#crow x brave

[richskint]

Brave, Crow and Shinji

[arisenreborn]

tomorrow i'll be brave (ch. 2)

Word Count: 2,045 Characters: Olivia (Arisen), Emrys (Pawn) AO3: (link) Chapter 1

After days of existing in a darkened fog the Pawn remembers nothing of what transpired - none of what was said or done. All that remains is the aftermath, and picking up the pieces.

Distantly, the sounds of battle tugged at the darkness of his mind. Screams and steel echoed dimly, muffled by the shroud of a too-long slumber. 

Awareness came like the rain, one drop at a time and all at once. The first thing he saw with any clarity was her face, covered in blood and mud, trickling raindrops clearing paths across her skin. Those piercing blue eyes of hers seemed somehow faded now, eyelids heavy as she looked up at him. 

He was on top of her, he realized, straddling her at the hips. Her chest was heaving, body trembling, clothes soaked. Some of these things were familiar, but the context was all wrong. Her clothes were in tatters, and it wasn’t only the rain that soaked them. Where the cloth ripped asunder, terrible wounds bled out.

Frantic, his gaze swept over her, around them, trying to piece together what had happened. His head screamed mercy for each movement he made, feeling for all the world like he’d been on the most gods-forsaken bender and tried to fist-fight a chimera. 

Pushing back the clouds in his mind, the town square spread out around them under the gray skies of the night. Bodies, everywhere, scattered and strewn about. Something had plucked them from their homes, or they’d otherwise tried to flee. They hung out of windows, sprawled out across the cobblestones, or had been dropped as if from above over broken stalls. 

The utter stillness and silence were deafening, a force against his ears that told him all he needed to know. Death weighed heavy in the air around them, as if it would smother out even a gasp of life.

A griffin? Or perhaps a drake? No… There was almost no real damage to the city's structures, apart from where it appeared the bodies had been violently thrown. And despite the chaos of it all, there was shockingly little blood - whatever had assaulted them didn’t seem to try rending them asunder with tooth or claw. 

All except for her. The world spun every time he moved his head, but clarity bloomed around her. She was an absolute mess of claw and bite marks, as if whatever vicious maulings the creature had spared the townsfolk of, it had delivered all to her. More likely she’d put herself in its path, but the death that sprawled out around them suggested her failure, which seemed inconceivable to him. 

“Em…” Her voice was a stomach-hollowing rasp, weaker than he’d ever heard anything. Painfully sobering, he felt his insides twist with a nausea unlike any hangover. 

Shaking and feeble she lifted a hand towards his face, and he swiftly caught it in his - only to glimpse how red it was. The rain was washing it all away, but he could feel the blood caked under his nails. All thoughts stretched to a stand-still. All feelings bent towards a dawning horror.

Staring at her small hand in his he was suddenly stricken with the faint recognition: This has happened before. Oh, he remembered all-too-well the aftermath, but never the contents of that wretched black fog that filled the space before it. His former master and his beloved, torn to shreds and scattered about their campsite. 

For how long had he tried to make sense of it? And for how long now had he tried casting it all away? It had been the origin of all of his unhappiness, the black mark on his soul that left him no better than a broken tool. 

“Emrys…” Her voice called him back to this wretched moment in time where he could feel hot tears burning at the corners of his eyes. 

Her hair was loose, strewn around her head like a dark halo, smeared with blood. She wasn’t even wearing her armor, just a nightgown, looking for all the world like she must have rushed out of bed. Had they been sleeping when this had all begun? 

It was then he realized his own lack of clothing, just his smallclothes and… a lot of blood. Not only hers but his own as well; the slashes of a sword's blade criss-crossed his body, but he barely felt them now - they hardly mattered. Yet he could feel how weak each strike and slash had been; she’d tried to stop him, too reluctant to hurt him as much as he’d hurt her. Damn fool.

No, no. He couldn’t let his thoughts keep spiraling away like this, he had to… He had to? What could he hope to do?

“You’re back…” She smiled, or at least tried to. A hint of her usual light returned to her eyes, as he recognized now with another twist in his gut that what clouded them before had been fear. 

Those two words, sounding as though they flowed from a wellspring of relief, damned him. He may not have remembered anything, but he knew too much to deny the bloody truth staring right back at him.

“Stop.” His voice was a grainy croak, throat raw from what felt like days of screaming. “Don’t…” 

‘Stop talking, stop wasting your energy on me, stop looking at me like I’m worth a fragment of your affection. Don’t die, don’t die, please don’t die…’

His hands moved over her, scared to actually touch her but desperate to do something. To stop the bleeding, to pass over each wound and leave them without a hint of even a scratch. Damn him and his stubborn refusal to learn a single healing spell. 

Her head turned to the side and he stopped short as terror gripped him for a moment. But he could see her eyes searching the faces of the bodies around them, trying to make sense of what had happened, calculating the loss - the immensity of her failure. Biting his cheek he brought his hand to the side of her face, turning her gaze back towards him. 

“Hey, look at me, stay with me.” 

Tears were spilling down her cheeks, but still she kept trying to smile. 

“Hah… As if you could get rid of me.” Some pain deeper than her wounds seized her, and she wrenched her eyes shut and grit her teeth against a terrible, sobbing sound. “I’m really tired though, Em…” 

Let this be only a nightmare, let morning come and the rain wash all of this away.

Such hopes had gotten him little in life he reminded himself, and made his body move. 

“It’s okay,” he lied, “I’m going to take you home now.” 

There was no telling how far this devastation went, or if the guards would be patrolling the area around their home, but he could scarcely imagine such a catastrophe going unnoticed. The fact there were no weapons aimed at him right now spoke of a more unpleasant reality than he could allow himself to think on just yet. 

So he carefully picked Olivia up into his arms and put his feet beneath him. She made small, pained sounds as she was moved, but even now she was trying to muffle her suffering. 

He wanted to comfort her, to offer some small, futile words of consolation, but what could his liars tongue possibly offer with so much blood on his hands? Fear gripped him by the throat all the while, silencing his own voice. Instead he strained every sense to the sole purpose of listening to her breathing; it was slow and a little uneven, occasionally broken by a stifled sob or groan, but for a blessing never faltered.

The ambling walk home went by in a haze. The bodies never seemed to stop, familiar faces staring up at him from the ground where they lay, rain blurring their features. A guard laid sprawled on the steps up to the noble quarter, as if in answer to the question he didn’t want to ask. 

Within the familiar walls of her small estate the pattering of the rain against the roof and windows seemed almost peaceful. With the door shut behind him he could for just a moment close his eyes and believe it was another simple, stormy night. 

Only a moment though, before he hastened to their room and put her in their tousled bed. In a feverish blur he sought out potions, bandages, clean water and towels. He may not have been a chirurgeon but he’d been around long enough to know a thing or two about cleaning wounds, and that had to count for something. 

He took only enough time for himself to make sure he was effectively clean before tending to her, and abandoning his blood-stained skivvies for some simple trousers that had been laying on the floor. 

It was alarmingly easy to pull off the remaining tatters of her nightgown, but there came some relief to find most of her wounds looked more grave than they were. Only a few cut deep, and to his great relief none struck anywhere vital. The amount of blood loss from the sheer amount of cuts was the more concerning thing, but few of the injuries continued to bleed anymore. 

She was cold though, both from the rain and her loss of blood, and he took as much care drying her off and bundling her up as he had dressing her wounds. Then he quickly stoked the dwindled embers in the fireplace before returning to her side.

Throughout all of it she dozed off and on, murmuring and moaning, making sounds that tried and failed to be words. He shushed her gently and did his best to soothe her, but all the while his voice trembled as much as his hands.

When she finally fell into a less fitful slumber he remained hovering at her side to make sure her condition didn’t deteriorate, and constantly checking her over for any injury he might have missed. He pinned every thread of thought and awareness to her, less he started wandering the dark roads of pondering what had happened.

Yet one part he couldn’t wrap his mind around was the look of the wounds she bore. He’d traced his fingers alongside three long claw marks around the side of her waist that couldn’t have possibly come from his hands if he’d tried. But for some reason he couldn’t shake the sureness of his sin, the certainty that the smell of her blood had been a match to that which had been caked beneath his fingernails. 

In the end he could do nothing but wait for her to wake and give him the true account of things. He dreaded it far worse than he could remember dreading anything in his life before. Even more than he’d dreaded the thought of being called and commanded by another Arisen. Perhaps this was why. Perhaps he would always be a broken pawn who could only bring suffering to his master.

The minutes dragged into hours, and the rain eased to a soft drizzle as the sounds of thunder grew distant. Sitting at her side he clasped her hand in his, ‘to gauge her temperature’, he told himself, but he was too afraid to squeeze it tight or let it go.

Whatever other fears plagued him, he dreaded even more the idea that somewhere in the long hours of this night she might slip away from him to places he could never find her again.

“I’m sorry.” The words aching in his chest echoed in her voice. There was a clearness in her voice that relieved him, and looking at her it matched the focus in her eyes. Exhaustion yet clung to her features, but she was far from the confusion and stupor from earlier. 

His mouth moved but words failed him. What could he possibly say? Why was she apologizing to him? He wasn’t sure if that was just her being foolish, or delirious, or if there was something else he was forgetting. Though if he had to bet, the options were already ordered from most-to-least likely.

But before he could fathom up a response, or she could relieve him with even a single other word of explanation, Olivia’s eyes fluttered shut once more. Her breathing fell into an easy, familiar rhythm that ought to have soothed him, if not for the company of his wretched thoughts.

[ceilidho]

prompt: forced throuple au; Ghost decides that you and Johnny are his (part 3; ghoap x reader) part 1, part 2

-

“What is this anyway—‘bring your girlfriend to work’ day?”

She’s snarky as ever, but with an agitated edge. Nerves prickling when Johnny holds her jacket out for her to slip her arms into. Even that makes her snap—something about not being a toddler that Johnny needs to help dress, but by then his head is in the clouds. In another place altogether. 

The prospect of getting to parade his new girl around leaves him giddy, fox-like grin hard to squash. He doesn’t suppress anything, finds it hard to push things down. When he does, it’s often unconscious. 

She doesn’t like the way he savours her anxiety like a fine wine, sniffs it from the top of her head and groans out his breath, cackling when she tries to stomp on his foot to make him go away. He dances away with her coat, light and nimble on his feet because he’s used to ducking and weaving for her affection. 

“The guys wanna meet ye,” he repeats for the umpteenth time. It’s surprising how many times he’s had to say it. 

“Why? Haven’t they ever met a girl before?” she gripes, swallowing now, her stomach probably cramping and poor bonnie lass, Johnny thinks. His poor, pretty girl is trying to put on a brave face when he knows she prefers being in the backroom of her little flower shop, snipping off stalks and tying pretty bows around pretty bouquets. He wishes he could keep her back there forever—put a lock on the door and come only to smother her in kisses and gorge himself on every inch of her—but there’s a whole wide world demanding his attention. 

“Aye, hen, never a lass as cute and sweet as ye,” he crows, ducking a hand that punches through the sleeve of her jacket in his direction. 

In the car, he drops the facade. Loses his teasing edge. It’s a violent removal, like jolting awake to the sound of someone sawing away at a catalytic converter. If his smile is saccharine, it’s really only a smokescreen concealing the apprehension bubbling away in his belly. 

He drums his fingers on the steering wheel on the drive back to base. Heart in his throat, choking his words and rendering him quiet for once in his life. He hears Ghost’s voice in his head, a low rumbling laugh, tectonic plates shifting beneath his feet. These days, his voice acts as a lodestar, the thing steering Johnny home. 

Months ago, it was the only thing between him and annihilation, the ice cold maelstrom dragging him deeper into its maw. Guiding him through the valley of death. The wound in his arm still aches in the first light of day. His sleep is still wracked by dreams of running down alleys and ducking into houses, the rain pattering against the window panes ominous, a ticking clock, each step having to be precise, calculated, each movement quieter than quiet, fading into the shadows, a cool heart and mind bested by agony from the bulletwound in his shoulder.

And then—Ghost’s voice, low and soothing in his ear, shattering the pain. Ghost’s voice in his ear telling him where to go, how to survive. 

It’s hard to explain. Johnny’s tried. It’s like talking in circles when he opens his mouth and tries to get it out. I trust him with everything in me. He could do anything to me, anything. 

He is no less capable, no less competent. His rank demands respect, and he takes what’s due to him. Since Las Almas, he’s worked across a medley of other teams, even solo a time or two. It changes nothing. He still wakes in a sweat, chasing that voice. It takes him back into the real world. The days burn into the fringes of a memory that he is always living.

“Should I know anyone’s name before we get there?”

Her voice breaks through the noise in his head this time. It’s every bit as precious. 

“What d’ye mean, hen?” he asks, clucking his tongue. Sweats a bit when he realizes how far down the motorway they are now, how long it’s been since he checked out, lost in his thoughts. One hand rests loose on her leg, fingers spread wide and thumb gliding up and down her outer thigh, the other still holding the wheel. 

The pinched look has mostly fallen off from her face, but there’s still a tremble in her lower lip when she says, “Well, I don’t know any of your friends. I wouldn’t introduce you to my friends without telling you their names first.”

“No’ my friends, hen—we’re coworkers.”

She looks over at him from the corner of her eye. “I’m friends with my coworkers.”

Johnny shrugs. “It’s no’ the same with guys. Couldnae tell you fuck all about any of them except their names, to be honest.”

“Oh, don’t give me that—you’re not friends with a single one of them? No one?”

No hunger without resistance. His mouth goes bone dry. He’d be wise to learn that. 

He swallows. “Maybe a few.”

No transaction without accountability. Ghost saves his life and now Johnny has to pay that debt back tenfold. Sinking into the crease of Simon’s voice late at night, clutching it to his chest. Breathing it out. Maybe they are friends. 

He’s a bit show-offy at the base gates, dangling his ID card out the window pinched between two fingers. The civilian guard on duty just waves him on, scanning it only for the sake of the logs. His tires spin in the dirt when he guns it down the stretch of road leading into the base, windows still all the way down. Her hair whips around in the wind until she gathers it all up in her fist and shrieks at him to roll the windows up. 

Johnny enjoys showing off. That’s a core aspect of who he is, his charm. Braggadocious, confident in the way he looks, his physical prowess, his lot in life—so why would that change with his girl? He holds her close with an arm around her waist when he drags her through the rec centre, the building closest to where they parked. 

He gets lost in conversation for longer than expected. Pure gloating about the girl he’s managed to bag. Cooing in her ear when he feels her get a bit uneasy, still timid around the other guys despite having him at her side. He supposes that’s fair. She’s more comfortable around the women on base, a bit freer with her greeting and questions, but there’s still a pinch in her brow that never smooths all the way over.

It takes a while to find anyone that he knows. There are plenty of sergeants and corporals that he’s worked with before, familiar faces and names, but Johnny still glances around the room while they make light conversation with his girl, searching. Looking for something familiar, something that’ll reel him in, make him perk up like a dog catching a scent. 

They cross Gaz in a random hallway on the way to the comm centre, hardly recognizable at first with the darker stubble of his beard grown out. He must’ve just come back from wherever he’d been shipped off to the month previous, no time to shave or clean up. He even smells of old sweat when Johnny leans in for a hug. 

“Is this—?” Gaz glances over at her just once while the question dangles in the air. He looks back over at Johnny. 

They lock eyes. A silent exchange of meaning. 

“Aye,” Johnny nods, steering her in front of him with both hands on her shoulders, showing his girl off like a kid with a new toy. Eyes glinting like, don’t say a word. “Brought her in to meet everyone.”

A molasses slow smile spreads across Gaz’s face. It’s clear why men like him always get the girl. Johnny’s hands tighten on her shoulders. “Nice to meet you—thought John would hide you away forever.”

She glances up at him through her lashes. “You talked about me?”

Gaz shakes his head. “Not as much as you’d think. Took Ghost ages to get it out of him.”

Johnny flushes. “Did no’. Jus’ ‘cause I don’ blab about everything under the fuckin’ sun doesnae mean—”

“John says you’re a florist,” Gaz interrupts, turning the conversation back to her. Her lips split up into a mischievous little grin, delighted at the turnabout, probably delighted at seeing Johnny stumble over his words.

Something about her teasing grin gets his dick hard. More points to the rapidly disintegrating belief that he doesn’t have a humiliation kink. He leans forward, pressing it into her ass, delighted himself when she shoots him a dirty look over her shoulder but doesn’t pull away. 

“So, where’s everybody?” Johnny asks casually, trying not to make it too obvious who he’s referring to. The look Gaz gives him is unimpressed. He keeps running into that brick wall, his thoughts written out on his forehead, obvious to everyone around him. 

“Everyone?” Gaz repeats sceptically. 

“Aye.” His voice is tight, warning. “Everyone.”

“Ghost’s actually on his way here now, I think. We got called over to HQ—s’where I was headed, actually.”

“I dinnae say anything about Ghost, now did I—,” Johnny grumbles, but the words dissolve in his mouth when the man in question comes into the room. 

Sometimes, Johnny has the pleasure of seeing Ghost round a corner. The split second pleasure of being the observer, of dragging his eyes up and over, his chest bursting with a light like dawn cresting behind mountains and splitting the sky. In the field, he’s often deprived of that; becomes used to experiencing the phenomenon of Ghost melting out of the shadows, sometimes scaring the daylights out of him. 

It’s what happens now though. Glancing up on a whim only to see a man round the corner of the hallway leading out of the rec centre, shirt stretched out maddeningly over his arms and chest, muscles bulging like he just came from the gym, still pumped. The shirt’s a little threadbare, something old and worn, and Johnny’s seen it a million and a half times he figures; it leaves so little to the imagination that he’s joked about Ghost busting it at the seams from time to time, only to be met with a steady, aloof stare. 

There’s something to be said about how he’s drawn to people who refuse to scratch him behind the ears until he’s more than proven himself. He works tirelessly for Ghost’s approval, for his girl’s approval. Dogs with their bones, tigers with their stripes. 

He has a balaclava pulled over his face, just a simple black one this time, the underside of his eyes darkened by eyeblack hastily scrubbed off the night before, probably. His eyes scan the crowd, locking on Johnny and Gaz almost instantly. It’s the mark of a good soldier—he doesn’t flounder in the dark. Always finds his target, like a sixth sense for knowing when he’s being watched. 

Ghost course-corrects upon noticing them, crossing the room in a handful of seconds. The curt, “Johnny,” he gets is a bounty, a treasure. He grins back when Ghost glances down at the girl at his side. “That your bird?” 

“Told ye I’d bring her in—s’long as everyone’s on their best behaviour, of course.”

Gaz snorts. “Good luck with that.”

Ghost must cock an eyebrow because he can see the fabric of his mask shift. “Pretty.”

He can’t help the way he preens at that. Tucked away by his side again, Johnny can feel his girl squirm, but he pays it no mind. She’s shy—he’s known that from day one, from the first time she stumbled out from the back of the flower shop and scrunched her nose up at his attempts at flirting. 

Admiration is a smooth, buttery feeling. It keeps him aloft while another couple of servicemen take interest in their conversation and come over, Johnny’s girl at the centre of everyone’s attention. He’d be pricklier about it if he didn’t have a firm hand on her waist, keeping her pressed to his side. 

He soaks up the attention. Drinks it up when someone asks his girl a question and Johnny answers for her or pinches her cheek when she manages to pipe up before him. He knows he’ll get read the riot act when he takes her back home later, but he might be able to convince her to ride him while berating him for talking over her. Might beg her to slap him and spit in his mouth—say it’s the only way he’ll learn his lesson.

Dirty dog.

It strikes him that maybe he’s picked up some bad habits in recent months. He’s never been one to overthink, to worry and fret. Yet, he toils in it now, shovels coals into the furnace of it and gives it life. 

His shoulders go slack, the tension finally ebbing out of him. No longer dogged by the incessant fear that his girl is going to run away, bolt at the first loud noise, or that someone’s going to pluck her up out of his arms. She seems comfortable if anything. 

He’s been overthinking all of this, wrapped up in his head. He can breathe out, unclench. 

When Ghost shifts to stand closer to them, he glances over because that’s where his gaze always goes these days. Seeking Ghost out, finding him in a crowd; looking for his North Star wherever he is, wherever he goes. 

Only to watch in mute horror as, in plain sight, not trying to be discreet or hide it from anyone, Ghost gropes his girlfriend’s ass in front of everyone on base. Just reaches out a big hand and fondles her ass, digging his fingers into the cheek. She freezes, back ramrod straight as she stares ahead, eyes going a bit blank. 

He fails whatever test this is, mouth too dry for any words to come out. Humiliation burns him from the inside out. Another sergeant that he’s worked with before frowns, glancing over at Johnny. Neither of them say a word. 

Ghost tilts his head, staring down at his hand on her ass like he’s contemplating its plushness. Admiring it. With how Johnny stands on one side and Ghost the other, the two of them bracket her, like the soft centre of their trio; nowhere for her to go, a handler on either side. That’s wrong though. Ghost is not her handler—Johnny hardly is, more of a self-appointed one. 

Still he—

He lets it happen.

Contention dies a bloody death in his mouth, massacred. Mangled. He lets Ghost sink his fingers into his girlfriend’s backside and hum a little under his breath before finally pulling his hand away. The others look at him, waiting for Johnny’s reaction with bated breath. A reaction that never comes because it gets strangled in Johnny’s throat. 

“Nice meeting the bird,” Ghost finally says, voice a decibel lower, rough enough to scrape. “Gaz and I’ve got shit to do now. Be ready on the tarmac by oh-seven-hundred tomorrow, Johnny.” 

He grips Johnny by the shoulder before heading off, like he didn’t just grope Johnny’s girlfriend. Like he didn’t just reach down and grab a handful of her ass like it was his to feel up. And Johnny just nods. A placid, docile thing under Ghost’s hand, bobbing his head like a doll. 

Then Ghost leaves, Gaz trailing after him, looking back about a half dozen times to see if Johnny will suddenly follow them until he’s forced to job to catch up to Ghost, the man already yards away, longer legs carrying him fast out of the building. 

They don’t talk on the drive back to her apartment, the inside of the car tense and uncertain. Johnny walks her to the door when he lets her off, but it’s a formality, a chaste kiss at the door instead of the rough fuck that he’d envisioned to send her off. Despite the hard set of her jaw, she doesn’t lambast him like Johnny expected. The silence is worse though, haunting when she shuts the door in his face. 

The drive back to base after the drop off is agonizing in a whole new way. Still pent up, cock heavy in his pants, and fingers drumming over the steering wheel twice as fast now. What do I do, what do I do, what do I do? What he wants to do is turn around at the closest gap between both sides of the motorway and speed all the way back, knock on her door until his knuckles blister and bleed, until she opens the door and lets him in, lets Johnny push her to the floor in the entryway and spread her legs, welcoming him in. 

Until she lets him fit his fingers into the marks left behind by Ghost’s hand. 

Cold fire rising up off his bones, and then something hot. And wet. 

The next day at breakfast in the mess, one of the guys says something like, “If Ghost was into my girl, that’s the last you’d see of me and her,” and his mind goes blank and he goes over the table.

[starcrossed-lov3rz]

The Vow Spoken Through Time - Part 8

Daemon x Rhaenyra x Wife!Reader

Series: Series Masterlist

Warnings: MDNI, canon-typical violence, threats, yelling, plot

Tags: marriage, poly relationship, Daemon being hopelessly in love with his wives, Queen!Rhaenyra

Words: 1.8K

Description: Y/N is having a rough morning. She's fired. She's hungover. She's in a stranger's bed. She's waking up in a new world? She's married?!

Rhaenyra and Daemon's day started normal. Waking up next to their darling wife before tending to their duties. The difference? Their wife is speaking in riddles and has no memories of them.

Check out more works in my Masterlist!

“Feet together, shoulders back, strong core, and breathe.” Your eyes are closed, finding a moment of peace as you lead your sons through your morning yoga routine.

“This is supposed to be a challenge?”

“That doesn’t sound like breathing Luke,” you laugh, opening your eyes to see the bored look on Luke and Joffrey’s faces. Jace, to his credit, was trying to concentrate. “Inhale as you reach to the sky,” you say as you bring your arms up, “and exhale as you go down.” Exhaling, you fold your body down, hands touching the floor. You lead them through a sun salutation before indulging them in some more complicated poses and sequences.

“Our next pose is Crow, just remember to breathe and find your center.” You demonstrate before walking them through the steps. Yoga was one of the few things about your old life that you refused to give up. Even if you weren’t the most active person before waking up here, yoga and meditation were a huge part of your daily routine. Within a week of being here, you found yourself slipping out of bed early to find a quiet balcony.

The boys had stumbled across your morning flow today, and insisted on giving it a try. It was rare that you shared pieces of your past life with anyone, but their enthusiasm was infectious.

“Ah-” Joffrey lost his balance, falling to the ground in a fit of giggles. 

“So close sweet boy,” you laugh. “Try it again, you almost had it-”

“Mom look, I’m doing it!” 

You gasp, “Luke, that’s it! Hold it, and bre-”

“Breathe! I know!” Luke’s arms are shaking with the effort to keep the position, but you’re impressed he managed to get it on the first try.

Jace leans over and nudges Luke. Luke topples over with a yelp. “Mom, Jace pushed me!”

You struggle to keep from laughing at the petty squabble. It felt so normal and domestic to see them arguing like siblings back home. “Jace, apologize to your brother.” 

Jace grins, “Sorry Luke. Maybe next time if you breathe better you might not fall.”

Joffrey stumbles over to drop into your lap. You stand, propping him on your hip. “On that note my loves, I will be taking Joffrey to the nursery.” You kiss Jace and Luke on the forehead. “You two go freshen up, I will see you both for breakfast.”

They both give you a hug before disappearing. You turn to leave the balcony and nearly run into someone. “That was quite the sight, issa jorrāelagon,” Rhaenyra says, holding out her hands to steady you and Joffrey. [my love]

“Issa Dāria,” you greet her with a kiss. “Were you spying on us?” [My Queen]

“Me, a spy? Never.” Nyra laughs. “I have people for that.” She ruffles Joffrey’s hair before offering her your arm. You slide your free hand into the crook of her elbow, careful to make sure you had a good grip on Joffrey. “Daemon and I are both aware of your little morning ritual.”

“Oh?”

“How do you think no servants disturb you?” Rhaenyra teases. “Daemon and I take turns watching from the stairwell and keeping the staff away.”

Your cheeks heat up in embarrassment. “How long have you both known?”

“Since the first time.” 

“Maybe next time you can join,” you say, bumping your shoulder into Nyra’s gently.

“And forfeit the opportunity to watch your as-”

“Child present!” you hiss, interrupting your wife. Nyra laughs, shaking her head. You both walk the rest of the way to the nursery in silence, listening to Joffrey recount his brave efforts to master the Crow Pose. You drop him at the nursery, asking the maids to help him freshen up while you and Rhaenyra check in on little Aegon and Viserys.

“My queen,” you both stand up as a knight rushes into the room with a bow. “My queen, there is something that requires your immediate attention.”

“Whatever is the matter that it cannot wait until the small council meeting?” Rhaenyra asked. 

“There is a woman demanding an audience.”

“I am holding court later today, she can seek an audience then.”

“She claims knowledge of Lady Y/N’s illness.” 

Your gaze snaps to Rhaenyra and you lock eyes. There is a silent understanding before Nyra answers. “Bring her to the small council chambers and send for Daemon.”

You ask the maids to inform the boys of your absence at breakfast and follow Nyra to the small council chambers. “Do you think she really has an answer?”

“I do not wish to raise any of our hopes,” Rhaenyra sighed. 

Nyra stands by the windows, arms crossed as she waits. You pace the chambers. This was highly unusual. Maesters had come from all corners of the realm to offer their ‘wisdom’ and ‘cures’ for your ailment. This was certainly the first time that someone had showed up to demand an audience with the queen herself. The smallfolk and nobles were not privy to your condition. The maesters were summoned under vague direction and sworn to secrecy.

“Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen, First of Her Name, Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lady of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm.” 

Rhaenyra’s kingsguard stand at attention as the doors open to reveal a woman dressed in white, led by Nyra’s knights. You furrow your brows, unable to get a good glimpse of the woman through her cloak. The woman bows deeply to Rhaenyra, then to you. “Your highness. Lady Y/n.”

“And who might you be?” Rhaenyra asks, suspicion lacing her voice.

The woman nods, pulling back the hood of her cloak to reveal a curtain of white hair and cloudy white eyes. She looked young, but there was something about her that felt ancient. “I am no one.” She responds. “I carry a message from the gods.”

Rhaenyra scoffs, “you must be joking. You enter my keep, demand an audience, refuse to identify yourself, and claim to be a messenger of the gods?”

“You need not my name, only hear my words.”

“Which gods bade you come here?”

“The same gods you swore your marital oaths before.” Despite her cloudy eyes, the woman seemed to stare into Nyra. 

“What message do you bring? What do you know of my illness?” You ask, desperate for an answer.

“The worlds-walker speaks?” she grins. 

“Y/n,” Nyra warns. 

“Just tell me your message.”

“Your answers lie in the godswood.” The woman reaches into her pocket, and the knights immediately reach for their swords. Rhaenyra raises her hand, silently ordering them to hold. The woman pulls a necklace from her pocket. 

“Where did you get that?” you ask, voice shaking. “That’s the necklace my gra-”

“Your grandmother gave you on your fifteenth name day,” the woman finishes. She steps forward, placing the chain in your hand, clasping her hands over yours. “You must return to your world, worlds-walker.”

“Watch your words witch,” Nyra says coldly, stepping between you and the woman.

“How do you know of my world?” You ignore Rhaenyra, stepping away to face the woman.

“We are all pieces of ourselves.”

“What does that even mean?” 

“Words alone will not satisfy you. Go to the godswood, worlds-walker.” 

The doors to the small council chambers fling open as Daemon storms in. The woman in white grins. “The dragons circle today.”

“They will do more than circle if you do not explain yourself,” Rhaenyra growls. “Stop speaking in riddles and tell us what awaits us in the godswood.”

“Answers.”

“Daemon.” Rhaenyra doesn’t have to say more than his name before Daemon holds a sword to the woman in white’s throat. “What is in the godswood.”

“Wait!” you put your hand over Daemon’s, trying to pull the sword from the woman’s throat. “What are you doing, she knows what happened to me.”

“The witch speaks in riddles and lies,” Rhaenyra hisses. “Worlds-walkers are a story for children.”

“And dragons are no more than a fairy tale in my world.” You plead. “Please, how did I get here? What is a worlds-walker?”

“Go to the godswood.” The woman in white closes her eyes and pulls her hood up. Everyone in the room gasps as the cloak hits the ground, empty. The woman in white had disappeared, leaving only her cloak behind.

Rhaenyra sighs, “first maesters, and now we are so desperate as to listen to the words of witches?”

“Search the castle for the witch,” Daemon orders the knights.

“My love, I am so sorry for giving you false hope,” Rhaenyra apologizes, pulling you into a side hug. 

You shrug off her hug. “Where is the godswood?”

Rhaenyra and Daemon exchange a glance. “You are not seriously listening to the ramblings of a mad witch?”

“Either take me to the godswood, or I will find it myself.” You clench your necklace tightly. “You still do not believe me? Rhaenyra, she knew who I was, who I really am.”

“You are not a worlds-walker, Y/n!” You flinch slightly as Rhaenyra raises her voice. Her eyes are wide, “My love, I-” Rhaenyra reaches out to grab your hand, but you pull away. She sighs, rubbing her temples. “If it will help us forget this morning, we will visit the godswood.”

“Lead the way.”

Daemon and Rhaenyra walk in front of you in utter silence. Two kingsguard follow the three of you from a distance. Daemon leads the way as you walk through unfamiliar corridors to a garden. The trees sway lightly in the wind, their red leaves dancing.

“This is it?” you ask. “This is the godswood?”

Rhaenyra nods, “we will take you to the heart tree and back. If you do not find your answers here, we will never speak of this again.”

You follow them into the trees. It is eerily quiet in the godswood. The wind makes no noise as it moves through the leaves and branches. No noise of birds chirping or singing. You shiver, hugging your arms to your body to chase away the chill. “Daemon, can I have your cloak?” You look up to see that Daemon and Nyra are gone.

“Daemon?!” You yell. “Rhaenyra?!” There is no response. You turn behind you. The kingsguard are gone as well. “This isn’t funny!”

The hair on your neck stands up, and you whip around to see the woman in white.

“Welcome worlds-walker.”

NOTE: Hey gang! Guess who is finally getting some plot (ya'll). Sorry for the late chapter, I had a Pride parade on Sunday. Please enjoy the SHAMELESS fluff and slice of life before I give you all a very stereotypical vague witch to facilitate the plot. Also, there are some ppl who I can’t tag, so if you’re listed on the tag list and not receiving notifications, please check that your settings are on “allow this blog to appear in search results” or message me if I messed up the spelling! ~ Lacie <3

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[zorosdimples]

BETWEEN YOU AND ME (AND THE SEA)

pairing ༄ zoro x gn!reader

warnings ༄ suggestive content (this takes place after sex). slight angst that ends in sweet comfort. brief descriptions of violence and wounds. love as religion/love as worship.

word count ༄ 911

notes ༄ this fic is just an insanely intense pillow talk session with my favorite man (i don’t know how to be normal). it’s brimming with love. please enjoy!

p.s. i use the word “bokken” to denote a wooden practice sword.

“i would die for you.”

your breath caresses zoro’s heaving chest, his tawny skin damp, glistening under the moon’s pearly glow. the air is still in the crow’s nest; the only sound to disturb the lulling midnight is the gentle lap of the wine-dark sea.

it takes the swordsman several moments to process your words, his mind still hazy from the events of your shared watch. one wide palm rests on the soft curve of your lower back while he absentmindedly strokes the arch of your neck.

“hm?” zoro belatedly rumbles, brows knit in confusion.

you raise your head to meet your lover’s steel gaze. the look in your eye—zoro knows it well. beneath the heady cloud of contentment is the crazed glint of worship, shining like a honed blade. it’s a look that both terrifies him in its depth and comforts him in its earnestness.

will he ever be worthy of your devotion?

“i’m not particularly brave or strong,” you start, a fingertip etching love into his flesh as you trace the jagged edges of the scar that slashes across his torso—the ghost of an injury that almost took him from you.

“but i would do anything for you, zo. i would die for you. and it should scare me, that i feel so deeply.” your finger stills, hovering above his heart, beat steadfast as the foamy tide. “but when it comes to you? i lose all my inhibitions. i would die for you in an instant.”

even in the dusky quiet, zoro’s hands are broad and warm as the sun. they are an extension of his weapons, instruments of death. yet he cradles your cheeks with devastating care as he pulls your face to his own. his jaw flexes resolutely as he grits out, “don’t say shit like that.”

“not saying it doesn’t make it any less true,” you murmur.

few things scare the swordsman; he knows death’s face, having brushed shoulders with the endless ether more times than he can count. when he dreams, he wades through a river of ichor as asura, violence incarnate.

but your vulnerability frightens him—how you lay your heart bare and expect nothing in return.

the way you live goes against everything zoro has ever known, against his basest instincts to keep his emotions close to his chest, to fight the burden of existence with blood in his maw, to survive at any cost.

(it’s a bitter january evening and snow flurries paint the eaves of the dojo white. zoro’s stomach growls, hunger gnawing at his intestines. his young, scrawny limbs ache with overuse. the room is frigid; his simple robe is not nearly enough to keep the color in his cheeks.

this dreaded overnight practice is punishment for pilfering onigiri from the kitchen several days prior. hunger is but a distraction for the weak. he must repent with grueling drills. but in the middle of an overhead swing, he loses feeling in his arms, the bokken clattering to his feet.

his sensei tsks in disappointment. “the way of the sword is absolute, roronoa. you eat and sleep and breathe by the blade. the second you lose focus—the moment you lose sight of what is important—you will cease to be a swordsman.”

tears of frustration prick the young boy’s eyes, but he holds his tongue, picking up the bokken without sound or complaint. he doesn’t realize that his palms are cracked and that the wooden hilt is stained sanguine. he continues training until dawn.)

zoro licks his chapped lips. his tongue is always loose when it’s just the two of you and the sea. “i’m not worth it.”

a frown pinches your features. adorable, he wants to say as you wrap your arms around his neck with a huff.

“what makes you think your life is worth any less than luffy’s? than chopper’s? than mine?”

zoro assesses you for a moment, feline eye unreadable. he measures his words with unusual care. “my role is to protect. it was—it is—my vow to luffy.”

threading your fingers through his mint tresses, you tug, concern rolling off of you in waves. “then who’s left to protect you, zo?”

his mind answers without hesitation: no one. (the little boy with the bloodstained bokken weeps.)

“let me protect you,” you entreat, lips brushing his, ardent as a prayer.

the fates, in their divine and impartial wisdom, must have made a grave mistake: spinning the claret thread of your fate, meting it out, and mistakenly intertwining it with the swordsman’s. zoro is certain that it’s a miscarriage of justice—not that the gods have ever been preoccupied with fairness.

did he do something in a past life to deserve your reverence?

“i can’t,” he breathes. but his iron resolve is rusting, fissures compromising the once-gleaming surface.

“you can.”

zoro has never considered himself to be a good man. you are eager to give, and he wants nothing more than to receive. he drinks in your affection so greedily that he doesn’t notice how his lone eye burns when he claims your lips with his own, heartfelt i love yous exchanged between spit and tongue.

the tears are silent as they drip down his freckled cheek; you swipe each of them away with a thumb before dotting kisses across his salty flesh. zoro has half a mind to be embarrassed—swordsmen don’t cry.

but if there is one absolute truth in this cursed world, it’s this: his heart is safe with you and you alone.

[ryescapades]

love your new theme! im gonna be brave and request for a kaiser drabble. something like brother's best friend trope with him. all fluffy and cosy!

a secret third thing, maybe.

characters: michael kaiser (blue lock) x ness's sibling gn!reader genre/warning: fluff, slight manga spoilers, intended lowercase, not sure if i characterize them correctly here so might be ooc (i'm still reevaluating per se lmao), not proofread we die like real men rrahh a/n: didn't mean for it to get this long but i hope it is to your liking T.T i'm trying my best to get out of my writing slump so this is actually a good practice for me and thank you for requesting! <3

"you're late."

ness, only just arriving at the cafe a few seconds ago, pouts at your narrowed eyes. "i know, i know, sorry. but in my defense, i've never been to this town so it took a while to get here."

you sigh once again. "well, now that you're finally here, we should order something. i'm starving," you say, about to fully step out of your booth when a voice has you halting in your steps, making you nearly stumble from your foot catching against the leg of the table.

"ness, there you are." rich, velvety and familiar. too familiar.

ignoring the skip in your heart beat, you turn towards the owner of the voice, your eyes clashing with a pair of blues lined with vivid red.

"oh, isn't this such a nice surprise? ness didn't mention anything about meeting any of his dear family member." kaiser drawls, a smirk growing on his face.

the slight jab has both you and your brother scrunching your eyebrows. of course, kaiser knows about how in your family, you're the closest to ness. you never disparaged your brother just because he decided to pursue a different career path from everyone else. whatever he does, he's still your beloved brother.

you sharply swivel to the redhead, "why is he here?" you hiss. ness only blinks a few times before giving you a toothy grin. "why not? the more the merrier, right?" he chirps, apparently fine as he brushes off kaiser's earlier comment.

the aforementioned man only grins wider. "now, now. what's so wrong with me being here, hm?" he says, a knowing glint in his eyes as he makes eye contact with you.

and of course, he knows about your silly little crush on him too.

he's not dumb, after all. every time the two of you were in each other's presence, you just seem like you can't get it together; red cheeks, ears flushed and voice slightly trembling. it doesn't help that kaiser even uses those to his advantage by teasing you every chance he gets. not to mention his time away at that blue lock project never ceases your admiration for him any less. if anything, it just grows and you don't even know why and how.

"i-i didn't say—!" you sputter, looking away as heat crawls up your neck at his gaze. ness, seemingly oblivious to the dynamic between you and his teammate (or maybe he just doesn't care. you never know when it comes to your brother), adds in, "hey, how about i go order for us? i'll get all the tasty stuff, i promise!" he exclaims before running off to the counter.

you only stare at your brother's back with a faltering reaction, looking like a deer caught in headlights as you're now left alone with your... uh- crush...

kaiser whistles slightly as he takes a seat in front of you. "and there he goes. good ol' ness, huh?" he muses. you only hum as a response, now awkwardly drumming your fingers on the table.

"so... how have you been doing?" he starts, placing an elbow on the table with a cheek resting on his fist as the longer strands of blue hair flows down his shoulder smoothly.

you try hard not to stare.

taking a second too long to reply, you don't even look at him in the eye. not like you can, anyway. not without embarrassing yourself any further. "um, doing fine. i guess."

the next few seconds after that are filled with silence. perhaps there's even a crow flying by.

and then kaiser laughs— wait, why is he laughing? what's so funny about this? you're just here sitting and (barely) talking to your crush and he's laughing?!

"are you still shy, y/n? i'm pretty sure we've met plenty of times before. certainly by now you've gotten used to talking to me already." he remarks, a teasing lilt accentuating his tone.

trying to fight off the urge to fidget with yourself, you huff, "i'm not." the athlete in front of you raises a perfectly shaped brow. "you're not what? not shy or not used to talking to me?"

at that, your face frowns as you realize that once again, you're barely making any coherent replies so you let out a frustrated groan with your face hidden in your hands, "ugh, cut me some slack. you know why i'm like this." at this point you don't bother feeling embarrassed about your infatuation anymore. you’re way past being secretive.

this time though, kaiser is the one that takes a second too long to answer. and when he does, it's a low murmur of, "have i ever told you how adorable you are, mein liebling?"

he has. many times. over and over.

oh sweet lord. you could only pray you've got the mental (and cardiac) capacity to survive the whole day.

©🅁🅈🄴🅂🄲🄰🄿🄰🄳🄴🅂. do not steal, translate or repost my work anywhere else !

[leedosbunnyboy]

Kyojuro Rengoku; The Fire Kindling in My Heart

Genre: Fluff, Implied Smut

Pairing: Kyojuro Rengoku x Male Reader

Warning(s): Very narrative-driven, Slight feminization (Reader is referred to as a wife), Kyojuro and Reader bathe together, Implied bath s3x

Summary: Living with the love of your life can do a number on you, especially when you live every day wondering if he’ll even come back alive

Part II

*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*

Ten years…

Ten years since you’ve first started living with the flame hashira’s family.

Kyojuro Rengoku, the flame hashira, was your best friend since you were kids. So whenever your parents were killed by a demon, it was only natural he’d invite you to live with his family.

You were eternally grateful for his kindness and did everything anything necessary to attempt to repay his kindness; however, Kyojuro never once asked anything of you, simply saying you being alive and within his presence was more than enough. Even now, Kyojuro was twenty and you were nineteen, he was still as caring as ever. Always bringing you gifts from his many missions.

•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•

You knew you liked the slayer. Hell, you’ve known since you were twelve. That was when Kyojuro held you as you cried on the second anniversary of your parents’ death. You wailed, you screamed, you looked a mess, all covered in snot and struggling to breathe, but Kyojuro never once judged you. He simply continued to hold you and you let you cry into his shoulder, whispering sweet words into your ear when you calmed enough to no longer be shaking. That’s when you knew, your heart belonged to him.

*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•

You weren’t any good with swords, hence why you never chose to pursue the path of a demon slayer. Kyojuro tried his best to teach you, but you simply couldn’t figure it out. Instead, you decided to learn medicine. If you couldn’t help Kyojuro on the battlefield, you could at least help him in the aftermath. While Kyojuro spent his days training to pass Final Selection, you would learn how to blend herbs and roots from the kind old doctor up the mountain. Returning home at night to prepare dinner for Kyojuro and his younger brother, Senjuro, as well as to clean out any scrapes the older might have received during his training. You would run a bath for the swordsman and massage his tense shoulders until he began to doze off. Afterwards, you would tuck in Senjuro for the night, making sure to read him his favorite stories. The younger always asking if he could grow up to be as brave as the heroes in his stories, and you always reassuring him that he would be even braver. You would then head to Kyojuro’s room and fall asleep in the slayer’s arms.

A warm feeling would arise in your chest every night. You loved this routine.

•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*

When Kyojuro was promoted to a hashira, you couldn’t really bring yourself to be happy. First off, his missions almost always had him away from home, so now that he was an even higher rank, you knew there was almost no way he’d be home for a while. And second of all, he’s almost died multiple times, and now that he was a hashira, you knew you would have to get used to it. Every time you had to wipe his blood off his skin, every time you had to stitch a gaping cut, it pained you. You constantly worried for him, and now to know the man you cared for so deeply could die any day now, did nothing to ease your constant fear. But he assured you, “I’m very strong (M/n)! It is my duty to protect the weak. Of what use would my years of training be if i never used it to protect the weak?” God, he reminded you so much of his mother.

*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•

By some miracle, Kyojuro had some time off. A week off specifically. A week of not having to worry about if he’d be killed on the battlefield, a week of not having to hold your breath each time a crow came to your residence out of fear of hearing of his death, just a week of relaxing with Kyojuro by your side.

However, fate had other ideas.

In the middle of his break, he was called via crow to report to his master’s residence. Lord Ubayashiki if you recall correctly. You’ve never met the man but you’ve heard great things.

•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*

“Must you really go? I’m sure you can simply tell him all he needs to know in a letter.” You now stood at the entrance to the Rengoku estate. Barely catching up to the flame hashira on his way out:

“I wish it was that easy (M/n), but if the master requires my presence it must be important.” He held your hands, his fingers brushing over your knuckles in an attempt to calm your growing worry. “Hey, I fortunately still have 3 more days of my break, remember? When I return, I promise I won’t leave your side until my rest is over.” He flashed you that god-forsaken smile of his. The smile that calmed you down and had your heart beating faster than the speed of a shinobi.

“When you return, please hold me?” You looked up at the man, silently swearing him to hold up his end of the promise with just your eyes.

“I swear on my honor, (M/n).” And with that, he was on his way.

You watched until you could no longer see his bright hair over the tree line, before returning back to sit at the engawa, distracting yourself by counting the stars.

“You really love my brother, don’t you?” Asked a small voice.

“Is it really that obvious?” You chuckled, brushing a loose strand of hair out of your face.

“Of course it is. Your face lights up every time you’re with him.” Senjuro comments as he moves to sit next to you.

“Then why doesn’t he say anything?” You asked, tears beginning to well in your eyes. “I doubt he’ll ever feel the same. He needs a strong hashira woman to marry, not a lowly pharmacist like me who can’t even wield a sword properly.” You wiped some stray tears away with the sleeve of your kimono. It was blue and had coi fish and lily pads as the design. Kyojuro bought it for you. He said you’d look pretty in it.

“You shouldn’t be so harsh on yourself (M/n),” Senjuro rested his hand on your shoulder, “I know my brother cares deeply for you. Why else would he invite you to live with us?”

“Because your brother is an honorable man who pities the weak. It was for no other reason than helping a pitiful boy who couldn’t even help his parents.” You clenched your hands into a fist as to not cry.

“Don’t say such things about yourself.” Senjuro shifted to rub your back. For such a young boy, Senjuro was very was mature for his age. I guess having to raise yourself due to having a drunkard as a father does that to a kid. “You know, Kyojuro told me he joined the slayers corp because of you.”

You turned towards the younger boy, surprise etched into every corner of your face.

“When he saw you that night ten years ago. Alone, all at the hands of a demon, he promised to not allow that to happen to anyone again. He said he made two promises that night; to kill all demons and to never let you be alone again.” Senjuro recounted, his smile brightening upon feeling your back relax.

“He truly cares for you (M/n). When he returns, please consider telling him about your feelings. I promise he won’t hate you, no- he can’t ever hate you.” Senjuro smiled at you.

“I will.” You wipe the remainder of the tears off your face. “Now, let’s get you back to bed, yeah?”

*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•

Kyojuro returned by sunrise. Ubayashiki simply wanted to inform him of his next mission after his break.

He slowly crept into his home, peeping into his father’s room to see him sound asleep. Most likely due to alcohol rather than exhaustion, but at least he isn’t yelling at Senjuro, or god forbid, (M/n).

He then made his way to his room, but not before peeking into Senjuro’s room. His heart swelled at the sight of you resting with Senjuro in your hold, his head resting in the crook of your neck. A half-read story in your hands.

“Poor things. You both must’ve been very tired.” Kyojuro whispered as he moved to wrap you both in a blanket. You reached out a hand to grip his. “Oh, it’s you.” You stated, half-asleep. “I’m sorry (M/n). I didn’t mean to wake you.” He softly smiled. “No, it’s fine. I was about to awake anyways. Let me just lay Senjuro down and I’ll make us some breakfast alright?” You shifted to rest the younger Rengoku on his futon before tucking him in with a blanket. “Sounds good to me.” The flame hashira smiled as you dragged him out of his room and into the kitchen.

“Are you in the mood for anything specific?” You asked as you wrapped an apron around your waist. “Some miso soup would be amazing!” He stated. “With sweet potatoes i assume?” You smiled back to him. “You know me so well.” The flame hashira chuckled heartily. “Well of course I would know what my best friend likes.” Not to mention how i’m crazy in love with you you thought.

Just before you could finish the meal, a very annoyed and very hungover Shinjuro came barging into the kitchen. His eyes glanced over to Kyojuro before a look of disgust overtook his face.

“Sir Shinjuro. Would you like some miso soup as well?” You offered. Mostly to break the uncomfortable silence which had overtaken the area.

“Sure, sure, whatever.” Kyojuro’s father had never particularly hated you, in fact, the flame hashira might even go as far as to say his father liked you. Well, he’s never shown it, but he’s also never yelled at you, and according to Kyojuro those are the same things.

You smiled towards the retired hashira before preparing three bowls of soup, as well as an extra for when Senjuro decided to wake up. Normally Shinjuro would have him up at this hour but you decided to let him sleep in just a bit longer. You brought over the bowls and set them in front of the two men before taking your seat beside Kyojuro, apron still wrapped around your waist.

“Is it good?” You asked Kyojuro. “Of course it is! Everything you make is delicious (M/n)!” The flame hashira would say before wolfing down the entire bowl. “Tasty!” You chuckled at his antics. “Shall i get you some more?” He nodded and you arose to pour him some more.

“He has two arms and two legs (M/n). I’m pretty sure he can pour his own soup.” Shinjuro would remark as you stood. “It’s completely fine. I have no issue with it.” You stated once you returned with Kyojuro’s bowl. “He is a hashira. It won’t kill him to get up every once in a while. He doesn’t need you to be waiting on him hand and foot-“ “That’s enough father.” Kyojuro interrupted. “I would never ask something of (M/n) if it were to hinder him. Now please let us eat in peace.” Shinjuro tsked before continuing to eat. “Say, Kyojuro. Why don’t you get that wife of yours to go wake up Senjuro. He has to start training soon.” A blush found its way to both your and Kyojuro’s faces at the comment. “I-I’ll go get Senjuro.” You quickly stood and scurried to the younger’s room. “I can run you a bath if you’d like Kyojuro?” You offered before you fully exited the kitchen. “That would be lovely (M/n), *cough* thank you.” He stated, face still red and clearly flustered.

•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*

“Thank you (M/n). This is wonderful.” Kyojuro said as he sunk into the warm water. “It’s no problem at all Kyojuro.” You smiled at him and began to work on massaging his tense muscles.

“About what my father said, I apologize if it made you uncomfortable.” The flame hashira said as he relaxed into your touch. “It’s completely fine.” You contemplated on whether or not to say what was on your mind. “I actually kind of liked it.” You whispered, but Kyojuro heard you.

“Oh?” He leaned his head back to make eye contact with you. “Would you enjoy being my wife? Would you like to wait here for me on my missions and then when I’d return, I’d hold you and whisper sweet things into your ear?” Kyojuro teased. His smiled widened as he saw your ears begin to turn red. “Well, I already kind of do that.” You said, attempting to distract yourself by working on kneading the older’s tense muscles.

“(M/n)…” Kyojuro called. “Hmm?” You cautiously looked up at him. “Could you please join me?” You swear you could feel your face turn darker than a beet, but you complied nonetheless.

Now you found your back resting against the chest of the flame hashira as he worked on cleaning your hair.

“How long have you wanted to be my wife?” Kyojuro teased. “Since we were kids. I’ve always admired you Kyojuro. Your resolve, your determination, your kindness, your pure heart, all of it made me fall deeper and deeper in love with you.” You finally admitted what you’d been holding with you for the past seven years. “What if I told you I felt the same?” Kyojuro asked. His hand falling from your hair to hold your hands. “Are you sure it’s not just because we’re both naked and pressed against each other?” You joked. “Well not that I don’t enjoy this, but it’s not at all the reason.” He pulled you closer to him. “All I do is for you. Joining the demon slayer corp, training hard to become a hashira, waking up in the morning, it’s all for you (M/n). While I’m away on missions, all I do is long to come home and see your beautiful smile while you’re reading to Senjuro. To hold you while you work on whatever new interest captures your attention. To taste your amazing cooking. To simply be around you is my will to live. You’re my everything (M/n).”

“But I am a man. You deserve a strong woman to carry your bloodline. Hell, I can’t even wield a sword correctly, how do you expect me to be good enough-“ Kyojuro’s lips met with yours. “Please stop speaking such nonsense. I don’t need a bloodline, I only need you (M/n).” A comfortable silence overtook the bathroom as he simply held you. Relishing in the presence of each other.

“I’ll tell you what (M/n). After this mission is over, I will marry you. How does that sound?” Your heart was beating uncontrollably. “Hello?” Kyojuro giggled as he caught sight of your flustered expression. “Don’t laugh at me! The man I’ve been in love with just expressed his feelings towards me and asked me to marry him in the same hour.” You slapped his chest as he continued to laugh. “Well, do you accept?” He looked into your eyes. “Of course!” Kyojuro smiled and captured your lips again. “Good, now let me show you just how much I love you.”

You two became one beneath that water. Much to the dismay of Shinjuro’s ears.

*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•

As quickly as he returned, he had to leave yet again. Now you stood again at the gate of the estate. Kyojuro’s hands in yours as you begged for him not leave.

“I must go love. This mission is important.” Kyojuro chuckled as you continued to cling to him.

“Come back safely. You owe me a wedding!” You whined.

Kyojuro nodded and brought your lips to his. Holding you tightly and he hoped you would feel all his love.

“Promise you’ll return to me.” You held out your pinky to him.

He intertwined your fingers and kissed your knuckle. “Promise.”

“Say… what kind of mission are you even going on?”

“Something to do with a train. I’m sure it won’t be hard. I’ll be back quickly!”

[ellewritesalright]

The Lost Princess - Part 2

Kaz Brekker x fem!reader

Part 1

Synopsis: The old Queen Mother of Kerch's former royal family is offering a hefty reward to whoever returns her rumored-to-be-alive granddaughter to her. Kaz being Kaz hears about the reward and hatches an elaborate plot involving a fake princess. Reader is a lowly amnesiac orphan and escaped indenture who flees to Ketterdam where she gets tangled in Kaz Brekker's plot.

A/N: Hi folks!! I hope you've all been good--it's been a busy time for me but I'm so excited to be posting part 2! Just a reminder to everyone that the story is inspired by the movie and musical Anastasia. Once again, I hope it makes sense lmao

Warnings: mentions of sickness, death, drowning, violence, the Kerch indenture system. Me rambling. pls let me know if I've missed anything

Word count: 2901

.........

The dreams were worse tonight.

The once gentle, whispering voices turned to screams. Someone was calling for you, crying into the pitch black night with a painful tremor in their voice. You wanted to call back but couldn't find the strength. Honestly, when have you ever had that kind of strength? You're not brave, not like you should be. There were times at the big house where you would get so angry with the other servants, angry enough that you felt ready enough to cuss them out, yet you never did. You were too afraid of the consequences that stepping out of line would yield.

Your nightly visions only further prove your cowardice. In the dark of your nightmare, there was no hope, and you woke up shaking and nauseated.

The streets below the window of your room were still populated despite the late hours. It was the end of the week, though, and you figured people were using the night to let loose. The lantern beside your bed had long burned out, and you rummaged in your trunk for the pair of shiny candlesticks and matches you had stolen from Devisser's home--the wax had almost all burned out but there were still the holders. The brass would fetch enough money for you to survive maybe two weeks. It was not enough, though. Nothing was ever enough. You could have stolen his wife's entire collection of jewelry and you still wouldn't be able to get a ticket out of Kerch. No amount of money could strike your name from the lost indentures list.

There was always that Brekker that the shopkeeper had steered you towards. If he could do what she said and help you get to Ravka then you should find him as soon as possible. You had nearly gone to see him several times in the last few days, but you always chickened out. You would head over to the Crow Club with every intention of meeting Brekker, and yet, you could never bring yourself to go inside.

You were about to light one of the candles but instead you packed them away and pulled your day clothes from your trunk. You probably looked disheveled as you hit the streets, but not less composed than most of the people around you. A man stumbled past you, drunk, before he leaned into a post and emptied his guts into the street. The barrel really was a lovely place. You should have come sooner.

You pulled up the collar of your jacket to protect yourself from the wind that seemed to pick up the closer you got to the Crow Club. People were milling about the streets, their chatter and whispers carrying through the crisp air. What kind of secrets did they share? And how long would it take before their secrets infected the entirety of the barrel? In the short time you had been here it seemed you had heard the phrases "I heard it from" and "I assure you it is true" a thousand times. Everyone was a gossip, which made everyone dangerous. All it would take for you to be found by Devisser or the stadwatch was a rumour about your origins. Speculation about you might lead to the uncovering of your deserted indenture or people might think you were a runaway Grisha. The last thing you needed was for people to think you were valuable or worth notice. You were just another face in the crowd; your only goal was to go to Os Kervo.

The club was bustling with people as you arrived. You stood back a bit, biting at the inside of your cheek. For a moment you debated whether you should just go home, but you couldn't seem to make up your mind. You could only wait. As for what you were waiting for, you had no idea. A sign from the saints, maybe? Anything at all that would tell you to trust the club and the Brekker inside of it.

A young man stood against the building, staring directly at you as you eyed the crow sign above the door; it swung in the breeze, as though it was about to take flight. The man had been outside before when you passed by, watching you closely then as he was now. He called out to you.

"Have you finally plucked up the courage to come inside this evening?"

Your stare snapped down to him. He palmed a pair of pistols at his waist, but there was no threat in the action. It looked like more of a comfort or a habit that he had. He had never interacted with you before, just stood watch.

"I don't know," you answered, truth in your words. You stepped closer to the building, closer to the man. "I was thinking about it."

"Well, you look cold, perhaps you should think about it inside," he smiled.

A short scoff escaped you and you moved to stand before him. "If I entered the club I wouldn't need to think about entering the club."

"Sounds logical to me." He tilted his head at you. "What are you afraid of?"

You paused. There was nothing innately scary about the club. You weren't a gambler nor were you a drinker, so you wouldn't be trapped in a cycle of either if you decided to go inside. What you were doubting was the person you were supposed to see. If you were to believe the shopkeeper, this Brekker could be the key to your future. He could help you attain your lifelong dream of finding your family in Os Kervo. It was the idea that you might finally be getting what you wanted that made your stomach turn to lead.

"I just… I have to ask a big favour of someone I've never even met and I don't know how they'll react," you decided to tell him. It was close enough to the truth, and he considered what you said.

"There's no use in worrying over it, then," he said. "It sounds like something you just have to do."

His words were encouraging, and you smiled at him.

"If I may, who are you asking a favour of?"

"Someone called Brekker."

His mouth desperately wanted to curve into a smirk and you could tell that he was doing all he could to stifle a laugh. This reaction made your fear return, and you frowned up at him. He noticed your pointed look and managed to clear his throat.

"What's wrong with Brekker?" You questioned.

"Nothing at all. It's just funny to me that you're so afraid of seeing Kaz."

"You know him?"

"Know him? We're great friends. You're gonna love the man." He leaned towards you, raising a brow. "In fact, why don't you and I go inside and meet him right now."

His tone was playful with a hint of deceit, but you could tell he was not entirely dishonest. If you had to go out on a limb you would say that he was not trying to lead you astray.

You nodded, and he grinned, leading you inside.

……….

The breeze caught the curtains in Kaz's office. He had been doing the books when Inej came in, giving him a report of the whispers on the street. She was still there, explaining to him about an actor that Pekka Rollins was training to be the missing princess. Apparently the actor was very convincing, and--to add insult to injury--she had been one of the ones Kaz auditioned and ultimately turned away. But if he rejected her it must have been for a good reason. Still, the thought of Pekka fooling the old lady and getting the reward put a sour taste in Kaz's mouth. That reward was his. She was his pigeon.

Inej was interrupted by the door squeaking open, making a wedge of space just big enough that Jesper poked his head in.

Kaz spat his name, glaring daggers into his friend's face. "What could possibly be important enough for you to be here? I told you to watch the door."

"I was watching the door," Jesper replied, "when I came across someone who wanted to meet with you."

"Tell them I'm not seeing anyone right now," he dismissed, turning back to Inej. He knew he was being harsh, but the information he had just been given put him in a foul mood. He would likely seethe for the rest of the night, snapping at anyone who bothered him.

"Oh, you'll want to see them, I can promise you that." Jesper opened the door, gesturing for someone to come in with a "here we are, my dear."

You stepped past the threshold and immediately Kaz felt his anger diminish. After waiting for nearly a week since that day in the shop, you had made your way to him. There was apprehension in the muscles of your shoulders as you took in the room. Your eyes fell on him and he stared back, studying your features properly for the first time. There was something uncanny about your face, and you certainly looked more like the missing princess than everyone else he had seen for the job. You murmured a quick introduction, eyes darting to Inej but quickly falling back to him as you told them your name and began to explain why you were here.

"I have an issue I was told could be solved by a man named Brekker. I assume that's you." You tilted your chin at him, uneasiness in your stance. It didn’t take a genius to tell that you were nervous.

"You assume correctly, Miss Vos." He motioned for you to sit in the armchair before his desk, and he stepped behind the surface. Jesper and Inej stood by the wall, and you glanced over your shoulder at them before meeting Kaz's waiting stare. "Your issue?"

"I need to go to Ravka, but I don't have the money for travel papers. Also… it's not exactly legal for me to leave the country."

He half expected you to lie, to say something other than what he had overheard in Eugenia's shop, but you didn't. You either trusted him enough to be honest--which didn't seem likely judging from the way you sat with your spine as rigid as a marble post--or you had no other choice but to be frank with him. It was probably the latter.

He looked down at you, responding smoothly, "Normally I wouldn't be able to help you with something like that, but as luck would have it, I can obtain the proper documentation."

Your shoulders relaxed a bit, your face softening. But you had barely any time for ease as he spoke again.

"However, my offer is conditional," he said, leaning into the desk. You swallowed, brows pulling together as you looked up at him. "Have you heard the rumours of a missing princess?"

You gave a quick nod.

"And have you heard of the Grand Duchess Marien?"

"I know the name."

"Good. Then perhaps you'll know that the Duchess is the mother of the late king," he explained. "She's been searching for any leads on the missing princess."

"I don't see the relevance of this."

"I can help you get to Ravka, but only if you help me by posing as the princess."

You scoffed. "That would never work."

"Why not?"

"I-I was brought up in servants’ quarters, not a palace--I wouldn't even know where to start if I were to pretend to be a princess."

"That's where we come in," he said, nodding to Jesper and Inej. You looked at them, and he kept on, saying, "We can teach you everything you'll need to know."

"This is ridiculous. I'll find my own way," you huffed, moving to stand. Kaz was quick to react, his cane blocking your path to the door.

"Sit down," he ordered. Your glare, piercing as it was, could not rival his. The sight of yours did nothing to intimidate him, whereas--after a long, unblinking moment--his had the required effect. You took a seat.

Kaz pulled a book out of his desk drawer, flipping to a dog-eared page. He turned it around, motioning for you to look. A portrait of the royal family peered up at you, and you stared at it with pursed lips.

"The princess was six years old here, and though the resemblance is not exact, it is there," he explained, pointing at the youngest girl in the image. She stood beside a little boy, hands folded atop his shoulder. You stared between them for a moment. When you looked up at Kaz he swore he saw a glint of sorrow in your eyes. You recovered in a split second, shaking your head.

"No way." You crossed your arms, casting an irate stare at Kaz. "I'm an orphan. I don't have a family. I know for certain that I don't because if I did I would remember them--especially if they were a royal family."

There was a bite to your voice, a bitter sting of something which seemed to pain you. It was hopelessness that marred your words, and yet a lack of hope should have led to despair or exhaustion, not bitterness. Perhaps you hadn't lost hope. Perhaps it was the slim possibility of hope he presented that made you recoil. He could work with that.

Kaz sat down in his chair, levelling with you in the aim of coaxing information out of you. He wasn't trustworthy enough when he stood over his desk. If he wanted you to be vulnerable, he had to show vulnerability, and sitting would do that. He even briefly considered sending Jesper and Inej away but figured you seemed comfortable enough already with them in the room. They weren't as imposing as him, he supposed.

"What do you remember?" He asked, trying to be gentle with his words. You stared at the wall over Kaz's shoulder at a painting of the harbour. He saw Jesper start to fidget where he stood and even Inej looked slightly disinterested, but once you started to speak they listened carefully.

"I was ten or so when I was pulled from the True Sea. A group of fishermen found me floating on a barrel, said I probably jumped from a slaver ship. I was barely breathing, at least that's what they told me. They wrapped me in blankets, gave me food and a name; I still can't remember what my old one was."

You picked a bit of fluff on your pant leg, averting your stare even further. Your words were ghostly, devoid of all feeling like you had rehearsed them your entire life, and yet there was a faint tremor to your voice. How curious.

"When we got to shore they handed me over to their boss, a mercher named Devisser. I worked in his second home on the southern shore until a few weeks ago. Almost all of my memories were made in the kitchens of that place; I don't remember anything before the fishing boat." You met his eyes again, folding your hands in your lap, a neat little pile of rough knuckles and calluses, nothing fit for a princess. "Look, all I want is passage to Os Kervo. I don't even need to be taken all the way there, just as long as you get me to Ravka."

"And we can help you," Kaz insisted. "If you pretend to be the princess, learn the etiquette, the history, you can get to Ravka in mere months."

"I don't want to lie to make my way in the world."

"But if you think about it, It's not really lying," Jesper jumped in then, and Kaz held his breath. If he ruined this for them… "For all any of us know, you could really be the princess. I mean, you look like her, right? Plus, you've got family in Os Kervo, she's got family in Os Kervo."

If it weren't for the softening in your brow–your thoughts rolling through your mind with Jesper's words–Kaz would have put a stop to his friend. But, as it was, you seemed to be coming around to the idea. Jesper was playing on your lack of childhood memory in order to alleviate your guilt about tricking an old woman, and Kaz might have commended him for it if he really wanted to.

"We can show you to the old bat; if she says you aren't her granddaughter then there's no harm, no foul." Jesper smirked at you, "Plus, you'll have made it to Os Kervo where you can look for your real family."

You stared between the three of them, perhaps measuring the degree of sincerity in each of their eyes. In a rare attempt to be like Jesper, Kaz let his expression fall, making his face friendlier–or, at the very least, neutral. When you looked at him he looked back with eager eyes. They ought to do the trick.

"Are you in?" He asked.

"Why not?" You sighed, folding your arms. "If it gets me to Os Kervo…"

Jesper was grinning behind you, Inej had a small smile, and Kaz felt his mouth nearly imitate them. All the anger he had ten minutes ago had melted away. Pekka Rollins was far from his mind. The only thing that mattered now was making this amnesiac orphan into a princess.

..........

A/N: Thanks for reading! Feel free to like, reblog, and comment if you want to read more, I really appreciate the feedback! If you want to be tagged in the upcoming parts of this series please comment on this part or send me an ask. And if you want to request a fic, please feel free to send in an ask. Otherwise, I hope you have a great day/night :)

Masterlist

Taglist: @clockworkballerina @happyhauntt @mysticalfuncollectorus @aislinrayne @littleshadow17 @tooru-bread @katrina0-0

[featherandferns]

daylight - prologue

jj maybank x fem!reader | prologue of the daylight series

content warnings: none

word count: 537

blurb: people-watching at a kegger, you find your new muse through your camera lens

His eyes are perfect. They reflect the setting sun like a still lake of water reflects treelines and sky. Clear, crisp and clean. They’re somewhere between blue and green. They remind you of a marsh pond or natural lake, enclosed within shrubs and trees, weeping willows and that sort of thing. His eyelashes are the things that girls would envy: long and naturally curled. Why do men always have such great eyelashes? It’s never fair. 

You watch as crow's feet appear beside his eyes. He must be smiling. Your focus is on his side profile, gazing at him through the viewfinder of your camera. That small mark of technology makes you feel less creepy in your staring. When he laughs, he shifts out of focus and view, shaking with his humour, eyes crinkled and bright. Something about it makes you smile too, as if you’re in on the joke. It’s a small smile. Secretive. He has dimples, you realise. An almost symmetrical smile that is somehow resigned and assertive at once. He’s mesmerising. It’s like he was meant to exist through a camera lens. You take the opportunity to snap a shot the moment he’s back in focus. Two. One more and - yes, perfect. 

You like photographing most things. Nature, people, sports, still-life: you weren’t picky. But eyes - oh, those are your favourite. It has always been a weird obsession of yours. There’s just something about them. They hold so much character; so much emotion, so much feeling. William Shakespeare once said, ‘the eyes are the window to the soul’, and you had to agree. This nameless boy’s eyes are the perfect example. 

But then you realise that you’re seeing his eyes from a whole new angle. 

They’re staring right at you.  

You quickly dart away. Lift the camera up and to the right, as if you’re photographing the sparse treeline which lines the beach. There’s a small thrum of anxiety in your throat which you swallow. You don’t dare look back to where he is. Instead, you distract yourself by adjusting the focus of the camera and zooming in on the branches, hoping to spot some wildlife. A bird is perched on a branch and you take a mundane photo before lowering your camera. You inspect the picture. Then, you finally brave a look to where the boy had been standing before. He’s gone. Phew. As the ‘new girl’ in town, the last thing you needed was the tagline of ‘stalker’. It was intrusive of you to photograph a stranger rather than striking up conversation like any normal person, but the kegger had been overwhelming. Everyone knew each other. Friends upon friends; groups and gangs of teenagers; hell, even the tourists all huddled together like lifelong pals. You felt on the outside. You always liked to people watch. Get a feel for the crowd and the people from a safe distance, your camera acting like a shield.

Looking down to mess with the settings, you take one more glance around to see if you can spot him. He seems to have vanished. Sighing, you lift your camera once more and turn your attention to another crowd of people at the beach, and you continue snapping away. 

read the next part here

[slowd1ving]

EAT MY HEART, I'LL EAT YOURS ⁺ 　 . ✦ MOZE

Seek the answer ‘neath the tides,  Madness shall prosper, forget her wiles,  The moon grins once again tonight.  He hates you. He hates your plans, how you talk, how you work. He loathes being stuck with you: detests it to his very core. But that's great, because the feeling is mutual with you! Tied to an ill-omened crow of your own, what's there not to abhor? continuation of tales of a disgruntled corvid art by @ RMavio on x!! pairing: moze + male reader warnings: blood, death, violence, yall HATE each other bro, v slow burn, pre established relationship (if you don't count the relationship of HATING each other's GUTS) wc: 6.3k

HONKAI STAR RAIL MASTERLIST

MASTERLIST ・゜・NAVIGATION

Copper defiles the carefully manufactured oxygen that circulates this tiny starship. Its stench pervades the past the clean air, past the distinctly alkaline tang of bleach, and past what little protection your visor affords you. In fact, the clear nanocomputers pick up on a distinctly sanguine hue to the air: labelling tiny crimson specks as biological matter—human blood (tentative). 

“Adult Foxian male, died approximately forty hours ago,” the man crouched before you narrates, oblivious to the you who stares up at the ceiling of the small room—as if the gesture could possibly shield you from the horrifying reality at your feet. No matter how many times you’ve stepped into a situation like this (too many to count ever since your career path practically merged with the Shadow Guards’), you don’t think you’ll ever get used to this. This is Moze’s sphere of knowledge: Moze’s work that intimately twines and dances with the very cesspit of vice and umbrage. 

“Died from presumably loss of blood caused by the deep lacerations across his abdomen and throat,” he continues—the details, unfortunately, seep into your brain as you try your best to tune him out. Thank you, Captain Obvious, you’d bite out, but unfortunately opening your mouth in these conditions would make you sick. “Or at least, that’s what the perpetrator would want us to think.”

There’s viscera splashed even on the very walls. Messy streaks of scarlet contaminate the aged wallpaper in the small room: capricious strokes, as though a child painted them, form characters and seemingly random lines of verse that register as unusual on your visor. That’s your area of expertise. 

Like clockwork, your gaze remains unwavering on the riddle presented on the structure. That’s how you’ve dealt with being in such proximity to Reapers: by pretending the wall is a block of stone and its red ink is precisely that—ink. That’s how you separate yourself from the victims of these gruesome cases; bit by bit, you’re slowly growing accustomed to the nauseating reek of metal that wafts before you. 

And so, when you finally glance down at the glazed-over eyes of the latest victim, it is with startling impassiveness that you assess his cadaver. He’s gone, you accept. Your little ritual has worked, as it oft does. 

“Same sigils as the other bodies.” You finally regain your voice, and the silver-haired man turns his sharp gaze up at you. “But the last line to the verse is different.”

Seek the answer ‘neath the tides, 

Madness shall prosper, forget her wiles, 

The moon grins once again tonight. 

The characters rest heavy on your tongue—foreign meanings straightening themselves out as you slowly sound out the snippet. It’s a verse from a children’s book of poems: a short tale about an obsolete, oceanic planet and its restoration by few brave souls. 

“The moon slumbered tonight,” you mutter the original line to yourself. This ancient script doesn’t suit the naïve phrases, but it’s commonly used for rituals—both antique and modern, you’ve unfortunately found. 

With a heavy sigh, you pull out the gun in your holster; it’s warm, humming to life which seems terribly ironic to you, considering where you are. You’ve not used the weapon for quite some time: the flickering it emits seems both familiar and unfamiliar. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” His clipped speech warily assesses the ease with which you handle the arm you never seem to use: preferring the glassy, almost invisible blade currently strapped across your back when in combat. 

“Xiaoze,” you sigh tauntingly, infusing the firearm with quantum energy that briefly glows indigo in this dim room. “Shut up and let me do my job.”

“Ew,” his face sours almost immediately at the nickname, embittered by both how it drips with condescension and no real affection, and how off putting it is for you of all people to be adding things to his name. “Don’t do that.”

“Then shut up.” You line the sights experimentally, having successfully blackmailed the Shadow Guard into keeping mum for a few minutes while you turn the qualitative verse into quantitative data. Perhaps he does feel threatened by the promise, for you only feel his heavy stare on you and not his words. 

The bullet careens and phases through the wall where the verse is located, and with a shimmer of data, the strings of numbers behind the verse reveal themselves: meaningless to all but yourself. It’s a temporary display, containing important information about the very foundations of this riddle. Or, at least, it’s a shortcut since the verse has already been decoded. 

Seek the answer ‘neath the tides: a reference to where the power ‘current’ of Madam General Feixiao is absent. Or at least, these murder locations point to that; they’re in the areas least looked over in the Alliance: namely, not aboard the Flagship. 

Madness shall prosper, forget her wiles: a crude depiction of Moon Rage, as well as the shedding of a ‘Foxian’ identity. Considering all these victims have been Foxian, it’s no far-fetched assumption to think that these have all been building up to something sinister. 

The moon slumbered tonight: a reference to the plaguemark hung over the Yaoqing—a moon left behind by Yaoshi. Past tense. Sleeping.

But that had all changed with this particular murder. Whatever goal the perpetrator hoped to achieve was finally coming into fruition with the awakening of this ‘moon’. 

The data transmitted onto your visor is as elapsed: the time of writing, the exact coordinates relative to the Flagship at the time of writing, as well as some background noise of little relevance to this current predicament. These numbers are duly inputted into one of your pre-created ‘equation’ sheets: linking abstracts together in their own relationships to receive a divinatory variable. It’s one of the few successes you’ve had with qualitative equations; linking energy and mass and speed is easy, but linking feeling together is not. 

In this case, tying down the exact time and coordinates to a specific intention. Any organic creature or ingenium leaves behind a trace of intention, whether it be through actual thoughts or a pre-programmed function. But in this case, the result comes out void. 

Thirty-two hours since verse was written. 

“How long did you say the man has been dead?” you ask, urgently. Moze snaps back to attention at the specific tone in your voice. 

“Forty hours,” he answers. When it comes down to the bloody aspects of this job, he returns to his laconic, reticent ways—it’s truly a shame he can’t keep it up in other aspects. 

“You’re sure about that,” you probe, half a question in your voice.

“It’s my job,” he deadpans, and you scowl as he uses your words against you. 

“Well, this verse appeared about eight hours after the man died,” you comment wonderingly. The strokes of the characters for grins once again appear a bit messier than the rest—almost like a map. Well, it’s not a deduction; your visor picks up on the strange wording right before you do. “Unlike the others that were written manually by a perpetrator.”

“So, this sacrificial lamb was finally the success,” he mutters darkly. 

“But the trail is no longer dead.” You sheathe your pistol back into its holster with a touch of relief, because finally this set of murders is coming to its conclusion.

⁺ 　 . ✦

You take back whatever compliments you had of him focusing on his job when it came down to it. As you pilot the star skiff along the trail of data outputted from your visor and the crude map from the bloody drawings, he’s practically talking your ear off about the garbled string of answers you sent him from your visor. 

“And what is beef’s relevance to this case?” he asks, each syllable drawn taut with what could only be mockery. 

“Typo,” you grit out, tilting the control wheel starboard. Now is not the time. 

“Egg, too?” he taunts. 

Your eyes flick to the top left of your visor, where you did in fact merge the contents of your grocery list with the file meant for him. 

“Use your common sense,” you bite on the inside of your cheek, hard, to prevent any insults from slipping past your lips. “You do still have that, right?”

“So what’s for dinner tonight?” He leans back against the co-pilot seat, and you can feel his gaze prick your face—much like you feel the tiny, irritating smile he wears. 

“I will crash this skiff if I have to, and you’ll have to explain to the General why the cryptologist exploded into itty-bitty pieces, Xiaoze,” you seethe. 

“Not if they don’t find your body,” he returns—far too accustomed to the patronising name for someone who blanched at its usage just an hour prior. Worst part is, he’d definitely make do on this vaguely-worded threat. 

“Madame General and A-hua would know it was you.” You propel the stern forward, if only to feel his hands grip the sides of his seat tighter. He courts death daily as an assassin, but wouldn’t it be a treat to die because of reckless driving. It’s not like you can entrust the programmed visor to him (and it’s not like you want to send the decoded map to the skiff). 

“Would they, though?” He pares away the dirt beneath his nails with his knife, and you hope the sudden jolt in the vehicle gave him an injury. 

“Jump.” A single syllable, gracing the space with your tender command. His brow raises minutely. 

“No one will miss you,” you add. 

“Since you’ve got no friends,” you tack on with an air of finality. 

⁺ 　 . ✦

He hates you. He hates you: hates the way your hands deftly turn the control wheel on the skiff; hates the way you trip and stumble through life, leaving countless messes behind yet still managing to have Feixiao’s approval to work with him; hates your facetious and conniving and sly insults. But most of all, he really fucking hates your plans. 

“This is so stupid,” he mutters in your ear; invisible to all but the tell tale outline on your shrunken visor. You’d reply, but you’re already conspicuous enough in the tailored suit you’ve donned—all sharp lines and a cut too bittersweet for your home planet. So actually, fuck that, then—there’s no point in being all Spy-like and Inconspicuous any longer. 

“Shut the fuck up,” you hiss, adjusting the cufflinks beneath the rich jacket—then subconsciously running a thumb along the edge of your fake identification card that’s pinned to your collar. Unlike that weirdo, you can’t turn invisible—so you’re left firing quanta bullets at the hull of this rig right outside Yaoqing airspace (or technically, space-space) and gleaning whatever information you can to assemble a persona for yourself. 

 <Doctor, Who is slightly Strange> how do I look < 1:34

The message pings to him from your visor, and you know he’s seen it—from the caustic sigh that leaves his lips, because if he ever blows his cover while he’s invisible, it will have been because of you.

< Weirdo > 1:34 > Focus on the damned mission.

Lukewarm, you scoff, brain sounding out your response. How… do… I… look, you type out once more.

1:35 > Terrible. 

Aggravated, you clench your fist, and you swear you can hear the space behind you warp and distort when he snickers. Terrible! What a joke, you seethe—jabbing the code into the airlock that you’d worked out by the little tones left on the verse, as well as reading the intentions left by people at this door. 

Your job is simple—getting to the bottom of these long-standing murders while also planting a bug on the ship that would allow the Seat of Divine Foresight of the Yaoqing to monitor the situation. Nothing more, but maybe something less if something went wrong. This was only a two-man operation, after all. 

Of course, you neither kept optimistic nor pessimistic. Though there were only two objectives,  those that underestimated the simplest missions oft suffered the brutal brunt of defeat. And of course, the former term being negotiable showed just how difficult it was. Or at least, if you managed to find the office of the higher ups, the data you stole would allow you to reconstruct the space virtually—though what you needed were concrete files that pointed to clear motives. 

No—not the office. 

You squinted as a rough plan of the building popped up from the continuous data you fed your visor—a general prediction of where the lab and computer room would be located, which were simulated as being in the same wing as the office. Perfect. 

<Weirdo> 1:40 > Done all your shopping already, or are you just tired of steak?

You grind your molars as you travel past the small throngs of borisin and humans alike: you don’t look entirely out of place as they’re dressed in a medley of different outfits, from IPC uniform replicas to Penacony garb to even the long robes found on Herta’s Space Station. Point is—your Earthwear doesn’t stand out, and there’s enough people that your badge does not go noticed. 

<Doctor, Who is slightly Strange> gonna shoot you how about that < 1:40

It takes the time of twenty-seven heartbeats to stride through the corridors (tunnels) that make their way around the aircraft. Twenty-seven heartbeats, three checkpoints and one smile shot at presumably a ‘coworker’—before you finally make it into the final stretch. He knows, though you don’t, because he’s counted: listening to the rhythmic beat of your organs as you calmly navigate the ship like you know what you’re doing. 

It’s devoid of souls, except for the two of you as you pad down the corridor. Even the very lab and big office seem abandoned—but Moze’s urgent text alerts you of the presence of someone in the office, just not the lab. 

Guess we’ll start there then. 

A quick swipe of your falsified keycard, and you were in—slipping on one of the freely available lab coats and extending your visor to cover your eyes at the entrance. You do respect lab etiquette, after all; erasing even your thoughts about food and drink as you press through the automatic glass doors. 

<Weirdo> 1:43 > You almost look like a scientist now.

You can hear his exhales—they’re so obviously deliberate, because no way would he blow his cover by accident. He’s snickering, that sod is. 

I am a scientific doctor, you senile fuckwad. < 1:44 

1:45 > Thought your default display name was just a joke. Did you hit your head and hallucinate some credentials?

You seethe, since you can’t exactly scroll through endless files to locate your dissertation on ancient science and qualitative formulae. Over sixty-thousand words, reduced to mere mockery by this cretin. 

It’s a triple entendre < 1:45 And I’ve got the creds < 1:45 prick < 1:45 

1:45 > moron

He types this lightning quick, not even pausing to stop walking—not even pausing to capitalise and punctuate his stupidly mocking text like normal—and you can still hear him because he’s letting you hear his normally silent steps, he’s letting you know he can fulfil the mission while shit talking you to your own face.

this is why you have no friends < 1:46

1:47 > this is why you don’t have friends outside your job. no one actually likes you

You rummage around in the large filing cabinet besides all the gleaming equipment: large centrifuges, safety cupboards, fume hoods, and weird display cases filled with samples of what can only be blood. Swiftly, you snap several photos of the evidence with your visor, then mindlessly write a response. Talk about a call coming from inside the house, you think. 

name two people who voluntarily spend time with you < 1:49 [<Doctor, Who is slightly Strange> sent index.finger.pointing emoji] < 1:49 [<Doctor, Who is slightly Strange> sent laughing.crying emoji] < 1:49

He’s no longer in the peripheries of your earshot; so you know he’s gone off to investigate the other areas of the small lab—beyond the equipment and into the computer room. Good, you exhale—at least he respects lab protocol. 

1:51 > name a time feixiao actually talked to you outside of work

I will…. lend you… my gun so… you can shoot…. yourself, you type, then quickly hit backspace before you can send it by accident. 

yesterday. eat shit xiaoze < 1:52

1:52 > that was charity work don’t flatter yourself

Hastily, you scan any files in the weird stronghold that look even remotely related to borisin and Foxians and especially the one you cradle: labelled only with the icon of a moon and containing eerily similar rituals to the crime scenes you found. 

oh you want to talk about charity work? lets ask the crowd bro < 1:55 everyone who interacts with you is doing charity work.. < 1:56

1:57 > ok at least my job wanted me

Wow. Wooow. You stare incredulously at the message—he’s dragging the Intelligenstia Guild into this, knowing you got put on leave for ‘engaging in querulous behaviour’ and ‘lacking in real life experience’. Low blow. 

…and no one else did so what now < 1:58 name a single friend you have < 1:58

1:58 > .. 1:59 > Jiaoqiu 

Jiaoqiu. How cute, you scoff, resuming your hate typing while you flick through the last few files hidden around in drawers and cupboards. 

idk how to tell you this but you are NOT the friend bro you’re the test subject… < 2:00 I think he pitied you or smth.. < 2:01

2:02 > ew 2:02 > don’t call me bro it’s sickening 2:02 > we are not alike

it’s exposure therapy < 2:03 since you don’t have any friends you don’t and probably never will be called anything endearing < 2:04 aren’t I so nice < 2:04

Pausing, you glance up at where the glass doors lead right to the computer lab; a dim glow washes over the space. Nothing much to worry about, you think—copying data is a far less burdensome task than rifling through pages upon pages of reports and then arranging them back into their rightful place. Though, if you were worried about anything, it was that the virus and bugger installation would take longer than they had to. 

Maybe it’s the paranoia getting to you. 

Or maybe, maybe, it’s the faint click of footsteps against linoleum floors—getting louder and louder and louder. As does your heartbeat: thundering deafeningly in your ears. You can’t turn invisible. You don’t get the luxury of slipping into the shadows like your colleague (to put it very politely) does. 

And so you swallow—tongue thick and leaden within your suddenly too-dry mouth. There are two courses of action you can take (hurry, the steps are getting louder): the first being to hide away in the little storage cupboard and take the escape from there. You will not be able to fool a scientist who knows their colleagues far more intimately than the grunts in the lobby. Moze has worked alone before. He’ll figure out how to get the virus downloaded and the data copied before the person even gets close to noticing him. 

Or—and your eyes flick to the computer room clearly visible from the lab—you could put on an act to save both your life and Moze’s time. You could… probably do that, right?

Heart moving renditions…. Never mind that your heart was pounding right out of your chest—never mind that your glassy sword could not be wielded in this narrow hallway, never mind that flipping the switch on your gun was not quite something you were prepared to do. 

They were almost at the corner, and you made your decision to step out into that narrow corridor. One hand in your pocket and the other raking across your face as you yawned. The epitome of casual. 

And Moze’s ears pricked as he watched you; though you’d never know, and he’d never admit that he did so. He heard the sound of sharp shoes, and was honestly expecting you to turn tail. 

But you didn’t. 

You’re taking lazy strides as he hears the researcher approach—counting on the secrecy of this organisation being tight enough to operate on a need-to-know basis. In other words, you’re operating on the high-risk gamble: that this particular person would be unaware of changes in personnel. There’s no time to read the data streaming from their steps. Ordinarily, from their intention you could figure out their rank in the pecking order—but you are plumb out of luck. 

He rounds the corner: wearing a suit far more well cut than yours, though his tie sits loose at his throat and his jacket is slung over one shoulder. From one glance, you can tell immediately. You’re screwed. Still, it’s too late to run now: far too late to leave Moze to figure out how to download the data faster. 

“Who are you?” The drawl is heavy with a cadence far too confident. Just your fucking luck, you momentarily scowl—of course the lab would be frequented by some clear higher-up. Not a regular degular scientist you could simply sweet talk, but someone not in the lower strata of this shady organisation.  

He’s handsome: black hair that sheens prussic, eyes glinting practically amber even in the frigid lighting that washes over this space. Something you’ve unfortunately learned while traversing the galaxy is that this guy cannot possibly be a grunt; and if he is, there’s something seriously wrong with the corporation. He’s eye candy—which makes this situation so terrible. You are screwed. In that moment, your lazy smile wavers somewhat; you are utterly and irredeemably fucked. You could shoot him, but that would no doubt put the rig on immediate lockdown with the sound of the gun. 

Fuck. You want to slam your head against the glass, but that would no doubt screw you over even further. 

You’re not built for this. 

“Oh, are you part of the research team too?” Naive. Your qualifications have just landed you this position, and you’re not quite capable of discerning if you should be divulging that information or not. That’s the mindset you centre this particular character around: just some random guy who’s a bit gullible. 

“Just got transferred,” you lie through your teeth, shamelessly. It’s a sin to lie, but you’ve committed bigger ones before. 

“No wonder I’ve never seen a cutie like you here before,” he murmurs—leaning in as though to inspect your face. And so, you freeze; naturally, this was not the direction you thought this conversation would take. Maybe sweet talking is not entirely off the table, but you sincerely doubt you’ll actually get away. 

You swallow. How much longer do you have to stall for? Is Moze done? What the fuck do you say next?

“Uh.” Thanks? I guess? You’re pretty cute too? You find your hand inching towards your holster—minutely, of course—while potential replies whirl through your mind chaotically. Miniature storms wrapped up in slimy brain matter and miniscule neuron connections. 

It’s only when he lets out a short laugh that you realise that you might’ve let out your thoughts, and you curse at yourself in your mind. 

“Wow, you’re bold,” he comments, closer: until you can almost taste the lingering iron and manufactured scent he has. Like wood. Earth pine. A bitter pang goes through your heart at that: someone from the surviving fallout of Earth, here of all places. In a clean, sterile lab dedicated to sacrificing Foxians—for what? Money? Stupid credits? Humans are rotten creatures, cut from a cloth macerated in cesspits. On Earth, it was no exception. 

Still. Your lips press into a line at his clothes, the particular way the tie is knotted. You’ve never seen another survivor prior to this. 

You may also be completely mistaken. Penacony and doubtless others have the same strands of fashion—but this. This is wholly Earth. 

“People do tell me that,” you return, unbuttoning your lab coat since you’re no longer in the lab boundaries. Moze, hurry the fuck up. You’re already regretting it, but you need to confirm it. Alien everywhere, what other choice do you have?

His eyes don’t widen like you expect, and you feel a stupid ache at the realisation that you’re once again alone. But rather, they flicker to your breast pocket, where your falsified keycard peeks out. Closer. His fingers pluck the plastic as though it were a flower, and you’re much too astounded to stop him. 

“What a shame…” he murmurs, and only the nails digging into your palm remind you fitfully of just how near he is—practically tasting the fucking lies on your breath. 

“Sir, back up a bit,” you grimace. This sucks. The perks of keeping the guy from witnessing the glow in the computer room is slowly fading away the longer you keep this up. Should’ve left Moze to get caught. 

“O strange doctor, do movies of the bygone era really interest you so?” 

You freeze. Shit. Shit. You’d let down your guard—attempting to gauge his reaction to your attire and getting caught out yourself. Really, was there any spy worse than yourself? The falsified card was hastily put together with the help of your visor; of course it autofilled that stupid alias. 

It’s not the first time your mistakes have cost you. 

“You…” This guy. You should’ve run. You suck at gambling. 

“How odd. I should’ve been aware of one like me being transferred.”

“Who the hell are you?” Cautiously, you take a minute step back. He notices—of course he does. 

“The head of the research department, who else?”  Fuck, fuck. Your heart is entering arrhythmia: pounding flush against your eardrums like some goddamn hammer against piercing nail. You’re dead meat. 

“It’s unfortunate that I can’t buy you a suit to replace that cheap one—if you hadn’t infiltrated, we might’ve been good friends.” He’s still putting up a front, but you can tell he’s close to a fight. It’s the snarling instinct of a cornered human—fight or flight activating almost immediately at every minute movement of his. Each shallowed breath, each minute shift in sinew. All of it. 

“No, definitely not,” you retort in disgust. “Most people from that planet sucked.”

It’s true, but your heart twinges blue just the same. Millions of years, all for that stupid molten iron planet to just cease. None but you—all alone amongst the cold, dead stars. 

It was a graveyard of the giants: hulking Jupiter, so wretched and broken; stars slowly winking out one by one. Even the massive silhouette of the Sun had finally been conquered. Had the universe ever been so lonely for the wandering?

“Even you?” And now his fists punctuate the empty space with his words. 

“Especially me.”

How foolish. How foolish, as he’s barely breathing on the floor beside you. How foolish, as you let your teeth grind in stupefied frustration. How foolish, that you wanted to communicate with a remnant from that obsolete planet. 

You’re an idiot as you clutch at your side: warmth seeping between your fingers as you prop yourself up against the wall. Shallow, heaving breaths come ragged—though the fight didn’t last even five minutes, courtesy of your visor working overtime to electrocute that fool by your feet. He looks fried, but you don’t look much better: being stabbed does that, after all. 

You don’t know what you’re doing here. 

What were you trying to accomplish?

Iron tastes especially caustic today. Ah, you realise with a start—this stupid endeavour was all to buy time. Maybe it was all pointless. Maybe you’ll slip into slumber here—tripping over the sleeping man at your feet and seeing your planet once more, if only in your dreams. 

The flicker of lights reminds you of your wretched childhood apartment. All concrete and dilapidated structure, but it was your home. A cruel and cold home—though it was also one where the sun touched the horizon just so, in a way that erased pain for a singular moment in time. 

Stupid. All this to fulfil your stupid mission. 

Your legs wobble, and you would’ve slammed right into the wall were it not for the cold arms wrapping around your ribcage—gelid hand splayed on your chest. 

“Idiot.” Moze’s voice is low and angry; practically shaking while he supports your body. He’s pressed right up against your side—making the smell of blood ever more pungent. Slippery, metallic copper—all coming from you and ruining that stupid suit for good. “Are you illiterate too?”

“Huh?” You don’t know why he’s upset; he got the job done, didn’t he? Maybe he’s mad he has to prop you up while navigating the dim tunnels of this building—his teeth are gritting, after all, even if you can’t see him. You can hear the molars grind together. 

“Are your eyes just for show, or do you occasionally read your messages?” he seethes. Your trembling heart is far too loud to register the final death rattles of the man left behind in the corridor—courtesy of a blade thrown right into his jugular. 

“Hah. Muted them to not read your irritating texts anymore.” You close your eyes as he guides you past the chemicals, past the cleaning supplies in the closet that leads to a hidden path outwards. He’s more… gentle than you would’ve expected; grip firm on your arm slung over his shoulders rather than constricting. 

“I didn’t need your help,” he informs you: tone boreal as ever. “You blew our cover.”

Still, you cannot see the furrow in his brows as he peers down at you; neither can you see his lips pressing together. His heart’s pounding weirdly: focused on you rather than leaving this stupid place far behind. 

“I didn’t do it for you—” you grit out, stumbling the last few steps to the concealed star skiff while alarms blare on the ship the two of you leave behind. And he’s grasping your waist as you lean against the rocking vehicle—but you were not going to fall. Blood seeps onto his clothing, though he pays the mess no heed for once. 

“Don’t need your help either,” you scoff, returning his words back to him as you lean against the worn seat. It’s cold. So cold, but you’d rather die than admit it hurts. “Get off me.”

“I’ll drive.” His rich voice finally has a body once more as he settles into his copilot seat. He can visualise the path back to the Yaoqing already—back to the messy, warm place you call home. Where you linger on all those stupid trinkets, the decorations you put up, and the food simmering in the pot on your stove—he knows the route like the back of his scarred hand. 

“I’m fine. It’s not that deep, and Jiaoqiu will take a look at it anyway.”  Jiaoqiu. His lips curl into a sneer as the dashboard lights up—flipping switches with such harsh precision it’s much too apparent that he’s in a terrible mood. 

“Or A-hua,” you add, and his heartbeat becomes something twisted and wretched as he hears the dimmed affection in your voice. You’re tying off the bandage tight around your side—very rudimentary first aid, but the priority is to get as far away as possible from this facility while their systems go down.

“Neither of them will be in when we report to Feixiao.” 

He doesn’t quite know why he lies: syllables rolling off his tongue like a blunder, yet he manages to keep his voice steady. 

“Then I’ll give myself stitches.” So damn stubborn, he thinks. He’s irritated, for reasons unclear to him. 

“No, this was because of me. I’ll treat you.” He doesn’t know why he insists either; one thing he knows for sure though, is that he can’t help but cling onto the scent of your embodiment. Blood and sweat, laundry powder and soap. You. It’s nothing like the damp of his cell. 

“No thanks. You’d probably—hah—use this opportunity to get rid of me,” you wince out. Well, he cants his head in thought—you’re not wrong. He might’ve left you behind: no regrets, no more dead weight. 

“You think so little of me?” 

“Yes. Why else would you come close?” On edge—that’s what he can hear in the tremulous pulse beneath the flesh, all torn and never at ease. It’s not fearful, precisely, but gone is the casual annoyance in your tone—it’s more of a void acceptance, as though you’re stating the obvious. 

To answer your question, he doesn’t know. He’d normally recoil at the sight of the dried blood on his clothes—scrubbing at his skin the moment he could—but he’s absent-mindedly pulling at the threads laved in you with a hand not preoccupied by steering. 

“Anyways. If you keep pushing it, you’ll be permanently dubbed that nickname you so hate.” 

“Don’t care.” He meets your eyes through the reflection of the glass window. One gaze—flinty and stubborn. The other pair of eyes—silent and unyielding. “I’m treating you before we report to Feixiao.”

“Little A-ze is all grown up now, huh,” you mutter, and the prefix you put in front of his name is cold and distant. It tastes quite bitter, and for that reason he doesn’t deign to speak for the rest of the flight. 

For once, he’s truly living up to his description of being reticent. 

⁺ 　 . ✦

“Why’d you do such a stupid move?” With each agonised beat of your heart, the needle jabs into one side of your flesh and extends past the other. This may have been taken as to mean he’s fast with your treatment—but your pulse is as sluggish as barely molten lava, burbling and gurgling like you’re on your last legs. “Look after yourself first.”

The towel he painstakingly placed on your couch is spattered with sanguine. Unfortunately, you’re a bit too lost in delirium to realise the gravity of this situation: Moze, kneeling by your side as he carefully stitches you back up. So delirious, you don’t notice his heavy gaze and scarred hands that reverently handle the tools that pierce your body. 

“A-ze,” you slur, half-conscious as you bring a scalding hand to press against his boreal face. He freezes, like he really is made of ice. But alas, your hand falls back to your side just as quickly and his expression settles back into a scowl. 

“I could’ve escaped,” you murmur, eyes heavy with slumber. “But then you would’ve been in trouble.”

I wouldn’t have been, he wants to say back. You and your idiotic plans. He’s thought it before and thinks it now—he really fucking hates them. 

“Don’t ever do that again,” he instead grits out, tying off the last stitch with the scissors with a clinical professionality that you’re quite astounded then. “Look after yourself, and I’ll do the same.”

“Shut up and get out then,” you retort—and he plucks the roll of bandages you were planning on winding around your side. You blink: taken aback once more. 

“No.” 

No? 

“Fuckface,” you comment bitterly, though there’s a certain decrease in volume as he winds his arms slowly around your torso to wrap the cloth around you. Like this, his silver tufts of hair brush past your chin—strangely clean smelling for an assassin. And when you rest your palms on his upper back to alleviate the tension in your side, you swear he freezes. 

“Idiot,” he slams back; though, there’s a certain rapidity to his pulse as your chest is right in his eyeline. It’s steady, rising and falling with each even breath you have: naked muscle just about grazing his nose. For the first time in ages, his fingers waver in his task. 

“Call Jiaoqiu then,” you shrug. He’s tucking the ends of the bandage into itself, so you miss how the faint flush on his face immediately fades. 

Speak of the devil, and he shall appear. 

“Call who over?”

The foxian stands in the doorway with a pleased, close-eyed smile—much like the cat that finally got the cream. He’s grinning, Moze realises with horror; he saw the vulnerability in his shoulders, even if for a brief second.

Shit. He didn’t even notice. 

“Jiaoqiu?” You take your hand off his shoulder to wave; the man can no longer suppress the irritation in his expression. 

“In the flesh!” 

“Wow, you really don’t look good,” he continues, voice drawing closer as he inspects your bloodied torso. 

“Yeah, because I’m stuck with the fucker who lied about you not being—”

Moze presses his palm against your mouth—heart erratic at the feeling of soft lips against his hand, though it has nothing to do with you. More of the fact that he’s never been so close to someone like this. Yeah. That’s the reason. 

“Why are you here, Jiaoqiu?” he replies in your stead, ignoring how incredulously your gaze pierces into the side of his face. 

“So cold! You two are late to report even though you arrived half a system hour ago! But I totally understand, Moze.” Jiaoqiu’s smile does not quite reach his eyes as his gaze flitters between you and the assassin. That, perhaps, would be the usual description of how the foxian smiles regardless, but especially so today. “He’s injured, after all. Why not let me treat him before the two of you report to our Arbiter-General?”

“Pah–!” With a gasp, you finally wrench his hand from your mouth—glaring at him all the while. “That would be great, Jiaoqiu, thank you.”

Thus, the assassin is left simmering on the other side of your living room: daggers jabbing right into the other man’s back as he finishes your treatment off with a bowl of scorching hot broth. And though he doesn’t outright say it, Jiaoqiu is evidently amused by this turn of events—much like he’s amused with every irritated tell of Moze’s as he inches ever closer to you with his sly smile. 

Sorry, friend, he surmises. Not much of a chance you’ve got. 

It’s a great day for the fox, but not so much for the crow who seethes in the corner. 

⁺ 　 . ✦

[hananoami]

Love and Deepspace x China Sports Culture Development Center of the General Administration of Sport of China

The lanterns on the banks of the Seine are about to turn on, and the 2024 Paris Olympics is about to begin!

Join him and cheer for the Olympic athletes—

Xavier holds a banner with the idiom 一往无前 [yi4 wang3 wu2 qian2], which means “move forward bravely”. Zayne holds a whiteboard with the phrase 奋力拼搏 [fen4 li4 pin1 bo2], which means “give it your all”. Rafayel waves a flag with the idiom 旗开得胜 [qi2 kai1 de2 sheng4], which is a blessing used to wish one a successful start. Sylus holds a board with the words 挑战自我 [tiao3 zhan4 zi4 wo3], meaning to challenge oneself. The crows also hold cards that form the phrase 加油 [jia1 you2], which is an encouragement phrase that can mean “Go go go!” or “You got this!” in this sports context.

translation cr /u/rikki555

[richskint]

FREE TO USE TRICKSTARSHIPPING TEMPLATE!

[arisenreborn]

tomorrow i'll be brave

Word Count: 2,125 Characters: Olivia (Arisen), Emrys (Pawn) AO3: (link)

The Pawns have made mention of a sickness among their number many times, but how is an Arisen to know how to actually deal with it? - Part 1 of 2 or 3 we'll see how it goes, but it's gonna get angsty.

Something was wrong. 

At first it was difficult to tell the difference; Emrys had always been a bit sassy, and prone to obstinacy, or back-handed compliments. Sometimes they argued and clashed, and it hardly felt good, but at least it felt like they were making progress figuring each other out. She knew he had guilt over it too, his whole need to be defiant towards her because it felt like he had his own freedom and choice that way…

Besides, she of all people knew what it was like to have someone having power over you and trying to find any little bit of wiggle room you could to defy them. She just wished Emrys understood she didn’t really want that power over him to begin with. She liked to think he did…

But over the past several days he’d become even more haughty and headstrong, even a little bloodthirsty in battle. Whereas he’d never precisely gone looking for the ‘thrill of battle’ before, a few times now he’d wander off provoking fights himself. On top of that he didn’t just defy her, he was positively ignoring her. 

As soon as they’d gotten back to Vernworth this time he’d up and disappeared, and it had taken her nearly an hour before she finally found him at the tavern. Which, in retrospect, should have been one of the first places she looked, but she’d expected (or hoped) he’d just gone home and passed out in bed while she’d been dismissing the other pawns at the guild.

Alas, when she found him there he was deep in his cups and laughing with some of the other patrons. He brushed her off and told her she was being dramatic for being so worried. 

Normally she might have dismissed his attitude and joined them, but the fears were already planted in her head. The idea of drinking herself into a stupor didn’t seem like a smart idea - nor did letting him do the same. 

Yet when she asked if he was going to come home with her he gave her such a nasty, disdainful look and asked: “Is that an order?” she simply couldn’t bring herself to push the issue.

A truly stupid decision, now that the hour had grown so late she was kicking herself repeatedly. Surely he was still at the tavern, or even the bordelrie, or… Hells, who knew?! 

What was it the pawns were always saying? She played it over and over in her head as best she could recall: That they became flippant and restless, and refused to obey the Arisen in time, but they never spoke of any means to avert it, to fix it. 

Her mind kept cycling back to their conversation after they’d investigated the Phantom Oxcart. He’d been so angry with her then, by far the worst of their rows. But it was that fight she’d come to understand… he truly did worry for her. 

“If something like that ever happens again, kill me, and get yourself out of there,” he had told her. His hands had been heavy on her shoulders, the words barely came out in a growl between his teeth. “Don’t ever let them control me like that again, promise me.” 

And she had. She hated the idea of it more than just about anything else, but she wanted to respect his wishes even more. 

Did this fall under the scope of that promise, though? He certainly didn’t seem like he was under anyone else’s control but his own, and who was she to deny or deprive him of that? What if she… killed him, summoned him back from the rift, and he hated her even more than ever before? 

She turned a loop for the hundredth time in her room, biting her thumbnail. Surely he would understand though, wouldn’t he? That she only feared he was afflicted with the rumored plague - which he himself had expressed concern over! 

Her gaze fell on her sword. If she’d walked this room a hundred times, she’d glanced at it two hundred times. She’d killed many, man and beast alike. When she’d seen the guards in Melve abusing the people, there had been scarcely a moment of hesitation before she’d acted. Later she did wonder and worry, that perhaps she should have been merciful… 

Could she really afford to hesitate here, though? What if he got in trouble, or hurt himself? She hardly thought he’d actually be a threat to anyone, he enjoyed pleasures more than pain, but… What if they were fighting a drake and he decided he’d rather not? Why risk himself for the Arisen anymore? 

Which was a dangerous trail for her thoughts to take because she didn’t think he should have to, either. She loved the pawns and was reassured by their support, but why did they have to leap into the maws of monsters to protect humans? It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right…

“Auuuughh!” Groaning out loud she threw herself onto her bed, crushing her face into the blankets. Around and around these thoughts went, never leading to an answer, just gradually adding more questions.

She was simply going to have to kill him. ‘Sorry Em, I’m sick and tired of beating my head against the wall thinking about it, had to make sure you weren’t plagued.’ Surely he’d understand! 

“Liv?” 

She jolted up and whipped around, eyes wide. There stood the fool of a man himself in the doorway, head tilted like some cute, confused pup as he looked at her. She didn’t know what to make of the look on his face, except that he seemed… somehow troubled. A slight furrow to his brow. 

“Welcome back…” Against all her hopes of being graceful and taking the high road, she couldn’t help the grunt of dissatisfaction in her tone. Frustratingly, he grinned when he heard it. 

“You weren’t pouting because you missed me, were you?” He flashed teeth as he walked in and closed the door behind him. For that split second those few words of his were enough to stoke the flames of her frustration, but then he said:

“I might like it if you were.” 

And all the heat went out of her. No, not ‘all’. It was simply a vexingly more pleasant warmth in her breast rather than the venomous flame on the tip of her tongue. An accompaniment of butterflies in her stomach made her want to scream. Now wasn’t the time for all of that.

So she rolled her eyes to try to get herself back on course. It was easily done when she traced the sobering thoughts: Wait until he falls asleep, and then make a quick cut-

She hated the idea of such an underhanded method, but the idea of looking into his eyes- gods was she truly such a coward? It wrecked her heart to even imagine it. Would he be confused? Sad? Angry? Would he fight her? If he truly was plagued, she had to think he would…

“Oof, cold silence.” Emrys chuckled, unclasping his cloak and tossing it over the back of a chair. “I’ve really gone and stepped in it, eh?” 

She hadn’t realized her silence had gone on that long. Quickly, she sighed and shook her head, rising up from the bed to move about the room and finish preparing for bed. 

“It’s late, I’m just tired.” 

“Hah, don’t make me laugh.” Off went the boots, the gloves.“What’s got that pretty little brow of yours all scrunched up?” He leaned over, pressing a finger against the middle of her forehead and rubbing it. Despite herself, she snorted and feebly brushed his hand away. 

“I guess you had it right.” She shrugged, not so much folding her arms as hugging herself - bracing herself. Honesty was probably the best policy here, because she didn’t have the mental fortitude right now to dance around it. Even if she wasn’t going to lay out her bloody murder plans, she could blame her gloom on the other unfortunately just-as-true culprit: “I don’t like it when you ignore me…” 

His eyebrows rose high, but settled quickly. He had that look on his face again, like how it had been when he first came in. Like he didn’t know what to think of her.

“Is that right?” 

On one hand, it was hard to look at him, thinking about what she was going to have to do tonight. On the other, it was impossible to look away when he looked so… honest. She wasn’t sure exactly what she was seeing, but she didn’t think it was another carefully constructed facade. He was thinking something true now, debating how to say it. 

He reached his hand out to touch her face again, gently caressing her cheek as his thumb brushed over her lips.

“Then I shan’t do it again.”

Words that ought to have touched her deeply, if not for the confusion they left her with. Was she wrong? No smug or witty retort? No teasing? It wasn’t as if she’d given him an order, but did he have any reason to try to ‘appease’ her? 

“But there’s something I want, too.” 

The air felt thick, but not uncomfortable just… a little harder to breathe properly. A familiar feeling, to be sure, as he stepped closer, bending to bring his face to hers. Her body instinctively yielded to his presence, the layers of tension melting away, her arms unwinding from around herself to press her hands against him - to pull him closer. 

She really ought to have kept focused, but it was hard the way he looked at her now. Hungry, desirous - she knew that look well, and yet there was something more to it, wasn’t there? Was she just imagining it? 

“Anything.” She would kick herself later for how pathetic that sounded. A dumb and simple ‘What?’ would have sufficed but no, ‘Anything’. The truer answer though, to be sure. 

The corner of his mouth hooked upward, and she could taste the honey mead on his breath. Distantly she thought maybe she ought to have gone drinking with him, maybe this night could have passed so much easier.

“Should be obvious, shouldn’t it?” He asked. You know. Like an asshole. But then more sincerely answered: “You. I want you all to myself, Olivia. Always.”

Sincere, yes, but heavy. Somehow the words felt sharp and jagged, like wolf fangs hovering around her throat - like the bite would come any second. Yet her name sounded so sweet it tugged at the emptiness in her chest, filling it with warmth.

“What? Not just tonight?” Thankfully, she managed something more playful and less pathetic than along the lines of ‘Anything’, this time. But what she really wanted was to prod more out of him - more of his honesty. 

Or maybe she was just deceiving herself. Or letting herself be deceived. How badly she wanted this to be the truth of things. Oh, she’d had many a lover feed her sweet nothings, some more enticing than others, but she could not remember the last time she’d so badly wanted someone to want her for perhaps a little more - and for her to want them quite the same. With him, it stained every word, every look, every touch: Want me like no other, above every other.

Who else knew her better? All of her good and bad and ugly. All of her foolish past and foolish pride. Who else prodded and cajoled her, making her come to terms with all the things she kept running from? 

“Always,” he answered again, low and breathy against her mouth. Her breath hitched in her throat and her back curved as he pressed a hand down her spine, the sheer fabric of her nightgown beginning to toe the line of irritant. 

‘More. Tell me something, anything more to make it feel better,’ she inwardly pleaded, hands trembling as they peeled away the remainder of his clothes. 

Like a blessing, he did. 

“Whoever else you dally with, none of that matters so long as you’re in this bed with me at the end of the night.” His lips brushed over her cheek, kissed her neck, pressed to the curve of her shoulder as he pulled back her nightgown. “I want you for mine, tonight, tomorrow - always, you insufferable creature. Start each day with me, Olivia, and I’ll want for nothing more.” 

Enough, it was enough. She was so tired of thinking, and it was easy to let her body melt against his, knowing it so well. Her fingers could trace the curves of his body and know that nothing had changed here, and for at least a little longer she could take comfort in that, and think no more.

[missisjoker]

Lost Prince!Jace x Cregan Stark

A short foreword: 1. Boltons flay people because they can "steal" others' magic by wearing the skins.

2. Dragons can't fly over the wall because it breaks their connection to their riders AND breaks their connection to any warg that might be controlling them.

***

On his 10th nameday, prince Jacaerys takes his first flight. It goes splendidly well, and later that night, he sneaks out of his room to fly on Vermax again. He doesn't know that far in the North, a Bolton is wearing the freshly flayed skin of a skin changer and trying to warg into Vermax. When he takes to the skies, Vermax gets "snatched", and flies straight to the Dreadford. But they get caught up in a storm, get disoriented, and end up North of the wall. The moment Vermax crosses above the wall, control is lost, and he crashes down to the ground, taking Jacaerys with him.

The boy regains himself in White Tree, wildling village north of the Wall. The wildlings keep him alive because he is "magical" to them. They start training him in their ways, teaching him, and forcing him to fight. Sometimes bleed and starve him for their "magical" rituals.

Sometime later, during a hunt, he sees a group of Night Watch riders, and tries running to them, hoping with all his heart they listen and take him back to his mother - but almost gets killed. He starts hating the Crows for abandoning him, and hating his family for getting him on that dragon and then forgetting about him.

Years pass. Jacaerys grows into a fine wildling leader, smart and brave and ruthless, because wildlings are unforgiving- and so is he. His people call him "Prince".

He learns that a neighboring tribe has been worshipping the Others by leaving newborn babies in the mouths of weirwood trees for the Others to "eat". He is horrified, but...It's not his business what others do onto their children- after all, his own family left him for dead, so why should he care? He also has nightmares where a distant gnarly voice talks to him, promises to flay him and wear his skin like a cloak, and mount a dragon. Or, maybe, break him instead, and warg into him. And then return to Kings Seat and become the King of the 7 kingdoms. He doesn't know what it means, but feels glowing eyes watching him from the dark.

One day, he learns that the Crows raided the neighboring village, snatched a sacrifice baby, and now, judging by the sudden onslaught of Winter, the Others are pissed and are coming to kill everything breathing north of the Wall.

He leads his men after the Crows. His ambush is almost successful, he even sees the child- a small bundle of flesh and skin writhing in cold snow- he thinks of keeping the child alive, but then decides that killing it IS a mercy. He doesn't get to finish the job though, because a stone wall of a man in a wolf fur cloak slams into him. They fight, and the fight is brutal, and even though Jace is one of the best wildling fighters, he finds himself outmatched. He's disarmed, thrown on the floor, and a sword pressed into his throat. He has a flash thought "this is valyrian steel", and realizes- this must be someone from the South, perhaps a lord. A lord in the North? A Stark? "Killing an unarmed opponent? I thought Starks were supposed to be honorable." The man grabs him by the hair and drags him up to meet his gaze, "Honor is reserved for those who deserve it. And there's no honor in killing a suckling babe", and then Jace's world goes black.

He wakes up bound in a cave, near a fire, with Crows around him and with a Stark man watching him with the grey-blue eyes of steel. "Stop staring, it's impolite." "You whisper in your sleep." The man comes closer, and Jace feels uneasy under his piercing gaze, "Was I whispering your name?" The man smiles, and Jace begrudgingly admits that the man is handsome. "You're the one they call Prince?" "Yes, but you can call me Jace." "Hm." The man lifts his chin and runs a thumb over Jace's jaw- the same spot he clocked him in earlier. "Admiring your work?". The man's lips twitch in a half-smile, "And what if I am?"

There is a sudden commotion outside, and Jace finds himself alone. He crawls to the fire and burns the ropes around his hands, trying not to scream when fire licks his skin. He gets out of the cave expecting to run into a centinel, but outside is a massacre. There is a pack of wolves attacking the camp. He sees the Stark man- throwing off a beast off his men, face and cloak drenched in blood. Jace wants to run, but then sees a giant bear going straight for Stark. So, he grabs a half-broken spear from the frozen ground, screams, "Stark!", and throws it at the bear. Stark turns, and his eyes widen in horror because the spear only nicks the bear's side, and the bear roars and charges Jace. Jace moves and evades, but the beast still catches him with one of his paws, knocking him on the ground, and starts to claw at his chest. Jace hears his own bones break and skin tear, and screams when the bear goes for his throat, but in that moment a valyrian steel blade runs the bear's head through and exits thought his maw. Jace sees blood dripping on the snow and doesn't know if it's his, or the bears- and the world goes black, yet again.

When he wakes up, he ... is lost. His body aches badly, but he is warm, and his bed feels softer than he ever remembers feeling. He is covered in furs, and a brightly lit fireplace licks stone walls and arched ceiling with amber glow. He tries to move, but a firm hand stops him.

"Try not to move".

The Stark man is sitting next to his bed. His face is covered in scratches, but his eyes are ... soft. Jace feels a sting of something in his chest.

"Where..."

"Winterfell. You were badly hurt, so I brought you here with me."

Stark cups his head and helps Jace sit. His hands are rough from handling a sword, but strong and gentle, and Jace melts into the touch. The man gives him a sip of water,

"the bear..."

"It was a warg."

"A warg?"

"A skin changer. A man who controls animals from afar, makes them do their bidding."

Jace swallows hard,

"Is he dead?"

"No, he's not." A moment of silence follows, then,

"I Wish to go back."

"No."

"Am I your hostage then?"

"It isn't safe for you back there, your Highness."

Jace's face burns,

"Your Highness, is it now?"

Stark looks at him for a long moment, gaze unwavering, and Jace feels his skin prickle.

"Your name isn't Jace."

"What?"

"You kept repeating a phrase in your sleep. Se anogar hen zaldrizes iksos isse issa." The northerner's accent sounds a bit wild, but the words are undeniable. "The blood of the dragon is in my veins." You're Jacaerys Velaryon, son of Rhaenyra Targaryen and the Crown Prince of Seven Kingdoms."

Jace feels treacherous tears burn in his eyes.

"Jacaerys is dead."

Stark stays quiet for a while, then sighs, "Maybe so. But, whatever it is- stay here until your wounds heal."

Jace's heart is hammering in his chest and he turns away from the man, hiding a single tear rolling down his cheek.

"I don't need your pity".

"I am not offering you pity, I am paying back my debt. Stay here as my guest, and once you recover, if you still wish so, I will escort you back North of the wall."

Jace's eyes search the man's handsome face,

"Do you promise?"

"I promise. As long as you don't kill any more of my men."

He offers a hand to Jace, and Jace shakes it.

"Then it's a deal."

The man smiles, and Jace wonders for a second why does his hand fits so perfectly into the man's.

[take-everything-you-can]

What makes a man

A/N : This is the second piece into the angiverse or my dad Eddie series of blurbs. A series of Fathers Days throughout Eddies life. One Where his father wasn't so kind, another when he surprised Wayne, and one more where you surprise him. I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it.

P.s Photo in header are all from google straight up not gonna lie to yall have no idea who edited the Eddie and Wayne photo but its phenomenal.

P.p.s update : the photo of Eddie and Wayne was created by user @fefemunson on Pinterest and insta 💕💕🖤

Dividers by @cafekitsune

18+ MINORS DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT

Pairing: Eddie Munson x Fem reader

WC: 4K

TW: Angst ( Al - need I say more...) Fluff ( Wayne's gift, doting husband, baby girl Munson) Smut ( Breeding kink, F receiving, fingering, unprotected PIV, dirty talk, multiple orgasms, accidental edging, squirting) If y'all see anything I missed please let me know. Not really edited all that much.

Sweat rolled down the side of Eddie's face as he sat crouched behind a car in the packed lot of a junkyard, a few towns over from Hawkins. The sun had set but the heat waves, in the middle of June 1975,  had become almost stifling as he kept an eye on his surroundings. Al had promised that if Eddie just kept watch this one last time, while he took care of some business, then he could get him the guitar strings he had his eye on.

It had only been two seconds, two seconds Eddie let himself get distracted as he watched the fireflies light up the darkening sky in swirling patterns. Two seconds and Eddie had missed how a tall figure made its way over to the door in which he watched his father disappear behind. Two seconds and he was too late to let out his crow call to let Al know there was someone coming. 

“Run.” A gunshot and a flash of his father was all Eddie heard and saw before his limbs were weaving in and out of old abandoned things that people no longer needed. Things that people no longer wanted. Losing traction as the rain from the night before made the clay and mud beneath his feet slide. He had caught up to Al, Eddie had never been an athlete but when it came to running for his life, he had more practice then one should at his age.

“Stupid, How could you be so fucking Stupid?” Al was catching his breath as he slowed, pretty sure that the men he was stealing from had given up at least for now. “I mean I ask you to do one thing and you can't even do that right.” Eddie walks beside his father and he’s heard the spiel time and time again. “If you think I’m getting you those guitar strings after this, You can forget it.”  Eddie knew he was never getting those strings, and if he was being honest with himself he knew this was the only time he was going to get with his father. That's all he ever wanted , to feel like he was needed and if that meant he would have to sit through some words that hurt, then that's exactly what he would do. 

He thought to two days ago. Hawkins Elementary had fathers day arts and crafts sweep through the halls and through classrooms as the day approached within the upcoming weekend. He decided that he was going to draw what he knew best. Eddie had drawn a dragon, large and fierce , one only a brave man could face. Sword in hand and threatening he had drawn his father slaying the dragon that plagued the princess’s  nightmares around the realm. He was so excited to present it to his father but as he sat and heard the words his father was saying the longer the picture sat in his backpack until it littered the bottom of it at the end of the year. 

Eddie would never give the picture to Al, in fact he would grow to forget about it. 

It took only a few months as the fall leaves began to change colors and fall to the ground, Al would find himself behind bars. Life without parole for numerous crimes that would leave Eddie with nothing but his mother and His uncle. It would be a very very long time before He would even hear the sound of his voice again. 

June 1985 had become as hot as Eddie thought it possibly could within the trailer. Wayne was currently out shopping for two new units, one for the living room and one for Eddie. As the men of the house could no longer stand having their hair drip sweat in their eyes and slick down the back of their knees. So they counted couch change and broke open piggy banks for the luxury of air flow. 

Eddie had found himself trying to pry the window that had been painted shut open in his room. A small one across from where his bed sat, and it took all of his strength and an hour of his time, but he had finally been able to crack it. Sweet relief had started to settle around him as a breeze picked up and his curtains swayed in as he took a look around his room. Clothes scattered and books in a pile, a few cups on his desk and sheets of paper askew, Eddie decided to start cleaning his room.

 A half clean floor surprised Wayne as he looks in on Eddie as he arrives home with the new units. Almost not wanting to say anything at all to stop Eddie in his task, but he curses himself as the words leave his mouth. 

“Come help me unload this truck boy.”  Eddie slips on a pair or worn out sneaker and trudges through the inferno only to be met with a realization. It was colder outside then it was in the trailer and he stood on the shared porch in disbelief. 

“How is it cooler out here than inside?” 

“Not for long If i can help it, Now come one and give me a hand before I melt out here.” 

Eddie helps Wayne take both units into the house and he holds them up as Wayne takes his time to install them, making sure that he eases the process as much as he can for his uncle.

 Eddie Holds his breath as Wayne plugs in the unit in his bedroom and the second the small little green light pops on and revs the A/C Unit to life, That breath leaves his lungs in a huffed out laugh as he jumps up and down in joy. A laugh from Wayne as he pats Eddie's shoulder as he leaves the room. “Glad you like it. I’m hitting the hay so keep it down here okay?” Eddie nods his head towards his uncle as he lifts his shirt up over his head and just basks in the cool air hitting his skin for what feels like the first time ever. 

Eddie opens his closet to hang a few stray long sleeve shirts he had  found scattered across the floor. Giving each the smell test before grabbing hangers. Who needs a long sleeve tee in this heat anyway, he thinks to himself. He stops and bends to find an old shoebox that had fallen from the top shelf and somehow landed upside down. Small trinkets from his past had toppled out and onto the floor, a few movie stubs, from trips to the cinema across town. His first DND Handbook , a small pick-me-up Wayne had brought home from a thrift store for him one day after finding out he had the flu.

 Then a small folded up piece of paper caught his eye. A Knight in shining armor depicted as slaying a dragon, one with a tail that could take out entire cities and claws like daggers. A sword through its skull as he shields himself from the bloodshed,but the face of the knight confused him. He remembered drawing the picture for his father , his rounded features and brudish stance, but the more he looked in on the knight he realized the picture he had drawn was not rounded but more sharp. The knight was more gentle as if it hurt to even have to slay the dragon but for his princess he would do anything. He had drawn Wayne, not his father. 

The picture would continue to lay in the box , and Eddie would put the box back in its rightful place on a shelf in his closet , but Eddie would always know that Wayne would slay his dragon. In fact he realized Wayne had been slaying them for years all in the sake of his protection. This brought a smile to his face as he left his room and made himself some dinner, making Wayne a plate to leave in the fridge so he would have something to eat before having to go to work. Tomorrow he wouldn't wait for the phone call from his father that would never come, instead he would spend it with his dad, a man who took him in and loved him for all that he was. 

An Early Morning of June 1988, Eddie paced by the phone for what seemed like hours. He started off his day by sitting , but the nervous bile that would rise in his throat had him up and down. His mind was set on hearing disappointment but you reassured him he would hear nothing of the sort. Finding himself sitting, knee bouncing as if it had a live wire in it, you start to separate things off the stove into their own spots on the kitchen aisle. A breakfast fit for a king, sausage and eggs , bacon and pancakes. All that was missing was Coffee. 

The night before you and Eddie had gone to Waynes for dinner leaving a small gift that he wasn’t supposed to open until this morning. You were sure he would open it as soon as you left but the line had stayed silent and Eddie knew for a fact he would call if he did. Given the gift he was receiving you had hoped the phone would ring sooner rather than later simply for the fact that you wanted Eddie to have peace of mind. Each second that passed you saw in Eddie’s features that he was going to the dark and weathered places. 

You and Eddie had given Wayne a mug. A small pink mug that when Wayne opened it reminded him of a diner he had not far from his house when he lived in Tennessee as a child. As Wayne poured his coffee into the mug he noticed that when he went to take a sip his hand caressed within it perfectly, a new favorite he would have to keep by the sink. As his last few sips drained the cup he saw an inscription on the bottom of the inside.

‘Pa Pa needs Coffee first’ 

A shrill ring from the telephone made you and Eddie nearly jump out of your skin. He picked up the phone and held it to his ear but before the word “hello” could leave his mouth Wayne had already started.

“Are you serious? Don’t be playing no games with me boy, cause if i have a heart attack then i'm taking your scrawny ass with me! You better be telling the truth or so help me -” 

Eddie's sniffles match Waynes as he just nods his head as if the man on the other end of the line can see him.

“I’m telling the truth, we’re having a baby girl, Uncle Wayne.”  Eddie turns as he hears a small sob leave you . You had been watching the man in front of you tell the most important person in his life the news of having your first child. It broke you in the best way.

 Eddie motioned for you to come over to him as he couldn't pull the cord far enough to reach you. He wrapped both of his arms around your neck as he held the phone to his ear letting Wayne rattle on his congratulations while you let the tears fall and land on his shirt. Eddie hoped this would be one of those moments you never forget. One that even when you were sitting next to him old and gray , he hoped this would be a memory he could always reach out for.

 Eddie hung up the phone and still having you wrapped up in his arms led you backwards. He stopped next to the fridge and opened it opting for orange juice instead of coffee. He had told you about a week or so ago that anything you couldn't do, he wouldn't do, and It was becoming a challenge. Coffee and a cigarette had been his daily routine for as long as he could remember, but having you struggle was something he was not going to let you do alone. So this morning he poured you a glass of juice along with his own and you both sat and ate the breakfast of champions, a slight Happy Father's Day on the tip of your tongue. 

Summer on the cusp of beginning in June of 1991 had bees buzzing and roses blooming . A cranky tot had been an alarm clock for you and Eddie for the past three weeks. Not only had your daughter reached the terrible twos but the heat was something she didn't like in the slightest. A stressful few months of Eddie working non stop and you finishing rotation on night shift had left you no time alone together. That would all end tonight. 

Wayne had agreed to take Angie for the weekend while you and Eddie had finally convinced your jobs to give you the time off. A rushed drive to Waynes gave you that pit feeling in your stomach and the tears that stained Angies face at your absence gave you tears to shed of your own. Mom guilt was always something you would struggle with. How could you not? Eddie squeezed your knee as he drove, peaking at you every so often to sooth the pit, he felt it too, but you deserve this. Eddie Deserved this. 

An early check-in to the hotel you had booked gave you enough time to get dressed and listen to Eddie complain about the restaurant you were taking him to having a dress code. You packed him a black blazer and a maroon button up ,but the man refused to wear slacks. Absolutely threw a fit about it, so he compromised and wore black jeans that you had to inspect for rips. While you wore a black dress that fit snugly against your soft tummy, coming up short against your thighs. If you bent over the entire place would be getting a show but you were saving that for your husband. God your husband, you loved the sound it rang through your brain, an earworm the word had become since you married. Husband, the father of your child, the man you gave your everything to and he gave you back all of himself in return. 

The dim light of the room made you squint at the incredibly small print of the menu in your hands and as you look across the table you see Eddie doing the same. 

“You see a burger here anywhere?” you roll your eyes. 

“Eddie, we did not drive an hour into the city for you to order a burger from a five star restaurant.”

“Why not?” you could see the slight slip of the corner of his mouth. You smile and turn your focus back on figuring out what to eat before the waiter comes back. The pasta sounds nice, the steak on a table across the way looks divine. You settle on a Caesar salad , Eddie orders steak and fettuccine. A beer in front of Eddie pairs with your glass of white as his hand comes across waiting for you to take hold. You indulge him as you pick up your glass with your other hand. Soft circles across your knuckles have you leaning into the table.

“Have i told you how incredible you look tonight?” Heat rushes through you at his tone, seep sultry, dark. A twist in where he laces your fingers with his own and a gleam in his eye. You know exactly what he wants to hear.

“Oh yeah? Me? What about you over there?” You return the look as the waiter sits your food in front of you interrupting whatever he was going to say.

 A tight smile is all he gives as he picks up his beer and takes a sip. He picks up his knife and you watch as he tries to cut into his steak, lifting your glass and taking a long sip you take the edge of your heels and slide it up his leg. He nearly drops his fork on the ground at the unexpected touch. Eddie stares wide eyed as he brings his food to his mouth slowly taking the bite.

You look away as if your heel isn't still making its way to his knee and sliding in between his thighs, placing your shoe right against his groin. You can see the way his body stiffens and instantly his hand is slammed against the table. It gets the attention of your waiter as if the sound was a call of his name. When he asks if you are enjoying your food and if you need anything Eddie rushes to get the words out.

“Yes! Good! Everything is delicious! Can we get the check please?” he obliges as he walks to grab the tab for the two of you. Giggling as you take in the wild look Eddie is giving you.

"You done already babe?"

"You are going to be the absolute death of me, woman.”  you pay for dinner as a treat for Fathers day, shit this whole weekend was for Fathers day. Eddie gave you hell for paying but the bruising grip on your hip as you walked through the restaurant had you knowing he was going to pay you back tenfold. 

Barely making it through the door to your hotel room Eddie had already shed the blazer you had made him wear. Lips catching between teeth and struggling to undo buttons has you both breathless and frustrated. Eddie pulls the shirt up and over his head yelling fuck it as it soars across the room. The rattle of his belt buckle sends a shiver down your spine as you sit and struggle to undo the clasp of your heels. Eddie kicks the denim that pooled around his ankles to the side as he jumps up onto the bed. His knees against the sheets, he takes one of your heels in his hands and leans it against his chest as he undoes the clasp for you. He throws the heel behind him and does the same to the other leaning over you as his hair falls around your face.

“Mhmm, I've been thinking ‘bout this all day.” your lips crash into his, a hungry, feral feeling overcomes you as you wrap your legs around his waist. His lips begin their journey down your neck and across your chest, sucking small spots and leaving small bruises, as if leading breadcrumbs to find his way back home. He reaches the hem of your dress as he nips at your thighs pushing the fabrics up so it bunches at your waist. 

“Isn't it Fathers Day, shouldn't I be the one going down on you?“ He catches your eyes as you look down and shakes his head. 

“Nope. Like you said, it's Fathers Day and that means I get whatever I want baby,  and I didn't get to have dessert.” He takes the lace between his teeth and lets it snap back in place listening as you let out a small whine from beneath him. 

“Mmm so sweet” He slips the thong along your thighs and down your legs as you let them spread for his immediate return. Except it’s not immediate, he takes his time. “So good to me, aren’t you sweetheart?” He takes his time kissing his way down your thighs to your dripping core. He drapes your legs over his shoulders as he slips his tongue through your folds and around your clit. Sucking hard as he lets the slick of your arousal coat his taste buds. Kissing your cunt as if he can’t live without its breath in his lungs. He slips his tongue into you as he lets his nose stimulate your clit. You wonder if he can breathe but the thought is lost as he slips a finger into you instead coming back to focus on that bundle of nerves. Your hands wrap themselves around his curls and grip hard, earning a moan from him that vibrates against your core as he adds another finger and a gasping moan sounding from deep within you as you chase that lightning through your core. Shaking thunderous moans of His name leave you as you give in to your husband. He slows the curl of his fingers and lets you ride out your high letting himself pant against your thigh as your grip in his hair loosens. 

Laughs from Eddie send you into a fit of your own giggles and the loving look he gives you as he hovers over you letting you taste yourself off his lips. Slow and needy you reach down and grasp Eddie's length through his boxers and a groan is made from the back of his throat.

“Eddie.” The soft moan of his name is all it takes for him to give you anything you ever wanted. Some Days it’s your laugh, other days it’s the way you take care of his daughter, but right now in this moment it’s the way you're sighing at his touch. 

You sit up pushing his shoulders back until his head hits the pillows,straddling his waist and sliding up and down his cock a few times, coating him in your slick. Lining him up with your entrance and sitting slowly until his entire length is buried inside you. A deep moan from within the both of you. You lift yourself off of him leaning back resting your hands on his thighs as the angle lets him hit that sweet spot inside of you with every drop back into his lap. The way his cock slides against your walls has you throwing your head back ,eyes closed in ecstasy.

“Uh uh , Look at me , Let me see you baby.”  your chest heaves with each thrust he sends upwards into you, unable to form words. A sudden flip has you separated from Eddie right as you were on the cusp.

“I said look at me Baby, Come on. What ? dick so good you’ve gone dumb?”  He slams into you and the sounds of his skin slapping yours, as he fucks you into the mattress, echoes off the walls.” God you’re so tight. Squeezin the fuck outta me.” You whine as he lifts you so your chest is flush with his own. “Look so good underneath me ,gonna fuck you full baby.” 

“Yes , god yes Fuck Eddie, fill me up.” you moan through each thrust, right against his ear. You reach your climax gushing around Eddie a small spray reaching his abdomen and wetting the sheets beneath you. Nail marks scratching down his back send him into his own orgasm as he coats the walls within you thick, falling forward with you under him. A weight you would always welcome. Both of you lay in utter bliss for what feels like forever before he slips out of you. You hiss at the empty feeling but welcome the warm rag Eddie drags across your center. A glass of water is given to you as you lay tangled in the sheets bringing them to your chest as you gulp down every drop. A small smile on Eddie's face has you feeling like you did the first time you saw him. Unbelievably awestruck. 

“What's on your mind Honey?” He thinks for a second but gives you an answer far from what you expect. 

“I think we just made our second child.” loud and blissfully you laugh. 

“One not enough? “ His dimples practically touch each other as he purses his lips, letting his tongue glide over the bottom.

“One is plenty, but I just can't help but want a little more of you in the world.” you sit up on your knees as you bring Eddies face down to your own, sliding a hand across his cheek as your lips meet.

"I wouldn’t mind a little more of you out there either.” 

[aysegust]

MOONDUST. - K.B

Pairings: (Kaz Brekker x Reader)

A/N: Hello beautiful people! This was a request back in 2021 and I couldn’t write it. Due to my business in studying and since English isn’t my main language, I wasn’t good in writing that well. I loved the request and I didn’t want it to be bad and recently I started to write again due to ease my mind from the anxious things, I wanted to try and give it a shot. I also put a bit weight into Kaz’s way because I felt that would be more fit for the song and fiction. Hope you like it. Inspired by the song named [Moondust by Jaymes Young]

Request: Hey there dear! I saw your song inspired fic for Kaz with War of Hearts and I loved it. Now I'm wondering if you would do one for Kaz with "Moondust" by Jaymes Young (I'm obsessed with that song lately) in which both him and the reader are in love with each other but they decide to keep it quiet believing that it's the best for the other?

Warnings: It’s all honey and glass

Word Count: 1.242

Looking at you, like a star

From the place, the world forgot

It was a desperate attempt, trying to catch your glance. Kaz, sweared to himself inside, why he was acting this sentimental. Needing to see your face, hearing your angelic voice and to cross his eyes to yours.

Like you were a star, you shone through the bitterness of Ketterdam. Bitterness of his heart. The one thing he admired you about is that you were caring. Whatever Jesper rambles, what Nina wants to eat, Wylan’s info-dumps or Inej’s prayers -even you cared so deeply about what he wanted to say too.

But most of the times, Kaz didn’t share anything. He just stayed silent. However, you were fine with it. You loved to spend time in his silence, it was calming. A mutual understanding was there.

Both of you could relax with each other’s presence.

And there's nothing, that I can do

Except bury my love for you

But Kaz couldn’t be vulnerable. He had to be strong, cold and sharp. The thing about surviving in the Barrel is that you cannot have any weaklings. If you want to rule, you gotta be cold and cautious.

Sometimes as some of the nights passed without your company, he would think to himself. Besides thinking every outcome, Kaz thoughts about you. How, deeply inside his mind, he wants it. He craves your warmth, your affection and your caring nature.

He lived his life in a hell. He lost his family, his childhood. Living his life with a rage that’s just surround his every moment. With vengeance. Always having his guard on. It was tiring in some way.

His enemies thought the weak spot of him is his limp. They weren’t smart or Kaz’s just too cautious to hide the real one. It was you.

But he never showed it. Every heist, every dinner with Crows, all the sessions of your hangouts, he never showed it. He buried into his chest and never dared to admit anything.

As in the other hand, you understood him. In every action he took, what was the motive behind that.

Living in the Barrel and growing up without a stable home and family wasn’t surprising. In addition to that, the traumas buried under the grounds of Barrel.

The first time you realized he may care for you in a different way. After spilling you his past, he trusted you. That night a bright feeling of anger sat inside your chest and you wanted to protect him. What a conundrum.

Unfortunately after that night, as you also let yourself be vulnerable to him, the other day came and you both pretend that night was never really happened. For the sake of the surviving.

Sometimes, most of the times actually, you wanted it. You would’ve wanted to try. Be brave for him, like a lover. But in these circumstances, it was impossible. If you two met in another life maybe, but in this life, ot was just impossible to act on it.

I long to hear your voice, but still I make the choice

To bury my love (to bury my love)

In the Moondust

A week passed after the petty argument inside his office. He was pissed after an unsuccessful heist. The results of the heist cost the loss of money and Inej got hurt, you got hurt. Under his watch, you got hurt.

Kaz went insane. He was extremely violent as he saw you and Inej got hurt because of the hired Grisha’s in Ketterdam.

As you went to his office later that night, you wanted to talk to him. To explain him that you are alright and everything is going to be alright, he lashed out on you. About your optimism and your carelessness.

Which wasn’t true. You were careful, he knew it. He was pissed because seeing you hurt, he had seen it before but those times he hadn’t realized he was in love with you, this time he knew it. The fact that he tried to shut it out, to bury it out. So he was pissed because he almost lost himself and terrified, Kaz Brekker got terrified. Unlikely of him, wrongfully so.

So, you felt hurt after his accusations and you also got angry with him and the two of you argued.

A week passed. As the of you didn’t hold a conversation. Kaz longed to hear your lovely voice. Your rambles, your gorgeous eyes. However, whenever that thought crossed his mind, he closes his eyes momentarily and try to focus on his work and bury the thoughts of you again.

He was dark, crooked and full of vengeance. Opposite to him; you were like a star. You were kind, elegant and you make things around you better. He wasn’t like that, he was destructive while you were constructive.

Nothing can breathe, in the space

Colder than, the darkest sea

His nightmares came to present again. Haunting him as everyday wasn’t just enough but haunting him into his dreams were cruel as always.

He could feel the Jordie’s lifeless, cold hands gripping his collars. Acting like madly and shouting at him about the past, he was feeling to lump on his throat and the uneasy feeling inside of his body. His hands trembling, his head is foggy and the paralyzing feeling of the touch of skin just makes him want to die. To end his suffering.

But he wouldn’t he just couldn’t.

I have dreams about the days

Driving through your sunset breeze

Because you as Jordie pulls him into the water, you on the other hand help him to breathe again. You came into his dreams, after sleep deprived for days, the only time he drifted off to a nap, it filled with you. You were looking at him with your soft eyes. Your warm smile and your blissful laugh.

You waltzed into his dreams so smoothly and it helped him to sleep for couple hours without waking up in a drenched with sweat.

Yeah, I'm living far away, on the face of the moon

I've buried my love to give the world to you

Maybe in another reality he could’ve held you closer but as like the two of you agreed in a silent way that not acting on what you feel to each other was the of protecting each other.

Kaz Brekker and Y/N L/N had to be careful. Surviving in the Barrel wasn’t easy not when you two had enemies, unfinished business and haunting ghosts from the past.

Nina protested it in a way. She was the one who saw it in the first place. She could her Kaz’s heartbeat as hearing your laughter. It was beating fast. Or whenever he entered the Slat, you would directly look at him and your heartbeat, well, it was beating too fast.

She never understood why you two kept it from each other and why the two of you don’t chase the true love but it was a conversation for another day.

You and Kaz maybe didn’t act upon it but what the two of you felt was real. It wasn’t negotiable and it was pure.

The thought busied him throughout the nights. So he promised himself after he got his revenge on Pekka, he would come for you. He would be a better man for you. He would be more for you, he would try so hard to earn you.