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hier--soir · 8 months

Text

heart to heart

john price x f!reader

rating: explicit, 18+ mdni summary: john takes you away for the weekend, and nestled in a cottage on the countryside, you show him just how much you've been missing him. warnings/tags: long term boyfriend!john, john price never finishes his cigars, explicit smut, a little body worship, oral [m receiving], fingering [f], unprotected piv sex, multiple orgasms [m], some overstim [m], come eating x2, brief cock warming, idiots in love, porn with minimal plot. word count: 4.4k masterlist a/n: this was born out of me being physically unable to stop thinking about that middle picture being john price, so here we go follow @hier--soirupdates if you’d like to be notified when i share my writing

It hasn’t rained in six days.

Late autumn spins the countryside in its grasp; a warm cloak that sends the leaves golden and the grass dewy. In a small, unfamiliar kitchen you drop teabags into mugs and gaze out the window. Admire the vast acreage that surrounds the cottage, and the marshland beyond that.

The early morning rays are bright and cool, turning the cabinets a washy yellow colour around you as you wait for the kettle to boil.

Everything is quiet, calm. If you listen closely, past the sound of birds chirping and water bubbling, you can hear John’s heavy snores down the hall; still catching up on sleep after a long few weeks away.

When he came through the front door two nights ago, you’d been quietly surprised to see him home so soon. After not hearing much for almost a month, you’d resigned yourself to getting on with things in his absence. A fairly covert operation, you knew, so you’d spent your days waking to an empty house. Working and eating and showering alone and never exceeding the appropriate number of messages you could send him in one day without stirring worry. Little Angus with his long orange tail and his soft whiskers your only company in John’s stead.

Home at last, he’d wrestled out of his heavy boots and draped himself over where you lay on the couch. Soap opera long forgotten on the tele, he’d slipped an arm around the back of your head, held you to his chest and said, Let me take you somewhere.

The kettle whistles and you pluck it from the stove, still smiling at the memory. Douse the teabags in boiled water and watch as the windows cloud with steam. You leave his black, just the way he likes it, but soften your own with sugar and milk. Your toes are numb against the cool tile, and you rub them against your calf in search of warmth. Inside, your body is at sleepy old war with itself. One half longing to be back in bed, or perhaps to have not gotten up at all yet; the other half taking great pleasure in the mundanity of doing things like this for him again, after so long of not. Tap tap tap of an impatient finger against the counter until his tea turns the perfect colour, and then you’re on your way back to the room.

Leant amongst paisley patterned pillows and white linens, John looks a little out of place knuckling sleep from the corner of his eyes. A little too rough around the edges, too big, too hardened for such soft surroundings. In your brief absence, he’s drawn the curtains and nudged the window beside the bed open a crack. A long arm stretches out toward the sill, ashing a cigar onto the small dish he’s balanced there.

Naked as the day he was born, he lifts the cigar to his lips and blinks drowsily at you. Stretches his legs out, the muscles in his thighs straining, curled toes skimming the end of the bed. Eyes wandering, you kick the door shut with your foot and slink to the end of the bed, holding out his mug.

“’Morning,” he murmurs, voice still thick with sleep. Accepts the tea with a soft smile, the skin beside his eyes crinkling as he watches you crawl in beside him. Hands full, he twists an ankle around yours, face pulling up at the feel of your cold skin against his. “Jesus, you’re like ice. I’ll shut the window.”

“Don’t move,” you hush, nestling your head against his shoulder. “You’re right where I want you.”

John laughs softly, warm body vibrating against yours. “Is that right, sweetheart?”

“Mhm.” You watch him tap his cigar against the dish, sipping your tea and trailing fingers through the dark hairs on his stomach. Enjoy the way his body draws tense beneath your cool touch, goose flesh sprouting across his skin. “Middle of nowhere… unfamiliar town… no one will ever find you. You’re all mine out here, Price.”

“M’all yours everywhere,” he says, abandoning his cigar in the dish so he can tug on the neckline of your—his—t-shirt. “This proves it, yeah?”

“I suppose,” you smile, lifting your mug to hide behind a sip. He watches you move, calculating and quiet as he sips his own tea. You fidget beneath the intensity of his stare, painfully aware of how well he knows you. That your want, your need, must be painted across every inch of your face.

“Love you in my clothes, sweetheart, I do.” John’s fingers curl beneath the hem of the shirt then, rough callouses tickling over your collarbones. “But you’re makin’ me feel awful naked.”

Heat flares in the base of your stomach and you chuckle, matching smirks splashed across your faces as you sit up and drag the shirt over your head. He watches as you flick it to the floor, gaze darkening as he looks over your body, focusing on the thin grey panties that cover the skin between your thighs. A thick arm curls around your waist, tugging you back onto him, and as you settle there his fingers slip down to fiddle with the band of your underwear.

“Cute,” he comments airily, middle finger dropping under the band to caress the skin beneath it.

Mug discarded off the side of the bed, you put both hands to his stomach now. Tickling his soft skin, playing with the hair there as you lean in and press a kiss to the centre of his chest. And then another, and another, with John simply humming, palm flattening against the small of your back to hold you against his side.

Your lips part, tongue dancing lazily against his nipple. Soft strokes until the flesh is stiffening and you’re practically purring against his skin, drifting across to the other one. You hear the soft clink of his mug hitting the side table, and then John’s hand falls against the back of your head. Thick fingers twist through your hair, playing as you kiss and lick over his collarbones, and the little tugs he gives have a low throb starting up between your legs.

“Feelin’ needy this mornin’, hey lovey?” John asks. His fingers come to the front of your face, cupping your jaw and forcing you to look up at him. Big blue eyes watch you pout, cheeks squished between his fingers as you nod.

“I missed you,” you say, turning to press your nose into his palm and inhale the smell of him.

His eyes soften, and all sense of teasing seems to slip out the window. “I know, sweetheart, m’sorry. Come here’n give us a kiss.”

His lips are soft against yours. Warm, and familiar, with a hint of Darjeeling. Pulling you up to straddle his waist, he coaxes your chest down against his and huffs into your mouth at the feel of your nipples against his skin, teeth sneaking out to smart at your bottom lip.

“Thought about you every day,” he mumbles against your lips. “Missed you every second, love, always do.”

You feel something hot and sharp spark behind your eyelids at those words, and flick your tongue against the seam of his lips, pushing it away, not now not now. You go soft and pliant against him; let him guide you through the kiss, coaxing your mouth open with his long tongue as his fingers dance down your spine. When his hand reaches the round of your ass he grips your flesh there, kneading it between his fingers and pushing down so your clothed cunt comes flush with his cock.

“Feel that?” John says, pulling away an inch to nose at your cheek. His cock is heavy between your legs, thick and stiff where it presses against the gusset of your panties. You gasp as he rocks his hips up, grinding against you until the damp fabric slips between your slick folds and rubs over your clit. “That’s how much I missed you, sweetheart.”

As he talks, the hairs on his moustache prickle against your lips, and you find yourself opening your mouth. Breathy moans spill as you roll your hips against his, lathing hot opened mouthed kisses over his jaw.

“Looked at your picture every night,” he continues raggedly, breath hitching as you suck at the hollow of his throat. His cock twitches against you, the slide only getting smoother as more slick spills into your panties. “Thought about comin’ home ‘n’ never leavin’ again, just so I could play with this pretty little cunt whenever I like.”

Your hips stutter into his and you whine, a tiny glimpse of an orgasm fluttering through you just from those words.

“S’yours,” you whisper against his skin, the words he spoke moments before dancing through your mind. “All yours everywhere.”

Faster than he can stop you, you’re slipping off his lap and settling beside him on the bed. Continuing the onslaught, you lick hot, messy kisses over the skin of his neck, across the broad span of his shoulders.

“My big man,” you say tenderly, fingers itching their way across his chest. You skirt your teeth down the middle of his sternum, squeaking a little when he murmurs in enjoyment and presses a hand to your ass again. “I missed your body so much.”

“Yeah, sweetheart?”

“Yeah.”

“Show me then,” he goads lightly, grunting around a smirk when you sink your teeth into the soft flesh over his ribs in response.

His fingers toy with the material of your panties as you drag your tongue over the dip of his belly button, and when you kiss the soft curve of his lower stomach, nose buried in the dark hairs above it, you feel him grip the fabric tight. You can see his cock in your peripheral vision. Swollen and heavy against his hip now. The tip has turned a pretty shade of dark pink, accented by little streaks of white where pre-come oozes from his slit and glides down his throbbing shaft. With your mouth on his belly, you reach out and wrap your fingers around him.

“Fuck,” John grunts, head lolling back against the pillows.

You smile, stroking him slowly as you drag your nose through his thick happy trail, all the way down to nuzzle against the dark thatch of curls above his base. Insistent now, his fingers push beneath the edge of your panties and drag through your slick seam.

You whimper, forehead resting heavily against his skin as he slides two fingers through the wet mess of you. Lewd sounds of your arousal fill the room as John traces featherlight circles around your clit, and your face heats against his stomach, fingers returning to their lazy pace around his length.

The throb between your legs has become a second heartbeat now, so strong that you’re sure he must feel it beneath his fingertips. If he does, he just sighs softly. Lets the thrumming of your cunt sync with the pulse in his fingertips, heart to heart, and murmurs low encouragements as you tilt your head to the side and begin mouthing at his cock.

“Missed my cock.” Your voice is low and unfamiliar in your ears, mouth overrun with desire and spilling your guts before you can stop it. “So pretty, John…”

Circling your entrance with a thick finger, he just says, “I know, love, s’yours. Go on.”

As slow as you can bring yourself to be, you lay gentle kisses down the entire length of him. Wetting your lips and gliding them over his warm, silken skin, before dipping lower and sucking his balls between your lips. A harsh grunt sounds behind you, and, as if in retaliation, he sinks two thick fingers inside you. You moan around his sensitive skin, holding his balls in your mouth and jerking him off until he’s trembling beneath you, broad thighs straining as he tries to hold himself together.

“That’s good, love,” he murmurs softly, almost speaking to himself as he curls his fingers inside you, humming when you grind into his hand. “Need ta get my fuckin’ mouth on you.”

But you just shake your head. Let his balls slip from your mouth with a soft pop before sticking out your tongue and guiding the weeping tip of his cock towards your mouth. Hasty, too needy for your own good, you slip your lips around him and try to take him deep on the first pass. Out of practice after weeks away, your throat constricts and you choke a little around him. So big, so overbearing, you’re too eager to be filled by him that you push and push until you’re gagging and sputtering. Cheeks hot and eyes downturned, you draw back, skin prickling as you hear him say something past the rushing in your ears. Take a moment to catch your breath and ground yourself, fingers tight on his thigh as your tongue swirls around his tip.

“This what you missed then?” he’s saying, collecting your hair in his fist to keep it off your face. “Hm, missed bein’ all full of me?”

“Mhm,” you hum around him, pulling back with a gasp only to press his head against your cheek. Eyes closed, you rub his ruddy tip against your chin, your lips, painting your skin with his precome. Feel the weight of him warm your skin and sigh in quiet delight. And when he groans, exhaling a heavy, ragged breath, you press your mouth around him again, desperate to hear him make that sound over and over again.

“Easy, darlin’, lemme see you,” John chokes out, thumbing sliding over the apple of your cheek. “So pretty with your lips around my cock.”

Heat floods your chest, and you drool around him. The words seem to trigger something in your mind, some insatiable desire to please, to make him feel good, because you’re relaxing, sinking your mouth down further on him. A low, drawn-out curse falls from his lips, fingers curling in the hair behind your ear.

Gaudy sounds of sucking and slurping fill your ears, and you would be self-conscious if it weren’t for the way John’s growls met them in the air. Wordlessly, he slips a third digit inside and the stretch brings a dull burn that has your mouth slowing against him.

Your eyelids flutter as his thick fingers stroke at your walls, searching for the spot that makes you spill every time, but your wanton cries of desperation are muffled by the heavy weight of him on your tongue. In slow, measured movements, he begins to shift his hips in time with your head. Feeding his cock to you and grunting when he feels your throat go soft and easy around him, letting him slip further in until your nose buries in the hair at his base.

John watches you, the blue in his eyes almost entirely swallowed by desire fattened pupils. Rakes his gaze over the way your lips stretch around his thick cock, tears dancing on your lashes as you take him in your throat. The heady taste of him is intoxicating, and you can only hold his gaze for so long before your eyes are rolling back, stomach pulling tight as you swallow around him.

Stuffed to the brim with John, John, John. He’s everywhere, filling your mouth, your aching cunt; it sends your heart racing, thighs trembling as your orgasm begins to crest.

Molten heats swims in the base of your stomach, curling and bubbling there as he you ride his long fingers, moaning his name around his cock. But just as you feel everything begin to go tight and tingly, John’s pulling on your hair and dragging you off him.

A thin strand of spit dangles between his tip and your mouth and he snarls at the sight, swiping his thumb across your bottom lip.

“Fuck, c’mere,” he huffs, squeezing insistently at your shoulders. “Wanna feel you on my cock when you come for me, yeah?”

Mind a hazy blur, you let the weight of him fall from your mouth, the hinge of your jaw still burning as you peel your underwear down your legs and spread yourself over his lap. John doesn’t pull his hand away though. No, he keeps his fingers between your legs, pumping them in and out, slowly, as you hover over his cock.

“My girl,” he says, eyes focusing on where the puffy lips of your cunt almost touch his cock. “My filthy, sweet girl.”

“John,” you puff his name, abdomen tensing when he rubs his thumb against your clit. Balanced on your knees and the tips of your toes, your legs shake a bit. Fingers dance forward to touch his shoulder, desperate for an anchor.

You frown a little, swollen lips parted in a torturous mix of desire and confusion, but he just offers a filthy grin and says, “Tell me you missed me again.”

“Oh, fuck off,” you smart instinctually, lips twitching when he barks a laugh and slips his fingers from your wet clutch, grasp drifting to your waist. “Please.”

“There she is,” he rumbles, jaw tensing as you glide his tip through your folds, coating him in your slick. A heavy rush of air spills from his nose. “My impatient girl.”

Once he’s got you on his cock, it doesn’t take long for you to fall apart.

He lets you keep having it your way for a bit. Watches, gaze heavy, as you bounce on his cock, hands gripping his shoulders for leverage. You squirm on him, face twisted up as you adjust to the thick stretch of him after so long. It burns and aches between your thighs, but you can’t help but keep coming back for more, sinking down on his length faster each time. He tilts his head forward to suck one of your nipples into his mouth, moaning against the plush of your breast when you arch your back, crying out at the feeling of his teeth on the sensitive bud.

After a while he slots his greedy lips against yours. Presses hot, sucking kisses to your mouth, swallowing down every gasp and moan that crawls its way up your chest. The bristles of his facial hair scratch at your cheeks, your nose, and you love it. Have desperately missed the way it warms your skin as he presses his tongue inside your mouth and tastes behind your teeth.

Using his hold on your hips, he rolls you against his lap. Meets you thrust for thrust until you start to soak his length, jaw going slack as he growls into your open mouth.

“Fuckin’ hell, love, that’s it,” John groans, fingers tightening on your waist as your cunt pulls tight and hot around him. Thighs shaking, you let your forehead fall against his chest and ride out the flood of your orgasm. “I know, darlin’, I know, I’ve got you.”

Fingers fly up to grip the back of your neck, his other arm snaking around your waist as he continues fucking up into you. His cock presses hot and heavy into that soft, gushy spot deep inside you and you shudder against him, helpless little moans slipping from your parted lips. Face smushed against his hairy chest, you drool a little. Feel it pool between his pecs and smear across your cheek as your eyes roll back, dopamine pounding in your veins as he pushes you relentlessly through the high.

“Gonna let me fill you up?” he’s panting, feet planted on the bed now as he bucks into you, hips stuttering as he sinks closer and closer to his end. “Fuck, I’m gonna make a right mess of you, darlin’. That’s it, lovey, show me that pretty face.”

“John,” you mewl, toes curling against the sheets. “Shit, oh shit.”

“Christ,” he grunts when you meet his eyes, jaw pulled tight. “So tight, m’ gonna come—”

“Wait,” you mumble suddenly, senses sharpening despite the way your thighs still shake against his hips. John stills immediately, grip tightening on your waist. “In my mouth, I want you in my mouth.”

His face crumples at that, a guttural noise sputtering from his lips as you lift off him and slip down to rest between his legs. He nods, brushing hair back off your face as you sink your mouth down on him, slick tongue hungry on the underside of his pulsing cock. He mutters your name, tells you how perfect you feel as he rocks his hips forward, tip nudging the back of your throat with every careful thrust.

“My sweet girl, doing so good for me,” he breathes, a coy grin on his face and a firm hand at the base of your skull. He holds your head in place as he fucks your mouth with slow, steady strokes. Groans every time you swallow, warm wet throat drawing tight around his swollen head.

“Look at me, let me see those eyes,” he mutters urgently, tugging on your hair until you’re blinking, focusing blurry eyes on his face. He thumbs at the teary streaks on your cheeks and gives a rough, prolonged groan as he begins to spill down your throat. “Fuck, fuck.”

You bob your head as his cock twitches and jerks against your tongue, sucking until he’s filled your mouth with warm come and it starts seeping from the corner of your mouth, dribbling down his shaft. You catch the spill with your fingers, swallowing his thick spend down and then licking what’s left from your trembling hands.

John watches on, chest heaving, and tuts fondly when you whimper, head spinning with the salty taste of him on your tongue.

“Bloody hell,” he exhales after a moment, dragging his knuckles over his face. “We’re never goin’ home.”

You laugh, drowsily nuzzling your cheek against the inside of his thigh as his cock softens against his stomach. John cards his fingers through your hair absentmindedly, legs still twitching and eyes drifting closed as he tries to catch his breath. Lips slick with spit and come, you lay soft pecks along his sweaty skin. Smile when he shudders, fingers tightening against your scalp, but doesn’t pull you off.

There’s a hot flush of red splashed across the skin of his neck, his cheekbones, and his stomach is still warm to the touch when you reach out to graze his soft flesh. Sated and sleepy, he wets his lips and continues to play with your hair. Lovingly curls strands of it around his fingers and tugs gently before letting go, only to pick a new strand and do it again.

Overcome with emotion, and unable to stop yourself, you lean forward and take his soft cock back into your mouth.

John hisses through his teeth in surprise, eyes flashing open.

You don’t do anything crazy yet. Just let him feel the warmth of your mouth around him, the soft glide of your tongue against the ridge around his head. When he doesn’t pull you off after a second, you give him a little suck. Not hard—just enough to make his hips flinch down into the mattress and his legs pull tight at your sides.

“Fuck,” he exhales, face pinched. His hand trembles against your head. “Fu—hang on, fuckin’ hell, love.”

You peer up past his stomach to where his mouth hangs open and his eyes are shiny and wide. His nails scratch against your scalp. Needy little nudges that blur the line between too much and not enough. You hum in pleasure around him when a choked sound falls from his mouth. Feeling a little mean, though, you pull back, licking your lips and smiling apologetically.

“Sorry,” you murmur, face hot as you squeeze his thigh. “Just want to love on you a little longer, that’s all.”

He hums deep in his chest, brow creasing a little as he brings his big hands to cup your face. His thumb swipes at your chin, smearing the saliva there, and you part your lips for him. He makes a sort of pained sound as he slots the digit into your mouth and watches you hollow out your cheeks out around it, swirling your tongue and sucking like you’d done to his cock just moments ago.

“Christ,” John breathes. Something needy and desperate glints in his eye, and he slips his finger from your mouth. Grips the back of your neck and gives a short nod. “Gonna be the death of me, ain’tcha?”

Guided by his hand, you take him back in your mouth and sigh in relief. Your eyelids flutter closed, and you rest your face against his hip, taking deep breaths through your nose and just holding him like that for a while. You can hear the way his breathing goes haggard above your head; short sharp bursts of air huffing from his nostrils. Sensitive as he must be, John lets you have your fun, shivering and spiting low curses as your touches get increasingly needier. And when you begin to suck softly at his length again, he seems unable to help the way his strong legs writhe against the mattress.

He says your name, rough and urgent, when you pull back only to snake your tongue out against his slit. Eyes fluttering open, you look up at him as you lathe your tongue down his length, smiling at how red his face has gotten, at how he seems to be holding his breath. John’s cock starts to swell and stiffen beneath your touch.

“D’you want me to stop?” you whisper, tracing the blue vein that pulses down the side of his length with your tongue.

“No,” he pants, head lolling from side to side. “Fuck no, gorgeous. Just go easy on me, yeah? It’s ohh—” he winces “—s’a lot.”

You nod understandingly and press a kiss to his tip, smearing the fresh pearl of precome there against your lips. He’s fully hard now, throbbing when you wrap your fingers around his thick base and wrap your lips around his head. A guttural sound rips from his chest and he’s tugging at your hair. For a moment you pause, unsure, but then he’s pushing a little on you. Nudging you closer, further, so you take him deeper and deeper until his tip is nudging against your throat.

“Fuck,” John gasps, hips stuttering against your palms, sensitive cock twitching against your tongue. “S’too much, love, it’s—oh fuck.”

With a ragged grunt his cock pulses in your mouth, and a little spurt of come dribbles from his head. You moan, eyes closed, and swallow tight around him, milking every last drop of spend from his cock until he’s winded and clumsily pushing you off of him.

Breathless, you fall flat on the mattress beside him, feet dangling off the end of the bed. John’s broad palm cradles the back of your head still, a comforting weight as you wipe your face against the sheets.

Ears pricking, you realise it’s begun to rain outside. Soft patters of liquid that knock against the window, thin rivulets that drip down to splash and splutter against the sill. Long forgotten, his cigar sizzles and dies beneath the spray.

“Another tea?” you murmur finally, pushing up onto your elbows.

But with a soft, startled laugh, you find that John’s eyes are closed, chest rising with steady breaths; already back to sleep. Shaking your head a little, you smile fondly at his lax form, and consider closing the window. You settle instead for pulling the duvet from the corner of the bed. Curled against his thick side, you settle the blanket over the two of you and lay an arm over his stomach, content to have a proper lie in after such a busy morning.

thanks for reading, i'd love to hear what you thought x

#my writing #fic: heart to heart #john price x reader #john price smut #john price fanfiction #john price x you #john price cod #captain john price #captain john price x reader #captain john price smut

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estapa-edwards · 4 months

Text

ENEMIES WITH BENEFITS - W. SMITH

paring: Will Smith x reader

word count: 3.4k

requested? no

warnings: use of y/n. slight smut? ig.

*¨¨* ≈☆≈ *¨¨*:·..·:*¨¨* ≈☆≈ *¨¨*:·..·:*¨¨* ≈☆≈ *¨¨*:·..·:*¨¨* ≈☆≈ *¨¨*:·..·:*¨¨*

The echo of blades slicing through the ice reverberated throughout the rink, mingling with the sharp clatter of pucks against sticks. Boston College's hockey arena was a hub of activity, with the men's and women's teams often sharing practice times. Will Smith, the star forward of the men's team, was in the midst of a grueling drill, his focus unwavering as he maneuvered the puck with skillful precision.

On the other side of the rink, Y/N Leonard was equally absorbed in her practice. As the captain of the women's team, she had a reputation to uphold. Her brother, Ryan Leonard, was a defenseman on the men's team and one of Will's closest friends. Despite their close connection, Y/N and Will's relationship was anything but friendly.

Their rivalry was legendary, a bitter clash of egos and competitive spirits that had brewed over the years. It was an open secret that they couldn't stand each other, always bickering and challenging each other on and off the ice. But beneath the surface of their animosity lay a secret even their closest friends didn't suspect—they were enemies with benefits.

--- --- ---

Their first encounter had been a clash of wills at a party during their freshman year. The backyard of one of the off-campus houses had been transformed into a mini-rink for the night, complete with floodlights and a rowdy audience. Y/N, confident and fierce, had seen Will's cocky grin as he dominated the makeshift rink. Fueled by competitive spirit and maybe a bit too much beer, she had skated up to him and issued a challenge.

"One-on-one, Smith. Unless you're scared to lose to a girl."

Will had laughed, a sound that grated on Y/N's nerves. "You're on, Leonard. Let's see what you've got."

The stakes were high—bragging rights for the rest of the year. The game had been intense, filled with taunts and near-miss goals, ending in a narrow victory for Will. Y/N had been livid, her competitive nature unable to accept defeat gracefully. Their enmity was sealed that night, a rivalry born from mutual respect and a burning desire to prove themselves.

But as the months passed, their rivalry took an unexpected turn. Their heated arguments would often end in moments of undeniable chemistry, and one fateful night after a particularly intense game, their anger had erupted into something else entirely.

--- --- ---

The game against Northeastern had been brutal, leaving both teams exhausted and irritable. The men's and women's teams had played back-to-back games, each fiercely contested and ending in narrow victories. The adrenaline was still pumping through Y/N's veins as she stormed into the locker room, replaying every missed opportunity and close call in her mind.

"Nice game, Leonard," Will's voice echoed through the empty hall, dripping with sarcasm as he followed her inside.

Y/N spun around, her eyes blazing. "What do you want, Smith? Here to gloat?"

Will smirked, stepping closer. "Just thought I'd congratulate you on not choking under pressure. For once."

The tension between them crackled like static electricity. Y/N's anger flared, her fists clenching at her sides. "You're such an asshole."

"Better than being a sore loser," Will shot back, his voice low and dangerous.

The words hung in the air, their breaths coming in short, heated bursts. Without thinking, Y/N closed the distance between them, her anger morphing into something else entirely. Their eyes locked, and in that moment, all the pent-up frustration and desire boiled over.

Y/N grabbed Will's jersey, yanking him down to her level. Their lips crashed together, the kiss fierce and demanding. Will responded instantly, his hands gripping her waist as he backed her against the lockers. The cold metal pressed into her back, a stark contrast to the heat of their kiss.

It was a clash of wills, their tongues battling for dominance as they gave in to the primal urge that had been simmering beneath the surface for months. Will's hands roamed over Y/N's body, his touch igniting a fire within her that she couldn't deny. She tugged at his jersey, needing to feel his skin against hers.

They broke apart briefly, gasping for air. Y/N's eyes were wild, her lips swollen from the intensity of their kiss. "This doesn't mean anything," she panted, her voice trembling with a mix of desire and defiance.

"Right," Will agreed, his voice equally breathless. "Just blowing off steam."

Their mouths collided again, more urgent this time. Y/N's hands found the hem of Will's jersey, pulling it over his head and tossing it aside. Her fingers traced the hard planes of his chest, savoring the feel of his muscles tensing under her touch.

Will's hands were equally busy, sliding under her jersey and up her back, pulling her closer. Their bodies pressed together, the heat between them almost unbearable. Y/N's head spun with the intensity of their connection, every nerve ending on fire.

Somehow, they managed to shed the rest of their clothes, their desire too overwhelming to care about the cold or the hard floor beneath them. Will's hands were everywhere, exploring every inch of her skin as if memorizing it. Y/N responded in kind, her nails digging into his back, leaving marks in their wake.

When Will finally entered her, it was like a dam breaking. The sensation was almost too much, a mix of pleasure and pain that left her gasping. They moved together in a frantic rhythm, their bodies finding a natural sync despite their previous animosity.

It was raw, intense, and utterly consuming. Y/N had never felt anything like it, every touch, every thrust sending waves of pleasure coursing through her. She clung to Will, her fingers tangled in his hair, as they reached the peak together.

In the aftermath, they lay tangled on the cold floor, their breaths mingling in the quiet of the locker room. Y/N's mind was a whirlwind of conflicting emotions—desire, confusion, and a lingering sense of defiance.

Will broke the silence first, his voice surprisingly gentle. "This changes nothing, you know."

Y/N nodded, her resolve hardening. "I know. We're still enemies."

"Right," he agreed, but there was a hint of something softer in his eyes as he looked at her.

As they dressed in silence, the reality of what had just happened began to sink in. They had crossed a line, one that could never be uncrossed.

--- --- ---

Sneaking around had become second nature to them. They'd find isolated corners of the rink or meet in the early hours of the morning when the campus was quiet. Despite their constant bickering, they couldn't deny the magnetic pull between them.

Their secret meetings were a mix of passion and frustration, each encounter leaving them more confused and conflicted. They were enemies, rivals on and off the ice, but in those stolen moments, they were something else entirely.

One night, after a particularly grueling practice, Y/N received a text from Will.

Will: Meet me at the old equipment room. Midnight.

Y/N's heart raced. She knew she should ignore him, and should put an end to this dangerous game they were playing. But something about Will drew her in, and she found herself unable to resist.

The old equipment room was tucked away in a forgotten corner of the arena. It was their sanctuary, a place where they could be together without prying eyes. Y/N slipped inside, her breath visible in the cold air. Will was already there, leaning against a stack of crates.

"You took your time," he teased, a smirk playing on his lips.

"Had to make sure no one followed me," Y/N retorted, closing the door behind her.

Will's eyes softened as he approached her. "You know, we don't have to keep doing this."

Y/N sighed, her resolve wavering. "I know. But... I can't stay away."

"Neither can I," Will admitted, pulling her into his arms.

Their kisses were desperate, fueled by the fear of being discovered and the intensity of their hidden emotions.

--- --- ---

As the season progressed, tensions on and off the ice began to mount. Boston College was preparing for a series of critical games that would determine their standings in the league. The pressure was immense, and both the men's and women's teams were feeling the strain.

Y/N and Will's clandestine relationship became increasingly difficult to maintain. The late-night rendezvous and stolen glances were no longer enough. Their teammates began to notice the tension between them, though no one suspected the true nature of their interactions.

One evening, after a particularly grueling practice, Ryan confronted Y/N. "You've been acting weird lately. Is everything okay?"

Y/N hesitated, unsure how to respond. "Just stressed about the games. It's nothing."

Ryan frowned, not entirely convinced. "If you say so. Just remember, you can talk to me about anything."

Y/N forced a smile. "Thanks, Ry."

Later that night, Y/N received a text from Will.

Will: We need to talk. Meet me at the equipment room.

As Y/N made her way down the dimly lit hallways of the arena, her nerves grew. She wasn't sure why she felt so anxious. This was supposed to be just another one of their secret meetings, another chance to lose themselves in the intensity of their connection. But something about Will's message had set her on edge.

She pushed open the door to the old equipment room, her breath hitching as she saw Will standing there, his face shadowed by the dim light. His expression was serious, almost pained, and her heart sank.

"We need to talk," he said, his voice heavy with emotion.

Y/N took a tentative step closer, her eyes searching his. "What is it, Will? What's wrong?"

Will took a deep breath, his eyes meeting hers with an intensity that made her stomach twist. "We need to end this, Y/N. We can't keep doing this."

The words hit her like a punch to the gut, leaving her reeling. "What are you talking about? Why?"

Will ran a hand through his hair, his frustration evident. "This... whatever this is, it's messing with our heads. We can't focus on the game, and it's only going to get worse. We need to stop seeing each other. For good."

Y/N felt a surge of confusion and anger. "So that's it? You're just going to walk away?"

"It's not that simple," Will said, his voice strained. "I care about you, Y/N. But this is too much. We're hurting ourselves and our teams. We have to think about what's best for everyone."

Tears welled in Y/N's eyes, her mind racing. "You think ending things will make everything better? What about us?"

Will's expression softened, a flicker of pain crossing his features. "There is no 'us,' Y/N. We're enemies, remember? We can't pretend this is something it's not."

Y/N's anger flared, her heart aching with a mix of hurt and betrayal. "You think I don't know that? But you can't just turn off your feelings like a switch, Will. This isn't just about the game."

"I know," Will whispered, his voice breaking. "But it's the only way."

They stood there in silence, the weight of his words hanging between them. Y/N's mind was a whirlwind of emotions, each one more confusing than the last. She wanted to scream, to fight, to make him see that what they had was real. But the look in his eyes told her that he had already made up his mind.

"Fine," she said, her voice trembling. "If that's what you want."

Will nodded, his expression resigned. "It's for the best."

Without another word, Y/N turned and walked away, her heart heavy with the weight of their decision. She didn't look back, couldn't bear to see the finality in his eyes.

--- --- ---

The days that followed were a painful blur for Y/N. Every time she and Will saw each other, the air between them was thick with unresolved tension. Their once heated banter was replaced by uncomfortable silence and awkward glances. It was clear to everyone around them that something was off.

During practice, Y/N could feel the weight of her teammates' curious eyes on her. They whispered among themselves, speculating about the sudden change in her demeanor. Her game was affected too—her usual precision and focus were marred by hesitation and distraction.

At one point, her coach pulled her aside. "Y/N, your head's not in the game. What's going on?"

"It's nothing, Coach," she lied, forcing a smile. "Just... personal stuff."

The coach gave her a knowing look but didn't press further. "Get it together, Leonard. We need you at your best."

Ryan, however, was not so easily deterred. He had noticed the tension between Y/N and Will and couldn't shake the feeling that something significant had happened. After a particularly tense practice, he cornered her in the locker room.

"Y/N, what's going on with you and Will?" Ryan asked, his voice low but insistent. "You two have been acting weird for days."

Y/N sighed, knowing she couldn't keep lying to him. "Ryan, it's complicated. Can we talk about it later?"

"No," Ryan said firmly. "We talk about it now. You're my sister, and I need to know what's going on."

Y/N took a deep breath, her eyes filling with tears. "Will and I... we were seeing each other. But it's over now."

Ryan's eyes widened in surprise. "You and Will? Why didn't you tell me?"

"We didn't want anyone to know," Y/N admitted. "It was complicated, and we thought we could handle it. But it all fell apart."

Ryan's expression softened, his anger melting into concern. "I'm sorry, Y/N. I had no idea. Are you okay?"

"No," Y/N said, her voice breaking. "I'm not okay. It's been really hard."

Ryan pulled her into a hug, his arms wrapping around her protectively. "I'm here for you, Y/N. We'll get through this together."

--- --- ---

The tension between Ryan and Will simmered beneath the surface, threatening to boil over with each passing day. Ryan couldn't shake the anger that burned inside him, the betrayal he felt on behalf of his little sister.

After practice one evening, Ryan approached Will, his expression dark and stormy.

"We need to talk," Ryan said, his voice low but charged with emotion.

Will tensed, bracing himself for the confrontation he had been dreading. He knew he had hurt Y/N, but facing her brother's wrath was a whole new level of guilt.

"Look, Ryan, I know you're angry," Will began, his voice strained. "But you have to understand..."

"Understand what, Will?" Ryan interrupted, his voice rising with frustration. "That you broke my sister's heart?"

Will winced at the accusation, the weight of his actions pressing down on him like a ton of bricks. "I never meant to hurt her, Ryan. I care about her more than anything."

"Then why did you end things?" Ryan demanded, his eyes flashing with anger. "If you care about her, why did you walk away?"

Will struggled to find the right words, his guilt and remorse threatening to choke him. "It's complicated, Ryan. We were hurting each other, and I thought it was for the best."

"For the best?" Ryan scoffed, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "You think breaking her heart was for the best?"

Will shook his head, his own frustration mounting. "I don't know, okay? I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I was protecting her."

"Protecting her?" Ryan repeated, his incredulity turning to rage. "From what, exactly? From you?"

The accusation hit Will like a punch to the gut, leaving him reeling with guilt and shame. He had thought he was doing what was best for Y/N, but now he saw the pain he had caused, the damage he had inflicted on the woman he cared about more than anything.

"I screwed up, okay?" Will admitted, his voice barely a whisper. "I never should have let things get this far. I never should have hurt her."

Ryan's anger softened, replaced by a flicker of sympathy. "You hurt her, Will. But you can still fix it. You can still make things right."

Will nodded, determination burning in his eyes. "I will. I'll do whatever it takes to make things right with Y/N."

Ryan studied him for a moment, his expression unreadable. "You better, Will.”

With that, Ryan turned and walked away, leaving Will alone with his thoughts and his guilt.

--- --- ---

After yet another practice filled with tense interactions and awkward silences, Will knew he couldn't continue to avoid confronting Y/N. He needed to talk to her, to try to make things right between them, even if it meant facing her anger head-on.

As the rest of the team filed out of the locker room, Will lingered behind, waiting for the opportune moment to approach Y/N. When the room finally emptied, he took a deep breath and approached her, his heart pounding in his chest.

"Y/N, can we talk?" Will asked, his voice tentative.

Y/N's expression hardened, her eyes flashing with anger. "I don't have anything to say to you, Will."

Will swallowed nervously, steeling himself for the confrontation that was about to unfold. "Please, just hear me out. I know I messed up, but I want to make things right."

Y/N crossed her arms over her chest, her expression skeptical. "And how do you plan on doing that?"

Will took a step closer, his eyes pleading. "By talking. By listening. By being honest with each other."

Y/N scoffed, her anger boiling over. "Honest? Like you were honest with me when you ended things out of nowhere?"

Will winced at the accusation, the guilt washing over him like a tidal wave. "I know I hurt you, Y/N. I never meant to. I was just... scared. Scared of what we were becoming, of how much I cared about you."

Y/N's anger softened slightly, replaced by a flicker of hurt. "So you decided to end things without even talking to me about it?"

"I know it was a mistake," Will admitted, his voice barely a whisper. "I was wrong to push you away like that. I should have talked to you, tried to work through our issues together."

Y/N's walls began to crumble, her anger giving way to vulnerability. "I miss you, Will. I miss us."

Will reached out tentatively, his hand brushing against hers. "I miss you too, Y/N. More than you'll ever know."

For a moment, they stood there in silence, the weight of their emotions hanging between them like a heavy fog. Then, slowly, hesitantly, Y/N stepped forward, wrapping her arms around Will and burying her face in his chest.

"I'm sorry," Will whispered, his voice choked with emotion. "I'm so sorry, Y/N."

Y/N nodded, her own tears mingling with his. "I forgive you, Will. But we have a lot of work to do if we're going to make this right."

Will nodded, his heart lighter than it had been in weeks. "I know. And I'm willing to do whatever it takes."

--- --- ---

A few months had passed, and the day had finally arrived—the culmination of years of hard work, dedication, and sacrifice. As Will stood before the crowd gathered at the press conference, a sense of pride and accomplishment washed over him.

Surrounded by his teammates, coaches, and family, Will signed the three-year entry-level contract with the San Jose Sharks, officially beginning the next chapter of his hockey career.

But amidst the excitement and celebration, there was one person who stood out above all others—Y/N.

She stood by Will's side throughout the entire press conference, her hand clasped tightly in his, her eyes filled with pride and love.

As Will put pen to paper, signing his name on the dotted line, Y/N couldn't help but feel a swell of emotion. She had watched him overcome countless obstacles and setbacks, always pushing himself to be the best player he could be.

And now, as he embarked on this new journey with the San Jose Sharks, she knew that she would be there every step of the way, cheering him on from the sidelines, supporting him through the highs and lows of professional hockey.

As the cameras flashed and the reporters clamored for interviews, Y/N squeezed Will's hand, a silent promise passing between them. No matter where this new chapter took them, they would face it together, hand in hand, hearts intertwined.

this is all over the place oh well.

#will smith hockey #will smith #hockey imagine #boston college #hockey #nhl x reader #san jose sharks #sharks

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itsabouttimex2 · 4 months

Note

Can I request a platonic yandere sun wukong and macaque realizing that the teen mystic monkey they've been raising is planning to leave ffm?

O Child of Unity

(I’m assuming you want Shadowpeach, then? I’m still not the best with it, but I’ll try! Also, a new bot is up!🧡💜 Also again, this fic is compliant with Deepest Hues- which I’ll expand on soon!)

There are four base colors in our world: black, white, yellow, and red. Together, these four hues represent the base components of alchemy- nigredo, albedo, citrinitas, and rubedo.

In times ancient and forgotten, a massive reservoir of these four colors existed in each corner of the earth. Like pools of chaos they surged, brimming with power and life. From each of these brightly-hued depths did an egg arise, containing a Mystic Monkey of incredible potential.

One of light. One of shadow. One of snow. One of fire.

And recently, a brand new simian, born of a union from nigredo and citrinitas, pitch black and bright yellow fusing their mystical lineage into a mottled green.

Their union blessed the world with a little virescent monkey, big eyes and soft fur-

You.

The world is such a wonderful place, you’ve learned. Geysers of boiling water and hunched spikes of snow. Sand white as bone and lakes stained pink by algae. Forests comprised of just one tree and diminutive flowers with digestive maws.

From book to book you’ve torn, indulging your curious brain in every last little wonder of the world- from glacial peaks to crystal caverns.

How many pages have you worn away by now, dreaming of wonders far beyond your reach? How many dreams has your mind spun, longing for something new? How many times have you lost the world to a lovely little daydream that took hours to shake?

A less generous eye would view this behavior as unhealthy. They might even refer to it as a ‘coping mechanism’, spending half the day locked into a foggy haze, pretending that life was more exiting, more fulfilling.

Even you had come to realize the inherent instability of your constant stupor, eventually.

All you have to do to fix this problem, then… is make those dreams a reality!

…right?

Right! No time to waste worrying!

Packing is easy! It used to be a time-killer of yours as a child, pretending to go on adventures across the world with only your trusty well-stocked backpack. All these little games were played out under the watchful eyes of your fathers, ensuring your fun never turned dangerous or led you somewhere that was off-limits.

You’d pick a locale and prepare for an ‘expedition’ with snacks and clothes, always running and asking Bába to open the pantry for you.

“A winter adventure,” Sun Wukong would lovingly coo, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “Sounds like fun, bud! Don’t forget to pack your warm socks, kay?”

He’d laugh and play along, pushing sandwiches and chocolate protein bars into your hands, always with a pouch of juice to pair. Sometimes he’d go the extra mile of bagging them up, giving you a paper sack that wouldn’t be out of place on a field trip.

(How often you begged to be enrolled in school, physical or at least online. And your fathers would ‘tsk’ and shake their heads, but quickly promise you ice cream as a bandage balm for your youthful sorrow.)

And then he’d watch your little journeys with a quirked eyebrow, smiling as you pulled your plushes (given that you had no playmates outside of base simians and your often busy fathers) along and narrated your games.

You’d fill out a page in your bulky journal detailing the ‘journey’, consigning your little hours of make-believe to white pages.

And as you had grown, that many-paged journal stayed tucked under your arm, all your thoughts and hopes written away into it.

Even now, as you stare out at the endless horizon so plainly in front of you- the book is held to your chest, warmed by the excited beat of your heart.

It holds all those dreams you’ve dreamt for a full decade now, each one precious and utterly perfect to your nostalgic mind.

The grass is long and bright, glistening with morning dew. It sparkles under the rising rays of the sun, a picturesque landscape laying in front of you. Flower Fruit Mountain (Mount Huaguo, as your fathers sometimes called it) was beautiful. Is beautiful. But pretty can only satiate the mind for so long, and certainly couldn’t fulfill your wanderlust any longer.

You had explored every cave, climbed every tree, mucked every puddle, cuddled every monkey.

It had been nice. And you’d miss it, but-

The world was waiting!

And you could wait no longer.

Stuffing the oversized book into your backpack, you do the one thing you’ve wanted to do for years- and take off running.

Lush grass rips under your feet, laying in scattered half-length piles as your boots tear across the wet ground. Muddy footprints squash down flowers and weeds alike, nothing stopping your gleeful dash.

Over puddles and through tree crooks, beneath towering canopies and across deep ponds- you run. All that hampers you is the heavy bags strapped to your back and waist, full of the supplies you once only dreamed of handling during a journey.

A real, actual journey! How long had you waited?! Years and years! And it was finally coming true!

But you turn the corner of a rock too quickly, and smack head-on into something solid and warm, the figure grasping you tightly.

And all too suddenly, one of your fathers- Macaque- stares down at you, clearly displeased.

“Explain,” he sharply says, holding out the note you had left on the dining table, unfolded and excitedly penned. It had been written in such a rush of gleeful adrenaline that some parts are nigh-unintelligible.

But; even with wild pen scrawl and joyful errors, it was clearly an intended farewell.

The claw marks shredding through half of the paper is proof that he hadn’t exactly taken the notion well.

“Y/N. What the hell is this? You’re running away?”

“N-no! I’m just-“

“Do you think this is how it all works? You throw a note on the table and head out into a world you know nothing about?”

“I do know about the world! I’ve been researching it for years!”

“Your ‘research’ doesn’t mean a thing! You have no skills, no experience, nothing!”

“Because you won’t let me do anything!”

The accusation causes him to bristle in anger, lips pulled back as he snarls. His fangs, glistening and sharp, draw your attention.

(Sometimes you forget what Macaque has done. How scary he can be. Sometimes you forget that he’s never regretted his crimes. Moments like this are happy to remind you.)

Your bravado and boldness vanish startlingly quickly, shrinking under the furious gaze of the simian.

The Six-Eared simian snags your wrist, stomping over to a cavernous rift of shadows. With your arm held tight, he jumps in and drags you along.

You fall from a ceiling and into the waiting arms of your other father, Wukong. He grins and nuzzles the fur of his cheek to your own, relishing in the warmth of familial closeness. A golden brazier burns next to him, recently lit and brightly chugging the wooden fuel within.

“Someone was up to a little bit of mischief, huh?”

His reaction is the polar opposite to Macaque- where his husband blows up and seethes, the Great Sage lies to himself and pretends that everything is okay. It’s easier to think of his child as a little imp than an outright runaway.

As Wukong dotes, Macaque rips away the thick jacket and boots that you were wearing, throwing them into the nearest closet.

You didn’t need them, after all. You weren’t going anywhere.

Though a part of you is disgruntled to have some of your clothing torn away so suddenly, it’s only when he snatches the backpack that you scrabble from the Great Sage’s arms.

“Don’t mess with that!” You call, trying to wrangle the bag from his grip- but he’s got your journal before you manage to pry it free.

He holds the gargantuan journal, full of all the dreams you had through your life- to see snow penitentes, to view miscolored lakes, to visit ancient forests, to explore the world that had been kept from you for so long.

“This is what gave you those ideas? Your little baby book, kiddo?”

“It’s not-“

“Shut it! You tried to run away. You don’t get to speak right now.”

He takes a moment to breath, glaring at the offending journal. To him, the answer is clear- get rid of the book, and he’ll get rid of your silly ideations of “freedom”. If it comes undone to the very binds, then maybe you’ll give up on leaving and return to the cozy schedule your fathers adhere you to. Forehead kisses and morning cuddles, shared meals and long naps through the cold of winter.

Without it, his life will go back to being perfect, and to an obsessive villain like Macaque?

A little bit of your sorrow is worth the happiness that keeping you close brings.

“Enough of these pointless dreams.”

The Six-Eared Macaque stands to his full height, the multicolored glow on his ears fading to black as his eyes burned red. With one angry sling, he throws your book into the deepest ashes of the gilded brazier.

It catches quick, melting and warping for just a brief few milliseconds before incinerating.

You stand there for a moment in sheer disbelief, watching as a decade of heartfelt writing crumbles away in seconds.

The raw, unspeakable hurt it produces leaves you breathless and mute, incapable of summoning even a single sorrowful word.

Macaque staggers back as tears bubble up in your eyes- even the villain himself has realized that this was a step much too far. His intention; as often to the innocent and undeserving, was to inflict suffering.

Even his own family wasn’t off the table.

His sable hands are much too slow in retrieving the book from uncaring flames, snagging only an empty cover now bereft of inner pages.

Ruined. Utterly ruined and destroyed.

The slow realization that you’ll never have back your childhood journal, never read again your years of games and research, never write another word in the precious book, never finish it- never, never, never, never, all in a devastating row.

The realization sinks in slow, but clicks into place all the same.

A low whimper builds in your throat, slowly pitching up as wetness spill down your cheeks. So many tears fall that they blind your vision, pairing well with the sobs that escape you.

Wukong glares at his partner with boiling eyes, a look of outright hatred in them. “Macaque. What. The. Hell.”

“…they h-had to learn a lesson,” he weakly justifies, his cowardice bubbling up in full force.

Run from Five Phases Mountain. Run from the Brotherhood. Run from Wukong. Run from the Lady Bone Demon. Run from the Samadhi Fire. Run from consequences and run from heroes, and pray that everyone forgets how badly he deserves to be punished for his cruelty and arrogance and sins.

Still a little rat, slinking in the shadows.

“Get out,” the Great Sage snarls, fangs dripping with immeasurable hatred, and, as ever, as always-

Macaque runs.

Wukong turns to you as his pitch husband bolts, throwing off his chest-plate and wrapping his unfathomably powerful arms around your quivering form.

He’s warm, much like a spring of volcanic water, or sun-kissed wood.

Or a raging, burning fire.

You don’t really want to be warm right now.

But the ferocity with which you pound his chest and gut leave the simian utterly unfazed, shushing and hushing you all the same.

“Shh, pumpkin, shh. You know your Bába hates to see you cry. C’mon, let’s dry those tears. Y’know what? How about we get you some ice cream, bud? Something sweet and cold to make you feel better.”

Wukong doesn’t wait for a response. He rarely does. The immortal boosts you up into his arms, heading to the kitchen. He kisses your cheeks and forehead and the bridge of your nose, trying to placate your tears with an overdose of physical affection.

This was your life. Your world.

And you were starting to doubt that you’d ever leave it.

#Platonic Yandere #Yandere Lego Monkie Kid #Yandere LMK #Yandere Sun Wukong #Yandere Macaque #Shadowpeach #Deepest Hues

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starrynightmuse · 2 months

Text

Sign of the Times 🏛⏳️ I. Broken Dragonfly Wings

Aemond Targaryen x reader, Library of Alexandria AU

(Title inspired by the Harry Styles song)

Blurb: It's summer in Alexandria, Egypt, and the heat has reached sweltering heights. Children dash toward the banks of the Nile, eager to find relief in the cool waters while ladies fan themselves under the shade of palm trees. Thick mud huts keep families cool under the boiling sun. It would be 1,892 years before the first ice cubes would be invented and nearly two millennia until air conditioning. Even Jesus Christ wouldn’t be born until another 48 years. But you have the teachings of Aristotle and the works of Euclid. You're the first and only female scholar at the Library of Alexandria, the first institute of its kind. All your life has been spent in the pursuit of knowledge — until the arrival of a mysterious young scholar named Aemond.

Series warnings: period typical misogyny, ancient academia, teacher x student relationship (but they're the same age), violence, fire, sexual content (18+), reader is loosely based off of Hypatia of Alexandria, Targaryens x Ptolemies crossover, character deaths, inaccurate history for the sake of storytelling, accusations of witchcraft, debates on fictional religions, Plato, Daemon being a menace.

Word count: 5,380

Series Masterlist

Your heart was racing, terror coiling in your stomach like a serpent, but you refused to let it show as you looked out at the mob of angry faces around you in the pavilion.

“Traitor!”

“Death to the witch!”

“Kill her!”

You knew there was no escaping this. This was the end. Yet, even as fear flooded your chest, you refused to let go of your pride. You held your head up high as Prince Daemon approached you where you kneeled. He looked down at you, his cold eyes gleaming in sick satisfaction.

"I'm giving you one last chance, witch," he said, his voice hard and uncompromising. "Renounce your unholy ways and convert to the Faith of the Seven, and you shall walk away unharmed."

You looked up at him, refusing to back down. You hypocrite, you thought. When you spoke, your voice was steady and firm. "I cannot.”

The prince's expression darkened. He stepped closer to you, his lips close to your ear so that no one would overhear.

“There is nothing left for you. It's over. Save yourself and the crown will grant you mercy,” he hissed.

You spat at his face. "If the right to think is treason, then I embrace it proudly. I refuse to remain supplicant to a crown that fears the power of knowledge and labels it treachery."

Daemon's lips formed into a cruel snarl. He stepped back and turned to the crowd, opening his arms in a dramatic display. "The punishment for witchcraft is death!" his voice boomed. The crowd erupted, snarling and roaring like a pack of lions.

Your heart raced as the people closed in with stones in hand, hungry predators circulating their prey. You took a final deep breath, bracing yourself for the onslaught. The first stone hit you, a dull throb of pain that quickly gave way to sharper, intense sensations as more stones followed. You feel your knees collapsing to the hard floor. In reflex, you cover your head with your arms. You shut your eyes, and the last thing you saw was the memory of a single blue eye.

🏛⏳️

6 months earlier.

There's a buzzing in the air, and not just from the hum of people in the atrium outside. Inside your classroom, a large blue dragonfly lazily flies in circles, your students taking turns swatting at it as it zips by. It’s an epaulet skimmer, or an orthetrum chrysostigma, a common dragonfly found around Egypt. Last month, you helped survey them with a fellow scholar who was putting together an account of all the various insects along the Nile River delta. The research project was commissioned by the Princess Helaena Targaryen herself, whom you've heard was quite fond of natural history.

In the midst of your lecturing, the buzz of the insect feels amplified. In front of you sit nearly fifty pupils, all perched on wooden benches. Most of them are in their teens and early twenties, and all of them were young men with restless energy with wandering minds. While a few showed genuine curiosity, you knew that attendance was merely a formality to half of them, who were only present because their parents were wealthy aristocrats. Yet, you knew it was your duty to broaden their minds and instill some semblance of knowledge into their minds before they go on to graduate and become lords who make decisions that impact hundreds of people.

“Whether you believe in the Seven or the old gods, we accept that the divine has created all that we know,” you say, your voice carrying across the room. “Yet, the mechanisms behind how their creations work are a mystery to us mortals.”

There's a blur of blue near your eye when the dragonfly makes a landing on your nose. You swap it away and continue.

“For example, what are the gears that drive a drought? Elders of the past have said that a drought is punishment from an angry sun god. Holy men today say it is the repercussion of having vexed the Seven. But how, precisely, do these divine beings bring this drought upon us?” You pause, pacing around the room. “Like observing the work of a craftsman, we can observe the handiwork of the gods. We can observe that volcanic eruptions are one tool that the gods use to give us droughts. Likewise, miasma from a plague, which spews vaporous acid into the atmosphere, can cause rising temperatures and dry up rivers. (Modern Fact check: Miasma does NOT cause plagues. They are caused by infectious bacteria and viruses.)

“Every natural disaster has forces, or causes, behind them. Although perhaps only the gods may know the truth of the workings behind these events, philosophers and believers of science have theorized why certain disasters come to be. Take earthquakes, for example. Compared to droughts, it is much harder for us to determine how earthquakes are created. Aristotle, for one, suggested that it is caused by winds in subterranean caves.”

One of your pupils seated on the front row raises his hand. Ebony curls, dark eyes that remind you of beetles, his robes a deep plum that only money can buy.

“Perhaps Aristotle failed to consider that earthquakes could just be Atticus's mother walking to the market,” he says, a cocky grin spreading across his face. His friend gives him a hearty slap on the back, nearly doubling over with laughter.

You offer a tight-lipped smile. "Thank you, Flavius."

Some of your students were more mature than others.

Flavius's jolliness is short-lived, however. The dragonfly suddenly decides to dart into his eye and he lets out a startled shriek. He swats at the insect and tumbles forward off the bench. His friend roars even harder with laughter. Meanwhile, the dragonfly falls onto the floor, its delicate blue wings now broken. A couple students in the back crane their necks in curiosity as Flavius stomps his feet on the insect's body, crushing it mercilessly against the tile floor. Tiny blue limbs smear across the tiles, its wings in pieces like shattered glass. A life snuffed out in the blink of an eye.

Flavius settles back onto the bench, straightening his toga with an air of nonchalance. "Apologies, miss. Please, continue," he says.

You choose to ignore his interruption, redirecting your attention to the rest of the class.

“When we attempt to unravel the mysteries behind the divine's creations, we begin to understand the natural world,” you say, thinking about the dead bug in front of you, its blue wings, the blue of the Nile, all the species of flora and fauna that have survived for eons thanks to its life-giving waters. “This is why we study the discipline of science.”

“Beyond these walls, I have heard many who deem it to be blasphemy,” a voice interjects.

Your gaze shifts to a young man at the rear of the room. You've never seen him before, not in your classroom nor around the Library. If you've seen him, you would know. With his sharp features, nearly white hair cropped close to his head, and a leather eyepatch covering an angry scar on his left eye — his was not a face you would forget.

“What do they call you?” You ask curiously, piercing blue eye meeting yours. He seemed a bit older than the rest of your students — perhaps in his mid-twenties, around the same age as you. You briefly wondered where he was from. His features stood out in a sea of dark haired Alexandrians.

"I am called Aemond, ma'am," his voice remained composed and respectful. "Just Aemond." There was a refinement in his speech that hinted of a privileged upbringing, yet the absence of a surname intrigued you. Perhaps he was an educated slave, adept at tutoring and managing the finances of the master's household — literate slaves were not uncommon in the Roman Empire.

"And what have you heard, Aemond?" you inquire.

"It is said that scientific inquiry is seen as an offense to the Seven," he responds evenly, referring to the gods. "Questioning their creations is considered sacrilegious." Several students nod in agreement around the room.

You paused for a moment, gathering your thoughts.

“It is true that outside these walls, the belief that science is sacrilegious is held by many people,” you say slowly. “Perhaps even now, some of you are wrestling with the idea, torn between conventional thinking and what you are learning at this institute. If this is the case, I implore you to consider this —”

You look out at the faces of your pupils. Some are focused and deep in thought, while others are frowning. A lone blue eye is fixed on you.

"—What act of love is greater than seeking to understand the object of your affection? Mathematics, physics, and astronomy are not merely academic pursuits but they are expressions of love. They are avenues through which we seek to comprehend and appreciate the intricate beauty of our world.” You gestured around the room. “I am aware that some of you are followers of the Seven. Some of you are devoted to the old gods. But science does not seek to refute the existence of one God over another, nor does it attempt to debunk the existence of the divine altogether. Science seeks only to understand.” You look in Aemond's direction. He's watching, listening intently. “In attempting to understand the natural world, we may better love the divine and appreciate their creations.”

🏛⏳️

The remainder of the class concluded smoothly, and due to the sweltering heat, you dismissed everyone earlier than usual. Despite the hour not yet reaching midday, the air was thick with humidity, making the classroom feel oppressive. You had no desire to keep your students in the stuffy classroom for longer than necessary.

As the others rush to leave the room, you notice that Aemond was kneeling down and using a handkerchief to clean the dragonfly off the floor.

“Thank you,” you say to him earnestly. His brow is furrowed in concentration as he delicately holds the insect through the thin white cloth. He picks up a broken piece of an iridescent blue wing, the shimmer catching the light.

"It's an epaulet skimmer," you remark softly. But you're not looking at the bug, you're looking at him.

"Orthetrum chrysostigma," Aemond responds, using the scientific name. You regard him with curiosity.

“My sister has a fondness for insects," Aemond explains. "She is extremely gentle with them. She maintains an extensive collection in her room — beetles, caterpillars, dragonflies, and the like. But she only gathers them once they've passed on. Her heart is too big to confine them before they've lived a full life." He gazes at the broken wing in his hand with a hint of sadness. You suspect that he is thinking of more than the fate of the squashed bug.

“Some cultures believe that dragonflies were once dragons who were tricked by a jackal to change shape into insects,” you say, looking at the wing in fascination. “Once they became a dragonfly, they couldn't transform back. As a result, they represented change and illusion.”

You notice that Aemond's gaze is now fixed on you, a blue eye that reminds you of iridescent wings and the shimmering surface of the Nile on sunny days. You think of mirages in the desert, blue lapis lazuli on polished gold rings, the holographic shells of scarab beetles.

“They must've been very grand in their past lives,” he remarks.

There's a short silence as you observe him, unsure of what to make of this strange new addition to your class. As your gaze shifts from his eyepatch to his eye, you notice that he's studying you too. Suddenly, you feel very exposed, as if he was somehow reading your entire life story just by looking at you.

Breaking the tension, you extend your hand. "I realize I haven't properly introduced myself. It's been a pleasure having you in my class," you say, stating your name. He accepts your gesture, clasping your hand in a firm shake.

“You're the daughter of Theon. Your father is the greatest mathematician in all of Alexandria,” Aemond says. “I know who you are.”

“Do you study mathematics?”

“No. History and philosophy,” he replies. “But I've read enough across all the disciplines to know who the greats are.”

“I don't think I've ever seen you around here before,” you note.

"I just started my studies here," he explains. "I arrived last night."

"Where else have you studied?"

“Nowhere else. All my education has been from tutors hired by my family at home.”

"If you don't mind my asking, where do you come from?"

He hesitates. “I've been around,” he says at last.

🏛⏳️

That afternoon, you decided to teach your next class in one of the classrooms overlooking the sea. Arriving early, you unlatch the tall, arched windows, hoping to coax a gentle breath of ocean breeze into the room. As the soft light of the late afternoon filtered through, you arrange your teaching materials as the first of your students trickled in.

The class was on Euclidean geometry. As it happens, this was one of your favorite subjects to teach. You loved to move around the room, using various objects — such as a discus, a sphere, and even a pineapple — to illustrate geometric shapes and their properties. It was more than just memorizing formulas; it was about seeing and understanding the spatial relationships and practical applications of mathematics in the physical world.

Two thousand years from now, Euclidean geometry would be the foundation for computer graphics, radiology, and geographic information systems. Without Euclid, you wouldn't have video games or anime. There would be no x-rays to help doctors treat broken bones. Without Euclid, there would be no Google Maps, nor would you be able to stalk your crush's location on Snapchat.

Abruptly, you are cut off mid-lecture as a series of bold knocks echo off the door. You excuse yourself and open the door cautiously, finding yourself face-to-face with six armored men adorned in gold cloaks. You step out into the atrium.

"What is your business?" you ask, your gaze sharp and guarded.

“Prince Daemon Targaryen wants to speak to Theon of Alexandria. I'm told you're his daughter,” the guard at front says firmly.

“My father is indisposed. Whatever business you have with him, you can discuss with me.”

A sudden laugh rings out across the atrium. Every movement in the hall comes to a standstill as scholars pause their tracks and turn their heads. In front of you, guards quickly part ways for a tall man with long silver hair. His armor clinks as he strides towards you, his eyes mischievous like those of a jackal, reminding you of the ancient depictions of Anubis on temple walls. Adorning his shoulders is the same golden cloak worn by his men.

It was the unmistakable Prince Daemon Targaryen, brother of King Viserys and the consort of the crown princess Rhaenyra. But to the smallfolk, he is known as the merciless commander of the City Watch.

Daemon looks at you like you are the scum on his shoes. “I don't have time for games, girl,” he says mockingly. “Where is your father?”

“Like I've said, he is indisposed,” you repeat, meeting him with a steady gaze.

“I have come a long way from the palace,” he says, offering a false honeyed grin. “You will fetch him for me.”

You give a smile that mirrored his. It was common knowledge that Prince Daemon frequented the company of his mistress in the city more than he did his own wife at the royal palace.

"I speak the truth when I say my father cannot be here right now, and I apologize on his behalf. However, I am willing to assist you,” you assert calmly.

"This does not concern you," Daemon retorts dismissively. "I am here on business concerning your father's governance of this... academic institution."

"I am a professor here and a senior member of the Library of Alexandria," you counter, maintaining your composure. "After my father, you will find no one more knowledgeable about the affairs of this institute than I am."

Daemon scoffs, his tone condescending. "There are matters too serious to discuss with a woman.”

“Then I'm afraid you will have to come back another day, my prince.”

“Where is your father?”

“He is sick. Unless you have a direct order from the king, I would prefer not to disturb him from his much-needed rest."

The unspoken truth hangs heavy in the air — the Library is under the protection of the crown, and Daemon, despite his authority, is not the king. The prince's expression darkens, a sneer painting his features as his knuckles grip around the handle of his sword on his waist. You find yourself locked in a tense staring contest, both unwilling to yield. Moments tick by in silence, each waiting for the other to give in. Then —

“Very well,” he concedes, letting go of his grip on the sword. But you knew from his expression that this was far from over. Daemon casts a disdainful glance around the atrium as if the place offended him before turning and walking away from you. His gold cloaks follow him, their armor clanking all the way to the main doors of the library.

It is only when the last of them exited onto the street that you allow yourself to release the breath you've been holding.

🏛⏳️

“Daemon Targaryen? What was he doing here?” You hear Cregan before you see him.

You're in the far corner of the main reading room, kneeling before a crate with a new shipment of scrolls that came in from Greece. Gently opening the lid, you discover a signed note from the head of the Platonic School of Athens. Ἕν οἶδα ὅτι οὐδὲν οἶδα. Αὕτη ἡ γνῶσις ἐμοῦ ἐστιν, it reads at the end. One thing I know, that I know nothing. This is the source of my wisdom. It is a quote by Socrates.

Cregan emerges from behind a shelf, his gray eyes wide with exasperation.

“I can't say that I haven't expected this,” you say to him, picking up a scroll and lightly dusting it off. “It is no secret that Daemon puts up with us only because of the pharaoh.”

“Well, yes. But to barge in here and demand for the Professor—” he means your father Theon.

“He's been sending us threats for months.”

Cregan paused. “When did this start?”

“Four moons ago, when King Viserys reinstated him as Lord Commander of the City Watch.”

Daemon had been the commander of the city watch once before, but that had been years ago, and back then he was more interested in dealing with criminals in the worst parts of the city. But after some scandal with the Princess Rhaenyra, Viserys had exiled him to Rome. Now, he was back and had regained both his old post as leader of the city guard and the Princess Rhaenyra, whom he took to wife. However, this time, Daemon was turning his policing to the University of Alexandria, more commonly referred to as simply the Library. Apparently, scholars are the new criminals.

“Why didn't you tell me?” Cregan asked, clearly frustrated.

“I didn't want to burden you with it," you reply honestly. "You've been occupied with your research with Princess Helaena these past four moons.”

Cregan rubs his eyebrows. “What has he been threatening?”

With a sigh, you rise to your feet, making space on the shelf for the new scrolls. Cregan joins you, handing over scrolls from the crate as you arrange them carefully in their designated spots on the shelf.

“He wants to shut down the Library if we don't — and I quote his words — ‘tone down on the science’,” you explain. "He's pushing for censorship, insisting that everything that is taught and published here must be 'safe' for the public. He claims it's about protecting the moral well-being of Alexandrians."

Cregan snorts derisively. "I wonder what his wife thinks of his moral well-being."

"That's an ad hominem attack, Cregan," you chide gently. But you're smiling.

“We're the best scientific research institution in the Mediterranean,” he says. “And, let's face it, we're probably the best in the entire world. We owe it all to King Jaehaerys's proclamation over 50 years ago, protecting our intellectual freedom. Even Daemon Targaryen can't derail something like that.”

“Daemon doesn't like anything he can't control,” you say. “Nor does he like taking no for an answer.”

“He's a cunt,” Cregan muttered angrily. “His word isn't law but he sure does want to act like it. Did you hear he's been trying to ban all Northerners from entering Alexandria? Unless they're slaves, that is. It's utterly absurd. He's a Northerner himself. His entire family hails from the north—well, not the North, but north of the Mediterranean. Valyria is a small city-state in Greece. Still, that's north of us. If he wants only true Alexandrians in the city, maybe he should consider leaving as well." The Targaryens, although originally from Greece, had become the longest-reigning dynasty in Egypt, despite their non-Egyptian origin.

"What does Princess Helaena think?"

"Of Daemon?"

"Of the North."

Cregan blushes slightly. "She's mentioned that we should visit there together someday," he admits. “For research purposes, of course,” he adds quickly.

You grin. Cregan has been your closest friend since childhood, and you swear you've never seen him as happy as he's been the past few months.

"She wants to see the direwolves and the aurora borealis,” says Cregan. “I promised her I'd show her around Winterfell when we go." Winterfell, Cregan's hometown, nestled in a far-off corner of the world where snow and frost dominate most of the year — a large contrast to the sandy dunes of Egypt.

“You like her,” you mused.

“Don't be absurd,” Cregan says, but he's failing miserably in hiding a smile.

There's a rustling among the shelves behind you, and the next thing you know, you're face to face with a single blue eye that reminds you of ocean water and iridescent wings.

"Sorry, I was told that the texts about Plato are in this section?" Aemond asks.

"Oh. Yes. Absolutely," you reply quickly, gesturing around you. "I mean, they're all here. Everything on this wall is Plato. We've just received a new collection of his works from Greece and we just finished cataloging and setting them up. They're on this shelf. Here." Your words stumble out awkwardly, and you feel your cheeks flush with embarrassment.

“Perfect,” Aemond says, looking at you. Neither of you move. Cregan eyes the two of you with amusement.

“Well, I was just about to head out,” Cregan says cheerfully, sashaying past you. You turn, widening your eyes and mouthing no to him. Cregan simply grins as he disappears behind the bookshelves, leaving you with Aemond.

“You read Plato?” you ask.

Aemond nods. “I am an admirer of his work,” he says. “You were one of my first introductions to him, actually. I read your thesis on him, An Exploration Into the Metaphysics of Plato, when I was sixteen.”

“I can't imagine there would be many copies of that,” you say with amazement. “I wrote it when I was—”

“Sixteen,” Aemond says. You blink. He clears his throat. “I've been a follower of your work,” he adds shyly.

“Oh. I'm flattered.” You’re blushing.

“Is it true that you started studying at The Academy when you were fourteen?” He means the Platonic School of Athens, founded by Plato himself over 300 years ago. Most scholars called it The Academy. It is the first university to ever open in western civilization.

You nod. “I learned mathematics and astronomy here, but my father wanted me to get a hellenistic education on top of it, so he sent me to Greece. I stayed there for four years before returning to Alexandria.”

“I have a brother who studies there,” Aemond shares, leaning against a bookshelf. “My mother, being an Athenian herself, insisted he be sent there. He writes to me sometimes, telling me about the professors he works with. I had considered studying there myself.”

“What made you choose Alexandria over Athens?”

Aemond smiles. “I'm at the center of the world here. It seemed foolish to want to go anywhere else,” he says, his gaze sweeping the library around him. After a pause, he asks, “What made you want to teach?”

“The fear of oblivion,” you reply. "It's the realization that everything we do, everything we learn, and everything we create could be forgotten someday. Teaching, for me, is a way to combat that inevitability. By sharing knowledge, by shaping young minds, I can hope to leave a lasting impact — a legacy that outlives me."

Aemond nods thoughtfully. "So it's about leaving a mark on the world?"

"In a sense, yes," you affirm. "It's about contributing to something greater than myself, ensuring that knowledge endures beyond individual lives and fleeting moments."

He smiles faintly. "That's a noble pursuit."

"It's what drives me," you conclude. As you look at each other, you feel his gaze tracing over your face with a strange emotion. Awe? Admiration? Before you can decipher his thoughts, a scholar approaches the shelf behind you, prompting you to awkwardly step aside.

"I hope you find the resources on Plato you're looking for," you say to Aemond, refocusing on the moment. You pause. "We're hosting a seminar on Plato's metaphysics tomorrow afternoon in the Rose Hall. You should join us."

Aemond smiles. “I’d be honored to.”

🏛⏳️

Daytime in Alexandrian summers can be hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk, but when the chill sets in at night, the city transforms into a completely different land. It is under the cloak of darkness that Alexandria truly comes alive.

You’re wrapped in a headscarf, its tail fluttering in the gentle wind from the Mediterranean as you navigate the narrow streets of the night market. Oil lamps and torches cast a soft, flickering glow as shadows danced across buildings decorated with a mix of hieroglyphs and hellenistic art. On the streets, you hear people speaking in both Greek and Egyptian, but also Persian, Moroccan, and other various African and Asiatic dialects. Various aromas filled the air— spices mingled with the savory scents of grilled meats and the sweet notes of baked pastries and delicacies from the far corners of the world. It was the New York City of the ancient world.

Weaving between stalls adorned with colorful fabrics and gleaming trinkets, you spotted one of the gold cloaks from earlier that day. Upon noticing you, he gave you a brief, curt nod before turning his attention sharply towards a group of rowdy children who were blocking the path of a passing wagon.

You make your way to an apothecary stall, securing the medicine your father needs before turning to leave. Suddenly, a hooded figure trips over a wooden crate and crashes into you, causing both of you to tumble to the ground. You fall flat on the cobblestones, his weight on top of you. Your basket with the apothecary vial shatters on the road.

“Ow!” he yelled. You struggle to push him off and get to your feet, then reach down to help him up, steadying him as he sways unsteadily. His hood falls back, revealing a mess of unruly white curls.

Prince Aegon Targaryen. You’ve seen him a few times while going around the city. The eldest son of Queen Alicent, known to frequent the streets of Alexandria often. Aside from Daemon, he was the only royal that most of the smallfolk could recognize by appearance.

"Prince Aegon," you say cautiously, helping him steady himself. "Are you alright?"

He blinks a few times, focusing on you with bleary eyes. "Why, hello," he slurs slightly, attempting a lopsided smile. For a prince, he seemed dirtier than Diogenes and his barrel.

"Let me help you," you insist, guiding him away from the scattered shards of glass. You maneuver him towards a nearby bench, ensuring he sits down safely.

"I’m alright, I’m fine," he murmurs, running a hand through his disheveled hair. He groaned and vomited on the ground next to him. You pat him on the back awkwardly as he empties his stomach.

“Did my mother send you?” he said abruptly.

“What?”

“My mother. She sent you, didn’t she? I can’t catch a break these days,” he grumbled. “The woman is a menace. She’s become crazier since my brother got exiled. I can’t even drink in peace now. She’s sending her spies everywhere.”

You frowned. “I’m not a spy, my prince.”

Aegon wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and sits back heavily on the bench. He tilts his head up at you, scrutinizing you, and then he sighs and hungs his head.

“Forgive me,” he mutters, almost to himself. “I’m tired of the games. Tired of the scrutiny. I’m tired of the standards that she sets for me, and I’m tired of her disappointment when I fail to meet them. Can’t she see I don’t want any of this? Can’t she just let me be?”

You hesitate, unsure how to respond to the prince's candidness. He was clearly drunk and you’ve only just met him, and you’ve heard unsettling rumors about him. Stories of his frequenting brothels and fighting rings, of fathering illegitimate children and neglecting them. But in this moment, he seemed far from the crooked prince that people whispered about. He seemed like a child in need of comfort.

“Your mother worries about you,” you say gently. “She only wants what’s best for you.”

He scoffs bitterly. “Does she? Tell me, have you ever had a mother who would rather marry you to your own sibling for political gain than let you live your own life?”

You shake your head slowly. “I cannot say I understand fully, but I know you carry a heavy burden.”

“Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever be free of it.” Aegon leans back, staring up at the night sky with weary resignation. “My brother was lucky. I’d do anything to exchange places with him.”

You recalled hearing news of Queen Alicent’s second son, who had been condemned to work in the mines of Nubia as punishment for the murder of his nephew. The usual penalty for murder was death, and much worse if the victim was a royal, but since the criminal was a prince himself, it changed a few things. The Nubian mines were typically reserved for lesser crimes in Alexandria.

“The one who was exiled to Nubia?” you asked Aegon.

He chuckles bitterly. “My brother didn’t get sent to Nubia. Mother loves him too much for that.”

You stayed quiet, not knowing what to say. You had a feeling that you weren’t supposed to be hearing this piece of information. Yet, Aegon didn’t seem to expect a reply. He’s looking up at the stars, as if he wished to fly off into the heavens and leave his miseries on the ground.

“Thank you,” Aegon finally said, breaking the quiet that had settled between you. Thank you for listening, thank you for not judging, thank you for watching out for my drunken mess. He rose to his feet, a bit unsteady but more composed than before. He took out a pouch of coins. “This is for… what I broke,” he said, gesturing to the remnants of the vial around you, shards of glass glittering under oil lamps. You thought of the broken dragonfly wings from earlier in the day.

You accepted the pouch gingerly. What he gave you was worth much more than the cost of the medicine, but you didn’t want to offend him so you decided not to mention it.

“Should I call the guards to escort you back to the palace?” you asked.

Aegon blinked, his gaze drifting momentarily. “No, no,” he said, waving dismissively. “They’re my uncle’s people. They don’t like me.”

"Will you manage on your own?" you pressed gently.

Aegon straightened his cloak and mustered a tired smile. "I always do," he said.

With that, the prince turned and started to walk away. You watched as he disappeared into the narrow streets, his figure gradually blending with the shadows.

Chapter II: Coming Soon

#aemond targaryen #aemond targaryen x reader #aemond targaryen x you #aemond targaryen fanfiction #hotd x you #aemond fic #aemond fanfiction #aemond x reader #hotd fanfic #aemond x y/n

130 notes · View notes

ultravionna · 21 days

Text

fine line ୭ ˚.⁺⊹ .ᐟ

𐙚 dallas winston x soc.ᐟreader꒱

warnings: none.ᐟ

a/n: wrote this while on a twelve hour road trip w no proofreading lol. sorry if there’s any typos angels

⤷ *based on request linked here* ༉‧₊˚✧

you had always known there was a line between the socs and the greasers. there was a visible barrier, separating two worlds that were never supposed to mix. you had crossed that line the moment you fell for dallas winston, the rough-edged greaser with a reputation that preceded him. you knew it wouldn’t be easy, but you hadn’t expected it to blow up like this.

an argument had started over something small, something you couldn’t even remember as the words slipped from your lips, earning you a ‘what’d you just say?’ from dallas. then a few snide comments between the two of you—but it escalated quickly, spiraling out of control like a car skidding on ice. dallas had always had a short fuse, and once it was lit, there was no stopping the explosion.

hand grasping the wheel as his other was raised to his mouth as he bit his nails out of habit, he hadn’t said much for the past few seconds, just that cold, distant look in his eyes that told you everything you needed to know. and now, as you sat in the passenger seat of his car, staring at the screen but not really seeing it, you knew the moment had come.

“so, you been lyin’ to me this whole damn time, huh?” he spat, his voice low and rough. “makin’ me think you were one of us. a greaser.”

you sat there, baffled, as his words hit you like a punch to the gut. “dallas, i never lied to you,” you said, your voice shook with sincerity. “i never pretended to be a greaser. i never pretended anything. i’m still the same person, the same girl when w—”

“no, you ain’t, you’re a damn soc.” he snapped, turning to glare at you. his eyes were dark and heavy with hurt and something else, something that looked a lot like distrust. “greasers don’t have rich folks waitin’ at home. we don’t have the luxury of pickin’ which side we’re on. we don’t get that choice, alright. we’re born into this life, we don’t get to step in and out whenever we please.”

you took another breath in as if the air around you grew tight, your heart breaking as you watched him unravel. “dallas, it’s not like th—”

“then what is it like?” he demanded, his deep brown eyes blazing with anger. “you tell me, what is it like to pretend to be like one of us then get to go back to your perfect little life at the end of the day? what’s it like to play both sides, huh?”

you felt tears sting your eyes, but you blinked them back, refusing to let them fall. “i didn’t wanna tell you because i knew you’d react like this,” you said, your voice trembling.

“i knew you’d think i was just some rich girl slumming it with ah grease. but that’s not what this is. i’m not like them, dal’. i’m not.”

“i never wanted to play both sides,” you whispered, your voice barely audible. “i just wanted to be with you. i thought… i thought we could be together. i thought that it didn’t matter where i came from.”

he scoffed then, but there was no humor in it. “yeah, well, it matters to me, man. i don’t wanna be some experiment for a soc tryin’ to get her kicks. i’ve been through enough of that shit.”

“that’s not fair,” you said, your voice breaking. “i never wanted to hurt you. i just wanted to be with you. i thought you’d understand.”

“understand what?” he shouted, his anger boiling over.

“what, that you’re just like every other soc i’ve ever known? that you’re lookin’ down on me, thinkin’ you’re better than me?”

“i don’t think i’m better than you,” you cried, the tears finally spilling over. “i love you, dallas. doesn’t that mean anything?”

for a moment, he looked like he might break, like the wall he’d built around himself might crumble. but then he shook his head, his expression hardening. “no,” he said, his voice cold. “it doesn’t. not anymore.”

his words were like a knife to your heart, and you felt the pain of them cut deep. you couldn’t stay, not after that. not when he looked at you like you were a stranger, like you were nothing.

“i guess i was wrong about you,” you whispered, your voice barely audible. “maybe you’re just like all the other greasers—too stuck in your ways to see what’s right in front of you.”

you turned and got out of the car, your footsteps heavy against the gravel of the drive in as you left him behind. you didn’t look back, couldn’t bear to see the expression on his face. you just kept walking, the tears blurring your vision as you tried to hold yourself together. but inside, you were falling apart, piece by piece.

dallas sat there, staring out of the car window. he could still hear your words echoing in his head, accusing him, hurting him in ways he hadn’t thought was possible. he had been angry, so damn angry, but now that you were gone, all he felt was empty. like the fight had drained him of everything, leaving nothing but a hollow shell.

“damn it,” he muttered, running a hand through his hair.

he knew he had messed up, knew that he had let his pride and his temper get the best of him. but the thought of you being a soc, of you being part of the world that had always looked down on him, was too much to handle. it made him feel small, like he was nothing, and that was a feeling he couldn’t stand.

but now, standing alone in the silence, he realized that maybe he had been wrong. maybe you weren’t like them, maybe you really were different. and maybe, just maybe, he had pushed you away when he should have been holding on tighter.

the days that followed were pure hell for dallas. the gang noticed the change in him immediately. he was more irritable, more prone to snapping at them over the smallest things. his usual swagger was gone, replaced by a brooding silence that hung over him like a dark cloud. he didn’t talk much, didn’t smirk, didn’t even bother to flirt with the girls who passed by. it was like he had lost a part of himself, and he didn’t know how to get it back.

“man, you really messed up this time, dal,” soda said one evening, leaning against the wall as he watched dallas fidget with his lighter. “you’ve been actin’ like a bear with a sore head ever since that damn girl done walked out on you.”

“shut up, man,” dallas muttered, flicking the lighter open and closed. “you don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”

“but we do,” ponyboy added, sitting down next to dallas. “we all know what happened between you two. and we know you’re missin’ ‘er.”

“so what if i am?” dallas snapped, his voice harsher than he intended. “it don’t change nothin’. she’s still a soc, still one of them.”

“maybe,” johnny said quietly, his dark eyes full of sympathy, “but she’s also your girl. and that means somethin’, right?”

dallas sighed, rubbing his hands over his face. he was tired, so damn tired of fighting, of feeling like he had to prove himself all the time. “i dunno, man,” he said, his voice weary. “it’s just… it’s complicated, y’know?”

“yeah, we get it,” steve said, leaning forward. “but maybe it’s not as complicated as you think. maybe you just gotta stop bein’ so damn stubborn and go after her.”

“and say what?” dallas asked, his voice thick with frustration. “that i was wrong? that ima piece of shit for what i said?”

“yeah,” ponyboy replied, his voice soft. “exactly that.”

dallas looked at them, his gang, the only family he had ever known. they were all looking at him, waiting for him to make the right choice, to do the right thing.

“alright, alright,” he muttered, standing up. “i’ll go talk to her. but don’t go thinkin’ this is gonna be easy.”

when you saw dallas at the drive-in, your heart skipped a beat. you hadn’t expected to see him, hadn’t expected him to come after you. but there he was, standing in the middle of the crowd, looking as lost as you felt.

he was out of place here, in the world of the socs, but he didn’t seem to care. he was focused on you, and only you. the movie was playing on the big screen behind him, some old black-and-white film that you both loved to watch together. but all you could see was him, standing there with his hands shoved in his pockets, his eyes searching for yours.

“dallas, what are you doing here?” you asked, your voice barely above a whisper.

he didn’t answer right away. instead, he took a step closer, his gaze never leaving yours. “i was wrong,” he said, his voice low and rough. “i was wrong about everything.”

you swallowed hard, your heart pounding in your chest. “what do you mean?”

“i mean, i was scared,” he admitted, his voice shaking slightly. “scared that you were too good for me, that maybe you didn’t really want someone like me. that maybe you were just playin’ me.”

“dallas, i never—”

“i know,” he interrupted, holding up a hand. “i know that now. but at the time, all i could think about was how much i didn’t deserve you. how much i didn’t deserve to be with someone like you.”

he took another step closer, until he was standing right in front of you. “but the truth is, i don’t care if you’re a soc or a greaser or whatever. all i care about is you. and if you’ll have me, i’ll spend the rest of my life tryin’ to make it up to you.”

you looked up at him, your heart in your throat. you wanted to believe him, wanted to forgive him, but the hurt was still fresh, still raw. “how do i know you won’t push me away again?” you asked, your voice trembling.

“you don’t,” he said simply. “but i’ll do everything i can to prove to you that i won’t. and if i mess up, i’ll keep tryin’ until i get it right.”

he reached out, taking your hand in his. “i love you, baby” he said, his voice thick with emotion. “and i’ll never stop fightin’ for you. never.”

the words hung in the air between you, and for a moment, neither of you moved. then, slowly, you nodded, a small smile tugging at your lips. “i love you too, dallas,” you whispered.

the relief on his face was almost palpable, and before you knew it, he was pulling you into his arms, holding you close. the movie played on behind you, the sound of the actors’ voices blending with the sound of your heart beating in your chest.

“d’you remember our favorite scene from this movie?” dallas asked, his lips brushing against your ear.

you nodded, smiling against his shoulder. “of course i do.”

he pulled back slightly, just enough to look at you. “then let’s watch it together. like we used to.”

you nodded, and he led you to a spot where you could both see the screen. the gang had followed him, watching from a distance as dallas wrapped his arm around you, pulling you close as the movie played on.

and when that familiar scene came on, the one where the main lead finally confessed his love to the girl, dallas leaned in close, his lips brushing against your ear as he whispered the lines along with the actor, his voice low and full of affection.

“you know, sweetheart, i never thought i’d find someone like you,” he whispered, his breath warm against your skin. “but now that i have, i’m never lettin’ go.”

you smiled, leaning into him as you whispered the responding line back, “i’m not going anywhere.”

he pressed a kiss to your temple, his arm tightening around you as the movie continued to play. and in that moment, with the gang around you, the movie on the screen, and dallas holding you like he never wanted to let go, you knew that everything was going to be okay. because no matter what, you and him would always find your way back to each other.

#dallas winston #dally winston #dal winston #dallas winston x reader #the outsiders dally #the outsiders dallas #the outsiders x reader #the outsiders fic #matt dillon #x reader #girl blogger #coquette #gaslight gatekeep girlboss #girlblogging #girl blunt #female rage #this is what makes us girls #taking requests

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purplekissinger · 8 months

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The tower, the princess, the snake

She suffocates me with her coiling rings, She chokes me tenderly, engulfed me whole. And this unliving thing, this darkest thing, This terrifying thing — it is my soul. Zinaida Gippius, ‘She’

Soulmates AU. tw: mentions of death, a bit dark, canon Tom

At the orphanage, Tom never told anyone about these dreams, but even if he did, no one would have been able to explain anything to him. Dreams about a soulmate usually come along with the awakening of a magical gift. Sometimes later, never before.

Y/N was born, as they say, with a silver spoon in her mouth, into a rich family of purebred wizards. She grew up on the coast near Edinburgh in a cozy mansion, securely hidden from prying eyes. Y/N lived like a wildflower, but a flower that was dearly loved and protected.

Tom cherished these dreams. At first they were elusive and not very intelligible. All he could remember was something light and pure, like a cloud, like a sunbeam, something fresh and sweet like ice cream. Tom had never eaten ice cream, but after these dreams something honeyed melted on his tongue all day and he could breathe easily, as if after a thunderstorm.

Y/N was afraid of her dreams. She, too, could not tell what exactly she saw, but at night she was haunted by the vision of long gray benches, a tall, toothy fence and an acute, suffocating feeling of defenselessness, sadness, disorder, loneliness, cold, hunger. Sometimes it became so hollow that she would wake up in the middle of the night almost in a fever and run to her mother.

One day Tom dreamed that his mother was leaning towards him and hugging him tightly.

One day Y/N dreamed that she killed a rabbit.

Time passed, and dreams began to come less often, but more clear and meaningful. They were no longer a vague feeling of happiness that lit up the day, there was a person. A face. A little face? A girl?

A boy?

She lived like a princess in a castle, in some very large house in the middle of green meadows, almost never leaving it, and both parents loved her to death, and yet it did not harm her and she remained light, cheerful and friendly. Sunshine-like. Tom would want her to look in the mirror more often, otherwise her face was almost impossible to see. He wished she were here, with him, in reality.

He lived in some terrible place that was just impossible to imagine. Y/N had never heard of such a thing even in the scariest fairy tales. He called no one his friend. He considered himself above this, above everything that existed, and he pushed away with disdain what little warmth he received. Once he lured a boy and a girl into a cave, and they lost their minds. He never told anyone what he did to them, but Y/N saw everything.

By the end of the first year, Tom already knew what those dreams meant, and by the end of the second he realized that if this girl was studying, she was not at Hogwarts. For a long time he did not want to believe it, and when he finally did, he felt a cold rage slowly boiling inside. Are they hiding away something that was destined for him?

Y/N, like everyone else in her family, studied at home. Her parents had enough money to hire the best tutors, and her mother could not even imagine that her little girl would live in some castle on the island for six months, away from home. Y/N and her mother had no secrets from each other, except one. Her dreams.

Tom cherished every dream like a jewel, repeated it to himself, tried to remember every moment, every feature of her face. Every grain of this lightness was his only, and it was unthinkable to share those dreams. He guarded this secret almost more so than the secret of the Horcruxes.

He killed people, now she knew for sure.

They are now admiring something that is mine, Tom sometimes thought in melancholy. The sunny girl who illuminated his whole life belonged to him as much as his wand, as Marvolo's ring, as his rightful inheritance, and yet she was unforgivably far away.

He would never find her if she was careful enough.

He will definitely find her, and then he will find out who thought of hiding her, and then he will simply bury them.

***

There’s one extra year to prepare for the exams for those who study at home, and therefore Y/N had to take her OWLs on her sixteenth birthday. Always confident in her knowledge, she was now a little anxious: what if something went wrong and she would return home disgraced? For the first time in her life she rode on the Hogwarts Express, but hardly ever looked out the window. She kept repeating her notes on the history of magic.

In the evening it became chilly. Dressed in a terribly expensive robe of impeccably modest style, she got off at Hogsmeade station and placed her suitcase at her feet. As if spellbound, she looked at the silhouette of the castle imprinted on the sunset sky, and, probably, at that moment she regretted a bit that she had not spent all her life here.

The inside of the castle amazed Y/N even more. Together with two girls who also came here to take the exam, she stepped under the arches of the Great Hall and forgot to breathe, looking at the enchanted ceiling. Floating candles all around, as far as the eye could see, and above: constellations, constellations, the shining circle of the moon, constellations again...

“Yes, this ceiling is definitely a sight to see,” someone’s voice sounded over her ear. Y/N winced and turned around.

“Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Tom Riddle, Slytherin perfect,” said Tom. ‘You are probably taking an exam tomorrow? Professor Slughorn told me that homeschool students were due to arrive this evening’.

Y/N looked at him as if... well, yes, like a rabbit looking at a boa constrictor. Trembling, speechless. Tom smiled slightly, and there was nothing good in that smile. He recognized Y/N instantly, long before she saw him.

‘How was your trip? It's starting to get cold early now’.

“This is a dream,” Y/N thought in shock. “This is a dream, I’ll wake up now.” But for the first time in many years she saw this boy not in a dream, but in reality.

‘Shall I show you to the guest rooms?’ Tom offered kindly, extending his hand.

#harry potter #tom riddle #tom riddle x y/n #tom riddle x reader #voldemort x reader #soulmates #is this yandere themed or not?#im confused #tw dark themes

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secondratefiction · 9 months

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Keep You Safe - Commander Cody x Medic!Reader

Life Day Fic Exchange 2023 @cloneficgiftexchange

Written for @loving-the-cambridges

“Alright… unfortunately it does look like it’s broken…” You sighed, setting the trooper’s arm back down gently, “I’ll brace it and give you something for the pain and swelling until we get you back to the ship. 1 to 10, how bad is it hurting?”

“It’s feeling much better now that you’re taking care of me, mesh’la.” The trooper smiled up at you loopily and you had to resist the urge to roll your eyes.

“Careful Shiny…” The voice behind you made you smirk and you turned to smile at Boil as he stared the trooper you were working on down.

“He’s fine.” You said, motioning the older trooper to come help hold the other’s arm while you splinted and wrapped it up, “It’s probably the shock and adrenaline talking anyway.”

“Even so…” Boil rolled his eyes but was still as gentle as possible holding his brother’s limb while you worked, looking pointedly back at him, “You show the medics more respect. Especially the nat-borns.”

“Careful Boil,” You laughed softly as you finished up the wrapping, helping the trooper put his arm in a sling before giving him an injection, “You’re starting to sound like your commander.”

You could see Boil’s lip twitch as he tried to maintain a professionally neutral expression, “Thank you ma’am.”

Declaring the newer trooper done for the time being, you quickly shooed him off with instructions to find one of the transports back to the starcruiser, once he was out of your tent set up, you turned back to Boil expectantly, “Alright, so what can I do for you?”

“The Commander is back ma’am, he asked for you.”

“Maker karking damn it…” You spun around quickly to grab your bag, “Maybe lead with that next time.”

You had literally watched the man bust his knuckles open, dislocate a wrist, and just keep throwing punches. If Cody was requesting a medic there was no way this was going to go well.

-*-*-*-

Your relationship with Cody was complex to say the least. Honestly, he’d barely paid you any mind in the very beginning… another nat-born medic that had been brought in because there was too much work for the clone medics to keep up with. But after a few weeks of you seeming to always be there every time he turned around, the Marshal Commander couldn’t help but notice the way you treated his brothers. Like actual people and that they were deserving of your real effort, care, and attention.

And there was also the fact that you had to be the single most persistent nat-born he’d ever had to work with… Usually, Cody avoided the medics when and wherever he could, leaving the time and supplies open for other troopers he considered more in need than himself.

You however were stubbornly opposed to his inexplicable need to ‘just walk it off’, going so far as to literally chase him down once when Waxer had ‘accidentally’ mentioned to you that he’d taken a rather hard kick to the ribs during the previous skirmish.

Granted, his ribs had been bruised, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle.

You weren’t hearing any of it though, and Cody had had to sit there petulantly while you’d tended to him.

That had been where the ice had started to crack, and eventually after much persistence and pursuit on your part, Cody had started coming to you, and exclusively you, whenever he was more than just a little bumped and bruised. And, you at least liked to think that, a sort of friendship had sparked up between the two of you….

What little free time he had, he was more than content to spend with you if the situation allowed, you’d sat in on more than a few meal time meetings with him, and you were always his first consult when it came to the best solutions for setting up the field medical stations.

The only other person you’d seen him be that casual and informal with was the General in their down time, so you’d like to think that meant you were in some kind of favor.

Which is what leads you here now, busting into the command tent with a barely contained panic, “I’m here! What happened?”

Cody was leaning against the large table in the middle with different maps and other planning materials strewn across it. One arm was hanging limply at his side, the other one holding it close against him to seemingly keep it from moving or getting jostled around.

“I can’t-” Cody grunted, trying to roll his shoulder again, “I can’t get it back in…”

“All right, stop - Stop moving it,” You shook your head crossing to him and quickly putting your hand on the uninjured arm, “Let me look.”

You started gently removing his armor to get a better look at the damage underneath. The hiss through your teeth was involuntary as soon as you got the spaulding off, just from the jut of his shoulder you could tell the joint was fully dislocated.

“Ok… good news is we can fix it…” You said looking up at him.

“The bad news is, it’s gonna hurt like hell.” He finished and you nodded sheepishly, “Alright… Let’s get it over with…”

The process wasn’t complicated, making Cody lay back across the table with his shoulder at the edge and hold your bag while you pushed the arm back out straight to get the bone to drop back into the joint. The loud crack made you wince, and completely justified the long, low string of curses Cody let out as he reflexively dropped your bag.

“Easy… Easy,” You helped him set up, making sure he moved somewhat gingerly until you could get a look at the rest of him, “Just relax a minute.”

“I’m alright,” Cody shook his head, trying to wave you off as he got back on his feet, “I need to get back out there.”

“Cody!” You snapped, grabbing him by the elbow of his good arm.

Whatever scolding you were about to give the commander was cut off by a loud explosion that rocked the ground beneath your feet. Cody moved quickly to grab you by the forearm, half dragging you out of the tent to see what was going on.

The second explosion went off far too close to the right of you and Cody barely had time to pull you into him before the two of you were sent flying through a cloud of dust and debris.

You registered something sharp hitting you in the back before everything faded away…

-*-*-*-

“C’mon cyare, you have to wake up for me…”

You groan lowly, trying to turn your head away from the incessant tapping on your cheek, blinking slowly as things around you came back into focus. The first thing to register was the ringing in your ears, followed quickly by the pain in your head and back.

“There you go kar’ta, easy.” Cody helped you sit up as gently as he could, shifting around behind you so you could sit propped up against him, “I tried to cover you, but you still took a hard hit to the head. Don’t try to move too fast just yet.”

You gave a weak laugh and leaned your head back against his shoulder, “Well, it’s nice to know you’ve been paying attention, even if you don’t actually listen to anything I tell you.”

You could feel the chuckle vibrate through his chest even if the trooper behind you was trying to hide it, “I always listen to you, mesh’la.”

To say you were a little stunned by his free use of endearments would be an understatement; other troopers, especially the new and shiny ones, through them around like water - a sweet, if a little awkward attempt to flirt with one of the first if not only females they’d had close contact with in their lives - but not Cody. He almost exclusively addressed you as ‘ma’am’ or your surname.

Either way it was still your turn to chuckle, turning your head to look up at him over your shoulder, “Yeah? You got a funny way of showing it, Kote.”

Another odd occurrence: Cody smiled, again laughing under his breath, as he looked away from you. If you didn’t know any better, and there was more light wherever the two of you were temporarily hidden, you would have sworn he was blushing.

“Just because I don’t always have the luxury of following your orders, doesn’t mean I’m not paying attention.”

Another explosion and the sound of blaster fire cut through whatever clandestine moment the two of you were having, Cody’s head immediately snapping back to the small cave entrance you assumed you’d fallen through, “We need to move.”

You nodded, pushing yourself back up to your feet, still a little unsteady, but there was no spinning feeling or nausea, so you could power through it.

“You stay right beside me, cyar’ika,” Cody said drawing his own blaster as he chanced peeking out of the cave, “Right on my hip, I’ll get you back behind the line.”

You nodded, as he slipped his helmet back on, “Right behind you Commander.”

Reaching back for your hand, Cody pulled you up beside him as close as he could get you, and just as you thought he was about to step out into the fray he stopped and turned back to you. Squeezing your hand, you could just tell Cody was staring down at you intently behind his helmet

“Stay with me, ner kar’ta,” Your eyes fell shut on their own accord as Cody leaned in to press the forehead of his helmet against yours, “I will keep you safe.”

In that moment, you had never believed anything more.

#star wars #clone wars #commander cody #commander cody x reader #commander cody x medic!reader #reader insert #LDE23 #clone fic gift exchange

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netherfeildren · 11 months

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The Cassandra Complex : Chapter VIII : Melpomene

Series Masterlist : Moodboard

(Din Djarin x F!Reader)

Content Warnings: Heavy angst; Descriptions of depression; Jealousy; Possessive behavior; Rough sex

A/N: I’ve been waiting for this one for a really, really long time.

Rating: Explicit 18+

Word Count: 7.3K

Read on AO3

CHAPTER VIII : MELOPMENE

When is it polite to let go of someone’s arm after you grab it?

Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red

You’re in the dark cavernous lair of your master, and he is there too, chained, beaten. Helmetless.

Horror.

A flash of brown hair, you blink away – no, no, don’t look.

That terrible voice, terrible for its harrowing familiarity, telling you that you’ll never escape, that you can run from your past, but you cannot run from yourself, from the thing that you are. Your desires, your attempts at reform are futile when you were born poisoned.

But no, no, I wasn’t – I wasn't born poisoned. I was benevolent and good, darkness made me a fiend.

I had a mother and a father.

A flash of his eyes – No, no – don’t go in there. That isn’t for you.

Are you afraid?

Terrified.

And then the brilliant spark of a lightsaber spearing you through the belly – burning so bright hot it’s almost like ice, a burning gone to numbness, a burning gone to madness.

You look up, and the saber is through Din’s chest then. The bright red of the plasma mixes and mingles with the dark crimson of his blood, and the helmet is gone, destroyed beneath the fist of a darker power, his face is right there, right there, right there, your last chance to look–

You wake with a start to the sight of his slow shifting back beneath a thin undershirt. The fabric, soft and worn, and you can almost taste the scent of his skin you know it holds. The shining curve of the back of his helmet.

The ouroboros of your own demise… but never his. No matter what, no matter anything.

“Din.”

He turns immediately, blaster and an old oil rag in hand. “Cyar’ika–” voice full of concern, just at your tone. He’s already setting the blaster down.

“I had a bad dream.”

He stands without comment, going into the fresher, you listen to the water run, the lights go out, and then he’s there, sliding beneath the blankets into the cocoon of your bed, skin bare and warm. He pulls you into his arms, the safest place in the entire galaxy, and there are tears in your eyes and a fracture spanning like a spider’s web through your heart. You feel the soft press of his mouth at your hairline, slow moving, the deep inhale as he takes in your scent. “What was it, cyare? Tell me.” His rough hand finds its way up the back of your shirt, another beneath the edge of your underwear to grasp at the soft swell of your bottom and pull you further into him.

You shake your head, “I don’t know,” lie, “Something terrible,” truth. You think of the first lie you’d ever told him, I’ve never met a Mandalorian before, and you wonder if there will ever be a day that he’ll look back on all this, this time of yours together, and regret it, resent it, hate you.

He presses your head into the space beneath his chin and lets out a deep breath you feel fan and flutter around you, the wide expanding of his strong chest. “I’m here. It’s alright now.” He’s here. It’s alright now.

“Promise me–” you say suddenly.

And his answer is immediate and without hesitation when he says: “Anything.” But what promise you need you can’t say exactly – stay, don’t leave me, love me.

He’s beneath you, inside of you, sleeping beside you so that you can always feel the press of his belly into your naked back, the dig of his fingers into your softness, his hot breath against the back of your neck. Your whole lives seeming to have intertwined in an inextricable way, and still, it’s not enough. Still, there’s something panicked humming beneath your skin, sending your blood to boiling, your heart running away from you. You run your palm up his chest and over the thick mass of his shoulder, hugging yourself to him tighter. He’s here, he’s here, he’s real and alive, and you are your own sick ouroboros again and again and again. Eternally destroying and recreating yourself, the things around you.

But you could never destroy him, of that you’re certain. You’d do the worst, end yourself before you could ever hurt Din, and you realize, with something like finality or fate or the end of myth, that time is no longer on your side.

He decides to take you back to Nevarro after Maldo Kreis. Angry, furious, with himself that his grand idea to take you to the hot baths had seemed to do more harm than good in the end, for some reason he could not, for the life of him, come to understand. You were suffused with a melancholy he could not fight, no matter what he seemed to do, blue and somber, in a way he’d not seen you before. In a way that terrified him. Worst of all, the fact that he could so easily see through your attempts to fight it off for him, trying to distract him with your voice and your mouth and your cunt from the wan truth of you. The sound of your silence hurt him, the dark marks stained beneath your eyes gone dull and lifeless which worried him like nothing else. Distracted and tired and clinging to him in nervous fright constantly, childlike in your fragile vulnerability. And Din, he watched you with a focused obsession, tracked you and took stock of all your movements and moods and habits and expressions, with an intensity that would have probably perturbed you had you the wherewithal to pay more attention, but your mind was gone so far away, eyes vacant, energy low, nights full of terrors and panic.

He thought he understood, the reminder of your past the attack had brought on had to be something more than difficult. It was difficult for him to only imagine it, and he’d not been the one to live it. But there was more… there was him, he could see it in the way you clung to him, desperately, with panic, but your eyes… there was a distance in them too, a wariness when you looked at him, something like an apology and a newfound darkness he could tell was well known to yourself but new to him. He feared that you were discovering something about yourself in relation to him that you couldn’t fathom, as if he were a reminder that you’d been subject to the will of another for so long, your whole life, and you couldn’t again allow yourself to fall under the subjugation of another thing, feeling, something you were unprepared for, had not expected.

And another, irrational, not entirely easily controlled part, the part that sometimes forewent strategy and patience and charged into a fight, guns blazing, wanted to grip you by the shoulders, take your face in hand and shake you, demand you tell him what was wrong so he could just fix it. He was sure he could fix anything that came your way, fix anything you needed, do anything you needed, be anything you needed. He could, he could, he knew he could if only you gave him the chance.

“Will you be alright here for a while? I’ll be just over there – with Karga.” He points over to the dim corner of Nevarro’s cantina where the Guild master Greef Karga sits jovially hooting and drinking and guffawing Mandalorian, Mandalorian at the top of his lungs, trying to get Din’s attention. He’d heard something of a shouted girlfriend and I was sure he was a droid which Din was choosing to ignore, too consumed with the vacant look on your face as he cups the soft skin of your cheeks, the heat of your skin suffusing the leather of his gloves. There is a gauntness to you that hadn’t been there a few days ago, no matter how much food he tried to ply you with, and Din’s stomach churns and flips with nerves like he’s never experienced before. You nod your head slowly up at him, eyes huge and dry and lashes so long they make his heart pinch and throb. “Tell me what’s wrong,” he begs once more, low and urgent through the modulator, but you remain silent, only nuzzling your cheek into his palm, tilting your head further into his touch. He sighs, so full of aggravation and impotence, “I’ll be quick,” he tells you before turning on his heel towards Karga.

He’d decided he was going to tell him he’d be taking a short break from the Guild. He’d look for local work here and stick a cork in taking bounties. You were tired, anxious, you needed rest. He’d find a nice, calm place for the two of you to take up in for a few days, a few weeks, however long you need. And he knows you need it. Din knows of the things you need. Din knows you. As you’d weaved through the busy streets of Nevarro, the gaggle of various Outer Rim tongues sounding around you, you’d clung to him, nervous and jumpy, a vein of paranoia stiffening your muscles, flooding you with apprehension, your tiny fingers entwined between his thick leather clad ones so tightly he was sure it must’ve hurt you. He’d tried to huddle you beneath his arm, nestled into his side with a calming hand on your waist, but he knew your peace was put on. He knew there was something making you scared, something you weren’t saying out loud. And it was his responsibility to know what you needed, to give you what you needed, and any sort of failure in that regard was entirely unacceptable. He was failing you right now, and he needed to rectify it as soon as he could. Staying put for a while seemed like the right first step.

The man slips into the seat next to you as soon as Din turns his back. You turn in your seat, flagging down the barkeep and ignoring the peering gaze you can feel flicking against your face as the man, not very inconspicuously, inspects you. Your eyes flash towards him quickly, immediately clocking him as a non threat and deciding to ignore him, but you catch the surprised widening of his eyes as he takes stock of your own, the bi-colored shock of them.

“Whoa–those’re really somethin’.” Human, but has a strange accent, nothing you’ve heard before, and you give him a non-committal hum. “Sad though…” He adds as an afterthought, resting his elbow on the edge of the bar to cup his chin in his palm. He strokes two fingers along the scruff of his jaw contemplatively.

Your eyes jump back to his face, “Excuse me?” He has a shock of white blonde hair nestled at the front of his hairline.

“Got the saddest eyes I’ve ever seen, pretty.”

“Sad?” You spit, offended.

“Sad,” he nods his head solemnly, mouth twisting in a wry half smile. The twang of his accent cuts off the ends of his words. “What’s got you so blue?” And although you comprehend what the words he’s saying are… you don’t understand. You feel yourself shaking your head, frown marring your brow. “Aren’t you sad?” He presses. His voice sounds too full of air, breathy or unnaturally round or something too strange for you to name. You decide you don’t like it. There’s something knowing in the way he spits them out. Something like wisdom.

You blink furiously, give a fractional shake of your head, “No…” like a question. “I don’t think so. Not sad. More– more,” You don’t know why you’re speaking to him. You should turn the other way, find another seat, go get Din, but the words keep coming. Something about that fucking accent, the way his face is designed to stretch over his bones. Din isn’t going to like it if he sees you talking to a stranger. But you give another fast shake of your head, squeezing your eyes shut tightly. No, sad isn’t what you are. You turn back to look at him, eyes wide and understanding now, “I’m angry.” Terror had made you cruel for so long, but you still held the capacity for softness, he had shown you that. Sadness at times too, perhaps. But now, no… sad wasn’t what you were at the dawn of your realization. At the reality of what would happen here soon. You are angry, you think: I am just a girl, but I am also angry. Maker, I am also angry. Your unfocused eyes look back at him, wide and maybe terrified. Shocked at the true sight of what it is you’ve been carrying around in your heart these past few days, after the Thalassians, after the reality of loving Din. Because you do, you love him, you love him, you love him, and you’re so fucking angry. You’re in love with him, and you’d do anything for him, give anything for him. And you don’t think that you know how to love someone without swallowing them, without destroying them, and you also know that you could never do that to Din. Not to him. And you’re angry that this is your truth. That this is what you are, what you’d been made. He doesn’t deserve an angry sort of love, and yet, it’s the only sort you have to give him.

The stranger hums like he understands, taking a long sip of his Spotchka, nodding appreciatively at you or the liquor, you can’t tell. But he understands, you can tell for some reason. “The Mandalorian is yours?” He tips his head then turns to peer over his shoulder where you know Din is doing business, a smarmy little smirk blooming over white teeth. His incisor is chipped, there’s something charming about the imperfection, and you think you need to change your earlier appraisal, there is something dangerous about him. You can’t tell what, maybe something conniving or deceitful, like a snake, and perhaps, not a danger towards you, but still… there’s something there.

You turn now too, to look towards where he’s speaking with Karga. He stands so tall, a gleaming spire of beskar and strength. Wholly untouchable as if there were some invisible boundary separating him from lesser men. You can’t answer his question. The reply lodged in your throat like a thorn. Desire is about vanishing, and you want him more than anything. But is he yours? He would give himself to you surely. Without thought or question. Perhaps, in his mind, he already had. But there’s something about that which you know is wrong. Like the saber. Like the Thalassian planted seed. And so what is it about a person deserving a thing? What is it about absolution? You can so desire it – again like vanishing – but that desire is… what? So unattainable sometimes, non-existent. Just because you want a thing doesn't mean it’s possible, real, yours. The strange man asks again, “Is he yours?”

And so you tell the only truth that you think is real in terms of Din, “He would be.” But can he be? He frowns, but with a smile, folding his face in such a way that you can’t one hundred percent tell what it is he’s trying to express, his eyes roving your face as if he’s never seen such a creature. He probably hasn’t.

“I think you’re lyin’.”

“I’m not.”

“You are sad–” he interrupts, “You just don’t realize that’s what it is yet. Anger’s good at masking sadness, doesn't mean it’s not there no more. ” You’re about to tell him to fuck off before you tear through his mind because who in the Maker does this little man think he is, when a huge, leather wrapped fist slams down onto the bar’s surface between the two of you, sending the glassware and fellow cantina patrons to jostling and yelping.

“Fuck off,” he says for you instead, growled through what you can tell are gritted, gnashing teeth. Reading your mind like always. The stranger jerks back with a laugh and a howl. Din’s other hand comes up to wrap gently around your throat, stroking softly at your thrumming pulse, a sign of possessive ownership.

“Well, hello to you too, Mandalorian,” the stranger says, tipping his chin, giving a flourished little salute, suave and calm and entirely provoking.

“You’ve got three seconds to move before I make you move.”

“Oh, he’s a real hoot, isn’t he?” The man says to you, ignoring the tower of aggressively looming beskar, all riled testosterone and possessive protectiveness.

“Do you not enjoy having your head attached to your shoulders?”

You roll your eyes up at Din, the stranger was annoyingly perceptive and brazen, but entirely harmless as well, no need for all these theatrics. “Ignore him – he’s only half civilized,” you say, placing a soothing palm against the armor over his belly.

“You know, one doesn’t much often see Mandalorian’s anymore,” he says conversationally. Not very good at reading social cues, this one. You take a small sip of the tea you’d ordered, leaning back into Din’s abdomen, settling in to watch how he handles this.

“My people are scattered across the galaxy now. It isn’t safe for us to converge out in the open,” monotone and serious, in that way of his. The complete opposite of this man’s casual, melodic voice like a teasing song.

“We kill that which we cannot tame. It’s the way of men.”

“Lesser men, perhaps.”

He nods concedingly, “Perhaps,” and swallows his glass down full, looking at you, eyes full of laughter, over the brim. “What a little liar you are, pretty. He is…” yours, and there’s laughter in his voice and his mouth and his movements too, not just his eyes. “Well, it’s been swell. We’ll be seein’ you, I think.” He winks at you as he slip hops off his stool, landing on straight locked knees with a little jolt. “And don’t you let her lie to you too,” he tells Din. Something about the man is nothing but provoking, riling the beskar bound ball of tension at your back into fury. You lean your head back against his chest, not acknowledging the other man’s farewell or that last remark as he slithers off. No need to poke the beast further. Din moves out from behind you, taking the stranger's seat, seething as he forces you to take the first word with his silence.

“Stop your sulking. He approached me.”

“Of course he approached you. And I'm not sulking,” he sulks.

“Oh, no?” You snort. “My mistake.”

“You smile for that di’kut, but not for me?” He demands, probably even stomping his foot a little bit which you’d normally find funny, but instead, wipes the laugh off your face.

“I do smile for you, Din,” you say in a small, hurt voice, and he wants to gnash his teeth and howl and do something entirely uncivilized, barbaric, even. That bantha shit sliding in to chat you up the second he’d turn his back. Din finds, with a lot less shame than he probably should have, that he absolutely hates when other men approach you, doesn’t much care, either, what that makes him. He can’t blame them, of course, eyes of pure magic like the ones looking up at him are hard to ignore, harder to walk away from. That doesn’t mean he can’t throw a fit over it. “And I wasn’t smiling for him.” He huffs, looking out at the rest of the dim cantina. Karga had taken his decision with good natured humor, understanding by the way Din’s head kept subtly turning in your direction that there was something more pressing that needs his attention and care at this moment. But your eyes look so hurt, like he’d said the worst thing possible at the worst time possible, he backtracks immediately, “I’m just kidding, it was a bad joke, cyare. I know you weren’t smiling at him.” But the hurt look doesn’t go away, and he feels, a little bit, like he’s going to throw up. “If I admit I’m an ass, will you give me a smile?” He tries to laugh, gives the gem of your earring a little tickle, and you try to return the gesture so limp he can’t even pretend to believe it.

You shake your head, giving up your false smile with a sigh, “How many pucks did you get?” And his heart beats faster than an X-wing. You aren’t going to like this, but he’ll be firm, stand his ground. This is what’s best.

“I didn’t get any,” he tells you slowly.

You blink a slow, confused blink. “What do you mean you didn’t get any? Why not?”

“I told Greef I’m taking a break.” You pull your hand back from the hold he’d had on it, expression going cool and icy, the bright eyes, the one like a scream going dim as a whisper. This is what’s best, Din knows it, he’s sure of it.

“Why would you do that?” Your voice is very small, very almost hurt again.

“I think it’s what’s best for now. We need a break.” He sees your shoulder jerk. “I– I need a break. I told you, I’m tired. You’re tired–”

“I’m not tired.”

“We both just need to settle for a time, I think. This is what’s best. And this is what we’re doing.” He’s rambling, tongue tied, heart beating too fast, worried and afraid and so in love with you that if he can’t fix this he’s sure he’ll die. He’s sure it’ll be the end of the world because he knows – Din knows that something’s wrong. He looks back at your face, and it’s so grave, so gaunt and small and easily breakable, “I think this is what’s best for us right now, cyar'ika. Don’t you?”

“No,” you shake your head furiously, try and stand up off your seat, but he clamps a big hand over your shoulder, forces you to stay in place and you bare your teeth at him. “Let go–”

“No, we’re going to talk about this.”

“I don’t want to fucking talk. This– this isn’t– I didn't want you to do this. I don’t need you to do this for me. I’m fine. If you aren’t then that’s your problem. But I’m fine, and I don’t need any fucking rest or to get trapped here in this backwater shithole. No– no.” You try and force your way to standing again, and he presses you down, goes to his feet instead to loom over you. Entirely in a panic now. You’re so angry. You’re so angry and looking at him like… in no way you’ve ever looked at him before. And once again, he’s miscalculated. This was the wrong move. A push in the wrong direction.

“Okay, hold on– just… hold on. I didn't– I didn’t mean to insinuate… or–” He can’t get his head on straight, his tongue to work, can’t think of the right thing to say, the right way to make it all be okay between the two of you again, to make that dark shadow leave your eyes. “I just thought if we had some time to ourselves that it’d be–” You wilt like a flower, a long sigh like a whimper leaving your body, seeming to take all your strength with it. A felled weed tramped beneath his overbearing boot. “I’m sorry. I’ll get the pucks. It was a bad idea,” he says even though he knows it isn’t, even though he knows he’s telling the both of you a lie. You simply turn away from him, a thrumming pulse fluttering in the muscle of your jaw. But your eyes are dry, almost flinty, but dry, and so at least, he tells himself, he hasn't made you cry.

You’re up and out of your seat before he can even make it all the way back to you after he’d gone back to Karga with his tail tucked between his legs to retrieve his pucks, and fuck this, you have no reason to be angry with him. He’d been well intentioned, he’d been– what? Trying to mend a sinking ship. He calls your name low as you weave through the busy cantina, men turning to look at your ass as you go which has him snarling, hackles raised as he passes them, stomping after you. He calls your name again, and he watches the jerk of your head, as if you want to turn back to him but won’t let yourself and that makes him fucking angry. You’re running away, you’re running away, and he feels so helpless to stop you, like the two of you’ll be trapped in this constant chase for the rest of your lives.

Din has never been one to give in easily to his anger, but he gives into it now. Watching the line of your steel straight back scampering ahead of him, every so often your head jerks slightly to the side to check that he’s still there, slinking after you, stuck in the chase once again, as if you don’t trust the tether of your power that’s always there between the two of you to tell you that he’s still here following. As if you aren’t sure, don’t know that he’ll always be here. That there’s nowhere else for him to be or go after all this, after you. The Crest comes into sight and his heart beats so hard he’s nauseous, sweating beneath his helm. You quicken your steps, and he lengthens his, gains on you until he’s practically breathing down your neck, looming behind you, your movements jerky and jittery. And as soon as your foot makes first contact with the gangplank his hand is shooting up quick as a viper to clamp down around the back of your nape and pressing you forward so that you’re stumbling, held up only by his guiding grip, and shoving you into the open hatch, following at your heels and slamming his fist against the security mechanism, locking the two of you inside. He’s on you before you can even think to turn around, ripping your cloak from around your shoulders and shoving you up against the durasteel wall, pinning you there like some sort of trapped butterfly. “If you want to fight, cyar'ika, I’ll pretend we’re fighting. You only have to say so,” he bends his head to say, right at your ear, his other hand digging beneath the edge of your trousers and pulling them down along with your underwear over the swell of your ass, baring you to his gaze. You struggle, spitting and hissing, but don’t tell him to stop, don’t tell him no. He slides his palm between your legs, “Wet little cunt,” he grunts, pushing two of his leather clad fingers inside of you, immediately going deep, fucking you hard, jostling them back and forth inside of you to listen to the wet rattle of your cunt for him. “Feral little thing. Are you going to tell me you don’t want it? That you’re angry with me? Did you like that boy? Is that it?” And you arch your hips, a ragged moan and no, no, Din, I do want it. I don’t want to fight, please. He pulls his fingers from you with a wet sucking noise, lands a sharp stinging slap to your ass, listening to the pretty sound of you whine and keen for him, and he’s so fucking angry and hard. There’s something electric and aggravated and upset inside of him. Something that feels wrong and on the verge of something terrible. Another slap, another, pressing you harder into the wall so that you’re forced up onto your tiptoes. He opens his own trousers, pullings his sticky tipped erection out and fists it tightly, punishing in his grip, jacks it once, twice, and he’s bending at the knees, notching at the mouth of your cunt and pressing all the way inside to the end of you. He feels the bump at your cervix and the resulting cry when it hurts just a little too much, swings his hips back and does it again and again and again. Fucks you with a brutal edge he knows’ll make you cry, but that you’ll like nonetheless, want more, harder. “H– how’re you always so soft and so wet and so pretty for me? Huh? Always so ready to get my soft cunt nice and fucked, right? Always ready to let me in and ride you however I need? Right, little one? Say yes. I want to hear you say, yes, Din.”

Yes, Din.

“I just want what’s best for you–” he tells you, a continuation of your earlier conversation he doesn’t need to remind you of, and then more spitting and hissing and struggling from you, riling your anger up again. He pulls his gloves from his hand with the edge of his teeth and gives you his palm to gnaw on like the rabid thing he knows he’s turned you into. Sharp little teeth immediately savaging into the flesh of his palm as soon as he wraps his hand over your mouth, tugs your head back so that he can look down into your eyes from above, all the while his balls slap wetly against your cunt, jolting you forward, making you cry and spasm around his cock.

Once, when you’d thought he’d been asleep, he’d heard you tell him he was like a god in the shape of a man, and that you’d always thought that was supposed to be you. Din never feels more like a god among men than when he’s riding your cunt, balls deep inside of you.

“I need to come,” slips your warbled moan against his palm, spit slicked and tear stained.

“What you need is to be fucking grateful and take it how I say,” he snarls, riding you harder, watching the rebound of your ass against his pelvis on every thrust inside, the way the slick root of his cock splits you open, the drag of your walls against him when he pulls out just to snap back in. He grunts and whimpers and tries to make you understand without words that if you leave him he’ll die, that he needs you to be okay, that he’ll do anything. He has the sinking, clawing feeling that you’re not going to listen. Why does it feel like all you’re doing is saying goodbye to me? And he’s so fucking angry he wants to cry. Angry and afraid and helpless, a small child once again watching his whole world go away from him. Entirely without choices or home.

“Do you want my come?”

“Yes, yes, I want it so badly,” and your tears roll over his fingers, lose themselves in the cracks between.

“Beg me for it.”

“Please, come inside me, Din–” please, please, please. “Fill me up.” He tightens his hold on you, harsher than he should, rips open the front of your tunic and twists your breast tightly in his grip, presses you up and into the wall so that he’s pretty sure your toes leave the ground and grinds the tip of his spitting cock at the mouth of your womb while you go tight as a fist, the best thing he’s ever felt in his entire life, the only thing that matters, vision going white to black to nothing and fills you with his come, feels you suck and milk him with your cunt. He pins you there with his hips, pants as if he’d just fought for his life, for something he knows he can’t keep. That was maybe never meant to be entirely his. He realizes, like a surprise in that very moment, the thought occurring to him out of nothing, that he’s never seen the true, pure color of your eyes unburdened by the helmet. Open and staring at him, only him, and he regrets it bitterly, knows then that he could have done so much more. It’s some sort of curse, some sort of punishment, this realization. “What’s best for me is to please you,” he tells you. Just so that you know. Just so that he’s sure it’s been said out loud. So that it’s there.

“You know that no matter what, I’m always yours,” And because you’ve said it out loud, he supposes it must be true.

“Where does your next adventure take you?”

He cocks his head to the side, pauses the cleaning of his blaster, dallying while the pre-flight checks work. The curve of the helmet gleams so bright for one second it almost blinds you, and you shut your eyes tight, open them again. “Further into the outer rim. Karga’s given us a tricky one this time.”

Us.

You’re quiet for a beat, letting him pretend – face trying to prevent itself from fracturing, wavering, by sheer force of will. “I think, I’m afraid– I think all my adventures will be over very soon.”

“Why’s that?” Slow and measured, your last game here at this moment.

“Oh…” you tilt your head side to side, let the sin you’re about to commit, simmer and slide between your ears. “The wrong choices – made over and over again.”

Another beat of silence, perhaps, trying to measure where you’re trying to take this, trying to hold off. He resumes his task. “That’s a shame.”

Do you ever kiss?

No.

That’s a shame.

You smile briefly, a whole other girl ago, “Perhaps, you’d have taken me away on all of yours, forever. I would have liked it, you know? With you, I might have liked it forever.”

He freezes now, his favored silence – the impenetrable facade of his helmet like a dark yawning pit come to swallow you whole. You know his intention is to bend you to his will, force your hand into something easier for him to understand, to face. You close your eyes and lean your head back humming. “Yes, I think I'd have liked it quite a lot, actually.”

“Cyar’ika,” he murmurs, and he already knows, so what’s the point in being brave or honorable? “Spit it out.”

“What do you mean?” Playing difficult and obstinate, playing the fucking coward, you do not open your eyes, do not give him the respect or consideration he deserves looking him in the eye while you break him. You see the rest of your life branching out before you, behind your closed lids, like the branches of a shuura tree. The branch before this moment, heavy with the fruit of your potential, your togetherness, and the branch alone, after, empty of him. There is a part of you that screams that this is a mistake, that you will regret this for the rest of your days. You continue anyway.

“Stop playing fucking games with me.” He knows you too well now, your eyes snap open, too much risk.

“This has been fun, but don’t you think it’s about to have run its course? It was never supposed to be forever. And– you– you have plans. If you want to stay… that isn’t what I want.” The words burn like acid, like the worst thing you’ve ever done. All lies. You watch his left shoulder jerk back as if you’d struck him, shot him.

“Say it.”

Your belly twists with nausea. “Say what?” A cold sweat sprouts across the back of your neck, and your face feels aflame with heat, you think you’re about to be sick. You try for another smile.

“Tell me you’re leaving me.”

“Don’t be–”

“Fucking tell me. Tell me you don’t want to be with me anymore.”

“I think this is enough.” You cannot, you cannot say those words. It would be too great a lie to tell, even for you. And you have already lied to him so much.

“Coward,” he spits. Truth. At least one of you still possesses the capacity for such a thing.

“Perhaps.”

“And what? You’re just going to be alone again? This is what you want?”

You’re choking on your own breath. “That–” you clear your throat, “No.”

“No? Fucking look at me.”

You snap your head back towards him, the terrible darkness of his visor, and for one moment you feel so fucking angry that you can’t look in his eyes right now. “What do you want from me? I can’t give you what you want. I can’t. I don’t have it in me. I am not sorry.” Lie, lie, fucking lie.

“Cyar’ika, please, why don’t we just–” He stands, moving towards you.

You cut him off, take a step back, away. “No, Din. I’m ready to move on. There’s no reason to draw this out. We both knew it had to end eventually. We want different things.” You’d always known how it would end. You always know how everything will end.

“After everything? After all this? That’s pathetic. It’s sad.” You’re pathetic, is what he surely means, but he moves towards you again, the subtle inclination of his body towards yours as if he were trying to absorb the last of your touch just once more.

“Why? Coming from you? You’ve always been alone? Why is it sad for me?”

“Because– because we– I don’t…I don’t want that for you. And we have–”

You can’t hear him say it. The proverbial we, you both wish this could have been.

“There’s so much you don’t know,” And there are tears in your voice, tears in your eyes, tears streaming down your cheeks, and there is anguish in his own voice when he begs, “Then tell me, tell me everything, and I’ll help you bear whatever burden you think you must carry on your own.”An impossibility, for worse than anything else, worse than him hating you for your lies or your evasions or your secrecy, for running, what would be worse than anything else would be for him to hate you for what you really are. The truth would be death-dealing. You’d not survive it.

You give him the full weight of your gaze – one last look. Brilliant and strong and intelligent. So brave. A good man – this is a good man before you, honest and true, and he deserves better than you. You refuse to let him think he could love a thing like you. Someone who has done the things you’ve done. This too shall pass.

And then one last bit of truth: “I didn’t think I believed in anything anymore. But I believe in you. There’s nothing to be sad about. I’ve never really lived,” But then again, another lie, for with him, you had.

“But you deserve the chance to. By the Maker, you still ought to. If you believe in me then stay with me. Fucking stay. Don’t leave me,” the words spit through clenched, furious teeth and he sounds like he’d cry if he could, and you feel as if you’ll die if he does. You can’t acknowledge it. There’s a star of red, in the vast darkness of you, bleeding out, fractures in the ice of your heart. That desperate wretched thing that so desperately wants to live. You gather your satchell which you’d hidden from him by your feet behind a crate. Ready to flee as soon as you possibly could. Nothing but a coward and ghoul.

“This is what I want. You have to give it to me,” and then returning his own words back to him, “You can’t say no to me, you can’t tell me no,” and even as you say the words, there is a part of you shocked, howling that he isn’t keeping you by force. Hurt by it. You want him to wrestle you to the floor of the Crest and chain you to himself. And it’s irrational and ridiculous, for you are the one that’s doing this, the maker of your own demise like always, this is what you’d told yourself you want, what is necessary. And yet you’re still hurt, still shocked.

You turn towards the open hatch. “Don’t get yourself killed,” you hear yourself say with your back to him, words you’d said to him once before, what seems so long ago now after all this. After the two of you. A whole other girl, creature, monster.

“Would you care if I did? Die?” Voice full of venom and hurt and smallness. “It’s amazing to me that one person can have the ability to be so singularly selfish. What about me? What about what I want?” You wish he’d hit you, take up his blaster against you, anything else, but you know he’ll give you what you ask for nonetheless. He can’t say no to you, you’d made a deal of sorts, with those words, after all. He knows what you are and what you are not, and he has always understood the things you need. And you wish that you were anything other than this, anything but what you were made to be. That you could have so wholly changed yourself that you could forsake every terrible thing that you’ve ever held within you to make you into the venomous little thing that you are. You beg him with your mind, your heart, your tears to not let you leave, to not abandon you. To not heed your poisoned words, your vile heart, your uncaring actions. Please, please, Din, see me for what I really am. I’m sorry. I don’t know why I was made like this. I have been broken beyond repair, and I am sorry.

Instead and cowardly: “Or do. I don’t give a shit. I don’t plan on coming back here anyways.” You ignore the rest. What he wants is inconsequential in this instance because he wants the wrong thing. He cannot want you to keep. You are not a thing to be kept – too savage, too broken, too dark. One day he’ll see this and thank you for what you’re doing now.

But despite this moment of self awareness, on the back end of that thought comes the whisper: Don’t leave me. I’m sorry.

But he does not see, and he goes anyway.

The two of you part ways and beyond the pain of anything else you’ve endured, the abyss of the dark, the loneliness, the pain inflicted by hands crueler than you could ever dream of being, this hurts more than all the rest.

You’re still there, pretending you’re not waiting for him, months later.

He does not return. And you are left blind to the fact that for a long time to come, he will be on a mission of his own – with a little boy, special and magical beyond even your own imagination.

Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din, Din

As if you’d lost a limb, a chunk of your heart ripped from you. You miss him so much it makes you want to die.

Time passes anyway.

You are afraid that you will think of him forever, for the rest of your life, and you are afraid that you will never be in the same place again.

Time passes anyway.

It is two years before you see your Mandalorian again.

[END OF PART I]

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the-californicationist · 9 months

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The Devil's Summer

Konig/Reader TW: Rape, sexual assault, corpses, murder, violence

I am not being playful when I say that if you find any of these tags disturbing that you should skip this fic. Reading this story is not worth making yourself feel uncomfortable or causing yourself pain. Please take care of yourself first and foremost.

MDNI/18+ NO EXCEPTIONS

AO3 Link

A tall, foreign stranger comes to town with his masked crew of bandits. They rob the train station and the bank, but the big one… he has his sights set on a different sort of prize: you.

The summer had been like an open mouth, unbreathing, unmoving, but warm and wet and still in its bearing. The bayou lay like a lolling tongue over the swampland, and the sweetness of the azaleas could not make up for the stench of its lazy, murky flow. Bald cypress trees lined the river like rotten teeth, their graying, dull bark holding evidence of the cavities of selfish men, black bullet holes from selfish gunfire. The rope burn on the tall, gnarled bows left scars as if they were old wounds, and they were. Your brother’s innocent body had been the cause for one, and you were glad he wasn’t here to witness them today.

The Devil didn’t know how hot it could get, but you did. You could barely move in the high noon of the day, and as the cicadas screamed, so you wanted to as well. The air lay on you like an awful hand, pressing you flat with its damp, punishing palm. It kept you from sleep, and it threatened you with steady, unrelenting torment. Your skin grew pink and tight from the ruby-colored sun, gleaming and immutable as it sagged in the cloudless firmament. Like the tangle of Spanish moss that hung in the trees outside, swaying back and forth like strange fruit, your hair clung to your neck, vampiric.

Your father was dead, much good may it do him, as were most of the other people in your town. Since the early hours of the morning, you’d sat on your aching knees in the wet bank of Bayou Têche, providing sustenance for the mosquitos who feasted on your unguarded flesh. Your hands were bound with wire twine, and it cut into your wrists hard enough for them to bleed. The flies swarmed you, and you’d long since given up trying to fight them off. The man who had come to deliver this day to you and the other few inhabitants of your town was watching your future unfurl before you, as patient as the summer sun.

He hadn’t shown his face, but you knew he was a white man. Those pale, ice-blue eyes couldn’t have been borne from Creole blood. If you were honest with yourself, something in your chest told you that those eyes weren’t even human. They were situated behind a black, heavy hangman’s hood that covered him from head to neck, and it was stained with blood and all manner of other liquids. The humidity made it cling to his nose and jaw, and you saw the aquiline shape disturb the smoothness of the fabric.

The hangman wore a large-brimmed cowboy hat on his head constructed of fine, black felt. It was very much out-of-season, meant for a cool dry winter. Despite your suffering, you could imagine and empathize that his head and neck must be near boiling.

His body was immense. He looked like he was seven feet high, and he was as broad as a door. His heavy musculature moved slowly, teasingly, but you had watched him strike like a water moccasin, deadly accurate and blindingly fast. Atop his demonic draft horse, he looked like he was one of the Hessians that Sister Campbell had described to you in school, when you’d been allowed to go.

The Hessian was a fine shot. He’d killed most of the men in town by his own hand, picking them off like he was elbow-deep in a blackberry bush, choosing the biggest ones first to stain his hands in their sweet juices. Your father had been near the end, no longer a threat in his old age. The white hair of his beard was painted with red stripes, coughed up in those final moments of futility, and the dark skin of his cheek made the colors that much more vibrant. You wished his eyes were closed. You didn’t want him to see what may happen to you now.

He’d been staring at you for quite some time. Although he hadn’t been the one to tie you up, it was what he wanted. The will of his men and of your small town folded under his brutal control, and now that everyone was dead, he dominated the silence with comfortable ease.

You watched him swing a long, thick leg over the saddle, lowering himself to the wet ground with a thud. His boots were worn and filthy, not intended for walking through the black bayou waters and shores, and his spurs were sharpened into curled spikes. Each step was a promise. The gun in his hand would be your reward, you were certain of it.

Imagining all of your hopes and dreams seemed disgusting to you now. The shine of the gun was nothing like the glittering gold ring you’d wanted to wear to your wedding, if you had one. You’d wanted children, a whole litter of them, and you wanted to cook jambalaya for them and dress them in matching flour sacks, all lined up in a row. You wanted to braid their hair in the way your mother had braided yours, secreting away little prayers between each bite, locking them in place with an extra twist.

You would have none of that. The only thing for you now was this demon. Whatever he wanted had replaced your own desires. You waited for his wanting to find its end.

The dirty barrel of the gun pressed under your chin, its soot gritty and black against your skin, and your jaw turned up to the blinding sky to look into the coolness of his gaze. He looked like he was smiling at you, which was worse than his fury, and you held back the bile rising in your throat, burning you as hot as a brand.

“Fils putain,” you snarled without raising your voice, spitting on the gloved hand that had the gun to your neck.

You watched the spit bubble white across the black leather, his thumb as wide as a root, and you heard it drip into the mud at your knees when it ran in thick rivulets across his knuckles.

He smiled again with his eyes, removed the gun from you to lift his hand to his face. As he did so, he lifted the hood so that you could watch his mouth as he licked your spit from the glove, tasting the sour sting of your bile and vitriol. You saw his pale, ghostly lips, scarred and maligned, peel away from sharp incisors as he laved his tongue across the back of his hand, clad in shining silver like two daggers. The rest of his teeth were bright and straight and ready.

The pain you felt from the butt of his gun was sudden and shattering. The crack of your cheekbone exploded in your face like a collapsing star, white hot and dying. You felt like you were dying. You landed, face down in the mud, vomiting and coughing and crying. There was nothing more meaningful than your sobbing, and your body prioritized it over everything else.

Your assailant knelt in the muddy bank of the bayou with you, letting his boots dip into the shallow waters where minnows hoped to feed on the larvae that lay sprinkled across the surface like salt in a stock. He had removed his gloves and was cupping your face, gently soothing the wound that he had caused. That pale, bloodless mouth was kissing you, leaving a trail of little, soft contacts over the ruined skin on your face, and the blood from his cut was staining him crimson. He replaced the hood and picked you up off of the ground.

At first, you couldn’t walk, and all the blood that had been pressed out of your lower extremities was now flooding back in, making your bones ache from the inside out. You stumbled next to him, and he carried you like you were as light as his sidearm. One of his men approached you and spoke to your tall devil in his language, foreign and loud.

They’d robbed the small train station, killing Mr. Fusilier, and they blew up the track, stopping the sheriff from being able to send for help. Sheriff Guidry was dead, laying in the small graveyard next to the church, and you found it odd that he’d died laid over a headstone. You were sure there was poetry there, but you weren’t smart enough to know what kind.

Your captor handed you off to one of his men, a thin, wiry man with a large mustache. He smelled like sulfur and tobacco. His grip was weaker than the hangman’s, and there was a coldness to his touch that made you uncomfortable.

He was taking you back up to your house. You didn’t know whether or not it was worth it to fight him off. He was smaller than the other one, but your cheek still throbbed, fresh and mean. He sat you down at your own kitchen table like it wasn’t yours, like you hadn’t cleaned its worn oak slats every morning since you were old enough to hold a rag.

Yanking out a chair beside you, he sat, rolling a long cigarette, and leaving the twisted matchstick on the tabletop, marring the grain. You wanted to rail against him, to wail and scream that he was ruining it, that your mother had set all of her meals down in that very spot — crawfish etouffee, filé gumbo, rice and beans — and that you missed her laugh and the way she smelled like white pepper and rosemary oil.

The cheek that had been hit couldn’t have throbbed any harder, and something twisted within you wished that the large man was still there, wiping away the hurt.

The one with the mustache spoke in a slow, Texan drawl,

“What’s your name?”

You rolled your eyes up to meet his, hoping that the hate you felt was loaded in them like the bullets in his gun,

“Eve.”

“Like the Bible?”

You didn’t reply. He grabbed you around your knee and pulled you towards him, your chair screeching across the floor,

“Bitch, I’m talkin’ to you. You think you’re too good for me, huh? Fuckin’ whore.”

You were on the table then, spread out and plated like a red fish, all meat and bones and sauce. He was going to eat you alive, and what could you do about it? Your bound hands bit into each other like the fangs of a snake. You kicked out, hard, but he caught you.

Then, you felt his hands ripping away the fabric of your cotton dress. There wasn’t much left of it to ruin. You wondered if the button you mended last week on the collar was still intact. You were never as good as buttons as your mother was.

Dirty fingers dug around between your legs, finding what they wanted to, shoving aside your bloomers and wetting themselves one by one, dipping into you brutally, soaking the pads over and over like a candle was dipped in wax, like a pen into a font of ink, and you hoped it stained him.

You screamed until he stopped you, planting a smelly hand across your mouth. You bit it, taking his bitter flesh with you.

“Ah, fuck! Son of a bitch!”

Clutching his wound, he backed away from you. Then, when he raised his eyes, he looked behind you at a horror you could not see. Then, he died on your kitchen floor. The bullet sliced through his dark brown eye and splattered his brain and face all over your kitchen counter. There were two big, flaky biscuits left over from your breakfast that morning, and they looked like someone had slathered them in a rich, fruity compote.

You wanted to see who had saved you, but you knew already. His huge boots made the table rattle beneath your burning wrists, and you could hear his enraged breathing, dampened by the mask. It was your Hessian.

He stood over you for a moment, looking disturbed by your appearance. You had disappointed him somehow. You were crying, but you didn’t stop for his benefit. It wouldn’t matter anyway, you figured. Might as well give in to the feeling.

Your body was being lifted, carefully, and carried to your father’s bedroom. It was the nearest to the kitchen, just off of the first hallway. A cross-stitch goose you’d made when you were twelve hung neatly on the wall below the lantern. You remembered the way the threads used to sound when they ran to and fro through the linen. The goose wore a little blue bow, and her beak was the most beautiful goldenrod yellow.

The giant man lay you on your bed, the blood from your wrists surely ruining your duvet. Was it still your duvet? Did you actually own anything anymore?

The mattress sagged under your weight, and it groaned deeper as it sagged under his.

He unbound your wrists and took a careful look at them. Then, he peeled away the ripped edge of your dress, shaking his head sadly,

“I am sorry, Liebling. My men should know better than to touch what is mine.”

You let tears and snot run freely down your face.

“What is your name?”

The same question. And why did it matter? Who gave a shit what your goddamn name was? It wasn’t going to help you.

“...E-Eve…”

“Eve...” He dragged out the vowels like he had dragged you into the house, slowly and against your will.

“I have been called many names,” he leaned down to your neck to smell your skin, whispering into it, “But, you may call me Kӧnig.”

When his hands ran up under your dress, they did not fumble, they were not brutal, and yet the pain of them hurt you anyway. He didn’t force you to open, but your body yielded to him nonetheless, wilting for him like a flower in the sun. You became pliant, and your sobs went from desperate to something laden with strife. You had not consented to his touch, and yet your body welcomed him in with open arms, eager to host the traitor at the gate.

He knelt. As he began to lick you between your legs, he smelled your scent, lifting his hood and letting it pool along your belly, cold as his hot mouth made wet contact with your skin. The way he suckled from you reminded you of the calves in the spring, pumping their mouths onto their mothers’ teats and filling their throats with her warm cream, selfish and relentless. His nose tickled the dark curls above your folds, and you wondered if he was being teased by them, if his nostrils could smell your fear and if they misunderstood it as desire.

“Mmm,” he hummed, pleased, “You are so sweet, my little Eve. So eager for me, hm?”

A growling sob escaped from your throat, and all at once you felt like you would vomit again. He caught your face in his hands before you did, lowering you to the floor and holding your jaw up to face him. Knocking off his hat, he pulled the hood from his face and you saw the gruesomeness there. It wasn’t as bad as you’d feared. Your mother had always told you that the promises of the darkness never amounted to much in the light. You wondered how true that was now.

“I will show you how eager you make me, Liebling.”

He pulled off the button fly of his cotton britches, and his heavy cock tumbled out of them, rolling into the center of his body, pounding with blood and want. He placed the tip at your lips, and although he could have ignored your volition, he begged you instead, providing you with the illusion of choice.

“Kiss it for me, Eve. Be a good girl for your Kӧnig, ja?”

You did not comply. You were your mother’s daughter after all.

He shoved your face onto his length with a calm sort of precision. You didn’t bother to make it easy on him, letting your teeth drag against the velveteen slip of skin, nor did you bite down. You were already dead, and you had decided to act like it.

“Are you not pleased, Liebe? I will give you what you want then,” he laughed quietly to himself, the curl of his smile broken into shards by his scarring, “Silly me. Playing my little games. I am such a tease.”

He pushed you to the ground, shoving your face into the floorboards, letting you look under your own bed. You saw small piles of dirt and a glittering ornament, lost from the last Christmas you’d had. You felt him preparing you from behind. Although you had not married him, you and an old beau had gotten this far. But, this was something else. The way he stretched you was like an intrusion. Your hip bones ached under his drooling rod, and you could feel the sharp tear of your thin skin.

“Oh, Scheiße! So tight for me. I want to come in you already, my darling.”

You let him fill you, and you tried to ignore the electric pleasure that he crafted in you, spinning a spell over you and forcing your orgasms with his cock and hand, one after the other, making you tremble beneath him, laughing all the time,

“So pretty. Coming for me just like a dream. Such a good girl, Eve.”

You were out of tears.

After he was finished with you, he carried you to his horse and put you in the saddle, climbing up behind you and taking the reins. You felt his come and your blood dripping out of you and onto the black leather, wetting you between your thighs, making you slide across the seat, back and forth.

The hot wind blew in your face as he rode you out of town, and you saw the smoke from all of the burning buildings floating high, high into heaven. And you wondered if God could smell the mesquite bark as it smoldered.

#call of duty fanfic #cod mw2 #cod mwii #konig call of duty #konig #konig smut #konig x reader #konig mw2 #konig cod #dark!konig

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ilguna · 2 years

Text

☼ childhood friends (Finnick Odair) ☼

summary; after three years of not talking to Finnick, you get reaped for the Hunger Games, and he decides it's time to apologize for leaving you behind the way he did.

warnings; swearing

wc; 3.6k

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When you finally became eligible for the Hunger Games five years ago, you accidentally started a nasty habit of wishing to get deathly ill to avoid the reaping. All you want is to get sick enough for the peacekeepers to give you a pass, because if they think that you’ll die before you reach the arena, then they don’t want you. The Capitol wants entertainment, and a sickly tribute is a boring tribute.

The goal is to survive the illness, whatever it may be. Let it take weeks for you to recover, if that’s what has to happen. As long as you don’t die from it, because that’s exactly the problem you’re trying to avoid.

You didn’t live seventeen years of your life only to be reaped and thrown into an area to fight for your life. You made it this far. You have one more year until you’re free from the reaping. Free.

Unfortunately, for the past five years, you’ve woken up as healthy as the day you were born. There’s not a single symptom that you could bend to look malicious. You think that if you end up surviving this year’s reaping, that you’re going to go around licking doorknobs to make sure that you’re sick next year.

You turn to the bathtub full of water that your mom’s been filling for you while you made breakfast. It’s probably not even warm anymore, but you have no choice. She won’t let you go outside unless you’re well-dressed in the chance that you do get selected in the reaping. She won’t have her eldest representing the family badly.

You step into the tub, and pleasantly find that it’s lukewarm. It won’t be this way for long, you have a small window to get yourself cleaned up and hair washed before it turns ice cold. You sink into the tun, letting it warm your skin slightly, and then you get started.

As you scrub your skin with a bar of unscented soap, you stare at the adjacent wall. In the Capitol, you heard that they have running showers. You can turn the knob and have hot water come out immediately, and bathtubs that they can fill with hot water without having to wait over an hour for the water to boil first.

They might have those appliances here somewhere in the district. If you had to guess, you’d say the Justice Building, where the mayor and his family stays, or any of the victor homes in Victor’s Village. Since they won the Hunger Games, it’s nothing but the best for them.

You bet that they forget that the rest of the district doesn’t have the same luxury as they do with the hot water. Even the upper class part of district four doesn’t have showers. The houses were never installed with them—maybe better bathtubs. You can’t imagine how expensive it would be to run that water.

You don’t think you’d leave the bathroom ever again. You’d sit under the water for hours, letting the water hit your face, or the top of your head. You’d close your eyes and imagine the warm rain that you get in the summertime. And you would be able to do that every day until you got sick of it.

Instead, you’re stuck with a bar of soap, and a tub of cooling water. The same water that turned a slight shade of white because of the soap, that you now have to use to wash your hair. You could get your mom to brew you a whole new tub, but you don’t have time for it. She leaves only enough room to get you in and out before the rest of your family gets in.

You turn your head to the side while lowering your hair into the water to get it wet, squeezing it a few times to make sure the water sticks. After that, you reach for the bland bottle of shampoo that smells faintly of strawberries if you smell hard enough. You lather, and then rinse, and when you’re done, you pull the plug on the tub to let it drain while you get dressed.

You dry your body, and start on your hair for a minute. You stop when you realize that it’s going to be a longer process than you expected, and opt for pulling your dress on, being careful not to get it wet. The moment you open the bathroom door, arms full of dirty clothes, heading for your bedroom, your mom is already passing you with the first pot of hot water for your little sister’s bath.

“Drop the clothes in the hallway, I’ll clean them later tonight.” She tells you, eyes landing on your hair, “Do you need help putting your hair up?”

“If you have time, or I can do it myself.” You shrug.

“Grab a chair and take a seat in the kitchen.” She directs your chin upwards, correcting your habit of looking down, “I always have time for you.”

You give her a half-smile, dropping your dirty clothes in the hallway while you head to your room to grab the hair ties and brush. When you look at your clock, you see that there’s only an hour and a half before the reaping. It seems like a lot of time, but with a family of five, it takes so much longer.

You brush your hair while you wait for her to come into the kitchen, several pots are on the stove with the heat turned to high. Your brother sits in the living room, playing with his toys, and your dad is nowhere to be seen. You’re pretty sure he bathed last night to avoid today’s mayhem.

“Sit.” She tells you, you pull out a chair.

She’s gentle when she pulls on your wet hair, used to your younger sister’s whining about rough hands. She’s never been bad about the brush, it’s more of her redoing your hair several times to make sure that it’s absolutely perfect. It’s one of the struggles that come with having to appear as a lower middle class family. They’re always about image, even if you have nothing to show.

Your mom’s side of the family used to be a line of jewelers. She was even raised to appraise precious jewelry. She would buy jewelry at a low price and turn around and sell it higher. It worked out for your grandparents for a while, until your mom asked for a better cut on the profit, since she was the reason why they were making so much.

Her parents denied her, and then shut her out entirely, firing her. By then, your mom had already married your dad, so she had him to fall back on. She watched as her parents started to lose profit, and lost business altogether because they got rid of her. And when they came to her, asking for her charity, she laughed in their faces and told them that they’re dead to her.

You haven’t seen them, not since you were young. From what you remember, they lived in a big house, more bedrooms than they needed. It wasn’t even your mom’s childhood home, she says they sold that and upgraded. They must’ve moved to a different part of the district, because you’ve never accidentally run across them.

Your mom’s always told you that if you need her, then she’ll come running, no matter the situation, no matter the reason. It’s the least she could do because her parents couldn’t step up and give her a little more money for her work. She says that once you turn eighteen, she’ll get you a job at the fabric store she works at, and she’ll make sure that you’re well taken care of.

You know she doesn’t mean to, but sometimes she makes you sad.

“Okay, all done.” She says, “Maybe sit in front of an open window so it dries faster.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” She grabs your face to press a kiss to your forehead, “Be ready in an hour.”

“I will.” You smile.

You wander back to your room, or rather the room you share with your sister. You prop open the window, and instantly a warm breeze comes through the air. It’s a shame the Hunger Games takes place in the middle of summer. It’s the only time of year you genuinely enjoy, and it’s ruined by the Capitol.

You sit on the edge of your bed, staring out the window. One minute turns to ten, and you’re sure that you should get up and get your shoes on, at the very least, but you don’t move. You can’t get your eyes to focus either, no matter how hard you try.

There’s something wrong, you’re not usually this drained before the reaping.

You blink slowly, turning your head away from the window to look at your room. Your mouth screws, and you force yourself up to pull on your shoes. You go back to sitting on your bed when you’re done, playing with a string on your bedsheets.

Your sister comes into the room soon after, already dressed and hair done. She briefly looks at you before getting to her knees to play with her toys. It doesn’t last long until she sets them down and looks at you, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” You glance at her, and then at the window.

“Oh, well,” She shrugs, “I had a dream last night that you got reaped.”

“Don’t say stuff like that.” Your face twists, finally coming back to life, “Especially not to mom.”

She doesn’t say anything, playing with her dolls. The two of you sit in here for another thirty minutes, before your mom is collecting you to leave. You close the window in the bedroom, and briefly check on the state of your hair in the bathroom. It’s not perfect, you knew it wouldn’t be, but it looks good enough. Your mom nods in approval.

The five of you leave the house, heading to the District Four Justice Building. You’re not the only family heading that way, most of the neighborhood is leaving too, all on foot. Cars are also a luxury for the rich, but even they’re too expensive for the victors.

When you reach the area where you need to sign in, your mom kisses your forehead, and then your dad does too in the same spot. She then reaches over and redirects your chin upwards, “With beauty and grace, (Y/n).”

“I know. I’ll see you guys in a little bit.” You smile.

Your sister is barely eligible for the games this year, she’s just turned twelve. You watch as your parents repeat the process with her. Your brother’s got another three years before it’s his turn to experience the reaping. You hold your hand out for your sister to take to guide her through the process.

You get signed in first, and then wait nearby to watch her first time with a reaping day peacekeeper. They pass her easily, and she hurries to stick close. Inside the fenced area are hundreds of girls and boys, all varying in age. You bring her to the back, where the twelve section is.

“I’ll see you right after, okay?” You fix her hair.

“Okay.” She agrees.

You move down the aisle to the front, where the other seventeen year old girls are gathering. It’s fairly empty up here, allowing you to pick a spot without blocking anyone else’s view. You’re not sure if they’d mind anyway. When you were younger, you’d use the older teenagers to block the stage’s view of you, afraid of them picking you just because they felt like it.

You let out a breath, and raise your head.

Most of the chairs on the stage are filled by the regular occupants, like the mayor, and your Capitol escort. In the other chairs sit the victor’s that District Four has had over the past sixty-seven years, there’s four of them.

Mags Flanagan, she’s the oldest victor up there because she’s the first victor of District Four. To the right of her sits Muscida, another female victor, she’s younger than Mags by a good twenty years. The next in line is Librae, she’s in her thirties. And the very last and recent victor is the only male that Four has had so far, and that’s Finnick Odair.

He broke the record for the youngest victor, previously it was fifteen, but he set it at fourteen. It’s going to be an impossible record to beat, since every thirteen year old that goes inside of an arena is dead within the first to third day. They never last past the first week.

Finnick’s the same age as you are. You used to be really good friends with him, since his family lived in the same neighborhood as you, and you went to the same school together. After he won, they all moved into Victor’s Village, and you never really had the same friendship as you did before.

You tried to be normal, for his sake. At school, you saw how everyone else was treating him and figured that he’d want things to go back to normal. You could see past his arena-self, considering he did what he had to in order to survive. You guess that he couldn’t handle it anyway, because eventually the two of you stopped talking, and then he stopped coming to school in general.

Despite now living in two different areas of District Four, you still manage to see him every year at the reaping. You can’t imagine what it’s like mentoring, especially since he had no choice when it comes to the job. The district requires one male and one female mentor. You think you’d go insane.

Briefly, Finnick looks up, and manages to catch your eyes. They’re gone in the same second.

Right as the big clock hits ten thirty, the mayor steps up to the podium to start giving the Dark Days speech. After hearing it so many times, you’re sure that you could recite this in your sleep without missing a beat. It’s the same speech, nothing changes to the script. You’re forced to stand here and listen to him drone about it.

And when he’s done, the Capitol escort steps up to the microphone. She’s dressed in bright colors, and has a wide grin on her face. You guys have had her for the past two years, you think you preferred the man before her. He was less peppy and seemed to realize the monstrosity he was committing by selecting children to fight to kill each other.

“Happy Hunger Games!” Her accent gives you a headache, “And may the odds be ever in your favor. We’ll start with ladies first.”

She wanders over to the girls’ glass bowl with thousands of slips inside of it. Only five of them should have your name on it. You suck in a breath between your teeth, holding it while she picks a slip from the middle. She holds it up in the air, a folded piece of white paper held shut by black tape. She then moves over to the microphone, shimmying her shoulders in excitement as she unfolds the paper.

She takes in a breath, a smile overcoming her face, “(Y/n) (L/n).”

You can feel the air leave your lungs, lips parting as you struggle to intake air. Somewhere out there behind the rope, you think you can hear your mother’s anguished scream. Several heads swivel to find you, hands balled into tight fists to distract from the jelly feeling in your legs.

Move.

You step out of the seventeen section and into the aisle, where the peacekeepers immediately come to your side to guide you to the stage. You press your lips together, head falling to look at your shoes, when you’re suddenly reminded of her gesture. You raise your chin and start down the path, trying to appear brave.

The Capitol escort’s got this smirk on her face, you look away from her and to the stairs, which feel almost impossible to take. One at a time, you’re raised until you’re on the same level as they are. She guides you next to the microphone, and you plant your feet there, eyes wide as you stare off into the crowd. A large sea of bodies, too many to fit in the square, so they fill the streets and alleyways nearby.

You take in deep breaths through your nose to contain the tears that want to take over your body. You don’t even realize she’s called the boy's name until she’s demanding that you two shake hands. You turn, and find a boy from the sixteen section. His hands are wet when you touch them, and he looks like he’s going to puke.

The Panem anthem then plays, and as soon as it’s finished, you’re pushed to go inside of the Justice Building. They bring you to a vacant room, where you’re left to pace and wait for your family to come. You only had one more year of this until you were free, you just had to get reaped at seventeen.

The door swings open, and in comes your family, your mother rushing to hold you tightly. She squeezes the air out of you, letting out a quiet sob, “Why didn’t you tell me that your sister had a dream that you’d be reaped?”

“Because you’d react this way.” You murmur, hugging her back. Your dad comes over to stroke your hair. “It’s okay, mom.”

“You must be good.” She says, pulling away to hold your face, “You must show them that you’re wonderful. You can do that.”

“I can, because I learned from you.” You agree, “It’ll be alright.”

Your brother and sister wander over, both of them with tears in their eyes. You hug them tightly, promising that you’ll be home soon. The peacekeepers come back, telling you that your time with your family is up. Your mom insists on pressing a kiss to your forehead, the same with your dad, before they leave.

“You’ll be good.” She tells you, “Tell me that you’ll be good.”

“I’ll be good, mom.”

It’s a few minutes before they take you and bring you to a car to transport you to the train station quickly. You chew on the inside of your cheek while staring at the window, continuing to take breaths to calm yourself. The station is crowded with reporters when you get there. You avoid the cameras and head inside of the train, where the doors shut behind you, and the train begins to move.

You let out the breath of air that you’ve been holding.

“Congratulations!” The escort says, you eye her warily.

“On what?” Your counterpart asks, “On our death sentence?”

A frown comes over the escort’s face. You can hear a familiar laugh, and he shows himself a second later. Finnick’s got this smirk on his face, “What did I tell you about congratulating the tributes? It’s insulting.”

“Regardless of what you think,” she suddenly hisses, “It’s required of me to do.”

Finnick raises his eyebrows, “Right. Why don’t you take Landon to his room?”

She presses her lips together, “Fine, let’s go you two—”

“No, I need a second with (Y/n). We need to talk.”

The way Finnick speaks is so much different from what you remember. He was never this direct with people, he had a tendency to beat around the bush to avoid hurting feels. It has something to do with the confrontation aspect of it, and he never wanted the drama of having a rivalry.

Now he seems like he doesn’t care. He stares at the escort, waiting for her to object, but she must think that it’s not worth it, because all she does is shake her head at him before leading Landon off.

He turns to you with a toothy smile, “I’m going to pay for that later.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.” You laugh.

Without saying it out loud, the two of you gravitate for a hug at the same time. You squeeze him tightly, letting out a slight laugh. The last time you talked to him was three years ago. So much can change in such a short amount of time. You probably don’t even know him anymore.

“I just wanna say I’m sorry.” He begins, pulling away, “After the games—”

“I don’t blame you, Finnick. How can I?”

“I don’t know, we were close. We grew up together, I thought you’d be angrier.” He rubs the back of his neck, “I tried with the whole school thing, but no one treated me normally except for you. And I thought it would be enough but there was that one week where you got sick and I had to do it all alone. I couldn’t, I didn’t even make it through the week.”

“I know. You did what you had to do. And you seem to be doing better now than you were before, right?”

He nods, eyes falling to the carpet flooring, “Yeah, something like that. It sucks that it took you getting reaped for me to say something.”

“I’m happy you’re talking to me at all.” You tilt your head, “If you wanna make up for it, though, you’ll make sure that I’m set up to win.”

Finnick’s eyes meet yours, a mischievous grin crossing his face, “Oh, you have no idea the wonders I can work for you.”

#ilguna #finnick odair #finnick odair imagine #finnick odair oneshot #finnick odair fanfic #finnick odair x reader #thg #the hunger games #requested #fluff

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thebadboyfanclub · 2 years

Text

Take Care Of Me, My Love (Aemond x Reader)

Hey y’all, how y’all doing? Ok let’s cut to the shit, I felt inspired and wrote this so. Enjoy!

Princess (y/n),

First of her name

The first child of Daemon targaryen

And the only child of Lady Mysaria

Princess of the Dragonstones and the rightful heir of the iron throne after Rhaenyra.

Well sort of, Rhaenyra had embraced her as her own since (y/n) never had a true mother, as soon as she was born Mysaria had fled the palace, leaving her daughter behind with Daemon who was delighted of how easily he had gotten rid of Mysaria, (y/n) never heard of her or from her until later on in her life when someone informed her that Mysaria had died. She then had Laena who was very graceful and kind to (y/n), no one could deny that she loved her, however when the twins were born only her father truly paid attention to her, she now had kids of her own and a very broody husband to manage.

When Rhaenyra wed her father Daemon she finally felt the true love and touch of a mother, (y/n) admired Rhaenyras strength and how she stood tall no matter the circumstance, she was (y/n)s mentor and Jace, Luke and Joffrey were such joy to be around.

When it was announced to her via her step brother Jacaerys that not only were they betrothed, Rhaenyra declared Jacaerys as the rightful heir.

(Y/n) felt like the world had caved in, she was the first child, she has been prepared for her duties since she was just a toddler, now she was told she could only be “the wife” and kings consort.

To say she was livid was an understatement, how dare they arrange a marriage without asking for her agreement, Jace might be content with being a mere player in Rhaenyras game but (y/n) felt her blood boil at the thought of anyone controlling her life.

So she did was she does best, in the midst of night she went and retrieved her dragon.

Ralla hatched when (y/n) was still a baby, a day after her first name day (y/n) hugged the egg and the first cracks started to appear. Since then Ralla and (y/n) were attached, especially on the nights when (y/n) felt alone.

Ralla was a fairly big dragon, she had grown to be bigger than Syrax and she got the nickname of “Ralla the Lady of Ice” she was white as snow and her fire breath was blue, stronger and brighter than most of the other dragons.

Up in the sky she could finally breathe, everything seemed so small from that point of view and sometimes (y/n) wished she could live on Rallas dragon back. She was flying in no particular direction until she heard wings of another dragon flapping pretty close

“īlon issi daor mērī Ralla”*1

She said as she lightly rubbed her dragon on the side of her neck. She leaned in and guided her dragon in a swift motion so she can circle and look for the mysterious visitor, although if she was being honest with herself she already knew who it could be.

“Ao kostagon dakogon yn ao kostagon’t ruaragon”*2

At that moment a dragon flew right next to her, spreading its humongous wings and almost hitting Ralla.

(Y/n) laughed at the failed attempt to scare her but was relieved to be in his presence, they exchanged a look and then she took it upon herself to guide them in the ground, somewhere that they wouldn’t be bothered or discovered by others.

As she gracefully landed Ralla close to the shore, her company followed. (Y/n) brushed her hair back in its place and fixed her dress once she came down of Rallas back.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?”

“I heard the news, I wanted to wish the happy couple a long and prosperous marriage, may you be blessed with many offsprings”

(Y/n) groaned at the sound of that word. Marriage and kids was in her plans but not now and definitely not with Jace.

She loved him but as a brother, he was a good and honourable man, any other girl would kill to have someone as handsome and as kind as Jace. To (y/n) it felt wrong, especially since her heart belongs to someone else, that “someone else” was now standing there and wished her well in a future that he is not a part of. It almost made her throw up at the mere thought of it.

(Y/n) turned her back along with closing her eyes in order to soothe herself and collect her thoughts, her hands felt abnormally cold as she clapped them together and brought them closer to her chest in a way of seeking comfort.

“Happy couple… far from it. As he gets to rise to the throne I am told that I should be more than satisfied with being the kings consort. I am the first child of Daemon Targaryen, brother of King Viserys. I should be the one to inherit after rhaenyra”

“Rhaenyra won’t even be the one to inherit the throne my dear, my father has barely opened his eyes and my mother won’t rest until she sees Aegon on that throne”

She scoffed loudly. As she turned to face Aemond who had walked and stood right behind her as a result he now could be face to face with (y/n). As the wind blew a few strands of her grazed her angry face, her eyebrows furrowed as she looked at him through almost shut eyes.

“Aegon?! That idiotic fool who drinks his days away in addition of harassing half of the servants in the palace? He could never be king, he would destroy everything my uncle has worked for”

She claimed in a higher tone than usual. Aemond could only smile at her as his hands reached for her upper arms, letting his fingertips graze the fabric of her dress up and down.

(Y/n) let her shoulders sink slightly also taking yet another deep breath at a desperate attempt to put her anger aside. The feeling of disrespect and unfairness filled her soul with such hatred that made her brain go on fire.

“How could they do this to me? Betroth me without my permission and deny me what’s rightfully mine? Rhaenyra is King Viserys daughter, he is my uncle”

“Life is unfair I’m afraid, don’t fret over the iron throne yet. What I cannot get pass is your new… soon to be husband”

That’s when (y/n) could finally snap out of her rage. Hearing the bitterness spew out of Aemond as he let the word barely get out of his mouth forced her to realise how difficult this is for him. She studied his facial expected soon, his lips closed shut as his jaw clenched tighter, even his shoulders were tense. Her hand reached up to graze his cheek for a few seconds with the back of her fingers.

“I promise you my love that I will only let that happen when I’m cold in my grave”

She whispered to him, a promise she was determined to keep. She took one more step and let the space between them become a thing of the past, (y/n) rested her head on his shoulder Aemond brushed his hand through her hair and took in her addicting scent in.

Everything about her was intoxicating to him, it was the only way he understood why his brother was drinking so much, if he could he would also drown in her presence, let her consume his life and die while under her influence, if he had any word in it he wished his grave to be her arms.

“You are the one that owns my heart, my fire”

She reassured him once again. Aemond and (y/n) had developed a relationship that grew stronger as time went on, they were careful in sneaking away from everyone else since they were very aware of how their families would react to their relationship, his mother although kind she was always clear of how displeased she was with (y/n)s wild temper, on the other side her father and Rhaenyra despised Aemond due to the altercation that had occurred years ago that costed him his eye. They were very lucky about their cover up since (y/n) had defended poor little lucerys and for years she had nothing but negative things to say for Aemond.

What they had forgotten to consider was that they were both at a time in their life that marriage was becoming something their families had to take into serious consideration.

“I understand why they betroth you to him, yet I cannot help than feel anger. I once again come second”

Second… second. (Y/n) snapped her head up at that word, Aemond was expecting her to be bothered by his words yet to his surprise she was smiling up at him. He looked at her with a questionable look since he could not understand why she was pleased with the situation.

“What if we tell them that Jacaerys came second?”

“I’m afraid that I do not understand you dearest”

“I give you my maidens head, by morning we announce it to my father… together”

Aemonds lips curved into a smile, joining (y/n) on her mast plan idea. He had never dreamed of that possibility, well he had dreamed of it and craved it many times but would never dare to suggest it, he wanted (y/n) to come to him. Aemonds hands cupped her cheeks before he crashed his lips with hers moreover deepening to a passionate kiss.

“You are an amazing woman”

He complimented her in between kisses as he was finally allowed to do what he had only dreamed of. She giggled at his eagerness and responded with the same amount of lust radiating of her body as her arms were wrapping around his neck pulling him closer that they could physically be.

He laid her down carefully, making sure she was comfortable before his hungry self ripped of the clothes of her body, their eyes full of passion as their bodies followed the urge they had ignored for so long.

“Take care of me my love”

She whispered in his ear as he supported himself on top of her, her hair becoming one of other the dirt and her naked skin feeling the breeze and raised goosebumps.

Getting lost in each others arms and their bodies working together, it was a pretty chilly night however they managed to sweat as they to one another tightly. Their sounds could be mistaken for animals and the aggression mixed with the tenderness was something that would make the most filthy person blush. (Y/n) could not let him go even after their passion shimmered down, they stayed intertwined until the sun rose the first rays caressed their bodies, Aemond admired how her skin blisters under the sunlight during the early hours

“My treasure”

He called for her before hugging her once again, (y/n) was overwhelmed by pleasure and joy that made her almost forget that the guards are going to start looking for her soon and that’s if they hadn’t done it yet.

“We need to move Aemond, it’s time for us to face the world”

“Together, from this point on we do all of it together. I swear to you that you will never be alone”

*1 “we are not alone Ralla”

*2 “you can run but you can’t hide”

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francesminos-tt · 2 years

Text

An outlined sequel to this

The actual fic is here

Aemond hates Lucerys and his bastard son. He mocks them, spreading vile accusations, smashing Lucerys’s plan to marry another high-born alpha. Meanwhile, Aemond gradually grows close to the bastard, Laenor, who has a striking resemblance of Lucerys as a child. Laenor likes to read, is fascinated by dragons but sadly doesn’t have one and diligently attends all training sessions. Aemond couldn’t help but see himself in the little boy. A boy with Lucerys’s look and Aemond’s character.

Aemond has his suspects, but every time he wonders if Laenor might be his son, he talks himself out of it. How could Laenor be his son? How could Lucerys love a son that is half Aemond with such devotion? Aemond is confused. He is supposed to hate Lucerys for taking his eye, but why his anger boils and his heart hurts when he learns Lucerys is being attacked by an angry mob? Aemond is even more confused when Laenor tries to tame Seasmoke, though the boy succeeds, he is badly injured so the stress triggers his presentation.

Aemond could smell the mix of sea salt, lemon, leather, peppermint and old parchment. He could smell himself and Lucerys on the boy. He knows.

When the boy cries for his alpha sire, despite Lucerys’s protests, Aemond hugs them with all he can. He realizes he never hates Lucerys. He loves the omega just like the omega loves him. He doesn’t care if Laenor was born out of wedlock. He would wed Lucerys ten times over if that means he could have the omega for all eternity.

Meanwhile, it turns out that Aemond is not the only one who still wants to fight. Despite Otto’s unexpected death, the Hightowers managed to reserve most of their troops by bending the knee to Queen Rhaenyra without a fight. Now, five years later, as the ice on the Honeywine finally melts away, they are ready to strike again,

The Northerners have festered King’s Landing, the new Hightower lord would say, we are outnumbered, both in terms of men and dragons.

What do we do? The late king’s youngest alpha son, the dutiful Daeron asks.

We wait. The wolves will have to go back to their lair eventually. Once the capital is at its most vulnerable, we strike. The lord answered.

Daeron nods. And what of me?

You will go to King’s Landing, collecting allies, breaking down the enemy from within.

So Daeron goes. He attends the celebrating tourney as the mystery knight. He defeats all his opponents, the most difficult one being the Queen’s third son, Joffrey. The Queen welcomes her youngest brother, and Daeron proceeds to do what he was told.

He smuggles moon tea into Aegon’s drink, preventing his omega brother to conceive. He approaches Aemond, relaying conspiracies from Old Town. Jacaerys would grow impatient for lacking of an heir, and Aemond would gladly join in the rebellion for he loves his mother and he hates Lucerys.

But the wise lord miscalculates three things. First, Jacaerys remains loyal and caring for his omega. After some efforts and a miracle, Aegon gets pregnant. Second, Aemond refuses to be a pawn again. He has a mate and a son to protect now. Third, Daeron falls in love with Joffrey, the most feral and strong beta he ever knew. He confesses and proposes to lead the attack on Old Town if only the Queen could spare his mother.

Rhaenyra agrees but insists they go south together. Because the house of dragons is most formidable united, the Queen says.

#lucemond #aemond x lucerys #aemond targaryen #lucerys velaryon #jacegon #joffron #abo dynamics #secret child

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ktwritesstuff · 4 months

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The Babysitter (a Last of Us fanfic) pt. 8

Title: The Babysitter Fandom: The Last of Us Rating: Mature Characters & Pairings: Joel Miller x Reader Word Count: ~2,000 Summary: An encounter with a familiar face.

Notes: This one has a point of view change at the end. Hope it doesn't throw off the groove, but someone's keeping secrets from us ;)

Winter & Spring

In the coming weeks, Joel and Tommy worked on the shed so that you could preserve the meat the next time one of them shot a deer or goose. In the meantime you drank peppermint tea by the gallon and ate all the berries you could get your hands on.

With the last of the tomatoes boiled down to a measly pint and the garden cleared of bitter greens, you scoured your little library for information on what plants would support a healthy pregnancy. Wild yam was most commonly mentioned so you tore the yellowing botanical illustration from your book and carried it with you on your daily walks. You searched high and low and despaired to realize your pleasant little valley was too rocky to support root vegetables.

By the first frost you had a substantial belly and an appetite to match. You tried not to be greedy, but neither Joel nor Tommy had the heart to let you go hungry, so as your supplies dwindled they starved while your belly grew. As the days grew colder, the icy conditions proved more treacherous as it became harder for you to get around. It wasn’t so cold as to be dangerous, the way it got further north, but it was still much colder than your Texas blood cared for. One morning you woke up to a blanket of snow covering the garden.

You took a spill into the ice cold creek while hunting for the crayfish that burrowed under the rocks. Joel and Tommy stayed up all night stoking the fire just to be sure you didn’t freeze solid. The next morning, Joel put his foot down and insisted on confining you to the house. He worried–as did Tommy, who was far more diplomatic with his concerns–that a wrong step or slip that might otherwise be merely injurious could prove disastrous for you. You agreed to their demands, supposing it was the least you could do under the circumstances, but you weren’t above complaining when the cabin fever set in.

Joel wasn’t quite asleep, but your supply of firewood was dwindling, and the bed was still warm. There was no sense in getting up before dawn. You could hear his stomach growling as he laid in bed beside you, but he wasn’t the only one keeping you awake. You could feel the baby moving, a foot or an elbow pressing hard into your ribs. It wasn’t quite painful, but even now that it was happening more frequently, it still felt utterly strange. It didn’t help that your skin felt so dry and stretched in the winter air.

“Joel,” you whispered.

“Hmm?”

“Give me your hand,” you said.

“What for?”

He sounded irked; you weren’t surprised. Aside from the hunger, he’d barely touched you all winter. He wouldn’t have even shared the bed, if not for his nightmares about you freezing to death in the night. You couldn’t blame him, not really; you weren’t feeling particularly sexual these days. You still had nausea most mornings and laying on your back made your legs go numb.

“Just give it here,” you urged, reaching for him. “Quick.”

You slid his hand between the folds of your robe–one of the only things that still fit–and placed it on the swell of your belly.

“Whoa,” Joel sat up at attention as the baby kicked against his hand and you chuckled. He moved his hand over your stomach, following the path of a tiny foot. “Does that happen a lot?”

“Almost constantly,” you said.

“That’s—shit,” Joel stammered, awestruck.

You had always suspected Joel and Sarah’s mom weren’t together when Sarah was born, but now you realized although he had been a father (and a good one from what you remembered) he had never done this part before. That it was all as new to him as it was to you.

Weeks passed, the snow melted and as the days grew longer you began to notice the first signs of spring. Snowdrops and crocuses poked their heads up along with kale sprouts that had over-wintered. Yellow dandelions polka-dotted the yard and you pulled them up to brew tea and make fritters.

On the first warm day of spring you staged your rebellion, pulling on your boots stuffed with newspapers and declaring that you were going for a walk if it killed you.

“Stay within sight,” Joel warned, although you suspected he was just as happy to get you out of the house as you were to get away from him.

It was harder to get down the hill than you remembered. You tried to brush it off as a product of being cooped up for so long, but it was so pleasant just being outside you were distracted from your worries soon enough. The trees were turning the gorgeous green of the first new growth of the season.

As you walked you caught sight of a spot of red in the brush and realized with delight there was a patch of strawberries ripening among the ferns. You sat right down on the damp earth and began plucking as many berries as you could, shoving them greedily into your mouth, even the palest pink ones that were still quite bitter and astringent. You were so enraptured you didn’t notice someone was approaching until they were right in front of you.

You looked up and there was a woman. She was tall, you guessed somewhere between Tommy and Joel in age. She had long brown hair and held a gun loosely in her right hand; she looked nearly as surprised as you. You froze, eyes wide, paralyzed by fear.

“Easy,” she said, holding her hands out. “Easy–”

You screamed, struggling to push yourself to your feet, scrambling on all fours through the mud back up the hill, too top heavy to push yourself upright.

“Joel! Tommy! Help!”

“Woah,” the woman shouted. “I’m not here to hurt you–”

You were impressed, honestly, by how fast Joel managed to move, sprinting down the hill, rifle in hand. He pushed you behind him, gun raised. The woman raised her weapon.

“It’s fine,” she said firmly. “Everything’s fine. No problems.”

“You’re on my land,” Joel growled. “I call that a problem. What are you doing here?”

You couldn’t see Joel’s face as you cowered behind him dutifully, but you felt like you could read his mind as the standoff progressed. You had made it through winter by the skin of your teeth; you were just getting back on your feet. The garden would feed you for the summer, but everything you had–food, shelter, safety–depended on no one finding you.

“My group sent me to look for food,” the woman said. “I saw your strawberries from the trail. That’s all.”

By then Tommy, who must have been further off when you called, was coming down the hill and the woman–realizing she was out-manned and out-gunned–held her hands up in parley. She cocked her head to one side, peering at you, Joel’s dwindling frame doing a poor job of concealing your bump.

“How far are you?”

“Six months,” you said, only for Joel to shush you.

“Really?” The woman looked surprised.

“What’s it to you?” Joel snapped.

“She looks a little big for 24 weeks is all,” she said. “Every woman is different. Probably nothing to worry about.”

You felt Joel’s body tense. Six months was only an estimate, of course. You knew you were getting big, you moved slowly, your back hurt, your feet swelled, but it had never occurred to you that something could be wrong until now.

“My name’s Tess, by the way,” the woman waited for you to introduce yourselves, but was met with silence. “And, uh, which one of you is the father?”

“None of your fucking business,” Joel snapped, which was as good as a confession as any. For a moment, you thought she looked disappointed.

“What brings you through here, anyway?” Tommy asked, changing the subject before Joel inevitably shot her for asking too many questions.

“My group’s heading north,” Tess explained. “You have a radio?”

You did, but you only turned it on every few weeks to try to save what battery you had.

“Boston QZ lost a third of their population over winter,” Tess explained. “They’re looking for healthy people who can work. They’ve got supplies, doctors, schools–”

You’re sure that must have sounded like a dream to some, but after Atlanta you were in no hurry to be crammed into another QZ. You hoped Tess and her people would get there safely. You found yourself liking her; you didn’t know many folks who could stare down Tommy and Joel and stay calm and collected.

“I guess you better get going then,” Joel said, still peering at her over the barrel of the rifle.

“Well,” Tess gave a long, drawn-out sigh, tucking her gun into her waistband. “I was looking for food. I was hoping you might share your strawberries.”

“Those are my wife’s strawberries,” Joel said.

You blushed inadvertently, hearing him call you his wife for the first time and realizing–though you didn’t have church bells or wedding rings–it felt right. It felt true.

“Well, Sweetpea?” Joel relaxed his grip on the rifle, turning to look at you.

“She can have some,” you nodded.

“Thank you,” Tess said, flashing you a smile so warm you couldn’t help but smile back. “Do you think you could come down and show me where I should pick?”

Joel shot you an exasperated look, waving you on as he and Tommy watched closely.

“Here is okay,” you said, pointing to a section of the plants that you hadn’t entirely picked over.

“Can you show me how?” Tess said. “I don’t want to hurt your plants.”

“It’s not hard,” you said, rolling your eyes, crouching down to pinch one of the berries from its stem.

Tess leaned over, watching closely.

“Are you okay?” she whispered, leaning into your ear. “Do you want to be with these men?”

“Oh,” you gasped, and laughed nervously. “Yes. I’m okay. They’re my family–”

Remembering Atlanta, you thought better of it and tried again.

“I mean, we’ve been together forever, since before, you know. We take care of each other. I like it here.”

Tess nodded along with your explanation. “No offense. You understand why I had to ask.”

“I do,” you agreed. “And I appreciate it. It’s kind of you.”

“So,” Tess said. “Which one is Tommy and which one is Joel?”

“Tommy’s the younger one with the hair,” you explained, soto voce. “And Joel is the older one with the sourpuss.”

“I see,” Tess chuckled. “He calls you Sweetpea?”

“My childhood nickname,” you explained. “To be honest I’m not even sure if they remember my Christian name, but it’s nice to have a reminder of home, you know.”

“And where is home, for you?”

You told Tess all about Texas and she told you about growing up outside Chicago. Despite your better judgment, you recounted a sterilized version of your time in Atlanta, and she reassured you weren’t responsible for your troubles there. You had forgotten how much you had enjoyed the company of other women, and the more you talked with Tess the more charming and likable you found her.

“I want Tess to come to the house for lunch,” you announced, catching Joel and Tommy off guard. You felt bold, stating it as a fact instead of asking permission, but it was as much your house as it was theirs.

“It’d like that, too,” Tess agreed.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Joel protested.

“I want her to come,” you insisted.

Joel looked to Tommy, who shook his head.

“Consider me Switzerland,” he said.

“I said no,” Joel growled.

“I work just as hard as you and Tommy,” you said, probably harder considering you cooked and cleaned and foraged while lugging around an extra thirty pounds of baby Miller. “I want to have a friend. I deserve to have a friend.”

“This is a bad idea,” Joel warned.

Lunch, like every meal for the last few weeks, was watered-down soup of a scant handful of beans and barley, the first young leaves of swiss chard, garlic mustard, with a chickweed and violet blossom salad on the side. It wasn’t much, but Tess was gracious enough to make it out to be the best thing she had eaten in ages. If her travels north had been anything like yours, it very well might have been.

After your meal you felt the day’s excitement had taken its toll and were content to lie down in the bedroom while Joel escorted Tess out of your valley.

Tess and Joel spent most of the walk in silence, each one casting sideways glances

“Listen, we may have gotten off on the wrong foot,” Tess said, carefully picking her way through the greenbriers along the road. “I think we can help each other.”

“I don’t need your help,” Joel said.

“Maybe not,” Tess nodded. “But I believe you want what’s best for that girl and your baby. I’m not going to lie, we could use you and your brother out there on the road. We’re no saints, by any stretch of the imagination, but we’re decent people. About as good as it gets out here. We’ll do right by you and your family, I promise you that.

“Because the way I see it, you’ve got six, eight weeks max and that baby is coming, ready or not. She’s young, she’s strong, and there’s a good chance everything goes right. But if even one thing goes wrong, wouldn’t you rather have a doctor there?”

Joel stood in silence, staring at the forest floor. The muscles of his jaw clenched, the very cadence of his breath galloping along with his racing mind.

“I am not trying to scare you,” Tess pressed. “But I’ve got a cesarean scar that says even with the best care, sometimes things don’t go as planned. Come to Boston with us. Get that girl some real care–you owe her that much.”

“I’ll think about it,” Joel agreed. “I have to talk to Tommy, but I’ll think about it.”

“That’s all I ask.”

Baby’s First Taglist: @stilllivindue2spite, @amethystwonders11, @teacupcollectorr, @jbaby2, @flyingmushroomsss, @boysddontcry, @cated18, @sunnycamm

#joel miller x reader #the last of us smut #the last of us fanfiction #the last of us hbo #joel miller #pedro pascal #tlou

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