#did I mention that it’s always old white men ?

[wandasaura]

LOVELORN AND NOBODY KNOWS

summary — your relationship with natasha is not as black and white as it seems, but you’re in no rush to figure out the logistics of it. when she leaves for a business trip, wanda is your only source of comfort, but you hate her… right?

warning(s) — established relationship, married wandanat, dom/sub dynamics, playful banter between three idiots, somnophilia, edging, praise, begging, teasing, oral, fingering, semi-clothed sex, finger sucking, bratty reader, a fuck ton of domestic shenanigans, copious amounts of fluff, essentially hurt/comfort, mentions of anxiety & panic attacks, mommy wanda 101, so much softness, men/minors dni

authors note — this is actually such a wild ride, and i shamelessly got the slightest bit carried away, but hey, we’re making progress in the wanda x reader department!

you are in love universe

♥️⊹ ˚ . 18+, men/minors dni ⁺ 𓈒 ꒰💌꒱ ♡ ･ mommy maximoff ✧

You saw Natasha at least three times a week, she made sure of it when she could. Sometimes, you were lucky enough to see her every day in some capacity, other times her business kept you apart for an entire week if not longer. Your favorite days were the ones where she’d stop by your dorm room for a quick lunch break. She’d bring your favorite meal and a bouquet of vibrant flowers, and it gave you a taste of what an authentic relationship with her would look like. You never forgot about Wanda. Never forgot that she was already married and had her wife’s explicit permission to be seeing you, but it was nice to pretend anyway. It probably wasn’t the best idea to have a crush on your employer, even if your arrangement was anything but practical, but even still, you should not be crushing hard on the woman who pays you for a fuck. 

You’d seen Natasha four times this week and it was only Wednesday. She’d stopped by your dorm room for lunch on Monday afternoon, holding onto a takeout bag from your favorite Italian restaurant, a bouquet of wildflowers neatly arranged in a tall and elegant vase, and one of her old Avengers University hoodies that had been meticulously sprayed down with her expensive perfume. On Tuesday, you ran into her at your favorite coffee shop where she subsequently stopped you from ordering a triple shot espresso in exchange for an ice water. You’d wanted to be mad, wanted to tell her that you were a big girl and you needed the extra caffeine to survive the long day of studying ahead, but when you’d even thought about challenging her, one look into her green eyes had you melting into the submissive partner she expected you to be. Sometimes you hated how easily she could break your strength without even trying, but you knew that was the biggest lie you've ever told yourself. You adore the control she has over you, you allow her to have that control, but sometimes you just wanted her to remind you of that. She did later that evening when you’d gone to the Maximoff’s residence for dinner. On Wednesday morning, you woke up with a soft ache between your thighs and the remnants of her touch in the form of scattered bruising across your chest. 

Every Wednesday night since you’d signed the contract to be Natasha Maximoff’s sugar baby, you had gone over to the Maximoff residence for a movie night and pizza. There was never a promise of anything sexual happening, but sometimes you just couldn’t help yourself and Natasha would fuck you right there on the couch if you asked nice enough. Wanda wasn’t always a participant in your film marathons. She worked in the office a significant amount more than Natasha did, claiming she liked the fast paced environment more than the peaceful quiet of the house, and her late hours kept her away from you most Wednesday nights. For that you were beyond grateful, but you didn’t always get so lucky. 

Tonight was one of those nights where Wanda had retired from the office earlier than usual, and was already on the couch with a half finished glass of wine before you’d even shown up at seven. The key you kept on your lanyard was practically useless on Wednesdays. If the door wasn’t already unlocked prior to your arrival, Natasha was sprinting to open it before you could even attempt to do it yourself. The gesture made you blush a ferocious shade of red each time, and you wondered if she sat by the window and watched you drive up just so she could fluster you, but you’d never get that answer out of her no matter how prettily you begged. Some secrets were kept tightly underwraps, even if they were merely forged in amusement. You’ve come to learn that Natasha Maximoff loves secrets, even if they made both yours and Wanda’s skin crawl. 

“How were classes, milyy?” Natasha asked sweetly, pressing a soft kiss to your lips in the doorway of the house, not yet letting you enter fully. The warmer days of Spring had finally settled over top of the small New Jersey shore town she and Wanda lived within, and the lick of heat that encased your body was particularly pleasant tonight. Dressed in only a pair of soft pajama shorts and her recently gifted hoodie, you didn’t mind standing outside for as long as she wanted, the moonlight reflecting off of her eyes created its own endless galaxy that you had the pleasure of getting lost in. You’d hate to shuffle inside and lose sight of it. 

“Tiring.” You hummed, leaning into her gentle touch when her calloused palms reached out to cup your cheeks. Your answer sets the mood for the evening even without meaning to, but you don’t mind what you’re getting yourself into. Natasha is always particularly attentive and soft with you if you tell her that you’ve had a long day, and secretly, you’ve been anticipating her coddling since your second lecture that afternoon. “It’s almost done, I just keep telling myself that.” 

“And then you’re mine for an entire summer. Think you can manage six more weeks before I steal you away?” She asked softly, already having a plethora of ideas for how she’d ask you to spend your break. You practically lived at the Maximoff residence during the semester, she couldn’t imagine three full months of your undivided attention and company. It was sure to be bliss. 

“Or I can drop out and we can start early.” You suggested, though it was merely a fabrication of your need for calm rather than any actual intentions of dropping out. You adored your academics, as demanding as they were, you were just reaching a critical episode of burnout. “Never let me overload again. I think my cerebrum is malfunctioning.” 

“That’s a big word for such a little girl.” Wanda’s voice quipped from deeper into the house, a playful edge to her tone but you were in no mood for jokes, especially not from her. You scowled with the knowledge that you wouldn’t even get a handful of hours alone with Natasha now, whining pitifully into the chest of your dominant. Sometimes you wished you could call her more than that, but you’d settle for anything if it meant calling her yours. 

“Be nice, she’s just teasing.” Natasha rewarded you with a gentle kiss, her cold fingers tilting your chin upward until she had your lips perfectly available. You tasted like coffee, and her brows furrowed at the realization that not long ago, probably not even a full half hour ago, you’d consumed caffeine. She always worried about you getting enough sleep at night, and the repercussions of caffeine on days when your anxiety was particularly brutal, but you never listened to her. “How many coffee’s have you had today, milyy?” 

“Please don’t punish me.” You sighed in regret, melting against her chest and forcing her arms to wrap around your waist and support the majority of your weight, the front door still open and allowing the valued cold air that Wanda paid a pretty penny for to slip out into the streets of Westview. “I just needed something to get me through class, and I didn’t want to fall asleep on you ten minutes into a movie so I stopped on the way here. I didn’t even finish it, promise, it’s still half-full in the car. You’re leaving tomorrow. I just wanted to see you.” 

Your nervous rambling was enough to indicate that your head was swimming in thoughts that made no real sense. Truthfully you knew that Natasha wouldn’t punish you for your caffeine intake. She’d be worried, she’d make you drink enough water to refill the ocean if it somehow managed to evaporate, but she wouldn’t punish you. Her consideration for your wellbeing did not warrant a physical punishment for choices you made as a grown adult, even if they concerned her. 

“Is that what this is about?” Natasha quizzed, looking down at you with a fondness in her eyes that made your cheeks flush a shade of pink only she had ever been able to create. When you nodded sadly, still not willing to let go of her waist, the lawyer huffed out a mixture of laughter that was somehow both saddened and amused. “It’s only two weeks, milyy. Fourteen days. How many hours is that?” She asked softly, knowing that you knew the answer. When you had first learned of her inescapable business trip to the Bahamas, which honestly sounded more like a dream than an obligation, you’d gone on a rampage. You’d listed off the number of days and hours and seconds that you’d be apart. You’d pleaded with her not to leave you for so long, and as embarrassed as you felt once you’d sobered up from your state of panic, the fact still remained that you were dreading the time apart. Yeah, Natasha was definitely more than just your contractual dominant, but neither one of you had braved a conversation regarding what the true extent of your relationship was. 

“Three hundred and thirty six. That’s over twenty thousand minutes, Natty.” You whispered into her chest so softly that the howling wind almost drowned you out, but still Natasha heard you and tightened her hold around your midsection, not caring about how warm the house became as a result of the still open front door. She’d melt into a puddle if it meant easing your mind, and Wanda, despite her tendency to poke fun at you, didn’t mind either. 

“You’ll be okay. I have a surprise for you, but I think we need to get some food into this belly and some water into you before we do any of that.” Natasha smoothed the wild flyaways away from your face, cradling your cheeks sweetly and tenderly, almost as if she was afraid if she touched you too hard you’d crumble on her front porch. 

At the mention of a surprise, your attention peaked, and you tried to peer around her body for any indication of what it was that she had. “Now?” You tried to convince her, a lively spark coming back to your eyes. You always loved her surprises. They weren’t all material, and the ones that were didn’t always make your bank account hurt at the mere thought of how much she’d spent on you. Sometimes a surprise meant that she’d take you out for a walk and bring you to her favorite bench by the shore, sometimes it meant she’d found little canvases to paint and had set up a makeshift studio in her office. Sometimes it meant that she had new toys to test and outfits to wear. You never knew what she had up her sleeve, but you adored her efforts nonetheless. 

Natasha laughed at your eagerness, glad that you had come back to yourself if only for a couple of minutes, but shook her head to decline your temptations. “Not now. Come on, inside, baby.” She guided you further into the house, finally closing the heavy front door when you were far enough inside to not be nicked by the latch. She’d made the mistake once, and you hadn’t let her forget about it since. She was so excited about your company that she’d more or less attempted to close the front door on your body, and while she’d apologized profusely, you’d just taken the bait and been able to call her the impatient one for once. 

“Hi Wanda.” You mumbled out pleasantries, knowing that it would make Natasha happy even if you just wanted to ignore the other CEO in the room. The woman was curled up into the corner of the couch, far away from the spot you and Natasha typically occupied during movie nights. Briefly you wondered if she’d done it on purpose, or if that was just the spot she liked to sit in. 

“Hi, darling.” She returned the greeting, though it was significantly warmer than yours. Natasha praised you for your efforts either way, running her cold hands up and down your thighs as she came to stand directly behind you, her chin resting on the crown of your head in the way you despised when anyone else tried to do that same. She was only two or so inches taller than you, but she made up for it in dominance, and it was no help that you shrunk in on yourself whenever she was around. 

“Go sit with Wanda, baby. I’ll bring you out some pizza.” Natasha left a kiss on the side of your head before she pulled away from you entirely and gave you an encouraging shove toward the couch. You pouted not only because of her asking you to keep Wanda company, but because the last thing you wanted was to leave her company after just entering it. 

Wanda laughed at your expression, patting the soft silk cushions of the couch invitingly. You adored their couch. You had made it known on multiple occasions when you all but refused to move into a bed at the end of the night, but something about being left alone with Wanda made even the softest seat feel daunting and scary. “I don’t bite, detka.” Wanda laughed, watching you pleadingly stare at Natasha who promptly ignored the burn of your eyes on her back as she disappeared into the kitchen. Her auburn hair looked like pure fire as she slipped into the brighter lit room, the overhead lights casting spells on her appearance. “She’ll be right back, there’s no need to pout.” 

You huffed at Wanda’s unwillingness to appease your sadness, but shuffled on your feet until you were close enough to the couch to plop down in the way she hated. The cushion sank beneath your weight and the back of the couch welcomed your presence without any additional need to wiggle around and get comfortable, and as much as it felt like a warm hug, your skin crawled being so close to Wanda without Natasha around to mediate. 

“Don’t be a brat, darling. It’s only for a couple of minutes.” Wanda’s scold wasn’t necessarily cold, but it was still laced with dominance that you couldn’t ignore. You huffed, pouting deeper, grabbing fistfulls of the hoodie’s sleeves and holding them over your trembling fingers. Wanda’s reserve melted as she picked up the subtle tells of anxiety, and that indistinguishable gleam reappeared in her eyes that were green like Natasha’s but so so different and unique. “You still have all of tonight. There’s no need for the tears right now, angel. Tomorrow, you can cry all you want, but enjoy what you have in the moment. Can you do that, detka?” 

“I don’t want her to leave.” You mumbled, nervously bringing the cuff of Natasha’s sleeve up to your mouth and chewing on it. Wanda had seen Natasha reprimand you for the action, she herself had reprimanded you for the action, but you looked far too nervous to scold right now, so she let you be. You didn’t know what had come over you. Never would you admit such silly feelings to Wanda, but you figured she would understand your thoughts. Natasha was nothing to you but a piece of paper, even if you didn’t believe that it was still the truth, but Wanda was her wife, and she had every reason to hate this trip more than you did. 

Not making a sarcastic remark like you’d half-expected her to, Wanda merely shrugged sadly and took another long sip of her red. You hated red wine, but the lawyer beside you found it particularly comforting for reasons you’d never asked about. “I don’t want her to go either, but she has to. A long time ago we stopped getting upset about what’s best for our business. It doesn’t do either of us any good if we work ourselves up about the inevitable. She’s come back before, hasn’t she?” 

“Yeah, but– but she’s never been gone this long, and– and, I don’t know.” You shrugged, your words practically incoherent with the thick material still between your teeth, but Wanda had understood you perfectly. 

“I think you do know, but you don’t want to tell me, and that’s okay. It’s okay to need her, malysh. She does a lot for you, yes? More than just providing orgasms like you’d thought you’d be getting into.” There was a hint of a teasing in Wanda’s tone, and her words caused a blush to spread across your cheeks at the implication of her knowing about your most intimate moments. Of course she knew. She’d seen you cum on Natasha’s strap and her fingers, on her thigh and on her tongue, in her bed and on her couch and her dining room table, but still you found ways to be shy about the topic after nearly a year. 

“Shut up.” You mumbled through your mortification, wanting desperately to hide your face and scrub this conversation from your memory. Your cerebrum may be failing in an intellectual sense, but it was working just fine now and you hated to admit that talking about orgasms with Wanda made you needy. 

Wanda laughed at your embarrassment, setting her wine glass down on the coffee table in front of her, her ringed fingers sparkling in the dim lighting of the room. The diamonds on her left hand were particularly blinding, and once again you remembered what you were to them and what Natasha wasn’t to you. 

“Natasha is just as upset about leaving you. She knows this is a stressful time, or did you forget we both went through eight years of law school?” Wanda quirked a perfectly sculpted brow in your direction, her green stare unwavering, and honestly, you had forgotten that they’d been in your shoes once, even if it was years ago now. Your silence was enough of an answer for Wanda whose lips curled upward into her signature smirk of amusement. “I think you’ll like the surprise.”

“You know what it is?” Your head whipped in her direction, and no longer did you avoid looking into her eyes. Your excitement was back, and desperately you bounced on the couch and pulled the sleeve away from your mouth. “What is it?” 

“What kind of secret would it be if I gave it up so easily? You should know better than that, little one.” Wanda laughed, curling her legs further beneath her as she readjusted on the couch, not missing your immediate pout at her unwillingness to even give you a hint. “You will find out soon.”

“I wanna find out now.” You huffed, throwing yourself back into the couch and crossing your arms over your chest. You wouldn’t beg with Wanda, no you still had enough self control to restrain from stopping to such low levels, but maybe you could work Natasha and get her to cave before she made you sit through an entire movie still not knowing. 

“Are you still pouting about the surprise?” The voice of your dominant hadn’t been expected, and you lurched forward on the couch in a desperate attempt to please her. Both women laughed at your stick-straight posture and firmly planted feet, but only one of them leaned forward to kiss your head and for that you were grateful. 

“Yes!” You huffed, throwing your arms out toward your sides in exasperation, narrowly avoiding hitting Natasha in the face as she leaned down to place three plates of pizza on the coffee table. You’d never understand how she could balance so many things at once, but when you’d asked once, she’d just laughed and told you she was a skilled spy in another life. “Please, Natty? I want to know! Wanda knows! You know! I’m the only one who doesn’t know!”

“That’s because A, Wanda lives here, and B, the surprise is for you. Do I need to remind you of the definition of a surprise, or is your brain working enough to remind yourself.” She taunted, not yet moving to sit down on the couch and collect you into her embrace, and it was then you realized that she still needed to go and collect the waters from the kitchen. “Eat. If half of that slice is gone by time I get back, maybe I’ll throw you a bone.” 

Wanda laughed at your deep frown, but she made no other comments that would’ve gotten you into hot water with Natasha when you inevitably quipped back at her. You aggressively grabbed the slice from the plate, biting off more than you could comfortably chew just as a means of expressing your annoyance. 

“Somebody’s fussy.” Natasha merely commented, and you sighed knowing she was right. She was always right, but it never made the pill any easier to swallow when she called you out. “How much sleep did you get last night?” She quizzed, and once again it felt like you were under interrogation as she looked up into her eyes and simultaneously felt Wanda’s gaze on the back of your head. 

“How many hours will you consider a reasonable amount?” You tried to wiggle your way out of trouble, but Natasha was unwilling to budge as she placed her hands on her hips. “Two.” You eventually admitted. “And I had four coffees. I never answered that question. But it wasn’t my fault, honest, Natty!” 

“And how would that not be your fault?” Natasha played your game, even if she so desperately wanted to march your ass up the stairs and make you go to bed right then and there. 

“I had to cover for my group partners for a stupid project that’s literally worth half of our grade! I don’t know how those fucking idiots have even made it this far without being kicked out. I’ve been reaching out to them all semester, but I couldn’t wait to finish it any more. It’s due next week and every time I emailed the professor she just told me to wait a little longer because I still had time before it was due. I left them parts to do so that they could get some credit at least, that was a fucking mistake.” You seethed, your jaw locked as you recounted the events of last night that had definitely ended with you crying yourself to sleep out of sheer frustration. 

“Detka.” Surprisingly, it was Wanda’s voice that called out to you, and you turned to face her with unbridled tears in your eyes. “You are not responsible for the academics of others who do not wish to put in the same amount of effort as you. It was very nice that you tried to save their asses, but if I hear that you sacrificed your own wellbeing again, you will have to deal with me. Not Natasha, and not your professors. Is that understood?” 

You knew that Wanda could punish you if she really wanted to. Natasha had made that clear when you’d been filling out the contract. As much as you were only her submissive, you’d agreed to her proposition of letting Wanda deal with you if she saw fit, and clearly, this was an instance where both of them agreed because Natasha didn’t offer a single defense in your favor. Wanda had never threatened to punish you, not seriously at least, it was more or less just banter between two dominants who sought out different things in a submissive, but now she was beyond serious and your cheeks flushed at the scolding. Your typical snarky response attitude fell away in an instance, leaving only a pliant submissive in the place where sarcasm usually filled. You tested Wanda. You pushed her buttons and bit back at her when she dangled bait in front of your face, but it was always Wanda that you fought with, the woman Natasha married, not the dominant you knew that she was both inside and outside of the bedroom. You had enough respect for her to address her with obedience now, even if you tried to tell yourself you hated her guts. 

“Yes, ma’am.” You whispered, dropping your gaze to your trembling hands in your lap. “I only tried to help them. My professor kept telling me everything was okay.” 

“Your professor is an idiot, and if she doesn’t fail your partners when you tell her that they did nothing to help you, which you will tell her next time you have class, I will deal with her myself. Is that understood, little one?” Wanda’s hand reached out to capture your chin, and although you wanted to flinch away from her touch, scared that it would burn you if that was at all possible, you allowed her to redirect your stare until you were looking into her worried and angered eyes. 

“Yes.” You deflated, hating that your peaceful evening had turned into this. “Can we just drop it? Please? I don’t want to talk about school.” 

“You’ve had a long couple of days, haven’t you?” Natasha cooed sweetly, understanding what you needed even if you hadn’t explicitly asked for it. You wanted to shut your brain off and just surrender yourself to her. You wanted her to take control, you wanted her to make the decisions, and she was more than happy to comply with that request. 

“The longest.” You sighed out, leaning into her touch when she reached a hand out and gently cradled your face. “I didn’t want to be naughty. I didn’t think I was being naughty.” 

“I never laid out academic expectations, you have no reason to feel guilty about breaking a rule you didn’t know existed. You know now, and will you do it again?” Natasha asked softly, getting down on her knees in front of you and softly wiping the pads of her thumbs against your cheeks, wiping away tears that hadn’t yet fallen. 

“No.” You shook your head, an admission that you couldn’t stop from forming on the tip of your tongue. “Wanda’s scary.” 

Natasha laughed at your statement, but she nodded her head softly, not disagreeing with you. She had been on the receiving end of Wanda’s scolding one too many times, and she knew just how threatening it could be. If you thought she was scary now, when she was admittedly being very soft and patient with you, Natasha knew you’d be a gonner the second you actually did anything to piss her off. “She is pretty scary, huh? But it’s only because she cares about you, even though you like to act like a little brat whenever she’s around. You’re a cute brat.” 

“Natalia.” Wanda’s sharp tone caught both of your attention, and subconsciously you leaned in closer to Natasha as if she could protect you from her wife. “Do not encourage her.” 

Natasha cracked a small goofy smile that had you giggling, your guilt and upset long forgotten as you leaned forward to kiss her nose the same way she did to you. “Eat your pizza, baby. I’ll show you the surprise after, okay?” 

“Okay.” You agreed, letting her stand and retreat back to the kitchen to collect the water she would undeniably make you drink entirely. “I’m a cute brat.” You looked back at Wanda, repeating Natasha’s words that would definitely get you in trouble at a later date, but for tonight, Wanda allowed you to feel content with the admission, not wanting to see any more tears in your eyes. She would never tell you, but seeing you upset broke her heart just as much as it did when she saw Natasha upset.

“I am not above spanking a cute brats ass until it’s sore for a week, but yes, you are a very cute brat.” Wanda laughed, not missing the way your eyes bulged out of your head and you quickly distracted yourself with another bite of pizza. 

When pizza was eaten and a significant amount of water was drunk, Natasha kept her promise of showing you to your surprise. Wanda didn’t trail along with you, more than content to let you have a moment alone with the woman you would miss unbearably by this time tomorrow. You held onto Natasha’s hand as she guided you down the upstairs hallway, practically bouncing on your toes as she took her sweet time. 

“Why are we going in here? It’s empty.” You frowned when Natasha abruptly stopped walking and instead stood still in front of the third door on the left; the last door on this side of the hallway. The first two doors led to rooms you knew well, although Wanda’s office was significantly less explored then Natasha’s, you’d still been in there a handful of times when your dominant asked you to place some paperwork on her desk. 

“Finals are coming up, and I know you hate working in the library because college kids don’t know the definition of quiet.” Natasha began, her hand not yet reaching for the gold doorknob. The suspense was killing you, and she seemed to take great pleasure in that fact. “I thought you would like to have a space where you can come and do your work, or just decompress if you need to. Well, it was actually Wanda’s idea, but she thought you’d hate it if she knew it was her suggestion, so don’t tell her I told you.”  

“My lips are sealed.” You giggled, keeping your voice low and hushed, though you were absolutely certain Wanda could hear the both of you perfectly clear despite your mutual efforts to be sneaky. The woman had a strange sixth sense for knowing when you and Natasha were causing trouble, but this time it was at least a good trouble. 

“You have your key. I want you to use it when I’m gone, even if Wanda’s home and you think she won’t want to see you. This might not be your home, but you are welcome at all hours of the day and night.” Natasha kissed the side of your head gently before she reached out for the doorknob and gently led you inside, flicking on the lights when both of you were inside of the room. 

The plain white walls that you were used to were now adorned in all kinds of photographs and prints. Some of the pieces displayed were photographs of you and Natasha that you didn’t even know existed, but some were posters of your favorite places and artists that only someone who paid careful attention would know. You’d droned on and on about Scotland and Moscow one night with Natasha, and you hadn’t expected her to really be listening, nor remember the exact locations mentioned, but the scenic photographs of your favorite towns and cities proved that she had been and that she did. There were little knick knacks and trinkets on the bookshelf toward the back of the room, and your eyes quickly spotted a figurine of a whimsical fairy placed right beside your favorite children's book that brought you comfort on long days. There was greenery in almost every corner of the room. A succulent sitting on your desk with prickly beige spikes adorning its thickest section. You giggled at the pot of choice, approaching it slowly as if you weren’t allowed to touch it. The entire room was magnificent and so perfectly you, you didn’t even know how to express your gratitude.

“This is amazing, Nat.” You breathed out in wonder, sweeping the tips of your fingers along the potted cactus. The pot was a nude color, notably the same shade of pale as Natasha’s skin in the wintertime, and the painted nipples on the pot were comically small and pink. You knew that she’d been the one to pick out that pot, and you could almost imagine Wanda’s exasperation when she’d been shown it. “How much of a fuss did Wanda put up about the pot?” You giggled. 

“Oh she made me cook dinner for three days after that purchase. Something about me being ‘incredibly childish and needing to learn how an adult acts’. I know she likes it though. There’s a matching one in our bathroom.” Natasha’s smirk was smug, and you desperately wanted to kiss it off her face, but you were frozen in place when you realized there was a desktop computer sitting in the middle of your desk that was identical to the one in both her and Wanda’s office. 

“Nat, you didn’t need to do this. This must have cost you a fortune.” Tears brimmed your eyes, but unlike before, they weren’t in the slightest bit sad. You crashed into her chest with a force that threatened to knock her on her ass, but she had maintained upright and had reciprocated the embrace with a tightness that only reminded you about her upcoming departure. “I’m going to miss you so much.”  

“Hey, look at me, angel.” Natasha gently guided your eyes to meet hers, and you were shocked to find that they were just as glassy as your own. Maybe Wanda was telling you the truth when she said Natasha was just as upset about the business trip as you are. “I’ll be back in three hundred and thirty six hours, and then I’m not leaving for the rest of summer. You have me for three full months, can you be my strong girl for two weeks?” 

“Only if you promise that you won't have any fun while you’re gone. And that you’ll drink a pina colada for me, straight out of a coconut, with a pink bendy straw and a little umbrella.” Natasha laughed at your petulant proposition, but she extended her pinky finger in the same childish fashion. 

“I pinky promise I won’t have any fun. It’ll be impossible to have any fun without you, detka.” She whispered, leaning forward to brush her lips against your forehead. “And I pinky promise to drink a pina colada straight out of a coconut with a pink bendy straw and a little umbrella just for you.” 

“I can be your strong girl then.” You wrapped your pinky around hers, pulling your entangled fingers close to kiss them softly and lock in the promise. “I wish you didn’t have to leave.” 

“I wish I didn’t have to leave either, but it’s my turn to be the big scary boss lady. And, you’ll have this space to come to if you miss me. There might be a couple of other surprises laying around, but I want you to find them in your own time, okay?” 

“No super sneaky peeking around.” You agreed, cracking a genuine smile up at her. “Can we go watch the movie now? Wanda hasn’t complained about seeing Cars in a while.” 

“Are you ever going to let her have a moment of peace?” Natasha laughed at your cheeky expression, smoothing it down with a lingering kiss that was nothing but sweet. 

“Absolutely not.” You giggled, already peeling away from her body and making a mad dash down the stairs and toward the living room, knowing that she’d be right behind you. 

-

A fire in your lower belly is the sensation that eventually pulls you from sleep, though the blinding presence of morning sunshine is a close second. It takes only three seconds for you to realize that your hips are pinned to the soft mattress beneath your weight, incapacitating you from attempting to stretch like a newborn kitten, it takes you a further three seconds to realize that the fire in your core was not a result of a wet dream you couldn’t remember, but rather Natasha’s tongue and fingers as she worked you open. 

You gasped at a particularly harsh thrust, her fingers curling into your pussy with a vengeance, seeking out that soft spot within your walls that made your eyes roll each and every time she abused it. If you weren’t so disoriented from sleep, you would’ve had the decency to feel embarrassed about the wet squelching sounds that Natasha draws from your cunt every time she snaps her wrist back toward your mound, but there's no time to think about how desperate your body is for her touch even when asleep. 

“Daddy!” You cry out, your back arching off the bed, attempting to push yourself closer to her face and seek out a deeper pressure on your clit that's being worked over with practiced ease. You briefly wonder how long she’s been between your legs, but it's not a thought that stays longer than a fleeting single second before you're being distracted by her nails digging into your thigh wit the hand thats not fucking your desperate hole. “Please! Fuck!” 

Natasha moans against your pussy, and it’s only when you raise your head to see her clearly that you realize that there's a vibrator clenched between her own naked thighs and she’s actively chasing her own high, her hips rocking against the bulbous head of the purple toy you have a love-hate relationship with. Your fingers reach down to grab at her auburn hair, pulling her closer to where you need her most, begging her to fix the mess that she single-handedly created. 

You can feel the coil growing in your stomach, getting tighter and tighter with each pass of her tongue against your throbbing clit. You come undone so quickly for her, there’s no telling if she’s been between your thighs for mere minutes or entire hours, but the sensation of sunlight against your face tells you that it’s at least ten in the morning, and Natasha’s an early riser, so you know that if anything, she’s been edging you for at least an hour so successfully that you hadn’t even stirred. 

Her lips pull away from your clit far too soon for your liking, and the hill that you’d been climbing slowly starts to fall despite the fingers still practicing a punishing pace as they disappear into your most intimate part. “Do you know how many sweet orgasms Daddy has stolen from you, Princess? Do you know how sweetly you moan when you're still asleep?” 

“Fuck, Daddy, please!” You cry out in desperation, writhing on the bed before her free hand leaves your thigh and reclaims its position against your hips, effectively stilling your movements and leaving you to just accept what she gives you. 

“Five. Daddy’s edged you five times. You must’ve been so sleepy, baby girl. Do you feel all rested now?” She teases, and her mouth is so close to your pussy that you can feel the vibration of her words against your clit. She wont start up again until you’ve answered her, but there's not a single coherent sentence in your brain at the moment. Your senses and thoughts are consumed with one thing; her. “Hm, do you feel better now, baby? You were so tired last night you didn’t even make a fuss when Wanda carried you to bed.”

Your face flushes in embarrassment as you learn about who had been the one to tuck you in so tenderly. You remember red hair and soft lips as they kissed your forehead, you remember a gentle hand brushing against your cheeks as you whined for them to stay with you, but it hadn’t registered that it was Wanda who carried you upstairs and not Natasha. 

“Y-Yes, yes I feel better, now please! P-Please Daddy, make me cum! Let me cum!” You sob rather pathetically, but you're too lost in pleasure to care about how needy you come across. Your fingers that are still threaded into her hair attempt to pull her lips back to your clit and she lets you. If she didn’t want you winning, you know she could’ve easily resisted your grip, but there's something so satisfying about believing that you’ve overpowered Natasha Maximoff. 

“Thought you’d never ask.” Natasha hums against your clit, devouring your pussy with purpose. She’s not wasting time on pleasantries, you suppose she’s already done enough of that, and her tongue sets a punishing pace in tune with her fingers as she circles and flicks at your clit with the very opposite of kitten licks like you know she loves to tease you with. 

“Oh! Oh!” You cry out, an orgasm approaching you, but unlike earlier, Natasha doesn’t pull away and she doesn’t slow down, if anything, she picks up speed and hammers into your pussy so harshly you know you’ll be feeling these lingering touches for days afterward. You can’t bring it upon yourself to care though, and your hips attempt to meet her thrusts. “Please! Please!” 

“Hold it.” Natasha sounds desperate herself, and it's only when she increases the speed of the vibrator that you realize what she wants. She wants to cum together. She’s leaving today, in less than two hours, but she’s taking the time to be with you rather than packing her carry-on, and on top of that, she wants to cum together. You're drowning in adoration, blinded by pleasure, completely surrendering yourself to her and whatever she deems you worthy of receiving. “Just a little more, Daddy’s so close, baby. Gonna cum with Daddy? You gonna cum all over Daddy’s face and let her taste you before she leaves? Gonna let me remember the taste of your sweet pussy before I leave for the airport?”

“Please! Please, I want to cum for you!” You cry out, your blunt nails clawing at the skin of her neck and shoulders as you feel yourself beginning to crash over that blissful edge of satisfaction. Natasha doesn’t stop you this time, and with the slightest signal of permission as her fingers tap twice on your belly, you fall over that edge and gush around her fingers. 

“Good girl.” She coos, her breath caught in her throat as she comes down from her own high, wiggling away from the vibrator when the sensations become too much against her sensitive clit. “Such a good girl for me.” She praises you, rewarding you with a soft kiss against your throbbing clit. “Shh, let Daddy clean you up.” Natasha hums, pulling her fingers out of your pussy and replacing them with her tongue. You reach for her hand, knowing how much it drives her crazy when you suck your orgasm off of her fingers, and right now, you’re more than willing to please her in that way. Your tongue rolls between her knuckles, your teeth gently nibbling at her skin. You can barely feel her tongue cleaning you up as you devote yourself to her fingers, but you know she’s satisfied when she leans overtop of you and kisses you slowly, her lips damp with your arousal. 

“Morning, Natty.” You whisper shyly, threading your fingers through her hair in a much nicer manner now that you’re not desperate for release. She smiles and mumbles the same greeting against your lips, and though you can taste yourself on her tongue, you can also taste Wanda, and you have a feeling the Sokovian lawyer in the room just next door was woken up in the same fashion. “Can taste Wanda on you.” You giggle softly, shoving her away from you in favor of cuddling up into her chest and making the most of the next hour and a half. 

“She’s sweet, isn’t she?” Natasha teases, her fingers, still damp from your mouth, trace the smooth embellishments on your cheeks. She adores all of your imperfections, she’s guilty of running her thumb across the jagged scar on your hip whenever you wear shirts short enough to reveal the blemished skin, but something about her right now is so different then the many other times you’ve been in this position. You never want to leave her embrace but you know that you have to. You hate that you have to. “Wanda’s making breakfast. I have time for some coffee and pancakes before my flight.” 

“I don’t want you to leave. I can fit in your suitcase if I really try, I’m sure of it.” You plead with her, but despite her wanting to see you try, she shakes her head and kisses away the pout on your lips. 

“I think that counts as human trafficking. I might be the best lawyer in the world, but even I don’t have a good enough defense to get me out of those charges.” She teases, pulling you into an upright position so you won't fall asleep on her like you want to. 

“Piggyback down the stairs?” You question, rubbing your eyes with closed fists, another one of your habits that both Natasha and Wanda hate, but she doesn’t reprimand you today. 

“Of course, darling. Put your shorts back on and then I’ll bring you down.” Natasha kisses you one last time before she gently forces you off the guest bed and onto your own feet. You make quick work of redressing, forgoing the purple panties you had initially worn over last night, knowing that if she’d taken the time to edge you five times before you’d even woken up, that they were surely drenched and in need of multiple washes. Better yet, you might as well just throw them out. 

You clamber onto her back with a smile on your lips the second your shorts are back into place, giggling manically when she jostles you around and makes a show of running down the stairs two at a time, much to Wanda’s displeasure. Your sensitive core rubs against the seam of your pajama shorts and the muscles in her back, but you pay the tickling sensations no mind, desperate to just enjoy these last few moments in her company to the best of your abilities. 

“Do you still have a voice, malen’kiy? I’m pretty sure the neighbors heard you.” Wanda teased the second you and Natasha entered the kitchen, bringing an immediate scowl to your face. You kicked your foot out in her direction, knowing you’d miss but just wanting to retaliate in some way. “Do not act up with me, little one. Natasha can’t save you when she leaves.” 

“Don’t be a meanie then!” You stuck your tongue out at her, hardly realizing the grave you were digging for yourself. Tensions were high with the promise of Natasha leaving, there was no real malice behind your jabs, but just as your emotions were unruly, Wanda’s patience was thin. Your eyes went wide when she suddenly appeared so much closer than you remembered her being, and you anticipated her next move before she’d even acted, but unfortunately for you, you hadn’t been quick enough to pull your tongue back into the safety of your mouth before Wanda was pinching it between her thumb and pointer finger.  

“I understand you’re upset, but I will not tolerate this disobedience. If you want to join us for breakfast, you will knock it off now, otherwise I have no problem making you a plate and sending you to eat in the living room by yourself. Is that what you want, milyy?” You shook your head, but quickly regretted the decision when you remembered Wanda still held your tongue firmly. You whined, batting her hands away from your face but she was unrelenting, and if anything, her grip only got tighter. “If I see that tongue out again, you’re not going to like what happens.” She warned, and even though you wanted to call her bluff, Natasha’s tight grip on your ankles told you that was not a fire you wanted to play with today. 

You whined, thankful that she had stopped holding your tongue captive and had walked back toward the stove, but now you were left with the sickest feeling of embarrassment crawling up your spine. For as bratty as you tended to be, you hated being scolded. You attempted to hide away in Natasha’s neck, but Wanda seemed to have grown a third eye and was quick to reprimand your fleeting attempts to worm your way into Natasha’s good graces. 

“You do not get to hide. You wanted to be a brat, you can deal with the embarrassment of being reprimanded. If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a million times, I am not as lenient as my wife, and I do not tolerate disobedience. Fix your pout, go sit down at the table, and wait quietly for me to finish your eggs.” Wanda pointed toward the already set table with her spatula, only briefly glancing back at you when she made the effort to reach for the salt and pepper shakers. 

“Wanna stay with Natty.” You pleaded quietly, not attempting to hide your face again, but still holding tightly onto your dominant who would be leaving for the airport in forty minutes. You didn’t even have a full hour left anymore. 

“I’ll be right there, go sit down. It’s okay, you’re okay.” Natasha lowered you onto the ground, softly kissing your temple before she patted your bottom and guided your shoulders in the direction of the table just beyond the threshold of the kitchen. Wanda and Natasha were the only people you know that actively used their dining room for every meal they ate together. They even had a breakfast nook in the corner of the kitchen with pretty blue placemats and a vase of fresh flowers as a centerpiece, but on the nights that you slept over, you’ve never even seen so much as a book be left on the table. 

You sighed, doing as was asked of you, if only for a handful of minutes before you headed straight back toward the kitchen. You could hear their whispered voices even from where you were meant to be sitting at the table, but what they were saying was practically indistinguishable. They were too far away and far too quiet to make out clearly, but you hoped it wasn’t about you. You hoped that you hadn’t completely ruined Natasha’s last morning at home before her business trip. You sighed softly, deciding against ignoring your anxiety, and slowly approached them again, your hands clasped in front of you. As much as you wanted to run straight toward Natasha and have her hold you, your eyes were trained on Wanda, waiting for her to notice your presence, though you knew she already had. Maybe she was waiting for you to make the first move, or maybe she was ignoring you because she thought you were deliberately disobeying her. She wasn’t your dominant, she wasn’t anything to you, not really at least, but somehow it felt wrong to disobey her so directly.  

“What is it, detka? Wanda asked you to sit at the table, did she not?” Natasha decided to throw you a bone after it was made clear that neither you nor Wanda were going to make the first move. You were both far too stubborn for your own good, but luckily enough, you had her to bridge the gap when neither of you were willing to give an inch. 

Your eyes flickered between both Natasha and Wanda, and softly, so softly, you found the strength to apologize. “M’sorry, Wanda.” You admitted weakly, looking down at your naked feet in a lash ditch effort to avoid her strong stare, not wanting to see her face if she decided to reject your apology and send you away again. “C-Can I stay here?” 

“Come here.” Wanda sighed softly, and you faintly recognized the sound of the spatula being set down and placed on the countertop. When you looked up from your feet, still avoiding Wanda’s eye but no longer trying to make yourself seem small, you noticed that the eggs were done cooking, piled up onto a serving plate and resting near a pitcher of orange juice that you had no doubt was freshly squeezed and organic from the local farmers market, though it lacked pulp much to your delight. Natasha was a freak when it came to how she liked her orange juice, but you were glad to see that at least somebody who permanently occupied a space in this house had some sanity. “I didn’t send you over there as a punishment, detka. You needed to breathe, and now that you have, you feel better don’t you?” 

You nodded your head, because admittedly you did feel a little bit better now that you had taken a couple of minutes to put space between yourself and Wanda and all the big sad feelings you had no choice but to shuffle through. You still wrung your fingers together and looked everywhere but Wanda’s eye, but you definitely felt better. You could see Natasha’s smile in your peripheral vision, and you exhaled softly at the confirmation that you hadn’t completely ruined everything, another weight falling off of your shoulders. 

“Did being over there make you anxious because you could hear us talking and you thought it was about you?” Wanda tested the waters, and your head snapped up to look at her with pure bewilderment in your expression. “Aren’t you the one who calls me a witch, shouldn’t you expect for me to know everything that goes on in that pretty little head?” 

“Yeah.” You grimaced slightly. You didn’t know she had caught onto your less than creative nickname for her, but apparently she had and had just accepted it without complaint, or maybe she had complained to Natasha, but she wasn’t saying anything to you about it now. You felt bad, not normally someone who resorted to name calling when you were around someone you didn’t like, but Wanda just made you so… annoyed, for lack of a better adjective.  

“Good job recognizing that.” She praised you lightly, and as much as you didn’t want to, you glowed beneath her positive attention, your eyes flickering to Natasha as if to ask her if she was actually hearing the same thing as you. The auburn-haired woman laughed at your expression, merely shaking her head and shrugging her shoulders. “Ah, not looking at Natasha, looking at me. Good girl.” Wanda gently scolded, and your cheeks flushed at her continuous praise. If someone would've told you that when you’d gotten into this situation that Wanda would be the one dishing out praise while Natasha stood silently on the sidelines, you would’ve laughed in their face. “Come here, I made Natty and I’s pancakes, but you can make yours.” 

“I can help?” You light up at the suggestion, eager to get your hands on the bowl of batter that was waiting on the side of the stove, and you definitely spotted chocolate chips sitting right beside it. Neither Wanda nor Natasha had any specs of brown on their breakfast, so you wondered if those had been taken down just for you. 

“If you promise not to splash batter everywhere.” Wanda hummed, and her eyes flickered briefly over to Natasha who was less than amused at the unneeded comment. 

“It was one time! And it was your fault! Who comes up behind someone in the middle of making pancakes!” Natasha exclaimed in playful exasperation, though her wide smile betrayed her faux annoyance. 

“And what is throwing pancake batter going to do if I had been the intruder you claimed to think I was? Was your plan to avoid being murdered by offering them a nice homemade breakfast?” Wanda rolled her eyes, pressing a kiss to Natasha’s cheek before she focused her attention back to you. “Bring the eggs to the table, Natasha.” 

“Bring the eggs to the table, Natasha. Wash my car in the middle of a snowstorm, Natasha. Find a way to make elephants purple, Natasha.” The woman droned on in an accent similar to Wanda’s, though there was a distinguishable difference in her tone. With her Russian roots, she couldn’t quite master the Sokovian accent, but she certainly tried her best. Her mocking was more or less ignored, though Wanda did threateningly snap a dish towel in her direction and wordlessly pointed toward the dining room. “I thought this was my going away breakfast and yet I’m being put to work.” 

“You have thirty minutes to eat, and unless you’d like me to let you get on a plane starving, you’ll do as I ask.” Wanda rolled her eyes, but her attention was no longer on her dramatic wife. Instead, she was entirely focused on you and guiding you through the motions of pouring the remaining pancake batter into the already hot and sizzling pan. You giggled when the smallest bit of batter splattered out of the pan, landing on the skin of your hand though you were grateful it wasn’t yet hot.

“Can I put chocolate chips in it?” You bounced on your toes excitedly, already reaching for the bag despite not yet having Wanda’s permission. Natasha was strictly against you eating sugary things for breakfast when you had classes to focus on, but it seems Wanda didn’t share the same concerns, because she hummed her approval seconds before your hand dipped into the bag. 

“Do you want some pancake with your chocolate, honey?” Wanda laughed, and for once, you didn’t get offended by her teasing, just craned your neck and offered her the brightest smile you could muster. “If you can’t pay attention in class today, we will not be having chocolate chip pancakes on weekdays again. Got it, dove?” 

“Got it!” You giggled, not really paying attention to her anyways. You were entirely too busy making sure that your single pancake didn’t burn as a result of the too high heat and combined culinary negligence, though every couple of seconds you snuck a handful of chocolate chips into your mouth and hummed as they melted on your tongue. They bought the good chocolate, that shouldn’t have surprised you. 

“I can see you, you are aware of that, aren’t you?” Wanda laughed, but there was no bite to her taunt, and again you found that it didn’t bother you like it usually did. If she had wanted you to stop eating the chocolate chips, she would’ve asked you to, but she quite enjoyed seeing you so carefree and happy with the ongoing promise of Natasha’s departure looming heavily in the air around you both. 

“Do you want one?” You replied coyly, holding up your hand for her to see. There was in fact a singular chocolate chip pinched between your fingers, and while Wanda wanted to roll her eyes and remind you that she had been the one to purchase them in the first place, she settled for simply accepting your offer. Her way of accepting your offer however, had not been what you’d had in mind, and you’d flinched in shock when her teeth grazed the knuckles of your fingers and her tongue corralled the single piece of chocolate into her mouth. “That– That is not what I meant!” You blushed a ferocious shade of red, quickly turning back around and focusing your attention on the pancake that had finally finished cooking. 

“Stop teasing her, Wands!” Natasha’s voice called out from the dinning room where she had remained throughout the entire ordeal, but you could hear the amusement in her tone and wondered if she could see the both of you from wherever she was standing. 

“Yeah, Wands.” You giggled, poking your tongue out at the lawyer before you remembered her earlier words and your face dropped. “Sorry!” 

“She stuck her tongue out at you again, didn’t she?” Natasha’s voice filled your ears, and the sound of her laughter followed shortly after, but you were too mortified to smile at the sound. You turned around to look at Wanda nervously, noting that her hands were on her hips and her perfectly manicured nails glimmered beneath the bright lighting and unfiltered sunlight. Her eyebrow was quirked perfectly, and you wondered how long she had practiced that expression until she was sure it was perfect. She had her intimidation tactics down pat, but you supposed that came with owning the world's most successful law firm.  

“Sorry! I really didn’t mean to!” You pleaded with her to believe you, knowing that the time you could spend with Natasha was slowly dwindling, and you really did not want to spend the last few minutes of contact with Wanda mad at you. 

The stern expression on the lawyer's face melted away like it had never been there in the first place, and Wanda laughed so sweetly you were almost absolutely certain that you’d somehow missed a joke Natasha murmured from the dining room. You pouted in confusion, digging your toe into the hardwood floor and flickering your gaze down to watch. 

“You’re fine, detka. Thank you for apologizing, but I know you were just teasing, huh?” She smiled, lifting your chin to meet your gaze. She kissed your forehead, something she had only ever done when you were half-asleep or entirely fucked out, but you couldn’t deny, even though you desperately wanted to, that it felt nice, comforting even. “Get those pancakes into the dining room before they get cold. Natty only has a couple more minutes before her driver gets here.” 

And once again you were faced with the unavoidable truth. Natasha was leaving for fourteen days and there was nothing you could do to stop it. 

-

The first five days without Natasha had gone as well as had been expected, though you would say you were faring significantly better than she’d ever anticipated. Even Wanda, who you had seen a handful of times throughout the week when you escaped to the Maximoff residence to work in your newly established office, had been surprised at your composure. The older woman of the couple had never been away for so long, usually capping her trips at three to five days, and even that was challenging for you to accept in the beginning of your relationship, but you were handling the distance well and with pride, being her strong girl like you’d promised to be. You talked daily, and though you didn’t hear her voice as much as you would like, she’d made the time to FaceTime twice so far. Just because she didn’t have the time to call didn’t mean you missed out completely on what activities she was up to though. She made sure to send you plenty of pictures of the scenery, and you’d all but gushed over the resort she was staying at when she sent you a picture of the sunset from her room. There were at least twenty pictures of Bahama sunrises in your camera roll now, but your favorite pictures were the ones you got at random throughout the day that were nonsensical and entirely her. She sent you pictures of her outfits and of her drinks when she managed to escape to the bar after whatever meetings had given her a headache. She’d managed to get her hands on a pina colada in a coconut on the second day of her trip, and although the bendy straw was yellow not pink, you forgave her and asked how it was. Your most favorite pictures however, were the ones of her notes. You’d expected the CEO of a successful law firm to take detailed and attentive notes, but every time she sent you a picture of her notebook, the pages were filled with random doodles of flowers and stick people, and yours and Wanda’s name in different squiggly styles. You held those closest to your chest, because even if you were just her submissive, she was thinking about you the same way she was thinking about Wanda, her wife. 

Your academic workload hadn’t lightened in the last five days, but you’d been juggling classes and routine well, somehow managing to balance studying and homework as seamlessly as anyone who made the decision to overload in a Spring semester could manage. You had hours of homework a night, research papers and historical annotations never giving you a break, but the end was in sight, and for a while, that simple fact had been enough to keep you pushing through. You knew Natasha would be proud of your grades at the end of the semester, and you had been anticipating the praise and reward she was sure to provide, but that all came crashing down after your last lecture of the night. Your professor, Sharan Carter, had berated you for your complaints about your group project, but not only that, she had failed you. Her reasoning had been that you did not adhere to the guidelines of the assignment, claiming that you made no effort to work alongside your partners, and even though she had a small novel of proof in her email history that debunked that accusation, she hadn’t wanted to hear your side of the story, and had sent you out of her office with the dismissive shake of her head. 

All you had wanted in that moment of shame and defeat was Natasha, and although you knew she was over a thousand miles away on a tropical island, probably stiff as a board in some multi-hour meeting that she had no real care for, you had gotten in your car and driven straight to the Maximoff residence. Your hands were trembling at your sides, and it would appear to anyone who even glanced at you too quickly that you’d been caught in a sporadic storm with how damp your cheeks were from the tears that defied your attempts to keep them at bay. Your hands were trembling so violently that you couldn’t get the key in the hole, and dissimilar from how the front door remained unlocked until lights out when Natasha was home, you found that Wanda was in the habit of locking it each and every time she left and entered. The thought of the Sokovian lawyer made a sob crawl past your lips, and feverishly you knocked on the door, hoping she could hear you from wherever she was in the house. You didn’t care about how you were supposed to hate her. You didn’t care about the rivalry that existed between the two of you, though it was slowly becoming an afterthought as the days passed. She was the only source of comfort you had right now, and as you waited on the porch, shaking like a leaf in the middle of a hurricane, you yearned for her touch and her citrusy scent. 

When the door opened, and the quickest glimpse of Wanda’s burgundy hair flashed before your eyes, there wasn’t a second of hesitation that crossed your mind before you stepped past the threshold of where their porch met the entryway and dug yourself into the lawyer’s chest, desperately clutching at her t-shirt. Agonizing sobs further shake your already trembling body, and you barely recognize the weight of her hands slinking around your waist and drawing you in closer to her chest as you finally let yourself fall apart completely. 

“S-She failed me.” You sobbed into Wanda’s arms, acutely aware of how silly you probably came across to the businesswoman as you allowed yourself to become so distraught over something as trivial as a project grade, but the combination of academic failure and Natasha’s absence had entirely demolished your reserve. “A-And you told me to t-tell you if she didn’t listen to me! So I am! I did! I’m telling you! A-And Natty’s not here, and I’m so tired, and she failed me and it dropped my entire semester grade to a D! A-And I just, I just wanted Nat, and I don’t even know why I came because I know she’s not here, b-but then I got here and I just wanted you, and-and-and-” 

“Shh,” Wanda soothed you gently, effectively stopping you from working yourself up even further than she thought possible with your practically incomprehensible rambling and heartbreaking tears. Her gentle hands rub patterns onto your back that you were only vaguely aware of in your state of upset, but eventually the combination of her physical presence and dull beating of her heart in your ear calms you down enough to allow you to suck in a sharp gasp of air. “You’re okay. You’re okay, sweetheart. Just take a deep breath for me, okay? Good girl.” 

You melted into Wanda’s embrace as she continued to hold you tight, one of her ringed hands eventually trailing up your spine until it found a home at the back of your head. She pressed your face into her neck, not caring about how your wet cheeks made her skin damp and sticky, just wanting to keep you close until she was absolutely certain that you had calmed down enough to breathe normally. Even if you hadn’t realized how close you were to tipping over the edge and into a full episode of panic, Wanda had, and it scared her half to death to see you so distraught and beside yourself. Up until this very moment, she’d never even considered how she would miss your sarcastic quips and ruthless banter, but opening her front door to find you a mere shell of the woman you usually were had been horrifying and not something she ever wanted to relive. 

Eventually, you pulled away from her embrace, wanting to wipe your cheeks free of tear tracks and mascara, and desperate to breathe in the fresh scent of blossoming spring that surrounded the suburban roads of Westview. Wanda smelled heavenly, she was positively addicting with her coconut mandarin mix, but fresh air was non negotiable in your current state, and greedily you breathed in through your nose deeply until that suffocating feeling in your chest became a simple buzz. It was then that you realized Wanda was wearing her blue light glasses, and your gut clenched in guilt, realizing that she’d been working up until your little meltdown.  

“Fuck, you were working. I’m sorry.” You apologized quickly, a fresh onslaught of tears brimming your eyes. You couldn’t seem to do anything right today, and so desperately you wished that Natasha were here to make it all better, despite knowing the luck of your day had nothing to do with the physical presence of one single person. 

“No more tears. No more tears, detka.” Wanda coaxes you farther into the house, not allowing you to back away and retreat toward your car like you’d been attempting to do since realization sunk in. “Nat told you to come over whenever, I’m glad you remembered that. I know I’m not Natasha, sweet girl. I wish I could bring her back for you, but for right now, why don’t you tell me what you need, hm? Can you do that?” 

“You’re working. It’s important if you're working at home this late.” You whispered shamefully, not wanting to be the reason Wanda falls behind on deadlines. You know it’s her company and she can do whatever she damn well pleases, pushing off a few measly emails included in that long list of possibilities, but you would feel horrible if your childish breakdown caused more work and stress for both her and Natasha in the future. 

“It is important, you’re right about that, malysh. Darcy fucked up big time with a client, and now I need to fix her mess before they ask for her release, and I won’t be able to argue with them if it comes to that, but nothing is more important then your wellbeing, so can you talk me through what you need?” Wanda gently cupped your cheeks in the same manner that Natasha usually does when you're in this state, and you felt a pang of sadness rush through you as you realized the true extent of how much you missed her. You’d been pushing off the sadness and grief that came with her absence, but you couldn’t avoid it forever, and apparently it had decided to catch up with you now. 

“Water. Natty always makes me drink water after and she… she holds me.” You admitted shyly, afraid of Wanda’s reaction to what you were indirectly asking of her, but all she did was smile at you reassuringly and lead you in toward the kitchen, the wide open front door forgotten about for a few short moments. 

Wanda makes quick work of filling a glass for you, not letting go of your hand for more than a necessary second throughout the entire process, for which you were grateful. You were absolutely certain that if she let go now, you’d spiral back down into that isolating pit of never ending thoughts. She pours herself a glass as well, though hers is taller than yours. She takes a sip before motioning for you to do the same, watching you intently over the rim of her glasses that have started to slip down the bridge of her nose. The cold water feels marvelous on your throat when you finally raise the glass to your lips and take a small sip, having not realized how scratchy and stiff it was as a result of your crying. 

“Would you like to sit in with me as I finish up with the paperwork?” Wanda questions you, her tone indicative of your freedom to decline her offer and ask for something else, but you wouldn’t even dream about saying no to her right now. 

“I can?” You asked meekly, shuffling on your feet nervously. 

“I wouldn’t have offered it if I wasn’t being truthful, dorogoy. I know you’re worried about me falling behind, so I figured I could hold you in my lap for a while until I finish up everything that needs to get done. Does that sound like a good plan?” Wanda checked in with you, her thumb rubbing comforting circles on your knuckles. Her touch on your hand is a stark contrast from how she’d last grabbed you when you were in the kitchen together, but it feels nice and you don’t ever want to pull away from it. 

“The front doors still open.” You remind her, and she laughs softly at your concern for the door, guiding you back into the living room and toward the entryway. She closes the door with a soft push, making sure that both locks are clicked before she even considers turning toward the stairs and leading you up toward her office. She may be a capable woman, but a home intruder felt like something she wasn’t quite qualified to deal with. 

“There, all better.” She smiled down at you, leaning in just close enough to brush her lips against your forehead. “Do you need anything else before we head up to my office? It might take a couple of hours before I have everything completed.” 

“No.” You decline her offer, shuffling closer into her embrace when you ultimately decided she was too far away. Your free hand was still holding onto the glass of water, and you were careful not to spill any of it as you moved.

“Okay then, bug. Let’s go.” She squeezed your hand tightly, slowly leading the way toward her office despite your familiarity with the route. You didn’t complain about her slow pace, taking the time to really admire the subtle details of her home that you overlooked when you were busy chasing Natasha around. 

The Maximoff residence was luxuriant and abundant to put it gently. There were large windows in both the kitchen and the living room that allowed sunlight to pour in at every hour of the day and coat the furniture in golden hues. There were subtle traces of both Wanda and Natasha’s separate personalities in the decor that filled bookshelves and countertops, but for the most part, their style blended together superbly. It wasn’t obnoxious or over-the-top, no, it was done so tastefully that you thought the interior of the house belonged in some high class magazine that showcased celebrity homes. The accents of black in their appliances and metal hardware that were undoubtedly Natasha’s doing, but you thought it fit perfectly with the presently white walls and light colored wood. Wanda had more to do with the furnishing if her office was any indication. While Natasha’s furniture was practical and bare, Wanda spared no expense in assuring her office was both functional and comfortable. Their subtle differences were what made them work as both romantic and business partners so well, and you hoped that one day you’d be lucky enough to find a love like theirs.  

“You still with me, sweetheart?” Wanda checked in, effectively drawing you out of your head that you’d somehow gotten lost in, but your thoughts weren’t unpleasant, and the ghost of a smile on your lips assured Wanda that you were fine. 

“Did Nat pick the black hardware?” You questioned softly, following Wanda as she stepped into her office and closed the door behind you both. 

The woman laughed at your question, having expected hardware to be the last thing on your mind, but she nodded her head. “She did. I wanted gold.” 

“I like it. I could tell she picked it. You picked the furniture.” You mumbled, glad to be talking about something other than your breakdown. You didn’t know what you expected when you originally sought Wanda out for comfort, but you were glad she was just rolling with the punches as they came. 

“Very attentive, little one. I did.” When she sat down in her office chair, setting her water down carefully a good few inches away from her keyboard, she turned to you expectantly, patting her lap with a silent invitation. She pried the glass of water from your grip, placing it next to hers, and you realized then that she had gotten down two different glasses on purpose. “Get comfy, we might be here a while.” 

You sank into her lap tentatively, unsure of how she liked to be held. You practically koala’d yourself around Natasha whenever she allowed you to keep her company in her office, but you’d never cuddled like this with Wanda before, and you didn’t want to make her feel suffocated with your clinginess. So instead, you settled for resting your cheek against her chest, the crown of your head tucked beneath her chin, and you kept your arms pinned between your chests. You could feel her every inhale as she breathed, and you quickly decided that you liked this position. 

“Before you get too sleepy, I need the name of your professor, malen’kiy.” Wanda rubbed your back with a heavy palm, making note of the fact that you seemed to have forgone a bra when getting dressed that morning. You were just like Natasha in that way, and she found a gentle smile gracing her features at the subtle similarities between the two of you. It was no wonder you fit together like a glove, you were practically replicas of each other in the little aspects of your interests and personalities. 

“Sharon Carter.” You mumbled, entirely too content to really care about how you were basically feeding the woman to wolves with your admission of her name. Wanda would rip her to shreds when she got her claws on her, you were sure of that fact, but she deserved it after the harsh and unnecessary comments she’d made. 

“Carter, huh.” There was something in Wanda’s tone that implied she was familiar with the woman, or at the very least her last name, but you didn’t care all that much about whatever was going through her head. 

“Shh.” You silenced her, snuggling deeper into her chest and clutching the hem of her t-shirt between your fingers, wanting to rest in silence for the next couple of hours. 

Amused with your antics, Wanda pressed a kiss to the top of your head before she got back to business, the only sound that filled the office was the rhythmic clicking of her keyboard as her fingers worked feverishly to resolve the issue that Darcy had created. It wasn’t even a full ten minutes before you were sound asleep against her chest, your deep and even breaths tickling the exposed skin of Wanda’s chest, but she didn’t care as long as you were feeling better. 

Your relationship shifted that night. It wasn’t perfect, not yet at least, but you couldn’t deny that Wanda had somehow wormed her way into your heart, or maybe, just maybe, she had always had a place in it to begin with.

[magics-neptunes-things]

The Dork And The Nerd

Hello there!

I didn't post anything with Leah since like for ever, so there it is!

Please enjoy :)

TW : None I think, or please let me know :)

Looking around the room, you readjust the camera one last time before starting your stream. It’s your job, even if some people are still saying that it isn’t a real job and stupid things like that.

You were winning your life easily with it, living your dream. You always loved playing video games, you started alone because it wasn’t what your little sisters were loving to do. When you discovered online games it was a life changing for you. You started streaming when you were 18 years old, which was seven years ago now. It was hard at first to be honest, being a woman in this man world.

But you find some friends in popular streamers who took you under their wings and help you to be where you are now.

You have several thousand people who follow you to each of your live, four night each week. You still have some shit to deal with, like harassers, but you took a manager who is the one reading your mail. He takes on him to choose your different partnership and sometimes answer to the people sending you strange things.

You are openly gay, but that doesn’t make stop some of men to send you disturbing pictures. Thanks god it’s your agent who see them, but you are aware of it. Just like your girlfriend, though.

You start your stream like usual, saying hello to your followers and talking a little bit about actuality or what you did today. You have a white kitten, who you called Purrito, who is almost as famous as you are. He keeps coming when you are playing, sometimes lying on your hand, or trying to catch the mouse of your computer. You already have a lot of bloopers because of him, but you can’t be mad with him.

Lately, your passion for video games seems to have catch the attention of your girlfriend. She always was looking at you when you are streaming, when she can. You usually do it during the evening so she’s back from training or games.

When Leah asked you to learn to her how to play video games, at first you thought she was messing with you. But she was really serious and ask you one more time. And who are you to refuse something to your girlfriend?

At first it was just to have fun, but you soon have an idea, and you used your best puppy eyes to get your girlfriend agreed with it. You wanted to make her play with you, but without her showing her face in your screen.

You never talked about Leah being your girlfriend, even if you are together for two years now. The public know that you are in a relationship, you sometimes mention your girlfriend live. They just don’t know who she is.

You met Leah at a ceremony and Katie who is a fan of your job took Leah when she went to met you. You were happy to met Katie, but you find yourself thunderstruck by Leah. You don’t remember if you were really coherent that night, but Leah followed you back almost immediately when you did it on Instagram.

You waited the next Arsenal games to sent her a message, congratulating her for her performance. You even take a picture of you in the stand with your father (who really was surprised when you ask him to go with you to a women football game). Leah answered you that next time you come you have to tell her, so she could give you a better seat.

You didn’t know if she was serious or not, but she then asked you the next game in London if you are coming and she find you a seat in the friends and family area. After the game she offers you to go for a drink. You then had other dates, and the rest is history.

You got together one month before she did her ACL and even if it was a hard time, you both get stronger. You let Lia Wälti take the lead in Leah’s recovery, but you were always around to help too. When Lia return to her home, you were the one staying with Leah at night. And you kept taking her in her rehab and cooking for her.

The day Leah started to run again, you were at the training to watch her. This is the day where she officially asked you to move in with her now that she could do things alone again. Unless cooking maybe, but that’s another question.

You accepted of course and the blonde happily transformed one of her guest room in your studio of stream.

It’s where you are now, Leah peacefully setting on your living room, ready to go live with you.

“Oh, it looks like our guest is here” you smile when you see that Leah is connected too. “Hi Baby!”

You only said to your viewers that it was your girlfriend, without saying anything else. You are aware that maybe someone will recognize Leah’s voice, but it would be fun anyway.

“Hi Love” she answers.

You make a reminder of the game you were going to play, for her first live Leah chose a car games, Trackmania. It wasn’t your favorite game, but you were so happy that she said yes to you that you would have accept a Tetris game.

“How are you?” you ask her, while making the game ready.

“I’m fine. Happy to play with you tonight.”

“I am happy too” you smile before looking at the camera. “Let’s have her a good evening guys so she will accept to do it more often yeah?”

You hear Leah chuckle, and you can’t help but smile. You already are seeing comments saying that you look whipped, what makes you roll your eyes. It seems to you that Leah’s voice is a little different from what it is in reality, but maybe your mind is playing trick.

You play several runs with Leah, before switching to another game after talking with your chat who recommend to you to make Leah try an adventure RPG. When you look at the clock again, it’s past midnight.

“Oh wow I didn’t realize that it was already so late” you exclaimed yourself. “We are going to stop here guys, I’m sorry. Maybe next time we will try Minecraft or something else, I’ll let you know. I hope you had as fun as I had Babe.”

“It was really fun. Thank you for inviting me.”

You can hear Leah smile and you can’t wait to go to the living room for a cuddle and kiss session. When you played together until know, you were able to show each other or tease the other with kisses.

“You will be invited for more times” you smirk.

Leah left and you take the time to thanks your viewers a little more longer before logging off. You stretch, finishing your bottle of water before going to find Leah. You run on the stairs and Leah already knew you were coming before you jump on the couch next to her.

She laughs when you attack her with kisses all over her face, finishing on her lips.

“Did you really have fun?” you ask, looking at her with attention.

She nods, playing with your hair. She’s smiling and every time you look at her, you wonder how in the world you get so lucky. She’s perfect.

“I did” she smiles at you. “I’m not saying that I want to do that all the night every night, but it was great.”

“Mh I maybe have another idea for us to have fun all night” you smirk.

The tone of your voice is very obvious and if Leah had one doubt, she just has to look the way you are looking at her. Your fingers run on her tight and you kiss her one more time, before sucking slightly at her neck.

Leah gulp and just hums, tilting her head on the side for you to have a better access. You know what you are doing, after more than two years, you know Leah’s body and reactions like the back of your hand.

“Let’s go to bed” Leah decides several seconds after, taking your hand before dragging you in your bedroom on the first floor.

********

“It was a great session.”

You smile at Leah who came to your studio after you played together again. You were still sitting when she entered the room, and she passed her hand around your shoulder from behind to kiss your cheek.

“It was” you smile before turning your chair to face Leah.

She sits on your lap, and you pass your arms around her. It wasn’t the second time that you are playing together while you are streaming, today you chose Fifa and it was very fun. You made the pact not to play with Arsenal or England, but it was still very funny. Leah is a very bad looser, so you play several games in the same team too.

“People are starting to have some suspicion though” Leah says.

She was right, you saw on social media some things about your girlfriend being Leah. But it wasn’t the only name coming.

“Yeah, they said I will make a great couple with some of your teammates too” you shrug, before counting on your fingers “They are talking about Sabrina, Alessia, Kyra and Lia.”

Leah frown, not really liking the picture who comes in her mind.

“Nah. You’re mine.” she answers possessively.

“Do you want to tell people?”

Leah looks at you, thinking for several seconds before answering. This is lasting for some weeks now and you know that you can’t stay hidden forever. You attract the attention of the world by playing together.

“Not now. It’s fun like this, don’t you think?”

“It is” you confirm with a smile.

Leah has the habit to be coupled with every teammate and you are sometimes shipped with other streamers. You like to stream with other of them, certain being your friends too. There is nothing much, but that doesn’t stop people to imagine that you are dating one of them.

But you have to admit too that your stream with Leah attracts more people than usual, and you are a little scared that people will assume that you’re using your girlfriend for the views.

Your face being very close to Leah, she seems to realize very quickly that something is on your mind.

“What’s the matter?” she asks.

“Nothing” you say at first, before sighing. “Well, I mean… I already have some viewers saying that I’m using my girlfriend to gain more viewers, so I was wondering how they would react when they realize it’s you.”

You shrug to show her that it’s not really important, you don’t want to think you are worried about something so little.

“If someone say that you know what my answer will be?” Leah asks with a serious face.

“No” you mumble.

“I will tell them that we are together for two years, that you have been the best girlfriend in the world since. I will tell them how affectionate, caring, sweet, funny, clever and passionate you are.”

You can’t help but smile and feel your cheek being a little red at that statement. Leah smirks and kisses your cheek.

“And I’ll add that if you use me, it’s only in the bedroom and the way you do is actually very talented and also very private.”

You laugh this time, hitting her on the arm. Leah seems very happy about her joke, her eyes shinning with malice. She’s so beautiful. You bite her jaw before whispering.

“You’re such a dork.”

“The Nerd and the Dork, it would be a great book title” she smirks.

“You’re not totally wrong.”

********

“You’re cheating!”

You can’t help but laugh at Leah. You are playing once again against your girlfriend, during a live. You are playing at Mario Kart and you just won the race for the third time in a row. She’s fuming and even if you can’t see her, the noise coming from downstairs are letting you know that she’s actually kicking the ground right now.

“I’m not, Baby I swear. You can’t cheat in this game.”

“Yes, you are!”

You roll your eyes, not answering anything. You are of course very aware about of much your girlfriend hates to lose. You are at the first place while Leah is third, which is really good for someone who isn’t playing video games daily like you. But not for the great Leah Williamson.

“Someone in the comment is saying that I will sleep on the couch. I won’t Babe, right?”

“I’m not sure about it for now” Leah grumbles. “Or maybe I’ll go sleep to the trai…”

You cough suddenly and Leah stops talking, realizing what she was just about to say. You really hope that no one would understand what she was going to say. Or at least another end of sentence, not “training ground”.

“Alright, next game” you say right after.

“I’m gonna crush you.”

She doesn’t and when you join her in the kitchen after, she seems really embarrassed. You ignore the different messages asking what Leah wanted to say and the answer some of them gave. You saw that some people where right and you know that the research will start again.

“I’m so sorry” she says, coming for you while you’re entering the room. “I was fuming because I was losing, and I forgot for some seconds that it wasn’t only you and me.”

You smile, easily passing your arms around her to give her a hug. She cuddles against you when you kiss her temple.

“It’s ok, don’t worry. Plus, you are the most famous between the both of us, you will be the most annoyed by all that.”

“Why would I be annoyed?”

Leah back up her head a little bit, just to be able to have a better look at your face. You arch an eyebrow before answering.

“Because you always told me you want privacy.”

It was in the early hours of your relationship, and you never said anything against it. You understood Leah’s needs, at this time you weren’t as famous as you are right now. She wanted to be known for her skills, her job in football or her implications in different charities. And the point was very easy for you to be understood. Your friends are families know obviously about you two, it would be strange and difficult to hide a relationship when you live together. Plus because of her answer last time you talked about it, you were really sure that it was what she want.

“I told you that at first, but now I wouldn’t mind if people start to know about us.”

She shrugs like it’s nothing, but your mind just blown. You were used to the idea of people stay in the ignorance about your relationship and the love you have for this woman. As long as you have her, why would you complain?

“Do you… Really?” you frown.

“Yeah, I mean if you don’t want to be out…”

“No, I do. I just thought that you would like to stay private for like forever?”

“I love you. I want the world to know how happy you make me. But in several weeks. I want to play with your fans a little more.”

“Sounds good to me” you smirk. “And I love you too.”

********

For the next weeks, you chose one day of the week to play and stream with Leah. Between those days, you were careful to post some things on social media, giving little clues to your followers about the identity of your girlfriend. You never posted something with Leah or even with a part of her hand or hair. It was more subtle than that.

Until one day, where you were peacefully streaming while Leah went out with her friends. You usually go with her, but today it was more an unexpected drink, so you already have something planned on your channel. You have an entire trust in Leah, and you know that nothing would ever happen with anyone. If you go with her almost every time, it’s only to have a great time with her.

Plus, tonight she’s out with Katie, Caitlin, Steph, her boyfriend, and Kyra, so there are really no risks.

You usually wait for Leah to text you that she was coming home to cut your stream, so you have the time to finish what you are doing and say goodbye to your viewers. Tonight though, either you didn’t see her message, or she forgot to send it to you.

Still, there is suddenly a stunning blonde who enters your studio, showing herself in the camera at the same time. You are so surprised that you only can look at her on the screen of your camera.

“Hello Hot stuff! You won’t believe what I just learned about Kyra! Did you k- … Oh shit.”

That’s the moment she realizes. It was almost comical to be honest, the enthusiastic tone with which she began her sentence, the moment of silence and the last words spoken in a low voice.

You only have like two seconds to decide if you want to cut the stream and never talk about it again, or if it’s time to be honest with everyone. You chose a third way and turn to the camera.

“Well it’s time for me to say goodbye. See you tomorrow at eight. Thanks for being here!”

You wave and cut the stream and the camera before turning in Leah’s direction. She seems amused but she has at the same time the same look on the face of a teenager caught doing something wrong.

“Funny way to outing things, this clip will be viral” you comment with a small smile.

“I’m sorry?”

Leah can’t hide her smile and you can’t either. You can be mad at her for something like that. You let Leah comes to sit on your lap, kissing her softly when she’s settled. She taste like tequila.

“How was your night?”

“Great. But I missed you.”

She hides her face in your neck, and you feel the goosebumps forming when her breath stroke your skin.

“Did you have fun?”

She hums, start to kiss your neck and you know that the discussion you were supposed to have right now is delayed for now. You will have a lot of time to talk about it later. Your phones are way too busy receiving tons notifications to be able to do anything with it right now anyway.

********

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YourInstagram Two years and a half with this dork. I love you ❤️🤍

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leahwilliamson I love you more my Nerd ❤️🤍  

[awritesthings1]

Midnight Interlude

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x Wife Reader

Summary: You try to convince Tommy, your husband, to come back to sleep.

ao3 link

-

You awoke quietly in the middle of the night, feeling the weight of your slumber resting beneath your eyes. Too tired to lift your eyelids, you shifted in the bed, searching for the comforting cradle of your husband’s arms, only to find the space beside you cold and empty.

Weakly, you opened your eyes to the dark bedroom. Blinking sleepily, you waited for your senses to adjust while attempting to recall if Tommy had mentioned anything about going on a business trip. Your head ached. Where was that Tommy of yours? You weren’t even able to think because your brain was still buzzing from a peculiar dream. Regardless, you were freezing, and without Tommy to keep you warm, you wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway. You cursed, pressing a cold hand to your flushed head. Your nose squirmed at the bitter air.

You weren’t sure how many sleepless nights you could endure without your husband. Lately, he had been going on more business trips than usual and staying up late in his office. You went to sleep before him, and by the time you woke up, he was usually already going about his morning. It was if you married a ghost.

The sheets rustled when you swung your feet to the floor. You stretched your arms awake and rolled your neck to the side, receiving a satisfactory pop in return. Wrapping a silk night gown around your body, you left the bedroom, stifling a yawn as you reached his office, where you heard the cackling of candles and the amber hum peeking through from the crack beneath the door. You twisted the nob slowly, careful not to startle Tommy, and entered the room.

“Tommy? You’re still up," you croaked, rubbing at your tired eyes.

Your toes curled as a shiver passed through your body. The wooden floors of your husband’s office were always deathly cold. And where was that ambitious old soul of his? Hunched over his messy desk, squinting through his glasses as he appeared to be reading over a letter. His marble contours were more sunken each night. His thumbs twitched and fiddled with a fountain pen as if they couldn’t bear to do anything but work. The top buttons of his white blouse (that you were always sure to iron the night before) pealed back to reveal a sliver of skin that you would stare at some nights to ensure he didn’t die working himself to death.

You loved him. God, you loved him. You loved him in a way that certainly would disgust the wives from the country houses down the lane. They loved their husbands in a plain and simple way. Margaret had gushed to you about her marriage and how she had fallen into a timely routine with her husband, dancing around the clock until they fell asleep on a wonderfully fluffy mattress. You stuck your tongue in your cheek. That wasn’t love; that was what men told women love was—a choreographed routine. Tommy was different. He loved you hard. Not just because he was a man and that’s what men were supposed to do, but because he lived and breathed everything he did, even if it killed him.

“I need to write something down." Tommy cleared his throat, too distracted to look up from the letter.

If you were any other woman, you would mistake his tone for annoyance. Not you. The hollow under his eyes spoke for him. Your poor husband never knew when to rest. Even when the moonlight poured in from the window and his hands were stained with ink, that mind of his clicked away into a world only accessible to him. It must be a burden, you think, to have the intellect Tommy had—to be three steps in front of everyone else. Talking to the ladies at the country club exhausted you sometimes because all they seemed to care about was the latest silks and décor from an exotic country or babies with chubby cheeks. It had to feel something like that, like sugar rotting your teeth.

“You’ll have time in the morning,” you insisted, leaning against the doorframe and pushing a strand of hair behind your ear.

The candlelight began to flicker as it neared the end of its wick.

Tommy wet his lips. “I have an early meeting out of town.”

Your shoulders fell. You knew who Tommy was and the priorities he had to balance. His work was important to him, and he did it for his family. That included you, too. But at hours like these, when your nightgown wasn’t enough to keep you warm, you craved the comfort of his arms.

“Come back to sleep,” you whispered, crossing the threshold of the office to stand behind him, where he was hunched over on his chair, writing something down.

Tommy relaxed as you began to massage his shoulders. Those eyes that painted you blue on winter nights fell closed for a moment. His hand itched for his whiskey, resting on the icy glass but never raising it to his lips. Several cigarette butts were discarded on his ash tray, some still puffing smoke. He smelled like a mixture of the two. You remember when you were younger how your nose would scrunch up at the scent of his cigarettes. Now, it was oddly comforting.

“I need to finish writing this letter,” Tommy drawled, reaching for the cigarette case that was buried under a file of papers.

As he pinched one out, you grabbed the match box that had been sitting on the windowsill and struck a match to light it as he perched it between his lips. When the end of it lit up, Tommy took a deep drag.

“You’re a man, Tommy, not a god. You need sleep,” you sighed, squeezing his tensed shoulders.

“Not yet." Smoke escaped his mouth in light puffs as he spoke.

You blinked slowly. “Well, I’m going back to sleep.” It was a half-truth. You were never able to fall asleep after waking up in the middle of the night, especially without Tommy by your side.

Tommy’s rough palm covered your hand, which was resting on his shoulder. He cleared his throat.

“I’ll be back before you know I’m gone.”

That was never true. Every time Tommy was gone, the room stank of it. His presence consumed Arrow House; it was as if the walls were made from his flesh and bone. And when he was away, it felt like you were living in a stranger’s home. The paintings on the wall were of a random family, and his office sat as if it were abandoned in a hurry. It was only when he returned that the colors bled back into the walls and you realized you were home.

You leaned over and pressed a gentle kiss on his sharp jaw. He inhaled sharply through his nose. You noticed his attention had drifted from the letter and was now focused on the chandelier.

“Where’s that husband of mine? Hm?”

Tommy continued to take large drags from the cigarette while the both of you bathed in the crackling of the dying candlelight. Eventually, it burned out, and Tommy tapped the butt of his cigarette into the ash tray before setting it down to lean back on his chair. Now dark, he let you slip your hand from beneath his as you straightened your back and ran your nails through his scalp.

He groaned deep and nasally, fluttering his eyes closed. The tip of his tongue wet his bottom lip, and when your pupils adjusted to the dark, you saw the cogs in his head shutting off.

“Come back to sleep.”

“Alright,” he nodded with a grunt.

Most women would have said it was a miracle, not your Tommy. There was no holy spirit that possessed him to say yes. He chose to do so on his own account.

You rode that thought with a smile, turning his head to the side so you could lay a kiss on his forehead.

God, you loved him, you loved him, you loved him.

He sighed deeply, blinking lazily at his hands, which rested on his knees, before standing up. Both Tommy and his chair groaned at the movement. You hushed him and walked him to your shared bedroom, hand in hand. There, you carefully unbuttoned his blouse and slid his suspenders down his broad shoulders. Slowly but surely, you undressed him while his tired eyes watched you.

When you were younger, those eyes terrified you the same way a duck feared a rifle. What you never saw was the love they held behind glaciers of blue. Tommy made sure you saw it ever since. The ink on his hands was dry by the time they came to cup your face. His affectionate touch made more than your heart throb, but the both of you were too exhausted to do anything about it.

You settled for a kiss that he pressed against your lips. It wasn’t passionate or hungry like it usually was, but tender and firm. You loved it all the same.

“I love you." His breath settled on your skin like a warm blanket.

You closed your eyes and leaned forward, letting Tommy carry the weight of your head between his hands. You hummed when he brushed his knuckles gingerly across your cheekbones.

“I love you, too. Now, let’s get to bed before the sun rises,” you smiled, blinking up at him.

He kissed the top of your head, winding his tired arms around your frame to hold you against his chest. He hummed agreeably into your hair, letting his eyes flutter shut. Your arms wrapped themselves around his waist as he held you. You treasured small, fleeting moments like this. It wasn’t often that Thomas Shelby left his boots on the office floor and melted into a puddle. You think that made it all the more special. Your Thomas Shelby, the decorated soldier, the family businessman, and the hardened gangster could step away and become your favorite thing—a loving husband.

By the time you had both settled into the bed, the sheets were still warm, and the moon was still out. Tommy was resting on his side, with his arm draped around your waist as he snored lightly into your neck. Outside the window, the wind howled and crashed against the pane like winter waves. You felt none of it. Tommy’s body acted as a heater, protecting you from the numbing chill that waited at the edge of the covers, threatening to nip at your skin. You smiled, nuzzling deeper into his embrace. Here in the cradle of his arms, nothing could touch you.

[zaldritzosrose]

Can't Stay Away (Feyd-Rautha x Princess!Reader)

Summary: Second daughter of the Emperor and you were well used to being ignored in favour of your sister. That was, until you met Feyd-Rautha, nephew to the Harkonnen Baron. A tourney of old, bringing back the traditions of champions and favours brought him to your side - but how close would he stay?

TW: Minors DNI, She/Her pronouns, afab reader, mild mentions of neglect towards reader (ignored in favour of Irulan), Feyd being a flirt, hot and heavy making out, fingering, lashings of sexual tension.

I've taken a couple of liberties with the veils the Bene Gesserit/Irulan seem to wear - making it an honour to see a Sister/Princess' face and given meaning to the paint on Feyd before the arena...because why not it's my story!

(There will be a part 2...maybe 3...I have no self control)

Words: 3508

THANK YOU to @tumblin-theworldaway for not only being patient over this but for listening to my months of related brain rot! I love you!

Being second to the Imperial heir had not always felt like a task. As a child, you did not mind being sent off to other tasks while Irulan was coached in the ways of an Empress. Your father had you both trained in the ways of the Bene Gesserit, and as a child it made you feel incredibly important. Being at the Reverend Mother’s side, and at times the only time you were ever praised for something you had achieved.

But the older you got, the more the feeling of being ignored crept in. Men would seek out Irulan's favour, not yours. Visitors would spend hours speaking to the elder princess before speaking to you. Irulan was the interesting one. She was heir, it made sense for her to be the one they wished to gain the favour of.

Second daughter, second best. You understood it, deep down, but that did not stop the hurt it caused.

Despite this, you always accompanied your father and sister on the planetary tours, following along as the Emperor would visit all his people and be lavished with grand feasts and parties as a welcome. Every House from Arrakis to Zanovar were granted a visit from their Emperor, some were happier about it than others.

Despite the tensions on Arrakis, the word of the ‘Messiah’ reaching the Emperor’s ears and being ignored and the rumours that the Emperor had ordered the end of House Atreides, the Imperial Tours continued.

Giedi Prime was the next stop. The home of the Harkonnens. You had heard of the Harkonnens. Fearsome warriors. Terrifying. Bloodthirsty. Brutal. In all honesty, they had fascinated you for the longest time. The manipulations that led to their rise. Their bloodstained history with House Atreides. You had read as much as you had been able to find.

And their welcome? A tournament, a battle of strength and brutality to impress their Emperor. Harking back to days of old when knights would compete in feats of battle prowess to show off. Men from all the Great Houses and more came to compete, including Feyd-Rautha. The Baron's nephew did not hesitate to volunteer to represent his people in something so prestigious.

The Imperial Ship landed and you, your sister and the Emperor were quickly greeted by the Baron and his nephews. You stood to your father’s left, Irulan at his right. Feyd’s eyes stayed on you, though you had not noticed yet. Trailing from the gold and pearl veil over your face, down to the matching white lace and gold dress that both clung and flowed over your body perfectly. He glanced briefly at Irulan, her silver and chainmail contrasting you, but his eyes ultimately returned to you.

"Your Imperial Graces, may I introduce my nephews," the Baron began, gesturing first to his elder nephew and then the younger as he spoke.

"Beast-Rabban and Feyd-Rautha."

Both men bowed, following their uncle's lead. First to the Emperor, then Irulan and then you. The order of importance seemed clear, as usual. But as his head raised, Feyd met your gaze and held it. Cool blue eyes boring into yours and you could not look away.

Your father nodded his head in thanks as did Irulan, but you...

You still stared at Feyd. Something about him, the way he held your gaze. The faint smirk forming on his lips. You could not do anything but stare.

His smile widened, black painted teeth on show as he stepped forward and taking your hand in his, a gesture that shocked even you. His lips found the back of it, pressing a surprisingly gentle but lingering kiss to your skin. No one ever focused on you like this, not when you stood by Irulan. It was something you had gotten quite accustomed to.

But the rough scratch of his fingers around yours, the heat of his lips on your skin, was enough to have you blushing. Then he spoke. His voice low, sending a shiver down your spine.

"A pleasure to meet you, princess."

The Emperor and the Baron led you, Irulan and the Baron’s nephews back inside the Harkonnen fortress. Despite trying not to, your focus always seemed to return to Feyd. The way he moved with confidence, the small glances he gave you with that smirk still on his lips.

Irulan was at your father’s side, as usual. Rabban walked beside the Baron. Which left you and Feyd behind that line. You were not purposely walking at his side, but you soon noticed that Feyd had fallen into step with you. Slowing his pace to match yours.

You kept your gaze forward, but you could feel his eyes on you. Like a predator and you were no more than prey. You knew you would be the one to break the silence before Feyd did.

“Are you looking forward to the tournament, Feyd?” You asked, glancing to the side to see him, as expected, staring at you as he walked.

Feyd hummed low in response before answering. You began to wonder how he was being so mindful of where he was going, whilst keeping his eyes on you.

“A fight is always welcome, princess. Are you excited for it?”

You did not answer immediately. No answer you gave, you felt, was ever interesting enough. Or at least, not in your past experiences. But, to your surprise, Feyd seemed genuinely interested.

“I am intrigued, to say the least. It is not often a House welcomes us with such an event.”

Feyd only nodded, before holding out his hand to stop you moving further forward. It was only then that you noticed you had reached the doors to the Harkonnen fortress. You had been so distracted by the man beside you, you had ignored your surroundings.

“After you, princess,” Feyd offered, holding out an arm to allow you to walk ahead.

You walked on, hearing Feyd’s boots against the floor behind you. Your father, sister and the Baron and his nephew were ahead of you. And your father had not looked back once to check on you, something you were well used to. But Feyd had noticed too.

His head tilted in curiosity but said nothing on the topic. He followed you inside, eyes glancing occasionally between you and your father, noticing the seemingly longing look you held. As the Baron led the Emperor and Irulan into the dining hall, you seemed to hang back, like you were waiting for permission to follow them.

When that did not come, you folded your hands before you and turned from the door.

“Are you not joining them?” Feyd asked, genuinely surprised at the situation.

Your head hung low, and you simply shook it.

“Not if I am not invited. Irulan is heir, not I,” You said simply and began walking away without a second glance.

You assumed Feyd would join his uncle and brother. But the sound of footsteps behind you told you otherwise. You did not look back as you walked, though in truth, you had no idea where you were walking to. You simply wished to be away. Feyd followed silently, only interfering when he felt the need to steer you somewhere specific.

“Princess, follow me, I have somewhere more comfortable you could wait over walking the halls?”

Feyd was not sure why, but he felt the need to be at your side. A strange draw that seemed to tug at his gut and keep him at your side. He was a man of pleasure, or so most people said. He held little care for the feelings of others.

Yet with you, he wanted to know. No, he needed to know. To know what bothered you. To know why your eyes dipped to the floor after looking at your father and sister. Why you seemed surprised from the moment he paid you attention upon your arrival. He was curious as to why you seemed to try to hide your presence at any given moment.

But he said nothing. He would not even know where to begin if he wanted to. Instead, he walked in silence, leading you to a wide balcony that looked out on to the expanse of Giedi Prime.

You took your seat and the two of you sat in a comfortable silence until you were called by one of your father’s attendants.

You listened politely as you walked beside your sister, Irulan’s arm linked with yours this time as you followed your father and the Baron towards the arena. Irulan talked on about how the tournament would work, that you, her and some other noble ladies from the Houses would choose their own champion to fight the tournament in their name.

It reminded you of the tourneys of old. Where knights fought for princesses and ladies to win favour. You had read so many stories, fairytales of times that were now a faraway memory. The idea fascinated you as much as the Harkonnens did. You were about to ask Irulan more, when your father turned to speak. To both of you, for once.

“My daughters, you will allow the ladies from the Great Houses to choose their champions, then you will choose.”

That confused you both, but you had little choice but to agree. He was the Emperor first, your father second.

You watched warriors from each Great House and some minor Houses line up before you, Irulan and the other gathered ladies with interest. And you could not hide your smile when Feyd stepped forward and joined them.

One by one, champions were picked. Irulan chose first out of the two of you, not surprisingly choosing a Corrino soldier as her champion. There were more warriors than ladies to choose, and Feyd remained in those waiting. That surprised you. He was known for his fighting ability, so you did not understand why he had not been chosen. Which only solidified your own choice.

“Princess, your choice of champion please?” the Harkonnen announcer asked, gesturing to the men before you.

Purely for the suspense, you paused before answering. Mere seconds, allowing you to enjoy the small amount of attention focused solely on you.

“I choose Feyd-Rautha.”

Everyone looked shocked, including your father and sister. Everyone, but Feyd. His smirk wide as he stepped forward, taking your hand as he had when you arrived. Eyes locked to yours as he pressed his lips to your knuckles.

“I shall win well for you, my princess.”

You were not sure if it was traditional, but Feyd had asked you to see him before the tournament. A guard led you silently to a round chamber, with only a black stone table in the centre, holding weapons of different kinds. You stood out so starkly against the black stone, the faint lights making the pearls on your veil shimmer ever so slightly.

Feyd was stood in the centre, and you could feel the heat in your cheeks you realised he wore only an intricately wrapped loin cloth.

“Princess, I appreciate you agreeing to come,” Feyd called as he strode to your side.

He smirked as he watched you avert your gaze from his bare chest. In his hand, he held a bowl of what looked like black paint. It was only when he tapped the stone bowl did your eyes find it. You looked back at him curiously.

“You are my champion, it would be rude not to,” you said softly, your eyes still looking at the bowl.

It was only then that you noticed there was no one else in the room. Something that seemed extremely unusual.

“Do you normally prepare for a fight alone?” you asked, eyes flitting around the room and back to him, now trained solely on his face.

Feyd chuckled, a low, gravelly sound that you found yourself wanting to hear again.

“No, usually I am surrounded by servants and guards. But I thought I would try something different today. It’s a special day after all.”

He held the bowl up, tipping it slightly to move the paint. Your eyes watched it with interest, it slowly dawning on you what it was for. You had read up on the Harkonnens and Giedi Prime before you arrived, there was more lore to research than you had anticipated. One thing, now, came to your mind.

“Am I to paint you, Feyd?”

That earned you another chuckle. Though Feyd was actually quite surprised you knew of any Harkonnen traditions.

“I thought it would be interesting, to prepare your champion for battle, hmm?” he asked, holding the bowl out to you, careful however not to get the ink black liquid on your white dress.

You nodded, confusing him when you turned away from him. But what you did next, was not what he expected. Slowly, you lifted the veil that had covered your face since your arrival. Finally revealing your full appearance to him.

And you were beautiful.

“Then I suppose it is only fair I let you look at me while I do so.”

What Feyd did not realise, was the importance of what seemed like a small gesture. Almost all those trained by the Bene Gesserit veiled themselves in some way. The Princesses most of all. But Feyd knew even now, he was being honoured by you.

“Thank you, princess.” Was all he could manage, any words he said would never be quite enough, he felt.

You returned to his side, only now looking down at the full form of him. Thick muscle covered him from shoulder and down. A body sculpted for war, it seemed. And it was now a body that would fight in your name.

Feyd held out the bowl, watching with curious eyes as you took it and moved to stand at his back. He opened his mouth to instruct you but was stopped by the cold sensation of paint on his skin. You felt him stiffen a little and continued to paint as you explained.

“I have done my research before coming here. My father always tells me it is best to know our hosts,” you said simply, as if that should be enough to explain why you so easily began painting him.

He said nothing as you finished his back, the feeling of the paint drying telling him where you had painted each square and line. It fascinated him that you had so quickly learned the symbols necessary.

But when you moved to his front, he felt a wave of anticipation run through him. Tongue flicking out to wet his lips as he waited for you to begin. He could feel the warmth of your hands more intensely now he could see you.

You started on his chest, painting the four thick lines on his pectorals first. He watched the concentration on your face, the way your teeth gently nibbled your lower lip as your made sure every stroke was perfect.

You could feel his eyes on you, but you did not dare look up. The whole situation was intimate enough, without meeting his gaze. Feyd heard the soft breath you took to prepare yourself as you moved lower, pausing only briefly before you began to paint his stomach.

“Do you really believe these help you?” you suddenly asked, as though distracting yourself from the path your fingers took over the ridges of hid abdominals.

Feyd’s jaw clenched at the gentleness of your touch, the feeling sending goosebumps over his pale skin. He did his best to concentrate on answering your question about the symbols.

“It is the belief in them that makes them important, so yes, I do.”

You hummed in response, and Feyd’s breath caught in his throat when you began to kneel as your painted nearer his hips.

The tension in the air was thick. No sounds in the room except the scrape of your fingers against the bowl and the soft puffs of your combined breathing. Feyd tried his best to concentrate solely on the paint being smeared on his skin, but having you so close had desire settling in his belly.

Soon, you were done.

“There, I hope I have done a good enough job…” Feyd smiled at the mix of hope and pride in your eyes. But when you moved to take your hand away from his skin, he grabbed it quickly. His body acting on instinct and the words leaving him before his brain could control them.

“Would I be too forward in asking for a kiss, princess. For luck?”

You were struck silent by the question, but an aching part of you began urging you to allow him one kiss. No harm could come from it, right?

Tentatively, you stepped forward after setting bowl down on a table nearby. You pressed your lips softly to his cheek, letting them linger for mere seconds. But that was not what Feyd wanted.

You had barely stepped back before his arm wrapped around your waist, pulling you flush against his body. He revelled in the small squeak of surprise that left you and he appreciated the fact you were not trying to push him away.

Your face was mere inches from his as his hand moved to cup your cheek, tilting your head up to his as he pressed him plump lips to yours. The feeling was electric the moment your lips met, your own hand gripping the back of his neck. Not caring for the paint that was now smeared down the skin there.

You pressed yourself harder against him, letting your body mould to his as he deepened the kiss. Tongue swiping against the flesh of your lip, asking for entry which you happily granted. The moment his tongue found yours, Feyd was like a man possessed. Gripping your face tighter as your tongue soon surrendered to his, tangling together in a clash of teeth.

The paint on his body, barely dried, smeared against your dress but you could not have cared less. Your only thoughts were Feyd. The feel of his arm on your waist and hand on your face. The taste of him, combined with the black paint on his teeth. You were entirely intoxicated by him.

You were not sure when he had backed you towards the table, but you did not stop him when he lifted you quickly on to it. There was something so delicious about the danger of the whole situation. While realistically, you barely knew him, you could feel your body surrendering to every kiss and touch. The very fibres of you desperate to feel more of him already.

Feyd groaned into your mouth when you made space for him to slip between your legs, your dress parting either side to accommodate the movement. His hands took purchase your thighs while yours found his shoulders. Your paint-stained fingers leaving fingerprints all over his alabaster skin.

The room felt like it had heated as his lips began to trail down your jaw and to your neck, following a path until he reached the swell of your breasts, just visible with the cut of your dress. His hands kneading the flesh of your thighs, the combination forcing breathy moans to slip from your lips.

Feyd revelled in every one of them. The dig of nails into his shoulder when he nipped at your collarbone, the soft moan when his hands found the apex of your thighs and squeezed.

“I will win for you, my princess…” he mumbled, his face buried in your neck as his fingers continued their path to your core.

And you were powerless to stop him, your body listening now solely to your base instincts. The first brush of his fingers over your underwear had your head falling back.

“Win for me, and I will reward you…” you sighed out, as his fingers slipped deftly beneath the fabric.

Feyd could barely concentrate on your promise, slipping his fingers further and further between your folds until he was buried to the knuckles. The smallest curl of the digits had you moaning his name.

“Reward me how?” he asked, already feeling your soft walls clenching around him as your release crept forward.

He could barely help himself, thrusting and curling his fingers over and over. Feeling the soft gush of your slick coating his fingers and palm with each movement.

You could hardly form words, Feyd’s fingers somehow speeding up again. You could only moan as you release surprised you, tugging Feyd by neck to kiss him as you spilled around his fingers.

He slowed his movements as you relaxed, not pulling them out until he could feel your muscles stop spasming. Your jaw went slack as you saw him reach for the bowl of paint, mixing your juices with the black liquid and painting over the now smudged symbols you had adorned him with. The smug grin on his face making your skin tingle.

You slowly came back to yourself, eyes meeting his as you finally answered.

“Win for me, and you can have any part of me you wish.”

Dune Taglist (requested and people I know who like Dune):

@blissfulphilospher @tumblin-theworldaway @lady-phasma @anjelicawrites @aemondsbabe @alexagirlie

(if you want to be tagged in or removed from future posts, let me know!)

[jiminrings]

fail-safe (3)

pairing: yoongi x reader

wordcount: 14k

glimpse: you hear everything you've ever wanted, but you don't know if it's too late.

alternatively, yoongi is consumingly yours all the time.

[ part one, intermission, part two, intermission 02, finale ]

[ still angst (but u can breathe now bc it’s the finale), brother’s best friend AND single dad au, jealousy, yearning from all angles, did i say angst alr (mom-wise and brother-wise), fluff, redemption ]

notes: this is it for the chronological series of fail-safe :-) from the bottom of my heart thank you so sooooo much for reading n loving!!! sharing fs with the lot of u is an experience (and era) i'll never forget!!!

as always, lmk what you think <3 send in feedback n love to my askbox anytime!! | series masterlist

Your trip back home isn’t as rough as you expected it to be. 

Somehow, there’s a huge difference between coming home alone and coming home with Jungkook. There’s an irreplaceable weight in your chest that still flares even at the mention of Yoongi, the anger you have towards him mixing with the trepidation of holding everything in you, not just him, for another three days. There’s an angry rash around your fingertips just waiting for you to pick on your nails until they’re raw because atleast in that way, you get to forget the way Yoongi’s hand picked up yours in the dark.

There’s an ache in you that not even Yoongi and Hyewon could undo by never having met in the first place. It’s long been there, perhaps even older than Haneul. The ache of unfulfillment in you is bred by everything significant in your life — all from your first argument with your mom because of your lack of direction in life, to your latest heartbreak that keeps manifesting into your first ever.

You're no longer angry recounting the fact that you weren't destined for greatness. Namjoon turned out beyond great, world-renowned even, despite living in the same home that you did. Maybe it's not your environment or your lack of a passion that hindered you — maybe, it's just you alone.

Maybe, some part of you had ached too much from reaching (read: loving) too far up, you're doomed to live the rest of your life unfulfilled. Yoongi's never been yours, but the way your heart withdraws from him is as if he's always been.

You've done your share. You've completed your fill. You've worked yourself to the bone to make anything (not something, and certainly not everything) out of yourself that even if you're not decorated in sports like Namjoon nor celebrated in music like Yoongi, you have a fail-safe to fall back on.

You're earning more than the white collars you could recognize from your old yearbook and even if it's to look after someone, to look after Jungkook and his craft, and neither use your actual degree nor make a name out of yourself — a part of you feels fulfilled.

If being fulfilled meant being in the shadows as a manager; if it meant caring for someone in a professional context yet in a way you've always known with practice, with love, through the years– you'll take it.

You'll take the peace of being fulfilled without a trophy than to be listless trying to compete for first place.

You're fulfilled now to be sitting at the passenger seat of your own car because despite having never been to your place anymore, Jungkook fought with you in order to get his hands on the wheel.

You're fulfilled now, even if you only took Jungkook's silly suggestion (read: insistence) of fake-dating him just so you wouldn't have to face your family and Yoongi alone. You're fulfilled despite having no real place in neither men's lives.

Oddly enough, Jungkook wants to be both. He wants to be fulfilled and compete for first  place in a position in your life that he can't even say to your face.

Jungkook holds you right in the middle of the living room, his eyes wide and grin sparkling as if the director had already said action! and the task for him was to act out what being in love looked like, right in front of his female lead's family in her childhood home. (Read: he isn't acting at all.)

“And he’s…?” your mom lets the question hang in the air, eyes trailing from Jungkook’s face, to his bicep, to how his forearm fits snugly against your back and his hand curls around your waist. Your mom visibly looks surprised, although you don’t know if it’s about the fact that you actually came back despite everything, or if it’s because her favorite actor is in her kitchen while she’s sweaty in an apron, or if it’s because said favorite actor leaves no space between the two of you.

“Jeon Jungkook, ma’am. It’s nice to finally meet you,” he greets politely, a little jittery now that he’s face-to-face with her. He’s only heard of the woman she is from you and as much as he tried to picture her from memory, your stories don’t do her much justice. Jungkook’s always loved your kind eyes and your sweet smile, but he knows now where you’ve got it from; in fact, if he turns around right now right after shaking her hand and bowing profusely, you’re showing exactly those to him — that, along with a pair of gazes he can’t place.

Those gazes aren’t kind at all. One is confused and dumbfounded, and the other harbors nothing but hostility and anger.

“Sweetheart, I know you. Who doesn’t?” your mom’s at a loss for breath, mouth still agape as she keeps flickering her eyes between the two of you. She knows that you’re his manager, but what she doesn’t know is why the Jeon Jungkook is in her humble kitchen of all places. He has the most expressive and sincere eyes ever — he can’t possibly mistake your childhood home as a filming set and your waist as a hand rest.

You finally placate her thoughts when you speak, the loaded silence between the three of you (it’s buzzing with tension if you account for the other two) breaking. You actually giggle, your laughter taking the load off her shoulders because you’re happy; you don’t feel an ounce of guilt even if you’re lying to her face. 

“We’re dating, mom,” you grin. “Jungkook’s my boyfriend.”

Jungkook smiles automatically, feeling your hand snake towards his own. His palm’s much bigger than yours yet it’s warmer than you’ve ever imagined, the envelope both of your hands make putting you at ease.

Your mom’s gasp bounces across the walls. Namjoon’s head that’s only been lowered the entire time you’ve been back suddenly whips to look at you and Jungkook. The fridge even lowers its hum to make way for the theatrics aimed at you, yet your eyes are fixed on your mom’s and Jungkook’s alone.

You came home for her and with him. You’re not here for anyone nor anything else because it’s merely a play for your survival, only this time, Jungkook’s hellbent on increasing your odds.

Yoongi freezes evidently, hand tightening around Haneul’s bottle as if it would do anything to release the red from his vision. He staggers silently, breathing suddenly ragged as he stares down at the offending steel cylinder. It’s small. Compact. If anything, he figures it would hurt if he were to throw it at anything. Anyone. Someone, even.

“Wow, that’s.. that’s amazing!” she embraces the both of you, making you and Jungkook share a gaze you only laugh through because he actually looks honored.

“Thank you, ma’am. I’m sorry I haven’t had the time to let you know personally,” he apologizes meekly for a mistake that isn’t even one in the first place, the humility in his tone making your ears perk. It’s Jungkook onceagain with the apologies towards you that he shouldn’t be making at all, and yet, even in front of your family, he persists.

Jungkook apologizes even for the things he hasn’t done, not because he plans on doing them, but because a large part of him wants to be in the actual situation wherein those mistakes were merely possibilities.

“It’s no problem at all. You’re busy getting all these awards, I know how that’s like,” she jokes, unable to stop smiling. “I’m just glad someone’s taking care of my baby.”

“And I don’t plan on missing a single day, ma’am.”

“Stop that,” she chides, shaking her head eagerly. “You can call me mom.”

Yoongi lets the bottle clatter to the sink.

( ♡ ) 

Yoongi hadn’t been able to sleep last night.

He’d woken up in a cold sweat hours before his alarm was supposed to go off to cook dinner for everyone, even if it was only yourfavorite. The anxiousness that bubbled in his veins when he was asleep was going to burst and while Yoongi thought nothing of it initially, he realizes in panic that it was actually pointing to something. 

He woke up next to Haneul and he was placated momentarily, but the knot tied around his heart tightens twofold when he sees Hyewon on the same bed.

On your bed.

The guilt that filled Yoongi then was enough for the bile to creep up into his throat, making him stagger outside to find Namjoon pacing right outside of his own bedroom. His personal phone’s tucked in between his ear and his shoulder, his hands preoccupied scrolling through whatever it is on his work phone. Yoongi momentarily stops his panic to inquire why the hell Namjoon’s panicking and why did he just see a glimpse of your social media accounts pulled up to the screen, your following list staring your brother in the eyes.

“What? What happened? Is it Y/N?”

Namjoon only looked at him with nothing but pity and guilt, the resentment he had for himself bleeding through the way he shifted his gaze to him.

“She saw you and Hyewon.”

Yoongi hadn’t been able to sleep since.  

He didn’t even blink when Hyewon thanked him and said her goodbyes. He wasn’t even fazed when his ex-wife kissed Haneul goodbye and his son only resumed playing with his blocks. Yoongi hadn’t even tended to himself throughout the entire night, surrendering himself to be awake in your couch in the far event that you’d come home.

Yoongi wanted to follow you home, except almost exactly similar to the past, he had chased you out of what’s supposed to be your own home in the first place. The difference now was that he didn’t mean for Hyewon to be on your bed at all, let alone your room, but in the back of Yoongi’s thick skull — he figures that it won’t be enough for you.

Yoongi waits for you all night throughout the morning like a loyal dog waiting for its master, his chest rising up and down in hope yet his chin down in despondence. You do end up coming back home though, but your presence is neither unaccompanied nor for him.

With you is Jeon Jungkook, your boyfriend.

If only Haneul hadn’t asked for his bottle to be brought upstairs because he’s watching cartoons on Yoongi’s laptop, he would’ve collapsed on the floor then and there, uncaring of the way everyone else would be looking down on him.

If only Namjoon’s gaze wasn’t flitting to him to gauge his reaction because it’s the first time he’s, or by everyone else rather, hearing that you have a boyfriend, Yoongi would put his hands on his head and curse until his piercing migraine suddenly disappears.

If only your mother wasn’t here, frozen in the kitchen mostly because of what you just revealed and who you came home with, and partly because she’s waiting for him to finish washing Haneul’s bottle, he would’ve thrown up right in the sink.

Yoongi gathers all his pain and keeps it shut within himself until he gets you alone, catching you by the staircase when everyone else has dispersed.

“I’m sorry. Namjoon told me what you saw and-…” he stops himself when you look up at him with an innocent yet empty gaze, the weight of it (or lack thereof) startling him. “Let me explain why Hyewon was there in your bed.”

“I don’t want to listen,” you enunciate clearly, keeping your voice down because both Jungkook and Haneul are a few steps away. You do it for their sake and not for Yoongi’s, the bitterness in your chest physically restricting you to think about his state.

Yoongi pushes on, breath already catching in his throat when you’re still stiff as a stone. You haven’t even made a break for it yet; he only unconsciously held onto you out of fear that you’ll be out of his sight. “She was in the area because her parents are old and they don’t know much about selling their house here a-and well, she knows that I did the same for my parents when they sold ours. Nothing happened. I just helped her with the sale! S-she was playing with Haneul in the living room while I napped a-and, I just… when I woke up, they were right next to me. Y/N, I swear, nothing-…”

You shake your head fervently, the innocence of his reason doing little to break the seal in your stomach. You feel it dropping once again and even if Yoongi’s right, even if he’s saying the truth, the sight alone of him appearing to be a part of a happy family jogs up all the pain.

“I don’t want to listen and you don’t have to explain either.”

“But I hurt you. That’s why I want to explain,” he stutters. Yoongi’s eyes are so glassy, you could see your reflection in them.

“Oh. So you know,” you whisper, teeth harshly digging into your bottom lip. “I hate Hyewon for a lot of things but not for being the mother of your child. That’s out of my reach. I get it. She’s his mom and that’s that,” you admit, the vacancy in your chest and on your ring finger reminding you what Yoongi had never given you the chance for. “What I hate is that you let her sleep in my room. Seeing Haneul in there is good. You and him? That’s okay because I let you sleep in there,” you heave, voice close to breaking because of how you force it to be tamped down. “I hate how you let her sleep in my room, Yoongi. I-I, I fucking hate it because it’s just like that time I caught you practically fucking her in my room.”

“I-I’m sorry, I didn’t-…” Yoongi sniffles, tears already pouring. The staircase in your house is far too narrow to hold the both of you, let alone your history. “I didn’t think. I didn’t notice, a-and, I didn’t think. I didn’t think at all, Y/N. I thought it was okay for a split second because we looked like-…”

“A family,” you finish for him. “I get it. I do,” you nod your head fervently, your own hand snaking to your lips to stop the sharp inhale that pains you from the inside. “Almost everyone loses their sense of reason when it comes to family.”

“I didn’t notice she already entered the room. But I-I woke up,” Yoongi still swears up and down, adamant on his truth that you aren’t open to entertaining because he’s hurt you far too many times before. “Hyewon and I… we’re not. We’re co-parenting.”

“Still a family.”

“But-…”

“What the hell do you want to hear from me, Yoongi?” you snap, voice finally toning down when you notice faint footsteps coming from the second floor. “Do you— do you want me to agree with you and say that the three of you aren’t a family? And for what, s-so that could somehow excuse you for everything you’ve done? I don’t even know what family’s supposed to mean at this point!”

From upstairs, Namjoon suppresses a sob.

“My mom doesn’t know a single thing about all of this. I-I can’t even cry to her because I’m thinking of you. I’m thinking of protecting you, your son that she looks to as a grandson, a-and even your mom who’s her best friend,” you break into tears, ignoring the baby towel that Yoongi keeps on his person all the time that he offers to you. You sound far too defeated, and maybe you actually are, that Yoongi lets you push past him. “Meanwhile, my own brother probably knows everything but his first instinct is to protect you. Not me, his actual sibling. You.”

.

.

.

Namjoon had been waiting for you upstairs. He’s been barricading the door to the bathroom because he knows you can’t go to bed without your nightly shower, and because he knows that out of every space in the house, it must be the only one left wherein you can be truly alone with no hint of Yoongi.

“We have to talk,” he gets out as soon as you make eye contact with him, the towel that’s slung on your shoulder almost falling at the urgency to which he pulls you aside.

“It can wait.”

“I need to apologize,” he pleads once again, gripping your wrist gently like he had always done when you were kids to get you to listen to him.

“And I said it can wait. I can’t stand you right now,” you grit, the tears on your cheeks barely being dried up when Namjoon, unsurprisingly, decides to apologize to you within the same timeframe as Yoongi. They hadn’t planned it at all — the guilt and remorse weighed far too heavy for them to actually communicate.

“Where will you sleep?” he asks instead, exhaling heavily because you’re insistent on not crying again in barely your first night back, again. “Where will Jungkook sleep?”

“We’ll sleep together in a hotel.”

“Hotel?” Namjoon asks loudly, eyes bulging in shock. His voice is far too loud that everyone in the house (and maybe even your neighbors) must have heard him. “That’s nonsense. This is home, Y/N. You don’t have to book a hotel.”

“It is?” you seethe, your closed fists tightening on themselves painfully. “Did you also say the same thing to Hyewon? To Yoongi in the first place?”

“It’s my fault for-…”

You’re unaware that you and Namjoon are neck to neck until your mom chimes in out of nowhere, her gentle eyes asking more questions than she’s actually uttering. “What’s going on?” she switches her gaze between you and him. “Are the two of you fighting?”

“No,” you answer in unison, unable to fit a relieved sigh in between the terse silence.

“It’s nothing, mom,” Namjoon puts a hand on your shoulder, his smile tight and tense. “I was just telling Y/N that she doesn’t have to book a hotel.”

“Why would you book a hotel?” she gasps incredulously, her tone being the exact copy of Namjoon’s just a second ago.

“It’s just crowded in here, mom. That’s all,” you muster a sheepish smile, your posture slouching the more you realize that there’s no way out.

“I can ask Yoongi and Haneul to transfer to Namjoon’s so you can-..”

“No-!” you interrupt her in a hurry, breath hitching at the mention of him. “No, no. That’s unnecessary. I don’t want to sleep in my room.”

There’s a loaded pause between all of you, even between the door that Yoongi has his back on as he listens in.

“You and Jungkook can take my room instead,” Namjoon insists, his offer only barely scratching the surface of the apology that you truly deserve.

“Great. Thanks,” you conclude, already halfway into the bathroom when the sudden thought strikes you, your curiosity (and limit, by extension) getting the best of you to ask Namjoon while your mom’s still here. “How… how much longer are they gonna stay here?”

“I… haven’t asked yet,” Namjoon admits, the animosity you have towards Yoongi not going unnoticed by your mother.

“You need to ask then,” you quip. “This house is too small to have everyone and anyone.”

( ♡ ) 

Jungkook woke up in peace from sleeping in a bed that isn’t his.

Even before you actually got to shower (and not just sit on the toilet seat whilst trying to compose yourself) since you forgot to retrieve your clothes from your suitcase, Jungkook was already starfished in the middle of Namjoon’s bed. It’s a touching sight atop your own blanket and bug spray that your brother put in for you.

The two of you are far from okay. As a matter of fact, the only people you’re truly okay with in the house is your mom and Haneul; despite knowing that fully, Jungkook still dived in head-first in the middle of your situation. You’ve tried to dissuade him all throughout the five-hour long car ride, and not once did he even budge.

He’s here for you and no one else. He’s snoring in the middle of your sibling’s bed whom you aren’t in good terms with. He’s at ease with you in a province that he’s never stepped foot in, all because he felt compelled to protect you somehow and wouldn’t take no for an answer. 

Jungkook cares for you, enough to write a note and place it beside him just before he went to sleep, telling you that he’s a messy sleeper and to either jolt him awake to move or just manhandle him to the side so you could also sleep on the bed.

You go for the latter, trying to pry him as gently as you could (but even if you just hauled him like a sack of potatoes, he still wouldn’t wake up because he’s at ease too much; it’s you, of course) before finally calling it a night.

You may have lied awake mulling over the perpetual ache in your chest, but you didn’t cry at all.

Eventually, you fall asleep to the sound of Jungkook snoring.

.

.

.

Jungkook may have slept earlier than you, but he makes sure that you stay in late. (read: he physically tucked you into bed so snugly, you probably can’t even shift your shoulders by a centimeter). He wants to pull his weight around a house he hasn’t even been in, even if you hadn’t asked him to — you’d never do, because even as a manager and not as a fake-girlfriend, you don’t let him lift a single finger. Simply put, Jungkook feels this massive pull, not to perform for you, but serve you.

He finds himself quietly going down the stairs, still in his socks because you had stolen his house slippers just last night and he doesn’t have the heart to ask you to give them back. He’s quickly figured out the kitchen, getting a soup started before he allows himself to sit on the dining table by himself.

It turns out that Jungkook’s not alone at all.

“Hi.”

His ears perk at the soft voice that comes from the side of him, eyes immediately setting on the toddler who’s still dressed in his pajamas and has a similar case of bedhead to him.

“Hey buddy. Nice bangs,” Jungkook chuckles invitingly, pulling out a chair for Haneul to which he gets up on easily by himself. 

“My appa cut them for me,” he answers with a smile, shyly pointing to Jungkook’s forehead with an eager finger. “You have bangs too. Who cut yours?”

“My girlfriend. I think she can be a hairstylist one day,” he hums, not feeling guilty over lying to him when it’s only a half, easily-corrected lie. You may not be Jungkook’s actual, real girlfriend, but you did cut his bangs when he asked you to. He couldn’t be bothered going to the salon and you didn’t have the energy to argue with him otherwise, so that’s how he ended up with choppy, viral (it only became viral because he has them) bangs that gained him a few dozen articles or so.

Jungkook doesn’t have kids of his own, but what he does have are several nephews and nieces. He’s the youngest of four children, and that’s perhaps the reason why he could empathize with you. He’s never been through what you have, and although you would never wish for him to do so, a part of him wants to know what it’s like — not because he seeks the pain, but because he wants to know how he could empathize with you better

With Jungkook being Jungkook, it’s perhaps the reason why he’s one of the gifted few people who could strike up a sensible conversation with a toddler and make them laugh without doing anything at all.

Something about Jungkook makes Haneul laugh so loudly, he wakes up almost everyone in the house in peace. Even Jungkook’s attempt at lame jokes tickle Haneul more than the way Namjoon’s ever tried in earnest to make him laugh.

You’ve already slinked past the two of them on the dining table, tending to the soup and the few hundred side dishes Jungkook started on but paused just to talk to Haneul.

“Haneul, don’t believe your uncle-…” you chime over a playful dig that Jungkook makes in your expense, the giggles that had only been filling your ears just seconds ago instantly ceasing when you notice Yoongi standing near you.

“Uncle?” he raises his brow at you, turning his attention to his son. “Haneul, what did I say about talking to strangers?”

“But he’s not a stranger. I saw him in that movie!” he frowns, the immediate awe that slips out of Jungkook’s lips not helping his case in the slightest.

“Still a stranger,” Yoongi smiles tightly, his exhale dragging out as he mulls over the eerily domestic sight of the three of you.

“But he’s Uncle Kook,” Haneul reasons with him, pointing his finger at you. “He’s auntie’s boyfriend.”

.

.

.

Yoongi’s softened a little bit since breakfast.

He was never mad at Haneul in the first place (more like halfhearted because he still stands by his lesson of not teaching him to talk to strangers, even if they’re a worldwide-famous actor, but those are not his words at all) but what he is annoyed about is the scene that he walked into.

It looked far too natural for you to look like Haneul’s mom and for Jungkook to look like him, maybe even better as a dad despite not having children at all, that he thought he was seeing red.

Haneul’s lying on his shoulder as they rewatch Bluey for the second time in the living room, the shadow of your alleged boyfriend walking past him until he registers the accent, later doing a quick turnaround that makes Yoongi ultimately irritated and Haneul more than happy.

“Oh cool. I love Bluey!” Jungkook says sincerely, inviting himself to sit on the lone sofa chair to watch the episode.

“Wow, you’re just so… quirky,” Yoongi mutters under his breath with a roll of his eyes, his snarky remark making Jungkook’s ears tingle. The latter scoffs slyly, making him finally acknowledge Jungkook, albeit sarcastically. “So what do you do, Jungkook?”

Even before he could answer though, Haneul does it for him with an excitement that only comes out whenever he’s talking about his favorites.

“We watched his movies in the cinema, appa! Remember?”

“Did we?” Yoongi narrows his eyes, playing his huff into a cough. He repurposes the tinge of embarrassment that he feels into snark, running a hand through his hair cockily. “I’d for sure remember an actor if they were good.”

( ♡ ) 

“Where’s your brother? I need him to do the heavy lifting.”

Your mom asks you with an urgency that parents only past the age of forty could possess, her lips already parted awaiting your response towards a question she asked just two seconds ago. 

Even if you weren’t engrossed on an episode of Bluey (Jungkook and Haneul put you into it and you get their laser focus now) just now, you still wouldn’t know about your brother’s whereabouts. Yoongi saves you this time, his response piquing both yours and Jungkook’s interest.

“He’s in practice. Joon took Haneul with him so he could learn too.”

Jungkook looks up from his phone sharply, eyes wide in eagerness. He and Yoongi haven’t even looked at each other since yesterday yet their coordination (read: competitiveness) syncs with the other at the exact second, their insistence on tagging along a menial task making you jolt.

“I’ll come with, mom!”

“I’ll come with, auntie.”

It’s not a competition, yet Jungkook jumps up to stand so quickly, his head almost brushed the ceiling. “Let’s go, babe,” he holds out a hand for you, making you clear your throat as you’re still trying to gauge the situation.

“But what about Yoongi? Poor thing, he’ll be left alone,” your mom awes, her pout only deepening when Yoongi pretends to look crestfallen at being overlooked. He doesn’t have to pretend that much because despite not being the biggest fan of grocery-shopping, especially in your area because it always smelled of eggs despite barely carrying any eggs, he’ll jump at any task to impress your mom, and you by extension.

“I don’t think you should worry-…” you start, already being interrupted in an instant.

“Oh come on, Y/N. Two pairs of hands are better than one! They really have to do some heavy lifting because I forget to tell you about that one time your aunts hounded me for-…” she trails off while telling you a story about your supposedly huge extended family, blissfully unaware that there’s two men fighting to open the door for the both of you.

Yoongi’s driving his car as the most spacious option, making Jungkook snicker under his breath as he blames himself for not bringing his SUV which is clearly more expensive than whatever Yoongi’s driving, even if you elbow him lightly by the ribs because you didn’t ask him to do that.

“Mom, what are you doing here? Go sit in the front,” you nudge her, unwilling to sit next to Yoongi in an enclosed space.

“Oh, right! Sorry, I was just used to you always taking shotgun whenever Yoongi’s driving,” she squeals, fondly clapping to herself as she revisits the memory. “Do you remember that, sweetheart? You’d always fight with Namjoon because Yoongi got his license first.”

It may only be your mom who’s leaning against the center console to look at you in the back, but it doesn’t mean that Yoongi’s ever taken off his attention from you.

“I remember,” Yoongi smiles, looking at you from the rearview mirror. “I never forget.”

.

.

.

The grocery store hasn’t changed one bit. 

It still smelled of eggs, the lights still aren’t as bright as they should be, and there’s still trinkets that you’ve always been swayed by being displayed near the register.

You’re taking it all in after not having been back for five years, whereas Yoongi strolls right in, but never ahead of you, as if he’s visited multiple times already since he left your town. 

Your mom and Jungkook are side by side as he asks her a question you can’t even discern, only getting to know his actual agenda when you hear his sneakers skidding against the floor as he runs towards the pushcarts. 

Yoongi, without even knowing the full context, runs after him because he didn’t want to come in second place for whatever it is that Jungkook’s challenging him to.

“I’ll steer the cart,” Jungkook presents definitively, his hand raised mid-air as if he’s being graded for eagerness alone. He looks like he wants to prove himself even if it’s only you and your mom present; no director, no producer in sight who sizes him up. 

“No. I’ll do it,” Yoongi argues out of nowhere, his bruised hands reclaiming the cart under Jungkook’s grasp. He’s not even looking at your mom because his gaze is only fixed on Jungkook who’s just two tugs away from actually spitting at him.

“I said it first,” your pretend-boyfriend forcefully pulls the hunk of metal away from Yoongi, the latter coming along with it for the briefest of seconds before he does the same, this time with Jungkook gasping.

“What, are you method-acting for your next role as a cart-steerer?” 

Your mom’s a little perplexed at the scene before her, lips parting in both concern and amusement because for a pair of people who haven’t met each other before, Yoongi and Jungkook are oddly competitive. They want to provesomething, anything, and maybe everything so bad, they neglect the fact that they look ridiculous fighting over a pushcart. 

“We actually need two,“ she says to no one in particular, thinking out loud as she goes through her grocery list. “I think maybe even three because-…”

“I’ll get it,” Jungkook rushes out in panic, almost bumping into you in the process. You were only gone for a minute to retrieve your phone from the car and yet he already looks breathless, the knot between his eyebrows untangling when he realizes that it’s you. “Oh. Sorry, babe.”

“I’ll get it, Koo,” you murmur, catching the tail end of what your mom said about the pushcarts. Jungkook’s cheeks are tainted pink in frustration and you can’t help but to be concerned, the back of your hand already flitting against his forehead before you know it. “Are you okay? Sorry, the AC in here is not like the AC in the city.”

“Huh, what? Oh no, it’s okay. I just got into this heated cart argument,” he waves you off, eyes rapidly moving between you, your mom, and Yoongi who’s mirroring his exact actions, except for the glaring hint of annoyance with the way he’s standing so close to you.

“Cart argument? What’s-…”

“We need meat.” 

You barely even have a chance to digest what Jungkook’s saying to you before you see him glitch right in front of you in a hurry, the only words to register clearly in your mind being your mom’s. She’s absent-mindedly talking herself through her grocery list (as she always does) and yet the two men right next to her hang onto her every word, the speed they take off on giving you no clue to why they’re acting as such.

“I’ll get it, auntie!” Yoongi gets out even before the wheels of his cart could cooperate, momentarily tripping over himself. Jungkook sputters at that, the laughter that builds in his throat being interrupted because he realizes that the other guy is ahead of him and he simply cannot bear that. 

“Beef. We need beef, right, mom? How many kilos. Like… ten? Okay. I’ll get it!” Jungkook dashes even if he’s never been in this grocery store before; even if your mom hasn’t said a single word to either of them.

You’re left dumbfounded in the middle of the store, your gaze unable to locate the distinct sounds of both of their sneakers skidding against the floor. 

“I didn’t even say anything,” your mom mutters in confusion, eyes flitting to you with a wonder you can’t place because even if the both of you are lost, she seems to have a better idea than you do. “Are they… competing over you, sweetie?”

“Competing? Me? Why would you even say that, mom?” you huff, leaning against the cart as you snatch her list to get the things she’s actually looking for.

“I don’t know,” she lulls, shrugging carelessly before nudging you. “Jungkook’s your boyfriend and well, I assume Yoongi’s always wanted to be in his position.”

“How did you even come to that conclusion?”

“Small town. Few people. Cute girl, cute guy,” she places, the end of her hypothesis being accompanied by a chuckle. When she says it like that, it sounds far too easy — it sounds far too seamless, you almost wish it was exactly that. “I didn’t even take the news that Yoongi was going abroad seriously because I thought it was a joke. I thought he could never move on from here or Namjoon,” your mom pouts, tilting her head when you freeze. “Much more, he could never move on from you.”

“He did,” you answer through gritted teeth, the grip you have on her list making the paper crumple underneath your hold.

Your mom doesn’t know everything. In fact, you don’t even know if she knows anything at all. You don’t despise her for her lack of involvement because you want to keep her from the chaos of your burdens, and you’ve always wanted to keep it that way.

But the way she speaks now, so full of conviction and faith, you find yourself despising it. She speaks as surely as the way Yoongi speeds past the both of you, weaving through aisles to get items she didn’t ask for, competing for and against a higher power (read: you) that Jungkook himself seeks. 

She says it so surely, it’s as if she knows about every waking thought that Yoongi’s ever had in your absence.

“It doesn’t look like he did.”

You ponder over your mom’s adoration for Yoongi, most of which you can’t decipher if it’s misplaced or not. You know he’ll always have a special place in her heart and in her home because she’s known him even before he was born because she’s best friends with Mrs. Min. 

Yoongi has a place in your life, no matter if it’s in your own or in the lives of the people you love. He probably has a modern penthouse in Namjoon’s life, the decoration in it improving over time. On the other hand, Yoongi probably occupies an ancestral cabin in your mom’s life that’s been well-maintained for longer than he’s ever been alive, the decor in it being handmade and resilient through the years. 

In your life, however, you can’t tell how and if Yoongi occupies it in the first place. For the longest time, his place in your life had come in the form of a mansion that not even a single architect nor engineer could ever think of. For a moment too, Yoongi’s place in your heart came in the form of a little house on a vast farm overlooking the mountains and the sea. Throughout all the houses that Yoongi’s shape-shifted to in your life, you doubt now if he could ever turn into them again.

When you think of Yoongi, all you see is your room. 

When you see Yoongi, all you could remember is your childhood house and its shortcomings in your life, especially when you needed to come home to it— to him, the most.

“I’ll pay, mom,” Jungkook snaps you out of your reverie, his whine making your ears ring.

“What? No, Jungkook. This is all too much,” you refuse vehemently, trying to fight him from extending his black card any further.

“It’s not. This is for your family anyway. I, I might have even grabbed extra portions for myself because mom said she’ll repeat tomorrow what she did for lunch today,” he grins, momentarily losing himself to the sight of you that he doesn’t even notice he’s in the process of being one-upped by Yoongi.

“Jungkook, baby, I’ll feel-…”

“I paid for it, auntie,” Yoongi announces, making your lips part and Jungkook’s jaw drop.

“You shouldn’t have, Yoongi,” you scold him softly, a whine already building at the back of your throat but he waves you off easily. Your mom’s thanking him profusely in the background, and while Yoongi’s pleased with the attention, his gaze remains on you.

“But I wanted to,” he insists, pursing his lips. “I should.”

“You’re not family,” is what you want to say.

“But I want to be,” is what he wants to scream.

Wordlessly, Yoongi puts a plastic toy ring he bought from the register into your bag. It’s pink and it’s star-shaped, its mold still the same from all those years ago.

.

.

.

You barrel into your mom’s room just to see Namjoon.

You bit at the chance of giving him the stuff he’s asked for from the grocery as per your mom, taking advantage of her focus on organizing the groceries downstairs to have a one-on-one with your brother.

“You have to make Yoongi drive into the city tonight. Either that or he flies to the US. The reunion is already tomorrow,” you seethe, crossing your arms as he sighs in defeat.

“It’s already late. Yoongi’s driving with Haneul, a kid, alone,” he emphasizes, running a hand through his hair as he himself is troubled by you being in a bind over everything. “And he can’t book a flight back on such short notice.”

“Short notice? What, did he just happen to book a one-way flight and not a round trip one?” you snort in amusement, shaking your head in disbelief. The thought actually cracks you up because out of the three of you, Yoongi happened to be the one more adept to websites despite your limited materials back then. Namjoon remains silent, and with how serious he looks, your face falls.

You can’t believe Yoongi at all.

“He did? You’ve gotta be kidding me, Joon,” you groan, throwing your head back. “What, does that mean Yoongi gets to stay in our home while we’re in this godforsaken family reunion?”

Namjoon delivers yet another blow, his revelation making you more enraged than the last.

“Mom invited them.”

“What? Why?!” you exclaim, chest rising in frustration. “Yoongi’s not family, Namjoon. Atleast not for me.”

He doesn’t miss your added remark at the end of your sentence, the underhandedness of it making him look down on the floor. 

Namjoon feels guilty, he really does, but he can’t seem to make it right. He couldn’t even fight you in insisting to apologize that night.

For each day that you try to delay the inevitable of confronting him and letting him taking the fall, of letting him apologize, Namjoon feels more like a big failure for an older brother than he already is. 

“But he used to be,” he says under his breath, looking up at you with a stubbornness you can’t place. “Your lifetime versus those five years — which one amounts to more?”

( ♡ ) 

Everyone gushes over Jungkook.

In an altitude higher than the mountainside that you’re in now, the aunts, uncles, and cousins you didn’t even know you have squeal over your fake boyfriend. By the fifth relative, you’ve already got your routine down of letting them hug you and kiss your cheek before holding Jungkook’s bicep, acting as his bodyguard to make sure they don’t squeeze him too hard or not at all.

“Oh my god, Y/N. Jeon Jungkook is your boyfriend?!”

“I knew it, I knew you were gonna have a partner who’s famous! I dreamed about it when you were-…”

“If that’s your boyfriend, then who’s he?” your cousin (?) whispers to you, cutting himself off as he turns his gaze to Yoongi and Haneul. They’re most certainly not your family, meaning that they’re unrelated to everyone present, so what your relatives (some more nosy than others) can’t wrap their heads around is the fact that there are strangers in your family reunion.

It takes one, two times for your mom and Namjoon to explain who they are and what they’re doing here in the first place, the chorus of nods eventually signaling that they’ve moved on. Some of them could even recall Mr. and Mrs. Min from the neighborhood, and Yoongi could only nod.

It’s not that he doesn’t belong right now — he actually feels the opposite. Yoongi feels that he has a place amongst a barrage of relatives he’s not affiliated to by neither blood nor paper, and it pains him; not because he’s scared of belonging, but because you probably don’t think the same way.

Haneul runs to him underneath the umbrella he’s isolated himself at, his son grasping an assortment of cash, food, and juiceboxes Yoongi most certainly did not pack in Haneul’s backpack from the night before.

“Auntie’s family is really nice, appa. Look what they gave me,” he shows everything that his hands could carry, breathing heavily in excitement as he explains that your relatives told him to come back once his hands are empty.

“Oh dear. They really think you’re adorable,” he laughs, pocketing Haneul’s cash (he swears he’ll give it back) and hiding some of the snacks he’s been given so he wouldn’t give himself heartburn eating too many at once.

Yoongi’s smiling from ear to ear, sitting Haneul in his lap as he overlooks the view of your town from above. Everything looks so small and delicate, you’d almost think none of what laid downhill ever even mattered. He didn’t get views like these in New York. 

Yoongi didn’t get people like you in New York.

“Mama’s family isn’t this nice,” Haneul speaks out of nowhere, his thoughts uttered out loud directed more-on to himself than it is for his dad. Yoongi stops in his tracks in trepidation, shoulders tensing over what his son just said. “They never play with me like this. Not like auntie.”

He knows Hyewon’s relatives, albeit not that well. Her family members in the US were not this kind, not this warm, even to a child who’s actually related to them.

Yoongi’s stuck in his thoughts the whole time Haneul sips on his juice, finally being snapped into his reality nowwhen you approach their direction. His son waves at you excitedly even if you’ve just crossed paths minutes ago.

“Here, Haneul,” you hold out a container to him, the gentle smile on your face limited to only him yet Yoongi, for a lack of grace, pretends it’s also for him. “I tried my best to make it look like Bluey,” you chuckle, pointing to the mini sculpture made out of the marshmallows and blueberries that your relatives set aside for him.

Haneul beams at you, thanking you profusely. If only he wasn’t sat on Yoongi’s lap and therefore grounded, he would’ve launched himself at you to hug your legs.

Yoongi takes the hat right off his head, putting it on you while you’re crouched next to his son.

“It’s hot,” he explains, his heart continuously speaking beats the longer that you linger beside Haneul and the longer that he giggles in excitement. “I know you get headaches easily.”

( ♡ ) 

Despite being reachable, Yoongi still yearns for you.

He yearns for you even if you’re only within arm’s reach, sitting near you but never close enough at the long table because with you, he feels safe. He laughs in the background like it’s a sitcom to every joke and every episode of banter thrown around him. He doesn’t feel out of place with your family — he feels out of place with you.

He’s never been a wickedly jealous type. Even when he and Hyewon were still together and she cheated on him, Yoongi felt more resentful than he was jealous. He didn’t feel this type of way; he didn’t feel inferior. He didn’t feel like he was nursing a loss in his life because he has no choice but to. Yoongi had managed to divorce Hyewon because it didn’t work out between them, and that was that.

Yoongi can neither divorce you nor pull away from you because you’ve never been with each other. He harbors no resentment for you and that scares him, not because he wants to hate you so badly, but because he feels as if everything you’ll do to him, he’ll take it.

Yoongi will take it even if you set a plate for Jungkook despite unconsciously forgetting what he’s always disliked eating when you were still kids. He’ll take the serving tray from your hands still, uncaring if eating the tiniest bite of the food you’ve passed gives him an allergic reaction because you were the one who offered.

He’ll take it even if you hold Jungkook’s bicep in a hurry when there’s a bug that’s getting awfully close to your drink. Yoongi would walk to where you sit and dispose of it wordlessly because even Jungkook himself is scared of bugs. He doesn’t mind if you don’t thank him, because atleast now when he looks at you from a distance, you’re sitting in relaxation and you no longer have to hold your boyfriend.

He’ll endure the jealousy that burns through his throat more than the poorly-made, highly-alcoholic vodka your uncle made himself. He’ll hold onto the poison that is yearning and how he’ll feel like his throat would close up because if you were still young, in this setting of free rein, except you were still in love him like you used to be and he’s in love with you like he is now, neither you and Yoongi would be hurting.

Yoongi will take it. He’ll take the nothing that you give him and give you the everything that you don’t ask for anymore.

Five years versus the rest of your lifetime that you spent being in love with him is only miniscule. The suffering that he’s going through now is only a speck of the years you’ve spent in an unrequited love.

Unlike you, Yoongi’s weak. If he were to say it outloud to you, you’ll never agree because you’ve never regarded yourself otherwise. You’ll go on this tangent that you’ve always been weak, influenced by the times that Yoongi had chastised you for your lack of a passion. 

To you, Yoongi had been right in a way.

To Yoongi, he’s always been in the wrong.

He’s crying to you now that the both of you are alone, overlooking the small town he used to be keen on getting out of. Now, more than ever, Yoongi wants to stay in it. He wants to stay with you.

“Why is everything with you so hard?” Yoongi whispers, his tears stinging badly from the corner of his eyes to the point that he can only make out shapes. He’s unkempt and frantic as if his life flashed before his eyes and there’s nothing he could do about it, voice strained like much of the times he’s drank himself to sleep.

He resembles Haneul at the moment. He’s always had because there’s not one bit of Hyewon in his son’s features or personality, but he looks especially like him now that he’s crying. The back of his hands harshly dig into his face, sobs bursting right from his throat. “Why do I make everything so hard for us? Why can’t I— w-why can’t I make it right for once?”

There’s a tremble to your chest that you ignore earnestly, the presence of it enough to scare you because it’s familiar; too familiar. Seeing your past play out in front of you in the form of a seemingly content family sleeping on your bed is one thing, but it’s another to see its patriarch crumble in front of you. It’s different to see your past pleading in front of you for just the slightest bit of your attention.

As a matter of fact, it’s different now because you resemble Yoongi the most. 

“You never tried,” you seethe, jumping the gun before you even try to decipher what’s in the barrel. It’s a bullet you fire haphazardly that comes from your pocket that you’ve always held onto. It’s a misplaced, misshapen, old bullet that you force into a gun that Yoongi passed onto you.

Right now, Yoongi doesn’t resemble Haneul, and neither does he resemble his ex-wife. 

He resembles you with the way his eyes are clearly swimming in hurt while you avoid looking at his, just to relieve the painstaking feeling of guilt and longing compacted into a sob.

“I never tried?” Yoongi exhales shakily, his quivering hands running through his hair to tug on them.“I never tried?”

You hear yourself clearly even if it’s his voice. The tremble and the anger, even all the way to the blind hope.

“I kept trying to reach out to you every single time. Every single birthday, every single Christmas, every insignificant holiday I could search up!” Yoongi cries — he actually thrashes with the way he sobs, shoulders shaking violently. “I didn’t try? If I didn’t try, try looking at every page of my passport to see all the stamps there are whenever fucking Jungkook was reported to be in another country,” he spits his name like poison, the vitriol behind it, however, never catching up to what he feels about himself.

You resemble Yoongi the most because you stand untethered, eyes blurring and lips quivering, yet you only watch him lose himself before thinking of uttering a single word.

“I’m selfish, I’m an asshole, and I’m fucking insufferable. I can’t even apologize to you correctly,” Yoongi lists, chest rising up and down too heavily, he feels like it’ll give out. “But I love you, Y/N. I-I might be every bad thing in your life right now and I own up to that. I’m still trying to be the best for you.”

Not only does Yoongi resemble you — he’s actually become you.

“You can call me the vilest names ever but you can’t say that,” he grits, teeth chattering not from the cold he’s put himself in, but because he can’t stop mentioning your name in between. “You can’t say I never tried because I always have. I’ll never stop becausethat’s what it takes,” Yoongi mutters; because, he says, not if.

“I love you,” he says it far too clearly for someone who’s drunk; far too sincerely for someone who had spent the better part of his life putting it through your head that he can’t return your affection. “I’ve always loved you.”

( ♡ ) 

You don’t feel good.

There’s a fever that’s starting to bloom from the base of your skull all the way to your toes, the abnormal warmth you feel in your chest making you unable to interact with everyone else outside of your room. Jungkook had left with your uncles before dawn to go fishing in the nearby lake and never would you think to inconvenience him; to tend to someone like you for something as minor as a fever, or for anything at all.

You already have a system down for taking care of yourself when you’re ill. It started when neither your mom nor your brother were home with you, and it was finally perfected when you had to live completely alone in the big city. All you had to do was gather all the energy you have, spend it at the start to get everything you could possibly need and put them all at the side of your bed, and rest until everything no longer hurts.

The major flaw with your system now is that you don’t have the energy at all. You can’t build up the strength to get up, walk across the hall and interact with your relatives, and rummage through groceries to get what you need without being questioned; you can’t build up the sense of importance you have for yourself to ask for help.

Namjoon comes into your room before you could dance around the idea of asking him to get you water, all because he has this innate sense of guilt in him and you could utilize it to your advantage. Your brother gets ahead of you before you could even register that he’s here with you, his eyes sullen and pleading.

“Can we talk?”

“I can’t exactly storm off right now,” you rasp, your voice fading out into a low chuckle.

“Do you want to talk when you’re able to storm off?” he asks sincerely with a small smile, his hand fixing your hair as gently as he could without making your migraine ring further. “If you do though, then you probably might never hear me out again.”

You stay silent because he is right, but Namjoon feels otherwise. He feels as if he hasn’t been doing anything right at all and you existing separate from him is a constant reminder. His career is at its peak but he thinks he could go higher; his relationship with you is deteriorating and he doesn’t think it could possibly be worse.

“I’m sorry for being a shitty brother,” he apologizes, the first thing out of his mouth being the last thing that floods his mind before he goes to sleep at night. “I should’ve never defended Yoongi, even Hyewon by extension.”

The heat behind your eyes isn’t all from your fever. The tears that prick your eyes aren’t because of the pressure in your head, but because of the fact that you haven’t heard Namjoon apologize to you in a long time; you haven’t talked this sincerely for even longer

“I should’ve put you first,” he sniffles, muttering apologies in between his pauses for finding the right words that would make it okay; that would somehow undo all that he’s been an accomplice to. “I should’ve been this reliable, sturdy man of the house. I-I should’ve been more of a father figure to you-…”

“Don’t,” you interject sternly. “You never filled in his shoes and you should never will. You’re only mom’s son and my brother, Namjoon. It’s never been your job to raise me.”

Even after everything, there’s a gentleness to you that Namjoon’s always loved but hate the most now. He hates that even if he’s the one who’s apologizing, you’re the one who’s saying sorry for the things you didn’t even inflict on him. Neither of you wanted to be raised by only a single parent, yet you absolve him of the guilt he’s always felt.

“But I could’ve been better. I wish I was already better from the start.”

“I know.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t think how hard life was for you growing up. I-I would’ve given up football if only-…” he trembles, unable to get the last of his sentence out because you shake your head in earnest.

“Stop.”

“But I mean it. If only I-I didn’t get into football, I could’ve been there for you and mom much often. I could’ve been better and-...”

“But I grew up to be okay, didn’t I? You’re the best at what you do. We’ve managed to retire mom early because we put in the work,” you whisper, the shrug of your shoulders feeling more heavy that it should feel because the words don’t come out easily from you. 

“But okay shouldn’t have been enough for you,” Namjoon tears up, bottom lip trembling as you try to take in his words that you’ve always wanted to hear at the back of your mind; you hear them now when you’ve already grown up. You hear them now after you’ve already endured the grief. “I— we should’ve given you the fighting chance to grow up more than okay.”

.

.

.

It’s not Jungkook who comes to visit you while you’re nursing a fever, because you’ve temporarily banned him from the bedroom. He only pouted in complaint when you called him, but he didn’t fight you that much either because you’ve called him out for the excitement in his voice to go hiking for the first time.

It’s not Yoongi who comes to visit you while you’re nursing a fever, because Haneul asked him to teach him Go (he’s not even that good at it and being the ever unable to show incompetence and have pride especially when Jungkook’s watching father, he discreetly asked lessons from your mom) so he’ll be able to play with your cousins.

Instead, it’s your mom who visits you. Even if Namjoon hadn’t tipped her off that you were feeling under the weather, she’s already had a feeling this morning.

“Are you okay, sweetie?” she asks, her hands full of everything you could possibly need and more before plopping them at your side. She makes you sit up even before you could complain, handing you a drink with some medicine you didn’t even know she carried

“Just a little fever,” you answer, getting back into your cocoon. 

You don’t even attempt to make conversation because you fear that you don’t have it in you to have a heart-to-heart talk with your mom just minutes after you’ve had one with Namjoon.

You don’t even say anything to her except your thanks. Namjoon didn’t even tell her about your conversation, even if he approached her with tear-stained cheeks and bloodshot eyes while saying that it was just allergies.

Your mom feels the guilt spring to her chest even if you don’t utter a single word. She feels the remorse in her eyes when you don’t ask her for anything more. She feels the guilt the most in her hands when you don’t ask her to stay.

“I’m sorry if I made you feel like there wasn’t enough space for your burdens growing up.”

“What?”you scramble to get up in a seated position, eyes hazy from how quick you do it. “Mom, you scared me. Where’s this coming from?” 

She shakes her head at your cluelessness, eyes stinging when you genuinely look at her innocently. You don’t know what she’s talking about, even if the thought has plagued her for so long.

“You’re not really okay, are you?”

“It’s… just a fever,” you mumble, your breathing already trembling at the way she looks at you.

She’s looking at you like you’re still a kid; ever so fragile and innocent, it’s as if she wouldn’t let a single thing in this world harm you. She doesn’t know a single thing about your feud with Namjoon and your long drawn-out conflict with Yoongi. What your mom does know is that she doesn’t know a single thing about the heartbreak you suppress, and that thought alone makes her hiccup in tears.

“You’re right, you know? Our house is small,” she says, distinctly recalling the tensioned conversation you had with Namjoon back at home. “It’s tiny but it was far too big for you growing up alone,” she inhales sharply, trying not to sob in front of you. “He wasn’t in the picture. I was working a hundred jobs left and right. Namjoon was trying to make a name for himself,” she shakes her head, so much so that the necklace she’s had since you were children, the same one with yours and Namjoon’s birthstones on it, rattles. “I’m sorry for making you feel that you can’t come to me.”

In just a full day, you’ve heard everything that you’ve ever wanted. It’s everything you’ve ever wanted during the school plays where you had no one from your family, except Yoongi, to watch you become an extra up on stage. He’d always deny that he did show up for you and just say that it’s because he was genuinely interested in a play about a poet he didn’t care about in reality, but you take it nonetheless.

It’s everything you’ve ever prayed for watching Yoongi live a life far too advanced for you as he held Hyewon’s hand after school. It’s what you wanted to hear when you begged him not to leave you behind.

“I-I’m okay. I’m really-…” you stutter, looking away before your tears fall in the fear that they’ll never stop.

Your mom only hugs you tighter.

“I’m here if you want someone else to carry your burdens,” she whispers. “I’m here now.”

( ♡ )

It’s the last day of the reunion when you fully recover, and it’s hours ahead of everyone when Jungkook has to leave by himself.

Without even asking for it, Jungkook grants you another week’s worth of break. You didn’t even plan on asking, yet Jungkook’s willing to give you a month if only you do. 

You’ve already arranged for his personal driver to pick him up and take him back to the city. You’ve already packed his bags, along with the multiple containers of food that your relatives (and especially your mom) insisted for him to take. You’ve arranged for your substitute to take care of him for his schedules throughout the week, along with the insistent reminder to call you whenever Jungkook needs you. (Read: he does, with or without a schedule.)

Everything is set for Jungkook to leave except for his driver who’d been roped by your mom to be filled with breakfast first, yet with the remaining minutes left, Jungkook’s still with you on your bed. 

He lies on your lap even if there’s plenty of space for him to lie parallel to you on a pillow — and you let him.

“Have you ever thought about kissing me?” he asks in the middle of you texting your substitute, the randomness of his thought already being familiar to you. This time, unlike the few thousand times he’s ever asked you something straight off his mind without refining them, is different.

It’s different now because your pretend-boyfriend asks you if you’ve ever thought about kissing him, while looking like he really wants to kiss you.

“Where’d that come from?” you giggle, looking down on him on your lap. 

Not once does Jungkook ever look away from you.

“Dunno,” he shrugs, pointing up at you. “Your lips are close to bleeding and it’s bothering me.”

“Sorry for turning you off,” you snort in laughter, wiping at the tiny specks of blood. Jungkook tuts when you rub at them, feeling for his lip balm out of his pocket.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he stresses, going a little cross-eyes when he applies them for you. His eyes keep goading you, the smile he has on his face widening the more that you look at him incredulously. “Sooo… have you?”

You don’t want to lie to him at all.

“If I answer yes, Jungkook,” you toy around with his hair, setting your phone face-down because you can’t focus on anything else now. “We can never come back from that.”

Jungkook laughs in glee so loudly, Yoongi (who was only passing by; he really, really swears he didn’t just happen to eavesdrop in your room because Jungkook’s driver is all done eating and wants to beat traffic) actually flinches.

Jungkook strains to be closer to you, unconsciously training you to lean down. His lips are far too soft — far too close to you, you could see every line and every nuance in them. He whispers, eyes practically crossing at your proximity.

“And is that such a bad thing?”

( ♡ ) 

You’re back at home when Jungkook texts you that he’s made it back safe, and that he wants to kiss you again.

You’re back at home when Yoongi asks you if he could use the bathroom first because Haneul spilled milk on him during the drive. You’re in your childhood bedroom when you let him clean up first, and you’re sitting on your childhood bed when you volunteer to put Haneul down because he’s cranky and for some reason, wants to be held by you.

You’re back at home too when Yoongi and Haneul are knocked out for the night, and your mom calls you and Namjoon down for all three of you to talk at the dining table.

You’re back at the home you were raised in, sitting on the dining table that’s creaky when more than two people lean their weight into it, in the space you’ve roamed around alone waiting for them to come home, when your mom talks about wanting to sell it.

“You want to sell?” Namjoon’s eyes widen, exchanging a glance with you who’s as equally surprised as he is.

“Yes. It’s under my name, y’know? Not that… man’s,” she snorts, the off-hand mention of your father making you and Namjoon laugh unexpectedly. Your mom looks at ease as she talks about selling your house, the smile she has one her face being shaped with experience and grace. “I doubt the both of you would want to keep this, and besides, the offers I’ve kept for years now are high. You already know that big-shot companies have been buying out houses here for years now because of the growth potential and whatnot. Who knows, maybe our block will be turned into a mall!” she shrugs, the happiness in her tone infectious. 

For someone who’s decided on letting go the house she’s both struggled and strived in, your mom’s beyond excited.

For two adults, who were once kids, who’ve seen the amount of sacrifices your mother’s put into the place by herself, you and Namjoon don’t have any objections.

“Also, consider this as me asking for permission to go on a vacation, even if I’m grown, because some people get so paranoid when I don’t answer calls,” she digs at you and your brother, immediately inciting coughs because you two, in fact, are guilty of worrying over your mom too much. “I’m going on this worldwide trip with Yoongi’s mom,” she grins, pulling out one last surprise. “We’ve talked about it since we were young. She’s earned her stripes working abroad, I managed to raise two amazing children as a single mom. We’ve earned it, I think.”

You and Namjoon share a glance once again, this time more definite than the last. You’ve made up already as far as your mom could tell, and that confirmation is what she needs before finally selling the house you all grew up in.

“You’ve earned it more than anyone.”

( ♡ ) 

Yoongi’s packing up for their flight tonight when you go into your room to pack up the life you’ve lived there.

“You’re coming with me and Haneul?” Yoongi jokes when he sees you pulling out your own luggage, the tone of his voice highly suggesting for you to become serious. He gets you to smile and that’s big enough of a win as is, the remainder of it more than substantial to hold onto when he’s away from you. Again.

“No, unfortunately. I’m packing up the room and eventually… the whole house,” you answer with a chuckle, voice trailing off when you see the crestfallen look on Yoongi’s face. He looks like someone who’s just absorbed the largest pain to man as he’s trying not to make it obvious. “We’re posting it for sale two weeks from now.”

Yoongi nods tightly, inhaling sharply as he tries to maintain his steady tone. “Then why are you packing up already?”

You could do this tomorrow. As a matter of fact, you could do it tonight because you don’t have to drive them to the airport. You have all the time in the world within two weeks to do this, yet you go into your room now when Yoongi’s still in it.

When Yoongi still hasn’t left, and neither of you know when you’re gonna see each other next.

“I have to get a move on. If I don’t move now,” you trail, voice close to trembling as you open cabinets you’ve never even given the time of day before. “I’m scared that I’ll keep holding onto this house.

Yoongi nods, even if he fully understands — even if he doesn’t want to swallow what you’re saying.

“You want out?”

“We want out — me, mom, Namjoon,” you explain, looking at him properly for the first time since he told you that he loved you. “For the longest time, we’ve held onto this place because we became this house at one point. Namjoon’s this world star, my mom’s traveling the world with your mom-…”

“Oh, they’re finally doing it?” Yoongi interrupts, a smile finally coming to his face at the news. He hasn’t talked to his mom in a month from how busy he’s been, and although he’s always missed her (even if they’re on much better terms than he and his dad could be), he’s happy knowing that your moms have each other atleast. “How about you? What will you be doing?”

“I’ll just be… living day-to-day. I’m not doing anything extremely special, but I’m happy and busy doing it,” you laugh, looking around your room that hasn’t appeared this clean, this warm, since you last stayed in it. “No one’s going to be around here anymore.”

As if on cue, Haneul runs to Yoongi’s arms to be picked up. He knows what the luggages mean and because he’s largely in denial that they have to leave later (as referenced by him crying to your mom and Namjoon), Haneul keeps pretending to sleep so that their trip gets delayed.

Yoongi’s about to put him on your bed even if he knows his son’s antics already, but in the fear that he’ll actually get to sleep and they don’t get to leave (which he isn’t opposed to at all), he keeps him in his arms.

You, on the other hand, take Haneul from him when his arms outstretch for you.

There’s the sentiment of you not having to do it that’s resting at the tip of Yoongi’s tongue but he holds himself back, the image of you and Haneul completely fitting one another, he wants to burn a copy of it to his retinas and designate it to be the last thing he’ll see if he ever goes blind.

Without putting Haneul to sleep on your bed, he goes to sleep in peace in your arms.

“Do you regret it?” Yoongi asks throughout the silence between you, sitting next to you at the edge of your bed. “Do you regret ever liking me?”

“I do,” you answer truthfully, rubbing circles at the Haneul’s back. “I regret knowing you.”

Yoongi takes the responsibility fully, even fuller than the way both your hurt and happiness could make or break him.

“I can’t take back all the hurt I’ve caused you,” he admits just as honestly, turning to look at you. He becomes surprised to learn that you’ve been looking at him the whole time. “But what I can promise you is that I’ll never do anything to hurt you again.”

“I have my share of faults too.”

“Eh. Mostly mine.”

“Mostly yours, yeah,” you laugh easily, nodding to yourself as you continue. “But I held onto you as much as you didn’t hold onto me. That’s my mistake.”

Yoongi stays silent at that, not because he agrees, but because the bias that you’ll never be wrong in his eyes overtakes your humbleness.

“Do you think he’ll remember the entirety of the trip?” you ask, gesturing to Haneul who’s already sleeping like a hibernating bear in your hold. “Or will Haneul just remember that time the power went out because he cried a lot?”

“Oh, he’ll remember everything alright. He’s good with retention and people in general,” Yoongi waves you off. “Even if he didn’t come along the trip— even if we didn’t crash the whole thing, Haneul would remember you.”

“Who am I to him?” you ask in curiosity, lips turning into a straight line before they curve in the slightest. “Appa’s friend, I bet.”

“Not really. You’re a lot of things to me,” Yoongi chuckles, looking at the way Haneul grips you as if you’ll float away if he lets go; he’d do the same too. “More like my first love.”

Yoongi loves you quietly.

He loves you quietly with the way he draws the curtains downstairs when you sleep on the couch, tired and stressed over a solution you couldn’t understand. He loves you with the way he’ll scoop the warmest, freshest, least-burnt portion of rice to your bowl without you even asking for it. He loves you with the way he’s willing to let you walk all over him.

He loves you quietly in the way that not even distance nor time could disrupt him.

Yoongi loves you quietly, it might have been too much.

“Is that a lottery ticket?” he asks suddenly as he spots the familiar face of it inside your luggage, tucked into the discreet pocket where your mother’s letters of encouragement when you went to the big city were also kept

“Oh, it’s still there,” you answer, in surprise yourself because even if this is the same luggage you use whenever you go out of the country with Jungkook, you’ve never noticed that it was still there. “I bought it when you left for the US.”

Yoongi stops in his tracks in retrieving the scratch ticket from the pocket, looking up at you in curiosity. “Why did you buy one that day?”

Haneul stirs in his sleep in your arms, waking up right at the middle of you and Yoongi being lost in each other. He mistakes the silence as a signal that they’ll be leaving already, making a mess of himself as he quickly goes down the stairs to look for your family there and cling to them instead.

You and Yoongi are alone again.

“I don’t know,” you answer honestly, grasping the scratch ticket you used to spend hours looking. “I guess I just needed some proof that fate was against me that day.”

“But how would you even know that?” Yoongi asks, pointing to the card that’s still covered. “You didn’t even scratch it.”

You answer honestly, the reason burnt to the back of his mind.

“Because I knew I would lose my mind if I actually lost.”

“Try,” Yoongi swallows, nudging the ticket closer to you with a gaze that mirrored yours when he left. “Try again. Please.”

You have nothing else to lose.

Yoongi isn’t yours to lose.

You retrieve the same old coin Yoongi gave to you on the same day that he bought you your first scratch ticket, the appearance of it from your luggage making his heart skip a beat.

He doesn’t speak and neither do you, gaze only fixed on the way you scratch the card almost hesitantly, as if you’re still scared of the results of something that you should’ve known five years ago. (Read: you still are.)

When you get to the last digit, you freeze. You comb through the pattern over and over again, yet you still can’t believe it.

You’ve won the highest possible prize.

“Oh.”

“Oh,” you parrot Yoongi, looking up at him as he can’t believe it either.

“You won.”

“I won,” you repeat, running a hand through your hair. You actually laugh, the lump in your throat subsiding. It’s a welcome, albeit loaded, feeling of happiness that comes in between the two of you. “I thought I would lose,” you mutter bitterly, shaking your head. 

You didn’t lose. Fate wasn’t against you that day, and yet you still lost yourself thinking subconsciously what the proof of it would’ve been.

“Who would’ve thought, right?” you sigh, eyes drifting to Yoongi. “If only I took that chance years ago, I would’ve won.”

Yoongi smiles tightly, breath faltering in recollection.

“I’m familiar with the feeling,”

Yoongi doesn’t get to finish packing for him and Haneul and neither do you with your whole room, the shift in the atmosphere suddenly making him stand.

He’s breathless and he doesn’t know what for, the rapid beating of his chest making his voice louder than necessary. “Hey, what do you say you take a break? I’ll pack up your room. I have to stay alert anyway for Haneul."

You thank him before leaving him alone in your room.

Yoongi can’t find the strength in him to pack. The only power he has left in him is for him to think of taking everything out from his luggages, the thought of leaving again, this time worlds different than the last when you were begging him not to — he feels like throwing up.

Yoongi’s merely an amalgamation of you. He’s only a compilation of your every word, every feeling you’ve implanted in his heart. He’s filled with nothing but your every triumph and shortcoming; every late night hanging out with you as you attempt to study while he keeps you company, every minute he spent going out of his mind trying to look for you when you ran away from home.

Yoongi loves you silently to the point that he gets out of your room without accomplishing a single thing he said he’ll do just awhile ago.

In the grand scheme of things, Yoongi realizes that he was wrong. He was as wrong as you were right that the moment he leaves home, he’ll spend the rest of his life looking for it. 

Even if you left your home like he did, even if neither of you could come home anymore the moment your childhood house gets sold, Yoongi would still search for it. He’ll still search for you. You’re no longer where you were, but you are everywhere that Yoongi is.

He looks for you in Namjoon’s room, to the dining table, and all the way outside, just to ask if he and Haneul could stay for dinner.

Yoongi finds you and Haneul eating sundaes on the pavement outside, with you on the ground and a scrap cardboard underneath Haneul so it wouldn’t be hot for him.

Fate hadn’t been against you five years ago. And even if he’s much too late, Yoongi could only pray that fate isn’t against him now.

He walks over to where you and Haneul are, grabbing another scrap of cardboard to put underneath you.

Yoongi is consumingly yours all the time.

[comfortless]

Only Other

chapter two of three.

content/warnings: 18+. minors do not interact. historical au (set around 350BC); potential inaccuracies as i am no historian!, König speaks some German here (as opposed to Gothic), mutual pining & worship, mentions of an arranged marriage with a large age gap, slight sexism, descriptions of violence & gore, more groping, allusions to abduction, dubious consent to a nonsexual genital inspection, animal death, minor character death, masturbation.

wc: 10.6k.

<- previous.

Everything feels unsound, a thicket of heavy vine curling it’s way up from the dirt to settle over you, in your belly, hair, anywhere. Sharp thorns and sap so thick you could drown.

Gaius is here, again, poised with his arms folded over his chest. You swallow thickly after you ask him to repeat what he’s just said. Something about eyes and ears between every crevice, beneath every board. He had a litany of reasons to believe you were not the sweet little maiden he had promised a halfway decent life to.

Careful as you thought you were, sneaking past the gate to roll in moonlight with the giant men of myth and smell the beasts and their pelts past the wall… The following morning had been the downfall of bliss. People take note when wolves begin to sniff around their cattle, and it’s no surprise that König was noted doing just that when he brought you back here on his horse with some sort of bloated pride when he named you his ‘Göttin’.

“Disrobe,” Gaius commands for the second time. The voice that comes from cracked lips and weathered jowls never falters: always so self-assured, stern, and where it may have sparked an interest in you from anyone else, here… it only feels vile. He’s the embodiment of the city itself: worn, cracking, splintered filth, left alone to wind and twist out of control.

You imagine he must have taken up the demeanor during his days as a centurion, but your head clouds when you try to recall the many times he’s monologued those times to you. Like his proposal, the dowry and arrangements, all of it feels blurry in your mind. You lose yourself to it when the strap is slipped down your shoulder, your body goading you do as asked for the sake of fewer future headaches.

There are no lemures looming over your shoulders these days, they only guide his hand, his voice. They haunt you in the shape of Gaius, an old hawk that screeches the commands you’ve no place to refuse.

The stola drops to your ankles with a dreadfully slow sweep, a century passed in a bolt of lightning. It pools down at your feet in a river of white. Graciously, Gaius doesn’t prompt you to remove the breast band where the truth of your bout lies embedded in little bruises, the mark of teeth scraped right by your areola in a rolling fit of passion.

Your betrothed boxes you in against the bench until the backs of your knees meet the wood, guides you down with weighty palms until you’re seated: feet pressed onto the seat, knees brought back toward your chest. In earnest, your stomach froths with a displeasure and embarrassment, but this is not the first time that the man had taken to inspect your pussy as if it’s your only worth in the world.

Whichever malady he possesses to make him like this… you could only hope that König did not have it. This weak, old soldier would be nothing short of a toothless dog should your bull take to charge him.

What was a dull glimmer of longing for his safety immediately sours to a wish for his goring when those cold fingers tug your loincloth aside and you’re laid bare for him right there on the bench.

The old creep inspects your cunt as though he were a medicinal woman. His fingers part your parched labia, not so much as a dewdrop of arousal there— completely unlike how your body had only seemed to melt and sing its pleas for König. He doesn’t whisper his pleasures in Latin about how pretty it is down there, doesn’t capture your mouth in a kiss that scorches you right through, only probes and prods at your slit to see if there’s any give.

Of course there isn’t.

It wouldn’t have mattered if you let the entire barbarian camp take their turns with you; you wouldn’t be any more blooming for Gaius. Men like him didn’t have the slightest idea of how to make a lady soft and dewing, they only thought that they did.

You knew with a certainty that this wasn’t normal by any stretch. After the first instance, asking the women nestled against their open windows, humming to sleeping infants curled on their chests only prompted sympathetic stares. “Have you no midwife?,” one had replied, face paled as she looked to you: the pitiable woman who had been inspected like a strange fish just for bartering with a man at his market stall for bread. Gaius had not found a thing then, and you had only begun to doubt his intelligence.

… Did he even know what a hymen was?

You will keep your secrets, and he will always play the fool. That’s just how peace would operate once you did share a roof with him.

“Well?,” you prompt, shifting a little in your seat when his cold fingers move to grip the plush of your parted thighs, examining closer with a low, raspy gasp.

A feint that earns no response.

Seemingly satisfied by a lack of a shimmering semen trail or whatever dullards like Gaius sought, he scowls and backs away, hands falling to his sides. There’s no bulge stirring beneath his toga, either. There’s an absence of anything that would make your relationship seem anything more than some strange transaction.

If anything at all, you have become a kept dove, clipped wings and cooing in a gilded cage. No more a wife than a pet or a pretty, glittering jewel. Something meant to waste away its days possessed.

You didn’t even know why he had chosen you, a lady with no gold, silk, or land to her name. Everything you owned he had given to you. Father, mother… whether or not you even had siblings, you were uncertain. Trying to remember only stirs up another aching in your head and you’ve had more than enough to worry about lately without the added sting,

“You’ve done no wrong.” It’s decided in a cold tone of voice. There’s a belief there, but only because the truth of the matter would make him look entirely the part of the fool that he seemed to play without notice.

“As I said.” You won’t run pleading to Juno for her forgiveness this time, or ever again. For the goddess of marriages and women to bless you with… this. Surely she never favored you very much at all.

You wouldn’t waste your bronze coins on fortune tellers anymore, either.

“Mind your words, girl.” He pats your cheek, feigning an affection that has never been present in this villa, in this city at all. You feel little more than like one of the slave girls— not whipped into submission, their plight was always far worse, but if you looked into their eyes for a moment too long, you knew you would find a part of yourself held there.

You nod your head and carry on puppeting yourself as you always have. Conversation comes stiffly as he wanders about your little home, noting what would need fixing before the night of your wedding, checking your food stores and even helping himself to a bone cup filled with wine. Even with it offered to your lips, speaking with him does not come any easier.

Finally, you utter the words that have nagged at the back of your throat since the day of his proposal, “Why do you want for us to be wed?”

The man pauses as he sets the cup aside, finger drumming at the rim momentarily as he regards you with an upturned brow.

“Your father’s dying wish was for us to be married.”

“Yes, but… who was he?”

“A great warrior.” That’s the only explanation you ever get, even when the confusion paves way to a simmering concern. How could you not remember your own kin? It seemed so unfathomable. Seeing so many large families walk these same streets as you… and yet you only had Gaius, hardly better company than a corpse.

“That’s all that you ever tell me.”

“… You will make a great wife.” He concludes the conversation, gives you a firm kiss on the cheek and leaves you to stew in the nothingness that haunts this place as though it were an ancient tomb.

Your days remain the same, nothing ever changing in your eternal cage that only grows ever-colder, more and more like a crypt.

Stitching, weaving, flowing. The animals needed tending, the marketplace was always bustling, and you’ve stopped listening to the poets. Their words only make you feel colder now.

You have met the things that lurk beyond these walls, and they do not speak of bubbling creeks and your gods; they soak their weapons in you, whisper like the trees and bellow like the mountains, ride their horses into battle without a scrap of armor on their hides. They don’t even fear the lemures or Jupiter’s lightning strikes. Maybe not even the changing seasons; harvests must be plentiful when your home isn’t surrounded by chalked clay and ivory.

You don’t turn to Juno any more, but you do turn to Mars. You pray not for the empire, but for his bastard.

Her altar had been tucked away to a corner of your room, replaced now by a stagnant cup of wine you dutifully purge and refill each night, a stray dagger you had acquired from a thieving child on the street, and a strip of red fabric torn away from an old tunic belonging to your betrothed.

When night comes and the weight of it all curls over your shoulders, you find yourself tugged down to the floor on your knees, whispering great fortune for that arrogant beast who had promised to take you to bed when next you meet. It always starts the same, your voice pleads to Mars, only to dither off to murmurings of a different name.

Though he remains distant, barking and bleeding out prey far from you, some semblance of him remains tucked between your ribs. A small echo, one that only seems to grow into a roar when your eyes close and you dream of wolves and their sharp-fanged promises, wisps of wind through low-hanging branches and not paved streets, dirt giving way beneath your feet.

He holds you in those dreams, whispers to you about your false gods when you stand over a stream, points out the only two in existence amidst the reflection with a curled finger.

In those dreams, you think you hear the voice of Mars, a fluttering leaf on the breeze detached from what he’s come to be: it tells you of thyme and rosemary, a foreign glade, of death and longing, and never does it breathe fire.

Then, you wake, ripped from the Elysian and back to wander Orcus with a heavier weight upon your soul.

— — —

Mars answers your prayers in the late autumn.

You do not wake to the sounds of horses or crackling fires outside, only something quieted and peaceful. The street beyond your window is silent as you stretch out to see what’s stirred you; not an animal or a man lies in wait, only the cool gloom of the moon tucked beneath clouds above.

Time only seems to pass more viciously these months. There’s a wedding to be had when the seasons changed; your yellow-red veil had been stitched with trembling fingers nicked several times over by needle, the lectus had been prepared and set on the first floor of the villa. The red cloth covering the modest couch seemed a threat in itself. You don’t hazard it a glance when you wander out of the door to take to the street tonight.

Dim moonlight does little to guide you, only making each shadow seem to stretch and warp in mocking, uninvited guests to set your shivering heart spinning.

There is just no time anymore, not here.

There, sits an owl atop a roof. Its dark wings stretched out as if to begin another flight, to coo its retribution to the sleeping city. You don’t dare to attempt to capture it, there would be no ritual tonight and no care if some harbinger brought doom to this place. It regards you with shimmering yellow eyes, and you think, for just a moment that you see the same feral look in them that you saw in your warrior. The bird wasn’t always the omen that others may claim, sometimes it’s only a sign.

The son of Mars has returned, his horse is waiting to take you upon its broad back and carry you to the mountains and the sea.

The chill on the breeze only guides each step you take as you clamber through that chipping hole in the wall and flee to the field once again. Strangely enough, the air even feels different out here, colder still but devoid of the shadows that climb and crush. The soldiers usually stationed outside the wall are not present now. You only reason that it was rare that they ever were, anyway, always too bathed in wine and kisses from flighty little women slaves to focus on the scape just beyond.

And there, further out from the opposite bank the stream, you see the glow of a fire.

It was strange to see the Goths had returned before your city’s own soldiers. Perhaps you had slept through their march, tucked away at some vast banquet filled with pillaged riches, the finest of wines and the most fresh of smoked meats before you had even begun to stir. Peculiar thing, being so accustomed to the rituals of men that for the most part you had learned not to even bat an eye. It mattered not, anyhow. What you sought was not another Roman to steal away your aspirations to take you as his woman.

Your pace is light and tentative, feeling the earth sink and mold around your bare soles. The thorns risen up from grass dare not poke you with their spines, the owls lurking in the trees do not chase or call, and the horses in the pastures seem at ease.

Even in a world bathed in black and silver, you feel golden, warmed from temple to ankle by that someone other lurking just beyond reach. The other gods could be condemned— it was Mars at your side all along.

The barbarian camp is in a similar state to when you had first seen it, just as you are with the ends of your gown drenched in water from the stream.

There are fewer to their numbers now. You count only three: two busied away with roasting meat over the fire, one running his blade over a flat stone at the mouth of his tent. You recognize them, somewhat, as you step closer, each just as imposing as the first with thick hair and wild eyes, but there’s no sign of König, not here in the open.

You’re stricken by fear immediately, clouding your head with doubt and worry: not for your own safety, but at the thought that your warrior was left to rot in the forests beyond, struck down by some other barbarian king.

You’re stood at the edge of the camp when your breath grows thin, pulse racing as your veins try in earnest not to burst with panic.

One of the men rises from the fire, gruffs something at you in his mother tongue, a deep rumbling like the rocks of old mountain and the timber of trees: like König. He stands before you, a wild mane of dyed hair atop his head, so deeply crimson and maroon you would even think it had been colored with blood from sheep or man, perhaps both.

He claps you on the back with a strong hand, the shove nearly enough to send your shivering form tumbling to the dirt, before you’re righted with a strong grip on your wrist. Then, he laughs.

“Come. König,” the man barks in his heavily accented voice, tugging at your wrist as if you were a mere calf to herd.

Your panic dulls somewhat, enough to wriggle out of his grip and shoot him a glare you had only previously reserved for your betrothed. Intent on playing the part of some strong yet benevolent noble woman it seemed, as you straighten yourself out and ignore the way that the mud and blades of grass stick right to the dirtied hem of your loose robe.

“He is here?” You ask after a moment, feeling a bit misplaced as this other, less familiar giant stares down at you. His eyes are not blue, but gold when the light of the fire pit illuminated him.

This one does not understand as much as you had hoped, because he only murmurs more incomprehensible words and pushes your forward with a palm placed right between your shoulder blades.

You don’t trip, but you had half a mind to hiss at him then, until you realize he is only leading you towards that same ugly tent from before.

The pelts have been changed out, somewhat. There is less gray now and more brown, hides from deer and boar alike, taken from their months of travel. The maroon fabric remains, layered beneath in such a way that seems to make it only seem more alive and bleeding this time.

“Keep warm.” The man speaks up again, and there is no mistaking the amusement in his voice. Insulting, what he dared to insinuate with those two words, yet… there’s a cloud of fuzzy, warm excitement billowing up between your breasts all the same.

The flap of the tent is held up by your own trembling hand, elation tinged with an anxiety, a clustering song played without harmony in your very bones. Though, it settles so easily when the light of the moon mingles with the candles within the cradle of wool and leather.

König is sat, recognizable from his very being, laden with scars and coarse light fur, vast as he had always been. However, his face has changed. Gone is the bleeding shroud you had seen upon him before: the cloth has been tossed away on the mattress, revealing a face that both chills and heats you to the very base of your being.

His face is not unlike others you have seen, maybe upon gladiators a time or two once the helmets were discarded and the dancing with beasts and men alike had subsided. There are scars there, too, a broken face revealing a menagerie of pain from the bump upon his nose to the chip in his tooth as he smiles. His eyelids are still smeared in darkened mud used to make him seem that much more sinister in battle, streaking down his cheeks not unlike the carmine that tended to use to paint your own.

Those eyes though… they stand out above all else, heart wrenching and sullen, and still, they rise to crease at the outer corners when his stare meets your own.

A man with more polish would have concealed the state of himself from a maiden; turned his face away and covered his nudity in the furs lining his mattress. You’re thankful that König is not like those men. His stare is as open as his body’s own articulation: he only lies back into the bed and beckons you near with a curl of his fingers to his calloused palm.

“I made offerings for you.” To you, but thankfully that phrasing doesn’t make its way out. You take your place on his mattress, carefully placing a palm over his chest just to feel— to touch, to be nearer to your god in some way. The time apart hasn’t been entirely cruel, but ‘kind’ would never suit it well either.

Your touch is answered by a heavy grip around your forearm, a gentle yet demanding tug that leaves you sprawled across him like some tiny animal gripping onto a tree: your head presses against his bare stomach, one hand tucked to your chest while the other is quickly pulled up to meet his mouth. König kisses you, right on your palm in some peculiar sort of reverence.

“Your blessing was enough.” You feel his mouth stretch, the brush of teeth against your flesh as he grins, something you’ve missed.

It’s a ruse; there are winding strips of fabric haphazardly tied over his chest, thick with the stench of iron. The blood is dried, but you could only imagine the state of the wound beneath it. Months upon months of travel with a chest wound… your heart crumbles, struck with worry then.

The seax sits intact, however, propped up against one of the wooden poles keeping the shelter in place. Even sheathed, you could assume with how dutifully the barbarian cared for his blade that it had been cleaned, sharpened and greased to keep rust at bay. Though the benevolence he had coaxed from you had not saved him, a part of you was almost pleased to see the weapon unscathed.

“You’re hurt,” you hear yourself say, far away, out amidst the turning leaves that surely watched him take a spear or a dagger, maybe even an arrow, toward his beating heart.

“Hm…? Men get hurt in battles, meine Göttin,” he says, so nonchalant, as though the fear of dying out amongst the trees and hungry animals did not exist for him at all. “You worry?”

You pull your hand away from him when he playfully nips at your fingertips; even wounded König seems more inclined to bite and make you squeal than settle into this expanse of fur to rest and heal.

Of course you’re worried, men fall to mere scrapes in time: grime coaxes its way in, wounds fester with an almost laughable ease, infection paves way for fever and…

“Take care of me…?” König’s voice comes soft, the softest you’ve heard. Gone now is that boyish, mocking lilt, replaced by something akin to trepidation. Fear for him does not come from the shouting of men with blades held high, but in small whispers begging for affection.

“Sure…”

The ruddy bandages are pried away from his chest by gentle hands, uncurled and left on the dirt floor to the side of the bed. The wound in his chest is not as severe as you had expected, a few centimeters deep, jagged as it curves upward… whoever had done this had not had the opportunity to properly pierce him before the offending weapon had been pried from their hands. Crushed. Followed by what you could only imagine was the attacker’s fretful shrieks when König advanced upon him.

Your fingers brush over the wound, gentle, as you inspect the blaze of red around its edges. There’s no clear indication of infection, but when a clay jar of honey is plucked from König’s belongings and brought to your hands, you dutifully dab the wound in its sweetness.

You tell him how it will heal, using the phrases you’ve only heard from the physicians about the city, failing to mention that you had not tended to someone like this before. He breathes his appreciation in a soft rumble when you wrap his chest in strips of cloth, tightening it comfortably just to tie at his side.

“Did you kill the man who did this?,” you ask once you’ve stripped yourself bare, shed your clothing to lie in a heap with the ruined bandages he had previously worn. Your body rests at his side, arm curled over his middle. A woman’s warmth was necessary to heal a warrior… perhaps it could remedy a forgotten god, too.

“All of them,” he hums into your hair, a whisper of a voice harboring words that should chill you to your very bones. König only appears pacified as he speaks, never minding his own madness, nor the blood caked beneath his fingernails.

You ask him what these men were like, who could have been capable of wounding a man as mighty as himself, and in turn he laughs. Surely, the gash must ache, but his voice never falters when he gathers you in two treelike limbs to pull your body ever-closer to his own.

He tells you that they were familiar, that your men in their dye red tunics held their spears and struck down some of his men but could not hope to best him.

He tells you of the cowardly ambush, how the warriors of your city turned upon his own with shouts and anger after a slave woman had been released. The way the woman spoke… as if she knew more about you than you ever had, how he could not bare to watch her suffer when she even resembled you in some ways: older, but still so very much like you. He had felt killing her captor to return her to the forest was the only way he could keep your favor.

While you listen in a stasis, stuck ridged against him as your mind drifts, pulls memory from the darker corners within your skull, he strokes at your shoulder, presses his nose right up to yours.

The man who had struck him was smaller… weaker, he had not survived König’s first blow, but… There’s a frothing madness in his eyes like the sky threatening storms when he tells you that he could not bear the thought of a man that would think to harm anyone like his goddess finding a way to return. His attacker was ripped limb from limb, body burned with the rest of those that followed his order.

You remain entirely silent, taking in this whispered tale as though it were breathed from the mouths of the gods themselves.

You never needed to pray to Mars, to Juno, to Vulcan…any of them. The embodiment of fear lies as a welcomed presence next to you, stroking along your back as though you were a mere kitten while he breathes this gory story against your lips. The smile returns when he finishes, pets at your jaw as if awaiting a reward for his perceived good deed… and you allow his madness to slip right past your teeth.

The touches brush over you like the featherlight breezes of the past spring, fingertips grazing from your waist to neck, nails leaving lightened stripes over the flesh he carefully claws at, gathering your skin, the meat from your bone, to roll between each pad of his digits. There’s further worship, a desperation to ensure that you are still here as he pants into your mouth, grips at your hip to pull you closer to where he aches the most.

There’s no pelt sprawled over his groin to hide himself from you, no thin linen to protect where he wishes to reach most. All you have is your words, and a thumb delicately rubbing over his bandage. When the kiss breaks, only then do you think to speak.

“When you’re better.”

The man makes his protests, gives his cock a few strokes as he hisses into your ear about promises, the horse, how long he’s dreamt and waited. You don’t need to be convinced, but now… your mind is riddled with what’s occurred in your months apart. Though the tension remains thick and wafting in the air between you, the physical could wait until you’re both sorted.

While you remained stuck and forlorn, struck by longing and misery, he had only found some semblance of meaning for all of what has eluded you, slayed every man who he could envision bringing you- anyone like you- harm, came back with another wound to fold over into a puffed scar.

You’ve only been waiting for your own sentencing.

Your warrior softens when your eyes begin to swim, fragile and overwhelmed as you’re tucked away beneath him. He only holds you, protective with an unwavering grip as the moon sweeps through the tent with its melancholic comfort that finally pulls the tears right from your eyes.

“Meine Göttin…,” he whispers against your temple, before you press your face into a broad shoulder, hiding tears and frail hiccuped sobs. “I prayed only to you.”

The words come barely audible, though they were never truly necessary.

You feel them in every touch, every hurried whisper as he coos his apologies in that keening voice, every kiss pressed over your warmed face when relaxation snares your limbs, and you do bloom further against him. The comfort and adoration is near staggering, taking you in and pulling you under, further below than even the rivers of your dreams and the ocean just out of reach could ever hope to.

As though this were the most natural thing…

The altars of your villa before were mere practice for the worship of lying next to your own deity; bastard son or Hercules, a wolf or a wild boar, none of it mattered.

He sighs, cups your face to kiss you just once more, something far more chaste than what you’ve come to know from him; the small peck to your lips holds more weight than the clatter of teeth and tongue from before. When you begin to drift off to a dream of a glade filled with nymphs where the trees breathe sap that tastes of honeysuckle, all bathed in the glow of starlight, you only feel the need to silently pray for one last thing: that he will never let you go.

— — —

It’s only on the seventh morning that you come to a realization over a breakfast of figs and water from the stream just below the hill— one that you haven’t been home. You feel at home enough here. The stuffy villa seems only a distant memory when you’re seated across from him, the giant who showers you in so much love it feels warmer than the great flames of Vulcan’s own fury.

No one has come to seek you out, either. Gaius had to have had an idea, should he have even bothered to search for you in that now desolate home. The few soldiers you have witnessed on their patrolling across the field never seem to turn an eye to the barbarian camp. You fill your pots with water, taking aid from König’s men, and never once have they turned to you.

Judgment always seemed so swift with all apart from destiny. You reason that this is surely what it must be, a destiny painted high above in the stars on nights where the mist does not curl up to conceal them from your gaze. You watch them sometimes, when König relaxes his grip in sleep: you turn to the outside of the tent to stare up at the expanse of stars and hear the stories of this nameless king from the mouths of the very men who have braved each storm with him.

They tell you in shattered language of stories you know with a certainty must not be entirely true. They range from talk of the hundred wives König supposedly had that he released all when he met you, of the temples built in his name all lined with gold and the names of jewels you had never once heard spoken, of how he had even slain your great god Jupiter… You have always listened with great amusement, wondering just how highly he must speak of you to have his men lie for him so brazenly.

Laughter follows you back to König’s tent each night, waiting to hear the cries of their king expending his love upon you that never come. You tend to his wound, observing its healing as the days come and go, and with each rebirth of the sun, his touch only seems to grow more imploring, his words sweeter than even the fruit held up in your palm.

In the haze of the morning sun spilling in from the parted flap of the tent, his eyes seem alight with an unnatural flame when he pulls you in to seat you upon one of his muscular thighs, far too rowdy for an injured man. You think not to refuse him when he laps at the juice from the fruit that has trickled down your chin.

“I love you.” He professes his devotion in that same pleading voice, an arm curled around your middle to keep you securely in place. Another thing that you never needed the words spoken to know.

You bring a fig up to his mouth, feed him with a kiss to his cheek and a whispered confession of your own. From the moment you saw him tending to his seax on the bank, your heart had become a howling, skittering animal in the cage of your ribs. You murmur words stolen from the poets against his jaw, about love and flowers, the mating dances of beasts and gods alike. With each word spun, he clutches you tighter, echoes them in his mother tongue.

The confession ends in a kiss that leaves you cloudy, aloft, a union of tongue and soft panting that leaves each nerve thrumming rapidly. The bowl of fruit slips from your lap, left to scatter over the ground forgotten.

König lowers you to lie back on the bed, teeth nipping and raking down along the column of your throat, over your pulse… back to your breasts that he caresses in two large palms.

“Not yet,” you remind him. His touch grows more insistent, thumbs pressed to your nipples to roll over them until your back arcs and your thighs tremble. “You’ll open your wound…”

“I am fine,” he huffs when he releases you from such delicious torture. “Let me…”

You can not bring yourself to tell him the true reasons as to why you can not. Not yet. You’re a mere stroll away from the city’s beckoning gates, from the place where you’re set to be wed only a fortnight from now. The mouth of Orcus that will drag you back in and keep you caged away from him… it would be too bittersweet to make your passions clear when your doom still imposes upon you with just a glance outside. If it ever comes… and you silently begged to any greater thing that it never would.

“When you’re healed… when you take me away from here,” you promise.

König listens in his own way. You see a flash of mischief when he separates from you with one final generous squeeze to your breast. This isn’t just the casual acceptance that comes with children being scolded, but an urgency to contend your words, a desire to prove himself buried in those shimmering eyes.

“Meine Göttin thinks that I am weak, hm?”

“That is not what I said.”

“I will show you.”

All at once, König rises from the mattress, casually shedding the bandage over his chest to discard it. You want to protest to whatever it is that he’s doing, but you knew very little of the minds of these men, their proclivities and desires, only that above all his intentions only seemed to be to prove himself worthy of worshiping at your feet, between your parted thighs…

As if to taunt you, the stiffened cock between his own legs bounces, drools when he stands. Your head spins as you force yourself to sit up and look into his eyes instead.

“What are you doing?,” you ask when he gathers his seax from the place he’s left it propped up, followed swiftly bu the pelt he usually donned around his middle with its leather straps and worn, gray fur.

“We will go on a hunt, hm? I will show you how…” He trails off with a grunt as he fastens the straps, finally conceals the pale, proud pillar when the fur comes to cover his groin. The seax follows as it’s tied to his narrow hip, the pommel glinting in low light as he approaches the opening of the tent and gestures for you to follow.

He should not be going on a hunt, and you… still did not even possess a weapon to aid in such an endeavor. Still, the thought of seeing him actually in the midst of a heated battle stills your breath for a moment, spurs you forward to follow along behind him.

The men around the camp speak with him for a time, prattling on in their mother tongue, gesturing out towards the trees with grins brimming with excitement. They all seem enticed by the prospect of felling some noble creature to drag back to their camp, make a true sacrifice for the goddess made mortal that lurks here. König dismisses them with a wave of his hand, clearly intent on being the only one to gift you such an offering.

He barks an order to the man that led you to his tent, and within moments this other man brings a Roman spear to your warrior, recognizable by its intricate engravings and barbed tip. König weighs it in his hands for a moment, glances back at you with a grin that simply screams his satisfaction of holding a trophy pried from the grip of one of your own detestable soldiers.

You follow after him through the dense forest bordering the clearing. The trees have long since shed their summer green, replaced instead by reds and golds, the dead falling to bathe the forest floor in bronze and brown. König walks slowly as to not cause too much sound to pass beneath the weight of his bulky body, encouraging you to do the same in a hushed demand with each crunching leaf beneath your soles.

Finally, he comes to a halt overlooking a small ridge that overlooks a small clearing. The brush and thickets rise high here, no doubt the birthing place of brambles and thorns, ground passive and untouched by all except the animals hiding within trees and bedded down in burrows. One still walks, awake and alert, a brilliant red stag with antlers more vast than even the horns of the bulls sent off to play war with the gladiators.

The creature is stationary, chewing cud with each movement of its dainty little jaw. It’s tail twitches, ears flicking on occasion when a bird swoops too close or the sound of a snapping twig out in the distance echoes through the forest. It’s a beautiful, delicate thing, but still strong and sturdy. The stag looks perfectly at peace here, not noting the wolf that watches over the ridge.

By the time that the deer does catch sight of König, it’s already too late. The arm holding the long spear is already pulled back and raised high. When the creature moves to resume its prance, the weapon is sent spiraling through the air, twisting and spinning in the absence of a breeze like a living thing until its point is found bedded in the stag's protruding belly.

The creature bleats in pain, writhes and kicks as it comes crashing down to a bed of brittle leaves that clamor beneath its weight. You close your eyes when you see the ground painted with blood from its seeping wound, and König begins to descend upon it. There are other sounds that follow, thudding blows in quick succession that leaves very little to your imagination; you’re only grateful he brought such a pretty thing a swift death.

You walk ahead of him on the way back to camp as he carries the animal’s corpse, politely telling him that if you look, you will not eat.

He gives his spoils to the other men once you’ve reached the camp again. They cheer, readying their blades to carve the creature up for a meal of venison and whatever amount of wine remains in their stores. The rations had been cut off since the others had failed to return, it wouldn’t be long until there was no wine left without one of them fetching work for coin within the city and purchasing it himself; still, König ensures that your cup is filled to the rim with it’s tart sweetness, grape with notes of something earthy, a mixture of thyme embedded into it to bless it with scent like a pomander.

You seat yourself in his lap, looking every part of a pretty earthen goddess as he presses his face to your bare shoulder, traces shapes into your hip while you sip from your cup. His men do not stare, either, regardless of your state of nudeness. There’s respect here, embedded into their flesh, their beliefs, and you only feel the part of a noblewoman when you take note of it. You are not just any man’s woman, but their leader’s most revered treasure.

The others pick apart your harvest of flesh, hang the skins to dry for further use, the antlers and bone left in a heap to be cleaned, then sharpened and carved. Your stare is appreciative as you watch them work away, never having seen this side of things from your modest villa. A fire is stoked when the usable meat is peeled away from what remains of the bones, ribs and femur, others that you could not hope to name.

“See?” König chimes as he takes hold of your hip, squishing you closer, tighter amidst the space of his palm. “Not weak..,” he hums into the hair at the back of your neck.

His touching grows more persistent, eager as the tips of his fingers graze your inner thigh; though appeased, you were not keen on the idea of straddling him before the eyes of his men as though you were only a breeding pair of foxes, screeching your passions into the forest for birds and bears to hear. When a throb resounds from his stroking, you wind yourself away to sit at his side instead, jaw resting on his knee and cup raised up to hide your breasts from his field of view.

“I did not say you were. Just hurt.”

He gives an impatient grunt in response, but allows you to linger in this new position, taking to stroke at your face and shoulders instead.

When the meat is cooked to their standards, still bloody and near raw to your own, the men chatter away between mouthfuls and thick swallows of their wine. You try to keep up, forcing yourself to commit some of their more common turns of phrase to mind— obvious yeses and nos, the way that they call one another, the names that would sound strange on your tongue but suit the others all the same. When your expression falls to confusion, König whispers translations into your ear; they’re discussing the Romans… what they will do if their rations are cut entirely, something about a deal struck before your interest summers and you resort to eating the venison you hood in silence.

It is not that you feel out of place, only lost. These men live in a separate world entirely: there is no talk of ironed out politics, organized festivities, of weddings an plotting for farmland. There is laughter here, even song when one of the trio seated across from you and König begins to bark out a loud chorus from a tune that your warrior so sweetly explains to you is about a woman who ventured out to elope with a cave-dwelling bear. Peculiar wild men that they were, you don’t even bother to question how that could ever possibly work.

When the afternoon sinks into the coziness of evening, you walk hand in hand with König back to his tent, and just as with any other night, there are cheerful, foreign goads and tedious little sounds elicited behind you. The wine had you peaceful for a time, but its haze has since passed. Your sheepishness is apparent at the implication, but the wolfish grin König shoots back at his men is anything but.

You know he expects to fulfill his promise entirely— make you his lover, wife, whatever he seems to see you as. That could not happen… as much as you thrum for him with each brush of his warm palm against your backside or upon your face, eternally gazing up at him with your dumb and doting stare.

To your credit: when his gaze crawls over you to take every bare expanse of flesh in, he only sees a beauty that he seemingly can not comprehend. The tells range from the tightening of his jaw, the twitch of each digit when they meet your skin, the way his nostrils glare and eyelids sag. His profession from earlier was anything except just that: it was a truth.

As he strips away his pelt and sets his blade aside, your hands rise to press against his shoulders, forbidding him to go any further than this simple reveal. And you speak true, explaining your exasperating engagement with the foul man who made certain you were spied upon, your distaste for your life within the walls itself, and lastly the marriage that would occur once the seasons did change.

Your eyes feel nothing short of pure liquid when you seat yourself upon his mattress for what you assume would be the very last time. Your voice tapers when you reveal that those very reasons were why you had come to him that night for the horse, why you came back even now.

König listens until your voice is reduced to a somber whisper, broken up by weak sniffles. The flirtation in his gaze is lost, and there’s no grin that splits apart his thin lips. You think that, if he asked you if you felt similarly to him then, that you would break down in full, but he doesn’t.

Instead he hisses something in his mother tongue, a singular word: “Scheiße.” Then, another laugh is coaxed from his throat, the dozenth that you must have heard this night alone. He seems fully unperturbed, unbothered when he descends upon you as if you were nothing more than the very deer he had slaughtered earlier.

“It is fine. Alles gut.” He covers your face in kisses, biting at your cheek when you squirm against him. “I can fight him, hm?”

Stupid… so terribly impulsive and cute. You sigh as if exasperated with him, but envelope him in your embrace anyway.

“I just want to be free of all of it,” you explain in a hushed voice.

“Then we will be free,” he confirms. We. No longer just yourself, and you almost bring yourself to ask if he has truly meant it before you're reminded of his declaration with a swift kiss that punches the air from your chest and leaves you shivering.

You hold him tighter still, fingers weaving into his hair to massage at his scalp and draw back in a tug when his head cocks to nip at your jaw. Again, always, he encompasses you, pulls you down into darkened water that warms and thumbs around you. You lose yourself more and more with each touch, thumb brushing over the pulse of your neck, teeth nipping at your clavicle, the brush of his groin as he rolls his hips to meet the plushness of your thigh.

You ache, cry when he guides your nipple into his mouth, languidly lapping over you until his salivating is evident over your tit. He only grows less patient the more vocal you become; one hand remains played to the side of your head while the other steadily slinks down past your naval, trails off to grasp at you hip and steer you closer before descending lower, where only his blade had dared venture before.

“I have dreamt of this, meine Göttin,” he purrs when he shifts his hips. His cock rests heavy over your thigh, weeping the sheerness of its own demand to paint your flesh. He guides your hand there to palm at his steadily growing arousal, curls your hand around his length and guides it up to stroke.

His chest rumbles his pleasure as he groans against your cheek; the sounds are somehow more surprising than the ones you had heard outside the brothels. Before König… never had you heard a man voice his pleasure, and though it may have been emasculating to some, it only makes you wet, there where his fingers reach to pet once he’s satisfied with the pace you’ve set as you pleasure him.

Your thumb grazed over the flushed tip, smearing the preejaculate that drools from it, his hips buck then. Your own sounds join his chorus when he ghosts a fingertip over the hood of your clit, buried his middle finger into your cunt. The entire ordeal is lazy, lazy as the slow kisses that connect your panting mouths.

With each twitch of your wrist as you milk his cock, you’re met with a finger probing deeper. At some point, one becomes two, a try for three before he draws back and realizes you’re too close to begin to take anymore.

“Tight..,” he appraises in a low voice, tongue lapping over your teeth as you writhe at his side.

You pick up pace at his praise, adoringly offering him your love with quickened sweeps of your hand, of your thumb over the weeping head, until he begins to throb in your hold. König mutters a curse against your jaw as he struggles to keep his hand steady then, bludgeoning you with his fingers, circling your clit until you begin to whine.

The heat builds within you so quickly you begin to see the night sky beneath your eyelids— an expanse of stars, of glowing blooms, and all at once the heat becomes too much. You curl into yourself, struggling to keep the demanding cock in your grip as you grind your hips down upon his hand to ride out your orgasm, bleary eyes and weakened by the intensity of it all you merely muffle your cries against his waiting mouth.

It takes no time at all for him to finish then, thick spurts of white seed paint up from your mound to your belly, coating your fingers in its stickiness. He hurts his teeth through it, intent on stifling the desperate little sounds building up in his throat, kisses you with even more fervor when you bless him with another tug to milk out every last viscous drop as it kicks and throbs in your hand.

He settles briefly, trailing kisses from your jaw to shoulder, then rises to part your legs with a strong grip around each thigh. For a moment, you almost think he’s prepared to fuck you proper, but the thought dissipates when he gathers his own seed over the head of his still hardened cock, settles it against your cunt, and grinds his seed against your salivating hole.

Your whine is clipped and almost pained when he brushes over your clit, hips rising to pull away when you feel the tickling burn of overstimulation. It doesn’t last; satisfied that he has left his spend close enough to your pussy that he may as well have laid claim to it, he crashes down over you, head pressed between your breasts.

König’s breath still comes in a pant while he huffs his affection for you: praises, those three wonderful words again and again. His tone is tender, reverent, as he tells you that he loves you… immediately following it with a stout and crude declaration of how roughly he will fuck you when the time does come.

“Do you mean what you said…?” You find your voice when he finally stops whispering the filth of his fantasies to you, when your cunt ceases its pleading for more. Right now… it would not be as special anyhow. Your fate still lies in the grasp of another, and as much as you wished for it to align in full with him, that simply was not so.

“Ja,” he answers immediately, no hesitation when he commits himself in full to you, the Roman woman who had tamed him down with her silly whims and ache for him. “I will take you to the mountains, the sea, …the stars if you ask.”

You comb your fingers through his hair, filled with mirth as he speaks of such impossibilities. There is no place in the stars for two misplaced lovers, but you don’t dare say that. The things that fill your imaginations would leave even the poets balking, scrambling for the words pretty enough to describe a love so peculiar.

— — —

You had not questioned why they remained, that was your folly.

You had never thought that you would even care should you see the city fall. Though… dread immediately strikes your heart with ice and silver when you’re bolted awake by the sound of shrill shrieks and loud crumbling. There’s a war just beyond the veil the tent provides: loud sounds of heavy feet, shouts, even the clash of metal upon metal if only for a single stuttering beat of your heart.

Vulcan has descended, rode right through on flaming steeds with flame rising from his open maw. You know it with a certainty without even approaching the opening to look. But you do. You do move away from the empty mattress, finding the space where König had slept against you, snoring softly and tugging you closer in your bliss, entirely devoid of any warmth. The air is warm, tinged with the heat of coursing flames, but the bed is cold, frigid like the fear that cinches at your heart and steals the breath from fluttering lungs.

There’s ash in the air, falling like the first snows of winter when you make your way out of the tent, coughing into your hand as it clasps over your mouth and nose. The air is so thick, noxious and darker than even the backdrop of velvety sable marking the horizon. Your eyes track the twisting, feathering pillars of flame as they rise even higher than the wall: a gold and red death.

Shadows scramble across the field— men, women, then the horses, the bulls, that come thundering past. The animals trample and shriek: broken bones, hooves driven through skulls to erupt into mush, leaving twitching, scorched corpses in their wake.

Fire billows up only to fall and rain down, back onto the murderous beasts in some abstract punishment. You watch the puppets writhe and squeal; perhaps your own cries join them, wailing and crying out as all you’ve come to know is engulfed, smothered, destroyed. What the fire does not take, the shattering structures do.

Amidst it all is glee.

There are shouts of men on horseback that come out as the victory roars of men amidst battle, yipping and howling as all is reduced to rubble around them. Your feet do not guide you toward the chaos, they do not bring you to peace either, only far— far as you can go.

The smell alone makes it worse than it ever appeared in your dreaming. Blood, oil, cinder and ash that plummets deep down into your stomach, pushing back up to purge what became of the deer. You feel how that creature must have: alone, terrified, certain that death was biting at your heels. If you had fur it would bristle, antlers would plow through the brush to carry you to safety, but… you do not. You’ve only the ability to gather yourself enough to fall. You descend down the hill in a painful roll as your legs give out beneath you.

You want to close your eyes, to sink into the stream and bid the fire away with desperation alone. When you lower to the grass to wretch, fingers digging into the earth, your gaze snaps back to the scene just beyond the stream.

You know, know dreadfully well that the people here that have managed to escape were hunted down in a veil of inky blackness. The ghouls of myth could not compare to this… This was very real, real as the scent of cooking meat and hair and wood.

And you watch and wait for the fire to burn out, for the animals to cease their rampage and fall back to a calm that never comes.

You stand to your feet, meekly trembling before the wrath and chaos, and you wait with splintering nails clawing at your thighs and unshed tears blurring your vision. There was always a price to pay for freedom, you had seen it time and time again in gladiator pits, monetary and dull, but never this…

And you know the price for yours was paid in fire and vengeance, promised before you ever even had the notion to disappear at all. There was always tension between the Goths and your people. This was bound to come about sooner or later, but the guilt of potentially being the catalyst to it all brings you back to your knees.

You don’t know how long you sit there, staring out into the abyss in silenced fear, but eventually all that fills the quiet is the dull roar of the fires still burning and the dull sounds of a horse’s trot growing nearer. Just across the bubbling little stream, untouched by the death beneath the full moon, is König atop his sable steed. The creature huffs just as König cocks his shrouded head, prompting you in his silence to say anything— deliver your blessing, your thanks, your kisses.

Yet, you can not bring yourself to deliver anything but a weak, anguished wail.

The stream is crossed before you’ve even the time to raise your head, limbs gathering you up to pull you against the broad chest of your god in the cruelest tenderness. You feel limp there, atop this frustrated horse, in the arms of the man who had sacked this city. They will come for him, kill him too… You will be alone with nothing and no one, and stupidly, you find yourself longing for the comfort of calling to Juno in that bedroom you would never see again. All of this just for pleading for the very horse you now perch upon.

He lets you cry as holds the reins in one hand and carries you away from this desolation. The horse walks further than you have ever even seen. The stream before the barbarian camp is not the only, there are orchards and glades and fields of tall grass even further beyond it. You take in the beauty as the city becomes a glimmering speck far behind you.

König only remains silent, stroking your back with his free hand, so lovingly and gentle you find it almost impossible to believe him capable of such cruelty. Your mind is tired, limbs weighty and chest aching from breathing in so much smoke. You do not even realize your exhaustion until you find yourself in a fitful sleep.

There are no dreams, no wonderful comforts, only slow breaths and pained whimpers.

When you do wake, the sun has risen in full.

You’re lying on your back amidst withering grass, a pelt thrown over your body and a figure sat at your side. There’s no longer the stench of smoke, no drab gray clouds hanging over your head. The air is light and tinged with the tartness of buckthorn. There are white, puffy clouds hanging up in the vast blue of the sky, and as you blink, a thumb moves to stroke at your cheek. Soft, so soft and even tentative when it rises to your temple.

“You should have slept longer.” König’s voice comes, not reprimanding, but in a gentle surge of breath. He sounds as exhausted as you still feel.

You’re angry… but you know not why. It feels performative, almost, when you shove his hand away. You want to wail for what you’ve lost, but that voice never comes. Gaius? A home you never liked? The lectus that would be used as a stand to consummate a marriage you had begged to avoid for months on end? What was lost?

“You are going to die.” Your whisper comes strained, tight and tinged with your own misery.

“You worry for me again?”

You shake your head at that, fierce as you turn on your side and away from him again. The dying grass digs into your flesh beneath the fur, scraping like claws, like König’s very touch.

“We are not going to die, little one,” he continues as he moves closer to you, trying to gather you up into his arms in an act of comfort. Your tension rigidly leaves you, though you try to force yourself to remain closed off, it does not happen. You mold against him when he lies at your back, hand splayed over your stomach.

“I never said we. Just you,” you huff. Your hand meets his wrist as his thumb begins to stroke at your naval. The desire to push him away again only dissolves when he winds out of your grip to take your hand into his own, forced lower to feel the cold earth and the warmth of each digit beneath your touch. “They will hunt you down.”

“Then I will die at your side.”

You don’t respond to that, finding his desire to further prove whatever this was entirely incomprehensible now. It is not endearing, you force your mind to reason. This man was more than just tedious at times, but dangerous to… To burn an entire city on a whim then curl against you like this… You whimper, keening and sorrowful as you squeeze your eyes shut— force the macabre thoughts out.

“You are like me,” König continues, a low rumble as he lowers his head to press his cheek to the side of your neck. Even amidst the chill of winter, he’s so warm, so soothing, enough to make you melt like wax from candles… perfumed by his own sweat and the ash he left in his wake, so earthy and lofty all the same. “Kleine Göttin…”

“No… I’m not.”

“You come from the mountain,” he urges with a kiss to your shoulder. His grip around you becomes more insistent with each muttered word, the pads of his fingers pressed further to dimple your skin. “The slave woman told me so.”

You didn’t know the woman he spoke of, you didn’t know anyone still living apart from himself and his men. You want to yell, to drill it into his very skull with your words, but even more than that, you want this comfort.

You want to feed him figs, allow his tongue to sip the wine from your own, and to fall asleep against him with his breath tickling at your scalp. More, to share the life with him you once promised to a deceased man buried in ash…

Truth be told you were not even sure of your standing, Roman or barbarian… Though you had never told him that, his resolute tone leads you to believe all of it. You had always longed to bathe in rivers rather than crowded bathhouses, to crest the tops of mountains and taste fresh honey on your tongue… The titan promises you all of those things and more with his tight hold and in a purred, breathy, “I love you.”

All that you could not prevent dissipates in a plume when you twist around to bury your face against that chest, curl your fingers into his hair and breathe out your resistance in its entirety. The most pitiful of surrenders.

[darlingofvalyria]

❝Ask me, my prince. What a storm is to a dragon.❞

[ Aemond can only breathe through your lungs, through your adoration and love. But when betrayal is nigh, what does it truly beget? ]

[ +18 MDNI ] [ 6,935 ] | Dark!Aemond Targaryen x Baratheon!Reader, minor, sort of (not really) Aemond Targaryen x Alys Rivers.

THIS IS A DARK FIC. READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

contains— angsty, smut - DD:DNE: kidnapping, coercion, manipulation, possessive & obsessive behaviour, power imbalance, violence (not to reader) (a little bit to reader... i wrote this too close to book canon!aemond), murder, death, massacre, war - canon typical targcest, canon character deaths, canon divergence - dark!aemy - pregnancy, child, allusions to infidelity, mentions of bastard - i took liberties with canon (as i usually do) - #ripellyn you (sorta) will be missed shshs - the only specific reader descript. i did is the baratheon dark hair ok? ok - nsfw: male masturbation, dubcon/noncon, creampie - no kings, no martyrs, no betas.

a/n— there was this villain playlist on yt that was slowed and sexy, and my brain just. clicked. here it is if you wanna check. the real reason this is long is cos i can't help but add backstory ok? ok. lol. comment, reblog & like at will, mi luvs, mwa!

Storms have always been your favourite view in any window.

It is cliche to say, a proud daughter of the Stormlands, of course she enjoys the dark skies! But you do. There is nothing short of comforting in the rolling, fat clouds darkened in shadows. Occasionally, if the weather moved to your whim, lightning danced between plumes before you hear the boom and crack of it striking.

"It is a privilege to enjoy weathers such as these," your father once said, a hand on your darkened hair, a bluer tint to it, but Baratheon through and through. "It is our might that holds us at paramount, and thus, our privilege beckons warm fires and strong, stone fortresses to watch it all in comfort. To find enjoyment in the dark skies."

"Ours is the Fury," you replied immediately. Your father smiled.

"That, precisely. The paramount of our might and power is one we have taken and given with fury. Never forget."

"Even better than the Targaryens?" Your father's displeasure crumpled his face, and you were at an old enough age to understand his displeasure was not something you enjoy. But you had been learning all day, and the topic that day with your septa had been House Targaryen. You had learned the King's name, that he had a Queen that died, and that his heir is a girl.

His hold on your shoulders was heavy, but you do not flinch. Eyes bore into your own as if he was speaking the words into existence.

"We are the blood of the Kings too, my daughter. The White Hart proves our mark in the world, long before the dragonlords ever whispered in these lands. And what are dragons against the dance of storms?"

You had been little then, no more than six. The smallest of your sisters; Floris, though short in stature, looked elongated. A beauty. A fawn in the making. And your father is not the cleverest of men, but his words shelved itself in the corners of your brain. It eased and assuaged your fears like a quick spell.

Your spine straightens and your chin tilts upward. You are made of fury and storms, the blood of kings of old and solid, impenetrable fortresses.

You fury is your own, and 'neathe your fingers, under your very being, is a storm.

A good reminder, as when you had exchanged childhood for girlhood, a missive had been sent by the Queen Alicent Hightower, requesting for a daughter from Lord Baratheon's Four Storms, as companion for the Princess Helaena.

"Cassandra would do well."

"She hungers, husband. I am afraid of what might happen if we send her to the courts at her age. I do not yearn for a scandal."

"She would not shame her family so, do you reckon?"

"She is the eldest. You know how she is."

A sigh. "If she had a cock, she would be a good heir for my seat."

"Borros!"

"Apologies. Very well, mayhaps a good husband with no grit to him would do her well. She will lead the Stormlands by the hold of his— er, well, yes. Maris? She is clever."

"Far too clever. Even her tongue irks you, no. Definitely not. Her brain works too fast for her mouth. She will say the wrong thing and end us in war."

"You exaggerate, surely."

"I bore them, Borros, but they are your daughters. They live and breathe with your name and your House's banner under their own. What do you think? Bad enough they take so much of your heritage with them, and their looks, but they also plucked and chosen parts of you I'd rather not have for lady daughters."

Your father grumbles incoherently, you laugh under your breath.

"... Floris is too young. So..." The last one. You. You press your ear harder against the wood of your father's study, heart in your throat.

"She will be best," she says softly, insistently. She knows in her heart of hearts that though her husband is a hard, proud man, he has a softened heart for you. "Though she is clever, she minds herself well. Polite. Kind. She will do well with the Princess and her, er, eccentricities."

"Bloody weirdoes, the lot of them." A sigh. Another chastise from your mother, but she too, sounds exhausted. It has almost been a moon since the missive has been sent. Another one is bound to arrive, more order than request. It is all a political game. Princess Rhaenyra had no Baratheon ward under her court when she still resided in Kings Landing, for you and your sisters had been too young and your father had no sister. It is by chance that gives the Green Queen advantage to take a ward under your father's banner now, with a daughter she seeks to be Queen Consort.

"Send her then," your father announces. Though defeat clouds his voice, the Lord in him speaks each vowel clearly. "She will do best to represent the House out of them all. We might have a betrothal in our hands soon enough."

"She is pretty enough for a prince."

An angry snort. "She is more than pretty enough for a prince. Far better than the lot of them."

Softly, "That is because you like her best."

"Why would I not?" your father replies gruffly, making you smile. "A storm grinds and brews inside of her, wife. Even Maestre Loes, the old gnat that he is, sees my bloodline thick in her. Even if the King asks for her hand at this very moment, I would refuse. I would throw him off Storm's End with a smile on my face and a boot on his back."

You fight off a snort as your mother grumbles about treason and Maris.

"She is far better than the best of them." Another sigh. Heavier. "Why are we sending her?"

Your mother sighs. "Because as she is the best of them, she is the best of us. She will survive far better in that cesspit they call a keep than any of our daughters. Her storm can tame dragons."

You would argue that that too is treasonous given the context, but your father merely laughs. His laughter is a crackle and a boom.

"I would upheave our coffers to witness that."

Though you find her odd, you enjoy spending your time with the Princess Helaena. Mostly, she is quiet, in her own little world. Though it took time to get used to her many-legged friends, you soon realised the best times you spend with her are when shipments and gifts of pinned butterflies and books that have reached as far as Yi-Ti, to get to Kings Landing about bugs, and undeniable excitement unfurls in the Princess' face. More like a girl, a sweet one.

It makes her already cherub features appear more child-like, and she grasps your hand voluntarily as she points at each and every critter she recognises. It is so very rare to see true happiness in the princess' visage, and in her enjoyment, you see your sisters.

That is how you meet him, the Prince Aemond.

Princess Helaena had gone for tea with the Queen. It had not been planned. Though she often spent tea with family, either the Queen or the Lord Hand, or either of the Princes. Something had occurred, so now that Princess was having tea with her Queen Mother and her husband. If you had to guess, it was likely that Prince Aegon was being punished in some way.

Though there is no love lost between siblings, it makes you sniff at how blatant the prince's obscene indulgent for vices are. Princess Helaena didn't mind, rather, she didn't care unless they needed to spend time together, a clockwork patch of routine, and that was when you usually came in— you later realised, your primary job — soothing her nerves and distracting her thoughts before she had to enter her marriage chambers.

There is a resigned defeat in her, a woman's duty bearing down, looming like the Mother, and it makes you want to soothe her harder. Make her laugh.

With the change of plans, it was up to you to check for the new shipments of the Princess' things. A dictated note in your hand of the princess' handwriting, you were going through her boxes when a hand, gloved, rests on your shoulder.

"Do not move," a cool voice says behind you. Far too close for propriety.

You freeze. "Pardon?"

"I do not want to scare you, my lady, but there is a critter atop your head." The cool, calm voice waves off a steady rhythm to your heart, calming it further from the earlier panic of someone laying a hand on you (although this, is still not better. You are a lady and unmarried after all). "I will rid of it immedi—"

"No."

"... Pardon?"

"Where is it? Just atop my head?"

"... Yes?"

"It maybe poisonous, pease do not touch it." Before the owner of the hand and the calm voice could react, you pat your head until you touch a hairy, small thing with many legs. Relief spreads. "There you are."

"There you are?" The voice says, almost mocking, incredulously.

You huff, taking the spider in both of your hands, before you tilt your chin behind you, only seeing the gloved hand. "Please take your hand away from me."

The hand retreats. You turn.

Valyrian features are most uncommon than your own, and the jolt of recognising the pale, white hair is a strike to your being, a gasp falling from your lips. It is the one-eyed mask that tells you immediately who it is, but you string everything else you know of the prince.

Prince Aemond had been travelling to Oldtown, a visit requested by the Queen in the guise of seeing family, his brother. But there had been whispers of something more, as the chatter of the maids who cleaned up in the King's quarters talked about how ill he got day by day.

You had seen flashes of him before this, but fate had kept you two apart. You were not there when he visited the princess— on another errand or two, and he starkly ever looked at the ladies surrounding his sister with a vehement light as their voices, high pitched and dreary, tire him so on a good day, increasingly irritating on a bad one, and anyway, the silence that falls in a stone room just from his arrival is enough to irk him.

But here is he now, with one eyebrow rose, a good eye of icy blue iris, and the very visage of a warrior in black leathers, a braided hair pulled to one side, and pursed lips in both amusement and annoyance.

He hums. The sound kicks back your manners, blushing lightly at having gaped at him for far longer than pleasantry dictates, and you pull yourself into a bow.

"My apologies, my prince, I didn't know it was you. I was scared you were going to hurt the Princess' new friend."

"They are bugs," he says steadily. "Not her friends."

"Like so, but just because they have many a legs do not mean we cannot befriend them." A small smile plays on your lips before you place back the spider in the cage he got out of. It is something you had once said to the princess to make her laugh. You feel his stare burn at the side of your face. "Is there a matter, my prince?"

"You are the Lady Baratheon, are you not?"

"I am." A small, ironic smirk tugs at your lips. "Is it the hair?"

He makes a soft sound that exhales like a laugh out of closed lips. He's still quite close, you can feel his warmth and idly wonder if all Targaryens truly do have the blood of the dragons in them for you can feel the contours of him, burning at the edges of his being. Like a comforting little furnace.

"Hm. And the princess has taken quite the liking to you. You are all she talks about during sup."

You can't help it, you're smiling. So many rumours concerning the young prince, not all of them good, but there is a certain novelty in basking under the attention of a prince of the realm. A Valyrian beauty that brought an ethereal glow to him. As so intently stares, catching pieces and niches as if you are the most fascinating creature.

The attention makes you feel like a blushing lady.

"My apologies then, my prince."

He cocks his head, the braid dipping and you catch the movement in your peripheral. "Whatever for my lady?"

You turn to him, unable to curb the cheek to your smile. "For interrupting better conversations with the topic of my name plaguing your sups so."

His mouth twists into a smirk. In Aemond's mind, it is not oft that ladies, especially Helaena's ladies, would care to... flirt with him. Because this is you flirting, is it not? The coy gaze, the curl at the edge of your lips? Aemond has seen these faces in ladies and maids alike, but directed at others. At Aegon.

Directed at Aemond... bereave to keep their conversations to themselves, and though it is not always a fault of theirs for his stoicism is his most valued armour, one would resign oneself of an arranged marriage that will take long moons before his lady wife would see the truest him, that he would not be able to experience such... coy conversations with the opposite sex.

Yet here you are, a light dust of red in your cheeks, a quirk in your mouth, and the playful joust in your eyes, daring him into a swords' dance.

It is thrilling.

"Plaguing is too harsh of a word to say so about a lady of your stature, Lady Baratheon." He steps closer, aware of propriety standards of how close two unwedded people should be, but he feels intoxicated of the whiff of life exhuming from your visage. A light citrus, oranges? Lemons? Tart and sweet, with a powdery finish. It is so very ladylike.

Addicting.

The perfect smell for a lady wife, a musing thought.

"Is that so?"

"Intriguing, I would say, would be the better word."

You laugh, low and sweet. It sends a pleasant warm to his centre. "I'm afraid my memory is failing for I do not remember any wily adventure or conversation the princess and I had for a prince of the realm to say I intrigue him so."

"It is less... about wily adventures or interesting conversations that pique my interest, but the lady herself." His eye, though lone, the other remaining hidden behind an eyepatch with hints of scarred, twisted skin underneath, bore against yours as if he wished to gather all your strings and see what each would give him. What you would show him.

"I'm afraid to disappoint you, my prince, but I still fail to see how I can ever so pique your interest." You meet his gaze, smirking. "I am just me."

Before he can answer, step forward— whatever, he is staring at the curve of your lips so, at the enchanting shimmer of your eyes, and Aemond Targaryen felt breathless — your named is called, and the spell is broken. The prince steps back, taking more space between you that is more appropriate.

His hand flexes.

But that is not the last you see of the prince, nor the last time you are able to hold a conversation with him. It seems that since then, you find yourselves orbiting each other in the fringes before one steps forward and engages. There seems to be a band that tightens either of you so obsessed with seeing the other in the periphery, the topic whatever may came, even as inane as the weather.

It is a dance of swords, kissing blades of sharp quips and interesting parry. You are interesting. Beguiling. Devouring. Aemond searches for you in most places now, unable to stop himself from asking his dearest sister about you— even his mother and grandsire have taken notice, eyebrows rose between shared looks.

"House Baratheon is of a Great House," his mother hesitantly brought up, too focused on her soup for it to just be idle chatter above sup.

"It is." His forced passivity is not as apathetic as he can make it. For any mention of you and your origins thrums his heart in a dance.

"And the Lady Baratheon has many admirers, a kind and dutiful lady, and Helaena likes her so."

He turned to his mother then, humming. At the barest hint of a smile in her son's face, Alicent beamed.

But others from court also soon took notice, and when Aemond realises the wagging tongues had come to note your name— unkind whispers besmirching your person, he disappears from you altogether.

The differences become stark to him; realising what a foolish endeavour it is to want you. Though he is a prince, he is mutilated, a monster that will ruin you. You are too good for him, a warmth he had forgone in the face of misery, apathy, and hatred. The urge to conquer your every thought and sound, from your fingertips to the top of your hair... it is a gasping thought, one he shamefully sins at the blackest hours, tugging at his cock desperately to the thought of what you had looked like that day. The sound of your laughter, the pull of your lips when you smiled, the gasp you let out when you touched water that had been too cold— his mind bends and moves, and images of you, images that he will have to pray for the in morrow but cannot stop—

Moves him to completion, a strangle grunt of your name from his lips.

And yet, every night since, it happens again and again.

The more he pulled away from you, the more he wanted you. It is a debase urge, one more fit for his drunken cur of a brother than he, more creature than man.

But he cannot stop, so the torturous cycle continues.

Until you've had enough.

You know that during hours of inky night, the prince prefers the sanctum of the library. Not always, and lately, not often, but if there are a few things you learned in the hunting trips your father brought you that your mother never approved of, is that lying in wait, patient, deals a hand much better.

And on the fourth day of your waiting, your hair in a braid, a book on your lap, and a small candlelit close by as to not alert any spooked princes— the door opens at the Hour of Eel, the familiar and sorely missed footfalls of a quiet but sure-footed prince enters.

You admire him for a moment, hidden as you are, your stare drinks in the ever smooth of his twilight-spun hair, those pursed lips and straight lines. He's lithe but you know, having been offered his arm on every walk, he is made of hard muscle. Aemond always walks so smoothly, like a panther, or a gazelle, with the barest hint of austre he can never hide.

It's the prince in him, you giggle to yourself.

A sweet pang in your chest is the reminder of how much you missed his presence. And that ends tonight.

With his back turned, perusing a shelf, you shuffle and make yourself known with a soft, almost admonishing voice.

"Good eve, my prince."

He stiffens, hand poised against a spine of a tome. He barely turns, only his head to the floor, in the general direction of you. "My lady. I did not expect you to be here."

Frustrated, you sigh loudly. "Have I offended you so horribly? Dishonoured you in some way?"

"What?"

"Why can't you even look at me, Aemond?"

A sharp intake of breath. When he speaks again,his voice is changed. "You forget yourself, my lady."

There is an ache to your being, pursuing your lips. "You had given me permission with your given name, my prince, or have you forgotten?" Anger overcomes propriety. Fuck propriety. You charge toward him, heavy, angered steps until you're close enough. "Can't you at least look at me, look at me as you push me away as if I amnothing—"

He turns abruptly, one eye flashing as he grasps your elbows in a grip. His eyes zero in on your lips as a gasp falls, eyes widen— if you could see better, you'd notice the darkened gaze drinking you in. Your widened eyes, your open lips— and Sevens, only a robe hides your nightgown, the smooth expanse of your skin is more bare to him than ever before.

His beautiful, beloved stag.

"You have never been nothing to me, nēdenka riña brave girl," he hisses. "Konir sagon se drīve That is the reason."

"Prince A-Aemond?" you say. He is against the shadows of the moonlight, only his hands holding your own is illuminated.

A wrangled exhale falls from his lips. You follow the sound, worried.

"Are you? Injured? Are you okay?"

"I have not been okay for the moment I met you," he rasps, hands bruising in his hold.

"Well. Gods. I'm sorry. If it's such a offense—"

"It is an offence!" he growls, pulling you abruptly that you yelp, bathed in shadows and darkness together, your eyes adjust as you scramble to have thoughts apart from just being this close to him. Hearing a voice you had never heard of him before, untethered from his princely visage, from manners and proper, and it makes you burn.

The thoughts of wanting him close, of taking more of that space until you are chest to chest are blushing thoughts.

But there is honour still, for he holds you at least an arm's away.

"I have wanted you the moment I have laid eyes on you," he whispers, voice rough, exhausted. "And each day I spend with you, each hour— my honour stands in shambles, in ruins at my feet for I want you as a man wants a woman. Honourably and... and carnally."

You swallow, and he follows the movement like a predator tracking his prey. The blush in your cheeks, the way your lips press together as if you are just as starved of him as he to you— oh, you want him too, don't you?

One hand moves from your elbow to slowly reach up. Your arms, your collarbones, your neck. A thumb brushing your cheek and your eyes flutter.

Aemond wants to devour you.

"You plague me so, and I crave you."

"Then have me," you sigh.

His eye closes. "I cannot sully—"

You grasp his neck, bringing your mouth close to his. "You cannot sully what is freely given. If you crave me, I want you."

Honour unbound, a snap is tightened by the hunger that uncoils from a dragon that wants you. Aemond had grabbed the back of your head, tangled his fingers, and made a mess of your mouth.

Gasps and teeth, touching skin from where you can feel it— touching skin from where you unbuckle, tear through hem and push against cloth. When he slams you again the shelf, a moan so lewd falls from your lips that he groans, pulling your nightgown until he feels the heat from your very womanhood, and so, so wet, that when he flicks his thumb, curious and entranced, moving it around experimentally, you are a mess of sound and feeling, gasping his name, A-aemond, oh gods, please, and he is whispering, forgive me, f-forgive me, like love letters, like penitent, like a kiss from a traitor so wrong but so tasteful against your skin as he pulls himself from his confinements, holds you steady, and breaches your tight cunt.

Just before a scream tears through your throat, he devours your sound, holding you steady, until the pain bleeds pleasure and you are holding him like an anchor in dangerous seas. You cannot think or feel anyone else but him; what you are and who you are do not stand a chance as Aemond Targaryen swallows your senses.

It is harsh and fast, it is sweet and devouring, and more, more, more, you don't know what you're begging him, you feel like a devout and he feels like a god, grunting against your skin, biting through anything his teeth grazes. When he shifts you at an angle, finding a spot that feels like a lightning striking through your entire being, you are screaming, twitching, reaching a high so blinding it feels like white death.

"Is that it? That sweet spot?" he purrs, a breathless laugh, shocked and delighted drinking in your trembling and pleasure. "Your cunt is tight against my own, holding me like you never want to let go." You cry out when his cock hits that spot again. Your combined wetness makes an obscene squelch, just as pretty as the sound you utter. He smirks. "Can you hear that? Not even a whore can make a sound so sweet, hm?"

His teeth grazes your lips, sending shivers through your body as he licks the roof your mouth. "I want more of that sound. As your prince, you would grant me this, yes?"

But he isn't waiting for an answer, planting his feet and holding you steady, angling you back to that spot until he is snapping his hips, fucking into you as you can do nothing but beg and cry and tremble in the arms of a dragon taking what is his.

And you are.

You are his.

Maybe you had known it since then.

You definitely do when his seed floods your womb.

You want to say that that night was a fluke, a mistake that must be regretted. But once your gaze meets another, the fire burns, flickering and dancing, and it repeats. In quick fucks in dangerous spots, to slow, sweet love making in his room.

You are his, in mind, body and soul.

"Death is nothing but a friend," he murmurs against your neck, holding you close. Sweat cooling between your naked bodies. "It cannot stop me from finding you."

"I hope you say that to my father well," you tease.

" Marrying you is but the next step, my love. You are already mine as I am yours." He plays with your hair, brushing it past and kissing a bruise he made on your breast. "In face of every god and more, they will understand that we are but one soul."

You can plan the future in rose-coloured gaze for as much as you can, but the truth of marrying into a family with war brewing inside of it, held together by a dying king's hope and corpse fingertips— it is another matter entirely.

It all comes to a sharp clarity when Viserys I dies... and they keep his rotting corpse a secret.

And then they crown a whoremongering drunk.

"Aemond," you break into the silence, your entire being too cold for comfort. You had just come back from a privy council, a Green Council where the Queen had ordered you and your betrothed to reach Storm's End before the night fully breaks.

As if she knew where your loyalties are.

As if there is no question you will support the usurpation.

You turn to Aemond, busy with packing his things for they have bared the maids and people the of Keep. Because they are making Aegon as king and they know a revolt is underneath the floorboards.

"Aemond!"

"What? What has happened?" He looks confused, irritated. "We must make haste, my love, if we are to beat the storms at—"

"Princess Rhaenyra is Queen," you whisper but it could have been a scream. Saying it aloud gives you confidence, strengthening your resolved. You turn to him. "She is the King's heir, no one else. Aemond, this is an usurpation, unlawful in the eyes of—"

It takes little strides for him to reach you, for him to hold your neck in a tightened grip of warning.

"She," he spits, slow and careful as if you are a simpleton in need of teaching, "is a whore who is attempting to place her bastards on the Iron Throne. Rhaenys Targaryen held no chance of it, just as she. My brother is the firstborn son. He is king." His fingers dig into your skin. "You will do well as my wife to not speak of such blasphemy once more, do you understand?"

Your shock and fear melt from your visage, making way for compliance. You nod once. "Yes, my prince."

"Husband," he corrects, holding you much gentler but the weight of his hand is still there on your neck. A reminder. "Have you forgotten? We only come to Storm's End to officiate our union and your House's loyalty to the King. Once done, we will marry, yes?"

You nod, hands fisting. "Yes."

When he kisses you, harsh and needy, imprinting his will unto you— you close your eyes and plan how you make known to your Queen of their plots.

But Storm's End doesn't go as planned, does it?

Lucerys Velaryon, the Queen's son who had come as nothing more but an envoy for the rightful heir, and Aemond—what you thought to be your Aemond but a monstrous man who needed his revenge, who needed to draw blood for a grudge so deep, for an existence he finds so abysmal — had chased after him and came back to you bloodied, tearing up your dress, rutting in you in harsh, rough thrusts, as you listen to the storms from your window and think,

The Queen will never find his body. Her poor, sweet boy. Half in the belly of a beast, the rest spread and sunken into the water.

"I will not allow any marriage until the realm is at peace," your Lord Father rumbled with finality. He is not a smart man, truly, but he is a father. His gaze meets yours, full of meaning, of promises, before looking back at the seething prince. "You will have my bent knee for your king and for your war, but my daughter's hand shall be her own until the realm is at ease."

Your mother steps forward, her courtly smile on her face. "We want for her to have a grand wedding, my prince. She is the first of our charges to wed, and to a prince of the realm no less! By sure, at the time of war, we must err on the side of caution, as our coffers will no doubt focus on our troops. A future princess of the realm must be mindful, of course."

She bows in deference, your sisters following suit. Maris is the first to look up, defiance burning in her eyes.

You remember a conversation with him, feeling like a lifetime ago.

"Ask me, my prince," you teased. "What a storm is to a dragon. A creature is a creature. Even you must acquiesce to the way of nature for she has bowed to no one since her existence."

Aemond may be blood of the dragons, but he is surrounded by storms on all sides. The fiercest.

And your father will never marry you to a Kinslayer.

Yet you stay beside him, your duty now clearer than ever. Every new information you can grasp is sent back to the Queen and her council. In a courtier of the Greens and Traitors, you are the sole Black Stag. You use Aemond's adoration for you, his possessive obsession of what he thinks is love, as a protection and guise.

Any time he beds you, you sneak in moon tea. His bedding of you is just as much his hold on you and his defiance against your father's refusal. Once caught, you remind him he would not enjoy a bastard child. Especially at a time of war. Not after what they had done to his nephews.

"Do you want for me to suffer as your sister does?" The tears in your face then had not been a folly, for your heart broke for sweet Helaena and her sons. For Jaehaera. The world bleeds and bleeds, and all who die that reaches your ears are nothing more but innocents.

Aemond does not bed you after that, but he keeps you in his chambers, pulls you close as if he is trying to mould your skins as one. Times like this, your heart stutters. Your love to him and your morality as a person is at a test of swords.

You are in love with him,

He is a monster,

He has lost his nephews,

He has killed his own.

And it makes you wonder if you are a monster too, lying beside him as his bedmate, caring for him, wanting him still as his heart beats as your own, so connected to the umbilical of fate and chance while war rages, bodies falling all around you both, most from his own hand and word.

The war rages, and Harrenhal comes to view.

With it, a slaughter and a witch.

The worst of the massacre is the steely, lulling silence.

No one tells you that most of what an execution is that silence. That it amplifies each scream, each shout, each thick drop of a head as it falls on cobblestone. The sound is wet and a mouthful. Then it is nothing, consumed by that silence again.

You are locked in a room with a window that doesn't face the horror of what Aemond is doing. As if this is enough to shield you from what he is, what he truly is doing to win this war.

The worst part, committing genocide of an entire house is nothing more but a horrific grudge.

Strong blood spills, enough to make a lake.

By the time that night bleeds and a maid had entered with dinner to light a fire— your body is still so cold. No food has touched your stomach since the day before yet you retch.

Does loving a monster meant that you are just as monstrous?

Mayhaps it is still worth it, you muse in your silent madness, tears tracking your cheeks as the heaviness of your being stays. For who can say a monster can love you so monstrously? Who else can?

When Aemond comes back to you, freshly cleaned and a reminiscent of the prince that you loved, and he is making excuses of wanting you as you are, pawing at your clothes, you let him. You make love in the silence suffering from the massacre he had just finished. You hold him and kiss him in a desperation as you know this will be your ending.

That your Aemond is gone, or worse. He had never truly existed.

When you are both spent, satiated in a sweet glow, your head pleasantly quiet, he speaks about a plan.

A woman, a Strong witch, that promises him an assurance of winning with her sights and blasphemous magic. He had spared her among others, and that itself makes you look at him, truly look at him.

In exchange of what— for such things do not concede so easily as gratitude to mercy of one life, yes? Because desire devours itself. A snake eating itself.

"A child," he whispers against your battered head and bruised heart. "From my blood."

"A bastard," you murmur as he stiffens. "From a bastard Strong. Surely the irony is not lost on you? You have started this war by killing your bastard nephew, and you plan on ending it by fathering—"

"Do not question me," he says softly, grip tightening against your arms. Your eyes close, heavy with the weight of being a spy. Of loving him. "I will fuck a babe in her how many times it takes, and when the war is won, I will kill her and it. For your womb is the only place my lineage will live. I am doing this for the good of the realm. For us."

When he thinks you are asleep and leaves— you take your things and make haste to leave. Not once has your people left you in the arms of the kinslayer. Always one maid, always three guards from your father's army, loyal to only you.

You bundle up quick, and rush for the passage, you are blocked by a woman. Pale skin, dark hair, and eyes greener than wildfire. You know her before she speaks. You hold yourself to fight, and the witch of Harrenhal laughs.

"You have changed the tide of destiny, my lady." Her head tilts as if she can see past you and through you. "Once your choice has affirmed, your thread chosen, I cannot stand in the side of the One-Eyed Kinslayer without the Stranger coming for me. So instead, I will grant you one gift. One that will require no sacrifice."

"I do not want it."

"Ah, but it is a gift." She nods at your torso. "Your belly will soon take size, in it, his heir. You will not escape him as soon as he knows." Her head twists to the window. A raven flies. A storm grumbles. The sound comes first before the lightning strikes. A false storm. "Time is flowing, changing and twisting. He may have betrayed his kin, but he is still a prince. He will know soon."

Her green eyes glint as if she is seeing now and tomorrow. Now and a moon. Moon from a year. "You must run now. Hide and hide well."

You hold your stomach, bile rising in your throat. "Where? Where am I safe?"

A faint smile rises to her lips. "Your heir looks more like him than mine did. You will not escape him. But go north. As far North as you can. The fjords can hide him for a while. He will grow well there."

She moves away, letting you pass.

You never look back.

Dark locks. Baratheon hair.

A tuff of silver lock atop his head.

And the rest... his nose, his eyes. With your fingers, you pull his lids. Bloom in mullish blue with the faintest tint of iridescent violet. You know from your histories, that faint tint will overpower the blue.

Oh, he is utterly beautiful. Utterly yours. And utterly his father's son.

Rough breaths strangle out of your raw-bitten lips, brushing blood away from your babe's face, his head, his wet, silvery hair. Few they maybe, unmistakably Valyrian features they still are.

"Oh, he is beautiful," your mother murmurs, tears stain her cheeks. "Quiet as you were, as a babe. Looks just as much as you."

She is weighing his Valyrian features too. Your blood tried, but it seemed as if Aemond's grudge grasped your womb and affected your shared blood.

"We cannot stay," you say, still staring at him, admiring him. Your heart locking in place, steeling itself as you prepare to do your utmost to protect him. "We will have to travel posthaste."

Your mother swallows her grief. She had almost lost you. She will lose you again, now along with her only grandchild. "Where?"

"North. As far as North as we can."

Your mother nods. Ever a lady. "I will send a missive. The Lord Stark is loyal to the Queen and knows by how much you have sacrificed for this realm. He will protect you on his honour or he is no Stark."

You will need to hide. You will need to hide well.

You pull him close to your chest, hot tears freshly spilling from your eyes.

The witch had not lied, for your boy grew up amongst ice and warmth. He grows up with love from you, from the Lord Stark and his people, and love from his father in the way that he resembles him.

The slope of his nose, the sweet purse of his lips.

When your boy had gotten angry once, nothing but a quick burst, it shocks fear and tears from your eyes for you had seen the prince.Nothing more than a flash.

You pull him close and wound him to your heart as he cried, apologising for scaring you.

The North had granted you reprieve from the war as it came and went. Your betrayal to the Greens had mounted to the Black Queen's win. The betrayal of House Baratheon as House Stark and their bannermen joined the fray had squandered any rebellious thought on which sovereign will preside.

The last you heard of what became the Prince Regent was his surrender at the Battle Above God's Eye.

When you had cried that night, you did not know if it was from relief. Or fear.

But a black stag on white snow is easy to spot.

It takes years, yes, but the Stranger is but an old friend.

For when the day of your wedding to the Lord Stark arrives, a familiar screech of a dragon that your marrow will never forget— tolls the bell of death.

And when you looked up, snow swirling, holding onto your son that looked up in awe at the man who looked so much like him—

Aemond is smiling.

Sweet came the word— dracarys! — as Vhagar split her mouth opened and obeyed her rider.

What have I told you?

You are mine as I am yours.

In face of every god and more, they will understand that you and I are but one soul.

[poeticpascal]

White Lies (Joel Miller x Reader)

Masterlist | Request here!

Summary: Joel would do anything for you. He does anything for you. And he makes sure you don't know a thing.

Word count: 3k

Warnings: violence, Joel kills 3 dudes (what murdaaah?), descriptions of blood and wounds, stitches, Joel feels guilt and shame but is also very soppy and very in love, fuff and angst all tangled up, descriptions of chronic pain

A/n: I have had a bloody nightmare the last few weeks with suspected endometriosis, which is what inspired me to write this. In my head, reader has endo and the medicine is some sort of contraception or strong painkillers to help her manage it. But it isn't explicitly mentioned so you can imagine whatever you most relate to. Please do let me know what you think, and as always, requests are open!

It’s a harsh winter, even by Boston’s standards.

The QZ is coated in a veil of thick snow, the blizzard that took hold weeks ago now bruising the streets with an icy fist.

Joel pulls his coat tighter around himself, grateful at least for the cover the snowstorm offered, the skies foggy and grey. He can slip through the alleyways much quicker, much quieter beneath the frost. His footsteps are erased almost as soon as he leaves them, and when things get messy, he can soothe his wounds in the freeze.

Which is good, because things get messy a lot.

Not that he’d tell you that. You were too pure, too gentle; not unlike the snow that paints your doorframe now.

No, Joel keeps those things from you. The world has been unkind enough, and if he has one purpose now, it’s to protect that sweetness of yours. To collect it, each golden ray of sunshine that so easily radiates from you, to give it back and let you bask in the warmth of your own soul. 

No one deserves it more than you do. Least not him, and yet you’d given him more love, more sweetness, than he could ever dream of.

That’s why he told you he was working a late shift today - sewage, he thinks he said - rather than where he actually is at 3am, catching his death in an old littered alleyway.

He occasionally shifts to avoid the silver moonlight dripping from the gaps in the fire-escape stairs above him. Tonight’s meeting should be a simple one, free from FEDRA’s strict patrols; he’d done this long enough now to know when, and where, was safest for these things.

He stays on high alert, though. Just in case.

Marco’s late. He isn’t known for being the most competent of dealers, but Joel was getting desperate now, and he was the only crook in the QZ who could get what he needed. He was a small man, a bit pathetic looking, really. But he was smart, and he had connections that even Joel couldn’t make for all his smuggling and dealing.

So when Joel’s supplier told him he couldn’t help him anymore, he didn’t have a choice. That’s what he tells himself, anyway.

“Miller, there ya’ are.” Joel’s snapped out of his thoughts, his looming regret of this whole situation, as Marco strolls down the alley. He grins, in the same cocky way he always did, the sort of grin a man who couldn’t win a fight but has enough men who could wrapped around his finger, doing the dirty work for him.

Joel insisted he come alone. Not because he couldn’t handle his goons; he knew he could. Maybe. But it would cause a scene, and draw attention, to something he very much wanted to keep under wraps.

He’s semi-surprised to see the two men walking behind Marco. Deep down, he’d had some faith that the dealer would stick to his word.

“Quiet the fuck down,” Joel warns, seething through his teeth as his eyes search the alley behind them, making sure they hadn’t been heard. “Who are your friends?”

Marco follows Joel’s gaze towards his companions. “They’re just here to observe.”

The men are the same height as Joel, maybe a little taller. He recognises both from the sleazy speakeasies that lie beneath the floors of the QZ. Where the bad guys go. 

One is bald, with a jagged scar carved across his cheek and over his eye. He’s scowling, unlike Marco and the other man, who looks somewhat softer with thick hair grown to his shoulders and brown eyes that stayed on Joel like bedrock.

“That’s not what we agreed,’ Joel growls.

There’s tension in the air, thick, and they must feel it too because Marco’s henchmen each have a hand hovering near their sides, where silver blades reflect the white of the snow.

“I recall us also agreeing that you’d get your meds in return for the money. But we’re doing things a little differently today.” Joel remains stoic, though his eyes turn dark and angry, the moon’s light no longer illuminating his features. Marco tiptoes slowly towards him, getting so close that Joel can feel his breath and raising a hand to pick a piece of lint from his flannel shirt. “I want my money. But you might have to wait a little longer for your meds.”

Joel reacts then, squaring up to him, stepping forward and clenching his fists. The other men wrap their hands around their blades, anticipating a fight. Marco just laughs.

“‘Scuse me?” Joel asks, though they all know he understood what was going on.

“You’re gonna give me the amount we agreed. And then, you’re gonna speak to one of your guard friends, and cut me a deal. Then you might get your meds.”

Joel’s anger swells inside him like a beast, his previous care to stay hidden long gone as he imagines driving his fist into Marco’s smug, son of a bitch face again and again and again. 

He has to think this through, though. He needs those meds. Marco can see the cogs turning. “Just give me the money, Miller. Don’t make this difficult. You can’t take three of us.”

“No?” Joel retorts, already decided in what he’d do next. “I don’t think it’s worth findin’ out. Give me the meds.”

Marco sighs, dropping his head and stepping away from Joel, leaving him to face his men. “Shame, Joel. You really coulda helped us.”

He nods to his men, who immediately draw their blades and attack. The first lands a punch on his face, the weight of it surprising him as he falls back into the railing. Before he can recover, the other has already plunged a blade through his stomach, right below his ribcage. He controls himself, swallows the yell that claws its way up his throat, tries to think. The cold steel of the rail stabs into his back, and when another fist collides with his cheek and sends him to the floor, he uses it to haul himself up and tackle one of the men - the softer one - to the ground with him.

Marco only stands and watches as Joel throws his weight onto the man and smashes his head into the stone floor. The other grabs his shoulder, spinning him round but Joel’s prepared this time and he dodges the swat of his knife. Instead he throws a punch into his stomach, making him double over which gives Joel the opportunity to grab the knife strapped to his calf and drive it through the bald man’s throat. He stumbles, collapsing to the floor with a choked cry, and Joel turns back just in time to see the other man trying to stand, though the injury to his head makes him dizzy. Joel stands first, easily pushing the man to the ground, and stomping on his head with as much force as his steel-toed boots would let him. Both men stay down.

Marco has regressed into the darkness of the alley, and he looks somehow smaller than usual. He’s pathetic, and if this was any other job, he’d laugh. But this wasn’t a laughing matter, and there was only one target for him; the medication.

The smaller man reaches into his pocket, searching for his gun, but Joel anticipates the move and has already reached him and thrown him against the wall before he can find it. His movements strain the wound in his abdomen, but he doesn’t care. Doesn’t feel it.

Joel’s fist pins Marco to the wall by his throat, making him splutter and flail like a fish out of water.

“Where are the fuckin’ pills, Marco?” He just continues to flail, trying to pull Joel’s hand off of him with both of his own, to no effect. Joel scoffs, throwing him to the floor and dragging his knife out of the now dead henchman’s neck. “If you won’t tell me, I guess I’ve got no use for ya.” He uses his shirt to clean the blade, the flannel already soaked in blood, his own.

“For fuck sake, Marco whines, slightly out of breath. “They’re at my place.”

“There anyone else there?” Joel asks, so nonchalantly that it almost sounds like a passing thought.

“No, no one there. But you’ll need me to get you in.”

Joel looks up again, the now-clean knife held in his fist with a vice-like grip. He stalks towards Marco, ignoring his desperate pleas. 

“Shouldn’t be a problem-” 

With that, he stabs him in the chest, letting him choke and gasp on the floor and searching his pockets for a key. He finds it, and does a quick, final survey of the alleyway. The once perfectly settled snow is disturbed, kicked up in the fight, and deeply stained with blood.

Joel curses, but leaves, only now noticing the burning pain from his torso. He leans against the wall, now stood out in the street, open; but there are no guards. He doesn’t think he’d care. Instead he grabs a fistful of the snow around his feet, packs it into the wound, hissing at the sharp pain of the ice but quickly feeling relief as it numbs him.

This was going to be a long night.

—------------------

It’s another couple of hours or so before he returns. There were, in fact, people at Marco’s place - but Joel knew that would be the case anyway. They weren’t a problem.

He’d showered in Marco’s flat, after taking out the men hanging out in there. Protecting it, he assumed. And he’d found a med pack that let him stitch up the wound to some degree; it was a hack job, but it should do the trick. He’d had worse.

The most important thing was that he found the meds.

The old door of your place creaks as he steps inside, quickly closing it behind him before the cold could enter. It’s futile, really; the wooden pillars are rotten, decaying so badly that the wind sweeps through the cracks with ease, and he can see dustings of snow on the floor around your windows. But he tries anyway.

“Joel?”

There you are.

It’s scary, honestly, what your voice does to him. Even so quiet, so distant from the bedroom upstairs, it lifts the weight from his shoulders that he thought he’d carry forever.

“I’m here, baby. I’m comin’.” He pulls off his shoes, placing them neatly beside the door just how you like, and heads upstairs. His bloodied shirt is long gone, buried in some forgotten corner of the QZ, where he has a collection of discarded items by now.

You don’t reply, he doesn’t expect you to. He reaches your bedroom, gently opening the door and sighing at the sight of you lying there, curled up between mountains of sheets and pillows.

He’d almost think you look peaceful if he didn’t know how much pain you’re in.

“Oh, honey,” he laments, crossing the distance from the door to you and kneeling down beside your head. You open your eyes, though they’re weighed down by exhaustion, and a small smile creeps onto your lips at the sight of the man before you.

“Hi,” you whisper, letting a gentle hand poke out from the duvet and brush his jaw. He can’t help but grin back at you, the total mess that took place just hours ago wiped from his mind completely, and he leans into your touch.

The both of you just stay like that for a moment, your thumb sweeping across his cheek, his eyes never leaving yours. Then you wince, and no matter how much you try to hide it, he can see the wave of pain inflict your body.

“I’ve got your tablets, sweetheart.” He reaches into his pocket, a desperation to his actions now; he hates seeing you like this. You just nod, pushing a meek but honest “thank you” past your lips, so quiet that he almost doesn’t hear it. His heart swells.

Joel presses out one tablet and hands it to you, then picks up the glass of water that stands on your side table, making a mental note to replace it later. You take the pill, grabbing hold of his hand before he can pull it away, and give it a gentle squeeze. He follows your lead and tips the water to your lips once you’ve placed the tablet on your tongue, gently helping you swallow and squeezing your hand right back.

A look of relief washes over your face, and he finally lets himself relax. He stands, letting go of your hand and leaning over to kiss your forehead, before pulling off the clothes he’d taken from Marco’s wardrobe and climbing in beside you.

He only knew heaven in these moments with you, late at night, when your hands reach for him beneath the sheets and your head nuzzles into his neck. It’s no different tonight; he’s quiet, unsure if you’d fallen asleep in those few seconds, and as much as he wishes you’d rest, he can’t deny the way his lips curl when he feels your gentle touch wrap around him.

“How was today? Doing the sewage?”

Joel swallows. “Yeah, yeah. It was fine. Don’t you worry about it, sweetheart.” His arms envelop you, holding you tight against him, one hand drawing gentle circles on your back. He’s lost in the bliss for a moment, letting it wash over him in waves, when your hand brushes his haphazard and you freeze. So does he.

“Joel,” you say; it’s still a whisper, but not the tired kind you’d given him earlier. It’s like you’re too scared to ask. “What’s that?”

He panics, holding you tighter, trying to think. He can’t believe himself for not remembering to cover it, to make sure you didn’t see. 

“There was an accident today. I did some building work before I went to sewage, a pipe fell. Nicked me real bad-” you gasp, forcing yourself to sit up with shaky arms. Joel immediately pulls you back down, his hands grasping your face, staring into your eyes like they held the world inside them. It’s dark, but they glimmer, and he just hopes you can’t see his fear.

“No no. It’s fine, baby. I’m fine. Got seen by the doc, got a couple ‘a stitches. Says i’ll be all good by tomorrow.”

“By tomorrow? Joel that doesn’t sound right-”

He interrupts you. He hates this. “I promise, baby. That’s what she said. I promise.” He wipes a thumb across your cheek, and the way you seem to settle, to believe him, makes him ache. He hates this.

You nuzzle back into his side, placated. You trust him, endlessly, and he hates that he abuses that trust just as much as he needs to protect you. A means to an end, he thinks.

The two of you are silent for a few moments, your hand lay gentle over his wound. Like you’re trying to heal it. He thinks it’s working.

“Thank you for picking up my medicine,” you say.

“It’s okay.” His words are quiet, muffled; he’s got his face buried in your hair now, revelling in your scent, and really, he doesn’t want to talk about this with you. He doesn’t want to lie anymore than he already has.

You’re still oblivious, though. Still sweet.

“I’m so glad you can make my rations cover it. I don’t know what I’d do if they made them more expensive.”

Oh, babygirl, he thinks.

Because your rations don’t cover your medicine. Neither did his. Even combined, they’d hardly cover a drink in the bar these days. He’d seen you work and work and work, in spite of the pain that bloomed in your abdomen and tortured your bones until you could hardly stand up anymore, and he saw the way they laughed in your face and turned you away when you tried to get the help you needed. When you tried to trade your labour for medicine. You were nothing to them.

So he told you he could barter the price down. That it was best if he goes from now on, to make sure you’re not taken advantage of. He takes your rations, stuffs them right back in the savings pot you keep above the shelves in your kitchen, and leaves to make whatever underground deals he needs to in order to get those meds. And you didn’t know a thing.

He must’ve been quiet for a while, because you continue. “And I’m glad you don’t do those scary things anymore.”

That gets his attention. “Scary things?”

“Yeah. Like, the smuggling and stuff.” You take a breath, tighten your arms around his waist. “I mean, I know why you did it. I’m glad you were able to look after yourself.”

Joel curses to himself, unable to wipe the tears that brimmed in his eyes as you spoke, because that would mean letting go of you.

“But I’m also glad you don’t do that anymore. You go out, and you work, even the horrible sewage shifts like tonight.” You giggle, but Joel can’t even force himself to smile. Shame consumes him.

“I’m proud of you, Joel.”

He’s silent. He doesn’t know what to say. He feels like shit.

If you notice his stillness, you don’t mention it. That alone makes his heart ache; you’d always been so understanding, so careful to make sure he’s okay while knowing exactly how to handle his feelings.

It’s odd, really, how fiercely you protect one another. He doesn’t let the darkness of the world so much as touch you, and you extract the horrors from his veins like a vacuum, making him forget the damage was ever even there.

His eyes flitter down, watching you drift asleep, finally at peace and free from pain. He exhales.

He’d never feel good about lying to you. But some things, he thinks, are worth it.

You are worth it.

And so he brushes away the hair that’s fallen over your eyes, trying to fight the droopiness of his own so he can keep them on you for just a second longer. But sleep overtakes him, and the only reason he lets himself fall into dreamland, is because he knows he’ll find you there, too.

[hotvintagepoll]

hotvintagepoll Hot Men Tournament rundown thoughts

I promised a final recap post and here it is! I'll try to cover the questions I saw the most as we closed out the bracket, reveal my ✨secret faves✨, and talk about the biggest surprises and turnarounds I saw in the brackets.

Yes, this will get silly.

ROUND 1

As I've mentioned before, I worked off submissions for who to include in the bracket, so if your fave was missing—that's why. I used submitted pics when I could, but many submissions didn't have one, so I tried to find decent ones in the couple of days I had to prep the first round (I didn't always succeed). By decent, I mean pics where 1) I could see the hot man's face, so not too much moody lighting, and 2) hopefully conveyed something about his vibe, even if it was a funny thing (yes, I showed Howard Keel in full Shakespeare get-up—I'm not beyond putting up a pic because I think it's funny). I didn't know all of these hotties going in, so some I had to guess with, but when I could I tried to pick shots that had a touch of the humor, class, or genre of the hot man.

For Round 1 and Round 2, I grouped the hotties by each decade, so only '60s actors ran against '60s actors, '50s against '50s, etc. Male beauty standards shifted pretty dramatically over the sixty years this tournament covers, and I didn't think it was fair to pit dramatically different styles of beauty against each other immediately.

I pitted hot men against each other based on opposing energies—hot vs cold, elegant vs rough, comedy vs drama, etc.. I wanted the polls to be interesting and I've never liked brackets where everyone is clearly in different "lanes" until the finals! I also wanted to make polls where I couldn't tell which way they would swing, so by setting matchups that felt opposite but equal, I got to be surprised by the bracket results too.

The only reason we had any three-way matchups is because the amount of men submitted didn't round to a nice bracket number. I don't like them generally and find them really hard to balance.

Secret faves from Round 1—I am a James Coburn girlie and knew he would die immediately, so that was not a shock but a bummer. I similarly knew Robert Preston is only magical to people who have seen him do His Little Dance Routines in That One Iowa Musical, but it would have been nice for him to last longer.

Surprises—Jeremy Brett was a last-minute add and I didn't think he really had a shot, so I put him in as a third wheel on the Sean Connery/Dean Martin matchup. Little did I count on the Granada girlies. (Always count on the Granada girlies.) The Elvis/Peter Falk poll was the first one to gain any momentum—Elvis was winning for the first 24 hours but then, my god, did Peter fight back. I didn't expect the Tab/Toshiro poll to make that bad a mincemeat out of Tab—people have different tastes, and I thought the people who like blonde sunny All American white boys might turn out for The Blonde Sunny All American White Boy. Sorry, Tab. I hope you've peeled yourself off the sidewalk by now. And, of course, I was SHOCKED and APPALLED that James Cagney would be obliterated by, of all people, Mr. Bing Crosby.

SHADOW BRACKET

The fervor of the Harold Lloyd and Fredric March people inspired the shadow bracket, and I couldn't be happier at the way it's gone. You were right, the original photos I had for them did suck. Cunty Harold Lloyd in his little life guard uniform was a revelation.

ROUND 2

For Round 2 I'd gotten a better sense of who was doing well and who was not, so a little of that came into play, but I mostly paired on vibes again. (I genuinely think this is a good way to make a fun, challenging bracket.)

Secret faves—Noooo not hot dilf Dick Van Dyke don't take my hot inventor dilf away uwu!!! (He was up against Marlon Brando. I would have been shocked if he'd won but for a minute there, a glorious second, it was possible.) I am also a big old softie for David Niven's particular brand of repression to the point of volcanic rupture, but he is one of many hotties who does not look good without moving and speaking so I figured he would be going.

So much beef—hey! hey you. I ran a poll asking if we are horny for dancers. Yes, was the resounding poll response. Where, then, did all the fucking dancers go? This round we lost Donald O'Connor, Fred Astaire, Harold Nicholas; Sammy Davis Jr., Danny Kaye, Frank Sinatra, and Bing Crosby all sneak into this category as well, by token of having been in the kind of big MGM bang-a-pan-and-put-on-a-show beloved bedlams we all watch at Christmastime. Round 2 voters HATED musical matchups. Except for one.

The one—SOUND OF MUSIC, the voters said, WE LOVE SOUND OF MUSIC. we will KILL the man responsible for salad dressing because of the SOUND OF MUSIC. every other dance man can die but THIS man dances a FOLK DANCE with JULIE ANDREWS in a GARDEN. I did not go into this poll with strong opinions about Christopher Plummer or Paul Newman but my god did I leave having heard all of them.

Surprises—James Edwards/Anthony Perkins matchup was a nail biter! Conrad vs Oscar kept me up at nights. Surprised to see Basil Rathbone survive against Sabu Dastagir—both very fetching, but Sabu had some top-tier propaganda. Cesar Romero put up a surprisingly stiff fight against Cary Grant (an omen for things to come).

Oh horrors—horror heroes surprisingly fell all over the place. I was sure either Bela Lugosi or Turhan Bey would sweep their three-way matchup, but Michael Redgrave of all people carried through; Boris Karloff went down against Johnny Weismuller (while holding hands with fellow fallen hottie Fred Astaire), but at least we got his guacamole recipe before he went. Delighted to see that the Venn diagram of the coalitions who support horror hero Vincent Price and funny lil guy Donald O'Connor is a circle.

Secret faves pt 2—oh yeah, I fucking love Danny Kaye and Donald O'Connor. RIP funny lil kings.

ROUND 3

For some reason this was the hardest one to make matchups for. Oh no, all the men are hot.

Secret faves—Michael Redgrave i love you SO much you're SUCH an idiot, how did you make it as far as round 3. I want you to sweep the whole thing but you should NOT be surviving this. I love you, here's a kiss, go home.

Surprises—Marlon Brando is gone! Errol Flynn is gone! Christopher Plummer exhausted himself beating the organic oreos man to death and goes out with a whimper. Beginning to actually see the roots of #mifunesweep as Tyrone Power, a hot man very different from Burt Lancaster, who was in turn very different from Tab Hunter, also gets swept under the wheels of the unbeatable toshirobus. Conrad Veidt finds that no amount of purring svelte eccentricity compares to the people who will fuck a young Lt. Columbo.

SHADOW BRACKET 2

Cannot believe it but Veidt loses this one too. Perkins sweeps and becomes Prince of the Shadow Realm!

ROUND 4

At this point I've set a formal bracket that I'm following.

Secret faves—this isn't secret anymore, but losing Jimmy Stewart hurt.

Surprises—The Gene Kelly/Jeremy Brett matchup was the diciest one all round, moving back and forth between the two by sometimes .01%. Far more surprising, however, was Cary Grant getting eliminated before the quarterfinals. Grant has never been my type, but he is famous for being THE type, so while the writing had been on the wall the whole tournament—how on earth did Michael Redgrave even get 36% in his matchup?!—seeing Grant go down was a SHOCKER. Other fallen hotties included Gregory Peck, James Dean, Harry Belafonte, and Sessue Hayakawa. Peter Falk finally met his match in Omar Sharif.

QUARTERFINALS

Secret faves—I don't know if it counts as a secret fave, tbh, as my horses in the race really went out with Stewart, but I do have a soft spot here worth mentioning. Here's my childhood dog, Keaton.

The resemblance is truly striking, and yes, he was short, fast, and not prone to smiling.

Surprises—I couldn't predict how any of these matchups would go down, but I was most interested in Keaton vs Sharif, as they are both SO hot in SUCH different ways.

SEMIFINALS:

This was such a good batch of semifinalist contestants. By this point I think we could all tell Mifune was unstoppable (though I thought Sharif might give him a run for his money), but I really didn't know which way Robeson vs Poitier would flip.

FINALS:

I wanted Sidney Poitier to pull a last-minute sweep out of nowhere, but alas, Toshiro is just THAT GOOD (maybe. I will admit that I find Toshiro's domination a little hard to believe, given the variety and hotness of all his competitors; the man is hot but all these men are hot). I'm still happy with how the tournament went.

FINAL MEDITATIONS:

Biggest shock of a dropout: the loss of Paul Newman

Biggest "you people have no taste": the loss of James Cagney

Biggest victory: Paul Robeson making it to the semifinals over often-assumed champion Gregory Peck

Biggest coalition who deserve justice: dancing men

Biggest ask character: vents anon (currently eating Laurence Olivier)

Biggest, uhh, anything: how many of you are here! I genuinely thought it would be me and 10 other people voting for the whole tournament. I'm thrilled it took off like this!

I think that's everything, but I'm happy to answer addl asks. And THANK YOU to everyone for your tags, rants, impassioned propaganda, beautiful pics, and love for the hot men! See you for the ladies!

[kittyscupcakeandbunny]

Made by me

The Masterlist

CRAZY OVER YOU

[HYBRID AU]

[FINISHED]✅

Side Characters: Namjoon/doctor, Seokjin/doctor, Taehyung/Hybrid Tiger, Jungkook/Bunny Hybrid, Hoseok/assistant.

Warnings: Smut, mentions of blood, sharp objects, rut, beast behavior.

Genre: Fantasy, hybrids au, smut.

SUMMARY》 Yoongi is a black mamba hybrid one of rarest species of hybrids, who’s about to be put down due to his lack of interest in living. But everything changes after the new medical assistance (y/n) takes a liking to him. Meeting after meeting he realise his feelings for her are not the only thing growing.

INTRO - In the books they say

ONE - Love at first bite

TWO - Bath me with your love

THREE - Hungry for your love I

FOUR - The truth untold II

FIVE - Bitter taste, Jealousy and bites

SIX - Take Me Home

SEVEN - The last bite

SET ME FREE

[MAFIA AU]

On Going

Side Characters: Min Yoongi as Agust D/Mafia boss, Jung Hoseok as Jack/Concierge, Namjoon/Police detective, Jungkook/Police detective, Park Jimin/thief and gang leader, Taehyung/Mafia member FBI Mole, Paradise owner. Jin/unknown, Busan/Mafia boss.

Warnings: This story contains nsfw content (descriptive blood, gore, etc.) as well as sexual content. Mentions may include violence, consumption of alcohol, explicit sexual interactions, sharp objects, knife play, description of injuries, themes of major horror and also explores obsessive behaviors and codependency, robbery, killing, guns, torturing, fire, toxic yandere men, violence, possessive behaviour, unhealthy relationships.

SUMMARY: You made it. Now a police intern as you always promised to your father before he died, you were more than happy to finally be able to help people like he did. But the law was not what you expected to be like. You did not know how lonely it would be for a young woman to grow her career in this kingdom. Having to take care of your 18 year old brother wasn't easy too and things just got a lot worse when you've met Agust D. The king of the mafia Min. He sure knew how to make a life turn into a hell hole.

INTRO

ONE - Red Chopsticks

TWO - I’ll find you in a dark Paradise

THREE - A deal with the devil

FOUR - Welcome to my world

FIVE - Good girl gone bad COMING SOON

SIX - Dance with the devil COMING SOON

7 FINAL DESTINATION - LILITH COMING SOON

BREATH OF FIRE

[HYBRID GODS AU]

On Going

Side characters: Park Jimin/White fox hybrid.

Warnings: Mentions of blood, death, violence, sharp objects, suggestive words, smut, alcohol, killing.

Genre: Fantasy, romance, strangers to lovers, R +18.

SUMMARY: Did you know a fox only mates once in their life? For almost 400 years Min Yoongi never mated before, all theses years of emptiness and loneliness. He had tried so many times to end with his own hands. Until one night a hint of sweet and fire blows towards his nose, the smell was something he never felt before. And blood. Running for your life you felt hopeless in front of a lake, two man following you behind. Their disgusting smiles and eyes savoring your female body, you knew what they would do but you'd rather die. It all started with fire.

INTRO - Run little girl

ONE - Wood, cinnamon and honey.

TWO - Please wash away this blood on my skin

THREE - A taste of honey and dreams

FOUR - A rise from the shadows (coming soon)

FIVE - Lost in two worlds (coming soon)

SIX - Moon Knights and The Gods (coming soon)

SEVEN - FINAL BREATH (coming soon)

BUNNY BUNS

[HYBRID AU]

COMING SOON

Side Characters: Yoongi/black cat hybrid, Hoseok/human, Taehyung/golden hybrid.

Warnings: Smut, violence, mentions of blood. And finally some fluff.

SUMMARY: Jungkook needed to hide. He was on the run. And what better place for a bunny hybrid to hide then a Bunny coffee shop? How could he resist? You smelled sweet and looked nice. All it took was one smile of yours and a bunny bread and he was on all fours for you.

INTRO - Bunny on the run

ONE - Bunnies don’t like water (coming out 05/06)

TWO - Carrot Cake 🥕(coming soon)

THREE - Bunny in the kitchen (coming soon)

FOUR - Muscle Bunny to the rescue (coming soon)

FIVE - Bunny Fever (coming soon)

SIX - The last Bun (Coming soon)

ONE SHOTS

Coming soon

YOONGI

My Best Friends Crush

Characters: Min Yoongi/music theory Teacher, Jung Hoseok/dance teacher, Jungkook/art and design student, Jimin/danc student, reader/art student.

Genre: strangers to lovers, forbidden love?

Warnings: mentions of explicit language, sexual references(smutty material), consumption of alcohol, age difference.

Summary: “my whole life I always hated rules and protocols, growing to fin comfort on art as I could express myself unapologetically and freely. But there was one rule I made with myself; never fall in love with your friend crush.

With my rebellious nature, it was bound to be broken but I just never meet someone who would take that seriously.”

HOSEOK

JIMIN

JUNGKOOK

JIN

NAMJOON

TAEHYUNG

[ne-videl]

𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔫𝔤𝔢𝔩𝔦𝔫𝔤

♡

yandere Dion Agriche x fairy fem reader

he will gladly go even to his own death if you'll order him to.

sub yandere, unhealthy relationship, a little bit of Cassis x reader, mentions of violence, reader and Dion have master/pet relationships, also reader is referred to as "sister" a few times so pseudo incest I guess, sfw but a bit suggestive, everybody likes you!! poor english

word count: ~2k

a/n: there I am again drooling over fictional men. so here's my favorite yandere trope!! for if your psychopath doesn't worship you it's not your psychopath ©

honestly when I was reading this manhwa for the first time and saw dion I was like "damn I want this man on his knees 🤨🤨", so here you are. eat.

"you're a dog, Dion." – not-Roxanne lifts the corners of her lips in a slight smile, while her neat fingers run through his shaggy hair.

"your dog," – Dion adds mentally.

you feel the touch of his dry lips on your bare foot.

sitting like this, kneeling in front of you, seems right – it can't be any other way, and it won't be.

"may I?" – after receiving tacit approval, he leans closer, his hand stroking your bare thigh.

you smell like flowers: maids must have added rose oil to the water, and this smell digs into his lungs, making him roll his eyes in ecstasy.

just from this, from the fact that you are so close, he could just reach his hand out and feel you.

your body is cold – devoid of any human warmth, burning his skin with the cold of it's touch. your eyes look with a non malicious mockery: how a person looks at their beloved pet. with kind condescension.

you lean in, and Dion feels a kiss at the top of his head. scent of roses hits his nose, almost suffocating, and it feels like his mind is about to give up. well, if he dies right here, he won't regret a bit.

crimson flush on his cheeks almost burns his skin.

____*:･ﾟ✧

"hello. my name is ███████. do you mind playing with me, brother?"

he turns around at the girly voice behind him – distracting himself from the dead bird – and he is met by the look of your laughing eyes.

not red ones.

his sister tucks a lock of her hair behind her little ear and sits down next to him, waiting for an answer.

shouldn't she be blonde like Roxanne?

who is Roxanne?

"okay." – Deon catches his sister's smile and for some reason wants to smile too. she talks about a cute teddy bear that her father gave her, about how she likes to drink tea under the summer sun, and that she probably likes him too.

he had once seen in a book: in the old fairy tales that mothers read to their children, it was said that fairies could replace a human child with their own.

none of Agriche's children believed in fairy tales, but it seems appropriate for his "sister" – you, not-Roxanne, must be a fairy. a lovely creature with transparent wings and a honey voice.

he doesn't mind. whatever calls itself his sister, Deon thinks he really, really likes it.

____*:･ﾟ✧

if he's not on a mission, Deon is always by your side.

"what are you doing here? can't you see sister is with me now?" – Jeremy mumbled indignantly, but you only laughed softly, covering your lips with a neat palm.

a beautiful silver ring glitters on the sixth finger of the "sister".

their father also adores you – maybe it's natural for fairies to charm everyone around them – from members of their so-called "family" to the maids and even the hounds of the estate.

maybe he's a hound himself in her eyes. it didn't matter, as long as he could be with his "sister" – or at least with the creature that pretended to be her.

it was undoubtedly a pleasure to belong to you.

Deon drapes a white fur coat over your shoulders: you often went out into the garden in light clothes, as if the winter cold did not bother you at all. your hair falls over the fur collar, and you smile at him, giggling about how quietly he walks, and chirping about something else. you were fond of chatting, and it was often very difficult to stop listening to you. he, however, usually spoke rarely and little, accompanying you, his mistress, like a silent shadow.

you're spending too much time in the company of a Pedelian pup – an unacceptably long time – so that his eye begins to twitch with anger.

isn't he enough? why would you need this toy if he is always at your feet, your faithful dog, a hound, ready to do whatever you want without a trace of doubt and regret?

Dion wished you'd let him kill Cassis.

"may I ask you a question?" – you turn at the sound of his voice. surrounded by a winter garden, you look even more beautiful, pitch black against dead-white snow. perfection.

"of course, ask. what is it?" – "sister" raises an eyebrow a little stiffly, not naturally, just a little bit.

"do you like him more? I dare not doubt you, and you should not doubt my loyalty, but still-" – his scarlet eyes narrow slightly – "but still, do you like him more?"

if you answer yes, he will go and kill the eldest of the Pedelian offspring on the spot. this is Deon's place. and the hell he's going to let someone else take it.

"of course not, silly." – you laughed – "didn't we discuss this earlier? toys are toys, but you were and will remain my favorite."

right. that's how it should be. why did he even doubt it?

"favorite." – mentally repeats after you while your six-fingered palm rests on his head: you had a habit to pet him like a puppy.

"favorite." – gaze of crimson eyes trembles, invariably riveted to you, and Dion struggles with the desire to grab the object of his sick adoration in his arms, hug you, to feel the cold of your inhuman body at least through clothes. your smell is dope, your touch is opium, your eyes are an abyss, mesmerizing with the horror of its cold depths.

but he can't. you didn't allowed it yet.

and he, as befits a well-trained hound, will obediently wait for your permission.

____*:･ﾟ✧

"███████. that's not your real name, is it? what are you?" – Cassis looks at you expectantly.

you tilt your head to the side, picturesquely rounding your eyes and raising your neat eyebrows.

theatrically. not natural.

"what are you talking about? I am me. who else do you think I can be? stop asking stupid questions, darling." – you answer with a mocking smile. like he's saying something ridiculous.

"are you kidding me? you have six fingers! why doesn't anyone else notice this? besides, you look different, not at all like-" – Cassis cuts himself off in mid-sentence.

like who?

"you know, forget it... it's like I haven't been myself lately. you know, with all this kidnapping, and even your brother..." – he shakes his head nervously under your laughing gaze.

something inside told him that if he kept asking questions now, it won't end well. and anyway, why would he do that? after all, it's not polite to interrogate his benefactress.

everything is fine.

"the less you know the better you sleep, my dear. why don't we just proceed as planned? and how many fingers I have is none of your business." – you look appraisingly, as an already well-fed snake looks at a mouse.

eat or not?

"if I were you, I'd be more worried about the success of your future escape, and for that matter, about my dear brother. you see, Dion has been wanting to twist your neck for a long time." – mention of the red-eyed man makes Cassis tense up.

when you see his reaction, you giggle like you just said the funniest joke in the world.

"come on. I was joking. Dion won't hurt you unless I tell him to. he's a good boy."

when he thinks about it, you, the elder Agriche, had a lot in common with the poisonous butterflies you adored so much. in the sense that Cassis often got the impression that you wanted to devour him. at least it wasn't hard to imagine transparent wings behind your back.

____*:･ﾟ✧

gatherings with your father always ended well after midnight – invariably over cigars and wine, in his office full of acrid tobacco smoke.

it was no secret who will become the next head of Agriche: Lante never hid his paradoxical favoritism. with you alone he had the relationship that most closely resembles the relationship of a parent to a child.

"in general, everything is going as it should. don't forget to dress up for the next dinner party: I've already called the designers." – Lante exhaled a cloud of smoke, smiling cheekily: alcohol was doing its job.

"as you wish. Is Dion doing good at his job?" – you answered with a relaxed face: wine, as well as many other "human" things, had no effect on you.

"you ask as if you don't know. you raised him well." – you slightly unnaturally round your eyes in surprise – "only a fool here does not know that the only person to whom my son is truly faithful is you. I don't know how you did it, but these mind games of yours seem to have had the desired effect. of course, you're my daughter! you're more like a dog with a mistress, not a brother and sister."

Lante bursts into a deep laugh, and his "daughter" does not deny herself a satisfied grin.

a dog and his mistress, huh?

heavy doors of the head's office closed behind your fragile – at least visually –figure.

you are greeted by the night chill of the deserted corridor of the estate and your dog waiting in the distance.

"hi, Dion. already returned?" – he just nods silently in response, coming closer to you and offering his hand.

my-my, just came from a mission in the middle of the night and immediately rushed to you. how obedient.

"did you hear it?" – you tilt your head to the side with a sly grin.

"I did. while I was waiting for you." – he doesn't say anything about Lante's comment. doesn't deny it.

indeed, you raised him well. no trace of pride was left.

Dion in your hands – a faithful puppy, readily following any of your instructions. even if you'll send him right to his death, he will return, only bowing his head in anticipation of praise and the touch of your cold hands.

and you, like a good master, praise, and stroke, and kiss. after all, if there is a stick, there must be a carrot.

____*:･ﾟ✧

"here we will part, my dear friend. we have already discussed your plan of action, so I see no point in repeating myself. go to freedom, but quickly: we, you know, deal with riots quickly."

"wait, listen, please. can you at least answer me before I leave? what are you, really? I always have the feeling that you're not who you seem. I mean... no, I like you, I really like you, it's just-" – Cassis cuts himself off, realizing that he blurted out too much.

he's all flushed, confused in words, and you're just looking at him with your unnerving eyes and smiling.

watching. and aren't blinking.

"God, no matter how much years I'm carrying on my shoulders, it's the first time I've met such a curious human." – you purse your scarlet lips, thinking about the answer – "don't worry, "she" is now where she will be better. and as for your question, dear, you can consider that I'm just a bystander. yes, let's think so. so stop talking and run, okay?"

"and you? will you be okay?" – you raised your eyebrow: still unnatural, however, he's already used to it.

exit from the estate is already very close, just a stone's throw away, and Cassis is hesitating. desperately grabbing your wrist, looking with shining yellow eyes into your laughing, soulless ones.

tch.

"what, you want to stay my toy forever? you know, I'm an Agriche too, and I might change my mind about letting you go if you keep looking at me like a beaten puppy." – realizing that your quip was not accepted by the "audience", you rolled your eyes, but then broke into your too perfect smile again.

"don't worry. I can't be killed in a way that matters."– a six-fingered palm rests on the top of his head, and your face stretches into a grin, not human, too wide for a human.

but he's not scared. he wants to watch more – it's impossible to look away, even if his instinct for self-preservation screams that he needs to get out of here as soon as possible.

the abyss, as it turned out, can really look back, and it is beautiful in its terrifying appearance.

is this how Deon feels every time he looks at something that calls itself his sister?

"well, let's never meet again, my friend." – and Cassis leaves, leaves without turning around, because he understands that if he turns around, he will never be able to leave this nightmarish estate. he won't want to.

you hesitate a little, watching him with unblinking eyes, and with a sense of accomplishment you turn back.

your face rests against a man's chest. familiar scent of ash and blood hits your sensitive nose.

"and you're still walking silently." – Dion drapes his coat over your bare shoulders. a gloved hand lingers on your skin a little longer than it should.

"it's cold in the dungeons. you should have dressed warmer." – you laughed a little.

he knows perfectly well that you don't feel the cold, but he does this every time anyway.

"and what, you won't even ask anything? aren't you curious why I let the Pedelian offspring go?" – your six–fingered hand is holding his elbow as you wind through the dark and cold corridors.

"I will not question your methods. but was it wise to talk about your secret, even in this way? doesn't he know too much now?" – it's not difficult to understand what he's hinting at: in his opinion, you should've get rid of Cassis. athough never said out loud, your "brother's" dislike of your toy was ridiculously strong.

ah, men's jealousy!

"let him think what he wants. there are no big conclusions to be drawn from what I said anyway." – you tilt your head to the side, your eyes lazily scan the walls of the dungeon. he just nods and continues to walk beside you in silence.

Dion never asked too much, never doubted any of your actions, never poked his nose where it should not be. you certainly raised him well. no, even exceeded your own expectations.

what a good boy.

mom yelled at me for almost a hour and I wanna curl up and die 🤩

thanks for reading!!

[hausofneptune]

"spicy" takes / unpopular opinions [2]

[astro notes no. 005]

・ :*:・ﾟbAck at iT agAiN at kriSpy kREme・ :*:・ﾟ part one of this "spicy" series did really well so thank y'all <3 i appreciate it! i don't wanna center too many of my posts around dragging people or placements bc i feel like there's enough of that type of astro content on here. but i do enjoy mess and i do thrive off of negativity! so here's part two :D

as i mentioned before, every aspect/placement and sign will manifest differently from person to person, pls do not take offense on behalf of something that does not resonate w you. ty.

disclaimers | masterlist | ask

༄ i’m sorry but i gotta ruin the fun, the “pisces men are trash”, “libra men are whorish”, “sagittarius men are the devil” takes are so tired. a lot of y’all just don’t like men. which is understandable! but that shit don’t be having anything to do with astrology, and that type of surface-level discourse is why people tend to not take astrology seriously in the first place

༄ lowkey piggybacking off of the last point, but i’ve had enough of y’all using y’alls exes, moms, ex-friends, 7th grade math teachers, the bitches who bullied you in high school, etc. as legitimate reasons to have predisposed hatred and bias against certain signs/placements. go book an appointment with your therapist and work it out with them. leave astrology out of it.

༄ aries, leo, sag placements come to the front, we gotta address the whole fire signs = confidence thing. fire signs are driven to get shit done, but that doesn't equate to innate confidence. if anything, fire signs have to evolve and work towards being confident in their work and appearance. i'm a leo descendant, and it's funny bc i've known so many people with prominent leo in their chart who could never relate to any of the superficial stereotypes about leo, especially not when they were growing up

༄ this is a point @seemycee actually brought up to me, but i will never understand why y’all bring up the correlation between placements/aspects and certain physical traits… and then use a celebrity (typically white or light-skinned) who has obviously gotten work done as an example…? at least use pictures of them pre-op before they had a face full of filler. y'all got 16-year-old girls on this app wondering why they don't look like ariana grande if they share the same placements as her, when in reality, ariana grande don't even look like ariana grande.

༄ we should go back to identifying as our rising signs instead of our sun signs. i’m not discrediting the importance of our sun signs or the role it plays in our charts, but i can definitely see why traditional astrologers prioritized the role our ascendant plays in our charts over the sun’s, especially considering the fact that it dictates the entirety of your chart in a sense. i’m also biased tho bc i’ve personally always related more to my rising than my sun for the most part

༄ this is more so something i’ve noticed with how astrology is perceived in popular culture and less in the astro community, but i wish people recognized the importance of the planets as much as they did the zodiac signs. and this isn’t to imply that the signs aren’t important at all bc they definitely are, but in terms of how astrology is generally perceived, i feel like the planets (and aspects as well) are often left out of the conversation when they can give you so much more context than the signs can in some, if not most cases

༄ i wish y'all addressed venus' association with creativity and artistic abilities as much as y'all acknowledge it's association with physical beauty, romance, and aesthetics. venus is also indicative of the values you hold and the things that you assign worth to, and i lowkey hate the way that those attributes tend to get swept under the rug most of the time

༄ speaking of venus, i feel like there should be more inclusive language used surrounding the archetypes of venus and mars (and astrology in general). not everyone resonates with "feminine" and "masculine" terminology, and i think it's always worth mentioning that this phrasing is interchangeable with terms like "light" and "dark", "yin" and "yang", etc. this is also important not just in terms of inclusivity, but also because some of y'all (whether consciously or subconsciously) use these gendered-archetypes to validate unhealthy ideologies/standards surrounding gender expression. a lot of you bitches be on here sounding just like them podcast bros and i don't even think y'all realize it

༄ i feel like the moon phase you’re born under holds a lot more significance than people tend to acknowledge at times, it should be brought up more often in conversations regarding the moon and it’s influence in a chart

༄ i don’t want to shit on the asteroid girlies bc i feel like y’all get dragged enough by the traditional astrologers, and i personally have no problem with anyone wanting to learn about asteroids. but i will say, modern/younger astrologers would benefit more from acknowledging the planets and asteroids through the context of astronomy, instead of going based off of “vibes” and “aesthetic archetypes”. i feel like acknowledging the fact that there are ~1.7 million asteroids and they’re all just specks of dust in comparison to the large, personal planets, actually helps to put things into perspective when understanding how their energy in your chart is actually playing out

༄ i’ve seen this point being made for the past couple of days on my timeline and i thought i’d note it here as well, fatalistic interpretations of certain aspects and placements is extremely dangerous and insensitive. i have no issue with acknowledging a “pattern” in terms of how certain aspects/placements in a chart can manifest, and i would even argue it’s disingenuous to disregard the negative ways that they might potentially show up in someone's life. but blatantly being like “you have xyz aspecting neptune, pluto in [insert house here], nessus square whatever-the-fuck, and so therefore you’re definitely going to experience addiction, mental illness, sexual abuse, death, etc.” is weird and irresponsible

i don't want this post to be too long so i'll end it here, as always let me know if y’all have any aspects/placements mentioned and tell me how they manifest in your life/personality! and if you have any insight feel free to let me know as well. keep it cute!

[crookedteethed]

Heyy on your Rafe nsfw abcs you mentioned Rafe and r having a quickie at midsummers 😭 curious to know what all went down

Heyyy!! Thanks sm for the request, and I hope you enjoy the fic. <3

Warnings: 18+ semi-public sex, rough sex, unprotected sex (wrap it before you tap it), Jealous!Rafe, Possessive!Rafe, dub con(?) mentions of violence, angst, fem reader

(the post they're referring to: here )

Rafe liked the way the heel in your stilettos raised the ball of your foot. Streamlined and pointed, their shape is in line with the elegant leg-lengthening effect that they give you, causing you to appear much taller than you were.

The stilettos also had an effect that made you have a sudden flair of sexiness and confidence that (unbeknownst to you) had Rafe seething and wondering if you knew just what these effects had on not only Rafe but the other men attending Midsummers.

Rafe also liked the way your tight-fitted slip dress left little to imagine about your body in his mind. Though, he wished you had gone with the all-black thong instead of the bright pink thong with the star on its mound—the thin bright pink was starting to show through your white dress. 

Of course, Rafe marveled at the sight of your hot pink thong bleeding through your dress, but it was always that nagging thought in his head that said: the other men, the other men are watching. That instantly turned Rafe off. 

Either his nagging jealousy problems were causing him trouble, or everyone else around him having fun besides him. Ward and Rose are laughing and toasting it up with Ward's work colleagues, Wheezie is in the corner dancing with her friends, Sarah is secretly taking shots with Topper, and you are being pulled onto the dance floor by two of your friends.

And here Rafe was, downing his third shot, leaning against a wall, watching you like a hawk.

He should've been happy. 

This was his first year coming to Midsummer's with a date that wasn't one of Ward's big-haired coochie colleagues' daughters or some slut who let him in her panties once or twice. 

He was supposed to be here with you, but there you were, getting ogled and preyed on by gross (old and young) men. And if it weren't for your stupid, stupid friends dragging you onto the dance floor, Rafe wouldn't be looking at you swaying your body in a sensual movement as Usher's Yeah! started to play. 

And if you weren't swaying your body in the center of the dance floor, then Rafe wouldn't have noticed that shit-pouge waiter ogling at your curves.

Shouldn't he be working? Rafe thought.

Who gave that pouge the right to look at his girl? Better yet, who gave any of these shits the right to look at his girl? Kook or pouge, they didn't have the right to look at you--not in the way they did.

Rafe begins stalking towards the waiter, ready to pluck out his eyes, just when he hears you calling his name.

"Rafe!!" You call out, motioning him to join you on the dance floor.

Rafe stops in his tracks, watching you watch him; he then starts walking towards you, most of his anger tarnishing.

Ok, so he'll get back with that waiter later, get him fired or something.

"Come." You say, putting your hand in his. "Dance with me."

Rafe kept that stoic look on his face as you and your friends danced around him. He saw the same waiter looking at you again, and that's when Rafe told you:

"Let's go."

His tone is very assertive, analogous to your parents putting you in time out after you've been bad.

"What?" you say, worried.

Rafe's heavy hands grip your forearm and drag you from the dance floor.

Rafe didn't care.

He didn't care about your friends calling your name or the worrisome stare you gave him. He didn't care at all.

"Rafe, baby, please tell me what's wrong." you say, your footsteps becoming maladroit as you walk under Rafe's guide.

Rafe didn't say anything, so you didn't say anything afterward, knowing to remain silent when he gets like this.

You were shocked to see that Rafe had brought you to the men's bathroom, and Rafe was even surprised himself.

He looked around the spacious bathroom, letting you go for a second to look on the other side of the divided room.

When he comes back he says: "Come on, get in there." while harshly grabbing your forearm again and lightly dragging you into the last stall to the right.

Rafe had a funny feeling brewing in his stomach as he pushed your front against the bathroom stall's cold tile walls and unbuckled the belt holding up his slacks. It was as if he was mad at you, but how could he be?

You, in particular, hadn't done anything to provoke him; those slimy men looking at you provoked him. Of course, he wanted to take his anger out on the waiter and the other men, but why you, too?

As Rafe hitched up your dress to bunch around your waist, you felt the sudden cool breeze pierce the skin of your ass.

He marveled at the sight of your hot pink thong, fucking finally. Biting his bottom lip at the skimpy fabric snugged between your ass cheeks.

"Rafe." you moaned, detesting in the anticipation.

"Shut up." he tells you, pushing your face into the wall.

Just after, Rafe index finger dug the string from your ass, and gently pushed it aside.

His belt buckle clacks quickly, and you hear his pants and underwear being pushed down to his ankles. You try to catch a glimpse of him, but Rafe's hand is splayed across your head and your cheek is again meshed with the cold tile.

Rafe's rage was radiating from his body, and you could feel it (it being his tip) teasing the flesh of your ass. You wondered what you had done this time, beginning to feel Rafe's length—all 7.1 inches of it—push inside your tight cunt, stopping you in your tracks.

An elongated shrill escapes your pouty lips, like the sound of a person getting stabbed in the back with a knife and letting the knife twist the bone, but to you at that moment, that's exactly what Rafe's cock felt like.

Like you just had an iron-hot poker thrust through your gut--repeatedly.

Your slick feels the silence, along with you and Rafe's grunts and pleas, but mainly the filthy squelching sound that manifested itself from each time Rafe's cock plummeted in and out of your cunt.

For a second, Rafe takes his eyes off your plump ass and looks at you for the first time during this fuck. Your legs are weak and nearly buckling, your makeup smudging on the tile wall due to the tears that strain from your eyes, and you had a tight grip held onto the metal accessibility rail bolted into the wall.

He'd gotten a feeling of guilt wash over his body, a sense that he predicted that would prevent him from cumming.

Here he was, with the finest girl on figure eight, fucking her in the bathroom stall like she was a slut.

What if, after this, you decide to break up with him?

or worst

You break up with him and decide to date that loser waiter pouge or any of the men out there ogling you, find someone who can treat you better.

Rafe slowly pulls himself out of you. You pout at the feeling of emptiness inside you, but your insides feel relieved.

There's a dull silence for a second, during which Rafe turns you around and brings your pouty lips to his in an everlasting kiss that almost turns you both into jelly.

You swear that after the kiss, Rafe says, "I'm sorry." But, before you can say anything more, words die on lips as he gives you another mouth-watering kiss, wraps your leg around his waist, and starts to fuck you again—this time slowly—leaving you speechless with the realization that he's the only man who gets to treat you this way.

[holylulusworld]

Go to hell

Title: Go to hell

Written for @buckybarnesbingo (Round 6)

Card: B004

Collaborator(s): Holylulusworld

Square Filled: K4: "Oh, hell no."

Ship/Main Pairing: Mobster!Bucky Barnes x Ex!Reader

Rating: Mature

Major Tags/Triggers/Warnings: jealousy, ex! sugar babe trope, mentions of daddy kink (but no one is into it), groping, fluff, hopeful ending

Summary: He let you go.

Word Count: 1,3k+

BBB BuckyBarnesBingo 2024 masterlist

Written in Bucky’s PoV

She does it on purpose. I just know it.

Why else would she waste her beauty and grace on someone like him?

He’s old enough to be her father, and I’m sure she doesn’t have a daddy kink or daddy issues. I know her well, and she never showed any signs of being into men double her age.

She came here to my party with that man I despise the most. Not weeks ago, she was mine and screamed my name.

I said the wrong things after that night. I saw our relationship in a different light and had to make myself clear.

Now she hangs on that grandfather’s arm like a random arm candy, not the goddess she is. My girl always hated men treating her like a stupid bimbo. She is smart, and charismatic, but hides it well to play the perfect doll for this man.

I unclench my metal fist because, if I don’t, I’ll break that guy’s face. He leans closer to whisper something in her ear and Y/N giggles like a schoolgirl.

That’s not the noise she made when I whispered filthy things in her ear. She whimpered my name, and her knees buckled.

What she does with that man is all for show. She pretends to be with him to get back at me for not fulfilling her wish to make things between us official.

“If you keep in staring at her, you’ll hurt yourself,” Ayo smirks at me before turning her gaze toward the woman I was watching all night instead of enjoying the party. “I wonder how she ended up with him. I thought you and Y/N were going steady.”

“She was fun for a while,” I brush Ayo’s question off. I made my decision and won’t discuss it with people working for me. “Now the fun is over, and she can go out with whoever she wants to.”

“Says the man watching her all night,” ever the observant bodyguard she watched me all night only to find her boss staring at my ex-girlfriend…or rather sugar babe. “If that was my woman, I’d go over there and stab that old man’s face for grabbing her ass.”

“Grabbing her ass?” I jerk my head toward Y/N only to find her smiling at the guy. I exhale sharply when she pushes her ass into his crotch to grind into him.

Ayo dips her head to look at me. “It’s not too late, White Wolf.” She says before turning to take her place in the shadows to have my back like she always does. “Why don’t you go over there and show that little man whom your woman belongs to…?”

My shadow is not wrong. I could go over there and show that bastard Y/N belongs with me. But do I want to? If I step on that man’s toes, it means trouble. Even worse, Y/N will believe that I’m jealous of that old man.

“Ayo said you need my help.” I roll my eyes when Steve stands next to me. He tried to talk me into winning Y/N over the last few days. “How can I help you?” Steve smirks at me, like the cocky bastard he is. “Do you want me to bring her here? I can just throw her over my shoulder.”

“Why are you all so obsessed with her? I don’t want her back. She can fuck whoever she wants to. Even that old man’s dick,” I huff, and look away when she rubs herself against the man’s body.

“Do you want her to fuck him? Imagine she rides him, and he gets a heart attack,” Steve tries to be funny, but I can’t laugh. “She’s meant to be yours, not some old bastard’s toy.”

“She chose him,” I shrug. “And she won’t come back to me. I cannot offer what she wants from me.”

“A good dick?” Steve snickers.

“Commitment.”

“What did Beyoncé say?” God, I hate my best friend when he quotes songs. “Ah, yeah. If you like what you see put a ring on it.”

“You’re not helpful,” I sneer at Steve. “Stop quoting pop stars.”

“Punk. Beyoncé is not a pop star. She’s a goddess…” He grins before downing his drink. “If I had the chance with your girl, I’d put a ring on her finger.”

“You are a slut and love to whore around, Stevie,” I know Steve better than he knows himself. “You’ll never put a ring on a girl’s finger.”

“Maybe not her finger,” he gives me the dirtiest smirk in the history of dirty smirks. “I know better body parts to put rings on. I know that girl wearing a ring on her pussy lips.”

“I didn’t need to know that” I decide to get fresh air. If I stare at Y/N a little longer I’ll change my mind and break that old man’s face.

“Oh, hell no,” I hiss under my breath. All I wanted was to get fresh air, and now I’m staring at her backside because she had the same thought. She’s sticking her ass out, making her short dress rid up. I can see her panties, and my cock stirs in my pants. Treacherous bastard.

She turns around, and my stupid heart does somersaults when she looks me up and down. Y/N smirks, tongue poking out to wet her too-red lips. I remember she loved to leave my cock stained with her favorite color.

“You’ve got to be shitting me!” She exclaims loudly. “Where is he? What did you do to him?”

“I did nothing to your gramps. Why would I? It’s not as if he touched what’s mine,” I snap at her, and she flinches. I regret my harsh words because she turns around to not look me in the eyes.

“Well, then leave me alone. He’ll be back in a minute. At least he’s not afraid to show anyone that he loves having me around.”

She ignores me then, staring into the distance as I stand behind her to admire her ass for a little longer. “Why him?”

“Why not?” There was venom in her voice, but her shoulders shook for a second. “After you tossed me out, I had to get back up and move on.”

“By selling yourself to that slimy bastard?” I don’t know why, but I grab her arms to press her against my chest. “Tell me love.” I nuzzle her neck. “Does he fuck you as good as I did?”

“He needed someone to pretend he still got it. And I needed someone to take care of me. Love didn’t work out for me so, that’s all I get for the time being,” she answers honestly as I drop my hands to her waist. “A limp dick, and a man believing I’m nothing but a doll he can dress and show off.”

She holds her breath when I kiss her neck. “How about I remind you how good it feels to be taken care of by a man not giving a shit on you.”

“Oh, Steve will finally make a move?” I chuckle at her comeback. “I didn’t know he’s into me but why not? I’m free as a bird.”

“Come to my bedroom, doll,” she sighs at the pet name, but doesn’t give in so easily. “Forget about him.”

“I told you that I can’t do this with you any longer,” her voice trembles as she struggles to not give in to my advances. “Love wasn’t in your plans. You told me so.”

“What if…” I bite my tongue for a second and take a deep breath. Maybe she doesn’t care for the old man and his dick. But soon enough someone will come along to turn her world upside down. “I’ll put a ring on that finger one day?”

“One day?” She sounds surprised but allows me to slip my hand between her quivering thighs. I find her panties soaked, and her pussy in need of my touch.

“How about we talk about our relationship in my bedroom?” I purr in her ear. “I promise you won’t regret it.”

“I can’t leave him all alone.”

“You can,” I nip at her earlobe, “and will, baby doll. If you do, I’ll put a ring on that finger…”

Tags in reblog.

[word-wytch]

Don't Stand So Close To Me — Chapter 16

Eddie x Teacher!Reader

Chapter 16/? 9k. Series Masterlist

✏︎ Frustrated by inconclusive endings, Eddie takes a seat behind the wheel. 

✏︎ Series Summary: Forced to move back home to Hawkins after your fiancé cheats on you, you begin to fall in love again with an audacious 20 year old metalhead, only there’s one problem — he’s still in high school and you’re his English teacher.

While you struggle starting over in a place you never thought you would return, Eddie struggles feeling stuck in a place he can’t manage to leave — until you offer to help him. Of all the lessons learned, the most important are the ones you teach each other.

✏︎ Series CW: forbidden romance, slow burn, true love, smut (18+ mdni), internal conflict, student-teacher relationship, 10 year age gap, mutual pining, sexual tension, emotions, drama, angst, character development, happy ending :)

✏︎ Chapter CW: general angst, paternal angst, drug mention

Thursday, December 12th 1985

Before the first morning bell, Eddie gave Judy at reception his best impression of Wayne over the phone. He wasn’t totally lying, he was in fact, quite sick. Sick of all the taunting looks from meathead jocks. Sick of the way Ms. O’Donnell cleared her throat every five minutes. Sick of waking up so goddamn early. Sick of wasting his time. So after hanging up the phone, he stuffed a few essentials in his backpack and made for the door. 

Like clockwork, Wayne always came home at around 8:10 AM, and though it would be far from the first time he’d skipped school, Eddie would rather not have to explain himself. Besides, he could use a change of scenery. There was no denying winter anymore, the ice he scraped off his windshield made sure to remind him. On a typical hooky day he would drive down to Lover’s Lake and toss open the rear doors, catch a breeze, light a joint, sit back and take in the ripples on the water and the rustling leaves. But that had all frozen over, so unless he intended to burn through his whole tank of gas, he would need to get creative. 

That was how he found himself at Benny’s at 7:58 on a Thursday morning, setting up camp in a booth at the back of the restaurant. He ordered his usual — bacon, scrambled eggs, and a stack of pancakes in addition to white toast. Tossing his fourth emptied sugar packet beside the leaning tower of creamers, he sat back in the sticky, padded seat and took his first deep breath all morning. 

The diner was bustling lowly, a handful of regulars perched on silver, spinning stools at the bar. From the frosted window leeching cool air beside him, he watched the funeral procession of headlights down Washington under a mournful sky. Just another day for the upright citizens of Hawkins, Indiana. From his cozy booth, Eddie sipped the top off his very full mug and smiled to himself. 

Sprawling his belongings around the piping hot plates, he popped on his headphones, cracked open his monster manual, and got to work. The first hour flew by like his pencil across the graph paper. Between the bacon bits that had leapt from hand to page, a formidable lineup of foes was taking shape. Bottom line; the boys were in for a world of hurt tomorrow. He did his best to resign the grease to the flimsy napkins, but by the time he was finished, syrup tacked the gargoyle and gorgon pages together. 

“Anything else I can grab for ya besides the check?” Sheri—according to her name tag—asked with a tired lean as she reached to clear his plates. 

Eddie glanced down sheepishly at his freshly topped off mug. “I uh, think I might be staying for lunch.”

Sheri forced a hot pink smile, catching the fork with her decorated finger when it threatened to slide off the plate. “Y’ want me to get a room set up for you too?” she joked with a wink of her spidery lashes. “Just teasin’ sweetie. You just flag me down when you’re ready.”

Switching out his tapes, Eddie shut the cassette player and stared out the window as the men at the bar tossed their napkins and fished out their wallets. Snow was falling in lazy clumps, clinging to his windshield. Somewhere behind the overcast clouds, the sun was rising steadily. It was dismal, a fitting backdrop for the opening track of Black Sabbath’s Heaven and Hell. Of all the seasons, winter belonged to metal. Like it was made for cruising down a quiet, snow-covered street in the middle of nowhere. Made for drowning out Bing Crosby crooning from the speaker in the corner above him. Tinsel glittered on the small tree perched on a cloud of fake snow beside the cash register. Ornaments on swags swayed to the thump of footsteps passing. Eddie sighed and stared into the changing street lights.

Glancing at his watch he figured you were probably wrapping up the film with second period, knitting your brow and drawing your pen across the papers you were grading. He wondered what you’d think when the bell rang for fourth and you found his seat empty. Would you think he was upset with you? There was a small part of him that hoped so, and another part that hoped you would understand. After all, he was giving you the space you asked for, was he not?

Like a siren, your story—tucked between his notebook and the magazines he’d exhausted twice cover to cover—called to him. Cracking open the plastic spine, he dove headfirst into the typewritten pages.

For the whole narrow path into Rower’s End, Cybelle had sat in the front of the caravan, breathing the briny air unhindered by a barrier. Lazarus admired the brilliant fullness of her smile as she watched the seagulls soar overhead, under the clouds she had only ever seen from above. The sunlight had graced them then, beaming down in golden rays, glinting on the distant waves as they approached the sleepy seaside town. 

Eddie could feel the corners of his mouth tug as Lazarus regaled Cybelle with a story of a time when he’d accidentally taken a crab home with him after spending a day at the beach, followed by an explanation of what a crab was. Cybelle seemed delighted with the prospect of seeing one, even more-so when he told her how he’d discovered the little hitchhiker when it pinched his rear in bed that night. Eddie noticed the way Cybelle leaned closer whenever Lazarus told stories, the way her hand came to shield her bare face with a giggle when he mentioned his rear. The way her delicate, copper fingers lingered over the soft skin of his forearm when she checked beneath his bandage. The wound was healing nicely — no sign of infection and not a thorn in sight. She warned that it might scar, but Lazarus did not appear concerned—rather the opposite actually—as if a strange part of him was pleased with the idea of having something to remember her by. 

As they dipped over the final hill toward Rower’s End, Lazarus told her another story. A dream, rather, of a little cottage in Shantiglade with a full sized bed, and a garden, and a goose egg omelette big enough for two. A dream that would likely never come to pass. Cybelle seemed equally enchanted by it. Sitting back against the boxy, wooden seat of the caravan, she breathed in the salty air and imagined how good it would feel to do so every day. To experience the feeling of sand between her toes, of the ocean at her ankles, of propping her elbow against their shared kitchen table and gracing Lazarus with a naked smile before trying whatever an omelette was. It was good like this too — bumping along under a clear blue sky as Turnip plodded down the scarcely trodded path, watching the wind caress the wild grass and Lazarus’ even wilder curls, hearing his tales and his laughter.

Around the time he would be slumping into his desk in the back of your classroom, the bell dinged over the door of the restaurant. Eddie cranked the volume on his headset to drown out the chatter of a family of four clambering into the booth in front of him. The little boy had brought a pair of plastic drumsticks with him, beating a rhythm on the steel-rimmed table much to the annoyance of his little sister, who was clutching her book the way Eddie was yours. Dipping his few remaining fries into the smear of ketchup, he wondered why they weren’t in school on a Thursday afternoon. As he focused back on the type-written letters, he figured he should be the last to judge. 

Eddie felt for Lazarus, he really did. The way he looked at Cybelle as she emerged from the cave, cradling the ghostfern like a pale, translucent child. The scene was as beautiful as it was somber — waves lapping at the rocky shoreline as the setting sun cast its deep orange hues on both of them. The rocks—slick with algae—had Cybelle stumbling, but Lazarus was quick to offer his arm. She accepted without hesitance, clutching the plant like a bouquet as her deep earthen fingers braced the pale angles of his. He lead her down the cascading stone as if it were a chapel aisle, slow and steady until they reached the flat edge of the water. There—in the golden remains of the day—seagulls dipped and soared over the glittering ocean, clasped hands swayed in the lapping wind, and for a moment, they had everything they came for.  

After what seemed like both a small eternity and an aching second, it was Cybelle who broke away, tracing the ridges of his fingers as hers fell, stating out loud what both of them knew — that night was coming soon. 

The journey back to Torgaard proved easier than the journey out, at least in terms of natural foes. No fenfinks or villainous vines, but the sky seemed to hang much lower. Dark, stormy clouds loomed overhead, casting its pale grey light over the moss curtains outside of Fenwood, over the verdant  forests that shuddered in the gusting wind. There was a tension, a dread looming on the horizon that grew with each passing day. Even Eddie could sense it — the way Cybelle stared out into the swath of shifting green like she was attempting to soak up enough for the rest of her life. The way that Lazarus’ jokes were swallowed the creaking of the caravan. How nights that were once spent laughing over a roaring fire were now spent silently watching its crackling embers.

One day—just a few outside of Torgaard—the sky came crashing down. It sobbed in sheets, heavy enough to soak through Cybelle’s coat, to find the tear in her tent and make a lake of it. Lazarus ushered her inside the wagon, offered her a shirt that fit like a dress, offered to sleep on the floor. Assessing the size of the bed, and then the hard, narrow walking path, it was Cybelle who insisted they share it. She was small enough, or at least that was what she rationalized out loud. Lazarus did not argue. Her logic—unlike her tent—was water-tight. And so she climbed in between the soft linen sheets, tucked herself under the weight of the down blanket, and rested her damp, weary head on a pillow that smelled just like him.

Eddie glanced sheepishly around the restaurant, shielding the binder with his arm as Lazarus climbed in beside her. He hinged on each type-written word, lingering over the ones that stirred a fuzzy feeling. Written with careful attention to the way Lazarus’ chest rose and fell, how stiff their bodies were in hyper-awareness of the nearness to each other. How solid his shoulder felt under Cybelle’s cheek when the corner of pillow no longer sufficed. Slowly, they relaxed into the feeling. Not enough to sleep, but enough for Lazarus to free the arm that she was crushing. Enough to wrap it around her shoulder, to relish in the feeling of her cold nose in the warm crook of his neck.

It was good like this. Better when her fingers draped across the landscape of his pecks, felt his chest rise and fall like waves. Best when they awoke in the morning to the sun steaming in through the small, stained glass window above them. When their giggles shook the wagon. When their eyes met, closer than they’d ever been before. There, in the dim cocoon far outside the turning world, the smile that she had hidden for so long finally grew brave enough to capture his. And by the time they reached the towering stone walls of Torgaard, there was nothing more to hide from one another. 

Eddie flipped the page to find only a black, plastic pocket. He rubbed it with his fingers to make sure it wasn’t sticking to another. When it failed to separate, he sat back and fumed. That was it. There was no more. No ending, no closure.

Sheri leaned against the top of the booth seat opposite him, hand on her hip, shifting between her dirty white sneakers with a tired sigh. “Listen sweetie, I’ve got ten minutes left of my shift. You’re welcome to stay as long as you want, but I’ve gotta cash you out before I leave.”

Eddie glanced at his watch, almost 2:00. “Yeah—yeah, no problem. Sorry for the trouble.”

“’S no trouble, just the way it goes around here. Hope you enjoyed your stay,” she said with a wink as she dropped the check. 

After six hours and two meals, Eddie had gotten his fill of watching the world turn through an old, frosted window. His head was spinning enough on its own. With a frustrated huff he peeled his graph paper and manual away from the sticky table before shoving them into his backpack. Slugging it over his shoulder, he grabbed the grease-stained check and made his way to the register. That was when he noticed it — the lonely, half-eaten omelette on the bar.

“Alright that’ll be ten seventy-five,” chimed Sheri. 

Tinsel glittered on the tree. Red, metallic bulbs swayed in the echo of his footsteps. Judy Garland caroled on about a merry little Christmas and he wondered if your characters would ever enjoy anything over their shared kitchen table or if that dream would be abandoned for their duties as well.

“Sir?”

Snapping out of his trance, he fished for his wallet and palmed her a twenty. “Keep the change,” he muttered before turning toward the door with a hoist of his backpack.

Her jaw hung open. “Oh my word, are you serious?” she called to his back, but the bell above the door was the only answer she received.

______

Main Street Vinyls was a ghost town on a Thursday afternoon, and Eddie preferred it that way. Aside from Jerry at the counter, it was just him and his noisy thoughts, accompanied by the slow plod of his own heavy boots as they weeped against the carpet. At least in this store he could escape the onslaught of Christmas tunes. Jerry—old hippie that he was—at least had some sense. Sometimes even sense enough to play some halfway decent rock music, but today Eddie would settle for Neil Young over the jingle bell garbage blasting through every speaker in Hawkins.

Glancing down the rows of plastic cassette spines, Eddie perused the M section as he kicked himself for giving away almost ten dollars. There was an album by a new band he’d only read about in magazines called Megadeth. Turning the tape over in his hands, he examined the cover. Everything about it spoke to him — the skull with its mouth chained shut surrounded by knives and candles, the title — Killing Is My Business. Flipping it over to the back, the phrase continued in haunted red letters …and Business Is Good! 

The change he gave away in a fit of blind stupidity would have easily afforded it and left him with some to spare. With a bitter sigh, he shoved the tape back in its slot, knowing for a fact that the cash register at Benny’s had eaten the last bill he had in his wallet. Padding slowly down the aisle, he began his calculations. 

He had a few regular deals lined up this weekend but would need to dig into his “savings” in the bottom of an old tobacco tin and pay Rick a visit before any of that happened. He might make eighty bucks if he was lucky. Maybe eighty more over the course of the week between the deals at school. Nobody wanted to spend too much time outside this time of year, so the park bench location was always iffy depending on how bad it was. He would resort to other classic meetup spots, like under the bleachers or the back of his van. 

If he networked enough he might have some left over after helping Wayne with the bills. Scanning past the Tina Turner and T-Rex tapes, he wondered how much Wayne suspected about his little business. Surely he had to have some suspicion. Gig money, odd jobs, and oil changes for neighbors couldn’t possibly afford the kind of gear he had, or the ink in his skin, or the cash he contributed monthly. Wayne was sharp, and though he was no saint himself, he shuddered to think what he would say if he discovered his nephew was straying down the same path his brother took.

Peering back over his shoulder, he eyed the Megadeth tapes again—only three in stock—lined up like gifts wrapped in cellophane. They were such tiny things. Small enough to hide beneath his palm, to slide into the pocket of his coat with room to spare. Glancing up at the angled surveillance mirror in the corner of the store, he saw Jerry at the counter, humming obliviously as he stuck price tags on a fresh shipment of tapes. Over the tall shelf that separated them, he expected to meet his own eyes, but instead saw another man. A man he hadn’t seen in quite a while.

Eddie remembered finding a G chord for the first time; how big the fretboard felt in his small hand, how awkwardly his fingers had to stretch, how a larger set of hands had helped him find it. He earned a broad smile when the chord rang out, one he would search for again and again with every strum. 

Sometimes in the late evenings as he crept past Wayne with a lunchbox full of drugs while he was watching reruns of Bonanza on the couch, Eddie would tell himself that at least he wasn’t stealing cars, or drinking himself half to death, or rotting behind county bars. At least he was still in school, something Warren Munson couldn’t say even at sixteen. At least Eddie could say he was trying.

With a bitter shake of his head, he continued down the aisle, leaving the tapes behind for the record bins that lined the walls. Mindlessly he walked his fingers over the cardboard spines, glazing past titles he’d seen a dozen times. Nothing new. Nothing different. Few things ever were in Hawkins. Every day he’d wake up and slog himself to a different type of prison, sit in a classroom for eight hours and actively feel his brain rotting. He would crumple up his failed tests and shove them in his backpack, endure the stares from kids whose parents cared enough to give them a ride to school, day after day. And every day he would come home and see the twinge of pride on Wayne’s face for the fact that he’d gone at all.  

There were a few perks to sticking around, like running his club, and saving lost sheep, and seeing his friends everyday. Like having a swath of potential customers all in one place. It was safe and familiar, like a cage. His little business might be dangerous and criminal but at least it could afford him one thing he valued even more than ink or gear — freedom. Time, for another thing. Flexibility. It sure as hell beat making three dollars an hour flipping burgers or having to answer to some corporate boot-licker telling him what to do. Eddie huffed sharply, wondering what you would think if you knew. You, with your tightly buttoned blouses and endless patience. You, the very last person he wanted to disappoint. 

The last look he’d seen on you destroyed him when he thought about it; the pain in your eyes and bitter line your pretty lips became. You were just about the only reason he had left to show up to class anymore, and now that was getting in the way of the one thing that actually had potential in his eyes. Way more potential than a stupid piece of paper that says, congratulations, you’re a real member of society and not a complete disappointment. 

You had asked him a question back when you’d first made the arrangement to help him, one that rattled around in his brain ever since. Why did he want to graduate? If his memory served him, he’d given a relatively bullshit answer: to prove all the assholes in this god-forsaken purgatory wrong. It still held a fair amount of truth, but when he glanced up at the surveillance mirror again and saw himself this time, the real answer was abundantly clear. But was proving a point worth the risk of losing you?  

The smell of cardboard and cellophane kissed his face as air puffed between each record falling forward. Each a different picture, some repeats of the same. Rock gods wielding wicked weapons, bathed in holy stage lights somewhere in New York or Los Angeles probably. Somewhere important. Sometimes at the Hideout he would close his eyes and imagine he was on one of those stages, but when he would open them as the last note rung out, it was always the same — just Bill and Drunk Sam, maybe a couple of bikers perched at the bar with their backs to him. Empty stools and sticky tables. A weak applause.

Eddie stepped back from the record bin with a heavy sigh and glanced at his watch. He’d killed about thirty minutes in this store, which meant he had at least twenty more before he could return home without triggering Wayne’s suspicious questions. The walls were starting to close in around him — posters like windows into a world far out of reach. Every million dollar strum reverberating through the speakers like a mocking reminder. With a half-hearted wave to Jerry stocking shelves, he left the store. Empty handed. 

The drive down Randolph was always dismal, especially in the bleak winter light. Storefronts with yellowing signs that hadn’t changed in twenty years selling mattresses and televisions. A gas station with a rusted awning, dusted with snow. Architecturally speaking, the church was about the most interesting building, but only because it was brick and made up of more than just four flimsy walls. Even that was being generous though. The most exciting thing to happen to Hawkins since the housing development over by Factory Lane thirty years ago was the shopping mall that opened this past summer. Thrilling. 

No matter where he drove within a fifty mile radius, it was all the same — a tomb where dreams went to die. 

Gripping the steering wheel, he watched the car in front of him make grooves in the dirty slush, hypnotized by the spray off the sides of the tires. It wasn’t until he saw the high school approaching in his peripherals that he even looked up. It always felt good to be on the other side, especially when he wasn’t supposed to be. He could almost see you in there; brushing the chalk off your hands, shifting between your tired feet as you glanced at the clock, gazing out the window with a longing he’d seen in his own reflection — caught sometimes at night in his drivers seat window as he cruised the highway, dreaming of where it could take him. 

As the squat fortress faded in his rearview mirror, he pictured you five years from now. Ten. Twenty. Wasting away in front of that chalkboard. Rattling on about stories written by dead people while your own collected dust inside a closet. While your talent withered like the dead, crumpled leaves under the snow; buried and forgotten. 

With a hard right onto Prospect, he set out on the final stretch towards home. Sometimes he liked to imagine what might happen if he just kept going, just drove into the sunset and only stopped for gas. He had a vague idea from the movies and the maps that swayed in the wake of Ms. O’Donnell’s lumbering footsteps. Sometimes in the height of his boredom he would lose himself in them, imagine he was at a diner in the desert on his way to a gig with an actual sound system. Because somewhere out there—beyond the flat horizon—there were mountains, and canyons, and cities where names couldn’t follow. 

______

“How does it end?” Eddie asked you on Friday between the fourth and fifth period bells. You glanced up from the stack of papers on your desk, cocking your head with narrowing eyes. “Your story,” he clarified.

“Oh.” Blinking, you sat back to ponder. “You know, I don’t think I ever fully decided. Cybelle is in a difficult position. The whole reason she set out on this adventure was to save her brother. I imagine she would want to fulfill her quest, but if she returned to Myrne, it may be difficult to leave again. Plus, she may receive some sort of punishment for leaving in the first place. I had written the laws to be quite strict, if I recall. And then if she chose not to return, her mother would lose two children. No matter what, she loses.” 

Eddie furrowed his brow, shifting between his boots with a pained sigh. “I would hardly call a life with Lazarus losing. She seems happy with him.”

“Right, well, of course that would be ideal, but…” you tsked, “it’s complicated, and honestly that’s partially why I abandoned it. I really wrote myself into a corner. Well, that and student teaching started to eat up my time. Then it was finals, and moving, and then after that I met…” you trailed off with a bitter shake of your head. “Anyway, I guess life got in the way. It has a way of doing that, I’ve noticed.” 

Eddie looked at you, really looked. You, in your cable knit sweater with pen on your hand and sandbags under your eyes, casting them down over your work with the same amount of hope he’d seen from players rolling threes with even fewer hit points to spare. He racked his brain for something he could offer—a dramatic death speech or a new character sheet—but you weren’t playing and he wasn’t prepared. Any words of comfort forming on the tip of his tongue were swallowed by the ringing bell, and he exited your classroom feeling the same as when he entered; unsatisfied. 

______

It was starting to close in around you — the colored lights and ornaments, the mall Santas and fake green swags draping from shop windows. It was the first Christmas you’d truly spent in Hawkins since you graduated college, outside of day trips for visits. Surprisingly little had changed, the main thing being the fact that there even was a mall for Santa to post up in. Duplication must have been one of his many powers because he was still at Sears too, at least he was on Saturday when you dragged yourself out of the oppressive quiet of your apartment and into the bustling chaos. 

You had no idea what to get your relatives for Christmas. You never really did, but this year it seemed insurmountable. This year you had no one to bounce ideas off of, and the constant mental chatter left little to no room for inspiration. As you scanned the shelves of cookware and appliquéd dish towels with snow men and reindeers, nothing really seemed to jump out at you.

What did jump out at you—or rather, jumped out at his sister—was a little boy across the aisle hiding in a circular rack of women’s bath robes. Pressing apart the terrycloth like curtains, he would retreat into his makeshift cave to the complete oblivion of his mother, who seemed more preoccupied with the price tags on a set of lingerie than with the whereabouts of her children.

A fantasy tugged at the corners of your mind, more sinfully indulgent than the one you had in class last week involving your desk and Eddie’s tongue. This time the set was the same as the scene before you, only the little boy had a mess of dark curls and Eddie was diving in after him. Not to scold him, but to play. You could almost see those fraying knee holes widening from contact with the carpet. Almost hear the giggles and the shushes and the click of his rings against the metal pole in the center of the rack for balance. You could almost turn around and see them popping out at you, feel the laughter ripple up through your very full belly and into the corners of your eyes as you feigned surprise to both of their delight. You could almost feel the glares from the other shoppers, the regular people eager to get on with their Saturday in peace, same as any other. It wouldn’t matter though, not in your little world.

The real mother in the real world did eventually turn around, grabbing the boy by the wrist and demanding he stay by the cart. Turning a dish towel over in your palms, you lowered your eyes to the machine-embroidered stitching of a corn cob pipe and a button nose as the fantasy disintegrated. You left the store shortly after, your cart just as empty as when you’d arrived. 

On Monday it was hard to look him in the eyes. It was easier to meet Diane’s. At least this week you could hold a conversation without crumbling like Ms. Click’s half-eaten fruitcake up for grabs in the teachers lounge. But the coffee was bitter on your tongue, like a lie you were telling yourself. 

In accordance with your wishes, there had been no rap of knuckles on your door frame after school, no screeching of chair legs dragged across the tile, only the dull thud of folders sliding into your bag, the surprising click of a magnet under the flap. 

On Wednesday you left behind footprints in the parking lot before it had even half cleared, only to be swallowed by the emptiness of your apartment. You filled the space with what you could manage — an early dinner, and an early bedtime. Sleep seemed to be the only thing that quelled the battering ram thoughts, the scales tipping back and forth so much it made you queasy. You would lie there and dream of swirling smoke and plush lips, of arthritic fingers punching numbers on an office phone as you sat and accepted your fate. You would toss and turn, back and forth until your sheets became a tangle, and when you faced the mirror Thursday morning you barely recognized the person staring back. 

When the final bell rang on Friday, the hallways cleared out like someone had yelled fire. A mass exodus of students and staff, flowing into the parking lot like a tidal wave outside your classroom window. You watched them as snow fell in clumps, as bright colored backpacks disappeared into the back of sedans, as cars peeled out like a parade into the street. 

Assessing the paper mountain range framing your desk, you made an educated guess at how you would be spending your two week break. In hindsight, it might have helped to make the due date for the senior creative writing project last Friday instead, but deep down you knew you would have hardly made a dent by now. 

When Ms. Click popped her head in to wish you a merry Christmas on her way down the hall, she seemed surprised to find your hand still moving across paper, not swaddled in mittens like hers. You brushed it off with something casual, the type of thing any regular person would say before the holidays. That it was too much to take home. That getting work finished now would leave more time with your family. You omitted the more personal details like how empty your apartment felt and the small, naked tree your mother brought over last weekend. This seemed to placate her, and with a cheery wave she left you in the silence of your classroom with only the ruffling of paper for company.

It was eery how quiet it was, but it afforded you a small hill of graded papers in the last hour, double what you would typically accomplish in front of the television. Thumbing through what remained of that stack, you counted each staple. Five, six, seven… you stopped when a certain name jumped out in MLA format. 

Eddie Munson American Literature — 4th Period 20 December 1985

No title. 

Papers fluttered to the desk as they fell from your hands, leaving only his. You held it gingerly between your fingers, as if it was alive. As if it could feel you, or rather, you could feel him through every type-written letter, through the thumb-sized grease stain in the top righthand corner. You could almost hear him too, shifting into a deep, dramatic narration.

Mount Myrne loomed on the horizon like a dark omen. Towering over the bustling docks of Torgaard, it disappeared beneath the ominous clouds with a formidable presence. Merchants scattered about, hauling their wares in heavy crates and barrels onto the many zeppelins. 

This was where Lazarus first met Cybelle. In his mind’s eye he could almost see her stumbling about in her clean silk boots and glimmering gold coat. But her appearance today told a different tale. Her boots were caked with mud, her coat was splattered with muck and tattered by claws, her mask hung crooked on her face. Those large eyes that once glimmered with hope and wonder now stared off into the distance with oppressive sadness at the looming mountain. 

This was where he was supposed to leave her. This was what they had agreed upon many moons ago. Cybelle just stood there, shifting back and forth between her tired feet as she dug her thumbs under the straps of her heavy knapsack that now held the rare and precious ghostfern. She finally had what she came for. Any moment now she would be moving those muddy boots toward the docks and use what little coin she had to barter a one-way trip back home.

That was the plan anyway..

Cybelle was frozen though. Fearfully, woefully, bitterly, she gazed upon her gold gleaming home in the sky with a sadness that was only dwarfed by Lazarus looking down at her. He looked at her beautiful face like it was the last time he was ever going to get the chance to. He memorized it in his mind as he shuffled his own dirty boots against the cobblestone. He didn’t have eyes for anything else. Not the zeppelins, nor the merchants, nor the mountain. Only her. After a moment that felt like an eon, Cybelle took a step forward.

“Wait.” said Lazarus. Cybelle turned around with surprise but also a hint of relief. “You don’t have to do this.”

Cybelle looked up at him with a mournful frown. “Of course I do, my brother will die if I stay here.”

Lazarus shook his head bitterly. “No, he will die if the ghostfern stays here.” he said.

Cybelle sighed as she looked out across the docks, “But how is it going to get there if I do not deliver it? No one is allowed within the city walls if they are not from Myrne.”

Lazarus furrowed his brow as he watched the merchants at work, hauling their wares aboard the large, formidable aircrafts. Suddenly he had an idea. “There are docks in Myrne, correct? And Myrnish merchants who take goods into the city?”

The gears were starting to turn in Cybelle’s head. “Yes, there are.”

“Well then, can we send the plant with like, a note or something? Some instructions and directions for the merchant to take where it needs to go?”

Cybelle thought for a moment. “I do know a few of the merchants by name. Arturo and I grew up together. He was my neighbor for a long time. He would know where it needs to go, and my mother would know what to do with it.” The brightness in Cybelle’s eyes dimmed suddenly as she had another thought. “But… I would never seen them again. My family.”

“Never say never, Cybelle.” Lazarus said. “Do you know that for a fact?”

Cybelle frowned heavily, “The laws in Myrne are very strict.”

“What if in the letter you told your family to meet you on the docks some other time? Perhaps in another moon or two once your brother has recovered?” Lazarus offered.

Cybelle sighed bitterly, “Only merchants are allowed on the docks. It is strictly prohibited. I was only able to come here because I snuck inside a crate. It was a miracle that they didn’t notice me.”

Lazarus kicked a stray pebble and huffed. There was a long pause before he spoke again. “I cannot tell you what to do, Cybelle. Only you can make that choice. But what I can do, really the only thing I can do, is tell you how I feel.” 

All of a sudden there was a knot in his stomach. Because if he was going to say anything he knew that this would be his last chance.. 

“All my life I’ve dreamed about that cottage by the sea with the garden, and the bed, and the omlet. When I saw that pendant you were wearing I knew that it would be my only shot at ever getting what I wanted. Magic tricks are….. not exactly lucrative. And actually, if I’m going to be totally honest here, I figure you should know the truth about me. The whole truth.” Lazarus sighed, swallowing the bile creeping up his throat at the mention of the truth. He was going to be honest though. Maybe for once in his whole life. “This is difficult for me to say, but I owe it to you if nothing else. I’m a thief, Cybelle.” 

Lazarus winced at his own words and Cybelle’s fallen expression, but he bravely continued..

“I confess that for a moment when I first saw you I thought about stealing that pendant, but once I heard your story and saw so much of my own I simply couldn’t. There is a goodness in you that I admire, how selfless and pure your cause is. Over the course of the last few moons I have had the privilege of spending with you, I have come to discover how beautiful the woman beneath the mask truly is. How kind, and curious, and patient you are. I have been all over this land. Traveled far and wide, through forests and over mountains. I have swam in lakes and oceans and gazed out over countless valleys. But never has the world looked quite so hopeful than when I saw it through your eyes. It made me believe that if you could see the beauty there, if you could see the goodness in me, then perhaps I can as well.”

It was startling — the tear that leapt over your lash line. Violently enough to hit the page, to blur the Os in goodness. 

“If you choose to stay I promise you that I will never steal another coin or pocket watch. It may leave me poor for the rest of my days but if they’re spent with you, then I would be the richest man of all. It is all that I can offer you. My honesty, and a promise that I will show you more beaches, more mountains, more of the world than you could ever imagine. And since I intend to keep my promise, here is my honesty: I love you. Regardless of what you decide.” 

With a trembling hand, you turned the page only to discover there was nothing on the back. Sitting back in your seat with a ragged sigh, you stared out into your empty classroom. Your nose stung, fluorescents flaring in your tear-blurred vision. Separating the pages with your thumb, you flipped back and read it again. The last paragraph. The last two sentences. Those three type-written words. Over and over, wedging in the cracks of your armor as your sniffles echoed off the tile. 

The sun was dipping below the treeline, flooding the near-empty parking lot with a wash of somber pink. The snowfall had ceased, settled into the footprints and tire tracks. Glancing up at the clock and back down at the papers, you tried to imagine lifting another, scanning over sentences and writing in the margins like you hadn’t been completely upended by the one that trembled in your grasp. You couldn’t. 

Tears dripped down your cheeks as you donned your coat, as you shuffled overstuffed folders into your satchel and slung its weight over your shoulder. You swiped at them with your scratchy wool sleeve, flicking off the lights and shutting the door.

The soft pink had cooled to twilight blue when your boots met the blanket of snow, leaving tracks in the clean, fresh powder. Your breath trailed behind you in heavy clouds. It was quiet here too, barely a scattering of cars in the parking lot. Not even the wind disturbed the limbs of the orderly saplings between the curb and sidewalk, dusted with a glittering powder. 

Your hands found your keys, and the key found the hole, and soon you were sliding into your frigid leather seat, tossing the weight of your satchel on the passenger’s side with a dejected thump. You sat there a moment with only your breath for company before flicking your wrist at the ignition. 

Nothing.

Stomping on the break, you lurched forward with conviction this time, as if you could convince it you were serious. All it awarded you was a weak, persistent click. It’s fine, you told yourself through gritted teeth as you lunged again, snapping your wrist with a startling anger, like the seal had been cracked on a two liter pop bottle that had rolled around in the trunk for a week and a half. Still, nothing but a pathetic click. A split second thought crossed your mind—that the ferocity of your stomp might actually damage the car—but the logic was quickly snuffed out by your rage. The hard plastic key bit into your numb fingers. Over and over — stomping, twisting, cursing. Cursing yourself most of all for being stupid enough to let this continue for months. You were paying for it now. 

The tears were already waiting, primed behind your eyeballs, hardly dried on your cheeks when you left out the back door. They spilled over again, cooling as they dripped past your lashes, down the slope of your nose. One more time, you begged. Just one more time and I’ll be good, I swear. But the white Chevy Nova sat unmoved, offering only a vacant whine where there should have been a roar. You tossed back in your seat and huffed, chest heaving, filling the cramped space with the furious steam of your breath. 

Snowflakes glittered in the floodlights, shining like flares through the blur of your tears. It might have been beautiful on any other evening — one where the engine was warm, and your mind was clear, and your heart didn’t sink like a pit in your chest. It was hard to notice anything outside your bitter sobs, most especially the shadow that appeared in the window beside you. The rap of rings on the glass had you jumping, whipping your head to face the set of eyes you’d been avoiding most of all. 

“Need some help?” Eddie offered, bracing his knees in a crouch, eyes brimming with concern. 

Your stomach twisted with relief, then embarrassment, then a million other things rolled into one, sick knot. Wiping the evidence from your cheeks with a futile swipe of your sleeve, you cranked down the window with your left hand. You must have looked like an absolute basket case, jerking your arm in tight circles as the barrier lowered with the urgency of a tortoise. When where was enough space for him, Eddie braced against the top of your door and ducked his head inside. 

“Hey.” The warm sigh of his greeting kissed your cheek, thawing the sting of the cold. 

“Hey,” you mimicked, sounding just about as stable as you felt when it came out. “W-what are you doing here so late?” 

“Hellfire,” he stated simply. “You know, I could ask you the same question.”

Despite how true it was, it still felt pathetic when the answer left your lips. “Just… trying not to take so much work home with me.” You said it as casually as you could muster, but your voice betrayed you. Your cheeks were still cooling from the remnants of your tears, framing the heat from your dripping nose. 

Eddie suddenly looked very serious, splintering your armor with his softness. “You ok?” 

You gestured dejectedly at nothing, offering a hollow laugh. “No.”

Eddie filled the cabin with his sigh, eyes narrowing like he wanted to lunge through the window. Instead he just thumbed at the rubber and tipped his head closer, creaking your chest plate with the weight of his gaze. “You know, I could hear you clear across the parking lot,” he joked softly. “The car—I mean. Mostly. You leave your lights on or something?”

You shook your head. “It’s been doing this for months, ever since it started getting cold. I should have taken it to get checked out, but it usually starts after a couple tries.” 

“Sounds like it might be the battery, or maybe the starter. I won’t know unless I try and jump it. I’ll swing around—if—if that’s ok.” 

The wind ushered a curl toward his lips, and you clenched your hand to subdue it. “Yeah, it’s ok,” you sighed. “Thank you.”

With a nod, Eddie ducked out of the window and pivoted swiftly on his heels. From your side view mirror, you watched him make tracks in the blue snow with his heavy boots, hands shoved in his pockets as he glanced left and right, the ghost of his breath trailing closely behind. The seat creaked as you sat back and blinked like the cursor on a computer monitor; processing. One glance in your rearview mirror told you how disheveled you looked. Even in the twilight there was no masking the puffiness around your eyes, the mascara bleeding toward your cheeks. You swiped at them again, this time with a napkin from your glove box.

With a yank of the frigid handle, Eddie slid across the plaid and pleather padding into the drivers seat of his van. He froze for a second, glancing in his rearview mirror toward your small white sedan. Butterflies tore through his stomach, churning like a tornado as he flicked the ignition. Out of all his ridiculous fantasies, he hadn’t entertained this one. Not exactly anyway. One where you were the damsel in distress. One where he got to be the hero. 

The parking lot was vacant enough to drive across the lines. Ploughing through the naked patches where cars had spent the afternoon, he rumbled up beside you. Your stomach did a summersault when he stepped out, plodding around to the front of your car with jumper cables slung under his arm. 

“Can you pop the hood for me?” he asked.

The summersault rippled south through your abdomen. Reaching down under the console, your fingers found the leaver and obeyed. You felt kind of useless, just sitting there while he propped the hood onto the stand, shielding him from vision. Before you could form another thought, your hand was moving on its own, finding the plastic leaver of your door and opening it to the cold evening air. 

Eddie gave a shy look from behind his curtain of curls before stepping back with a nod. “Well, good news, there’s no monsters,” he joked. 

A smile cracked across your face, so genuine it almost felt foreign. You tucked your hands into your pockets, stepping closer to assess the engine like you knew what you were looking at. Your aura prickled with proximity, like his heat could thaw you even from where you stood. Eddie’s glance was soft and quick before procuring a small flashlight from his inner coat pocket. He held it in his teeth, flipping up the red and black plastic covers on the battery terminals. 

“I have hands too, you know,” you said with a smirk.

With a playful side-eye, he clamped the appropriate cables onto the terminals. Removing the silver torch from his mouth, he made room for his retort. “Mmhm, best keep ‘em warm. It’s uh, kinda chilly out.”

You shook your head as a laugh escaped your nostrils in a plume. Sauntering over to his van like a dark knight, Eddie leaned in the door to pop his own hood. Your boots made tentative tracks in the snow, drawn like a magnet as he hoisted the metal. From the light pinched in his teeth you could see the expanse of the massive engine, the shadow of his furrowed brow as he unscrewed plastic knobs. What you saw more than anything though—like a filter laid over the scene—were three type-written letters. The hands that typed them fumbled with the cables, squeezed around the thick, jaw-like clamps. When they bit right where he wanted, they released; tendons flexing, knuckles pinking from the freezing air. Reflexively, he wiped them on the chest of his black hoodie peeking out from his open coat. 

It might have just been the cold, but even in the twilight—in the absence of the flashlight he was tucking into his pocket—you could have sworn his cheeks flushed when he caught you staring. “Alright, um, go ahead and start your car. I’ll do the same.”

Following the tether that joined the two vehicles, you did as he told you. Nothing came of it though, just more incessant clicking. Exasperated, you tossed back in your seat before slumping out of the car once more. 

“Shit, it must be the starter. Probably cracked, that’s my guess anyway by the sound of it,” Eddie explained as he stepped around to face your engine again. Clicking his flashlight, he peered into the compartment. “See, if you follow the positive terminal line all the way down, that’s where the starter will be. Only problem is it’s tricky to get to without a lift.” 

You followed his grease-stained finger down the dirt-dusted tangle of tubes, drawing nearer under the subtle guise of interest in your engine. You stopped just inches from his solid leather frame, close enough to brush him with your elbow. “You seem to know your way around a car.”

He huffed, shaking his head as he muttered. “Wish I didn’t.” But before you could comment, he was shutting the hood. “I’m sorry, but I think we’re gonna have to call a tow truck.” 

Your defeated sigh rose toward the clouds as you glanced at the squat school building. The lights were off. Judy’s car was absent from the lot, as were all but a handful, including the two of yours. Glancing at your watch under the floodlights, the big hand tipped past the golden dot where a five should be.

Eddie stepped closer, filling the gap with a heavy exhale before meeting your eyes. “You know I could, um—” he scratched the back of his neck, words evaporating quicker than his breath. What could he do? What could he really do about any of this? For most of his life he’d been a leaf on the wind, scuttling across the pavement toward the gutter, struggling to steer himself away. But you were stranded, and if there was anything he was good for, it was a ride. “I could—I could take you back to your place. If you’re ok with that, I mean. We could—fuck—I mean you could call from there a-and I could—”

There were chinks in your armor, cracking with each bumbling word. You looked at him, really looked. Eddie Munson, with grease-stained hands and eyes that pierced like arrows in their pleading. Straight through to the softest part of you, the place between your ribs that cries I want. And oh, how desperately you wanted. Wanted to soothe his worried lips in yours again, to feel his pounding chest again, to be thawed by his heat again. But you just stood there, frozen.

Shoving his hands into the pockets of his open coat, he shifted on the balls of his feet as he searched for more words in the snow. “Look, I know you said you wanted space, a-and it probably seems like—shit.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, releasing with a sharp sigh. “I just want to help you. Will you just let me help you? Please?”

Your chest plate clattered to the concrete, gauntlets falling in a heap beside your greaves. There was no white flag to wave. No sword to relinquish, or shield to discard. Your surrender was nothing but a soft “okay,” barely heard above the howling wind. 

______

A/N: After over a year and 100k words, the smut chapter is finally upon us! Thank you for coming with me on this very long journey and sticking it out. I have no idea how long this next one is going to take me to write, but I can promise you that when it’s finished you will experience every moment in exquisite, delicious, poetic detail. 

You might have noticed that I’ve pulled a few small details like character names and places from Flight of Icarus, but I will not be retconning any of Eddie’s backstory. 

Also random, tumblr decided to make that one paragraph bold once I changed it to chat font with no ability to unbold it, but that wasn't intended. It kind of worked though so I'm not mad.

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