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#fe3h sylvain x reader
randoimago · 4 days
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Hiiii!! Could I request Yuri, Claude, Sylvain, and Dimitri with a reader who is surprisingly knowledgeable about a lot of things? The reason it's surprising? Reader hates anything school related like studying and is a big ol' goof.
Fandom: Fire Emblem Three Houses
Character(s): Yuri, Claude, Sylvain, and Dimitri
Note(s): I feel this so much. Hated studying in school, but I loved learning random facts
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Claude
Not too surprising to Claude. Studying is boring, heck school is boring. He doesn't blame you if you fall asleep in class or don't turn in homework or anything.
Instead, he'll try to find ways to make it more fun for you. You're already pretty knowledgeable so it shouldn't be too hard to find ways to get you more into it.
It does amuse him to see some teacher or professor call on you during class because they think you're dozing off or not paying attention, but you easily answer the question.
Dimitri
He's the one that will give some light scolding if you sleep in class or try to skip classes because it's boring or something.
Dimitri knows you're smart and don't need all the lessons, but he still thinks it's good to contribute to the class. Even if it doesn't benefit you, it could help your other classmates learn some new things. Or maybe you have advice that they didn't even consider for learning.
He tries to be a good mediator to get you to try even a little for studying or classes, but he will just throw you over his shoulder if you insist on being stubborn.
Sylvain
He's the same way. He much prefers goofing off and flirting with you instead of studying. As long as you both can still pass exams then he doesn't stress too much about the studying aspect.
Really does prefer lounging with you and talking philosophy. It makes everyone do double takes when hearing you both sounding so smart considering you don't do anything in class. He finds that amusing.
Of course, there are moments when Ingrid threatens him to actually study and then he'll drag you with him to keep him company. It's fun to just talk to you about inaccuracies in the textbooks as opposed to doing actual studying.
Yuri
Yuri finds it amusing just because he hasn't been afforded the luxury of schooling and here you are at a good academy and not even trying.
Sure, there might be a touch of bitterness in his tone, but he hides it cause that's just life. No point in being angry because you got the better hand.
He'd make a comment about "Since you have better things to do and already know what you're doing, you might as well drop out." Mostly as a joke but there is a glint in his eyes as if he's challenging you to see if you'd actually do it. Acts smug when you still waste your time going to classes.
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Taglist: @unhelpfulnpc
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aces-sweetheart · 1 year
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How about some headcanons where Sylvain Felix and Dimitri are feeling shy around a female reader?
aaaaa three of my fav boys💖 the hcs are a bit short so i did some drabbles with them. thank you for your patience, i hope you like them! i did a gn!reader since there was nothing in the scenarios that would specify them as a fem!reader.
cw: gn!reader, sfw
sylvain
i can't really imagine sylvain getting shy around anyone lol
but he will get flustered around you if he truly likes you (and isn’t just physically attracted to you)
if you compliment him he'll be a bit thrown off but will quickly recover and compliment you back/flirt back with you
rather than getting shy, he gets nervous and tries to hide it shows this by being overly enthusiastic 
((think his s-support scene with byleth where he says he’ll go blind if he doesn’t want him to look at other girls))
sometimes it can be too much but you know he means well
“I love your hair.” Sylvain paused at your words, leaving you to walk forward without him. You turned around in confusion to see him standing still for a moment before catching up with you. He tried to play off his reaction but you could tell he was flustered. 
“I love your hair and your eyes and your outfit and your-��� You cut him off with a laugh that caused him to smile sheepishly. 
“Ok I get it!”
felix
it’s hard to tell when he’s shy around you since he can be very stand offish to begin with
he won’t make an effort to speak to you if he can avoid it
if he sees you, he may go as far as to turn the other way or hide at the training grounds or in his room
he’ll ignore you but you catch him very obviously staring at you a lot before he “casually” turns around like nothing happened
For once, Felix wasn’t focusing on his training. He should have been practicing the new move he learned from Byleth before the next battle but how could he when you were mere feet from him, practicing magic? Despite the fact that you two had only had a handful of conversations, he was smitten and seeing your body move and your eyes narrow in concentration as you cast spells certainly didn’t help. His brown eyes burned holes into your back. Knowing he was watching you so intensely made you so nervous your spell completely missed the target. You instinctively turned around to see if he saw the embarrassing moment but as soon as your eyes met his, he was suddenly very interested in his sword.
dimitri
dima is painfully shy around you
he really can’t hide it if he wanted too lmao
he'll be a bit awkward around you but it’s endearing 
as much as he wants to talk to you and get to know you, he becomes too timid to try
so he ends up talking about mundane topics like the weather
save yourself the pain and lead the conversation/take charge please
Dimitri silently pleaded with the rest of the war council to stay in the room so he wouldn’t have to be alone with you. It wasn’t that he didn’t like you; it was actually the complete opposite. He liked you so much that he seemed to forget how to act and every potentially interesting conversation topic exited his mind until he was only left with subjects like the weather or what the dining hall was serving. Sylvain was the last to leave the room, throwing the blonde a wink and knowing smile over his shoulder as he walked out.  Finally it was just the two of you alone in the meeting room. You shot him a grin and he returned it with a strained tight lipped smile. 
“I hear they’re serving onion gratin soup today.” He fought the urge to cringe at his own awkwardness. It was an extremely lame attempt at small talk but judging your interested expression, you didn’t mind. You answered him by lacing your fingers with his and you leading him out the door. Pink dusted his cheeks and his eyes were wide at the sudden contact and forwardness, especially when you finally spoke.
“Why don’t we go eat together?”
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sothisblessmysoul · 11 months
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Can I ask for a bouquet of flowers for the blue lions? That sounds so adorable. 🥰
(I never knew if you wanted all of them or selected few so I did all of them)
༓ʚ A Flower's Meaning ɞ༓
Summary: The Blue Lions react to you catching a bouquet at a friend’s wedding
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༓Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd He watched you catch it without blinking or flinching, mainly just confused as the realization slowly took over your face as you finally met Dimitri’s gaze. There was something about how the flowers looked in your hands and the look that you gave him that made Dimitri feel so flustered. So pretty, is his single thought as Dimitri’s made his way to you, feet on autopilot.
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༓Dedue Molinaro Dedue’s eyes were completely on you, holding the colorful flowers that all mean a term of love in language as everyone else is looking between you and him. He doesn’t flare up in a blush or appear startled but you can see Dedue is feeling embarrassedly flustered by the awkward stiffness of his movement as the tall man makes his way to you.
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༓Felix Hugo Fraldarius Felix does not want to be here with unimportant people, if anything he wants to be comfortably at home with you. But he will admit that the other wedding is pretty. Felix wonders if you’ve ever thought about marriage, but any further thought of the subject changes when you catch the flowers that nearly smacked you in the face. The image of what you would look like holding yours flashed quickly in his thoughts as for once Felix quietly watched you.
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༓Ashe Ubert A blush marked his freckled face with a happy smile but a shy expression at the teasing that Ashe knows his friends and siblings will give him as you walked over to him. Subconsciously Ashe reached out his hand for you to take, gently pulling you closer to his side as Ashe studied the flowers. The bouquet was pretty but it wasn’t your favorite, he thought to himself. The following thought is how beautiful you would look, holding your favorite flowers while neither Ashe nor you let go of each other’s hands because it felt like two missing puzzle pieces found a place to fit perfectly together.
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༓Sylvain Jose Gautier Immediately starts to sweat nervously as the flowers are perfectly in your hand while his hand subconsciously touches his pocket where the ring is that he’s planning to ask your hand for later. He had been carrying it, not having a day or place in mind until right now. This is a sign, he thinks as you lock eyes with him and smile which he returns.
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༓Mercedes von Martritz She was standing right beside you when you had caught the flowers, she leaned over to sniffle the flowers with a smile growing on her face as she looked up at you, pulling away from you but not before kissing your cheek. She giggled quietly at your reaction to the flowers and the kisses. She is going to tease you but this will bring up the thought of marriage and the future with her.
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༓Annette Fantine Dominic Instantly a crimson blush blooms on her face as endless giggles of excited bundles of nerves, reaching how to touch one of the flowers’ petals. Annette went quiet, wondering what flowers she would pick for her wedding, she subconsciously looked at you. She isn’t going to say anything immediately today or tomorrow but there will be hints of marriage, hoping that you’ll catch on and talk about it with her.
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༓Ingrid Brandl Galatea She never really thought deeply about marriage, it was just something that her father wanted for her. But when Ingrid saw your reaction to catching the bouquet to look for her and finally smiling when you found Ingrid, she wondered for a fleeting thought if you would smile like that at the altar. She can’t explain why it made her face blush although Ingrid didn’t hate that idea at all because without question she knows that Ingrid would say yes if you asked her.
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yanderehsr · 6 months
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Assalaam alaikum (its a traditional greeting from where I’m currently staying) This is my angsty request:
Can I request yandere ex-fiance sylvain x betrothed reader. For context, Sylvain and reader were betrothed at a young age by their families to conjoin the families. We all know how sylvain hated being his family and seen as crest stud so he will hate reader too who bears a crest and is part of the reason why he is being force to marry early. Reader on the other hand is dutifully fulfilling their role as sylvain’s fiancé as they don’t want any of their siblings to suffer in their place. Reader cooks sylvain’s favorite food, invites him for teas and all kinds of couple activities. Sylvain being himself decides to flirt with other girls despite having a fiancé already and is skirt chaser with new girls every week just to spite reader and his father. Seeing how their fiancé doesn’t even respect them as a person and is often caught in indecent scandals, reader is hurt as they’re the only ones trying to make something good in the unfortunate situation but is hated by sylvain. One day reader after being stood up by sylvain once again is comforted by one of the kinder students (ashe, dedue or ignatz even) and they fell genuinely in love with the student. How does sylvain feel that reader is no longer trying to make the relationship work and is now interested in other men and frankly speaking replace him in their heart? How would he get the reader back?
-Thank you for reading my request (I’m so excited that you’re doing three houses, do you still remember the anon that sent the jing yuan x neglected wife reader request, that was me. It was such a long time ago, and your blog has grown since then. This request has similar vibes but I see Sylvain to be the kind of yandere that needs a wake up call to snap into yandere mode)
*Gasp*, so it's you who requested that, nice knowing that you still read from me, Sylvain is actually one of my favorite fe3h characters, 4th place in fact😆
Hope you'll enjoy😄
Trigger Warning: Yandere, Obsessive behaviour, Possessive behaviour
The arrengement happened before either of you were born, that didn't mean that Sylvain didn't hate this situation, he hated it more than anything else, and the only thing he could take his anger out on was you, it was stupid and even he knew that, but he was a child and that was all he could do.
Sylvain ignored you, he hated you, sure it was the situation he really hated but it was you it effected, the two of you should be a couple but this whole situation had made you feel lonlier than ever before. You had to go through with his angry looks and indifferent responses for so so long.
"Just go away, I don't have time for you today"
But that didn't mean that you didn't try, you tried so damn hard to make this not only easier for Sylvain but for you as well, if this was going to happen then why not make it a happy relationship at the very least, so you cooked for him, you stood up for him and what did you get in return, he ignored you, flirted with others and left you alone, over and over again, it was tiring but you held out, or you thought you could at least.
"I-I just don't understand what he has against me"
"There there, I am here to listen to each and every word, so vent all you want"
You had met Ignatz at yet another ball Sylvain had left you at, yet another party where everyone would laugh at you as soon as he left and you were all alone, that's when you met Ignatz who allowed you to rant about it, get everything you had been holding in for the last 10 years off your chest.
*THUMP* *THUMP*
A new spark had been ignited that day, not for Sylvain but for the kind boy who listened to you and comforted you when you needed it, he treated you with respect and kindness, much different to your fiance.
Someone who did take notice of this was Sylvain, you who were such a constant in his life was suddenly spending less and less time with him, you smiled at him less and less, and one day it had all dissapeared... he would admit, he missed it, missed you.
But Sylvain saw you with Ignatz, saw your smile not be directed at him your fiance, but at Ignatz, His heart clenched tightly, a painful feeling in his chest as he saw this, for some reason he felt like ripping the boy from the golden deer apart and get you back, he felt jealous.
Sylvain through jealousy realises what he had, and what he is losing right now, someone to love, someone that treated him with kindness, he feels saddened that he has pushed you away, why did he do that. Maybe it was too late now... you were leaving him...
... Wait you were still his fiance, you were still his, this arrangement was made by not one but two nobles, you couldn't break this off that easely, he will be better for you, he promises, Sylvain cleans up his act, stops flirting with others, now he just needs you to stop cheating on him and he will finally have happiness, with you tied to his side through marriage.
"You need to remember I am you fiance, our love was destined since birth, nothing will sepperate us, I will admit that I have acted stupid so far, but just because I have acted stupid doesn't mean you can cheat on me"
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agent-cupcake · 1 year
Text
cry foul
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I said I needed a new mouse and @dogveins came through, thank you! They had a very fun prompt and it got away from me a bit.
Pairing: Sylvain Jose Gautier x f!Reader
Synopsis: Your mother recently married Margrave Gautier, dragging you to Gautier territory to live with your new family. Sylvain is much happier about the arrangement than you.
Warnings: explicit smut, noncon, scumbag Sylvain, mind games, nonconsensual sibling pseudo incest
Tags: shy/inexperienced reader, teasing, first time
Word Count: 20.9k
Notes: I would like to credit a local genius who fed me the line, "The way I see it, our parents had a marriage of convenience, so our being siblings is also a matter of convenience." Although I couldn't find a way to use it, it still should be known.
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i.
there’s a bad moon rising
Lurking deep within your brain, there existed a memory-mangled quote—something about how bust measurements and makeup did not a woman make, it was the acceptance of harsh realities and knowledge of the rules that governed the adult world which aged a girl out of her childish naivety. The words, found in some etiquette guidebook you read years ago, resurfaced from the depths after your mother sat you down to tell you of her plans.
Harsh reality, put into purely practical, factual terms, was that your mother’s second wedding amounted to little more than a legal document. Its lack of sentimentality and pomp was due in no small part to the lingering scandal that enshrouded the whole ordeal, but also because the widows had no need for any flashy celebration of their loveless union. It was, as your mother explained with cutting efficiency in the same practical, factual terms, a business deal. Her inheritance and trade connections for the safety and prestige of a noble title. Money for power. So, on the seventeenth day of Great Tree Moon, Margrave Matthias Raoul Gautier—twice widowed—married your mother under the watchful eye of the goddess and the binding shackles of law. You wore periwinkle and held very tightly to your bouquet of white lilies, watching a man you had met only a single time before the ceremony become your stepfather. 
Margrave Gautier’s son—the second, the heir, the one who hadn’t been disinherited and cast away as a blight on the family’s name—made no such effort. He didn’t even show up. Nobody mentioned his absence. That was one of the rules that governed the adult world, one of the confusingly paradoxical games of pretend they all participated in. Do not point out unsavory truths, ignore harsh realities and then ignore ignorance itself. 
Before the ink of their signatures could have a chance to dry, preparations were completed to make the trip north. Quickly, as the relatively mild weather could turn at any moment. With all due haste, an antique set of cloth wrapped silver candlesticks, two artisan-carved mahogany side tables, no less than three trunks of fine linens, a collection of leatherbound original books penned by a famed philosopher and scholar you couldn’t name, an ivory keyed piano, and one bleary eyed daughter were all packed up to be transported to Castle Gautier where they would be kept for the foreseeable future. 
“We’ll come back to visit, right?” you asked your mother as the carriage trundled past the border of Rowe territory, having grown bored drawing shapes on the breath-fogged glass window over the wooded scenery. 
“It’s a long journey to make just for a visit,” she said, looking up from the document she was studying intently. 
“But maybe for special occasions?” you asked. “The Goddess’ Ball is coming up.” You didn’t mention that you had promised your friends in advance that you would attend with them, going as a group rather than endure the embarrassment of searching for a gentleman suitor. That was before harsh reality reared its head. 
“I am not entirely sure Count Rowe will host us,” your mother told you bluntly. “He and Matthias aren’t on the best of terms.” 
You slumped down in your seat, sighing. Politics, then. Before the past month, you hadn’t been very aware of Faerghus’s political situation, let alone how fractured it was. The conflict between various lords had something to do with what happened after the Tragedy of Duscur that took the life of King Lambert, although you knew very little beyond that. While your mother’s passion lay firmly in the world of political intrigue, you had very little interest in something so dismal and divisive. 
“You will make new friends,” she told you, a gentle note in her voice. “There will be balls and feasts in the north as well. And you’ll have your stepbrother Sylvain. He’s only a year your senior and Matthias tells me he greatly enjoys art and music. I’m sure you’ll find much to talk about.” 
The mention of your absentee stepbrother who you knew, so far, only through reputation didn’t do much to ease your concerns. There were hundreds of rumors about Sylvain and the way he behaved around women, although you knew better than to bring up unsubstantiated hearsay with your matter-of-fact mother. And maybe it really was just lies, you were well aware that people weren’t above lying. Dishonesty was as much a rule of polite society as proper footwear.
“It will be difficult to adjust, I know,” she said when you didn’t respond, caught up in your own distracted thoughts. “We will be judged harshly, and there will be many people who will reject us for nothing more than from where we came. All we can do is show them that the grace and steadfast dignity of a lady is not a product of lineage. Do you understand?” 
“I do,” you said with another heavy sigh, that half-remembered quote spinning mercilessly in your head. Harsh realities, and the rules of adults. Same games, new rules. 
With the matter settled, your mother returned to her reading and you returned to the window, trying not to think about the new anxieties she had introduced but unable to think of anything else. 
ii.
through thick and thin
Traveling to Gautier territory with a decently sized caravan took nearly an entire fortnight, slowed by a patch of particularly bad roads across the Itha Plains. You got a breath of fear when one of the hulking monsters that prowled the area was spotted, and then a jump of panic when a rippling murmur about bandit activity spread throughout the camp. But nothing came of either, and your journey continued. 
Spring’s slow going snowmelt was nearly as bad as the wintry storms themselves. Ground that had spent the long season frozen began to thaw out into a nasty brownish slush, softening enough for wheels to form dangerous ruts along the road and splattering mud onto your boots. As the new year continued, the days had gotten longer, but with the sun hiding behind the omnipresent angry smear of gray blanketing the skies, it was impossible to enjoy them. People claimed that it was better near the Sreng border because the climate was drier. You doubted it could be too much worse.
Arrival didn’t help, as evidence that you now lived in a fortress surrounded you, completely unlike the city you called home for most of your life. Fortifications surrounded all sides, and military guards were ready for any movement from Sreng forces. Even if it weren’t so cold, the place had a frigid, unapproachable air. The intimidating stonework was very clear in its messaging. You did not belong here.  
From the minute you first arrived in Gautier territory, cold became a permanent fact of life. 
iii.
baa, baa, black sheep
Sleeping here was difficult, howling wind rattled windows and sang frightening songs in the night. Morose, chilled, and tired, you stared with glazed eyes at the unappetizing porridge meant to be your breakfast as it got even colder. The only reason you had yet to get up was a lack of motivation. What else would you be doing? You had asked your mother if she would spend the day with you, but she was busy. Unlike you, she thrived in this environment. While she had always had the inherent power of money and strong mercantile contracts, she had never had the intrinsic political power of a lord. The graceful response would be to feel content to see her taking to the new situation, glad that it gave her a platform to get along with her new husband in an otherwise loveless marriage. 
Mostly you just felt the tragic pulse of self pity. And cold.
“Do my eyes deceive me, or has the goddess finally answered my prayers?” someone asked, surprising you. Looking up, you locked eyes with a man you didn’t recognize. He stood in the doorway with an attractive smile, his red hair a mess and cheeks and nose blushed pink from being outside in the cold, slightly clouded with the steam rising from the bowl he held. “If I had known I had an angel here to greet me, I wouldn’t have kept you waiting so long.”   
The line, cheesy as it was, brought an immediate flush to your face, your brain scrambling as it tried to make sense of what was happening. You looked around the empty dining room, sure that you would see the other girl he was talking to. But there was none. 
“I’m not…” you stammered out, lost as to how to respond. It was flirtatious, wasn’t it? You couldn’t think of how else you would interpret what he said, although the idea of being flirted with was equally as incomprehensible. Worse, the red hair was a dead giveaway for the fact that you were finally face to face with the missing Gautier heir, Sylvain. Your stepbrother. “I think you’re, um, mis-mistaking me for someone else.”
“That’s impossible,” he said, undeterred by your awkward response. “You’re unmistakably beautiful… and unmistakably divine.” He stepped out of the doorway to get closer, allowing you to see him more clearly. If it really was Sylvain, he looked nothing like his father other than the red hair and brown eyes. He was too, for want of a better word, pretty. “What do you think, can you spare some time for a sinner like me?” he asked, taking the seat beside you. “We can talk about love—the goddess’ and otherwise.” 
“I, um, don’t know much about that,” you muttered, buying time by eating a spoonful of the porridge. If it tasted bad while it was hot, it was worse while cold, but it was better than addressing the man sitting next to you.  
“There’s no need to be so shy. I don’t bite,” he said warmly. “Well, unless you want me to. Some girls really like that sort of thing.” That made you choke, glad you had already swallowed the mouthful of gooey sludge pretending to be food as your cheeks blazed and you stared hard at the neatly smoothed tablecloth. He laughed. “Well, well, maybe you’re not as angelic as you look.”
“N-no, that’s not…” You shook your head, desperate to shut down this line of conversation. 
“Hey, no judgment here,” he told you, raising his hands placatingly. 
“You’re Sylvain, aren’t you?” you asked abruptly, unable to look at him as hot embarrassment raged within you. In your periphery, you could see his sparkling smile. 
“Yep. And you’re the daughter of my father’s new wife,” Sylvain said, no question in his voice. “Which makes you my new little sister.” 
You peeked up at him, shocked and unsettled by the happiness in his voice when he said that. “You-you knew?” 
He shrugged. “It wasn’t exactly difficult to deduce. You’re a lot prettier than I thought you’d be though,” Sylvain said. He gave you another once over, some of that smug amusement returning to dance in his eyes. “I was kind of nervous, to be honest. Miklan and I never got along very well, I wasn’t looking forward to this. But I can tell just by looking at you that you’ve got a sensitive, kind heart. I’m the same way, really. I think we might just be kindred spirits.”  
“I. um, don’t really…”
Undeterred by your awkward bumbling, Sylvain picked up from where your sentence dropped. “You’re new to this area, right? I can’t imagine how tough that must be for you. I’d be more than happy to show you around. Maybe we could go for a horseback ride when the weather clears up. I know a few private spots around here where we could really get to know each other better.”
“You don’t have to,” you said awkwardly. 
“No, I want to. Besides, your mother did ask me to keep a close eye on you, make sure you settle in well. I guess that’s kinda a part of the big brother gig.” He grinned. “I think I could get used to that. It’s an honor to have such a cute little sister.” 
A sick lump formed in your throat at the way he twisted your supposed familial ties with that overly friendly tone of voice. You couldn’t tell if he meant anything by it, you didn’t want to believe that he did, but the entire interaction had been so horrifically uncomfortable you didn’t know. 
“I’m not…” Goddess, you couldn’t even say it, choking on your embarrassment. “It’s not like you-you’re actually my… my brother.” 
“Yeah, just legally and technically,” he said dryly.
“Yea—yeah,” you agreed. Just legally and technically. 
Sylvain laughed. Oh. He had been making fun of you. 
Picking up your half empty bowl, you stood up. The chair’s legs complained noisily. “I’m, um, I’m done,” you announced. “So, I’m… going.” 
“But I just got here,” Sylvain said, frowning. “Won’t you stay a little longer? The joy of your company is the only thing that’ll make this edible. Besides, I’d love to get to know my baby sister.”
The term of endearment nearly caused you to drop the bowl, your cheeks hot enough to sizzle. “I-I don’t…” 
“I’m sure you’ve noticed how lonely things get around here, it’s downright depressing sometimes,” Sylvain pushed. “And we’re going to be living together from now on, don’t you want to know a little more about me? Think of it as sibling bonding.” 
Your shoulders wilted. An urgent voice in your head demanded you leave, but you also felt guilty. Maybe you were being too squirrely, especially when he hadn’t actually done anything. Besides, he was the only person in the past week who seemed actually interested in spending time with you, and you couldn’t deny that it was at least a little flattering. 
“Alright,” you mumbled, sitting down. “Just for a bit.” 
Sylvain smiled, and it was sharp. Like he’d won a game you had no idea you were playing. 
iv.
curiosity killed the cat
Traveling to the nearest town took, in fair weather, a half hour on horseback. Longer if you took a coach, and even longer in poor weather. Despite the time it took to get there, you very quickly determined that you liked the town near Castle Gautier. The weather becoming less severe meant that merchants were finally able to make the journey north, so the market was lively enough. It was not nearly as festival-like as the markets you had frequented in the past, but you took what you could get. 
Almost immediately, Sylvain left with a comment about having an important matter to tend to, promising to come find you when he was done and that you should stay in the market area. He’d been told to stay close to you, but considering how awkward you felt around him still, you were more than happy to allow him to do whatever he wanted. 
Feeling a measure of excitement, you fluttered around different shops, searching out clothes that could better withstand the abrasive northern air. It came as a shock to realize that you already had a reputation. Throughout your life, you had been treated well because you had money, but now you had status, and that made your custom infinitely more valuable. Given your mother’s trade, you could hold your own while haggling prices, but the shop owners barely tried to overcharge. You came away with a handsome new green cloak made of thick wool with fur trim, new lace up boots big enough to fit extra insulation, and several thick woolen socks. A good haul, all things considered. 
But then you were left with a problem. With your business done and all the shops in the main market explored, you had nothing to do other than wait for Sylvain to return. Since the sky was the same murky steely color it had been since the sun rose, you couldn’t tell exactly, but you were sure it was getting into the late afternoon. Your toes were ice, and you wanted to be home in time to dine with your mother. 
And still, no Sylvain. 
With no small amount of clear distaste, one of the shopkeepers gave you a tip as to his usual haunts. A bar, restaurant, a gated area that was prepared for planting at the first sign of true spring weather. At first, it was fun to explore the new sights, but the longer you wandered, the harder it became not to notice the rampant poverty. Impoverishment looked different in the north than it did in Rowe territory. Cold, hungry. Most of northern Faerghus’ money followed the trades of military and mining, harsh professions in harsh conditions that created harsh people, readily leaving behind those with dust blackened lungs or crippled limbs. More so than any of your mother’s explanations, it made you understand why Margrave Gautier would opt for a wealthy wife over one with pedigree.  
With no luck at the first few places you looked for him, you were directed to an establishment which had no name, just a depiction of a four leaf clover for a sign. It was a bit unfriendly looking, if you were honest, but you were shivering from the cold and more than a little anxious to find Sylvain. 
Inside proved to be no more welcoming than out, the only difference was that it didn’t reek as aggressively of urine. Nobody greeted you when you entered. In fact, you drew more than a few stares. You had the distinct and sinking feeling that you did not belong. Keeping your head high, you hurried to who you assumed was the proprietor and asked if he’d seen Sylvain. He said nothing until you produced a few coins, and then he nodded to the back. The boards creaked beneath your boots. Everything smelled musty and even with a fire burning, you could practically taste the cold in the air. The back had a short hall with doors, maybe to rent out rooms? Although that was unimportant in comparison to the sight of two people at the very end of it. 
As soon as you realized that it was Sylvain and that he wasn’t alone, you ducked away, heart racing. All of your panic seemed to be for nothing though, they were too busy to notice you. It was any wonder you hadn’t noticed the loud, messy sound of kissing before you rounded the corner. Although, if you hadn’t seen a quick flash of them in the act, you might have been confused as to what was causing all of the breathing and moaning and sucking noises. Certainly no kissing you’d ever observed sounded like that. Understanding what, exactly, you had stumbled upon made you cringe and flush hotly, the notion that you should give them privacy conflicting with your desire to go home.
Suddenly, Sylvain groaned, a low noise that you felt as much as you heard. It made your breath catch, the muscles of your thighs clenching unintentionally. 
“Not here,” he admonished breathlessly. 
“We can get a room,” you heard the woman say, her voice husky.
“I’d love to, gorgeous,” he said. “But I’ve gotta take my sister home before it gets too late.” That startled you, feeling a flash of worry that he’d seen you. But if had, there was no way he’d keep going with this.
“Aren’t I more important? Fuck your sister,” the woman responded. 
Sylvain laughed. 
“What?” she demanded. That clearly wasn’t the response she wanted.  
“No, nothing,” Sylvain said awkwardly, clearing his throat. “I really do have to go. Next time though, I promise.” 
“You always say next time,” the woman told him, pouty.  
“I mean it,” Sylvain said, his voice lowered to convey its sincerity. “Do you really think I’d lie to you, baby? You know you’re the only girl for me.” 
At first you thought they might be done, but then you heard her muffled moan and realized they were kissing again. Fabric shuffled. Something thunked dully against the wall. You knew you shouldn’t have been listening like this, that it was wrong and disgusting and disturbing and terrible, but you couldn’t move. A darkly curious part of you wanted to know what they were doing that would make sounds like that, although the thought of knowing profoundly disgusted you. 
When they finally stopped, muttering something you couldn’t make out, you only had a few moments to think of what to do before you heard footsteps. And, really, in all of your flustered embarrassment, you had even less time. 
The woman emerged first, smoothing her blond hair with a passive expression that didn’t give any hint to what you just heard. She didn’t see you, sauntering out the door with a farewell to the proprietor you had given money to. While you didn’t get a good look at her face, you got more than enough time to see her curvaceous figure. 
“Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to spy on people?” Sylvain asked, surprising you into jumping, letting out a little squeak. And then you looked at him, and the embarrassment returned in full force. He ran a hand through his messy hair, doing nothing to tame it, and licked his red, slightly swollen lips. You very pointedly did not watch either movement, your breathing too fast as you tried to come up with a valid excuse.  
“I was… I didn’t mean… I came to find you, ah-and…” 
“Just out of curiosity, how much did you hear?” he asked.
“Nothing!”  you said quickly, eyebrows shooting up. 
“Right, I bet you’re going to tell me you only just got here,” he said, obviously toying with you. He knew you were lying, but if you admitted it now, that’d only make it worse.
“I did,” you agreed, choosing what you hoped was the lesser of two evils.  “I, um, I’m done shopping so I wanted to let you know I’m ready to leave.” 
“I’m pretty sure I told you to stay there and wait for me to come back,” Sylvain said. He looked around the bar, surveying the unfriendly faces that were pointedly not staring at you. “This side of town isn’t exactly welcoming.” 
Had he told you that? You couldn’t remember. “I’m… sorry.”
“If something happened to you, it’d be my fault, you know,” Sylvain said, looking down at you. He was close enough that you could smell his cologne as well as the woman’s perfume. An overwhelming scent.  “I’m sure you’re used to just doing whatever you want, right? But now that it’s my responsibility to look out for you, I expect you to listen to me.”     
He spoke down to you like an adult to a child which, although irritating in its own way, only worsened the embarrassment of being chastised. “I’m sorry,” you said again, staring hard at his chest to avoid his gaze. “But you don’t, um… I can look out for myself. We’re basically the same age.”  
“Doesn’t matter,” Sylvain said. “I’m your big brother, so it’s up to me to keep you safe.” 
None of this would have been an issue if he hadn’t left to spend time with his girlfriend, but you didn’t want to point that out and risk dragging out this uncomfortable conversation. “Okay,” you agreed, hoping that’d be the end of it. 
You flinched when Sylvain tilted your chin up, forcing you to meet his eyes. “Promise that you’ll listen to me from now on,” he said. 
You breathed out shakily, too overwhelmed to do anything other than obediently agree. “I pr-promise.” 
“If you don’t,” he said, the corner of his mouth quirking upward slightly, “I’ll definitely be forced to punish you.” 
Your mouth opened, but you didn’t say anything. How were you supposed to respond when you couldn't even figure out what he meant by that? Your insides twisted into a riotous state, but your head was pretty solidly empty of any coherent thought. 
Suddenly, just as quickly as it came, Sylvain’s darker mood disappeared into a big grin and let your chin drop. “Hah, you totally fell for that! I got worried it was too corny, but I guess not,” he said with a laugh, ruffling your hair affectionately. “That face was priceless. You’re way too gullible.” 
“What?” you asked, beyond being confused and still trying to piece together a rational thought.
“I was just messing with you,” Sylvain said. “I mean, who would actually say something like that?” 
“Oh… yeah,” you said, trying desperately to laugh with him. 
“Come on,” Sylvain said, fixing his clothes as he turned towards the door, “let’s go home.” 
You followed his lead out into the cold towards the coach, chewing on your lip in a state between embarrassment and a sickened sense of conflict. With each crunching step, the silence grew ever more daunting. He said it was a joke, so you shouldn’t have cared. You didn’t care. You weren’t even sure why you reacted the way you did, your stomach dropping out helplessly. Sylvain helped you into the carriage in the most gentlemanly fashion, following behind and shutting the door. It was entirely quiet in the cab save for muffled noises from outside. You had no idea what to say, and you couldn’t figure out what Sylvain was thinking.  
All you could think about was the word punish and the sound of him groaning that first time. Such an honest, guttural response to pleasure. In some ways, it would have been less intimate to catch him in a state of undress. Of course, that only invited the idea of shirtless Sylvain into your head and you knew your cheeks were burning but you couldn’t think of anything else to distract yourself. He was your stepbrother. It didn’t matter that you weren’t related and that he was a man and around your age and attractive, to even slightly entertain these thoughts was condemnable. 
“Your girlfriend is very beautiful,” you told him, latching onto the first safe thought you could  manage.
“My… what?” Sylvain asked. 
“The—that girl,” you said, your eyebrows furrowing with nervous confusion. 
“Oh! Yeah, right,” he said, nodding in comprehension. “I wouldn’t say she’s my girlfriend or anything. We’ve been out a few times. You know how it is. I just wanted a good time, but she wants more.” 
If that was the case, he had done a very poor job of expressing that to her. But saying so would only reveal that you had been listening, so you just nodded like you understood. “Yeah. That’s, um, frustrating.” 
“Speaking of which, is there a mark on my neck?” Sylvain asked, pulling down his collar enough to reveal the ivory pale column of skin marked halfway down with an angry red splotch. 
“There’s a red spot,” you said, frowning. “Does it hurt?”  
“What? No. I asked her not to leave a mark, but some girls get possessive like that.” He sighed, clearly disgusted with the idea, rubbing his neck. 
You didn’t know what he meant, but you figured it was probably better not to ask if it had to do with the girl who was not his girlfriend that you were still pretending you hadn’t heard him kissing. You didn’t want to know. 
“You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you,” Sylvain said knowingly, smiling again. You shifted uncomfortably in your seat, unable to look at him. 
“No, I-I do,” you lied.
“Uh-huh,” he agreed doubtfully. “And a sweet girl like you would never lie to her big brother, would she?” 
You exhaled harshly, bowing your head even more in the hopes he couldn’t see your expression as shame and guilt and disgust swirled through you in quick succession. Knowing filthy things wasn’t becoming of a lady, let alone one who had spent so little time around men. It was far outside the scope of what was appropriate, or even what you wanted to know. But it didn’t help the terrible feeling that you were less than compared to him, childishly ignorant. At least he didn’t push it. 
“By the by, that cloak looks lovely on you,” Sylvain said after a moment.
“Thank you,” you said on a reactive impulse, caught off guard by the sudden praise but happy to change subjects. And it was very pretty, even if more muted in comparison to what you usually wore.
“I bet you were really popular with all the guys before you came here. I wonder how many hearts you broke when you left.” He paused, grinning. “Then again, their loss is my gain, right?” 
And just like that, things were awkward again. “I didn’t… I-I wasn’t… Like that.” 
“What?” Sylvain asked, his eyes wide with shock. “There’s no way a pretty girl like you didn’t have men throwing themselves at your feet.”
The idea was laughable, but you had no idea how to tell him that you were too awkward, too easily flustered, to really attract or even want that sort of attention. As your interactions with Sylvain had proven, it was too embarrassing to be worthwhile. “I’ve never… never thought too much about that sort of thing.” 
Sylvain stared you down for a second as if trying to see if you’d crack, but you were telling the truth this time. “Hah. You’re pretty lucky, you know that?” he asked. “Being able to live without that sort of attention and pressure, I guess money doesn’t draw people in the same way as a title or Crest. Or maybe your mother just spoiled you too much.” 
“I don’t know,” you responded slowly, unsure of where he was going with this. Once again, it seemed like Sylvain’s ever-shifting mood had taken a darker turn. Or maybe it was another joke?
“I get it, though,” he said, leaning back. “As your doting big brother, I’d like to spoil you too, you know?” 
No, you didn’t. And you were fairly confident that it was another one of the things you didn’t want to know. But you had already done enough to embarrass yourself, so you ducked your head in an attempt to hide your face and became very interested in the bleak landscape passing outside the window.
v.
rounding the bend
“May I talk to you?” you asked, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot in front of your mother’s desk, practically wringing your hands in an attempt to not seem jittery. You weren’t sure what you meant to tell her, it wasn’t as if you had some massive piece of evidence that you could bring out to say that Sylvain made you uncomfortable. All you wanted was advice, or maybe to have her moderate a bit. Unfortunately, there never seemed to be a good time for the conversation. 
You wouldn’t say anything at all if it weren’t for the fact that the teasing was getting to be too overwhelming. Sylvain always seemed to be standing too close, or his hand happened to be in a place to brush your thigh beneath the table, or he leaned in to speak intimately close to your ear—you didn't know what to do. She said to have grace and dignity, but there was no graceful way to blush, and no dignified way to stammar out basic words when he said something that embarrassed you terribly.
“What is it?” she asked, distractedly looking up at you. Always distracted. For most of your life, she had been a rather unapproachable figure, always consumed with her work, never as sensitive to your feelings as you would wish. But it had gotten worse here, or perhaps you were just more acutely aware of the isolation. 
“It’s just… I was wondering if we could talk?” 
She shuffled some papers, her attention clearly split. “Talk about what?” 
“Talk, um… It’s about Sylvain, I—” you cut yourself off at the sound of footsteps. All the fine hairs on the back of your neck stood on end as you jumped, looking over your shoulder even though you knew who it was, could feel it.
“Did somebody say my name?” 
Of course, of course, of course. You looked quickly at your mother and back at him, forcing a smile. “Ye-yeah, I was… wondering if she knew where you were.” 
“What a coincidence, I was just looking for you,” Sylvain said with a grin. You couldn’t tell from his expression if he had known, somehow, what you were about to say of it really was the world’s most unlucky coincidence. “I was thinking we could go to town for lunch, I know a place that makes food that almost has flavor to it.” 
Your mother was paying a little more attention now, looking up at the two of you. “I take it you’re getting along well?” 
Sylvain wrapped his arm around you before you could respond, squishing you against him affectionately. All you could smell was cologne, as well as the headier scent of Sylvain himself, a musky, manly smell. “Yep. You raised a truly wonderful daughter, although that’s not surprising for a woman as amazing and beautiful as you. How my father managed to find such perfect girls to bring home is beyond me, I guess the old man still has some taste left.” 
“I, um, I’m not feeling very well, actually,” you said softly, ducking out from under Sylvain’s arm. “I think I might go lay down. Sorry."
“Sure, no big deal," Sylvain said with a wink. "Next time, okay? I'll hold you to it."
You nodded, swallowing hard. "I'll see you both tonight."
"Ooo, about that, I've got plans tonight," Sylvain said. "If that's okay with the lady of the house, of course." 
Your mother smiled wryly. As if she had any say in what he did or didn’t do. Not even his own father could contain the lawless whirlwind that was Sylvain. 
"I’ll see you tomorrow then, Sylvain," you said as you made a hasty retreat. His eyes weighed heavily on your back, even when you left his direct line of sight. Sylvain knew what you had been about to say, what you were worried about. It was in the same deft, sneaky way he knew when he could tease you with nobody seeing, or what sort of comment would make your breath hiccup. 
But then, a part of your brain whispered, he was such an overt, abrasive flirt. He had no qualms about public trysts or scandals. You could be wrong about everything, wrong that there was some insidious intent behind his actions, and wrong that he would have time or desire to play such twisted mind games. You could be misremembering things, or fooling yourself into finding some deeper meaning out of your own sick perversions. After all, you could still clearly remember the sound of him groaning in pleasure while kissing that woman, your brain refused to let go of it. If it was you who conjured these sick fantasies, if it were your mind that assumed depravity where there was none, what did you do then? How did you overcome such sin?
Goddess save you.
vi.
jumping at shadows
Ghosts weren’t real. 
Probably. 
But if they were real, they would live in Castle Gautier. The place creaked and groaned constantly, strange noises following you, surrounding you. And it was cold. Being ill had only been an excuse earlier, but there was some truth there. Because it was so cold. Horribly cold, the kind that made you feel sick all the way in your bones, a clammy sort of congestion that resisted even the warmest of fires. 
Those two things were the war that kept you up far past your bedtime. Stupidly, you had left your favorite blanket in the library earlier when you had been reading and enjoying Sylvain's absence. Not only your favorite, but the warmest. Sleeping without it had proved impossible, but the idea of leaving your bedroom was nearly unbearable because you feared what you would find should you venture into the creepy, freezing hallways. There was a time, however, when the chill became genuinely unbearable. If you caught a cold or something, it would only make your situation in the eternally freezing Castle Gautier that much more miserable. 
Ghosts weren’t real. So you bundled up in your warmest housecoat and set out, holding a candle high and telling yourself you weren’t afraid. You couldn’t be hurt by that which did not exist.
How could a place be so dark? Not an absence of light, but void of it. Wherever your candle’s flickering illumination didn’t touch was eaten by the ravenous shadows. You had just made your way down the steps into the high ceiling atrium connecting the various wings when you heard what sounded like heavy, echoing footsteps. From where, you couldn’t tell. From who, you also couldn’t tell. If the dark had been a problem in the blocky square halls connecting the bedrooms, it was an overt menace here where there was more space to fill. But ghosts weren’t real. Fear froze you all the same, your straining eyes darting from side to side in a vain hope to see past the dark and wondering if you should just turn back now. 
But you’d come this far and the things you feared were childish. More than likely, you had heard the footsteps of the guards that remained on constant vigil. Cursing your cowardice, you found the guts to reach the library, focusing only on what was directly in front of you as you retrieved your blanket and returned to the main hall. It was quiet now. Eerily still. But…
But. 
Was there a sound? The wind, certainly. It howled right outside the walls, a threatening and mournful wail. Footsteps? You couldn’t tell. Chills covering your body, you looked around in an attempt to see beyond the encroaching darkness, but you still couldn’t see anything, it was impenetrable. If ghosts were real, that’s where they’d hide. You knew that for a fact. But they weren’t real.  
“Is someone there?” you called, your voice faint. More scraping. Footsteps, definitely footsteps. You couldn’t even tell where they were coming from, the sound echoed off of the tall ceiling. You weren’t scared. Ghosts weren’t real. “Hello?” 
“Boo!” 
The single word, spoken from behind you, induced the scream that had been building up in your chest, but a hand clapped over your mouth before the sound made it very far. You dropped your blanket and the candle holder, snuffing out your only source of light. Hot wax splattered your slippered feet. You thrashed, panicking, but your attacker kept you pinned against them, unable to turn around. 
Somewhere, emerging from the raw panic of fear, you realized that it couldn’t have been a ghost if you were being held by a fully corporeal figure. And then you realized that the air puffing against your ear was laughter, and the chest rumbling against your back was making a familiar sound. 
“I didn’t think you would freak out like that,” Sylvain said, still chuckling. All of the adrenaline pumping terror through your veins dissolved into anger as you made sense of everything, furious tears pricking in your eyes as you tried to wrestle out of his grip. “Hey, calm down. It’s just me,” he told you sweetly, rocking you back and forth. “I didn’t mean to scare you so much, honestly. Please don’t be mad.” 
When you stopped struggling so recklessly, Sylvain uncovered your mouth, that arm winding around your waist to hold you against him instead. 
“Let me go,” you said, pushing at his arms, still upset enough about being scared to sound angry.
“Can’t a guy have a minute to comfort his sweet baby sister?” Sylvain asked. Despite the soothing tenor of his voice, one of his hands pushed beneath your housecoat to press against your nearly bare chest. It froze you solid, the rest of your fear and anger turning to dread and confusion.
“Wha-what are you doing?” you asked, your voice slightly too high with stress. 
“Your heart is really racing,” Sylvain said, his voice slurring a little, rumbling in his chest. Was he drunk? “It reminds me of when we hunt small game. Their little hearts have to work so much harder. Especially when they’re scared. It makes me feel kinda bad, you know?” 
At his mentioning it, you could almost feel your heart beating against his large palm. Being compared to small prey didn’t at all help your nerves and embarrassment. While improbable, if anyone were to shine a light on the two of you at that moment, you knew what it would look like. The word was incest, and it didn’t matter that you weren’t actually related because—as Sylvain himself had stated—you were legally and technically family.  
“Let me go,” you told him, pushing against his arms with increasing distress. Sylvain didn’t budge, nuzzling against the side of your head. The air of his breath made you shiver. He smelled like pipe smoke and spice, his clothes cold from being outside. 
“Does this make you uncomfortable?” he asked. 
Yes, of course it did. But you felt as if that would be the wrong answer, or at least the one he was waiting for, the one he would tease you about. “Please, just…” You pushed at him again, trying to squirm away to no avail. Even if you were strong, which you knew you weren’t, Sylvain had the might of a Crest bearer who had been trained to wield weapons since childhood. It was a lost cause. When you whined, trying to worm your way out of his grip, Sylvain’s breath caught, his arms tightening. That really only made it worse, you struggled harder.
“I’ll take that as a no,” he said, his voice a bit lower. He laughed again, but it was breathless. “To be honest, I didn’t think that you were so shameless. Not that I mind, I wondered if all of this wide-eyed innocence was an act.”
You froze, realizing that you had inadvertently been grinding against him. Even you knew enough to understand the immoral implications of that act. “No, that’s not-”
“Hey, don’t stop on my account,” Sylvain said, pulling you even closer. “I’m glad you’re finally warming up to your big brother like this.”
“Let me go, please,” you whined, pushing pathetically at his arms as your distress mounted. “This is wrong.”
Sylvain sighed, maybe responding to the threat of tears in your voice. “Hey, I was just teasing,” he said, finally releasing. “I don’t think anybody could fake this level of naivety.”
You sniffed, putting a few paces of space between the two of you and fixing your housecoat with jerky movements. He couldn’t possibly see very much of you through the unyielding darkness, but the feeling of exposure pressed insistently against you, a filthy weight. 
“I‘m not naïve,” you argued softly, embarrassed that he would think to apply a word with such childish connotations to you. Sure, you didn’t have his experience, but that wasn’t a bad thing. 
“That wasn’t an insult,” Sylvain said. “The opposite, actually. I think it’s pretty cute.”
“I…um…”  
“Anyway,” Sylvain continued, gracefully saving you from stammering out a response you didn’t have. “Why are you up so late? Isn’t it past your bedtime?”  
At least now the darkness worked in your favor; he couldn’t see your embarrassment. There wasn’t much of an age difference between the two of you, yet he was talking like you were a child. Again. “I left my blanket down here,” you muttered, stooping over to collect what you had dropped. It was difficult to find the candle in the dark, your fingers trailing over droplets of dried wax before finding what you wanted. You hauled the blanket over your shoulder and set the candle back into the holder, unsure what you could do about the mess. 
“You know, if you’re having a hard time staying warm,” Sylvain said, “I’ve got something that might help you in my room.”
“Do you have extra blankets?” you asked doubtfully as you stood up, squinting through the dark as if that would help you see him better. 
“No, but I’ve got a better way of staving off the cold,” Sylvain said. 
You heard the sound of a match being struck, and he held out the flame. You let Sylvain light the candle, getting a better look at him in its flickering glow and muttering your thanks. He didn’t look drunk. His shadowed eyes looked plenty lucid, that smile making your breath catch. Everything about that look and his low, teasing tone of voice warned you not to ask. After what he’d done, you really should have been running back to your room and locking the door behind you. But you didn’t. 
“How?” you asked.
“I’ve been told I make for an excellent source of heat for chilly nights like these,” he said. “If you come into my room, I’d be happy to keep you warm.” 
You stared at him in disbelief, waiting for the other shoe to drop. All you got was silence. “Are you… joking?” you finally asked.
Sylvain laughed, a casual, relaxed sound. “Ah, you’re too much,” he told you fondly. Then, sighing, his smile dropped. “You really have no idea what it does to a guy, do you? I swear, I try to restrain myself, but sometimes I can’t help it.”
“I-I wish you wouldn’t,” you said.
“Is that why you lied about being sick today?” 
“I wasn’t… I didn’t lie.”
“Really? Maybe next time I’ll cancel my plans so I can stay home and take care of you,” Sylvain said. “That’s what brothers do, right? I’m sure I can make you comfortable.” 
“I… um…” you stopped, exhaling slowly. “It’s okay, I’m feeling better now. But I should… I should go to bed, I’m very tired.” 
“Yeah, okay,” Sylvain agreed, his little smile not fading. “You better hurry, before the boogeyman catches you out of bed so late. Who knows what he might do to a cute girl like you.”
“Goodnight, Sylvain,” you said softly, watching him warily for a moment before turning around and ascending the stairs, the light wavering with your shaking hand.
Shut into the sanctuary of your room, you put a hand over your heart and felt it beating, pounding against your ribcage and then against your palm. Threatening to burst right out of your chest, to run off like scared prey. 
vii.
a wolf in sheep’s clothing
“You were a pretty big hit tonight,” Sylvain said on the way up to your rooms. His was further down the hall, so it couldn’t be avoided that you’d walk together. Your thoughts on the subject of your overly friendly stepbrother were impossible to make sense of, but your discomfort remained. The other night had crossed a line, you thought, but he hadn’t mentioned it. And maybe he had been drunk, and maybe you were tired enough to be misremembering, and maybe—
But you couldn’t help the unease that crawled through you whenever he was around. 
"Everyone was really nice," you agreed, looking at the floor to avoid accidentally meeting his eye.
“Especially the guys, right?" Sylvain teased, his voice friendly enough, but not entirely. Or you were reading into it out of nerves. He had been perfectly pleasant all night, after all. 
“I don’t know,” you said with a noncommittal shrug.
"Don't tell me you didn't notice,” Sylvain said, feigning surprise. “Viscount Braley’s eyes almost popped out of his head.” His amused tone died off into a sigh. “Not that I blame them, but it feels pretty weird to have other guys looking at your little sister like that. I always thought it was a huge overreaction when the brother of a girl I was dating threatened to fight me, but I’m starting to get it.” 
“It wasn’t like that,” you said.
“All I’m saying is that it’s a good thing you have me around to keep them in check. I hate to think what those jerks would do if you didn’t have anyone watching over you… And speaking of that,” he continued, his tone lightening, “did I mention how beautiful you look tonight?” 
After everything else he had said, the praise shouldn’t have been so potent. But it was, and your face responded in kind, blood rushing to your cheeks and ears in a blatant signpost of your feelings. 
“Thank you. You-you look nice too,” you said, trying to deflect. It wasn’t a lie, either, although you were certain Sylvain knew how good he looked in the red suitcoat. The scarlet hair should have made for an overbearing combination, but the rich velvet’s shade was dark enough to look nothing less than devastatingly handsome.   
“You think?” he asked with a cocky smile. “I was the best looking guy there, wasn’t I?” 
You blinked, uncertain of how you were meant to answer that. If you were to be transparently honest, Sylvain was the best looking of them all. He had something other men lacked. Despite his friendly features and noble polish, Sylvain’s sparkling brown eyes held a visceral kind of thrill, an excitement playing on the edge of danger. Even the women who scorned him—and there were more than a few of those—couldn’t help but stare enviously when you arrived together. But you couldn’t admit that openly to yourself, let alone to him. 
“Um…” 
“Wait,” Sylvain said, his smile dropping, “you’re not interested in someone else, are you? There were a lot of eligible noblemen there.”
“It wasn’t… it’s not like that,” you said, balking at the insinuation. It wasn’t true, but it shouldn’t have mattered if it were. He was your stepbrother, not your husband or keeper. Seeing him in that way would be, at best, incredibly weird. 
“Sure, sure,” Sylvain allowed with an ironic nonchalance, shrugging. 
As it so often happened with him, you didn’t know what to say to that. Explaining would just make it worse. Arriving at your door came with a sigh of relief. 
“Um… Goodnight, Sylvain,” you said, twisting the knob.  
“Yeah, goodnight,” he said, his expression still unreadably impassive in a way you didn't like. 
There was nothing for you to do about that, so you gave him a final nod and opened your door to slip inside, nudging it shut behind you. But it didn’t close. 
“Just one more thing,” Sylvain said. The shiny leather toe of a man’s dress boot was wedged between door and frame, quickly followed by the rest of him. You stumbled back, eyeing him warily as he closed the door behind himself with a creak of old wood and the metal click. “Don’t worry, I know it was an exciting night and you’re probably tired,” he told you with a soothing voice, hands raised innocently. “I’ll be quick.”  
“Do you need something?” you asked, your heart racing so fast you almost worried he would be able to hear it. 
"No, it—hey, calm down, okay?” Sylvain said, clearly trying to placate you. “It’s just something that’s been bothering me for a while, but I didn’t want to bring it up before and embarrass you.”
Your shoulders raised protectively, your hands raising to nervously pull your hair over your shoulders to hide their trembling. “What is it?” 
“Come here,” Sylvain said, holding his hand out invitingly. 
“Tell me first,” you said, drawing further into yourself. 
Sylvain sighed impatiently, stepping forward and grabbing you before you could move away. You yelped as he twisted you around, pushing you back against the door. The impact wasn’t hard enough to hurt, but it knocked your breath away. He crowded in so close that your chests almost touched. When you tried to force him off, to wiggle away, Sylvain entwined your fingers together to pin that hand by your head, his other arm braced against the door to cage you in. And then all of your fighting stilled when he pushed his knee between your legs. It was a position so suggestive you really didn’t think there was any way to mistake its profane meaning. 
“What are you doing?” you asked, testing his hold on your hand with a final surge of all your strength. He didn’t falter, not even a little. 
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Sylvain said, so earnestly you could almost believe him. “Do you remember when we went to town and that girl left a mark on my neck?” 
“I…. Yeah,” you said, hoping that going along with it would make it release you faster. 
“And then you lied, saying you knew what it was. Do you remember that?” 
“I wasn’t lying,” you said with a rapid shake of your head.
He snorted. “Yeah, you were, and I think this is pretty important knowledge now that you’re going out with other guys. I can’t let my baby sister get taken advantage of just because she doesn’t know any better.” Sylvain brushed your hair away from your neck, which was exposed in full due to the scooped neckline of your dress. You flinched away from the touch, but there was nowhere to go. 
“Stop,” you begged, pushing at him again. He ignored you, wrapping an arm around your waist to pull you up, adjusting his stance so he could get at your neck. 
“I guess you could say that this is how people mark their territory,” Sylvain explained, his breath brushing against your jaw, down the sensitive skin of your neck, his lips close enough that you could feel them move. “It’s a pretty possessive thing to do.” You whimpered when Sylvain licked the spot above your fluttering pulse, shivered at the nervously electrified sensation it caused. “See?” he asked, pleased with your reaction. “It feels kinda good, right?” 
“N-no,” you told him, trying desperately to push him away. Sylvain, again, ignored you, his lips ghosting further down to the juncture of neck and shoulder. He kissed the spot there once, his tongue dragging across the flesh. Your breath shuddered, your entire body shaking hard against his. Another kiss, and then his mouth opened enough to suck against the skin. Gently, at first, and then not so gently, teeth joining tongue to add to the sensation. You writhed against him in an attempt to escape the pain, whimpering softly despite your best efforts to endure it in silence. Sylvain groaned, his mouth working harder against the skin, definitely enough to leave a mark. 
"Sylvain…” Your whining attempt to stop him only made Sylvain more intent. He pushed you harder against the door, his hand squeezing yours painfully, his knee drawing up to firmly grind you against his muscular thigh. There were layers of fabric separating your sensitive core from the pressure, but it didn’t stop the regretful, sickening pleasure. You mewled, a terrible little noise you couldn't swallow back. Pain shouldn’t have been pleasurable in any way, but the feeling of his mouth on your neck had your body writhing, unintentionally and gracelessly grinding yourself against his thigh. 
Finally, his mouth left your skin with a slick pop, a sensation nearly as powerful as the act itself. Release was followed by flare of heat and goosebumps in a liquidy bloom from where he’d marked you. “There,” Sylvain said, leaning back to get a look at his work with a satisfied expression. “And now you know.” His finger traced along the mark, his expression twisting slightly with regret. “Sorry. I may have been a bit too rough, but it’ll fade. Just be sure to keep it covered up until then.” His lips quirked into a teasing smirk, his eyes half lidded. “You wouldn’t want anyone to know that you let your big brother give you a hickey, right?”
You nodded slowly, your bottom lip trembling with the force of despair and disgust the comment inspired within you. 
Sylvain’s eyes tracked the motion, the playful expression slipping. Then he exhaled harshly, looking away. “Yeah, okay. I should, uh, I should leave. Now.” With a final squeeze of your hand, he peeled his body away from yours and took a few steps back, letting you clumsily stumble away from him with your hand covering your neck. Sylvain’s cheeks were flushed, another shade of fetching rose to add to the red and white blur that became of him as your eyes filled with tears.
“Goodnight,” he said as he opened your door. “And, hey, if you get cold or can’t sleep, I don’t lock my door.” 
You nodded, just wanting Sylvain to leave. With a final once over that made your skin crawl, he did. When you were sure he was an appropriate distance down the hall, you rushed to your door and locked it, bracing yourself against it as if he were going to return and attempt to batter it down. The mark on your neck throbbed in time with your heartbeat. When you traced it with your fingertips, you could feel the intentions of his teeth. 
For a moment, you considered telling your mother, begging her to step in. But then Sylvain’s question came to mind—You wouldn’t want anyone to know that you let your big brother give you a hickey, right? No. Absolutely not. And given how little fight you actually put up, certainly not enough to have evidence of your attempt to stop him, you weren’t sure it was believable if you tried to tell her you didn’t want it. Really, you could barely believe it yourself considering the hollow ache that had sparked up between your legs, a needful thrum that begged satisfaction. 
Being an adult, shedding childish innocence, meant cynical recognition of the real world. In the real world, you had secrets drenched in shame, a heart beating with the frantic speed of prey, a hickey on your neck from your stepbrother, and a fragile position in a court that barely accepted your presence with a family that could easily ruin you if they learned of this. These were the adult games with their high stakes and rigid rules. Hide that which was unsavory and claim ignorance of your sick secrets. And then, to maintain the game of pretend that people called the status quo, ignore ignorance itself. 
viii.
face the music
All dressed up for your first county ball in Gautier territory—a tradition for the young, available ladies and lords with titles or enough wealth—you looked your very best. Being so awkward, you liked to think that clothes would work for you where your clumsy social skills did not. It was harder to dwell on your reflected image now, your eyes kept anxiously returning to the high neck. Stylish, yes, but also necessary. Your skin was still stained with an ugly, healing bruise right where your neck met shoulder, faded from the days that had passed but dark enough to need covering. Remembering that night made you feel sick. Thinking of Sylvain made you feel dirty. What right did you have to play the demure girl wishing only to dance and mingle when you were tainted? Those thoughts, the ones that had kept you mostly hidden away in your room for the past few days, filled you with tumultuous disgust and shame, tears threateningly pricking at the corner of your kohl-lined eyes.
Forcing those emotions down so as to not ruin all of the work you had put into looking nice, you turned away from the mirror, your long skirt flaring as you twirled. It was fine. You looked good. Dancing was fun. The dinner the other night had gone well before he ruined it, the dance would too. It helped that Sylvain had made it clear that he wouldn’t be attending, saying that he was likely to get accosted by unhappy exes if he tried. 
After going downstairs, you preened beneath your mother’s hard-won attention and affection. These days, the two of you sometimes felt like strangers, but she had an affinity for clothes much like your own, admiring the gown sent in from Fhirdiad dressmakers and fixing strands of errant hairs. Considering your age and the event, it wasn’t proper for her to be your chaperone as she might have otherwise, but she was worried. There was a sense of dark comedy in the knowledge that you were likely safer at a ball than in your own home, the type of cruel joke that only Sylvain might find actually funny. 
Eventually, wrapped in a fashionable capelet that matched your ensemble, you were escorted by the Gautier’s coachman to the carriage, settling in for the ride. You signaled to leave with a few raps on the ceiling, but before it could, the cab jostled, the door opening. You watched with wide-eyed dread as Sylvain climbed in, closing the door behind him and settling in the opposite seat in a whirl of his fluttering cloak and the rich scent of cologne. 
“What are you doing?” you asked.
“I should be the one asking that, you almost left without me,” Sylvain said, tapping the ceiling to tell the coach to take off. The horses jolted into action, the cab jostling as the wheels were pulled out of their muddy ruts. 
“What do you mean?” you asked, holding out half a hope that this was one of his not so funny jokes. 
“We’re going to the ball, aren’t we?” 
“Bu-but… You said you weren’t.” 
“Only because I didn’t realize you wanted to,” Sylvain said. “If you had told me, I wouldn’t have made other plans. Luckily, I was already dressed to go out when I heard you leaving. Your mother was so relieved. She really worries about you, you know that?” 
You gaped at him in utter disbelief, all thoughts of having a nice night out torn into tatters. “You didn’t have to-to do that,” you told him. 
“I can’t just let some opportunistic creep take advantage of my sweet baby sister’s innocence.” 
Hearing Sylvain say that felt like a slap in the face. The bruise on your neck throbbed dully, the memory of his thigh between your legs making them clamp together. “I don’t need a chaperone,” you said in as even of a voice as you could, your hands clenched into fists on your lap. “It’s a dance, I’ll be surrounded by people.” 
“And if you’re dancing with a guy and his hand happens to drift a bit too far down your back? Or if he lures you away from the ball with a cheesy line?” Sylvain asked, raising an eyebrow. “Come on, we both know you don’t have it in you to make him back off.” 
Of all the embarrassing reactions to have, tears pricked at your eyes, shame burning your cheeks. 
“But,” Sylvain continued, either ignoring your reaction or pretending he didn’t see it. “Nobody’s going to try anything as long as I’m there, so it won’t matter.” 
“Nobody would do that anyway,” you muttered, wanting desperately to sound strong but unable to speak any louder for fear of your voice trembling. 
“You really think so?” Sylvain asked, raising an eyebrow. “In that case, I’m doing you a favor here. Maybe you haven’t realized it yet, but now that your mother’s married into the Gautier family, you’re one of the most eligible girls in the Kingdom. Not to mention your beauty. It’s a potent combination. If men aren’t looking exploit your money or title, its because they’re too busy wondering what they can say or do to fuck you.”  
The vulgarity made you cringe back into your seat, your shoulders curled up as if to protect yourself. You stared at your shoes, trying to will away your blush, to stamp down your embarrassment. “Stop.” 
Sylvain laughed. “Don’t be so embarrassed. You’ll have to figure these things out eventually. And as your big brother, it’s kind of my job to teach you stuff, right? Like the other night-”
“Don’t!” you told him, your voice louder in panic, a horribly sick feeling of guilt and revulsion and shame crushing you from the inside out. “Just… just stop.”
“Wait, are you… mad at me?” Sylvain asked, sounding genuinely confused. 
“I… I am,” you told him, having to settle for a whisper to hide the tremble in your voice. Speaking was dangerous, you were having a hard time fighting the tears. “The other night… that was too much, I…”  
“Oh, come on,” Sylvain said, rolling his eyes. “I know you liked it, you were basically humping my thigh.” 
“I wasn’t!” 
Sylvain gave you a flat look, his thick eyelashes casting shadows over his cheekbones. “Next you’re going to tell me that it wasn't you who was moaning, right?” 
“I couldn’t help it,” you said, your voice even softer, almost inaudible.
“Yeah, because it felt good.”
You shook your head, trying desperately to steady yourself. 
“But what I really want to know is if you touched yourself after I left,” Sylvain said, breezing right through your distress, his brown eyes alight in the warm lamp light. 
You just stared at him, feeling your dupe heart pound against your ribs, against the structured bodice of your dress, your lungs desperately trying to inflate against its confines. 
Sylvain’s head tilted thoughtfully. “Huh. Now that I think of it, you probably don’t even know what I mean,” he said, scooting forward. The cab, while luxurious, lacked space. With his annoyingly long legs, the two of you couldn’t even sit directly across from one another without his knees pressing into yours. So when Sylvain grabbed you by the thighs to pull you towards him, you couldn’t escape; there was nowhere to go.
“Stop!” you protested, trying to squirm away. The way he pulled you forward caused your skirt to ride up over your knees, the layers of fabric getting wedged beneath you. 
“Shh, don’t you think you should be a little more quiet?” he asked, wedging his leg between yours to pry them apart. “Unless you want to get caught.” That dreadful threat made him smile. 
“Please stop,” you said in a hushed voice, pushing at him. “I don’t—” Sylvain cut you off by flipping your skirt up enough to get his hand beneath, his palm sliding across your knee and inwards, his calloused fingertips skimming your ticklishly sensitive inner thigh right above the garters which held your stockings in place. 
“Relax,” Sylvain said in a voice that might have been comforting if his eyes weren’t so dark, if they weren’t so obscenely fixated between your legs. “I’m going to show you something. You’ll like it, I promise.” 
Being looked at so intimately was almost the worst of it all, self-conscious embarrassment hitting you in a wave of panicked heat. It was a petty, shameful feeling, but you’d seen several of the girls Sylvain had been intimate with and you hated to compare yourself to others, but it was impossible to not be acutely aware of what you lacked in comparison to them. Desperate to escape his gaze, your back bowed in an attempt to displace his grip, your hands shoving your skirt down to hide. 
Sylvain’s solution was to grab your hips and drag you down almost flat onto the seat, sliding forward enough to support your lower half on his lap with your legs spread on either side of his torso. The position was absurdly awkward in the cramped conditions, but it made it harder for you to fight and gave him easier access.  
“These are adorable,” Sylvain said, flipping your skirt all the way over your waist in a puff of pettiskirts to look at your panties, his thumb grazing the delicate little bow with a warm smile. “You didn’t wear them for me, did you?” 
“N-no. That’s not… I didn’t,” you babbled, your voice tight with distress. Your underwear wasn’t meant to be sexual, nobody was supposed to see it. The garments were nice because you liked the lace and the bows, but now it just felt filthy. Even when you got your arms beneath you, you lacked the leverage to squirm away from him, all it did was spare your neck. “Please ss-stop, Sylvain.” 
“I’m going to be gentle, don’t worry. Girls are really delicate,” Sylvain said, twisting his wrist to run his fingers over the seat of your panties, applying the slightest amounts of pressure. Your eyes went wide, your free hand giving up on trying covering yourself to grab his wrist so he couldn’t do that. Not because it hurt, but you almost wished it did. That’d be better than the knee jerk feeling of pleasure that followed his touch. He smiled. “You have to be gentle, you know? Do a little exploration, figure out what she likes.” 
His long index finger pushed between the outer lips of your pussy, digging the fabric right against your entrance. Your hips jumped against his hand, your thighs tensing with an attempt to close, obstructed by his torso. And he was watching it all, devouring your reactions with those too-perceptive eyes. Stopping him had proven impossible, you opted to cover your face instead, trying to shut it all out.  
“Most guys are way too selfish,” Sylvain continued, his voice increasingly smug as his finger dragged upward, using the fabric as added friction as he drew a lazy circle around your clit. “They don’t want to take the time to know what a girl really needs.”
You whimpered, turning your head away and biting your lip to hide your reaction. Sylvain paused for a moment, spreading your outer lips to give him better access to your swelling clit. All of this through the thin fabric of your fancy underwear, adding a level of removed friction that was driving you wild. 
By the point he was rubbing your clit in earnest, adding more pressure and focusing on the spots that made your hips jerk and thighs twitch, you couldn’t hide the noises you were making. Your entire body was pulled painfully tense, writhing in his lap.  
“Let me see your face, cutie,” Sylvain said.
“Nn-no,” you whined, your voice muffled through your hand, although you couldn’t say what it was that you were rejecting. You didn’t understand at all why, despite every attempt you made to ignore it, his touch felt so good. There was too much stimulation, and your hips kept jerking forward like you wanted more. Worse, you could feel the way your pussy clenched hungrily around nothing, a strange and empty ache. 
“Okay, that’s fine,” Sylvain said, continuing his torment as if it was something casual, something he didn’t even have to think about. “Since this is just a demonstration, I won’t get worked up about it. But when we do this for real, you’re going to do everything I tell you to do, okay?” 
A breathless, helpless keen left your mouth. A sound that was meant to be a rejection, although didn’t count for much when your clit was pulsing beneath his fingers as more and more blood rushed between your legs, tension building beneath every drag of his fingers. 
“I mean it,” Sylvain said. “I expect my sweet little sister to listen to me while I’m fucking her, otherwise I might just have to take you over my knee or something.” 
You made a sound like he’d punched you, almost, your hand dropping to look at Sylvain with some disturbing combination of lust and horror—feelings that had no synergy with your body’s reaction. The twitch of your hips, the anxiously empty tightening of your cunt, the drop of heat and swirling dark lust that only intensified the building pleasure. 
Sylvain laughed. “I knew that would turn you on,” he said smugly, his fingers abandoning your needy clit and returning to your entrance, pressing the fabric between the tense muscles so it could absorb more of your wet arousal. The stimulation drew a sharp keen out of your throat and his laughter cut off. “Fuck, that’s…”
You shook your head. “That’s not…” Not true? It was. You knew it was, he knew it was, all of the same and disgust and despair and self-hatred in the world didn’t make it any less true. “Please… stop.” 
“Fine, fine,” Sylvain agreed warmly, his hand retreating from between your legs. “I think we’re about to be there anyway.” Considering you had been the one to ask him to stop, it was sickening that you would mourn the loss, loathing the feeling of empty need thudding dully between your legs, an unfulfilled ache that made you squirm. “Ah, we do have a slight problem though. There’s no way you can wear these,” he said regretfully, pulling at the inside seam of your panties. “They’re soaked.” 
You quickly pushed your skirt down, awkwardly pulling yourself back into your own seat. Sylvain stopped you, holding your leg in place. 
“It’s fine,” you said, unable to meet his eye, pulling hard to free your leg. 
“No, it’s not,” Sylvain told you, emphasizing the words like you were too dumb to understand. “Don’t worry, I’ll hold onto them for you until we get home.” 
“But then I won’t have…” you trailed off, flushing as you realized what should have been obvious. Instead you shook your head, unable to look at him directly. “No, I-I won’t.” Sylvain still didn’t release you as the coach pulled alongside the curb, the noise of horses and voices becoming more distinct on the other side, light slanting in through the edges of the drawn curtains. You tugged against him again, desperate to get out of the compromising position. 
“Either you give them to me, or I’ll get them myself,” Sylvain said playfully, like this was a game. “I wonder what the footman would think if he saw that.” 
“You wouldn’t,” you said with fresh horror. Sylvain’s eyes didn’t falter, daring you to call his bluff. The sickening thing was that you couldn’t tell if he would or wouldn’t, only that he wasn’t the one that would be exposed. 
“Fine,” you said, averting your gaze and blinking hard. He released you. Before you could think too hard about it, you pushed your panties down your hips under the cover of your skirt, over your knees and to your ankles. They were, as he said, soaked. Grimacing in disgust, you held them out. 
“I don’t get why you’re so mad, you’re the one who got this wet for your big brother,” Sylvain said, waving them towards you. 
You winced at the taunt, but otherwise ignored him, quickly arranging your skirts back into place with shaking hands. At least it was a long dress. Shame dyed your cheeks in bright heat and you knew he was looking at you as he sniffed and pocketed your panties, you could feel the phantom weight of his touch lingering between your legs, the wrongness of your skirts inner layer rubbing directly against your bare skin, but acknowledging any of it would certainly tip you over the edge. 
The footman opened the door and you hoped to the goddess that you didn’t look as wrecked as you felt, forcing a smile and accepting his help out of the carriage. Sylvain pulled on a pair of gloves as he joined you. In the limelights, his smile shone brilliantly, his hair luminously outlined to a scarlet blaze. Giving no indication of what had just happened, Sylvain held out his arm, his self satisfied umber eyes promising every moral peril you could imagine. And then some.   
“Shall we?” 
ix.
in for a penny
“Did you have a good time?” Sylvain asked as the coach trundled away from the curb, his tone perfectly normal for such a banal question. That did nothing for the sinking dread. Although you had been able to pretend that nothing had happened for most of the evening, that didn’t make it true. Ignorance was a rule in the game of pretend, but harsh reality would always collect its due acknowledgement. 
“Yeah, it was fun,” you told him. Your hands were shaking. The air was cold, and too thin. “I’m really tired though, so I’m gonna rest. If that’s okay with you.” 
“Sure, of course,” Sylvain said, no indication of deception on his face as he dimmed the lamps in their fancy sconces. “It’s pretty late.”
You bit your lip, sickened nerves twisting in your stomach. The uncomfortable breeze between your legs had haunted you the entire night, but now that you were alone with him again, it was all you could think about. 
“May I… have them back?” you asked quietly, staring at your hands folded in your lap. 
“I told you,” he said, “when we get home.” 
The idea of arguing occurred to you, but you worried about where that would go. Every thought of yours that included Sylvain was heavy with horror and desire, you didn’t want to try and figure it out beyond those awful, shameful feelings. You just wanted the night to be over, and to never look Sylvain in the eye again. But, for the time being, it was enough to rest your head against the side with your eyes closed and think about anything and everything that wasn’t what he had done earlier. 
You must have dozed off in some capacity, or at least fallen into that state between wakefulness and sleep that left you only vaguely aware of the world, because it seemed like very little time had passed when Sylvain was nudging you awake. You blinked, sluggishly accepting his help out of the carriage. The estate was mostly dark, of course. Your mother and Margrave went to sleep at a reasonable hour. However, since you and Sylvain were still expected back, there were enough lights that you didn’t have to navigate upstairs in the dark. 
With every step, your anxiety grew. Would he try something again? The mark on your neck thumped dully and you resisted the urge to touch it, knowing he would see. Keeping your breathing evened out was difficult and by the time you reached your door, your entire body was wound tight as a spring. 
“Goodnight, Sylvain,” you said, facing your door, your heart racing as you waited for him to continue past you to his own room. 
“Sure, goodnight,” Sylvain said, not so much as pausing. You exhaled, watching him go with your hand on the knob, ready to rush inside and close the door before he could break in. He looked curiously over his shoulder. “Didn’t you want these back?” he asked, holding up his hand. Your panties hung from his pointer finger like a little flag, swinging as he walked. 
You blushed, compulsively looking either way in fear that someone would stumble upon the scene. At the same time, you hesitated at the idea of engaging with Sylvain anymore for the night, ready to count it as a lost cause. You would never wear them again anyway. 
“You’re really not at all concerned about what I might do with them?” Sylvain asked, sounding surprised. He was almost to his door. “That’s pretty kinky of you, baby sis. Not that I mind. Goodnight.” 
“Wait,” you called, breaking down at the last minute and trotting down the hall. Sylvain didn’t stop, opening his door and going into his room. The door was heavy enough to shut most of the way, but he didn’t close it behind him. It rested uncertainly against the frame, an obvious invitation. You pushed your way in, but stopped at the threshold, refusing to go any further. “Sylvain, wait, you-you said you would give them back.” 
“They’re all yours,” he said, holding them out without looking at you, loosening his cravat to put it on the dresser. 
Despite it being only down the hall, you had never seen Sylvain’s room. It was much grander than your own. Warmer, since most of it was arranged around the fireplace which already burned with an inviting little fire. A few chairs, tables, the dresser, and a large bed filled out the rest, as well as layered rugs and furs on the floor. The smell was more inviting than you wanted to admit, a mixture of Sylvain’s cologne and the soap used for laundry and smoke and something deeper, muskier. It was a strange realization that you had never been inside a man’s room. You didn’t really want to make a habit of it now. 
“Are you going to come get them or not?” Sylvain asked, giving you a sideways look. 
Knowing he was playing with you but unable to see any way around it, you approached him, meaning to snatch them away quickly and retreat. But Sylvain didn’t stop you, letting you take the ruined garment and withdraw. 
“What?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at your surprised expression. “I told you I’d give them back.” He paused, setting his cufflinks on the dresser. “But while you’re here, why don’t you sit down? I’d love to do a little more sibling bonding. We could pick up where we left off, there are a few more things I’d love to teach you.” 
“I don’t… want…” you said stiltedly, your stomach lurching at the reminder of earlier. You should have said no, and made it clear that you absolutely didn’t want that, but instead you ducked your head. “Um… Goodnight.” Embarrassed and uncomfortable, you turned around and went to the door, catching it from closing all the way. 
In a way, it wasn’t a surprise when the doorknob was pulled from your grip, the door slammed shut by a big hand that came from behind you. Surprise made you yelp, stumbling to the side to get away from him and avoid a repeat of last time. Unfortunately, the only ‘away’ was further into his room. Backing up, your foot caught on the rug, sending you stumbling awkwardly against one of the tables. 
“Why are you acting so weird?” Sylvain asked, giving you an absurdly innocent sideways frown. “Are you upset or something?” 
“No,” you said, righting yourself. “I-I just want to go to bed.”
“It can’t be something I did,” he said, ignoring you. “Right?” 
Your only response to that was a little laugh, but it sounded more like you were sobbing because it wasn’t funny and the fact that you couldn’t leave was making it difficult to breathe. There was no way he didn’t know what he was doing. You needed to get control of yourself. Crying in front of Sylvain, on top of everything else, would be too embarrassing. 
Staring hard at the rug beneath your feet and blinking fast, you tried to get a full breath. In, and out. “I’d rather ta-talk tomorrow.” 
“Oh, well, that’s fine,” Sylvain said. His shiny dancing shoes slowly entered your vision, compelling you to look up at his approach. “I bet you’re pretty worn out from all the dancing, huh? It’s okay. I’m not really in the mood for talking either.” He sounded innocent, but his expression was anything but. You could only guess what he meant.
“I-I just…” you stammered, moving to the side in the hopes he’d let you slip past and leave.  
“You just…?” Sylvain repeated with a smile, grabbing you around the waist to pin you between him and the table. “Come on, whatever you want to say, say it.”  
“Nn-no, no—do-don’t,” you said, pushing against his chest. You let the panties drop out of your hand, choosing to fight his hold with all the frantic insistence of a trapped animal. At this point, you didn’t care if you hurt him, you just needed to get away. 
Surprised by the reaction, Sylvain caught your wrists. “Woah, what is going on with you?” he asked. The table’s edge dug painfully into your back, but you didn’t let that stop you from thrashing around in an attempt to break his grip.
“You know,” you told him, looking everywhere that wasn’t Sylvain’s eyes. “Let me…me go—oh.”
“Is this because of earlier?” he asked. “That was just a joke, you know that, right? I didn’t think it would make you this upset.”  
While his words might have made you doubt yourself, at least a little, Sylvain couldn’t contain his look of amusement. That’s what it was. Not concerned, not confused, not playful. For the first time, Sylvain truly looked mean. He knew how upset you were, but it didn’t convince him to let up. He was only doubling down. You whined, intensifying your efforts to break his hold. The way you were thrashing had the table groaning, the clutter on it knocking around, but you didn’t care about the noise, or the pain of its sharp lip biting into your lower back, or anything. All you wanted was to be as far away from him as possible. 
And it wasn’t working. Sylvain’s grip on your wrists hadn’t loosened, his body remained flush against yours. 
“Le-let me go,” you demanded again, breathing hard enough that your head spun with an awful mixture of panic and exertion. 
“No, you almost have it,” he said, not bothering to hide his smile.
Your eyebrows furrowed, heat quickly rising to your face as humiliation washed over you anew. Fighting was futile, you had never been able to so much as break his hold on you before. All it did was tire you out. Sylvain didn’t even have to try to overpower you, it was that easy for him. This whole situation felt so dramatic, so intense, but it was nothing to Sylvain. A diversion at best, a game that you were only making worse by reacting like this.
Going limp, you buried your face against his chest, hoping to hide your blushing cheeks, to hide the way you were still valiantly fighting off tears. 
“Is that it?” Sylvain asked. 
“You… win,” you said, your voice half muffled and defeated.
“If I won, what’s my prize?” he teased, releasing your wrists. You made a noncommittal sound in response, hoping the pathetic display would be the thing to make him give up. “Actually… nevermind, I know what I want.” When you didn’t play along, Sylvain pulled you away from his chest to look at you. His hand was unnervingly gentle in the way it cupped your cheek, his thumb brushing under your bottom lip. “Aren’t you going to ask what I want?” 
“What?” you asked trepidatiously, knowing that he’d tell you regardless.
“It’s not that bad,” Sylvain told you, his eyes widening imploringly. “A kiss from my beautiful sister, that’s all.” 
Goddess save you. 
“I-I can’t,” you told him, shaking your head, your nervous eyes fluttering from his eyes to his lips and back again.
“I’ll be your first, right?” Sylvain asked, glee shining through in his gaze. “Don’t worry, it’s easy, just follow my lead.”
You stammered out a few attempts at rejection as he threaded a hand in your hair, your breathing picking up even more. “I-I don’t…” Sylvain ignored you. “Do-don’t think—” The contact of his lips meeting yours was jarring. You didn’t know what to do, but Sylvain didn’t seem concerned. He was gentle at first, tilting your head to make the fit better, trying to tempt you into moving with him slowly. Feeling his tongue run along the seam of your lips made you turn your face away regardless of the pressure on your scalp, the wet wrongness of it already bordering the obscene.  
“We… we can’t,” you got out, fighting your labored breathing. “Sylvain, this isn’t funny. It-it’s incest.” 
"Yeah, I didn’t think I’d be into it either,” he said, his chest puffing with a short laugh. 
Before you could argue, Sylvain used his grip on your hair to tilt your head again, dragging you back into another kiss. This time, your lips were already parted for him, and he didn’t hesitate before pushing his tongue into your mouth. Your brain shorted out, you had no idea how you were meant to respond. You could barely breathe. The sensation of him exploring your mouth was upsetting and gross in its perversion, but it also wasn’t. The raw, animal intimacy of such an act appealed to the darkest parts of yourself, the part that whimpered and moaned when he threatened to spank you. Sylvain groaned, a low sound deep in his chest, and you melted a little, shivering in his arms. 
Still, you weren’t distracted enough by the kiss to ignore Sylvain lifting your skirt and pettiskirts with fistfuls of fabric until he could sneak his hand beneath, but there wasn’t much you could do to stop that either. Tugging on his hair only got a little growl out of him, and trying to pull against his arm directly did nothing. Ultimately, all you could do to protect yourself was tense up, your thighs pressing together so tightly the muscles quivered. Sylvain bit your lip as a diversion, using his foot to widen your stance and then his knee, getting enough space for his hand to land flat between your legs. The light slap wasn’t hard enough to hurt, but the jolt of pressure made you cry out weakly, a sound he eagerly swallowed. When his middle finger curled between your outer lips, dragging lightly right over your entrance, you whined.
Sylvain pulled back from the kiss, his brown eyes glowing. “If I had known you’d get this wet just from a few kisses, I could have saved myself a lot of time.” 
You exhaled, the air trembling with the rest of you. “You-you said you wanted just a…a kiss.”
“Did I?” Sylvain asked. Without warning, his middle finger pressed harder, getting past the resistant muscles of your entrance and deeper, all the way into your pussy. There was no resistance, his finger easily slipping in from how wet you were. You gasped harshly, your posture going rigidly straight at the feeling of your inner walls clamping down around the intrusion. “I already left you unsatisfied earlier, what kind of terrible big brother would I be to ignore you in your time of need again?”
“I-I don’t… I’m dizzy,” you said weakly, clutching at him with shaking hands. “I ca-can’t…” 
“Hey, don’t worry, I get it,” he told you, saccharinely sweet. “We can take things slow. That’s what you need, right? I’ll take care of you.” Sylvain pulled his hand away, letting your skirt drop. Relief was short lived as he dragged you away from the edge of the table, walking the four or so paces backwards until he could sit on the bed. Even though you stood a head taller than him while he sat, you were no less trapped, kept in place between his legs with his grip on your hips. 
“How do you get this off anyway?” Sylvain asked, pinching at the fabric of your dress. Your stomach dropped. 
“Nn-” 
“Oh, nevermind.” He turned you away from him in an awkward stumble, undoing the clasp at the very top of the dress's high neck and working down. “Got it.” 
“Wa-ait,” you complained, trying to twist back around to stop him. Sylvain wasn’t deterred. He was incredibly efficient in getting it undone, likely from experience. 
“Girl’s clothes are too restrictive, that’s probably why you’re having problems breathing,” Sylvain told you in a very matter-of-fact tone. Even with your struggling, he had the bodice peeled down in basically no time. The rest of the dress followed suit, pooling at your feet. “Heh. If I left marks on you like this, you’d be mad, but you’re fine when your dress does it,” he said, trailing a finger down one of the lines imprinted into your skin by the dress. You shivered involuntarily. 
“It’s not the sa-wait, don’t—” Sylvain ignored your objection, undoing the hooks on your bustier with the same easy efficiency. 
“It can’t be comfortable,” he argued, turning you back towards him. Since he’d already taken your panties, the bustier you clutched to your chest was basically all that you had left to keep yourself covered. “Let me see,” Sylvain demanded, grabbing the front of the bustier to pull it away from you. “I’m not going to tease you, I just want to see what my cute little sister’s been hiding under all those pretty dresses.” 
“No, please,” you begged, holding fast onto the garment. But Sylvain won, of course, casting it aside. He grabbed your wrists when you tried to cover yourself, his fingers overlapping. Inescapable. 
Directly level with your breasts, Sylvain could see exactly how far down your embarrassed flush delved. He could see the way your nipples tightened in response to the temperature difference, and the mark he’d left on your neck, and the way your chest heaved as you fought for air, and the imprinted lines left by your clothes. You squeezed your eyes shut, trying to escape the weight of his eyes as they devoured you. 
“You have nothing to be embarrassed about,” Sylvain said, dragging you a little closer. “I mean it. You’re beautiful.” You could hear the smile in his voice, even with your eyes closed, the praise doing very little to make you feel better. “Aw, that made you blush more. You know, sometimes the whole innocent thing can be a turn off, but it’s part of what I love about you.” 
That word made your eyes open in shock, and probably dread. 
“What?” Sylvain asked, his head tilting with perfectly knowing innocence. “Isn’t it natural for a brother to love his sister?”
You opened your mouth, and then closed it. Your arms twitched in an attempt to hide your body from him, and then your shoulders curled when you couldn’t. There was no sense to be made in his expression, or understanding of his words. It was just confusion, and disgust, and fear, and the dark, sinking sense that made your thighs clench even tighter. Sylvain watched your reaction for a moment before scooting back, dragging you down against him. 
“Hey, wha—” 
“No, just trust me,” Sylvain said, pulling more forcefully.
You collapsed against him, half kneeling on the bed and half leaning on him for support. It was awkward, but Sylvain didn’t really seem to care as his lips closed around one of your nipples. An actual cry left your mouth, almost a shout of surprise. And then the sensation struck, even more intense than the feeling of him sucking the bruise onto your neck. Unable to handle the new pleasure, your back arched, trying to get away. Sylvain made a noise in his throat, forcefully pulling you back into place and rewarding your escape attempt with the sharp threat of teeth. 
Whimpering and shaking, you didn’t know what to do other than accept it, your hands holding fast to his shoulders for support. You wanted to press your thighs together and relieve some of the needy ache, but that would upset your already precarious balance. It was torturous, both the way his teeth played with your nipple and the way it stoked your desire. Eventually, Sylvain pulled away with a slick sound, leaving your nipple painfully stiff and red. 
“Aren’t you going to say it back?” he asked, his voice low and soft, his eyes fixed intently on yours from below. Warm brown had become dangerously dark in the low light, framed by those thick lashes. His hand snuck down between your legs, trailing over the top of your garters before the fingers dragged up. You trembled, your breathing picking up further. 
“Sylvain, I-I…” You wanted to tell him to stop, to let you go, but it was pointless. This was the culmination of something you had known all along, something you had known for a while now. This was going to happen no matter what you did, an inevitability. These interactions were all, in some twisted way, a game. Just not the kind you thought, and not the kind you had a chance of winning. 
“Come on, don’t you love your big brother?” Sylvain asked, his breath brushing against your breast as he moved to your other nipple. Higher still, his fingers traced across your slit, teasing the sensitive flesh as you squirmed and whined. He made an amused sound at that, pushing past your outer lips to find your clit. Even the slight pressure made you twitch, your hands tightening on his shoulders. “You can admit it,” he continued to tease, so unconcerned with the catastrophic build of emotions you were being overwhelmed by. “There’s nothing wrong with loving your family. Believe me, it could be worse.” 
You whimpered, shaking your head in rejection. But you couldn’t ignore him. If you thought the pleasure was intense when he rubbed your clit through the fabric of your panties, it was nothing compared to this. And then he took your nipple into his mouth, forgoing the pretense of anything other than the mean biting and harsh sucking that had you tossing your head back, unable to stifle your moans. 
He wasn’t taking his time and trying to build you up, he was tossing you directly into the mindless daze of passion. Sylvain’s calloused fingers added an extra edge of friction, the direct contact borderline excessive. You cried out when he bit down, your hips rocking against his hand in an attempt to grind against his fingers. Even when you focused on the motion, you couldn’t stop your body from moving, no more than you make your hands stop shaking. Just like earlier, the dark, insidious ball of tension was forming, your pussy squeezing around nothing.
“You’re still too shy to say it, huh?” Sylvain asked, his breath ghosting over your painfully sensitive nipple. “I guess it is a little embarrassing that you’d be so desperate for your big brother. I’m barely doing anything and you’re this worked up.”
“You’re not… not my…”  
Sylvain didn’t argue, he just added more pressure against your clit, wrapping his hot mouth around your nipple. The scrape of his teeth was no longer a threat, but provocation. Dark pleasure shot down to your core with each bite, urging you to madness. You gasped and mewled, lurching against him at the sudden onslaught. You couldn’t help it. Shaking, needy. Desperate. Everything within you ached for release. Breathing had become difficult, it was any wonder you hadn’t either fallen or simply passed out. 
It would be nice to say you didn’t know any better, but you did. It just didn’t seem as important as getting off, as embracing the hot rush as you came, your clit pulsing against his fingers and hips jerking in some crude beat, your heart jumping within your chest as you pushed it forward, begging him to use his teeth, to suck harder. And it was good. Better than good, overwhelmingly wonderful, a cascade of raw, perfect sensation. For that little moment of pure insanity, you were convinced you did love Sylvain, filled with pleasure and affection. 
But then that thought hiccuped, and you gasped, trying to get away as the moment of perfection faded and your body rejected any more. Sylvain let you go, his wet lips stretching into a smile as he looked up at you. 
“You should thank your big brother for letting you come,” he said.
Panting and hot, it took a moment for your brain to catch up with what just happened. What you had done. You made a noise in the back of your throat, hiding your face behind your hand as the shame set in.
“Heh, or not,” he said dryly. That was basically the only warning you got before he grabbed you, pulling you into his lap. It was awkward, not helped by the way you constantly squirmed, muttering a string of ignored objections. Sylvain caught your ankle with his own, your other leg on the bed, leaving your legs wide open. You tried to lean away, but Sylvain pulled you against his chest. 
“What’re-” 
“I want to see your face, you’re so expressive,” Sylvain said, his fingers making their way back between your legs to tease around your entrance. “You know, it’s like getting a show before the main course… it’s the least you can do to pay me back for being so patient with you.” 
“Stop,” you said, unsure if you should have been more concerned with your face or your nudity. Being so close to Sylvain, being able to smell him, to feel his body heat, had quickly become overwhelming. And now that your skin was flushed, sensitive and shiny with sweat, the fabric of his clothes was abrasively stimulating. 
“Stop… what?”
“You know-ah—” You cut off with a high-pitched, panicked moan. Sylvain happily watched the way your eyes opened wide with surprise as he pushed two fingers into you, you didn’t think to look away as he drove his fingers as deep as he could. Your pussy immediately clamped down hard around the intrusion. He laughed fondly, you could almost believe the sound was one of adoration. 
“Wow, you’re really wet,” Sylvain said. “Listen to this.” He pulled his fingers out slowly, working against the way your inner walls attempted to pull him deeper, only thrusting back in at the last moment with an undeniably filthy squish. Letting out a helpless little noise, you twitched against him like a fly in a spider’s web, well and truly caught. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that you want to get fucked by your brother.”
“Don’t… be mean,” you begged, clinging to the front of his shirt.
“What? I’m not being mean,” Sylvain said. A moment later, he hummed thoughtfully. “I could be, if that’s what you want. We both know how much you like it.”  
“I don’t!”
“I guess it’s just coincidental that you got tighter just now, huh?” 
You didn’t know if that was true, but it hadn’t been intentional. Sylvain was easily turning your body against you, your pussy sucking on his fingers as they pulled out despite every rational part of you that knew it was wrong.
“What do you think would be worse—if I didn’t let you come again for the rest of the night-” Slowly now, he worked his fingers back in, curling and scissoring them in a way that made you moan despite yourself, your free leg kicking pathetically. “Or if I tried to figure out how many times I can make you come before tomorrow morning.” His fingers thrust in harder, faster, filthily dragging across your inner walls. You jerked against him in a desperate spasm, your eyes squeezing shut. 
Was he asking you? You couldn’t answer that, you weren’t even sure you understood the question. 
“You would think,” Sylvain continued, “that it’s better to have too many than not enough, right? Especially for a spoiled brat like you.” His fingers hadn’t stilled, already picking up pace, eagerly feeding your desire for more, building you back up. “But I’ve heard that it can be really uncomfortable.” Sylvain’s fingers twisted within you, curling up against a spot that made you shake, whimpering and gasping. “I guess we could try them both, you can tell me which one is worse.” 
“You ca-can’t,” you said breathlessly, your lower lip wobbling. You weren’t even sure what you were talking about, far more conflicted by the fact that you were going to come again than by the idea of whatever he was proposing. But it was mean, even if you didn’t understand.   
“Sure I can,” Sylvain said. “It’s not like you can stop me.”
“Syl-l-vain…” 
“Hey, I was just kidding,” he told you. “I’ve already got plans for tonight. Since it’s your first time, it should be special.”  
At this point, he was outright fucking you with his fingers, keeping you from trying to squirm away from his hand by holding you against his chest. Each thrust was unbearably sloppy sounding, the clap of skin on skin as lewd as the wet squish. The way his palm ground against your clit only added to the growing tension, the inescapable blaze of pleasure. Since you were trapped in place, there was nothing you could do to stop him from getting rougher. 
“It’s too-too much,” you said, unable to escape the assault no matter how you twisted. It just got worse when you moved, when you could feel how hard he was going.  
“Nah, you’re fine,” Sylvain said, his chest rumbling against you. As if to prove that, he slowed for a moment, adding in a third finger. Your pussy accepted it eagerly, but you whined, unable to do anything other than cling to him as you adjusted to the added stretch. “You’ll take whatever your big brother gives you, right?” His words were vile, but they drifted up into your head and your inner walls squeezed his fingers as they thrust and twisted and curled. Too rough, but it didn’t matter,
A moan hiccuped out of you, a sound you couldn’t recall having made ever in your life. Sylvain groaned. 
“That good, huh?” Sylvain asked indulgently. You buried your face against his neck, holding onto him tight for fear of falling apart. 
“I’m… I-I…” 
“You… What?” Sylvain teased. “You’re going to come, aren’t you? I can feel how hard you’re squeezing me, how wet you are…. Yeah, go on. Come all over your big brother’s hand.”
And you did. Whimpering and holding onto him as if your life depended on it, recklessly tossed over the edge by his relentless fingers. The pleasure buzzed through you in a feverish frenzy, different than before. Lower, intense. Your shaking stopped as your body seized. Every breath you took smelled like Sylvain, his body firm and hot against yours. And you knew you were mumbling his name, begging him to keep going, to work you through it. Sylvain was either laughing or groaning and you didn’t care, it just sweetened the high. 
When you reached down to stop him, he pulled his fingers out, trailing them up to swipe across your clit. That made you whimper, hips twitching. Sylvain did it again, chuckling at your attempt to pull away. 
“Aren’t you going to thank me?” he asked. 
You hid your face against his chest instead. Sweaty and ashamed and disgusted, you didn’t want to be there anymore. Or anywhere, really. 
Sylvain grabbed your chin to make you look at him, his fingers smearing evidence of your arousal across your skin. “If you’re too embarrassed to say it, I’ll accept a kiss instead.” 
You looked from his bright eyes to his flushed lips, considering your options. Of the two, kissing would probably be less humiliating. Slightly. 
You nodded and he released your chin, leaving you to take the initiative. Nervously, not meeting his eyes, you ducked forward, your fingertips grazing his cheek. You meant for it to be quick and chaste, but Sylvain had other plans. He caught you, his fingers digging into your hair to tilt your head and keep you there as he licked your lips apart. He kissed you wetly, almost like he was trying to devour you, to claim you. It didn’t matter that you weren’t meeting it, he seemed satisfied enough to take. 
When you whimpered, you felt his hips push upward, the hard press of his erection searing through the layer of clothes. Your whimper became a whine and he groaned, his hands groping your chest, your waist, grinding you against his lap. 
At the point you worried you would pass out from the lack of air, Sylvain pulled back, muttering something like “Hold onto me,” directly against your lips. Breathless and confused, you didn’t get what he meant until you were on your back, Sylvain having rolled above you. The shift didn’t seem to faze him, his lips finding yours again. It was a short kiss, distracted. 
“Since it’s your first time,” Sylvain said, pulling back to cast his jacket onto the floor. The entire front of his shirt was wrinkled by your hands, bearing a wet spot on his shoulder that was either drool or tears. “I’d like to do things traditionally, you know?” The belt came next, the leather tongue pulled free and discarded noisily. He was undressing. 
You squirmed, covering your chest. With the way he was straddling you, it was impossible to get away, but you averted your eyes. 
“You’re not going to watch? Usually girls can’t wait to get to this part,” Sylvain said, “Or… oh, I get it, you’re too embarrassed. It’s not that weird, you know. We are family.” His shirt dropped, you could see the pale expanse of his torso out of the corner of your eye. And you couldn’t help it; you looked. 
Sylvain’s strength was as aesthetically intimidating as it was physically intimidating, and he was every bit as attractive as you might have feared for it. He knew how appealing he was too, looking down at you with that wolfish grin as he undid the button on his pants. Taking them off gave you a moment that you could have gotten away, but you didn’t. You didn’t even think about it. 
There was no denying that Sylvain was one of the most handsome men you’d ever met. You didn’t think anyone could top the perfectly etched lines of muscle, his skin marked here and there with pale scars. Perfect arms to perfect abs to a trail of dark hair that, despite yourself, drew your eyes lower. 
Something in your brain clicked off at the sight of his cock. You weren’t sure if you had been in denial or simply not thought that far ahead, but your pussy squeezed tightly around nothing and you understood what he meant by ‘first time’. Sylvain basked beneath your attention, his hand dropping to casually stroke himself, the flushed red head bobbing with the motion.  
“When you look at me like that, I have a hard time believing you’re as innocent as you pretend to be.” 
“You’re not going to… We’re not… I’ve never b-been with… anyone.”
“That’s pretty obvious.” 
“I have to-to wai—” You squealed when he grabbed your ankle, pulling the leg straight until you fell into a splay in front of him. Sylvain’s eyes fixed hungrily between your legs, his tongue peeking out to swipe across his bottom lip as he continued to stroke his cock. You twitched, trying to pull back, your hands dropping to cover yourself. That made his attention shift up to your face. 
“I can’t let any other guy have you first,” Sylvain said. “I mean, you’re my little sister.” You whined in distress, trying to wiggle away, but he grabbed your other ankle, sliding between your legs. “Don’t act like you don’t want this as bad as I do.” Two of his fingers slipped into your pussy, the whine you let out easily proving his point. “I’m gonna make you feel so good, baby.” 
Sylvain pulled away, leaning down to readjust your torso. You exhaled harshly, shaking as uncertainty returned in full force. This was profane. Disturbingly wrong.
“Don’t cover yourself up, okay?” Sylvain told you, prying your arms away from covering your chest and pinning them to the bed. “Otherwise… I dunno, I’ll leave your nipples so sore you won’t even be able to wear a shirt for a few days, let alone one of those cute dresses.” He was grinning like it was a joke. Just like all of this was a joke. “Then again, you’d probably like that.”
Maybe you answered, maybe you didn’t, Sylvain didn’t seem to care as he adjusted your position, his attention focused on lining himself up. It took a few tries before the blunt tip of his cock caught on your hole, just testing the muscles there before the head popped in. A little sound left your mouth, like you were surprised by the feeling. Part of you marveled at it, in utter disbelief that this was real. That this could possibly happen, that things would descend so far that you would land here. 
“Fuck, you’re tight,” Sylvain hissed, slowly rolling his hips to ease you into it. You barely recognized his voice. Maybe because of how honest he sounded, the words mean and forceful. He exhaled loudly, pushing the backs of your thighs as he sat up. Your knees were almost touching your chest, and he loomed above you. Without the cover of his body, you were fully exposed to his hungry gaze, and Sylvain did nothing to disguise the ravenous lust in his eyes. Your arms twitched, desperate to cover your chest or hide your face. 
“Sylvain?” You meant to be asking for comfort or help or for him to stop or for this to all be revealed as some massive joke played on you, you wanted to beg him to make this make sense. But your voice sounded too high, too breathy. It sounded like a plea for more. 
Sylvain groaned as he selfishly thrust all the way in, pulling your hips down at the same time. The unexpected violence hurt, you could feel how deep he was going, how your pussy had to stretch around him. But your body, the traitorous thing that it was, just took it. With how wet he’d made you, how ready you were in the first place, your doubt now didn’t matter. Even the pain wasn’t enough for you to ignore the indescribably hot weight. His cock filled you entirely, reaching places his fingers hadn’t. 
“Look how well you take your big brother’s cock,” Sylvain said, taking your legs to put them on his shoulders instead. He rolled his hips and your mouth fell open with a moan, your body straining beneath him. Deep. He was incomprehensibly deep. “What does it feel like?” Sylvain punctuated the question with a thrust. Too hard, doing nothing to ease you into it now. Your objection sounded like a moan though, and then again when he didn’t stop. The slap of skin was painfully crude, although not as bad as the desperate cries you couldn’t keep down. Your fingers twisted into the sheets to keep your arms from instinctively covering your tits as they bounced with the harsh rhythm he was keeping.  
“Too… too hard,” you told him, staring at his perfect chest because you couldn’t meet his eyes.
“Does it hurt?” Sylvain asked, twisting your hips back and forth. It made his cock grind against your g-spot and you whimpered, your back arching like a bridge between him and the bed.
“It—ah…”
“Does it feel good?” He did again. You couldn’t think, all you could focus on was that growing tension within you, the heat, the delicious build of pleasure. Now that you knew what it was, chasing it was that much easier, some perverted seal broken by his touch.  
“Mmm…” 
“Yeah, I’m making you feel good,” Sylvain said, managing to sound cocky even while breathless and mercilessly fucking you. “Say it.”
“You make me feel…feel really… good.” 
“Say how good it feels to get fucked by your brother.” 
You squinted up at him, that disgusted panic returning. Even now, flushed with exertion and in a half-mad frenzied rut, Sylvain looked amused by your distress, eagerly waiting to see what you’d do. Squeezing your eyes shut, you shook your head. “I-I-I can’t.” 
Sylvain grunted. His hand left your hip to draw downwards, and you hoped he was going to touch your clit. Instead, he pressed his palm down flat against your pelvis, right above where you could feel the weight of him entering you. The added pressure made you spasm, your eyes popping open to meet his mirthful gaze. “You’re so easy,” Sylvain told you, like it was funny. “Don’t you want to come?” 
Your body kept twitching, your hips pathetically trying to meet his. It was filthy and shameful, but you did. You desperately did. “Please,” you begged. 
“Sure. All you’ve gotta do is say it,” Sylvain said, adding a little more pressure, making your cunt squeeze him even tighter. That made it easier for him to hit your g-spot, your legs mindlessly kicking against him every time, your mind frazzled past decency. “Come on, you’re leaking all over me. I know how bad you want it.”
You whined, shame and need warring within you. A losing battle from the start. “It feels…so good,” you gasped out, your eyes squeezed shut, your fingers clawing at his sheets to keep from covering your face. “To get-to get… fucked by my… my brother.” 
Sylvain moaned, his other hand digging bruises into your thigh. You whimpered, back arching desperately. “What a disgusting sister I got stuck with,” he got out breathlessly. 
“Please,” you begged, ignoring the humiliation in your shameless chase of satisfaction. 
“Say that you wanna come on your brother’s cock,” Sylvain demanded, his words losing coherency as fast as you were. It occurred to you, somewhere in the very back where you had abandoned your sanity, that this was making him feel good too. The idea that you gave him pleasure made you whimper, peeking up at his expression with the submissive supplication of prey. 
“I wanna… wanna come… on my… my…” A particularly hard thrust cut you off, an overwhelming starburst of raw sensation shaking through you. Violent pleasure. Sylvain muttered encouragement, his big hand pressing down a little harder. He thrust a little harder, a little deeper, and you could have sworn you felt it against his palm as well. “I wanna come on my brother’s cock, please,” you begged, nearly incoherent. 
“Yeah, I know,” Sylvain told you, grabbing your hips again to change the angle until you were wailing, your cunt clamping like a vice around him. You could feel yourself approaching that precipice, so desperate for release. A few more hard thrusts, his cock driving hypnotically deep into your dripping pussy each time, deep enough you felt like you could feel him poking his own hand, and you were gone. The paroxysm of pleasure following that wet snap had your body straining and mouth helplessly agape with a silent cry, your body completely malleable for him to use, helpless to do anything other than feel.
“Fuck, that was hot…” Sylvain muttered as you came down, slowing down and pulling out of you with a terribly slick sound. The loss made your pussy clamp down around nothing. Mourning the loss, you couldn’t help but look at his cock. Flushed and hard and glossy. It was difficult to believe it had fit inside of you. “I guess now I know how to make you do what I say.” 
You blinked up at him, your eyebrows arching inwards uncertainly, the emotion caught in a strange haze of heat. Insecurity finally found a place in your empty mind and you tried to pull away, covering your chest. 
“What did I say?” Sylvain asked, slapping your hands away and pinching your abused nipples. You whined, your body unintentionally arching into the pain. He grabbed your thighs instead, pushing back until you were practically bent in half, his body curling over yours so he could set your legs around his waist.
“What are you…”
“Hold onto me,” Sylvain demanded. He hauled you up so you could throw your arms around his neck, wrapping his own beneath you like a hug. 
With your faces so close, you could see how blown his pupils were. Any traces of Sylvain’s playful mask were wiped from his face, replaced by something feral and dark. One of his arms pulled back to align his cock with your entrance again. Starved eyes watched your expression as he slowly sank back into you, right to the hilt. You moaned breathlessly.
“Say it again,” Sylvain told you, his voice low and intense. Your mouth opened and closed, trying to figure out what he meant, what he wanted. Sylvain punished you with a hard thrust, resting more of his weight onto you, enveloping your body with the suffocating embrace. You could only cling tighter to him, entirely at his mercy. “How good it feels,” Sylvain prompted you, his voice unnervingly flat for how breathless it was. “Tell me.” 
You shuddered, a reaction he must have felt considering he was all but laying on top of you. “It… it feelss-” you broke off with a moan as Sylvain’s hips rolled. The position changed the angle, new pleasure tempting you, curling up in your core. “Goddess, it feels so-so good… Sylvain.” 
“Come on,” he said, his lips brushing the shell of your ear. You didn’t think it was physically possible to be any closer with a human being, even your cheeks were pressed together. Regardless of the sweat or the heat, Sylvain held you flush against him as he worked back up to the rough pace of before, his cock impossibly deep within you. So heavy, so full, your oversensitized pussy squeezing him with the same fervor you had in holding onto his shoulders. “You know what I want.”
Asking you to think while your brain was so overcome with lust and need was cruel of him, trying to recall anything would have been difficult for you in that moment. But your silence earned you a collection of hard, mean thrusts that made you really wail. “It feels… so good,” you said loudly in a desperate attempt to make him stop being so rough, the words stuttering with each hard thrust. “So good to-to get… get fucked by… by my brother.” 
Crushed against his chest, you could feel Sylvain groan, feel the way his hips stuttered. “You’re really… really disgusting, you know that?” he asked with a cruel kind of affection, holding onto you tighter and ignoring the way you whined. 
Doing what he wanted hadn’t made him slow down. The sound of skin slapping and the bed creaking filled the room. Sylvain fucked you without any regard given to the theater or how you were responding, ignoring the way your body unintentionally jolted and twitched with every thrust. It sounded mean, sloppy. And yet you held onto him with such ferocity that your arms and thighs quaked, moaning as he mouthed at your jaw, and then to your neck, leaving kisses and bites across whatever flesh he could reach. 
You didn’t realize you were going to come again until you were already tensing up, squeezing Sylvain with something like panic, trembling and weak as pleasure shuddered through you. He cursed, his arms flexing around you so you couldn’t move as his thrusts became uneven. You felt every noise Sylvain made—every groan, every grunt, every growl—right in your core, making your pussy weakly flutter around him despite how sore the muscles had become, milking him through his orgasm. Breathing hard, his heart racing, Sylvain twitched inside of you, his cock buried deep into your cunt save for a few sharp, shallow thrusts before he stilled entirely.
Then it was just breathing, heat. You could feel that the tension had gone out of Sylvain, his hold on you loosened. Enough, at least, that he could look into your eyes as you sluggishly blinked up at him.
“How are we feeling, gorgeous?” he asked, winded and exhilarated, his red cheeks a match for your own. 
You mumbled something incoherent, even to your own ears. 
“Yeah?” Sylvain asked indulgently. “You know… you can let go, if you want. If you don’t want to, that’s fine, but I’m gonna need a minute before I can do that again.” 
Blinking slowly, you released him, dropping onto the bed. Sylvain rolled onto his side, pulling out of you. Like an unstopped bottle, a mixture of your wet arousal and his cum spilled out of your pussy, slicking your inner thighs and staining the sheets with evidence of your depravity. That was very, incredibly, horribly wrong, but your disgust fizzled out before amounting to anything, your brain buzzing on to abstract thoughts. A song they played earlier that night at the ball, the fire’s cheerful crackling, the wind tapping on the window like an unwanted guest. Friends you hadn’t written in too long, a party in Fhirdiad your mother had promised to take you to, the stray cat that hung around the grounds. Anything that wasn’t this, that wasn’t tainted by the icy sickness of shame.
“Are you crying?” Sylvain asked. 
Were you?  
“Come here,” Sylvain said with a frown, dragging you to lay against him. Both of you were sweaty and filthy, and the hand he used to caress your face smelled like sex, but he clearly didn’t care. His expression was pinched with concern, his eyes warm. “Don’t get all worked up about this, okay? It’s not like you can change it now.” 
Cold dread wrung your heart in a vice, reality threatening to tumble through. You hid your face against Sylvain’s chest, squeezing your eyes shut to try and shut it all out. No, you couldn’t change it. Even if you pretended, even if you feigned ignorance, even if you left this cold, terrible place, you couldn’t take it back. 
Sylvain wrapped his arm around you, his fingers trailing lightly across your spine. “It’s not a big deal,” he said, his voice rumbling against you. “This was going to happen at some time, you’re lucky your first time was with a guy who wanted to make it special.” 
You sniffed, wishing you could shut his voice out. 
“I mean it,” Sylvain told you, pulling your face up to look at him. “One day, you’re going to be unhappily married to some jerk who doesn’t care about anything other than your mother’s money and you’ll come crawling back into my bed, begging your big brother to take care of you.” A smirk played at the corner of his mouth as he leaned closer, his lips nearly brushing yours. “But don’t worry, I will. Family should always come first.”
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wxntxr-cxtrxs · 2 months
Text
arranged marriage (Sylvain)
Your arrangement isn't forged until you’re both enrolled in the officers academy, though you and him had known each other briefly before then. Maybe your family owned land near his family’s.  
The shift in him is obvious and immediate. No longer is he flirty and fun towards you, now he’s avoidant and cold, spending as little time with you as possible.  
Sylvain isn't happy. Honestly, he’s probably the least happy with an arranged marriage out of the whole cast. He’s initially very cold to you. A part of him knows it’s not your fault, that you're just as much a prisoner to this marriage as he is, but that does little to dull the pain of having his future stolen away from such a young age. 
Oddly enough, I think it might be you that has to ease his mind about the marriage, not the other way around. Sylvain is convinced that you only see him for his potential to have crest bearing children- after all, that’s why this marriage was forged. 
But if you take the time to get to know him, really get to know him, he can't help but melt. Deep down, he wants to be happy, and he wants to be happy with you. If you take the time to really see him, that’s all he’s ever wanted. 
He falls for you for your sense of humor, and for the way you manage to smile through such an unhappy circumstance. He knows it must not have been easy for you, having your whole life planned for you by your parents, not to mention how unkind he acted towards you in the beginning. 
The irony is not lost on him that he spent his whole life protesting marriage, and the politics of crests, and arranged marriages- only to meet the love of his life through an arranged marriage.
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fiction-box · 3 months
Text
Blood From A Stone
Blue Lions Boys X Fem!Reader
Hello, my lovelies! I wrote this in an attempt to psyche myself up for these next few days as I will be traveling for a job interview. I hope you all have been staying warm these past few weeks (the temperature has been consistently negative where I am now). I will attempt to start working on my inbox once I return. This work was not originally going to go this far in-depth, but this is where the story wanted to go. Nonetheless, please enjoy!
Requests are open. The story will continue under the cut.
After what might have been a ten minute walk, Professor Byleth halted her Blue Lions in the middle of the woods surrounding the monastery. You felt the warmth of the late spring sun shining through the trees; an experience made more pleasant by the soft breeze rifling through your hair.
You and Ingrid had been speculating what exercise you might be coming outside to do, taking an opportunity to make conversation during the walk. Each Friday, the professor enforced some group activity - shopping relays in town, competitive hunting, blindfolded sparring matches - to let everyone better learn the strengths of their classmates.
Sure enough, you watched the former mercenary pull the infamous blindfolds out of the satchel sitting on her waist. A hefty exhale resounded next to you.
“Aw, come on! Not this again…” Annette whined.
No one could blame her; Dedue had hit her uncharacteristically hard in the confusion of his blindness during their match. She might even still be sore from last weekend.
“Now, now - repeating the same exercise two weeks in a row wouldn’t be much help to us. This is meant to build our sense of camaraderie, not our dread for the end of the week,” Byleth corrected. “Line up, please.”
You did so, shuffling into a spot between Annette and Ingrid as your teacher scrutinized the class.
Dimitri caught a green bandana in the same second Dedue was handed a brown one. Green for Ashe and Mercedes, brown for you and Annette.
“Teams,” Dedue noted.
“Please tie them around your foreheads. I’ll explain in a moment.”
A brown scrap of fabric landed in Felix’s palm, the bluenette bringing it to his forehead before Ingrid and Sylvain received their green cloths. Silently cheering, you watched Professor Byleth fix the final brown textile to her own head.
“Today’s activity focuses on both stealth and strategy. Everyone received a color responding to their team. Your objective is to steal all of your opponents’ headbands - the first team to lose all of which will lose.”
Immediately, Sylvain reached over Ashe’s head to pull Felix’s bandana off his head, dangling it in the air.
“One down, everyone!”
“You know damn well we haven’t started yet!” the swordsman snapped.
Dimitri grinned, “I must say Felix, I never saw you as someone to be so easily caught off your guard.”
Ingrid hardly held back a snicker, Ashe’s body practically trembling with a similar sentiment as he reflexively moved out of the way of the two nobles.
Felix clenched his hands into fists, “I’ll tear that cloth into tatters while it’s still wrapped around your insolent-”
“That’s quite enough.”
Professor Byleth eyed Sylvain, prompting him to quickly return Felix’s band. Not without receiving a moderate punch to the arm in retaliation, of course.
“The forest will be split down the middle in regards to starting positions. Those with green bands will begin on the east while brown will start on the west. Each team will be given one minute to conceal themselves, come up with a plan, and do anything else they see fit before I sound the whistle.”
“Your opponents’ accessories can be taken by any means necessary. While use of stealth is encouraged, feel free to use weapons and other advantages as you see fit. The goal is to win, first and foremost. Once you are eliminated, you are to return here until we finish.”
“Prepare to sit on your ass for fifteen minutes, boar.”
You couldn’t help the sound that came out of you at that. Dimitri’s eyes flashed over to discern your reaction before his face promptly flushed a light hue of pink.
“Wh- Sylvain took your headband, not me!”
The redhead frowned, lightly ghosting his hand over his new injury, “Throwing me to the wolves so quickly, your Highness? Maybe-”
“Oh, enough already,” Byleth huffed. “Off to the woods with you all. Right now. Sixty seconds!”
Newly motivated by the time constraint, everyone shifted to group up before rushing to their respective sides.
You weaved between the trees, Professor Byleth following close behind as you trailed Dedue and Annette. Not long after you reached a central-western location, Felix instantly pulled the two in front of you aside.
“...-ce at the northern end of the forest where the dirt is…”
A bit confused, you shifted your eyes to meet those of your professor. Apparently, neither of you were invited to this strategy meeting.
That meant you weren’t needed then, right?
It was all the same to you. Better than the same, actually; an archer flying solo on a stealth mission in the woods didn’t sound like a terrible assignment in the least.
To top it all off, Professor Byleth on her own elsewhere in the forest at the same time? The anticipation would surely kill you. Maybe you would even see her skills more personally than you had on the few traditional battlefields your class fought on so far.
You were brought back to the present as your professor turned to you in real life, nodding at you before slipping into the shadow of a thick tree.
Sticking around just a little longer, you gathered enough snippets of Felix’s conversation to understand his plan. He wanted to make a hole in the ground on the northern side large enough to hold as many members of the opposing side as possible. It sounded a bit ambitious, but you supposed that was nothing new concerning the second son.
In any case, your team seemed to masquerade as the better part of a mess. You wondered how things were with Ingrid…
…45, 46, 47…
After a moment, you strengthened your resolve. The best way to see what the other team was up to would be to go see for yourself, right?
Swiftly working your way counterclockwise around the forest, you snuck over to the eastern side, crossing over only upon hearing a shrill note knocking against the trees. It was now imperative to stay hidden in whatever darkness would conceal you. Having a bow certainly made this easier in terms of mobility since you could just sling it across your body.
Even the animals seemed quiet. Accordingly, you were on high alert. Your movements became more careful, more deliberate as your heart began to race in anticipation. No stepping on branches or leaves; just grass and dirt. No bumping against the trees or sudden movements; just liquid flow and shady cover. Soft, swift, and silent.
Once you believed yourself to have rounded the terrain far enough, you stopped, climbing the tree with the best vantage point in the area and scanning the shady path where your opponents must have started. That is, if the ruined leaves on the ground served as any clue. Prepared for action, you took your bow off your back and pulled an arrow out of the slim training quiver you had been given. Patience was a game you were sure to win, especially in such a good position.
Nothing happened, though. You detected no movement, no flash of colors, and you eventually concluded that the other group must have had a similar idea. After all, most people are right handed, so they might have felt more comfortable countering on the northern side than from the south.
You were somewhat discouraged at your failure to help, but it was no big deal. Especially not when you heard the sound of branches snapping back the way you came. Felix’s strategy must have worked - there was nothing else you could imagine that might make that kind of sound. It must have been effective, too; you recalled an offhanded comment he made about Leonie teaching him something about traps.
Resigning yourself to picking off any stragglers that might have strayed from the group near Felix, you lowered yourself from your tree. Perhaps enough time remained for you to return to your side and assess the damages to see who was left.
Progressing back the way you came would be simple enough. Although you were intent on remaining undetected, you heard several branches snapping and some shouting up ahead.
Felix must have really gotten to them.
You grew close enough to the commotion to recognize Dimitri and Ashe’s voices as the ones yelling, but it made no sense. You had hardly moved a few paces past the tree you were in, and you were still circling the southern side of the forest.
Why were they being so loud? Did they lose, or did they forget this was meant to be a stealth exercise?
But that didn’t make sense, either. They were the best listeners in Professor Byleth’s class, barring Annette; there’s no way they would slack off now of all times.
Silently, you crept toward their shouts until you were brought to a wall of greenery. If you went through…
You didn’t have enough time to hide before they came barreling through the bush.
“Woah!” an ambush? And you fell for it, no less?
Ashe’s eyes widened, his natural agility allowing him to dodge you just in time. Dimitri, with no such skill, slammed into you. The two of you crashed into the ground, the prince scrambling to the weapon you knocked out of his hands as Ashe pulled you onto your feet.
“Come on, get up!” the archer begged you.
 Dimitri frantically shot off the dirt while Ashe started to guide you in the direction they were running. You didn’t have a moment to collect your thoughts or ask questions.
The crown prince’s longer legs carried him past you before he grabbed your left arm with his free hand. Your right hand still connected to Ashe, the three of you formed a chain for a moment as Dimitri lent you his momentum.
A terrible roar emanated from the bush where the boys appeared, prompting you all to detach and pick up the pace. The sounds of three sets of feet slamming against the dirt bounced off the trees in the forest. 
Two crest beasts barrelled through the shrubs, snapping branches in their pursuit of you and your friends.
“How?” you pleaded, your legs moving impossibly faster with the new adrenaline rush.
“No clue,” Dimitri weaved between the trees, his breath heavy, “where they came from.”
A wave of terror pulsed through you. All you felt were eyes on your back, on your friends, and there was nothing you could do about it. They approached, so much larger and covering so much more ground.
Naturally, your smaller size and unfamiliarity with the area caught up with your group. The demons pursuing you could simply demolish the forest in their path, but Dimitri could only get so far before his height forced him to fumble through a group of low-hanging branches.
Unable to slow down, you crashed into him, sprawling to the forest floor. Ashe had once again been attentive and agile enough to change course, but you and the prince lied prone on the ground.
A sound of anticipation came in the form of an unearthly squeal from one of the monsters trailing seconds behind you. If you did nothing here, you would surely die. 
Upon noticing Dimitri had again dropped his lance in his fall, you snatched it and flipped over to face one of the beasts, contesting a well-timed snap of its jaw by holding the weapon up and angling it to act as a pike. It worked just well enough to force the creature’s mouth open…
…until the beast’s maw clamped down on the training weapon, struggling over it with you before it splintered and snapped.
Knocked backwards, your shoulders never got the chance to hit the ground. Dimitri had been given enough time to stand, placing his hands under your arms and dragging you back while Ashe shouted from another direction.
The archer’s cries were enough to split the horrific hunting party, though the only thing you and Dimitri did was continue running.
This is hopeless. All our weapons are meant for training, Ashe is on his own, there are no other fighters with us…
“We can’t keep running,”  you breathed, looping around a tree to throw the monster off your trail, “something has to change.”
…Felix…
You curved around the forest, switching to head back to your group, “Follow me.”
The two of you determined that zig-zagging was the best way to outrun the monster, though if you slowed down, you would no doubt be back on the ground again.
Intuitively, you followed the path you were fairly certain Dimitri’s teammates must have taken to get to the western part of the forest. All the while, you silently prayed that your legs would continue to carry you at a pace fast enough that the beast wouldn’t gain too much ground.
Not that it could be helped; you took two strides for every one of the beast’s.
“Felix! Felix, where are you?”
“Felix!” Dimitri followed your lead.
A figure appeared in the distance, his fair skin and blue hair giving him away, “Why the hell are you two-?”
The shriek from the beast trailing you and the prince drowned out the rest of his sentence.
“Felix, where’s the trap?!”
“Shit,” he cursed, though you couldn’t hear. “This way!”
Pushing yourself just a bit further, you forced your mind to ignore the screams of protest from your body. Felix sprinted just ahead of you, his lack of fatigue allowing him to match pace with your adrenaline spike before he rounded a bush.
“Get the professor!” your teammate ordered someone you couldn’t see.
Dimitri rushed past you to follow the bluenette. Upon leaving the beast’s line of sight, however, he was yanked into the large shrub. You recognized Felix’s hand wrapping around your arm before you stumbled into him, entering the branches as well.
“Thank you, Dedue,” you heard Dimitri’s voice next to you, the phrase uttered out between gasps for air.
It was in the split second before the beast rounded the shrub that you turned your head and recognized the trick. The covering on the pit was placed in the path next to the bush you four were in. If someone hadn’t known to stop and take a route through the hedge, they would have fallen through the dirt.
And upon seeing Professor Byleth appear at the other end of the pit, creator sword drawn to lure the crest beast toward her, you recognized how smart your teammates really were.
The pit wasn’t big enough to hold a crest beast by any means, but it certainly did the trick to immobilize it as the monster lost its footing. A well placed strike to the crest stone on the back of its neck shattered the source of its power. You could only stare at the crumbling animal, its bony limbs reduced to dust. The only thing lying in the crater at the end was…
“A person?” Dedue balked.
You moved to get a closer look before realizing Felix still had his arm around you.
“Um…”
Absentmindedly, he released you, throwing an apology over his shoulder before going to examine the woman lying dead in what very much could have been her grave.
Unbeknownst to you, your body was beginning to shut down. Running all that way left you exhausted, and having done so at a sprint certainly didn’t make matters any better. Yet the second you sank to the ground to truly catch your breath, you remembered.
Ashe.
“P-Professor,” you coughed, “...Ashe-”
“...What?”
“Damn, we left Ashe in the forest!” Dimitri agonized.
Byleth’s eyes sharpened, “Understood. I’ll go find him.”
“I’m coming, too.”
“What?” Felix questioned. “No, there’s no way - you’re way too tired.”
“Dimitri and I are the only ones who know where he is!”
At this, the prince attempted to rise from his position bracing on his knees “Then I’ll go.”
“Are you kidding me? You’re a worse candidate than I am - you’re still bleeding from the trees!”
“Bleeding? I’m not-”
“Your highness,” Dedue cut him off, “your chest.”
Certainly, his uniform was ripped in places, blood pooling out from the cuts he received when he scraped himself on the branches, earlier.
“You must not have felt it due to the adrenaline. We should get you to Mercedes.”
Sure of yourself, you began to walk backwards in the direction you came from, “Professor, there’s no time! You have your sword, so if push comes to shove, I’ll be fine. Ashe doesn’t have a proper weapon, though, and he must have been running for a long time!”
Professor Byleth wasted no words, “Fine then. Lead the way.”
As the two of you picked up the pace, she turned to call out, “Be sure to clear that girl out of the pit! Get her to Mercedes!”
The dull ache in your legs became impossible to ignore once you ran back into the forest. Still, through a mix of retracing your steps and following the sounds of roaring and trees snapping, you managed to get close to where you and Ashe had parted ways.
Sure enough, several trees had been reduced to splinters and fallen trunks. The damage created a small clearing, through which you could see your friend. He looked really out of it, the forest around him a mess from the beast’s rage. 
“Ashe! Over here!”
The professor hit the creature a few times with her sword, extending its reach to divert its attention to herself. Recognizing her attempts to hurt it, the beast reared its head and focused its efforts on Byleth.
She had provided enough of a distraction that Ashe could make it to you. Allowing himself a moment’s respite, he braced himself on his knees similar to how Dimitri had earlier. Breathless, the two of you watched your mentor’s skills at work.
The creator sword would wrap around the wild creature’s neck; Byleth’s obvious attempt at trying to break the stone. Each time, the tether was countered by a snap of the beast’s teeth, or her attack missed entirely. The angle was impossible from where she was standing.
“Fall back, you two - I’ll be right behind you!”
Ashe began to protest, “But-”
“You’re both tired, you’ll need whatever headstart I can give y-ngh!”
Her opponent had grown impatient, swiping its claws at the chain of her sword before her next attack could connect. The weapon was yanked to the side, knocking the professor off balance for a moment and sending the weapon flying out of her hand.
“Just go! I promise I’ll be right there!”
Willing your legs to move, you grabbed Ashe’s wrist and pulled him up, guiding him the first few steps of the way. Once he managed to find his footing, you took a position to lead him back to the group in the west.
You didn’t think you would be able to do much of anything tomorrow, after this. The taste of blood stained your every breath, your throat felt dry to the point it hurt, and you were surprised you could even lift your legs anymore. The adrenaline had worn off by the time you left Dimitri with Dedue.
The noise increasing behind you cut off your train of thought. The pounding of paws much heavier than your own feet thundered against the forest floor. Leaves crushed so loudly you could have sworn they were snapping logs, and the veil of the safety you thought you still had was quickly torn away.
What about Professor Byleth? She should have been on her feet, should have caught up to you and Ashe by now if-
“Keep moving!”
The voice next to you startled you almost enough to make you lose your footing, but a steady hand at your back and the sight of a flash of green hair at your side kept you upright.
“Over here, Professor! This way!”
Annette waved her arms over her head, signaling a new location nearby. They must have created a separate trap in the time you had been away.
But why…?
A snap at your backs inspired the three of you to round this new shrub at record speed. This time, you were ready when Dedue pulled you into the bushes.
“Woah!”
You supposed you had forgotten to warn Ashe.
Sure enough, everything else was the same story, just with different people. The Professor pivoted out of Sylvain’s hold in time to pull the sword she retrieved from her hip. The beast fell in the trap upon rounding the hedge, giving her a more advantageous angle to properly fracture the stone, reverting the creature to the body of a young man.
“I don’t understand,” Felix’s brow furrowed, Ashe ducking out of his hold and falling to the ground to finally breathe.
You were beginning to feel similarly. Were it not for Dedue, you doubted you would be standing. Your classmate seemed privy to this knowledge, as well.
“I will bring you to Mercedes.”
A nod was all you could muster while Dedue bent to put an arm beneath your legs, lifting you off the ground. The air you were practically drinking filled your lungs with more oxygen than you thought they could hold, and your resulting breaths sounded almost raspy. Respectfully, you ensured that your head was turned away from Dedue (though it was also to ensure you could get as much air as possible).
Even still, you managed to catch the final words of those behind you.
“Why didn’t you just take that girl to Mercedes and reuse the last trap?” Professor Byleth wondered.
“Well…” Sylvain, “there wasn’t really a point...she was already dead.”
“...then…this boy…?”
You tried not to focus on the silence that followed her final question.
A few paces later and Dedue had made it to the outskirts of the woods. It was where you all met at the beginning of the exercise.
Mercedes approached the two of you before you cleared the trees, guiding Dedue to set you down on a patch of soft grass in the shade next to three green scraps of fabric. She must have anticipated your arrival.
“Will she be alright?”
“Oh, yes,” Mercedes assured him, though her light tone didn’t match the furrow of her brows. “She’s mostly dealing with fatigue, but the strain on her lungs should be soothed before she tries to go anywhere.”
A moment of silence.
“Where is his Highness?”
The glow of soft magic hovered over you before you felt inclined to close your eyes. You tried not to focus on the strange feeling coursing through you - you still weren’t used to healing spells, yet.
“He and Ingrid went back to the monastery to consult Lady Rhea about all this.” She sighed, and you felt a pause in the flow of her enchantment, “I don’t really understand everything that happened today. It all feels so wrong.”
“I agree. There should not have been any crest beasts this close to the academy. The knights should have noticed.”
Another pause led to a stronger wave of magic passing through your lungs; it was all you could do to focus on breathing next to this weird feeling, but you opened your eyes just to make sure you were still okay.
 “I will head back to the monastery as well.”
The healer nodded, “I’ll let the professor know.”
“Let me know what?”
It seemed the rest of your class made it out of the forest. Professor Byleth approached at the lead, followed close behind by Annette, and finally by Felix and Sylvain supporting a pale and winded Ashe.
As Dedue filled your teacher in on everything, Mercedes abandoned you to go help Ashe. Annette replaced her, kneeling where her friend sat just a moment ago to continue her work. Fortunately, you didn’t feel like there was much left to do.
“Right. You can head back. Take some of the training weapons with you, please - I have a feeling everyone else will have their hands full by the time we head back.”
Dedue removed the brown band wrapped around his forehead, adding it to the pile lying about a meter away from your feet. Picking up the discarded wooden lance, bow, and sword lying in a pile closer to the woods, he turned and wordlessly took the path leading back to Garreg Mach.
“My bow…” you remembered, testing out your voice from your position on the ground, “I think…I dropped it somewhere in the forest?”
Felix scoffed, “With the amount of trees those beasts managed to fell, I don’t think a bit more wood lying around would hurt anyone. The Church can just buy a new one. They replace training weapons all the time.”
“Take it from Felix, they’re used to broken weapons,” Sylvain grinned. “Repairing a broken bow can’t be much different than replacing a missing one.”
A small huff of air came from the swordsman’s nose at his classmate’s remark. Rather than respond, however, he just turned back to you.
“How the hell are you still awake after all that? I expected you to have passed out by now.”
“Me? Shouldn’t you be more worried about Ashe? Whatever running I did, he ran and then some.”
“He did pass out.”
Turning your head to where Mercedes knelt, you found your friend sleeping on the grass, uneven breaths heaving from his chest.
After everything he went through by himself, you could only think that he deserved to rest.
“Professor? What is it?”
Annette’s inquisition immediately led your mind to drop the subject, turning instead to see Professor Byleth lost in thought.
“I’m just…trying to understand something. Those people that came from those monsters - did I kill them, or were they already dead? How did this happen so close to the monastery without anyone coming to help us? And…”
No one knew what to say. You hadn’t recognized the people that died, not their clothing or their faces.
“Nevermind. We need to head back in case anything else unexpected is looking to find us.”
“That should be just fine, Professor,” Mercedes agreed. “I’ve made sure these two are stable. The best thing for everyone now would be to rest.”
“Very well,” your teacher began circling around to everyone, collecting their headbands to place in the bag she had left here earlier.
Annette extended her hand out before Professor Byleth made her way over to the two of you. Taking it, you attempted to get up only to be frustrated by the fatigue of your legs. A sharp inhale followed by a hiss of pain accompanied the feeling of Annette lowering you back to the ground.
“Yeah…might not be ready for that yet…” you gritted your teeth.
Byleth walked over, tugging the brown textile off your head in a fluid motion, “Sylvain, please help her get back to the monastery. Felix, you can carry Ashe.”
“What?!”
Sylvain barely contained his laughter, approaching you with easy footsteps and lifting you off the ground bridal-style.
“You’re sure you want Sylvain of all people carrying the woman that can’t walk? Or fend for herself right now, for that matter?”
“Don’t worry, I’ve got plenty of experience with this sort of thing.”
“...with carrying people?” you raised a brow.
Sylvain winked, “...with carrying women that can’t walk.”
Professor Byleth hit him on the back of the head so hard that Sylvain dropped you on the ground.
You landed, reeling with a small squeak and a light curse. Your breath came labored through your teeth from the incidental blow to your legs. Not that it could have hurt as much as whatever she just did to Sylvain.
“Agh- What the hell, Professor?!”
“You and Felix have done an excellent job of changing my mind. I think we would all feel better if you volunteered to carry Ashe back with us, instead.”
Now it was Felix’s turn to fight a smirk, though he was hardly trying. After making sure you were okay from your slight fall, he picked you up in much the same way Sylvain had mere moments ago.
Meanwhile, Sylvain seemed to be making a point to carry Ashe over his shoulders.
The seven of you headed back to the monastery together, Professor Byleth calling off her lessons for the beginning of next week just to make sure everyone was well rested. Annette tried to reason that taking the weekend off would be plenty of time for most of the Blue Lions. After all, you, Dimitri, and Ashe were the only ones that really suffered any fatigue. Your teacher countered that if she were holding class, you three were the most likely suspects to insist on attending regardless, no matter how badly you were injured.
Perhaps you left too good of an impression on the professor today for her to think such things of you. Regardless, you agreed with her, if only to save Annette from the pointed glares of Felix and Sylvain at the idea of rejecting a day out of class.
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frickingnerd · 3 months
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sylvain with a girlfriend who keeps getting flirted with
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pairing: sylvain jose gautier x fem!reader
tags: established relationship, jealousy, mention of sylvain being a flirt, character development/growth
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sylvain is very much used to flirting with girls and having them flirt back at him
but what he wasn't prepared for was how much people would flirt with you!
sylvain had scored someone as good looking as you, so it wasn't much of a surprise that people would occasionally flirt with you
but he really wasn't prepared for it…
he could stand right next to you and have guys ask you out to dinner or compliment you
for the first time, he started to realize how the boyfriends of those girls he always flirted with must've felt
sylvain vows to you to be more respectful in the future! he'll never flirt with a taken girl ever again! or any girl that isn't you!
sylvain gets all pouty and annoyed when those guys chat you up
he wraps an arm around you, but some of them are persistent
it's honestly such a wake up call for him
you can't help but chuckle whenever he gets like this
after you turn the boys down and they leave, you assure sylvain that you didn't even consider going out with them
and sylvain is really happy to hear it!
still, he'll stick around you closely whenever you go out, just in case someone might try their luck with you again…
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glowingbadger · 2 years
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I saw the Sylvain first time fic….and I must know what soft Sylvain early morning (or whatever time of day) sex is like with our resident ginger. He’d be so sweet and kind with his s/o. (If this is too similar can I ask for Felix or Ashe instead, pls?)
Y'know I feel like it has been a while since I wrote Sylvain, and he deserves some soft and tender morning love-making~
Total sidenote but I headcanon that Sylvain has freckles on his shoulders and arms and I will not be taking feedback at this time
Sylvain (FE3H) x AFAB Reader
Morning sex - NSFW 18+ V
A gentle hand brushes stray hair from your face as your eyes blearily blink open, squinting against the morning light until they adjust. Sylvain's own eyes crease adorably at the corners with that warm, genuine smile that's only ever been for you. He shifts closer to you on the bed and slides an arm around your waist as you stretch your back and shoulders. The sight only causes his smile to broaden.
"Morning, gorgeous," he says softly, pulling you to his taller frame.
"Mornin'," you mumble, managing a sleepy but blissfully happy smile of your own. The golden light from the nearby window positively glows in his fiery hair and across fair skin. Charming freckles scatter across his shoulders, now accented by the occasional dark pink love-bite. He wears them well, you think with a grin, though you can still feel the distant sting of the marks he'd gifted you in turn.
Your admiration is cut short when Sylvain's hold at your waist tightens and he draws you into a slow and tender kiss. The softness of his lips still sets your heart thudding in your chest, though now you both fall into a natural rhythm- one practiced extensively the night prior. Your hands rest on his muscled chest, and you swear you can feel the pounding of his heart matching yours.
He barely parts from you, his lips still brushing yours as he nuzzles your nose playfully with his own. You give a short laugh.
"Wow... you spoil all of your lady friends like this, or am I just lucky?"
He scoffs at your words, his hand at your waist now trailing up your side and along your back, cradling you to him.
"Hardly. They don't often stay the night," the bitterness in his tone melts into something almost bashful as he adds, "I was... honestly relieved when you said you would."
You rest your forehead against his, brushing your fingers along his jawline.
"If you're always this sweet in the morning, I wouldn't mind staying over again."
"You kidding?" Sylvain nearly laughs, "You looked so cute sleeping there next to me, I wasn't sure my heart could take it. I'd spoil you rotten for the chance to wake up to that again."
He kisses you again, more deeply, his tongue flitting across your lips. With a contented sigh, you part them for him. His hand is warm as it cradles your face, and he leans into the kiss until he's nearly turned you onto your back. Soon enough, your bodies are pressed to one another, his torso strong and firm against you. His teeth nip gently at your lower lip, his hands wandering your curves with obvious hunger and adoration. Then, you feel the distinct heat of his cock stiffening against your thigh, pulsing as it gradually hardens.
You break from his kiss with a smirk,
"Still not satisfied, even after last night?"
"I can never have enough of you, babe," the rasp in his voice surprises you, sending arousal plunging through your center. Biting at your lip, you suddenly urge Sylvain onto his back and sling a leg over him to straddle his hips. He gives a pleased groan, greedy hands running up your thighs while his eyes devour the sight of you above him, wearing only the shirt he'd leant you to sleep in.
Your hips grind your lower body against him, the wet lips of your pussy pressing along the stiff length of Sylvain's cock. He whispers your name, his voice low and heavy with lust, and his body thrusts against you, rutting his thick cockhead against your clit. The stimulation forces a gasp from you, and you steady yourself with your hands on his abdomen.
"What was that before about... spoiling me rotten...?" you manage between hushed moans.
"Why don't you let me show you?" Sylvain replies, though he's already guiding you into position above him with a hand at your hip. It only takes him a moment to align himself with you, his hand gripping your body tighter as he feels your soaking wet folds around him. Then, very slowly, he begins to guide you down onto his cock, the head driving into your squeezing cunt inch by inch. Your face flushes, your lips parted in a silent sigh as your lover fills you. It's every bit as incredible as the prior evening; feeling his member gradually opening you around him, dragging against a thousand over-sensitive nerves- it's already set your legs trembling around him.
"Mmm... you're so tight, babe- and so nice and wet for me..." Sylvain groans, both hands now firmly at your hips, groping plump flesh as he begins to thrust into you. It takes you a moment to regain your senses enough to coordinate with his movements. Truly, his expertise is more than enough to send ripples of pleasure through you with each buck of his hips. He knows exactly the right angles, the right pace, starting you slow yet gradually pushing deeper, quicker, until you finally manage to catch up and match his rhythm. By then, you're already gasping his name, letting out moans and whimpers shamelessly into the bedroom, knowing how he loves to hear those sounds of bliss.
One hand moves to the front of your shirt, where he somehow undoes the single button holding it closed, all while never once easing those expert thrusts into your drooling pussy. Then, that hand wanders around your waist, pulling you down to him.
"C'mere, you," he murmurs, drawing you into a deep, erotic kiss, and by now you feel you can barely keep up. His tongue teases yours, his hands squeeze and caress you all over, and his cock- Goddess, his cock pistons into you at that steady, luxurious pace, filling you again and again until your head starts to spin. The pleasure is maddening, and without a single thought, your body moves of its own accord, forcing yourself down onto his throbbing length and grinding it deep within you.
"Sylvain-! Fu-fuck, I'm-!"
"Mmh, that's right babe, cum for me, I've got you," he groans, his voice hoarse as he holds you close. The tension and heat suddenly burst at your core, your pussy clinging desperately around his manhood, coating him with your overflowing arousal. A potent shiver runs up your spine, and he urges you through your orgasm all the while, his member pulsing inside, massaging your inner walls. You take a shaky breath as the aftershocks work through you, trembling in his arms.
"Goddess, Y/N," Sylvain whispers against your ear. Without warning, his cock drives into you once, then again, and now he's panting along with you, "Watching you cum like that just for me... is too damn hot..!"
"It's because you spoil me, Sylvain" you say softly, cradling his face even as he fucks into you, so near to his own release, "And because I... I adore you," you half-moan, feeling his grip tighten at your hips. With the final worshipful sigh of your name, Sylvain buries his cock into you once more, the full length of it flexing within you as he pours his cum deep inside. The swelling sensation stretches you almost painfully, but the thrill is far more potent. You cling to his strong body as his muscles tense with each wave of his orgasm, nuzzling his neck until he's spent. After these long moments of mindless pleasure, you feel him relax onto the bed all at once, panting as he comes down from the high of his climax.
Still breathless, Sylvain runs a hand along your cheek, meeting your eyes with something strangely heavy in his gaze.
"I love you," he says at last. Your face burns almost as hot as the rest of you, and for a moment, you're forced to look away.
"You're seriously gonna say that with your cock still inside of me?"
He laughs, and gently nudges you back to face him,
"Could've said it while we were fucking. Nearly did, actually- last night, too," his affectionate smile melts right through your pretend-pout, and he adds, "I would've meant it then too, of course, but it seemed better to wait."
'I- well, I," you stammer, but manage, "I love you too, obviously. But we, uh, we should clean up."
At long last, Sylvain acquiesces, easing his member from you and guiding you down onto the bed beside him. He kisses your forehead gently.
"Sure, sure. Just figured I'd convince you to stay another night, first."
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sfsolstice · 5 months
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✦ allegiance gn!reader x sylvain gautier . . . a/n: TOOOONS of angst <3
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Your name being called out to a crowd of unruly commoners rang sharply between your ears. One foot weighed itself on your shoulder blade as, in a moment's notice, your face met the chilling snow that had fallen earlier that morning.
"Charges lay against you for for the conspiracy and subsequent murder of the late regent of the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus, the Grand Duke of Itha, Rufus Blaiddyd. Charged alongside you is His Highness, the son of the late King Lambert Blaiddyd, and nephew of the Grand Duke, Dimitri Blaiddyd."
At the call of his name, you heard the sound of chains rattling in the struggle against Kingdom knights and the crunch of snow approaching where you laid. A grunt from the prince, who was knocked down to the ground same as you, escaped him.
You remembered that day five years ago, under a gray, bleak sky, clouds overhung yours and Dimitri's trial for the murder of his uncle. The prosecution was Faerghus. Or rather, Cornelia at the behest of the Empire. Hearing the charges of a crime you nor Dimitri didn't commit made that morning's breakfast resurface, you recalled. To eliminate Dimitri and those closest to him meant that the rightful heir to the throne and anyone who was powerful enough to command Faerghus' military would be gone; the trouble of fighting and losing valuable men in the Kingdom would be gone, and thus, it would be easier for Edelgard to unite Fódlan.
You remembered Dedue rescuing you from the cells underneath the castle in Fhirdiad. You remembered his telling you that His Highness would be right behind you, being told that you should just run as far from the capital as you could. You remembered the snow, how softly it came down on the day you were supposed to die. You remembered how you crawled to Gautier, because you didn't know who else to run to, because Sylvain was the one you trusted the most.
His eyes when he saw you were full of kindness and worry; he took you in and begged his father to harbor a war criminal in his home. Sylvain did everything he could to keep you in Gautier, to keep you from being hunted down by traitorous scum who dared once calling themselves loyal to the Holy Kingdom. He couldn't let it happen: have them find you and take you back to behead you. His heart wouldn't let him.
You remembered hearing from Sylvain that Fhirdiad announced that the criminal, treasonous prince had atoned for his sins two days after you arrived, when the snow was coming down softly, just as it had when your charges were read to you. You remembered crying in his arms as he sat next to you in bed and crying yourself to sleep thereafter for a week. The boy you swore you'd one day serve and fight alongside— his death rested in your hands, heavy and acrid. You wished you had done something, you wished you hadn't been so selfish and left him despite what Dedue said, you wished you had given your life to the Empire instead of Dimitri's.
You swore revenge, you swore to protect the people who mattered the most to you. At least the ones who were left. You swore that Cornelia and Edelgard would pay for taking away the most important thing to you and that they would never do it again, not for as long as you protected what was left of the Kingdom as a Holy Knight for House Gautier, for they had given you a new lease on life.
You joined the cause, a defense against the Empire. You, under House Gautier, alongside Sylvain, whom you were ordered by his father to protect with you life, and other houses in eastern Faerghus, including House Fraldarius, fought against Imperial armies for the sake of the kingdom you called home, for the sake of those who came before you to establish it, for those whose lives were unfairly taken by an oppressive regime. You owed your life to the Kingdom, to the selfless people of Faerghus who raised you in place of your parents, to Dedue, to Sylvain and House Gautier.
But on the battlefield, everything reminded you of what you really felt, no matter how many excuses you gave it. You were in love with Dimitri Blaiddyd, and the Empire took him away from you. Five years later, you fell in love with the man you served, Sylvain Gautier. You fought to avenge your former flame, and you fought to protect your current. You supposed that no matter how selfish your reasons were, if you fought alongside people whose goals aligned with yours, it didn't matter, because it was all for a greater good.
On this particular field, on this particular day, snow came down from a sky as bleak as on the day you were to be executed, five years ago. The screams and shouts of a warring crowd, from opposing sides as both attempted to cut down the other, rang sharply between your years. Your battle cries mixed with those of Felix and his father and Sylvain and his. You fought at the side of your lord, by the nobleman who let you live again, never once letting him out of your sight out of fear for the worst.
But on a day like this, echoing the day of your beheading and the day you received news of Dimitri's death, how could you have expected a blessing from the Goddess? You heard a grunt from your left. You looked over and red clouded your vision, and a sour, metallic smell made your heart stop. On one side was the tip of a blade and on the other, a hilt soaking in blood. Sylvain had been pierced by an Imperial swordsman; he drew his sword back, leaving a hole in Sylvain's abdomen for every drop of blood to seep out of. You cried out his name as you watched his body fall to the ground, the snow crunching under him as ounce upon ounce of blood stained Fódlan.
You blinked and soon the Imperial soldier's heart stopped beating and your lance had cut open his throat. You fell to Sylvain's side, uninterested in this war anymore if it meant that someone dear to you should die again. You thanked the Goddess you trained in faith as you rolled Sylvain over, sweeping him up into your arms with one hand over his wound. He looked at you with those kind eyes, filled with worry, just like he did five years ago. A white light shone brightly around your hand and over his wound; you were determined to stop his bleeding but not determined enough to hide your anguish, your salty tears, and the quake in your palms. You begged him to not die, for him to stay strong, for the sake of Dimitri and Felix, for the sake of his kingdom, for your sake, because you just couldn't lose someone you loved again.
He let out a breathy chuckle, the way he always chuckled. He flashed that smug grin you knew he made whenever he hid his pain, whether physical or emotional— whichever one this hid as you held him, you couldn't tell. Four words left his lips that gripped your heart so tightly you couldn't breathe.
"I love you too."
The quake in your hands spread its way into the rest of your body as your tears more rapidly ran down your face and as sobs pressed their way past your lips. You focused your magic to close his wound, but you knew that even so, he had already lost so much blood. You were unsure of if he was going to live; the very thought shook you to your core, spreading despair through your veins.
"Please don't die..." You pleaded softly. "Please, oh Goddess, don't take him away too."
But you were right, he had lost too much blood. His heart couldn't take anymore. For him, hearing you tell him you loved him after hiding his feelings for so long and knowing that he did everything he could to protect you and the rest of the people of Faerghus was enough for him. He lifted his hand weakly to your cheek, caressing gently as he strained to let words out.
"I love you. I've loved you for so long."
He swallowed hard, fighting off death for just another moment with you.
"Don't fight to avenge me or His Highness. Fight for the people of Fódlan, for those who can't."
You nodded, letting your tears drip down your chin and onto his paling skin. It was too soon that the Goddess had taken him, as his hand slowly fell lifeless from your face to his side. He was gone, and Edelgard had claimed another person you held dear. Your grip on his body tightened. You pulled him closer to you, refusing to let go as you cried into his arms the way you did when you heard news of Dimitri's death. You didn't want to leave him yet, you didn't want him to leave you yet.
Around you as you mourned and wailed, war continued to be waged, unsatiated by the blood of hundreds already. The echoes of men and women taking their last breaths on this battlefield and many more battlefields to come rang between your ears. You wanted this ringing to stop, for all this shouting and crying and death to stop. But you knew, for the sake of those who fought and gave their lives for this cause, that this was no place to give up. For Sylvain, for Dimitri, for the once great Holy Kingdom of Faerghus, you owed your life to the people, and to the people you will give it.
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randoimago · 1 year
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Three Houses Request
Inspired by your most recent post can you do Dimitri, Ferdinand, and Sylvain’s reaction to their s/o winning the White Heron cup?
S/O Winning the White Heron Cup
Fandom: Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Character(s): Dimitri, Sylvain, Ferdinand
Type of Request: Headcanons
Note(s): Here you go!!
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Dimitri
He has a wide smile on his face when you win and you get special training as a reward. Can’t help but let out a sigh of relief once again that it was you that got picked and not him.
Dimitri makes sure to get a nice flower that you like and gives it to you as a present. You did great and wants to give you something nice.
If you showed him your dancer outfit then he is coughing and trying to hide the blush on his face at how you look. You’re just amazing and his heart is full.
Ferdinand
He's so proud of you! He helped you with your dancing and practicing so he had confidence that you'd win, but you still get lots of praise that you did so well.
Might use this as a way to brag to Edelgard. Just stating that his future spouse worked so hard and won a victory for the Black Eagles. Edel doesn't care for his bragging, but she offers her own congratulations.
Ferdinand does his very best to look respectfully when you don the dancer outfit. You're just stunning and you get more praise as he continues to try to be respectful with his gaze.
Sylvain
You get a thumbs up and smile from him when you win. Yeah he's proud of you, he knows how hard you worked, but he doesn't want to make a huge deal of it just yet.
When he does get a moment alone with you then he'll gladly celebrate your win. Sylvain is happy to steal some food from the kitchen to make a little picnic in his dorm room for you both.
Doesn't say anything when you wear the dancer outfit. He just looks it over, not really checking you out, but trying to decide how practical it is in battle. He wouldn't want you getting hurt because of it. It might be safer to only wear it around him, just to be safe--
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How would Odin Claude and Sylvain express deal with/express neediness with a female reader? SFW please.
I don't write NSFW, so I'm guessing you mean that you don't want any suggestive comments?
Odin, Claude and Sylvain express their neediness
Reader here is female
Odin
He's extremely dramatic about it. Your love may as well be a curse because he's aching each time you're not close to him.
He usually says something under his breath. Almost like he's practicing his lines before he asks you in his Odin way to be affectionate- which he is doing actually.
His tone, face and gestures are so dorky you can't believe how lucky you are to be on the receiving end of his lines.
You are his chosen one. And your mission is to love him and let him love you. Whenever you hug him, whenever you kiss him- he feels like he's in paradise.
Claude
Sometimes he's straightforward, sometimes he tricks you into giving him affection- it really depends on his mood.
His tricks are corny, and a lot of times you saw it coming before he could finish his hyper specific questions and requests. But it's not like you can complain about getting hugs and kisses from him.
When he manages to get you off guard though he's so proud of himself. He can't help but smile at your reactions.
And when he's straightforward about it he asks in the sweetest way imaginable. After all, he can't help but want to kiss such an adorable lady before him!
Sylvain
He's always been casual with affection. It's natural to him to be immediately close to a girl that caught his eye.
You- of course- are different from his past girlfriends but in this regard only one thing is a bit different. As odd as it sounds, he's much more respectful to your boundaries than any other girl. So he holds himself back a little even if most of it is reflex at this point.
When he needs your affection he'd hug you from behind and whisper to you to pay attention to him in a way so silly, it's adorable.
He's not the jealous type, but he definitely is very needy. He has to feel you close, you could say that he needs it like his next breath but that would be taking it a little far... Although he did say that once or twice.
~Mod Bernadeta
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legend-of-dorte · 2 years
Text
What do the Blue Lions do if you are a target of bullying at the academy?
Note: Reader is Gender Neutral
Dimitri
He observes for a moment, taking stock of the situation. Then he calmly intervenes. Your aggressors look up and freeze the moment they notice Dimitri standing there. How long has he been watching?
"Forgive my intrusion. It looks to me as though there is some sort of quarrel going on here," he remarks with usual politeness. Then he crosses his arms, narrowing his gaze on your tormentors. "I would be happy to mediate, if needed."
For all his courtesy and friendly demeanor, there is a sudden intensity in his stare. A power in his presence that commands all the attention and respect befitting of a future king. One who would someday be tasked to deliver judgment on all wrongdoing.
But there is something else in those eyes. Something unyielding. Something that promises much worse than simple punishment should these misdeeds continue.
The grip on your collar loosens. Your bullies waste no time with apologies or excuses as they flee to escape Dimitri's wrath.
Dimitri helps you onto your feet and offers assistance as you straighten out your uniform. Your belongings are scattered on the floor in the midst of the commotion. He gathers them up for you in spite of your protests.
"I'm so sorry that you have to endure this," he says remorsefully. "If it would help, I could accompany you between classes. Only if you allowed it, of course."
Dedue
He interposes without uttering a word, planting himself between you and those who would do you harm. Like a shield, he endures their insults, their jeers - all the things that he is used to hearing - but does not entertain their demands for him to move aside.
Facing the sheer iron in his stance and on his face, your tormentors are reluctant to retaliate by physical means. Only once are they out of sight does Dedue turn to face you.
"Are you hurt?" he asks, looking you over. When you shake your head, his shoulders sink with relief. "I'm glad."
The conversation tapers off into an awkward sort of quiet. Your nerves are still frayed, and you have trouble calming down. Of course, he notices.
"...Have you eaten yet? The dining hall is not far from here. Allow me to prepare you something."
The meal he serves you is delicious, of course. Grateful for the distraction, you fretfully stuff your face as Dedue takes a seat across the table. The two of you sit in silence as he attends you with an expression that is unreadable, but not unfriendly. There are no words - only unspoken empathy and understanding.
Sylvain
The moment it seems like there is nowhere for you to run, you feel a firm hand on your shoulder.
"There you are, I've been looking all over for you!" Sylvain is at your side, wearing his most infectious smile.  "Don't tell me you've forgotten our plans to visit town today."
You stammer in response, unable to recall any such plan.
His eyes drift towards your aggressors. "By the way, who are these friends of yours? It sounded like you were having a juicy conversation." The air plunges to sub-zero temperature as his voice suddenly turns hostile. "...Any room for me to join in?"
With his arm slung firmly around your shoulder, you have no idea what kind of face he is making at your bullies. But it is enough to make them slink back with terror in their eyes.
"Was it something I said? Ah, well." Sylvain claps your shoulder cheerfully as he leads you away. "Remember that place I've been bothering you about all week? Let's grab a bite to eat and you can tell me how your day has been."
After everything he had suffered at the hands of his older brother, the least he can do is let you know in his own little way - you will never have to face your tormentors alone.
Felix
At first he does nothing, merely watching from a distance to see if you're capable of growing a spine. As the confrontation escalates, so does his dissatisfaction, until he can stand idle no longer.
Just as your aggressors are about to turn violent, Felix finally announces his presence - by loudly kicking over some nearby piece of furniture.
"What a pathetic bunch, ganging up on someone weaker than you," he sneers. He points with his practice blade, issuing a challenge. "Why don't we settle this by finding out just how strong you clowns are in a fair fight?"
The resulting scuffle is no contest. The vandals are sent fleeing, covered in fresh cuts and bruises. You are left with the task of having to physically restrain Felix before he outright runs them down.
"Don't think for a second that I'm going to make a habit of this," Felix chastises you once the dust settles. "Next time they corner you like that, you need to stand up and fight for yourself."
In fact, he drags you to the training grounds and finds you a practice sword to call your own. By the time he is done drilling you on the basics of armed and unarmed self-defense, you are more than ready should your aggressors return.
Ashe
On impulse, he steps out into the open and calls out your name. When all eyes are on him, his face goes red with panic. Even so, he musters courage and acts on the first idea that pops into his head.
"The Professor wanted to see you! They said it was an urgent matter and asked me take you to them. Hurry!" Grabbing your hand, he pulls you into a run. Your tormentors are slow to react as the two of you make your frantic escape.
Out of breath, you both take refuge within the greenhouse where plenty of school staff are present. It's uncomfortably warm and muggy, but there is no shortage of tall plants to hide behind.
"That was close! Are you alright?" he pants. "Oh... The Professor? That was something I made up." He laughs weakly. "Sorry that I couldn't be of any more help..."
Though your bullies are nowhere to be seen, you elect to hide in the greenhouse for a while. Ashe is determined to stay by your side for as long as is needed.
"...Do you want to tell someone?" he offers quietly. "Surely the Professor will understand. I can come with you to help explain what happened."
It's clear that he wishes he could do more instead of just running, but even true justice comes in small steps.
Mercedes
Though she is aghast at your plight, her solution is both simple and effective. The moment she sees you being menaced, she drops everything she is holding to cup her hands around her mouth and shout at the top of her lungs.
"Oh, Professor! Someone! Please come help, quick! There's a student in trouble!"
Mercedes is well-loved in Garreg Mach for her benevolent nature. As such, heads turn at the sound of her voice. Knights, the school staff, and even the clergy emerge from the woodwork to investigate the commotion.
Your tormentors immediately panic and turn tail, fleeing the scene.
Your savior rushes to your side and immediately sets to work mending your scrapes and bruises.
"You needn't worry. Everything is going to be alright now." She gives you a reassuring smile. "You should always yell out for help if you're in trouble. That's what I always do!"
Annette
Her face nearly as red as her hair as she rushes to your defense, confronting your tormentors with clenched fists.
"Jerks! You leave my friend alone right now!" she snaps at them with a ferocity that shocks even you. "You think I won't fight you? Is that it? Why don't you try me!"
Her hands suddenly flare with magical energy as the winds pick up, threatening a storm. Her face, ordinarily cheerful and sunny, suddenly goes dark. "Ooooh, you're all gonna be in big trouble if you keep this up!"
Your aggressors stammer excuses. This isn't worth it, they mutter in agreement, before quickly vacating the scene.
The winds settle, and Annette takes a deep breath to calm herself down. You've seen her get all worked up before, but never like this.
"Whew! That was a little too exciting, even for me! They didn't hurt you, did they?"
Her face brightens when you reassure her that you're fine. "Don't worry about those creeps from now on. The next time they show up, I'll handle it myself!"
Ingrid
The moment she clues into what is going on, she is filled with righteous fury. Oh, hell no. This is not happening. No way, absolutely not on her watch.
Your bullies know that they are in deep trouble the moment Ingrid marches over, crossing her arms with a look of reproach.
"Excuse me, but what gives you the right to take part in such shameful behavior?" she chides them. "You won't cut it as knights if you keep wasting everyone's time like this. If you would call yourselves students of the honored Officers' Academy, then start acting like it or pack your things!"
By the time she is done verbally tearing into your aggressors, they are begging her to relent, profuse with apologies. She continues to stare them down coldly as they make themselves scarce.
As you murmur your thanks, she gives you an encouraging smile.
"Think nothing of it - I can't stand bullies either. Lucky for us, they're all cowards. So, don't hesitate to call on me if you help, alright?"
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Note
May I request some Sylvain headcanons? How would he react to reader crush who's avoiding him like the plague? Maybe he asked them out to hang out "as friends, nothing serious haha" but he might have kinda forgotten about some other chic he was seeing at the time (oops) and now crush got unintentionally roped up into dumb drama and wants nothing to do with it. Cue the cold shoulder. Maybe this would work best pre-timeskip, Sylv was more of a mess then 😅
{Hello! This is extraordinarily late. I really have no excuse. I hope you like it if you’re still in the fandom!} 
Master-list: Here
Is it bold to assume that he expects to be avoided? He is the king of self-sabotage after all. Especially if we are talking pre-timeskip.  
He’s a womanizer. He takes pride in it. Anyone who’s his type would be disgusted by the behavior 
He talks the talk of wanting to be a forever bachelor, but we all know that’s a sham. He wants stability, he wants loyalty, he wants kindness...basically, if you’re what he wants then he’s going to push you away intentionally to save you from himself 
So...yeah. He has no problem with his crush avoiding him. He’s convinced it will pass so long as you’re happy. He’s content being on the side, even though his close friends say otherwise 
Aka. Felix picked up on what he was doing and laid down the hard blows. Basically told Sylvain he was a child. Pfft. As if he would be any different 
Felix would do worse in his position, but Sylvain holds the thought in to avoid being pummeled 
It takes Ingrid’s threats to make him try and attempt being friends again. Something about how he was jeopardizing the ‘team effort’ by letting you ‘sulk’
He felt there was more to it than that, but he didn’t want to press. Not to respect it, but more so because he didn’t want to know the answer 
It’s one thing if you were ignoring him from how he acts. That’s fine. 
but he--he doesn’t want to hurt your feelings.
He’s not stupid. He’s painfully aware of how you stare during class
how you take a step towards his table at lunch, before shaking your head and choosing somewhere else 
how the one time Lorenz went too far, calling him a disappointment to nobles and tossing in a comment about his brother...you became enraged.
So angry he could see veins popping out of your neck
Lorenz earned a bruise the same color as his hair, it was awesome
He only ever saw that level of anger from Felix. Needless to say, surprises were bountiful that day. 
He turned a blind eye to it all, until now. After pining for so long and then ignoring him, he was shocked you accepted his invitation to eat lunch 
“Heyyy (Y/N)? Want to grab a bite to eat? Been a while since we’ve seen each other and that’s not good for friends, don’t you think?” 
Ignoring Ingrid who may have been watching, he did his best to sound natural
He didn’t miss you wince when he leaned on your shoulder, or the way you stepped back at his emphasis on ‘friend’ 
He also seemingly “forgot” that he was supposed to have lunch with his latest hookup. He definitely wasn’t planning to have them interrupt, cutting your time together short and getting Ingrid off his back. Possibly making you hate him in the process and eliminating any chance he had with you in the future 
He was planning it. Just so we’re clear 
and boy did Sylvain love to self-sabotage. The hollow feeling in his heart was well deserved, which he confirmed when everything happened according to plan. 
You both were eating lunch in the courtyard. Him making small talk, and you uncharacteristically silent. Not too far along comes his latest partner, mad at him for being so forgetful and even cheating on them. He took his opportunity 
“Cheating on you with them!? Are you serious!? They’re just a friend, chill out,” 
It was done. He committed the ultimate friendzone without fault. The way his partner looked at him in horror was also expected, but their shock wasn’t directed his way.
Why weren’t they looking-? 
“Are my feelings a game to you? Do you like making people feel like smeared shit on the bottom of your shoe?” 
The way you shook next to him. Your head down and hands crushing the drink in your grasp. He almost expected you to throw it at him, but instead your hands caught water. Droplets fell at a rhythmic pace. 
“Did you seriously ask me to lunch when you already had plans? After not talking to me for weeks?! After treating me like I was never your friend?! I know you have a hard time being honest with yourself. I know you don’t like people who’re pushy, so I held back talking first,” they throw their cup onto the floor, standing to glare at him. They purse their lips, trying to barricade their next words yet failing horribly, “but this?! You have me awake for endless nights wondering if I did something wrong and then you use me for petty drama?” 
They do the last thing he’d expect, and grab his newest ex by the arm. Before he can process a defense they’re both walking away, with his ‘friend’ furiously wiping at their eyes
“You can’t even give your partner a proper breakup. I knew you were bad, but not that bad,” they halt, turning to look over their shoulder, “I can’t believe I thought you cared about me. I...you know what, you don’t get to hear the rest,” 
and you both were gone. 
It was the afternoon bell that pulled him from his stupor. He knew that meant class was starting, yet Sylvain didn’t want to go. 
Yet he also didn’t want to just sit around. So he forced himself to do what he does best, pretend whatever just happened never occurred
Hours go by, and then some days. He hasn’t heard from his ex once, which was rare since they normally try to reconcile at least once. As for you? It was the same cold shoulder as the past few weeks, except this time was different 
You didn’t stare at him during lessons 
You didn’t take one step towards his lunch table before turning away
You didn’t defend him when Ingrid gave him a nasty bruise on his cheek, or when Dorothea called him vile 
You just...didn’t? He got exactly what he wanted. You did nothing, as if he never existed and your friendship never happened 
and yet- he didn’t feel the relief that he expected. He wasn’t happy that you moved on, and every time you laughed his latest meal felt it was about to be re-plated 
Your feelings - his crush. They were never the burden he made them appear to be
When he tries to sleep it off, all his brain would conjure is a crushed cup. Trembling fingers digging into tin, their tips changing color from pressure. Droplets of water trickling from thin air and falling on top. 
Your feelings were a game to him. One that he lost from the start 
He lays in bed, arm over his eyes and lets his tears fall
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agent-cupcake · 1 year
Text
Crybaby
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Pairing: Sylvain Jose Gautier x f!Reader
Synopsis: Sylvain likes making you cry, that's the plot.
Warnings: explicit smut, dub/noncon
Tags: dacryphilia, rough sex, dirty talk, slight infantilization
Word Count: 4.8k
Notes: This was a short little doodle that popped into my head while I was trying to sleep and then, and then, and then. I'm not sure I'll ever post the things I've been trying to work on but whatever, here's some good ole fashioned nastiness. Also trying to find good photos of Sylvain to use as a banner quickly got annoying so I gave up.
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Pathetic, stupid girl. That’s all you were, and it was all you could think as you found yourself back in the same place you always went. Hiding from everybody else. Crying all alone because you couldn’t contain your emotions like a normal person. Running away. But even if it was juvenile and misguided and stupid, what else were you supposed to do? Quickly excusing yourself seemed a better alternative than letting everybody see a grown woman crying at her own party. Over the cruel antics of an infamously womanizing man, no less. 
Dabbing at your eyes, you tried to regain your composure. It shouldn’t have bothered you so much. You shouldn’t have let him get to you. He was mean, and cruel, and you were only giving him what he wanted by reacting like this.
You needed to go back to the party, to smile, and prove that you weren’t affected in the least. Stop being such a pathetic crybaby. Grow up. 
“Oh, there you are,” Sylvain said, his voice startling you out of your slump against the wall, all of the hairs on the back of your neck standing straight up and heart set to racing. 
How had he found you? Of all the hiding spots you had, this was your favorite for escaping from parties. It was your secret, your little alcove, an out-of-the way corner far away from the noise. He didn’t belong here. 
“Sylvain,” you acknowledged, unable to say anything else, your eyes darting behind him to your only possible escape. In your state, you had effectively cornered yourself. All alone with Sylvain. Again. 
“I was wondering where you ran off to. We all got worried when you ran off so fast.” He spoke as if he was relieved to find you. As if he hadn’t tracked you down on purpose. As if he were utterly ignorant to why you had run in the first place. 
“I don’t wanna talk to you,” you said, refusing to look him in the face directly because then he’d see your red cheeks, he’d see the tears clinging to your eyelashes and he already knew but you didn’t want to give him the pleasure of seeing it too. Hopefully the shadows covered the most damning evidence, although you weren’t sure it mattered. 
“I owe you an apology,” he said.
“I don’t want to talk to you,” you said louder, glaring hard at his boots. 
“I know,” he said, raising his hands and eyebrows in innocence. So amiable, so approachable. So believable. “We don't have to talk, but I need you to know that I was just joking around earlier.”
“It’s fine,” you said curtly, desperate to refuse him any other reaction, hoping he’d get bored and leave it alone.
“I don’t want you to be mad at me.”
“I’m not,” you told him, although the increasingly shrill tone in your voice said otherwise. You hated yourself for it, hated Sylvain for making you so upset. Hated the whole ugly, awful situation. 
“I didn’t mean to make you cry.”  
The handle you had on your emotions had been weak to begin with, but that finally set you off, the horrible cruelty sending a rush of overwhelming, despairing dizziness right up to your head. “Yes you did!” you exclaimed, unable to hold your tongue even though you knew you should have. 
“No, I hate seeing you cry,” he said, acting surprised by your accusation. Then he shrugged, dark eyes narrowing a little. “It’s not my fault you’re so sensitive.”    
"I’m not!” you told him, unable to quell the flare up of helpless indignance. “It’s you. I don’t understand why you’re so mean to me. I never… I don’t understand.” 
Although you weren’t sure why, that had been the exactly wrong thing to say. You could tell by the set of his shoulders, by the shift in his expression. If it were a play, you had just given him his cue.
“You didn’t seem to think I was being mean the other night,” Sylvain said. “Or the night before that. Actually, if I remember correctly, you seemed like you were having a good time.”
A furious flush crawled over your face, hot enough to leave you lightheaded, blazing with shame and disgust and regret. “No. That wasn’t….” 
“Wasn’t… what? Your fault?” Sylvain asked, his eyebrow raising slightly. “Right. Nothing is ever your fault. Not as long as you flash everybody those big doe eyes and act like you're a victim.”
“That’s not it,” you said, but there was no strength to your words. Not out of a lack of conviction, but because if you spoke any louder you’d definitely cry. "I…"
He waited, but there was nothing else you could think of to say. 
“You really have no idea what else to do, do you? Well, everybody else might believe it, but I don’t.”
“I don’t care what you…” You shook your head, trying to regain even a shred of composure. “I don’t care. You're a… a…” 
“What?” Sylvain prompted. “What am I?” 
“A bully!” you exclaimed suddenly, loudly, hands balled into ineffectual fists at your sides.
“Really? I’m a… bully?” he asked incredulously. “Seriously? I swear, you’re such a kid sometimes.”
Your eyes burned with fresh tears. Tears of anger, of humiliation, of exhaustion. “Just stop. Leave me alone.” 
“Stop what?” Sylvain asked. “I came to apologize. You’re the one making such a big deal out of it.” 
“I’m not!” 
“You are. Just like earlier, all I was doing was playing around but then you had to go and make me look like the bad guy.” He hesitated, taking a step closer. “Hold on, are you gonna cry?” 
Your chin wobbled, your throat swelling up, your hands shaking. “No.” 
“Go on,” Sylvain invited. “Prove my point. You want me to feel sorry for you, right? You want me to fawn over you like everybody else.”  
“I don’t!”
“You don’t?” he asked, feigning surprise. He waved it off a second later, smiling like it had been a joke. “Ah, don’t give me that look. I get it. It’s all about the attention.” 
“I don’t want attention,” you insisted, the burning getting worse. Burning your cheeks, like embers behind your eyes. 
Sylvain rolled his eyes. “Yeah, you do. And you wanna know how I know?”
“No, I’m… I’m done. I’m going back,” you said rather than answer, holding your head high with a brittle sort of strength. You would walk past him, and it would be fine. You didn’t need to be scared. Last time—no, this wouldn’t be like last time. If you set boundaries, if you were firm, it would be okay. Holding your breath, you began to scurry past him, your entire body tense enough to snap. 
“Wait, hold on,” Sylvain said, grabbing you around the waist when you were close enough. You protested with a yelp, trying to escape his grasp, desperate to get away. Because that worked so well before. 
“I’ll scream,” you told him, pushing at his hands, your heart beating so fast you worried he could hear it too.
“No you won’t,” he said with an easy-going sort of exasperation, crowding you further into the corner before letting you go. He wasn’t physically restraining you, but you were just as trapped. Between a rock and a hard place. “Just calm down, okay?”
You sniffed, trying to compose yourself. He was right. If you screamed and somebody came, what would they think? What would Sylvain tell them? 
“Right… What was I saying?” he asked. “Oh, yeah. The reason I know you want attention is because even though you know I’m no good, even though you cry about how much of a bully I am, as soon as I made a move on you, you were more than happy to go along with it.” He smiled, teeth glinting in the low light as he shook his head. “For most girls, the Crest and title is enough, but you’re way more simple than that. You know, it’s pretty pathetic.” 
“No,” you told him, shaking your head desperately to reject his words. It wasn’t true. It wasn’t. “I-I want to go back.”
“Stop being such a baby,” he teased, reaching out to ruffle your hair. You flinched, slapping his hand away. That made Sylvain freeze, his smile dropping. Instead he braced his arm on the wall behind you, your chests nearly touching with each of your frantic breaths. “Fine, fine. If you tell me to stop and mean it, I’ll stop.” 
“Stop!” 
“That’s the best you got?” he asked with an incredulous little laugh. He was close enough that you could feel the puff of air, smell the wine on his breath. “Really?” 
“Sylvain, stop!”
“That was even worse.”
“Please, stop,” you begged, breaking down now because he wouldn't listen anyway, no matter how you said it. It was all just make-believe to trick you into doing exactly what he wanted. Foreplay. And you knew that, so where was the steel in your voice? 
“This is your problem. Nobody’s ever gonna take you seriously when all you can do is whine at them.”
“I’m not whining!” 
He didn’t even have to respond to that, the raised eyebrow and nonplussed set of his mouth said more than enough. 
“I’m not,” you told him again, your voice weaker. 
Sylvain rolled his eyes. “Hey, don’t worry. It’s cute.” 
The compliment had you frantically trying to think of an escape. Knowing that it was doomed. This was all heading in an obvious direction, it probably had been his intention from the second he chased you away and you just played along, never smart enough to catch wise to his plots. 
“When you pout like that, I guess I do feel a little sorry for you,” he said. “I know what’ll make it better.” 
He cupped your chin to raise your head up. Gently, at first. When you tried to pull his arm away, those fingers dug into your jaw and cheeks, holding you in place.
“We have to… go back…” you said. “Otherwise people are gonna…”
“Talk? Yeah, I’m sure they will.” 
Sylvain kissed you before you could respond. Your mouth was open for his, and it didn’t matter if that was intentional or not, only that his tongue tasted like wine and it was really setting in that there was nothing you could do to stop this. He kissed like a romantic, his other hand dropping to cradle your head, holding you in a way you were sure had convinced dozens of girls of his affection and passion. 
That’s how he had been the other night too, trailing hot kisses down your body while you trembled, burying his head between your thighs until you were too wrought with pleasure to do anything other than let it happen, believing him when he told you how beautiful you were, how much he cared about you. 
Lies.
“Please, Sylvain,” you said, breaking the kiss enough to breathe. “I don’t want to.” 
“Don’t want to… what?” he asked softly, nudging your chin upward. 
You stared at his chest with blurry vision, refusing to meet his eyes. “I don’t want to… to do… anything.”
He laughed, rolling his eyes. “C’mon, let’s be honest, you never do anything. I don’t really care. The whole pillow princess thing suits you. So just relax and let me take care of it. You’re getting pretty good at that.”  
“No—nn-” Sylvain cut off your objection, grabbing a handful of your skirt to pull it up. Not all the way, just enough to get his other hand beneath the bunch of fabric. Your body bucked in an attempt to displace him, your thighs clenching, but a hard knee between your legs kept them open enough that he could rub against you over the barrier of your panties. 
“You look so confused whenever I touch you,” Sylvain said. “Before you start acting like you don’t want it, at least.” 
“I don’t!” You insisted, pushing at his arm. Sylvain didn’t budge, grabbing one of your wrists and pinning it to the wall. His other hand turned so his fingers could curl, wedging silky fabric between your pussy’s outer lips to drag forward, stopping when you unintentionally jerked in response to the pressure on your clit. You weren’t turned on, but you knew that was going to change if he started rubbing your clit the way he had last time, drawing blood between your legs to meet the demand of stimulation. Even if it was a completely physical, uncontrollable reaction, he would take it as proof that he was right.    
“I couldn’t figure out why at first, but I think I got it now.” 
You shook your head, barely able to follow along with his words as he continued touching you, grinding against your clit with those dirty little circles. If anything, the extra friction of your panties made it better. 
No. Not better. Not good. 
“You can’t believe that you’re not getting your way just by crying and whining,” Sylvain continued, uncaring that you weren’t really listening. “Because the princess always gets her way, doesn’t she?”
A soft whimper left your mouth, your head shaking in tight little motions to deny his accusation. “No,” you whimpered, squeezing your eyes shut to delay the tears that were finally welling up, retracing the salty tracks from before. 
Sylvain laughed breathlessly, delighted. “You’re such a crybaby. I know you love it. You can’t get enough of me. That’s why you’re acting like this. You have no idea how to get somebody’s attention without throwing a fit.”
More tears slid down your face even as your body writhed against his, that tight ball of need building up beneath his relentless touch. Sylvain caught the tears with his lips before kissing you again, groaning in response to your nearly inaudible whine at the taste. Your pussy tightened, the muscles clenching around the hollow ache of nothingness, of need. The memory of his fingers, of his cock, made the absence that much more noticeable, a desire you only knew because of Sylvain.   
His tongue explored your mouth while you anxiously lagged behind, unable to meet his intensity as your body teetered ever closer to the crest of pleasure, all you could do was try to hold on, to keep your eyes squeezed shut in an attempt to block it all out. 
Suddenly, Sylvain pulled away. The loss of pressure on your clit made your eyes snap open, your hips jumping forward. He obviously noticed the reaction, his lips red and wet, his eyes alight. 
“Don’t worry, I’m not about to leave you high and dry,” he said, pushing your panties down enough to make room for his hand. 
“I do—oh-” Was your wonderfully eloquent response when he pressed two fingers into you. Longer, thicker, more insistent than your own. You trembled and gasped and moaned, your pussy sucking his fingers deeper, your hips bucking against him. You squeezed your eyes shut again, not wanting to see whatever expression Sylvain was wearing when he started laughing, his fingers scissoring and teasingly thrusting, dragging against your walls in a way that had you squirming helplessly. 
“With as much as you cry, I wouldn’t think you could get so wet,” he told you. “Guess you just want it that bad, huh?”
You gasped, squirmed, your fingers tightening in the front of his shirt, your other arm uselessly fighting against his grip. "No," you said weakly, trying not to make any noises he might take as affirmation. 
“Use your big girl words. Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you hate it when I finger you. Tell me you hate it when I make you come.” 
“You’re… you’re wr-ah—” Your objection cut off with a sharp gasp, your body jerking in response to a particular curl of his fingers which must have been what he was waiting for because of the horribly sharp smirk he was wearing when your panicked eyes opened and met his.
“You know, now that I think about it, you really can’t do anything like a real adult. Throwing fits, running away when you get your feelings hurt… Even when we're fucking, all you can do is whine and cry and beg for me to take care of you.” 
Sylvain got you to prove his point without trying, curling his fingers, pushing them deep enough to fill that anxious ache of need, making you gasp and tremble, holding onto him even tighter for stability. 
“If you didn’t have somebody taking care of you at all times,” he told you, his voice a little lower, a little more mean, “you’d be completely helpless.” 
“No.”
“Can you even make yourself come? Have you tried?”
“Ss-stop.” 
“I bet you haven’t. Why would you when you’ve got me around to do it for you? You’re so spoiled. Fuck, it’s a good thing you’re cute.” 
The praise, his fingers, the way his palm ground against your clit with each pass, you tried to ignore it, to shut everything out, but you couldn’t. Tears dripped down your cheeks and you moaned for him, your pussy squeezing his fingers as the feverish build of pleasure threatened to snap. “I… I can’t…”
“You think? ‘Cause I think you can.”
“No, I can’t,” you said—you whined.  
It didn’t matter. A few thrusts more was all it took and you did, trembling and gasping and crying as you came, hitting your head against the hard wall when your body arched against him. The pain did nothing to distract you from the swell and burst of pleasure, the heat spreading out and fizzing like champagne bubbles in your core, all the way to your flushed cheeks and open mouth. Sylvain didn’t stop, didn’t slow down, dragging it out until you were writhing for another reason entirely. 
“Sss-sto-stop!” you said, pushing him away. 
“Why? Did you come?” he asked, feigning ignorance. “I thought you couldn’t.” 
“Stop,” you begged again.
“No,” he said. “Unless you were lying. I mean, I thought I felt you squeezing me extra tight, but…” 
“I did!” you exclaimed. “I did, I did, so please-” 
Finally, Sylvain pulled his fingers out of your spasming pussy, smiling like he’d won. You wilted, half glad to be spared the discomfort of oversensitivity and half disappointed by the fresh ache of emptiness. The contradiction was like a slap in the face, your body betraying you all over again.
“See, it’s not that hard to be honest,” Sylvain said. “So go ahead, admit it.” 
“Admit what?” you asked softly, wetly. 
“Admit that you’re a slut, and all you want is to get fucked by yours truly.” How he even managed to wink at you while saying something so profane, you had no idea, only that it made you flush so hot your ears stung. 
“You… you’re awful,” you told him.
“I’m a good-for-nothing asshole, yeah,” Sylvain agreed. “But at least I’m honest about it. You can’t even do that.”
“I-I’m not…”
“Yeah, you’re just a poor pathetic little crybaby getting taken advantage of by the mean, mean bully. Right?” 
“But… but you are,” you told him. Sylvain snorted derisively, peeling you off the wall and flipping you around, guiding you into a graceless stumble forward until you were facing the window. There wasn’t much of a view up here, especially not on a dark night like this. Sylvain pushed you down, forcing you to hold onto the window ledge for stability. Ignoring your complaints, he flipped your skirt up, kicking your feet apart a little. 
“Sylvain, please stop, I do-don’t-”
“Stop squirming around so much,” he told you, shoving your panties down. The fabric strained, pulled taut between your thighs. He used them to keep you still while undoing his belt and pants. “Don’t you think I deserve something too? I’ve been pretty nice, all things considered.” 
All you could do was wheeze in response, caught off guard by the sudden pressure of his cock pressing between your folds. Given the poor light and the position, there was a bit of fumbling. He clicked his tongue in annoyance and withdrew, letting you relax slightly. This wouldn’t work. Not in such a shameful position, not here where you could be found.
“Yeah, just like that. Relax for me,” Sylvain said sweetly, his voice contrasting with the harsh palm forcing you to bend down even more, your thighs burning as you rocked forward on your toes. When his cock returned, it was slick with saliva, easily pushing past your outer lips. As soon as you felt the head press between the tense muscles of your entrance, Sylvain’s hips snapped forward. 
He groaned low in his chest, one of the few honest things to come out of his mouth that night. You whimpered. Even if your body was tense, Sylvain had no issue pushing until his hips met your ass. You were wet and, despite any mental rejection on your part, ready for this. The stretch wasn’t the discomfort of your first time, but the heady weight of something that should have been natural and beautiful. Sylvain grabbed your hips to adjust himself within you, manipulating you into position while you scrambled to hold onto the stone with sweaty hands, your legs trembling. 
“I have no idea why you make such a big deal out of this. You obviously love it,” Sylvain said, satisfied. You gripped onto the window ledge a little tighter, your face scrunching up with more tears as he pulled out. Slowly, luxuriating in the sensation. Your pussy clenched down around him, your hips rolling before you could get enough control over yourself to stop. “Don’t get me wrong, I do too. Most of the time, I don’t really care, you know? Sex is… well, it’s sex. You have a girl one, two times, and the itch is scratched. But you… I don’t know what it is, either.”
The only answer you could manage was a stuttered, “Aaa-aa-ah-” when Sylvain pushed back in, pushing you onto your toes again as he filled you all the way. You didn’t do anything to stop him. Your body accepted it eagerly, your inner walls fluttering as you adjusted to his size, providing a fresh wave of wet arousal to soak his cock as he wiggled your hips and pulled out. Pathetic, embarrassing tears dripped onto the floor. 
“Next time we do this, I’ll need a mirror,” Sylvain said, his voice raspy. “I’ve never met a girl that cries so much when she comes. I didn’t think I’d be so into it, but—fuck.” He groaned, his hips clapping loudly against your ass. Even if he wasn’t talking and groaning, even if you weren’t whimpering and gasping and sniffling with each inexorably deep thrust, the vulgar sound of skin slapping skin would have been more than enough of a giveaway to what was happening to anybody passing by. 
Worse than that, worse than anything else, was that Sylvain knew what he was doing. He targeted your g-spot by using the grip he had on your hips to grind you on his cock, to keep you in place for him as he thrust harder, faster so you had no chance to keep up, to sort out the assault of stimulation and pleasure. You shook, tense enough to snap, your fingers clawing at the stonework for stability as your body drew inward, everything within you focused on the growing heat.  
“Please,” you gasped, desperate for it. Later you could blame the insanity of pleasure, of lust, of need. That’s what you did before, the way you denied blame. “Please ta-touch me, I-”
“What, now you want to come? I thought you hated this,” Sylvain teased. A helpless moan left your open mouth, tears and drool dripping onto the floor as you were rocked back and forth. “Heh. Maybe if you keep begging.” 
As he spoke, Sylvain twisted your hips, his cock grinding against your inner walls, pushing so deep you’d probably feel it if you pressed on your abdomen. The sound of his voice, the intensity of fullness, the mindless lust and despair, it hit too hard and you sobbed and hiccuped and moaned and came and you didn’t mean to, but your pussy desperately clamped down around him, your hips tilting upward, your back arching as that contentious ball of heat just snapped, filling you with pleasure, white hot and wonderful and feverish. Some part of you was grateful that he didn’t stop, or even slow down, just kept fucking you through the orgasm, letting you ride it out. 
“Seriously?” Sylvain asked with a short, hoarse laugh of disbelief. 
As the high faded, you tried to squirm away, a helpless sob wracking your body as the shame caught up with you. Sylvain didn’t let you go. If anything, he was being more rough, more frantic. 
“Most girls need more than that to come, but you couldn’t even wait for permission,” he said.
“Nn-no, I-I didn’t me-mean to.��
“Yeah?” Sylvain asked, mockingly indulgent. “It wasn’t your fault, was it, baby? You can’t help it, right?” 
You shook your head, knowing any answer you gave would just feed into his cruelty. 
Sylvain paused, leaning over to pull your torso upward. His fingers dug hard into your wet cheeks, his other arm holding your hips in place so he could keep going. 
“It’s fine, I don’t think I can last either,” he said, softer now, his hand raising to grope your tits through your dress. At this point, he was practically rutting into you. Using you. 
All you could do was whimper and whine and sob, just trying to hold on, unable to keep your pussy from squeezing him as he fucked you, writhing back against him helplessly because even this felt good. Terrible and cruel and good. 
“Later,” Sylvain said, his voice hoarse. Speaking because it made you react, got your pussy to tighten around him a little harder, made you whine a little louder. “Later, I‘m gonna give you a reason to cry, yeah? If you wanna… wanna act like a spoiled brat, I’ll treat you like one. Gonna look so hot swallowing my cock… Tied to my bed, begging me to fuck you… Covered with hickies…” 
“Sylvain,” you whimpered, hating the anxious, dark mixture of heat and fear his threats filled you with. He groaned even louder, his mouth opening to let out a low, sensual sigh that only worsened your feeling of helpless need, his hips slapping against your ass so hard it almost hurt. “Plea—ease, it-”
“Yeah, beg for it,” he told you eagerly, crushing you against him while he sought his end. 
“Nnngh-”
“Beg me to come inside of you… maybe you can keep it from slipping down your thighs when we go back. Otherwise you’ll get it all over your pretty dress.” 
You whimpered, sobbed, but that wasn’t much of a choice. Better inside of you where nobody would see, you could remember the mess from last time. 
“Please come inside of me,” you asked. Begged. You sounded desperate. You sounded like you wanted it. “Please, Sylvain. Come… inside..” 
Sylvain groaned, pressing his face against your neck as his hips lost any and all sense of tempo, his cock buried deep inside of you as he came with a loud, open sound that shuddered apart, holding you tight as he did. And then there was just stillness. Harsh breathing and heat and sweat and the stench of sex. He laughed a little, still breathless. Blissed out. “That was good,” Sylvain told you, kissing your neck before pulling out and letting you go. 
You stumbled forward, holding onto the window ledge, panting and shaking. Aware of the emptiness inside of you and the slick feeling of his cum drooling out of your cunt. No matter what he said, you didn’t think you could return to the party. Everybody would know. With shaking hands, you pulled your panties up, let your skirt fall back into place. You could hear Sylvain fixing his clothes too, but you didn’t want to look at him. You didn’t want to exist. 
“Guess I’ll go back first, give you some time to clean up,” he said, his voice mostly back to normal. 
“Okay,” you said, nodding. 
“You alright?” 
“Yes.”
“Hm. By the way, I meant it,” Sylvain told you, grabbing your wrist to turn you around and look at him. He didn’t really look that much worse for wear. Not like you felt. He smiled, dark eyes bright and smile slightly too sharp. “About later. Don’t think you’re off the hook just yet.”
You pulled your arm away, your chest tightening with panic and fear and excitement. Despair. Hatred. Self loathing. “No, this can’t… it can’t happen again.” 
“What are you gonna do—whine at me to stop?” he asked. “Cry and hope that I’ll feel bad? C’mon, baby. I know you liked it.”
You didn’t say anything, glaring at his chest in an attempt to keep yourself from responding to that taunt. 
“That’s what I thought,” Sylvain said. Not in a mean way. No, he sounded friendly, approachable. “I’ll see you later, babe.”    
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wxntxr-cxtrxs · 2 months
Text
Blog Guide
Hia, I’m citrus, 22, she/her. 
I write requests! 
Any character under 18 will be aged up! Characters under 15 can only be requested platonically! 
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Writing styles: 
Drabbles (200-400 words) 
Headcanons (written in bullet point form) 
Love letter (200-400 words to you from a character of your choice) 
Matchup (200 ish words detailing who i would pair you with from a fandom of your choice) 
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Fandoms: 
Fire emblem three houses (All of the students, Seteth, Flayn, Rhea, Jeritza) 
DDLC / doki doki literature club! (monika, sayori, yuri, natuski) 
BLack Butler / kuroshitsuji (any of the demons, any of the reapers, undertaker, Lau, ran-mao, edward midford, snake (Ciel Alois, and Lizzy may only be requested platonically!) 
If you want someone who isn't on the list, feel free to ask anyways! I might have forgotten them! The worst I can say is no! 
Expect more fandoms to be added over time!
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Masterlist: N/A
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Request guidelines: 
Please specify- 
Reader’s gender (if unspecified, i will default to female reader) 
The writing style you would prefer (drabbles, headcanons, etc) 
The character(s) you’d like ((i will do up to four characters in one ask)) 
Any other specific requests you’d like, such as; reader’s traits, an au, a poly ship, etc! 
If any of these aren’t specified, I’ll write it however it comes to mind.
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Will write: 
Character x reader 
Any gender reader ( if not specified, i will default to female reader )
Specific traits ( such as weight, height, hair color, etc. including mental health!) 
Monogamous or polyamorous 
Romantic or platonic 
Smut // Angst // Fluff 
Omegaverse 
Yandere 
AUs 
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Won't write: 
Character x character (i’m picky about ships, and generally have low motivation for writing character x character fics) 
Any romantic/sexual content for underage characters 
Pregnancy (in any form)
Daddy kink 
Scat 
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I reserve the right to turn down any request, but I will answer why I turned it down! 
Thank you for reading! Please enjoy your stay!
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