to which he eagerly nodded his head. He even reached his hands down to help, but you swatted them away.

"Let me take care of you..." Carefully, you pulled the front end of his boxers down far enough for his cock to spring out and then up against his stomach, already leaking precum. Leon groaned as the cool air hit it, causing his hips to jerk up a bit.

You didn't want to tease the poor man, so you reached your hand up and gripped the base, pulling it upright and to the side slightly. You stroked him languidly before placing a gentle kiss against the shaft. He whined, his legs now starting to shiver from the adrenaline.

Leon never could've imagined he'd get this far with you tonight, let alone get to watch you stroke his dick while giving it kisses and little kitten licks. A pitiful moan was pulled from him when you wrapped your lips around the tip to suck, your hand now stroking him faster.

You were so careful with him, focusing on his pleasure, having even stopped a couple times to make sure he was feeling good and also just to tell him how good he was doing.

With his cock now deep in your throat, tears were streaming down his face, small sobs falling from his lips as you bobbed your head up and down. It was all so much; the smell of your bedding, the feeling your mouth wrapped around him, the sound of his own weak little cries hitting his ears.

"I'm-.. God I'm sorry- I-" He spoke breathlessly through the moans and sobs, hands fisted into your comforter as he began to worry he'd chase you away. You pulled your mouth off of him, hand moving from holding the base to stroking him again. "You're doing such a good job, Leon. Just let go for me.." With your hushed words, you quickly put your mouth back around him, going right back to deepthroating him.

His orgasm surfaced fast, throwing his head back with a high pitched whine as he all so suddenly came down your throat. After pulling away, you gave the tip of his cock a gentle kiss before tucking it back into his boxers for him, staring up at him while running your hand along his thigh.

It was hard for him to look down at you, his head feeling heavy. A few small tears fell here and there, but now he was able to give you a tired smile. "Was that alright?" You asked him again, voice raspy from deepthroating the man.

Leon huffed out through his nose, smile widening as he quickly sat up, reached down, and pulled you up so your chest was pressed against his again. He wrapped his arms around you, hugging you tightly once more before burying his face into your neck.

It would've taken years for him to open up like that with anyone else, but it was different with you. You already knew, you understood, you were patient with him.

You made him feel weak in the best way possible. For once in his life he didn't need to be that strong, stone-cold agent who didn't bat an eye at death. With you, he could be soft.

It only took a few more sessions for Leon's portrait to be finished. All that needed to get done was some finishing touches since little things tend to get smudged along the way. All a part of the process.

Unfortunately for Leon, you didn't let him see the final product, blocking his every attempt to see it while saying something about "You don't get to see the bride before the wedding!" Whatever that meant.

When you told him it would take about two months to dry, he turned into the biggest man-child you've ever seen. Leon was just as bad as Chris in that sense, only difference being Claire was there to help contain Chris when he tried to see their portrait. Now you were left to deal with Leon's shenanigans all on your own.

No matter how much he begged and pleaded, you didn't relent. Hell, you even chased him out of the building with a dirty paintbrush. Two months was too long to wait for something like that. You were basically torturing him.

Luckily for you and him, it was easy to distract the man with the promise of a comfortable night at your apartment with some takeout. Afterwards, he really only ever asked about the portrait when he saw you working on something else. By now you'd hidden the painting away from his prying mind to give it time to dry. Out of sight, out of mind.

In the meantime, you would sketch him at random; while he was sitting on your couch, with his glasses on, naked on the bed posing for you "like one of your french girls", which was pretty funny yet surprisingly helpful. It had been a long time since you had the chance to draw a nude model, and what better than the ex-agent you'd grown so fond of?

Now it was just a matter of playing the waiting game. Leon's portrait was made to be extra special, secretly working on it while he was sleeping or off at the gym. Sure it prolonged the drying process, but you can't rush perfection in the end.

tags!: @greywardensaywhat @xkittiecatx @httpsuguru @k-fallingstar @lysa1201 @bobastayhigh @pocketstoriesstore @agent-dessis-posts @klee-iii @missjoenowhere @bbjposay @lazuliglace @bigtiddiesimp @finsternisle @sweets3rial @sodacolablast (there's a few of you that tumblr wouldn't let me tag for some reason 😭)

[placeinthemiddleofnowhere]

Yo! Adrian

Pairing: König x Reader

Summary: You’re determined to find out why everyone thinks König is so scary, afterall he’s just some guy that’s taller than most people right? He’s probably harmless! Well, he’s a little scary, but you still like him anyway.

(No use of y/n or mention of gender/race)

AN: It's finally here, the LAST CHAPTER! What a journey this has been from a silly little oneshot to a whole fucking series that so many people have sent me so many kind messages and fanart of 💕 I'm so excited that I get to share this with you, and I'm so glad that I've been able to complete it and give you guys a full story. Thank you so so much to everyone that has sent me their support and kept the story going. Love you all sm, please let me know what you think whn you're done. I can't wait to see your reactions ✨🥰

Part 10 of A Rocky Start - Full Masterlist Here

-☠️- 

You swore you could feel König’s fingers caressing your face. 

You could feel his heavy digits tracing over every tiny pore and for a second you could breathe calmly, you felt light. In the shadow of his phantom’s presence you smiled airily and thought of better times. It was as if a rift had opened in the room and you were no longer part of it, you were somewhere far away and lying in an unfamiliar bed, naked under the pale sheets in the shine of moonlight.

Just like always, you fell into each other's arms and drank in each other’s bodies just as greedily as the last time you’d met. His heady piney scent would soothe your tired nerves and his hands would roam your body, chasing off every stray piece of worry that dared linger. It was your memories of comfort that you were clinging onto the most, holding them high above your head as you sunk into the depths of your mind, cold flesh tingling with the thought of König’s fiery warmth. 

You weren’t in some hole in the middle of nowhere. You were with him. 

There’s nowhere you can be sent to that I won’t find a way to reach you.

You kept repeating those words over and over in your mind, throat constricting as you remembered those whispered promises that he’d given to you in your bunk. He was with you, you and he were joined together inextricably. It didn’t matter if he was actually there or if you were simply losing your mind to lack of sleep and sustenance, he was with you always. 

All of a sudden König’s fingers stroked a wave across your cheek, a thin airy line that swung across your face like a breeze. It made you frown. What was he doing? Was he playing a game with you? It was so late, you both needed to sleep. Why was he doing this? 

When you opened your eyes again, it was as if you’d been woken into hell. Rousseau grinned down at you, his metal pole hanging loosely from his hands, shoulders shaking with silent laughter. Reality was breaking down in front of your eyes, pieces of it glitching in your peripherals. The bedsheets and moonlight fell away and all you were left with was your dirty sheet in the middle of a crusty smelling shithole bunker. 

“Where’s… wh- where’s König?” you croaked.

Getting those words out was like fighting through a sandstorm to talk. Your throat had never been so scratchy, and your head was so clouded and heavy. Everything was such a jumble you couldn’t understand how you were lying with König one moment and then back with Rousseau again tje next, it didn’t make sense. 

“What’ve you done with him?” you cried, swaying with the effort it took to speak. “Where’s König!”

Rousseau shook his head and nudged your shoulder with his weapon, the thick metal bar barely even prodded you and you were sent spiralling. Your body tipped like a glass full of water and you spilled onto the floor, lurching onto your hands and knees as soon as you were able. Though you were shaking helplessly even as you steadied yourself, it felt like your muscles were rapidly atrophying in real time, tearing apart and wasting away like bean bag stuffing pouring from a tear. 

“You’re not doing very well, hm?” Rousseau taunted, walking around your pathetic crawling form. “There is no König here. Just you and the Captain, Sergeant.”

The way he said König, it sounded like a curse. 

You shrank back at his spitting venom and swallowed the bile that threatened to erupt upward from your throat. It was all too much. You couldn’t understand where you were anymore, couldn’t remember what was happening. 

You closed your eyes and opened them again, executing the world’s slowest blink. Finally looking around properly, you saw Rousseau and when you swivelled you saw his faithful guard dogs, the men that always seemed to haunt the corners of your vision. A further glance had you finding Price on his knees, swaying gently as he tried miserably to stay upright. He was dancing to the same sick death drum that you were. 

Your eyes lit up in recognition. 

“You were…I was…you were going to kill me,” you said dumbly, holding your head as you rose to your knees. “Why do you keep playing with us like this?”

Rousseau stood in front of you and tilted his head, watchful dark eyes cascading down your shivering body. It was like looking back at a bear. A vicious giant towering above you, threatening to charge at any second and shred you to pieces. Though he never did. He always stopped just before he could truly break you. 

Break your body anyway. You were more convinced by the day that your mind was gone.

“Are you really so eager to die, Sergeant?” He questioned.

His voice was light, playful as a cat batting a mouse around.

“You recorded a video teeing up for a final death blow…It doesn’t look very good if I’m said to be alive after that. Makes your threats look empty.”

Rousseau raised an eyebrow. His gaunt features slackened, but he didn’t look as angry as one might expect a scorned warlord to look. It seemed more like he was considering his next move carefully. Probably gauging what you could take after everything you’d endured already. 

“You think I don’t mean to kill you?”

His voice had a harder edge to it now.

“I think that you’ve taken far too long to do it.”

It was true. As much as you still clung to the hope of rescue, you knew well enough that being constantly on the move between decrepit holes and dank pits meant that you weren’t going to be easily tracked. The only other release you could be certain of was death, and at the stage you were at, it felt like it’d be a mercy. 

Your stomach constantly ached with clawing hunger, the kind that had you hallucinating little hands inside your belly - scraping at the lining just to try and find scraps. Your lips were dry and cracked and your eyes were always struggling to stay open. Your lids weighed so heavy on you, your entire body did in fact. It was becoming more and more of a chore just to keep breathing, nevermind trading barbs with the torturer in chief. 

Soon you’d be as out of it as Price was. 

“You are a government dog. All you know is ‘go fetch’,” Rousseau said eventually, straying from your side and leisurely working his way over to Price. “You do things quick and dirty. We are playing the long game, I am building something, I’m heading a revolution. Those aren’t built on quick decisions - no, they are chess moves. I am just aligning my pieces.”

He came to a stop behind Price’s back, his long legs were almost touching Price’s bare body, his black trousers were almost the same colour as some of your poor captain's bruises. Rousseau still held the length of metal piping in his hands, he was swinging it gently in his grip, meaningfully gazing at you and down to the bat. You stared between them from under your hooded eyelids and licked your lips.

What was he going to do?

You winced when you heard the crack. 

“Sneak,” Price gasped.

He tumbled forward, his back crumbling as he’d taken on another hit. The Captain's mangled body was only getting worse by the hour, his cuts were weeping again and his bruises looked like animal markings, like something that had become inherently part of him. You had no idea how he was still going. 

Even still, you flew forward and urged him up, looking into his tired eyes and trying to coax him back. At least if he was up he couldn’t be trampled. You’d learned that lesson the hard way. 

Price gripped your arm and you huffed under the weight, almost screaming as you tried to keep his body aloft with what little strength you had left. His roughened fingers were scraping at your papery thin skin and you clenched your teeth while you fought to balance him. It was getting harder and harder to set him right with every time he fell, but no matter what you’d keep doing it. 

Even while you’d gone against his orders he still held you up and made you keep fighting. It was only fair that you did the same in return. 

“Price? Price, are you ok? Price?”

He took a moment to reply. His body wobbled a little, threatening to tip again, but he righted himself in the last minute, his scruffy jaw almost swinging as he gasped in a breath. 

“Sneak, you’ve gotta shut the fuck up,” he coughed.

You almost laughed despite the situation. 

“Affirmative,” you grimaced, resting against him as you managed to work out a delicate balancing act. 

“Wait a minute now, Captain,” Rousseau tutted, signalling for his men to come forward. “You should welcome your Sergeant’s words. I’ve spared Sneak for now, but the next video is your final as a pair. I have something special planned…but all in good time. For now you can go back to your crate, dogs.”

The two of you stared at him, looking up through your tired gazes. The news didn’t feel shocking, you’d expected to die minutes ago so you hadn’t been holding out hope to steal time for much longer. It almost felt like a relief for a moment to know that you could be certain of something.

Though the relief didn’t last long. Not when his men finally reached you both and yanked you apart, dragging you along the floor like a couple of retired mannequins. Your skin burned with the familiar feeling of loose gravel and it didn’t take long until you were seething, clawing at the man’s gloved hand just to try and stop his forceful grip. It never ever seemed to help though.

“Try not to get yourself killed from fighting back. It would ruin the plans I have for you, Sergeant!”

The blanket that had previously been slouched on your back was now tangled around your waist. It was gathering itself between your legs and around your hips, snaking around you in a boa like grip. It might’ve felt like a relief earlier on in your time, but you knew well enough the men weren’t bothering about your state of dress, they never did. They would always drag you through the halls kicking and screaming, clothesless and dirty, feral as a child of the forest. Somehow the indignity faded with time, lost to the hurt you were drowning under. 

You looked up at the man and his smug bearded face and snarled. You soon took to scrabbling against the floor and trying to get as much purchase as you could. If you fought hard enough maybe you could work yourself into a semi crawl by the his side, relieve the burning of your back and feet. The man wasn’t having it though. 

He kicked at your legs and threw your arm away, sending you reeling and knocking into the dark wall by the doorway. Your jumbled head was spinning when you slammed into the concrete. The dim flickering light danced in your eyes and after a few blinks, you regained enough vision to see the man advancing back towards you. You cowered. 

You feebly stuck your arms in front of you, blocking your face and hunching up just to try and protect yourself. Even if you thought it was useless, even if you’d tried to do the same thing many times already and failed. You tried anyway.

“You don’t follow orders well, soldier,” Rousseau scolded, voice full of amusement. 

He had no idea. 

His lackey’s steps barrelled toward you, he shouted something in french and with each ricocheting sound that slapped your ears, you shook like a mast in a storm. You shook, but still you cursed at the man, you cursed at Rousseau and you peaked through your makeshift body shield and cursed at the guard dragging Price away.

No matter what they did to you, you revelled in the fact that one day they would be caught. One day König would catch up to them, he and the remaining numbers in the 141 would crash in and they would draw ten times the blood that Rousseau ever could. They would wreak the kind of revenge you would’ve chewed König out for only months ago. 

And you would celebrate it now. 

You gritted your teeth and braced, the man was only steps away from you. Rousseau was smirking to himself in the background, metal pipe discarded as he stood with his arms crossed just as casually as if he were catching the tail end of a sitcom. You waited for the hit. You tensed every screaming muscle in your frail body and shut your eyes tight, scrunching your face in full knowing of the hurt you were about to feel. 

Your heart beat furiously. You waited. 

Boom

The entire room shook and you were sent sprawling and coughing into the smoky darkness. Dust swirled around your eyes and seconds later the room went completely pitch dark. You blinked. 

Was this another of your hallucinations?

Were they really getting that vivid? 

This felt real. 

All of a sudden you were being yanked up and you screamed. Your arm felt like it had been pulled out of its socket and then replaced about five thousand times. It was sheer agony. Though you didn’t have the strength to fight the force. Instead you went along with it, crying out at whoever it was that was taking you further into the darkness. 

“Get the fuck off me!”

“Shut the fuck up!”

The voice confirmed it. The voice and the heavy metal weapon that struck your jaw. 

Rousseau had taken you from your heap and was now ragdolling through the doorway, stealing you both through the trembling tunnels like a wraith. You had no idea how he was able to navigate the place so smoothly with a fighting captive and sheer darkness and yet he was doing it anyway. Unfortunately for you. 

“Come! Gather the Captian!”

More explosions sounded overhead, gunshots rung out like hailstones hitting the ground, all muted and dull. Somewhere up above you there was a fucking massive firefight. The realisation had you grinning from ear to ear, even as blood sluiced from your split mouth. 

With the very little brain capacity you had, even you were able to figure out who it was that was up there. 

Your stomach was churning and your legs were barely able to crank themselves one in front of the other, but still you knew that König was close. You swore you could sense him even through the concrete. Somewhere in the battering of rock and scream of metal you could sense the six foot, ten inches of vengeance tearing up the ground overhead.

“König,” you choked.

Maybe you were going to make it.

You were tugged furiously forward. 

“No one can help you now. Snivelling like that will only make your death worse” Rousseau seethed.

You frowned, stumbling forward only moments later. You tripped over a gap in the flooring and pinwheeled forward, falling through the darkness and onto the ground once again. 

You shook your head, but before you could even think of recovering, you were blinded by a sudden shock of light. You let out a howling wail and covered your eyes, reeling as you tried to deal with the shock of it all.

Your head was pounding, the gunshots in the distance were relentlessly clashing with the swelling in your head. Your eyes felt like they might roll backwards through their sockets. Your nose was overwhelmed with thick dust, your throat was clogged with it too. Your ears were practically shrivelling with the wall of sound. 

All of it combined was sensory overload. 

You blacked out for a moment, temporarily lost. You saw König through flashes, but you knew it wasn’t really him. It couldn’t be. König wouldn’t just stand there, he’d be pulling you up into his arms and taking you away. He wouldn’t watch on as you were dragged around in that new level of hell. 

You blinked back through the spots and the flashes of unreality and you were greeted with the sight of a union jack unfurling high above you. The fabric unfurled like an angry ghost and your eyes were filled with dancing red white and blue. The lines didn’t seem to stay still, they were crossing and uncrossing, blurring softly in and out of focus. 

“What…what are you-”

“What did I tell you? Shut the fuck up!”

The metal pipe came down on your head once more and you gasped at the pressure, losing the breath from your lungs. You sprawled out like a bearskin rug and pasted yourself to the floor, watching dead eyed as Price was thrown by your side. He was equally as jelly-boned as you. 

“What are you doing?” you whispered, too done in to follow the directions you were given. 

Rousseau musn’t have heard you though. You followed the swelling blob that you assumed to be him and watched as it adjusted something and then gathered something else. Fuck. You were too fried to see what was happening. Everything was tinged in red, white and blue, nothing was solid, nothing felt real. 

Well, except maybe the blood that was still threatening to drown you. You hacked away at that and sobbed lightly, feeling the tears dribbling pathetically down your cheeks. Somewhere in the back of your mind you realised that you weren’t going to live through this afterall. Even if you did, was there going to be much of you left? 

Rousseau only confirmed your suspicions as he marched forward and tugged you up by your neck. You screamed and flailed with every little shred of energy you had left, but still it wasn’t enough. He was strangling you with something, wrapping something around your throat while he batted off your hands.

“No! No! No! No! N-” you choked until you couldn’t anymore. 

The thing was tightened around you and soon he didn’t have to hold you anymore. You gazed upwards and watched in horror as a long snaking line of rope was yanked upward - with you along with it. 

The choking and hacking only got worse from that point on. Your throat was constricting, you were flapping like a headless chicken. The pressure was threatening to burst your eyeballs, but even still you were cursed to see, cursed to watch. 

Price was being dragged the same as you, muscles twitching and head swaying like a lolling buoy. The camera was in front of you both, red light blinking ominously from the other end of the room. Rousseau was swinging his arms around and he was proselytising as always, sounding somehow even more passionate than usual. His voice was screeching and booming all at once, it filled the room and attacked the camera, it sent you swinging in his grasp. 

“...and now this is what they die for! They may capture me, but they will never prevail! They will only turn to ash, while we burn on forever!”

Out of the corner of your bulging eyes you could see the flag behind you set alight. You gawped at it like a flapping fish, tongue flailing around uselessly even as you continued to fight the rope. It was no use. Your vision was almost completely fading now, black was corrupting the edges and inch by inch it was taking over completely. Your body was losing its strength. Your arms fell limply to their sides.

“Nein!”

A scream of terrible anguish filled your senses. Your body slumped down. The darkness in your eyes receded for a moment. 

Boots filled your eyes, you coughed roughly upon seeing them, shocked as the two sets of feet got all too close to coming down on your head. The leading set stopped in their tracks and turned, forcing the other set of feet to back away before any final blow could come. You closed your eyes a moment and focused on hauling in tiny lungfuls of air, coughing like an old hag with every dying choke, but nevertheless you took those painful breaths in like they were bitter medicine. 

“You will pay! I will rip you apart, I will stick a knife through every nerve you have! You will suffer for what you’ve done, you self righteous sack of shit!”

You widened your eyes and even through the terrible pain you were fighting, you roared through it and forced your head up. You knew that voice, you knew that high pitched screaming growl. The sight of him only confirmed it. 

Was it really…were you dreaming again?

You blinked furiously and choked on a sob. Please don’t be dreaming, please don’t be dreaming. The mantra filled your mind and expanded into every little piece of you. Even through the dizziness and the labouring of your struggling body, you could recognise that man out of anywhere, you could’ve recognised him in the pitch black of the blown out tunnel. 

König was laying into Rousseau with the fury of a wounded lion. He rammed him into the wall and forced his head into the concrete over and over, the sound of sickening smack managed to break through the barrier of fuzz in your ears. It managed to break through König’s garbled screaming. Even in your broken state the site brought on an unwilling half smile that came slinking sickeningly from your subconscious.

“Don’t you dare move, don’t you dare do anything but keep breathing! You don’t get to leave this world until I make you regret ever seeing the light of your first day! Do you hear me? Your fight is finished!”

König threw Rousseau to the ground and brought his shining black boot hard down into his stomach. Rousseau panted out, a wormy little gasp broke past his lips but nothing more. He was forced to lie flat on the floor, torn between clutching at his cracked head and his flattened belly. The man who had towered over you had finally been brought down, turned into debris. 

You could hardly believe it. You couldn’t move for the shock. You just stared at Rousseau,  wide eyed, unflinching through the battlefield of pain that raged through every muscle and bone from within you. Somewhere above you were sure you could recognise your name being called, but everything was too fuzzy, the inky darkness was taking over, drawing you into its loving embrace. The dust was settling, your heartbeat was stilling. Everything coalesced into one feeling. Relief. 

You’d have never have felt that way before after seeing something so unnecessarily violent, but after all you’d been through… you weren’t so sure you could bring yourself to be upset. 

“…Darling please look at me.”

The faint whisper broke through your spaced out sound barrier. It was anguished, the voice it came from was hoarse and panting. So much emotion was poured into it, it couldn’t help but wash away the patina of death’s touch.

“Sneak, it can’t end like this. You told me you would come to Austria, yeah? You said you’d let me show you home. You have lots still to do. Look at me. Look at me! You said we’d make it through together Sneak, I’m not going to let you get away from me, do you hear me? Look at me!”

You forced your eyes to flicker upward, trying in vain to settle them on your saviour. The light in the room was so bright though, and his face- no his mask was so dark. You could only make out blackness and dark streaks of red. 

You grit your teeth and shuttered your eyes, blinking a few times until you could see König’s own big wet eyes staring forlornly down at you. You smiled then.

“It..is…you,” you croaked, voice all but useless from your injuries. “Not…dreaming.”

His eyes lit up at your garbled words, the dim blue puddles turned to shining icy lakes. The corners of your mouth lifted heavily into a pained smile. Those eyes didn’t lie, they weren’t figments of your imagination. This was real, you thought to yourself. Even if you might die, you still got to see him again, you got to look into his eyes again and hear his voice and bathe in the warmth of his presence. 

“No, you’re not dreaming,” König confirmed, hastily looking from you and to your surroundings, “you can't dream now, you have to listen to me, you mustn't close your eyes. Hold on for me, darling.”

“Kö…Kön-”

You launched into an ugly coughing fit, your head lit up an alarm system. System failure, everything was red. Your concentration broke and already you disobeyed König. You closed your eyes and lost yourself to the hacking and choking. It felt like your lungs were closing, like they were balloons getting filled so completely they might pop. Every nerve, every wound, every cell in your body was on fire. 

You just wanted it to end. Why couldn’t the suffering end?

“Shh, c’mon breathe. Darling, breathe for me and take control. C’mon! Breathe for me!”

König drew you into his arms and wrapped something thick and warm around you. It might’ve been a comfort if not for the sparkling firecracker that was being set off in your chest. The endless coughing that was tearing up through your throat. 

Tears filled your eyes. No matter how much you wanted to cling to life, if even just for König, you weren’t sure you were strong enough. You weren’t even sure how you’d made it that far to begin with. Raw hope, you’d supposed. Though it didn’t feel like enough anymore. The agony was too much. 

“Sneak, you have to hold on,” König pleaded, rubbing his hands as firmly as your battered back would allow. “Please…don’t leave me alone.”

Dammit. 

You wheezed and cried, clenching your fists with all your might. Your ears rang with a high pitched sound, something you imagined to be angel screams ripping through your ears. You were turning away from death and running, you were sprinting towards life again, toward the scrabbling ugly beast that ran through the chambers of your crumbling body and clawed down at the walls. Pain. 

You gulped in what felt like a litre of air and held on, falling silent for a second until you slowly let it go and felt quiet once again. König’s arms stiffened around you, you could feel his fingers carving grooves into the melted clay of your skin. 

“Sneak?”

You opened your eyes again and settled them on König’s, blinking a few times so that he could still see proof of your presence. He didn’t look as relieved as he did the first time, but there was still a glimmer of hope in his face, still detectable no matter how small. His breaths seemed to resume too, you could see the faint puff start up from behind the dark material of his hood. 

“Sneak! Price!” A voice broke through the strangled calm. 

You blinked again and directed your eyes toward the sound, only daring to crack your neck just a little so that you could see. It was Gaz.. Well, Gaz and Soap. Gaz was thundering over to Price in seconds, squatting over him and grabbing at him, begging him to come to. However Soap was torn, he was frozen in silent horror in the doorway, barely there even as he stood. His face seemed to hollow as he surveyed the two camps that filled the room, though something dark seemed to fill him again when he settled on looking between your groups. 

He was looking at Rousseau. 

“Soap, help me with Price!” Gaz demanded.

He didn’t listen to Kyle. He ignored him in fact and strided over to the centre of the room, grinding to a stop in front of Rousseau’s unconscious body. He knelt down and checked for a pulse, lips pursing when he must’ve found what he was looking for. Still alive, you guessed. 

Why else would he be pulling zip ties from his back pocket? You hazily watched as he tightened them soundly around his wrists and ankles, double checking each one.

“He seems to be alive. How’re they?” Soap grunted, shooting over to Gaz and settling at Price’s other side. “König, how’s Sneak?”

Watching everyone felt like streaming on a bad connection, your vision was lagging, the frames kept flickering. It was a struggle to concentrate on their movements and breathe at the same time. You were faltering toward the darkness again. 

“Not good,” König whined, tightening his embrace on you. “Sneak’s fading fast, we have to get out of here and get to a medic.”

“Price isnt much better,” Gaz grunted, huffing as he lifted Price into a standing position.

Just then another shadow filled the room, it grew and stretched from the doorway like a blight. 

“Alright, halls are clear. How’re we looking in here?”

Ghost’s gruff voice echoed off the chalky walls. He looked between you all, eyes darting around and checking in on everyone, gun angled low to the ground. He looked like he was ready to destroy an entire army, his eyes were set hard and his stance was tense and ready. He was breathing fast.

“Bad. We gotta go,” Soap answered.

“Fucks sakes, get Price covered will you?” Ghost growled, throwing one of the discarded blankets toward Gaz and Soap. 

You looked down at yourself then, only suddenly realising that König had stuck you into one of his sweaters earlier. He must’ve brought it knowing that you’d be naked…he’d seen the videos. A grim thought took hold after. At least if you’d died then, you weren’t dying knowing that everyone was staring at your naked body anymore.

“Wrong thing to fuss over, mate,” Price coughed, finally piping up after his long silence. “We just need to get out of here - quick.”

He sounded better than you for once. They clearly hadn’t been choking him quite so badly during the filming, he sounded reasonably clear after everything he’d been through. He accepted the blanket that was being draped over him nonetheless, but it was hard not to spot the annoyance that overtook him. His brows were knit together tight. 

“We’ll get out, Price, we’ve got things handled,” Ghost assured, finally strapping his gun onto his back. “König, is Sneak going to be alright? Can you get them back to transport?”

“Yes,” König answered, his response harsh through his gritted teeth. “I’ll get Sneak back.”

“Good. I’ll handle Rousseau.”

The way that Ghost said that sounded like Rousseau might not make it back to the transport with the rest of you. Not that you could argue sense into him. Your vocal chords were fried. Though even if they weren’t, you couldn’t be sure you’d have much strength to speak. Your body felt like it was balancing on a knife’s edge, swaying too and fro between darkness and life. 

Closing your eyes and accepting darkness wasn’t an option however. You had to keep fighting. You kept blinking furiously and breathed in however much air your struggling lungs would allow you to. You focused on your heartbeats, clung to König’s hard body and willed yourself to keep going. You weren’t going to let yourself fade out. You couldn’t face knowing that you’d leave him alone, couldn’t face knowing you’d break your promise. 

“Darling, I know you’ve been through so much, but you have to hold on for a bit longer, ok?” König whispered.

His mouth was lowered to your ear. You could feel the roughened material of his hood caressing your skin, lighting a fuse just beneath the surface. You could feel it feathering through to the surface of your skull.  

“Ok,” you whispered. 

He stood up at that, your single utterance spurring him on and forcing him to go. Unfortunately you didn’t feel quite the same way, in fact you screamed out raggedly the moment you were forced to change position. It had him apologising furiously in your ear, but you could only shake your head at him, urging him on with a faded look. 

“Just stay with me, Sneak.”

You nodded your head this time, though it was easier promised than done. You were aware that König was taking you through the shot up hallways, but you knew yourself that you weren’t staying conscious the whole way. 

There were entire sections that seemed to be cleared without your knowledge. Some moments you’d only just be turning corners and the next you would bob your head past König’s shoulder and acknowledge an entire straight corridor behind you both. 

Hold on. 

You continued to blink sleepily and breathe. 

Don’t leave me alone. 

Time ran like slow honey. Each breath seemed to span hours. König was talking to you, but you weren’t entirely sure what it was he was saying. They seemed like affirmations, you were sure at some point he was promising to buy you things from that deli that you liked in town, but you weren’t awake for long to hear it. 

Towards the end you must’ve been gone for a solid few minutes. You went from almost total darkness then violently awoke to four terrified faces surrounding you at once, all bathed in the yellow light of day like they were standing under buttercups. There was a whirring sound all around you and your body felt like it was smothered in bubble wrap. You could hardly feel a thing.

“The drugs must be helping!” Soap shouted hopefully, his voice almost lost under the loud whooshes of air all around you. 

Were you on a helicopter?

You blinked up at the ceiling and smiled euphorically, almost laughing until you were forced to choke back more coughs. It forced your face to scrunch and the light around you to shatter. 

Why were you coughing? What was happening? Why were you in a helicopter? 

Oh no, it’s happening again I’m dreaming, you thought, absolutely horrified at the thought of waking up in the darkness again. It was the only explanation. How did you go from being beaten to being in a helicopter with all of your boys? It simply couldn’t be real. 

“Not…real,” you croaked sadly, “Not…real.”

“Sneak, save your throat,” König roared, his voice sounding similarly distant as Soap’s. 

His hand felt so heart shatteringly solid, like something that was really there. Hadn’t you felt him like that earlier and awoke to find it was all fake? His voice as well. The realisation brought on a violent sob. You were reduced to tears in seconds, shivering violently into the hard floor beneath you. You just couldn’t tell what was happening anymore, you couldn’t feel anything properly. Your skin felt fuzzy and your mind was filled with pillow stuffing.

“You’re safe, Sneak. It’s alright!”

You jumped when you heard König’s voice come through loud and clear. A weird snug feeling encapsulated your head and you frowned, not understanding that you’d been graced with a pair of headphones. The drugs really were doing their work, but you were too gone to even think of that. 

“Sneak hold on for me, ok? Just a little bit longer, my love,” König begged. 

His voice was so hoarse and scratchy. However you heard it loud and clear. 

“Mm…love you,” you whispered. “Been…dreaming bout…you.”

Even if it was a dream, you were happy to fall into it now. The warm fuzz was spreading further through your veins, cushioning your insides pleasantly from all the misery and strain. The idea of this being one of your last dreams tickled at your brain and you almost felt like giggling again. The sunshine was returning to the edges of your vision. 

“Sneak, listen to König and stay awake, alright? Don’t close your eyes Sneak!”

“Soap?” you frowned.

He’d never been in your visions before. Not that you were angry to hear his voice again, but you were thoroughly confused as to why he’d appeared all of a sudden. 

“Stop talking, Sneak. Your throat’s fucked.”

Ghost? 

“Yeah, you can relax for a little bit, ok? Just concentrate on us.”

Gaz?

“Stop overwhelming them,” Price growled out. “All of you shut it.”

Were they all there? You strained your head, moaning when you couldn’t move very much. Something was preventing you. Were you strapped down? You struggled and huffed out a few heavy breaths and soon found that it was no use. You couldn’t move. You could only face ahead. 

That wasn’t so bad either. Soon König was filling your sights and he was leaning above you, floating into frame like an angel. He was wearing his half mask, allowing you to see his uncovered eyes and messy blonde hair. More than ever you wanted to reach out and stroke it, though you knew well enough that you couldn't in your restrained predicament. You pouted. 

“Wan…feel…you…”

“Shhh, darling. Don’t talk. I’m right here, just stay with me. Focus on my voice and keep your eyes open. We’re getting you to a hospital, alright?”

You moaned. 

Why couldn’t you just reach out and touch him? You wanted to feel his hard body against yours just one more time, even if you weren’t sure you’d feel him properly in your dreamstate. It didn’t matter, you figured you could convince yourself of anything. If only you were enjoying the spread of his thick fluffy blonde locks beneath your fingers. Even the thought was enough to send you tingling. 

“That’s right, you’re going to be ok,” König smiled, gently holding your cheek and stroking it. “You’re going to be ok and you’re going to recover. You’re going to get seen to by the doctors, and you’ll rest up and before you know it you’ll be coming home with me. Yeah? You remember our trip? You’re going to be ok. You’re going to come back to Austria with me, ok?”

Finally you were in heaven. It felt so so real. It felt safe. You inhaled deeply and relaxed back, smiling contentedly to yourself. That was everything that you’d wanted for days. You craved loving gestures like a ravenous addict, the yearning had burnt in your heart for days. 

“No! Stop that, keep your eyes open!”

You hadn’t even realised you’d closed them. You blinked sleepily and drew in a deep breath, but the yellow light couldn’t compete with the cool darkness. You craved the shade of rest, wanted to nuzzle into the black. 

“Darling please. If you fall asleep now you might not wake again and I don’t know what I’ll do. Please! Please stay with me! You told me you wouldn’t leave me again, Sneak, you promised! Stop this!”

You frowned. Through the last dregs of light remaining you could see his eyes streaming with tears. His chest was heaving with effort to keep himself upright. His hand was wrapped around your shoulder now, and his other had joined your other side. König was clutching onto you like a little boy lost, but you could do nothing to help him. You felt so weak. You could barely hold your lids open anymore, never mind comfort anyone. 

Why couldn’t he just relax into the warmth like you? You could both lie in the darkness together, bodied fused in the nothing, just floating. You frowned. 

Why was he trying to make you hold on? Didn’t he know that if you woke again you’d be back inside the cell, tied up and shivering like a beaten dog. You didn’t want to go back to that. You wanted to stay in your dream forever now. This was it, you decided.

“Nein! Bitte verlass mich nicht. Ich flehe dich an, bitte bleib!” König sobbed, his voice overtaken by sad gasping breaths. “Please…keep your eyes open. Bitte…please…stop…bitte…Nein…”

Distantly you wanted to remind him that he needed to talk to you in English, but even talking seemed like some far off concept.

You shook your head and lay back into the darkness fully, swaying into the eternal night. You wished König wasn’t so sad. You wished your last dream had been a more pleasant one…but it didn’t matter.

It was just a dream.

Don’t cry König… you’ll find me no matter where I go…

-☠️-

I got pain an' experience... an' you got heart -- kinda remind me of Marciano, ya do.

“How’re things? Any progress?”

“I’ve noticed some twitching, but the doctors keep saying I’m seeing things. They keep blaming it on lack of sleep.”

Rocky, when I was fightin' it was the dirtiest racket goin', see. Pugs like me was treated like fightin' dogs -- throw ya in the pit an' for ten bucks ya try to kill each other.

“...I know it’s difficult, but you need to rest too. You’ve been holed up in here alone with these movies on repeat for god knows how long now. It’s not good for you, mate.”

“I don’t need you to tell me what’s good for me. The doctors said familiar people and sounds will help. Rocky will help. Being here will help.”

“I know but...If-”

“Don’t you dare say ‘if’ Sneak wakes up.”

-

Do you feel you have a chance?

Maybe

“König, enough's enough. Get yourself downstairs, jump in that fucking taxi and go to the hotel. Don’t come back till you’ve gotten that wretched smell off you and do something about the bags under your eyes.”

“For the last time I’m not going! I saw a finger spasm. It really moved!”

“I’m sure you’ve seen pink elephants and all sorts by now, sunshine. Fuck off and go look after yourself. You’re no good to anyone like this.”

“No! I won’t do it!”

“For god’s sakes do you want to stink Sneak awake? C’mon, look at yourself. Don’t you think you’ll scare them if they wake up and see you like this?”

“I don’t care! I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care!”

-

Get outta my life both of ya's.

“Look, I know we don’t really get on but…I bought you a tea. Can I sit for a bit?”

“Are you going to try and make me leave too?”

“Jesus, no. Just wanted to come check in. They keep sayin’ you’re seeing movement…”

... It's cold outside, Paulie.

“I am seeing movement. Today it was a blink, I’m sure of it.”

“Well, that’s good, hm? What’re the doctors sayin’? Do they think there’ll be any change?”

“The doctors never want to reveal much.”

He's scum from the corner, I didn't raise ya to hang with no bum!

“Do you ever get tired of Rocky being on all the time? It’d drive me nuts watching the same thing over and over all day.”

“I barely notice it anymore.”

“Huh.”

-

“Sneak please, I’m begging you. You have to give me something…I’ve been watching you for so long now and you’ve never been so still. Just give me something so I can keep going, yeah? Anything…bitte.”

-

“You know I was looking out at the stars a minute ago. It reminded me of when we sat together that night and looked up at the sky together. Remember that, darling? You fixed my hair for me. I could use that again now. I almost broke my comb trying to put it through my hair yesterday. I suppose maybe I should listen to your team, hm? Garrick and MacTavish offered to sit with you for a little while tonight… Maybe you’d like to have some company with someone else for a bit. Maybe you’d be better off without me, hm?”

-

It don't matter if I lose... Don't matter if he opens my head...The only thing I wanna do is

go the distance -- That's all.

“I’ve tried it all and still you won’t wake up for me! What will it take Sneak? What will it fucking take! I’ve done everything and still it isn’t enough! Why am I not enough! Is it because of what I did that day? Is this my penance? Are you running away from me again? Goddamn it, I can’t take this, wake up Sneak! Just open your eyes!”

-

I love you -- I love you -- I love you…

“Fuckin’ hell, is this still on?”

“Ghost!”

“You know why it’s on.”

“Think I could recite it from memory by now.”

“You’re not helpin’, LT. Leave him alone.”

“Fuck me, there’s only so many times you can listen to that numbskull’s voice. Let the arsehole say Yo! Adrian and turn it off.”

“Well then, it sounds like you can’t recite it from memory then.”

“What?”

“‘Yo! Adrian’ - That’s from Rocky two. He didn’t say it in the first one, see? The movie is over now.”

“Oh, fuck me.”

-

“I was thinking earlier…you said before that you hated not knowing my name. You said that I shared everything with you, except that and it…it killed you not to know me completely. I don’t know why I had to be so stubborn about it now, I suppose it's just not a name I like to hear very much. Apart from my mother, it just reminds me of people I’d rather not think about…but I think if i ever heard you say it I’d like it. Do you still want to know it? What if I told you now, would you wake up?”

-☠️-

Swirling mist danced behind your lids. There was an electric current somewhere sparking in a breeze, you were floating along on it, your skin tingled and your spine burned with the fizz of it. You felt yourself twinge, felt a groan building in the back of your throat even though you couldn’t hear it. There was a vibration running down your body, it built and thrummed through you, undulating with the electricity. 

You liked it. You enjoyed getting to float freely, loved the temporary bliss of your shadowy escape. There was no pain there in the darkness, just whooshes and whisps of feeling and giddy deliriousness. An endless drifting cycle that felt like it could go on for the rest of time. However implausible that would be to a sane person. 

Ultimately it didn’t last forever though - eventually you felt yourself sinking.

You frowned. No. You didn’t want to sink, you didn’t want to go into the depths, you wanted to remain in the clouds. You hated the falling sensation, you hated the burning that built in your throat, hated the aches that broke out all over your back as if it were cracked glass. You especially disliked the crusty feeling behind your eyes. 

You scrunched your eyelids furiously, gritting your teeth when you couldn’t relieve the sensation. With a strangled moan and no small amount of effort you cracked your eyes open. Somehow you resisted the urge to scream. Maybe you were too weak to do anything like that just yet, but your body wasn’t above holding it in, waiting to survey your surroundings first. 

You blinked furiously into the light. The room you were in was disgustingly fucking bright, clinically bright. The shocking white glare flooded your vision and kept you fluttering your eyelids for a moment, continuously disturbing the layer of gunk that had built in the gloopy corners of your eyes. The world was in stark contrast to the one you’d just emerged from. What was painless and empty before was now bursting to life with sensation. 

Fuck. 

There were so many acidic scents and weird feelings around you. Your body felt like it was repressurising, your lungs were reacclimating to your surroundings. Through it all, you wanted to reach up and wipe your face so badly. There was no way you could muster the strength though. You didn’t have enough energy, it was all being used toward your growing awareness. 

Why were you so weak? Why couldn’t you move? Where were you? 

The questions clawed at your mind and had your brain scrambling until it burnt. There weren’t many memories to help you out. When you tried to think of where you were last, your head came up just as blank as the ceiling above you. That’s when you realised there was only one way you could get any answers. 

You would have to move.

For some reason your instincts were telling you not to talk, not to draw attention to yourself. You weren’t sure why, but you sure as fuck weren’t going to go aginst your gut at a time like that. 

You sucked in a silent breath and steeled yourself. Then you took in another. Then another. You breathed in and out and kept up a steady rhythm until you felt you’d gathered every miniscule ounce of strength you had and finally you put it all into twisting your neck around. You grunted out in pain, but kept yourself quiet, swivelling and sighing all you could until you were greeted with something other than ceiling. 

A lightning shock of messy blonde hair. A black mask. A big scarred face gently slackened into a sleepy frown. 

Your heart leaped in your chest. You couldn’t remember much, but one thing was for sure - you knew exactly who was sitting across from you then. 

It brought a smile to your sore cracked lips. The corners twitched up and your heart jumped around in your chest like a parading cheerleader. Next thing you knew, something from somewhere next to you, something started to furiously beep. It filled your head and ricocheted through your ears, and more importantly startled the man across from you out of his slumber. 

“Ah Oida! Doctor, nurse! The monitor its-”

König looked at you then and you could’ve sworn his eyes were going to pop out of their sockets. The world went still. 

You smiled softly at him and watched on as he stayed frozen in his tracks, looking like a perfect picture of fear and disbelief. The room felt like it’d been filled with gas, like it was seconds from ignition. He gaped at you in the heavy silence. 

“Am I…Is this…Is this real?” he asked fearfully. 

You smiled wider then and blinked a couple times. You couldn’t rely on your voice to work, it felt like your gullet was filled up with gravel. Talking was going to be a luxury, you could tell. It already felt like a miracle getting to lay eyes on your man again, but it wasn’t one you were taking for granted. From the few moments you’d had, you could tell you’d been out for a while.

“My love! It’s really you, you’re really awake!” König laughed. 

You mustered a tiny nod from your depleted energy reserves. The second you moved you sent König running toward you. 

His boots slapped down on the squeaky tiled floors, with the force he sped to you it felt like he was going to put his foot through the floor. Though you couldn’t focus too much on that, because soon enough he was on you, arms clamping around you as if he’d never let go again. 

It hurt so bad to have him wrap himself so tightly round you, but you couldn’t bring yourself to complain. Strangely it was comforting to feel pain from something good. And man did it feel good. It felt like you’d been pulled from the ice, like you were warm again. Safe. You were home. 

It made you all the more aware that you really were alive. 

“König what the fuck are you doing? You can’t squeeze sneak awake! The doctors are saying you’re causing a commotion in here, what’s going on?”

You smiled wider than you ever thought possible and looked past König’s heaving body and toward the source of the gruff commanding voice. It was a voice for sore ears. 

“I don’t need to squeeze Sneak awake, Captain,” König giggled, his entire body vibrating with his maddened laughter. 

“Fuckin’ hell you’ve finally crossed the border fully into looney land,” Price growled. 

“No! No, see for yourself. See!”

König detached from you, allowing you some more space to breathe again, and you took the opportunity gratefully. However you couldn’t help but wrinkle your nose when you finally caught the pungent smell that had clung to the air around you. Was that…König?

“What are you talking about? What- fucking christ alive!”

You broke out of your hazy thoughts and made eye contact with Price, almost breaking your silence with a fit of laughter when he did the same thing as König. His mouth hung open, his unusually clean shaven face looking thin and haunted from the second he realised that König hadn’t gone mad from grief. He dropped his shivering skinny arms and his whole hospital gown clad body shot up stick straight. 

“Bloody hell It’s really…Sneak’s really…”

“See! I told you! I told you all!” König grinned. “I said there had been movement. I told you that Sneak would fight.”

König’s stance was victorious, his eyes were ablaze with pride. It made your chest wrench to see him so happy. Something told you that he hadn’t been doing well at all. If his greasy hair and fierce aroma were anything to go by. At least he would be able to fix that. 

You weren’t so sure that you were going to be fixed anytime soon. 

All of a sudden, as if awakened by your thoughts, a horrible tearing jolt worked itself through your throat and splintered down your back. It forced a pathetic squeak of pain from your lips and soon the two men were rushing to the door screaming and shouting for someone to come do something as your body heaved and trembled. The alarm and the crazed beeping from the machines only made your condition worsen, the shouting rattled your ears and rung through your head like a gong. 

A nurse was by your side in minutes, shaking a little as König stood beside her, urging her to do something. You were in too much pain to pity her though. Your entire being was in atrophy. Chills and hot flashes worked their way through your skin and horrible zipping sparks jumped all around your body, directing themselves toward your tired lungs. 

Though soon the trauma ended, and your pain dulled down into a light throb until eventually you felt like you were on a new plane. All the edges in the room appeared hazy and everything seemed to ebb and blur. At first it didn’t feel much better than the agony, but eventually you grew used to it, letting yourself lay back into the soft sheets and smile dopily into the skinny pillow you’d been given. 

“Sneak? Sneak!”

“König,” you mouthed, floating steadily back into the darkness. 

 -☠️-

You’d had a few more encounters like that until you were finally able to stay awake without being shot up with drugs like a dying horse. 

The pain started to get more manageable with time, and of course you were able to motivate yourself with seeing all of your loved ones again. König was always there, bar the times you had to raspily whisper shout at him to go take a bath or to go get some rest. He never would leave you alone to sleep though, opting instead to lay down on the empty hospital cot next you. He’d strong armed a young doctor into getting it into your room of course. 

Price visited quite a lot too. He was in the room next to yours, thoroughly displeased that they weren’t giving him the all clear to go back to work. He groused that he was just fine and that the bloody doctors didn’t know what they were saying, going on about how he’d been a Captain long enough and he knew better than them that his body was ready to go home and heal there. You both knew it was a lie though. Price was as sick as you, even if he was mostly able to walk and talk. You could see it behind his eyes. 

You knew well enough what was lurking in there, because you had the same sickness yourself. It was there when strangers came to touch you and check up on you, the doctors that were only trying to care for you. It was there when the lights went out at night. It was there lurking in the shadows. It was there every time you were forced to get a wash. You screamed bloody murder the first time you were awake for a sponge bath, almost choked up blood you were so terrified of the water. Even the sound of it sloshing at the edges of the bucket was enough to send you into a panic attack. It was a nightmare even having to drink the stuff. 

König took it upon himself to look after every facet of your wellbeing after that wash. He bathed you, he fed you when you were finally able to have solid food, and he practically barked like a rottweiler at anyone that tried to touch you without letting him know what it was for. As much as you tried to tell him it was alright and that he didn’t have to do all that for you, he’d shake his head with indignance everytime and shush you with a million platitudes. He said he’d do anything for you. He would serve you until the minute you sent him away, which wasn’t very often, but it was necessary to tell him to eat or get himself a shower. 

Price had confessed to you one night that he had reacted much the same as you after they’d brought him in. König had been sent away, and so your Captain sat on the foot of your bed drinking tea from a wonky paper cup, occasionally grimacing with his weird naked face as the bitter after taste sunk in. You were still getting used to seeing him without a beard, even after all you’d been through, that was still completely out of the ordinary. 

“It’s the only reason I drink this utter shit,” he’d remarked, drawing the tea close to his lap. “I’d rather have something with a taste to it. Something with a bit of colour.”

“Glad to know its not just me,” you’d said bitterly. 

Your voice was still raspy when you spoke, the doctors told you it would take a while to heal, you just had to keep your voice to a whisper for a while. Apparently your throat had suffered so much trauma that you were lucky you were getting to speak at all after what you’d been through. Not that you felt particularly lucky. 

“You know…when we go back we’ll have to get tested…medical tests, psych evals.”

Your lips parted and you sucked in a low breath. In the back of your mind you hadn’t forgotten that Price was going to waive your little misstep with König. You were technically allowed to go back. That aside though, would you really be capable? Could you pass a psych eval? You screamed bloody murder most nights because of the awful nightmares you were having. Your body was frail and your scars were deep. Not all of them would heal. 

“You’d let me back?” you asked slowly. 

“Well, if you managed to pass - of course,” Price shrugged. “I was serious when I said that the whole mess with König didn’t matter, I think we’ve been through enough together that none of that means anything anymore. The most important factor is, do you want to go back?”

You caught eyes with him then, locked into his hard stare. His blue eyes were shining dully in the dim yellow night light. You could see the hollows in his cheeks more prominently now, the shadows were digging their palms into his face. He was right - you had been through a lot together.

You weren’t so sure about your abilities anymore, if you would have the nerve to get out on the field again. A dark part of you also wondered about the alternative, what if you’d enjoy it too much? What if you’d want to take your vengeance out on those who hadn’t even done anything to you? 

Even through the haze of your memories of being rescued, you could still remember the way you stared at Rousseau's crushed up body and the feeling of your smile still haunted you.

Of all the things that that man had done to you, the most horrific of all was the taking of some small part of your humanity. It brought a shiver to your core each time you thought of his head being smashed against the wall, and how you couldn’t even imagine telling König to stop even if you’d had the ability at the time.

It was something you desperately tried not to dwell on, lest your chest cave in from the pressure. 

Both you and Price wordlessly let the uncomfortable silence linger. Soon enough he cast his gaze away and flickered his attention over to the TV. It was playing a crappy sitcom that neither of you had seen before, nevertheless you were both as captivated with it as if it were your favourite. Neither of you brought up coming back again that night. It made for too many questions that you didn’t have the answer to yet. 

It was easier to pretend that everything was going to be fine. Your head felt clearer when you plastered on a smile and acted like everything was normal. That was the tactic when Ghost, Gaz and Soap finally came to visit and it worked well then.

They’d all flooded into the room with faces like slapped arses. Gaz and Soap were fighting each other to apologise to you first while Ghost stood solemnly by your side giving you one of the sorriest looks you’d ever seen from those hard blue eyes of his. You weren’t going to have any of it though. They didn’t deserve to drown in their guilt because of a series of reckless choices that you’d made. 

“All of you have got to stop apologising. You already did enough getting us out of there, there’s nothing more to be said about it,” you rasped, quickly looking over to the jug of water placed strategically away from you. 

Ghost gave Soap and gaz a withering look, before he turned and fetched a small glass, filling it only a third of the way before steadily handing it to you. It barely shifted in his careful hands - it made you realise that someone must’ve filled him in. The realisation had your heart stuttering, it had revealed a crack in your normal facade. 

Despite that though, you gave him a small nod and gently tipped the water back, greedily letting the water soothe your burning throat. Drinking it never completely relieved you of course. Your throat remained scratchy no matter what you had, it would still take some time before you fully recovered. 

“We played our part in your capture, Sneak. There’s no denying it,” Ghost said. “Me more than anyone else. I put you in danger and I can’t let you dismiss that. I let my feelings get in the way of the mission, and ultimately that was the whole reason Price had set the rules he did with you in the first place. I’m truly sorry for what happened, and there isn’t anything that’ll make my part in what happened alright.”

“Aye, we all did, we all put you in danger. It was a fuckin’ big shock, Sneak. It didn’t feel good knowing you might’ve been leaving the team for someone we thought was…well it doesn’t matter what we thought. Point is we acted out of line and we do have to apologise,” Soap said seriously, placing his hand by yours on the bed. “Im sorry too.”

“It wasn’t our place to punish you,” Gaz said firmly, “We acted like fucking children and it almost cost your life. I can’t say sorry enough.”

“You were barely even with me on that mission!”

“Well I didn’t exactly stick up for you when I got the chance, did I?”

You started to roll your eyes, but the look that Gaz gave you was enough to stop them before they peaked at the skyline. You closed them instead for a second and then pursed your lips, taking a moment to consider their words.

Everything in you wanted to tell them all to shut up about it so that you wouldn’t have to think too much about that awful day, but you knew well enough that you couldn’t ask everyone to put it behind them just so that you could deny it. What happened happened. You had to face it. If not just for yourself, then for the men that had risked their lives coming to get you and Price back. For your brothers. 

Though you didn’t have to unravel right at that exact moment, you decided. That could wait for a time that you could at least fetch your own water for yourself, or when you could take a shower without König standing outside of it. 

“Well, seeing as we’re talking apologies…” you sighed, opening your eyes again and looking at each of them with serious measure. “Let’s get into reparations. What’d you all get me?”

“Get you?” Gaz repeated. 

“Yeah, where are my ‘sorry you almost died, woops!’ balloons?”

“Oh, away n’ bile yer heid!” Soap groused. 

“You didn’t even get a little bear with hand marks round it’s neck?” you grinned. 

“Well we found one, but it had big red handprints on its arse as well, and that just didn’t seem appropriate,” Ghost remarked. 

“Jesus, LT!” Soap snapped. 

“Yeah, König might take it as us flirtin’ and snap our arms off,” Gaz sniggered. 

“Oh for…” Soap groaned, and put his hands over his eyes. 

You laughed properly for the first time in a long time, and most joyously of all you didn’t fly into a coughing fit straight after. It flowed freely from you like notes from a tuba, still not quite your usual timbre but fuck it, it was music. Your body lightened and your head cleared, it was like an oppressive fog was beginning to lift. 

Even if you weren’t coughing by the end of it, your throat still dried up again though you didn’t need to worry. Ghost got you another glass of water and handed it to you with a softened expression.

You took the glass from him once more and sunk into a familiar rhythm with the guys again, transporting yourself away from the four stark white walls of the hospital room and away on their adventures. They filled you in on what was happening back at base, told you about their latest antics with the recruits and by the end of it you were so delirious from happiness, the nurse had to shoo them out so that you could rest. 

König came in shortly after them, freshly washed and fed, and he lay down in his cot across the room. His footsteps had woken you, even when he hadn’t meant to, you were still so hypersensitive to movement. Even in the darkness you could make out his mountainous shape as it rose and curved from the bed and it brought a little smile curving onto your lips. Your protector was never far. 

You sleepily invited him over and gladly he came speed walking to your bed. His messy was flopping in his excitement and the site of him reminded you so much of a cartoon you couldn't help but laugh a little.  

The trilling sound of it had him smiling, and soon after he poured you a cup of water and let you drink before fastening his arms around you and cuddling into your back. Your personal stove was on full heat. He was assuming his faithful position by your side. 

You sighed and relaxed into him, wiggling to get yourself right before frowning when you felt something sharp poking into your leg. What was that? You drew your hand back and stopped at König’s pocket, tilting your head when you slid your hand in and found the source. 

“Oh, Scheiße,” König huffed.

“What?”

König’s body went stiff as a board and you could practically feel the air harden around you. You were confused as to why he was there until you brought your hand to your face and discovered the cause. 

It was the wooden bird from the market. You tilted it gently and inspected it, quickly realising what the cause of his sorry state was. It’s little wing had been broken and glued back on, a permanent scar had been left on its frail body. Something that was all too familiar. 

“It’s just like me,” you joked.

“What?” König somehow managed to get stiffer. 

You turned around and faced him, gasping when you realised how upset he was. His entire expression soured, his eyebrows knitting into a deep frown. His shoulders sagged with grief and from behind his bandana you swore you could see his lips trembling, could sense his breath puffing out raggedly from behind the material. The pain on his face struck through your skull like a mallet. 

Shit. 

“You know…It’s got a little damage, but its ok. You put it back together,” you shrugged, trying fruitlessly to keep your tone light and even. 

“It was only broken because of me,” König whimpered. “And I haven’t even properly fixed it.” 

His eyes glazed over, spacing out into whatever terrible thoughts had been tugging at his subconscious. You’d felt your heart break then, cracking down the middle at the thought of him blaming himself. It was bad enough when the 141 were filling up the room with their apologies, but it was a whole other thing to see König folding under the pressure of his guilt. The boys had each other, but he didn’t have anyone other than you. 

“Hey,” you said gently, voice still a little rough. “Listen to me. C’mon look at me. König I need you to know that it’s not your fault, what happened wasn’t because of you…I don’t even know why you’d think it’s your fault, but ultimately it comes down to me. My stupid actions. You tried to do your best by me that day and I fought you because I was scared. I couldn’t stop worrying about all the damage I’d done and in the end I only made it all worse. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Are you sure about that?” he asked, frowning as he searched your face. 

“Of course I’m sure. That day I got captured was a shit show, König. After you did everything you possibly could to make sure I got back safe and sound again, and… well I don’t even know if I can even count on myself not having more dreams or hallucinations, but I’m sure I heard you everyday that you were by my bedside. I could feel you when I was asleep. You were there with me even when I was getting moved around all those prisons. You’ve been my anchor König, you’ve been the one that’s kept me here fighting. You’re my reason to go on, so don’t you lie there blaming yourself for what’s happened.”

“How can I not?” König sighed. “It’s my fault things got so complicated between us in the first place. I was the reason that Price banned you from having a relationship with me, It was my fault for being so bloodthirsty. Fuck, I could barely even stop myself from killing Rousseau, I thought- I thought that, well I worried that you would’ve spent your last moments horrified with me for what I’d done to him that day.” 

“Oh fuck no, don’t be stupid!” you snapped. 

König’s brows shot up and his eyes grew big as saucers. You swore you could see your hardset gaze reflected clearly in the blue of them, burning holes through that layer of guilt he’d shrouded himself in. How dare he think that he was your ruin when he was the one that saved you? 

“Don’t you dare put all the blame on yourself, König. You can’t think like that. I have just as much freedom over my actions as you do, it was equally my fault for getting Price on my back, and it was down to my actions that day that got me captured. As for Rousseau, well, I would’ve splattered him on the concrete myself if I had the energy.”

“Sneak!”

“It’s true,” you spat. “I know I shouldn’t think like that, but it’s true. I know I’m normally the one that tries to do right, but do you know what? After all the wrong I’ve done, I’m not going to sit here and pretend I’m not capable of the same things as you. We both have violent jobs, and we both carry horrible truths that haunt us. Don’t turn me into one of your ghosts König, don’t let the guilt fester and eat you up. I love you and I’d do anything to make sure you were safe, and I know that you’d do the same for me. You brought me back from the brink and now because of it we can lay here together and we can make a future for ourselves. We can go to Austria and we can decide to do whatever we want with the time that we have König. That’s all that matters. Don’t shrink from the past and get upset at the scars left behind. We have to learn to accept it.”

You thrust the bird toward him and he took it, scooping it into his hands ever so delicately. It was as if you’d handed him your heart. His breaths were soft and his eyes were filled with tears. 

There was a single beat where you worried he might try to walk away, but instead he gently placed the bird down on your over-bed table, wood hitting wood producing a soft whispery sound in the near silent room, and then he wrapped his arms around you again. He held you tight and kept you melded to him, fusing you with his shaking body. 

He cried soundlessly and let his body shake most of it out, all of the terror and the pain and the stress he’d been holding onto was slowly being released through you. His tears ran thick and hot and collected at his mask, reddening his cheeks at the edges of it. You slid it down for him eventually and cleared away the salty tracts, dabbing at his cheeks with the corner of your crisp white bed sheets. 

“You have no idea…I…I feel so selfish saying this, but you don’t know how lonely I’ve felt this past month. I’ve just felt like I’ve had all of this pain trapped inside and every time I’ve seen you suffer since waking up I just- I’ve felt like shit for thinking that I deserve an ounce of comfort when you’re the one that’s been through the worst.”

“Don’t think like that König, please. You always have me to turn to, you’re not being selfish for feeling hurt in all this. You got burnt too and it’s not fair you going it alone ok? You can talk to me, König. You can always talk to me. I love you, I love you so much, and I don’t want you bottling everything up just to protect me. I’m not broken, you don’t have to turn me into your next mission. I’m healing, and I think- I think we both need to heal. Y’know?”

König took a stuttering breath and nodded, his lips curling downward in a unique kind of sadness you’d never seen on him before. Now that his hair was flopping over his forehead and his half mask was wound down and dishevelled on his neck, he looked so young. His face was shadowed with his innocence, it shone out across his eyes. 

You pressed your palms into his cheeks and smoothed your thumbs over the irritated salty skin, pressing kisses where you could to ease the pain. His face was scratchy from the thick stubble there, but you didn’t care. It was more important that you soothe the burning ache inside König. You had to show him that you could be there for him too, even if you were still physically weak.

He was your reason to remain strong. He was the reason you were taking steps every day to try and get better. He really was your anchor. Your König. 

“Somehow we’ll make it through this…” you whispered, finally giving his swollen lips a much needed kiss.

He closed his eyes and leaned into it. The pressure in the atmosphere seemed to lighten, your lips crushed together like petals and you bathed in the calm that overflowed in you. It finally felt like things really would be ok. You were together now and you didn’t need to constantly think about your next steps, you just had to be. That was all that mattered for then. 

Your kiss ended a little while after, your breath not quite back to normal yet. Your chest panted with the lack of air, but soon you settled again and smiled. König matched your smile and his dazzling blue eyes gleamed like jewels in the low light. He rested against the pillow and stared at you in awe, as if he was finally seeing someone he hadn’t gotten to be with in a very long time. 

“Do you really think you heard me when you were…asleep?” he asked, tentatively breaking the silence as if it were fragile glass. 

He could never bring himself to say ‘in a coma’.

“I dunno,” you sighed. “I think I dreamed a lot, but I can’t really remember. I swear I really could hear Rocky sometimes, but then Price was very eager to make a point of saying how insane you’d driven everyone with it so…who knows,” you laughed. “He’s a vivid storyteller I guess.”

König chuckled a little and shook his head. Looking a little guilty as he thought about the amount that movie had been on. He’d already confessed to you it’d be a long time before he’d ever be able to watch it again. 

“You don’t remember me speaking to you though? Don’t remember the things I’d told you?”

You tilted your head at him, the movement rustling the stark sheets beneath you. 

“I feel like I can remember you saying you loved me and you wanted me to open my eyes, but I can’t really remember anything specific. Nothing I couldn’t have just as well have dreamt,” you shrugged. “Why?”

“I…well I thought…ugh, it’s ridiculous. Nevermind,” he sighed, looking toward the wall and away from your questioning gaze. 

“Aw, c’mon König! What is it? You can tell me,” you pressed, running your hand through a section of his fluffy hair. 

He closed his eyes and leaned into your touch. His face washed with relief, his body relaxed. He let go of his anxieties. 

“Well…I told you my name a little closer to the end of your sleep. I thought that maybe you might’ve remembered it if you were coming to awareness.”

You froze, stopping your calming gestures in your tracks as soon as you realised what you’d missed out on. 

“You what! You told me your name and now you’re just casually throwing that out there?”

“Well I was desperate, Sneak. I thought maybe it’d motivate you to wake up, I dunno. I said it was ridiculous,” he huffed, opening his eyes back up again. 

“Well, do I get to know it now?” you demanded, rolling over him so that he was caged between your arms. 

He widened his eyes, and even in the darkness you could make out the rosy tint that had broken out across his cheeks. He breathed a little quicker. 

“Aw, c’mon!” you begged, giving him your widest doe eyes you could muster. “Please.”

He sighed and bit his lip, trying to avoid your stare, but it didn’t work. He could feel the heat of your eyes on him and so he gave up. He puffed out a defeated breath and he smiled a queasy smile. He was about to speak, but instead found himself opening his mouth and closing it again, sealing his lips shut tightly. 

“Are you really still scared to share it with me?” you asked, softening your harsh stare at him. 

He opened and closed his mouth again and finally he shook his head at himself. 

“I’m not scared, no. It just feels…I’m not sure. I don’t really like to say it. I Will tell you though. I don’t ever want anything to happen again and live knowing that I didn’t hear you say it. I’m sure I’ll love to hear you say it.”

“Well you could always write it down…I can’t promise I’ll pronounce it right if its got some weird Austrian spelling, but I can-”

“No, no,” he chuckled, taking one of your hands in his and stopping you before you could go off on a tirade. “I won’t need to write it down. I’ll tell you.”

“Ok, well…when you’re ready.”

He breathed out and traced your fingers with his thumb. The massive digit stroked featherlight touches into your skin and you smiled at the fizzing sensation of it. His breath was warm on your neck, his chest was beating erratically from beneath you. It prompted you to climb down off him, keeping a grip of his hand all the same, but instead you took to lying next to him again. 

He smiled lazily as you settled by his side and he closed his eyes. You felt yourself strain as you listened to the buzzing quiet in the room, waiting to hear his name after all that time. 

“Matthias,” he whispered.

You instantly grinned, the single word lighting you up like a beacon. Your chest felt like it could burst. 

“Do I get a second name, Matthias?” you asked, pressing closer so you could kiss his cheek. 

He shivered next to you, his entire body buzzing. The static zipped right through the bed. He gave you a look he’d never given you before, the joy indescribable. 

“Luger,” he said gently. 

You bit your lip, not quite believing that you finally heard it.

“Not König then?”

“No, not König,” he murmured. “König was my mother’s maiden name. I started using it when I left the army. No ones called me by my real name in a long time”

“Huh… Matthias Luger,” you said in a whisper, feeling conspiratorial. “It suits you.”

“It suits me when you call me it,” he smiled, cuddling himself into the bed. 

“Should I call you Matthias when we’re alone now?” you pondered, letting your thoughts escape out loud.

He breathed out a laugh and pulled you close to him, forcing you to sink into the bed with him. It didn’t require too much coercion however. You were more than happy to lie there with him.

“You can call me whatever you like as long as you stay with me, darling,” he whispered. “Don’t ever run off like that again, you promise?”

You sighed and cuddled closer into his body, gradually letting yourself fade into the night with him. 

“I promise…Matthias,” you whispered, not helping yourself from saying it just one last time. 

-☠️-

The darkness kept a hold of you both for some time after that, after all was said and done. However during the course of your lying in bed together, it released its hold on you soon enough, and before you knew it the sun was raising its bright arms into the sky and beginning to wave good morning. You could see it out in the hallway, gently tickling at the floors and beginning to shift its eyes onto your room. You were dozing on and off, but now that you’d seen the light you were fully awake, flickering your lashes at the golden rays as they bounced off the blue linoleum. 

“Morning.”

König yawned next to you, stretching himself out and uncurling his arms. His back cracked like a firework seconds later, and he wrapped himself around you again, snuggling into the back of your T-shirt (one of his that he’d supplied you with). You rolled your eyes and smiled, feeling your heartbeat pitter patter. 

“You sure it’s morning for you?” You asked breathily. 

“Mm, I’ll be awake properly in a few minutes,” he grunted. “This just feels nice.” 

“Aw, so cute when you’re sleepy,” you cooed, rolling around so that you could see his shuttered lashes. 

He moaned his disapproval at being called cute, but he didn’t say much. He was verging far too much on the side of sleep rather than waking and you knew it would take far more to prod the bear back to life. 

You grinned slyly to yourself and bit your lip. Something of your old sense of mischief was returning to you.

“You’re just so sweet you’re all tired like that,” you continued.

He grunted again. 

“My little Schnucki cuddle bear…my lil matty watty-”

At that, König wrenched his eyes open and shot you a warning look. It was written all over his face that he had no idea how to take his revenge with you still in your weakened state, but you knew well enough he’d think of something. You took to giggling at his frowning face and lay yourself back against the pillow, innocently staring up at him as plotted away. 

“You know if you’re going to call me disgustingly cutesy names, I will have to leave.” 

“You would never,” you snorted, “I have to shoo you away just to get a shower most of the time.”

“Well, maybe I’m in a showering mood this morning,” he said, smiling viciously at you. 

His eyes were pointed at you like arrows. He pulled up his mask and sat up without breaking eye contact, then he tilted his head at you. A particularly smarmy look crossed his face. He’s clearly thought of a good way to get his revenge. 

“Yes, I think maybe I’ll head out for a little bit,” he shrugged.

“Fine,” you said, playing along with his little game. “I’m sure the nurses will be around with food soon. Price will be up and about too.”

“Mm, that will be good for you,” he said with a nod. “I think what might be good for me is getting myself a lovely breakfast. I’ll forgo the hospital canteen though, that stuff's rubbish. I think instead there's a lovely Italian deli that’ll be opening soon. One that I think you’ve heard of. It does lovely breakfast food!”

You narrowed your eyes at him. 

“And you’d bring something back from the deli then?”

“Why would I do that?”

You shoved at him playfully, too weak and tired to make much impact, but nonetheless enough to send him laughing back onto the bed. The booming sound had you giggling immediately, and even while all the excitement was hurting your throat you didn’t care. He pulled you into him and cuddled you close, forcing you back to the bed, though he didn’t actually have to use much strength. 

He held you like that until Price sleepily stumbled in with his morning tea round and cleared his throat, forcing you both to part. Even if he did say he was fine with König, it was evident he wasn’t in love with watching you exchange affections. Even standing next to König seemed like an issue some days. 

König left then, making his usual excuses, promising to come back with something from the deli after all, and allowed Price to pull up a chair alone.

He was a lot more mobile now that he’d mostly healed, he still stood a little funny under the weight of his crushed back, but according to the physio (and maybe Price overexaggerating his diagnosis) he would be fine again in a few weeks. Judging by the way he grunted when his back connected with the hard leather, you knew you were onto something assuming Price was being unusually optimistic.

“Making noises like that, you’ll be a sure candidate for desk duty, old man.”

Price shot you a glare and you bit your lip. He wasn’t going to abide by your cheek. 

“I can still send you to the latrines, Sneaky,” Price answered, slamming your flimsy takeaway tea down with a little too much force. 

“Oh yeah? I can imagine that’ll be a cushy job if I only have to clean your office.” 

“Fuck sake,” he grumbled, rolling his eyes. 

You couldn’t help yourself. Now that you’d been through all that trauma together, you found yourself braving interactions with him that you never would’ve before. After seeing him bollock naked and covered in his own detritus, the sheen of his title had faded some. You were able to be braver.

You and he both knew that nothing he could threaten you with would be worse than what you’d already faced. It was that universally realised truth that meant you knew the bitter glare that he was directing you from behind his takeaway cup didn’t hold any real malice.

“Seriously though…Gaz told me you were thinking of going back in a couple weeks. Is that true?”

Price stopped mid sip and regarded you awkwardly. His eyes slanted downward to the floor and his palm rested on his sweats in defeat. It was still so odd seeing Price in pyjamas, almost weirder than seeing him naked. It made him look all the more uncomfortable in front of you. 

“Well, just on paperwork to start. I’m not bloody likely to pass a medical and I’ve got a series of psych evals and debriefs to get through, so yeah, I figure I may as well get ahead of it all.”

“You’ve got to tell them about what happened? Do I? Will they ask me to come in?” you asked, breath hitching with fear. “Will they come here?”

“No, no, don’t worry. I’ve told them you’ll not be in until your health improves. Far as they’re concerned you’re barely talking right now,” he soothed. 

Your heartbeat wound down from its highly strung little dance. You breathed out a sigh of relief and picked up your cup of tea, breathing in the warm berry steam that wafted through the little opening in the top before you took a relieved sip. 

“Thanks…I don’t think I could face anything like that right now.”

“I barely can myself,” he muttered. “All those men giving me sorry looks like I’m a whipped dog. It’ll be hell. Still though, it’d be worse if I didn’t get to operate again. Needs must.”

You nodded, looking far beyond the pale white sheets that your head was directed towards. You didn’t have the same worries. You feared more than pitying looks, it was deeper than that for you. The real hell was having to relive what you’d gone through multiple times while blank faced suits noted down what had happened. The very idea made you want to bring up what little was in your stomach. 

“Have you given much more thought to coming back?” Price asked. 

You looked up at him and met his appraising look. His mouth quirked and his body tensed, he knew as well as you the answer was obvious. Obvious but complicated. 

“Honest answer? I’ve thought about it alot. At the end of the day I don’t even know if I’ll heal completely right yet. The fractures I’ve got are still bad and the physios keep looking at me like a tripped horse. I still can’t wash without König there. There’s a lot going on…”

“They’ll put you behind a desk if you tell them all that.”

“Maybe it’s the best place for me…I dunno. I’m not really sure of much right now, but I do know one thing - I’m not going to hide things anymore. I can’t hide my feelings just to try and get the work done, I’m not going to put people at risk because of the shit I’ve got bottled up. I’m never going to repeat the mistakes I made on that mission, Price. I’ve got too much to lose to ever do anything like that again.”

Price sighed and nodded, looking off into his own middle distance. It gave a sort of sagely quality, his crinkling eyes working against his younger years.

“I’ve asked and I can buy you three months,” he said suddenly, “You can take that time to heal and to think about things, see a shrink, do whatever you need to do. Come back to me then and give me an answer.”

“Three months?” you repeated. “To answer what? I don’t even know if I’ll be fully recovered.”

“You don’t need to be fully recovered…physically. You can be trained back to what you were, that’s not the issue. I just need to know if you can still do the job, and if you still want to do it. Take the time, think about things properly, hell go on that fuckin’ trip König wouldn’t shut up about and clear your head. After that, just come to me with an answer and even if it’s a no, I at least know that you got to think about your decision properly. I can make peace with it then.”

“You’re not keen on me saying no then?” you smiled, catching onto what he was doing. 

“I can see you leaning towards it and I’d rather you didn’t while you’re practically chained to the bed in a dour place like this. You’re a good soldier. You can recover from this and you can come back, if you want to. Get out of here as soon as you’re able and go away with König. Believe me when I tell you that I don’t doubt your ability for a second. You’ll get over the water stuff, you’ll overcome the shadows. If I can, then you can too. I don’t want to lose you, Sneak. So please, just promise me you’ll think about it, yeah?”

You sighed and gave him a nod, rubbing your thumb against the hot cardboard that barley kept your tea contained. It was almost blistering your skin, but the burning was a pleasant distraction from otherwise unpleasant thoughts. 

Price got up from his chair and put his hand on your shoulder, making sure that you acknowledged his meaningful look. His soft blue eyes cast a beam of light onto you, the wrinkles at the corner scrunching as he gave you a reassuring squeeze. His touch lingered long after he was gone, leaving you with just enough comfort to last until König returned. 

König did surreptitiously wander in minutes later, looking around warily before revealing his smuggled goods. He’d had to hide them in his hoodie like a pregnant lady, and just the sight of his overstuffed belly had you almost completely forgetting about what Price had discussed with you. You were happy to focus on better things. Afterall, you reasoned to yourself, it was Price that had told you to clear your head in the first place. 

“Ok, I couldn’t bring you Soup because I wasn’t willing to burn myself for you, but I did pick up your favourite panini and I got you a cake that might be a little squashed. Does the royal highness approve?”

You approved indeed. Anything was better than hospital food, but furthermore the deli food was better than anything. Immediately you grabbed for the panini and took a big grateful bite, barely just thanking König before you did so. It was just so good. Your eyelids shut tight as soon as you got your first taste of crusty bread and homemade melty butter. 

This was paradise. 

“Do I say enough how much I love you?” you murmured.

“Not at all,” König smirked, looking around the doorway for unwanted eyes before taking his own bite of panini from out of his mask. “It should be every word that leaves your mouth from now on.”

You snorted back a laugh and finished your bite. 

“I could do that, but your poor mother might think I'm a bit weird if I can only tell her how much I love you.”

König stopped eating and peered over at you, clearly forgetting all about his contraband treat. He regarded you seriously for a moment and pulled his chair closer, attention now completely focused on you. 

“You still want to go to Austria?”

“Well, the flights will need rebooked I imagine, but once I’m better? Of course!”

“But…didn’t you say you might need to report in soon?”

“Well, I spoke to Price about it all there and I told him the same thing I’ve said to you. I don’t know if I’ll go back fully. He didn’t want to accept that right away though, so he said he can give me three months. I figure I can be outta here a lot sooner than that. So what do you say? Still wanna show me home?”

König threw his panini down onto the table and pushed it roughly to the side, immediately taking his chance to wrap around you like a koala. He smiled brightly and he exhaled, his long thick arms not easing up as he constricted around you. 

“Do I say enough how much I love you?” König asked wryly. 

“Mm, I could stand to hear it a little more,” you sighed. 

He laughed lightly at that, you could feel it echoing around his chest. His warm puffs of breath landed hotly onto your neck. It had your eyelids fluttering closed, your own sandwich discarded somewhere next to König’s. You wrapped your arms around him in kind and revelled in the feeling of holding your universe close into your chest, letting everything else float away as you settled into the cloudy abyss once more. 

Even if you were unsure of where your future was going exactly, there was always going to be one constant. No matter what you faced, no matter what you decided, you would always have each other now. It didn’t matter that Price would come looking for your answer, it didn’t matter if the guys would be upset to hear you say no, it didn’t matter if you were nail bitingly eager and terrified in equal measure to say yes to Price.

König would be with you through it all, he could lend you his strength and you could give him your love and vice versa. You were your own team. Together you’d make contenders for anything. He was your rock and you were his light. You were going to be fighters until the end. 

[emersonfreepress]

help i'm alive

So! Long time, no see. 2023 was a whole goddamn lot lol

I don't have a demo update to share yet, but that's because I had to scrap nearly everything I managed to write during a very, very, very bad stint of writer's block last year. I hadn't even realized it had been a block like that until I went over my work so far last month and realized it was bad -- like, trust me; a slog to read that didn't even sound like me. It's been extremely frustrating but I've finally broken free of that and it's been easy and actually fun to write again for the first time in actual years. I just hate giving updates that have no actual news in them. And I really had nothing to share other than: I deleted thousands of words and feel so much better now 😅

Anyway, little about my demo plans have changed: I'm still putting out the Chapter 3 demos in Choicescript/on Dashingdon and then will be going dark to move things over to Twine. Where I am in the process right now is... feeling like 35% done with the overhauled version of this chapter and 50% done for the next demo update.

As far as asks, I'm... not really sure what to do?? I believe I've read them all (I love you guys), but so much time has passed since getting most of them that I'm not sure if it's, like... still pertinent??? To go back and answer them?? I suppose some of them like character asks could be, but all the nice messages of support -- that feels weird since I've practically ghosted this blog since August! Idk. Y'all tell me what to do with 'em and I'll do it. Maybe I should make a poll.

Uh... that's really all there is to say regarding the game! I've added some personal stuff after the cut, but if you're done here: Thanks for reading and sticking around. It means the world, for real.

So what has occupied my time all this time? Doctor, therapy, money, and friends. And improv! But especially the first two. There was a lot of non-writing related stuff fucking up my ability to focus and write, so hopefully with my mind and body both feeling a lot better, I can get back to being present and active with the game. I didn't realize how physically unwell I was until last year and it's been like... life-long issues I've been treating. It turns out it's not normal to feel exhausted enough to sleep at any given time, at all times, for your whole life! wow!!

I also uninstalled Tumblr from my phone back in February, so you could say I'm sort of generally focused on offline life. (And what an interesting coincidence that my writer's block dissipated shortly after that...) I also just moved!! The last two weekends have been so expensive and stressful -_- But I can't even compare the old place to the new. We're basically paying the same price for idek how much more space. The cats are so happy; which means the house humans get to be happy.

My schedule is finally freed up from constant medical shit (there was a 3-month stretch this winter with multiple doctor appointments literally every fucking week 🙃🙃🙃). My mental health is doing a lot better -- literally incomparably better compared to where I was this time last year. There's live comedy now (which I dabble in, to be clear lol), but I've finally found myself able to like... balance it all. The physical and creative energy that goes into it all, anyway. The lovely thing about improv is that you kinda just show up and do your thing -- it doesn't cut into my writing time so much as it costs energy. Unless I end up in this comedy debate show thing next month, which I am very excited to give up writing time for

So like... Life is life-ing and I'm just vibing. Or something? I'll be around.

Thank you all again so much for your interest, support, patience, and readership <3