#i cannot believe this was 4.5k words...

[yinyuedijun]

SINCERITY

Flirting with Suo is never a good idea—you can never tell whether he means to charm you or make fun of you when you do it. Sometimes it feels like both. Occasionally it feels mean. More often than not, you like to entertain it. But you can't right now, not when his blood is all over the washroom sink. Your manager will be furious about the mess, and also about the fact that you're giving first aid to three delinquents while you're on the clock. If Suo makes one more joke about marrying you, you'll probably throw up and cry. (Or: Suo, Nirei, and Sakura get into a fight in the red light district and go to you to get patched up. Suo takes the opportunity to tease you mercilessly.)

4.5k words, suo x reader with implied one-sided sakura x reader, sfw with mature themes. set post-canon (they are all 18-19 years old), non-canon backstory details for suo and sakura (speculative as of ch. 146). fem reader – references to gendered professions, e.g. hostessing; reader wears a dress for her job in a girls’ bar. warning for inaccurate depictions of first aid! dividers by @/cafekitsune.

Suo’s never liked your job.

You suppose this is fair. The feeling is mutual. You’ve never liked the fact that Suo chose to go to a delinquent school rather than a proper high school, and he’s never liked the fact that you chose to drop out of your proper high school to go work in the red light district—first at a kyabakura, and now at a girls’ bar. His master, who also happens to be your master, has always told you that this was a natural reaction on his part. Having a secondary school certificate is important, after all. But Suo’s disapproval of your income sources, no matter how politely or subtly phrased, has always felt like it runs deeper than simple concern for your education.

Still, this has never stopped him from visiting you at your place of work, though he only tends to come by under the worst possible circumstances—tonight worse than any other.

When you see the three of them limping through the clamour and heat of the red light district—the neon glow of the street making the blood smeared across Suo’s face shine vibrantly—you entirely forget that you're on the clock. You chuck your sign onto the ground (3000¥ per hour! it reads) as you cut a path toward them, almost tripping in your stiletto heels. Your customer service voice gives way to your regular one, which is so outraged that it startles everyone around you.

“Suo, you motherfucker—are you trying to lose the only eye you have left?!”

Suo is unbothered. His smile is calm and deeply shameless as you approach him. It’s nothing like Nirei, who cringes at the furious look you give him, or Sakura, who looks like a deer caught in headlights when you round on him instead. Like he doesn’t know what to do at the fact that someone is worrying over him, and especially not when that person is wearing an extremely revealing evening gown. For a minute, you think he's going to bolt.

But Suo keeps him there, grip tight on his arm.

“Hi,” he says brightly, like there isn't blood all over his face and shoulder. “Are you busy? We might need to trouble you.”

“Of course I'm busy! I'm in the middle of a shift!” you fume at him. But you still extract Sakura from him, scruffing him by the neck before he can clam up and run. You pull him in the direction of your bar, and gesture for the other two to follow. “Hurry up before my manager sees you.”

Smuggling three delinquents into the washroom of a girls’ bar is not a skill you thought you'd ever need, but it is one that you've become an expert in. This is at least the third time you've done it. The Furin trio rarely ever loses fights, but they occasionally slip up in the part of the red light district that isn't controlled by Roppo-Ichiza. This is somewhat unavoidable, as Keyaki Street is a different beast from Keisei Street. It isn't just delinquents here, but bona fide criminals. “Like, actual fucking Yakuza,” you grouse at Suo for the millionth time. You wipe at the blood remaining on his face—most of it you've already rinsed off, staining the melamine sink with iron—and the paper towel in your hand blooms red.

“But these guys weren't Yakuza,” he says cheerfully.

“They still pulled weapons on you! Bladed weapons!”

“Mm… well, that's true. I'm sorry.”

You scowl at him. “No, you're not.”

“No, I'm not.” He’s still smiling. “In our defense, we didn't have much of a choice. They were about to do something terrible to an innocent person,” he says, and you deflate a little, because you know Suo can't stand to see injustice. This is something you love very dearly about him, and also a quality of his that constantly raises your blood pressure. But then you roll your eyes when he happily adds, “And in my defense, it’s all our Captain’s fault!”

“Oi!” Sakura yells from one of the stalls, where he’s sitting and holding a bag of ice to a knot on his head. “Wasn’t my fault we ended up fighting. They were practically beggin’ to have their asses kicked.”

“You did provoke them, Sakura,” Nirei says. He's in the other stall, trying to stay off his sprained ankle.

“Well, they were dangerous! Not like you wanted to just leave them alone either,” Sakura grumbles, and Nirei apologises, though Suo accurately points out there is no need for him to. After hearing this story, you can't help but agree, and you suppose you shouldn't have expected any differently. After three years at Furin, Sakura is no longer the type to pick fights for no reason. Whatever those guys were up to must have been pretty bad for him to start shit in unfamiliar territory.

Still. The red light district is what it is. Touts, street gangs, and Yakuza are constantly causing problems here, with violence of a scale and nature that Bofurin simply don't see on their own turf. Your street in particular makes someone like Endo look like a joke. “You should still learn to exercise some restraint,” you say to Sakura. “And you”—you give Suo a miserable look—“you know the area. You should have known better. At the very least, you should have called me for backup.”

“But you were on the clock,” Suo points out, and you frown. Despite having absolutely no need, you take out an alcohol wipe and swipe it over his cut. He winces.

“I'm still on the clock now,” you reply, voice dry, “and here you are, distracting me anyway. My boss is going to be on my ass about it if I don't bring in any customers tonight, you know.”

“We can be your customers,” Suo offers.

“You aren't old enough to drink!”

“Neither are you, yet you work here.” His gaze has turned a little sharp. His voice too. You blink, suddenly mollified.

“...okay. If each of you buys a drink after this, I’ll call us even.” Then you glance down at his changshan, which is sliced through, the pearly silk stained red at the shoulder. He’s insisted that the wound is unserious and said that he'd rather clean up his face first, and you're starting to question his priorities. “That is, if you don't have to go to the hospital after this.”

“I don't.”

“I don't know if I believe you.” You pull out some polysporin. “Come closer.”

Suo could do this on his own. His hands aren't incapacitated. But he humours you, as he's always humoured you, and allows you dab his cut with the antibiotic. You feel a little sentimental as you do it, and almost a little sad. Doing this reminds you of when he was a kid who had just started learning martial arts. Granted, he never got any real cuts back then, but sometimes he’d scrape his knees or his elbows or—god forbid—his face, and you would plaster bandaids all over him when he did. But none of those were real injuries.

More than anything, doing this reminds you of when he lost his eye. The state that he was in after the accident. The way his face was bandaged after the surgery. The texture of the gauze against your fingers when you asked to try swapping out the dressings for him.

If Suo notices the way your lip is trembling, he doesn't comment on it.

“You’re so mean—how come you never believe anything I say?” he asks. You press the gauze to his cut with more pressure than necessary, and he blinks. He opens his mouth again, but then the door rattles violently.

“Sorry!” you yell. “Washroom’s closed for cleaning!” You wince as you hear complaints in reply—you’ve been closed for half an hour!—and shoot Suo a sour look as the customer leaves. “I’m really risking it all for you three,” you remark.

“I'll make it up to you,” Suo says. “I'll stick around the whole night and buy as many drinks as you want. Your manager won't be able to hassle you about anything then.”

“No way. You're not wasting that much money on the red light district.” You frown. “Master will kill me if I let you piss away your inheritance like that.”

“I’m not wasting my money on the red light district. I'm wasting it on you.”

“Well, I'm employed at a girls’ bar, so when you waste money on me, you are in fact spending it on the red light district.”

“Then you should quit so I can spend as much money on you as I want.”

“Quit and then live on what income?” You set aside the first aid kit and grab some more paper towel. “Take off your shirt.”

“Oh? Right here? Right now?” His eye goes wide. “How forward.”

Sakura coughs very, very loudly from the stall. If you weren't so used to Suo saying this kind of thing just to mess with you, you'd probably do the same. In fact, you'd probably choke on your spit and die on the spot. But as it is, you only sigh and start unbuttoning Suo’s changshan, starting at the high collar. Any sentimentality or concern you previously felt is quickly drowned out by annoyance.

“Suo.”

“Don’t worry—I don't mind,” he adds. “I thought you'd never ask. I just didn't think it’d happen here. And so suddenly.”

“Don’t do that. I can't do this today.”

“Don’t do what?” he says innocently. He lets you slip his changshan off one shoulder. To your relief, the cut does look very shallow—he’s too quick for anything other than a bullet to land a serious hit on him, you guess—but you still swallow when you see it. It looks like he's bled a lot more than he probably actually has.

Or you hope so, anyway.

“Joke like that,” you reply after a moment. “It's very mean.”

“I’m not joking about anything.” You feel his eye on you as you start dabbing at all the red on his skin, the paper towel in your hands blotting crimson as if with ink. Your breath shakes as you study the wound. He lifts his hand, his knuckle brushing against your cheek. You smack it away, but he doesn't seem bothered. “I was being very serious,” he continues. “Quit working in the red light district and let me support you instead.”

“Suo,” you say, your voice flat, “there is no job you could qualify for on this planet that will let you earn more than what I'm making now. If anything, you should let me support you.”

“Ah,” he says brightly. “I get it now—you want me to be your trophy husband!”

Now you are choking on your spit and you do think you're dying. Sakura sounds like he's not doing much better—something bangs loudly against the washroom stall, and you assume it’s his forehead. Even Nirei is affected, not-so-subtly clearing his throat.

“I do not want you to be my trophy husband.”

“Just a regular husband, then?” he asks. “That’s alright. If I joined the Yakuza, I could make plenty of money. You could even stay at home if you wanted.”

“Suo you motherfucker you are not joining the fucking Yakuza! And I wouldn't be a stay at home wife!”

“Oh? You wouldn't want to be?”

“No, god! Do you know how much I could make if I scored a hostess gig at a high-end place? Why would I ever turn down that kind of money?!”

“Ah, so you want us to be dual income?”

“Of course I would want us to be dual income!”

“You could get a different job and we could still be dual income.”

“There’s no other job that would pay as well.”

Suo sighs, and your brow twitches. You've always been suspicious about why he disapproves of your choice in career. It’s not in his disposition to judge people, but sometimes you still worry that he's doing it to you.

“What,” you ask, “would you be so against marrying a hostess?”

“No, not at all. But I'd be worried if my spouse worked somewhere unsafe. What if you end up at a Yakuza-owned club?”

You pause, startled at the abruptly earnest tone of his voice. Suddenly you feel guilty.

“Oh… well, I wouldn’t work at a Yakuza-owned club.”

“Hm… then I guess it's fine.” Suo nods, as if arriving at a decision. “We’ll get married, we’ll be dual income, and neither of us will work for the Yakuza.”

“Yes, exactly. We’ll get married, we’ll be dual income, and neither of us—” Your eyes go wide as you realize what you're saying. You feel yourself flushing. “Wait.”

“What? Is there a problem?”

“Suo.”

“Don’t tell me you're going to change your mind now. That would just be mean.”

“I'm being mean?” you ask, flabbergasted.

“Well, yes. You don't think it would hurt if you changed your mind about marrying me? And so soon after agreeing, too.”

You stare at him in disbelief. You have a number of possible retorts that cross your mind, and somehow you pick the least relevant one: “You can't trick someone into marrying you.”

“Then can I trick you into dating me?”

“Suo! I said don't do that!”

“Don’t do what?”

“Joke about that kind of thing!”

“I'm not joking about anything.”

“Yes you are? You don't actually want to date me. Stop saying that you do!”

Suo leans in. He stares at you, his gaze distinctly vulpine. It's very attractive, and also intimidating, and you should be used to it by now, but your heart rate ticks up anyway. You swallow thickly as his thumb glides along your cheek again, your skin scorching beneath his fingertips. You forget to bat his hand away this time.

“You’re so mean,” he repeats, voice lilting, “how come you never believe anything I say?”

He's baiting you. He's obviously baiting you, and you consider for a moment whether you want to bite.

Flirting with Suo is never a good idea—you can never tell whether he means to charm you or make fun of you when you do it. Sometimes it feels like both. Occasionally it feels mean. More often than not, you like to entertain it. But you can't right now. His shirt’s stained with such a bright red that it keeps distracting you, just like the blood he's left all over the washroom sink. Your manager will be furious about the mess, and also about the fact that you're giving first aid to three delinquents while you're on the clock. You think they'd go broke before they could spend enough money here to appease her, were she to discover the four of you. You might even lose your job. Then you wouldn't be able to support yourself anymore, let alone Suo, who cracks jokes as easily about being your trophy husband as he does about being Leonardo DiCaprio.

If he makes one more joke about marrying you, you'll probably throw up and cry.

“You're not being very gentlemanly right now,” you finally point out. He raises a brow.

“No?”

“No. I'd even say you're being a menace, actually. Doing a very bad job of”—you almost laugh as you say this, because you've heard this speech so many times—“engaging with my feelings. Not being supportive at all. Really falling off the staircase to adulthood, you know.”

Suo studies you. Something complicated passes through his eye before he pulls away, his expression now back to normal. It's deceptive how innocent he looks.

“Sorry,” he says. “You’re right. I’ll play nice.”

“No, you won't,” you retort, and Suo smiles at you, not replying. But he does give you a break. You finish cleaning up the cut without incident, although you do get flecks of blood on your evening gown, which you hope won't be too noticeable against the black satin. You bemoan the lost cause of Suo's changshan too—made of Suzhou silk, a gift from your master—and silently make a note to buy him a replacement sometime.

You're in the middle of buttoning up his shirt when the door clicks and swings open. Met face to face with your coworker, you freeze up.

Your stage name leaves her mouth in an angry bark. “What are you doing? I told you you're not supposed to be having sex with customers here, you should be doing that someplace—” She stops, evidently spotting the blood on Suo’s shirt, and then the other two individuals locked up in here with you, one of whom is blushing violently and looks to be on the verge of dying from embarrassment. Beneath your hands, you feel Suo’s body go stiff too.

“Oh,” she says before either of them can comment. “It’s just your delinquent boyfriend and his buddies.” Suo waves at her, and she nods back before squinting at the sink. “Are you going to clean that up?”

“Yes,” you say quickly. “Please don't tell our boss.”

“Have I ever ratted you out?” she asks. “Just get out of here soon. People do have to piss, you know.” Then she stops, looking at Suo with a dubious expression. “And make sure your boyfriend doesn't die.”

You're too tired to correct her on the nature of your relationship. “I've been trying,” you say, and she gives you a sympathetic look before retreating. You hear her laughing with a customer about people fooling around in the washroom, and I'm so sorry for the inconvenience, sir, and could you please go downstairs while I clean up. You’re so relieved, you nearly fall to your knees. A calloused hand touches your back as you rub your temples.

“I’m sorry for worrying you,” Suo says quietly—sincerely—and instead of saying no, you're not, you reply, “I know. I’m sorry too.”

Suo’s always hated your job.

He’s always hated your job, your boyfriends, your apartment, and a lot of other things about your life that Sakura doesn’t have any business prying into. And it's just as well. Sakura also hates your shitty job, and your shitty boyfriends, and considering that you live in the same shitty building as him, he isn't a fan of your rental situation either. Nirei’s too polite to say anything about it, but Sakura can tell that he disapproves as well. It’s not like any of them are living the most comfortable lives either—Sakura has personally been living from shithole to shithole, mostly alone, ever since his parents passed—but your lifestyle does make them all feel poorly.

You're just a very easy person to like. And it's very easy to want nice things for you. So Sakura gets it, how Suo feels about you.

What he doesn't quite get is how Suo acts about you.

One thing he’s learned over the years is that Suo is very good at reading people. Sometimes he understands Sakura better than Sakura understands himself, and he can convince Sakura to do things which he himself didn't think were possible for him to do. He's done the same with Nirei, and about half the other people in their grade, and at least a third of the guys in Bofurin. It’s frankly a terrifying skill. But Suo never uses it with you—not to get you to change jobs, or boyfriends, or even apartments.

At first Sakura thought that you were just immune to Suo’s tactics, but he's recently come to realise that Suo simply gets too emotional about you to know how to convince you of anything. He’s even emotional enough to get kind of petty and a little mean with you, which is something that Sakura has only witnessed from Suo during fights. Really bad fights.

It’s terribly uncomfortable, especially when you’re clearly head over heels for Suo.

Sakura doesn't have any business prying into your personal problems. Though truthfully, he’d be happy to thrash some random assholes for you anyway, if that would fix your heartbreak. (He's already done this to at least one of your exes, and it worked shockingly well.) The problem is, Suo is not a random asshole and Sakura isn't sure that you'd want him thrashed in the first place. But it's just fucking painful watching the two of you act like this around each other, so he ends up pulling Suo aside after you kick them out of the girls’ bar, scowling.

Suo looks at him, surprised. “Sakura? What's the matter?”

He doesn't mince words. “How come you were being such a dick to your friend?”

Nirei goes stiff. “Sakura,” he says in his panicked ‘why are you trying to pick a fight now’ voice, “where is this coming from? I don't think Suo was being rude…” But Sakura can tell, as Nirei’s finishing his own sentence, that he's second-guessing himself.

“No,” Suo replies. “I was being a bit terrible, wasn't I?” There’s no humour in either his words or his face, but the corner of his mouth lifts. He actually looks endeared. “I'm surprised you noticed, Sakura.”

“I mean”—Sakura feels himself going red, embarrassed at just the memory of how you looked at Suo; first so worried, then painfully fond, and then like you were going to burst into tears right there in the washroom and ask him to hold you, as if you were in a horrible getsuku drama—“it was kinda hard not to.”

Suo nods. “I suppose it’s natural to be sensitive to the feelings of someone you like.”

Heat floods his face. “I don't like her!”

“Did I say you did?” Suo’s mouth curls when Sakura can't answer. “Don’t be embarrassed. She's a very easy person to like.”

Sakura tries his hardest to ignore Suo—which should be easy, because Suo lies randomly and pointlessly all the time, whenever he thinks it's funny—and says, “If she's an easy person to like, how come you act like you don't like her at all?”

“Was I acting like that? Or was she acting like it was impossible for someone to like her?” Sakura stops. Suo gives him a long look, then smiles. “You would know how difficult it can be to accept being liked, Sakura. And how long it can take to understand that there are people who want to support you unconditionally.”

Sakura opens his mouth once, twice. A third time. Nirei sighs. The two of them watch as Suo—rather than walking in the direction of the subway—steps over to a vending machine and buys a bottle of oolong tea.

“Are you going to wait for her shift to finish?” Nirei asks.

“Mm, I think so.” Suo glances down at his ankle. “But you should go home, Nire-kun. You can’t fight like that. In case those guys come back here, I mean.” He opens the bottle, takes a sip. “They had bladed weapons. It would be bad if you risked it.”

Nirei glances at the entrance to your bar, worried. “But…”

Sakura understands without Nirei finishing his sentence. The security at your bar is terrible, and plenty of people like to exploit that. It was Nirei who noticed a group men eyeing you before anyone else did, following you all the way from Keisei Street to your place of work. And sure, Suo kicked the shit out of them in the end, did much worse to them than vice versa—but who knows if there aren't more of them.

Suo hates your job. All three of them do.

“It’s okay,” Sakura says. “I'm sure the two of us will be enough.”

“...I'll ask Tsubaki if he's free,” Nirei finally relents. “And I'll text Kiryu and Tsugeura too.”

“Thanks, Nire-kun.”

Suo gets a bottle of ramune after Nirei leaves, passes it to Sakura. Tsubaki comes by later, still in his pole outfit, with several pieces of taiyaki for them to share—I’m always snacky after dancing, he explains—and the three of them loiter in front of your bar until four in the morning. Tsubaki asks questions about you in a tone that has Sakura wanting to crawl into an alleyway just to hide, and Suo deflects masterfully with questions about Tsubaki’s new boyfriend. The guys from earlier don't show up. Maybe the sight of Roppo-Ichiza’s top fighter scares them off.

You're surprised to see them there when you emerge a little later. You give Tsubaki a happy but perplexed look as he hugs you.

“Tsubaki? What are you doing here?”

“Keeping these two company,” he replies. “And I wanted to say hi, of course. You should come by the club sometime, you know! I haven't seen you in forever.”

“Sure! That would be nice, but…” You turn to Sakura and Suo, puzzled. “Why are you guys still here?”

Sakura, on instinct, nearly recounts the whole evening to you—about the men tailing you, about how they got into a fight, about the kind of things they said they'd do once they caught you—but Suo answers first.

“Troubling you again,” is all he says. “It’s fine since your shift is over now, right?”

You give the two of them a long, curious look. For a moment, you look worried, but you're eventually disarmed by Suo’s expression.

“I guess it's fine,” you reply. You sound so happy. Suo’s gaze goes soft, and Sakura has to force himself not to look away. “Let's hurry up and go home.”

You smile at them, and it's the kind of smile that makes it very easy to like you. The kind of smile that makes it natural to want nice things for you. The kind of smile that would make anyone emotional, even if they're normally very controlled. It makes something in Sakura squeeze tightly, all knotted up and painful.

He’s starting to understand why Suo acts the way he does around you.

END

this wasn't meant to be a love triangle, my apologies…

this was also meant to be a very short piece (like 500w lol), but I kept thinking about what suo’s backstory might be, and why he was so comfortable in the red light district in the manga, and what these guys might realistically act like in an aged up, romantic context. that all coalesced into this very bizarre fic LOL. I'm not sure how it'll land, but I hope someone out here enjoyed it! I would like to write more about this triangle (+ nirei) but I'm not sure what the level of interest would be, or if it'll even make sense with the manga. I guess we’ll see eventually!

in any case, thank you for reading!! <3

[that-was-anticlimactic]

we're gonna bury the body

“Shinsou-kun! It has come to our attention that you and Kaminari-kun are having, ah, romantic relations.” He sat down after that, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees.

Hitoshi raised a brow. “Uh, yeah. We did announce it to you guys last week. Got a problem with it?”

He really doubted anyone would, seeing as there were, what, four or five other class relationships, but there was some hardened glint in Iida’s eyes that made him think, yeah, they’ve got a problem with it.

“No, we don’t have any problem with it,” Kirishima said kindly, though there was an edge to his voice. “Unless, well, you give us a reason to have a problem.”

[or, shinsou and kaminari start dating, so the entirety of class 1-a decides to give shinsou the shovel talk bc they live for chaos]

💥4,507 words | shinsou-centric, shinkami, class 1a friendship💥

[sunflowerwinds]

sugar, sugar | v.a

summary: a week after isha’s birthday party, you tell vi it’s time to take the night on to make some blueberry cinnamon rolls. the two of you open up to one another in the midst of your baking session; your feelings for her somehow festering even more but maybe those feelings aren’t as one sided as you believe.

pairing: fem!reader x vi arcane

contains: modern!au, mila & jinx side-plot (that’s barely touched on), awkward and adorable tension, pining, fluff, talks of parental deaths on vi and reader’s end, possible incorrect depictions of baking (i love baking but im not an expert </3)

word count: 4.5K

a/n: i think i got one more part for you guys and i can’t wait for it :) i love love all of the overwhelming support for this little series; i cannot express it enough!! the reblogs & comments really help me keep going. i hope you guys enjoy this part!!

— THREE

“What are you doing?”

You hear from behind you as you were frantically wiping down the stone top island in the kitchen, making sure it was squeaky clean for Vi’s arrival.

After attending Isha’s birthday party, another week had flown by before you were able to have everything prepared. Okay, you had most of the materials at home already.

You felt you needed to mentally prepare to have Vi here in your childhood home; a place you go to for comfort at the end of a restless day. You had sent her messages with your address and what time she should make her way over to yours.

You hold back the eye-roll threatening your eyes at Mila’s judgemental tone. You were as ready as you could be, wearing a simple pair of striped sleeping pants and a dark gray sweatshirt that hung slightly off your shoulder with a back tank underneath. You were home so you wanted to be cozy yet cute. Your hair was up in a simple ponytail, a few flyaways escaping from your vigorous cleaning.

“Cleaning. What does it look like I’m doing?” You sarcastically respond to your sister, sucking in a deep breath as you move to another spot.

“I can see that but I mean, why are you scrubbing so damn hard? You’re going to carve the stone, dude.”

You close your eyes as you try not to snap at your sister. Your grandma had given you the day off so that you could spend as much time with Vi as you could. Even after insisting to her that it wasn’t necessary, she made sure you weren’t on the schedule and to not leave the house unless it was with Vi.

‘I need a daughter-in-law,’ were her words as she left the house to go to the bakery. She was very hopeful for you.

“I’m… a little anxious, okay?” You admit, ready to hear your sisters mocking.

She snorts at your words as she rounds the island to look at you. “Yeah, no shit.”

“Okay can you keep that to yourself, please? I-I don’t need this right now,” you wipe back some of the flyaways as you put the rag in the sink.

You wash your hands in silence, hearing your sister shifting behind you.

“Look, what I was going to say was that you are going to be fine. Clearly, she already likes you or else she wouldn’t have agreed to come over to help you,” Mila quietly tells you, tilting her head to try and find your eyes. “I know this doesn’t happen often for you but I don’t want you to screw it up.”

You take that in, ignoring the dig at your antisocial skills and lack of dating experience. You knew this was your sister's way of trying to comfort your scattered mind.

“Thanks… I think,” you squint your eyes at her, drying off your hands.

You hear your phone ding on the countertop, leaning over to check to see who it was. To your demise, it was Vi telling you that she had arrived at your house. You mutter a curse as you turn to your sister getting ready to tell her to go somewhere that wasn’t here. You hadn’t even heard the car rolling up the dirt driveway.

“You’re welcome. Now, I’ll be doing you a favor and leaving so you can have the house to yourselves.”

Your brows furrow at her words, questioning your sister’s whereabouts.

“Wait, where are you going?”

Mila grins at you before shrugging one of her shoulders, seeming sheepish. “Hanging out with a friend. I’ll see you. Have fun with Violet.”

She drags out Vi’s full name to tease you as she throws her brown suede purse over her shoulder. You practically shove her out of the house as you peek out the window once she shuts the front door. You knew your sister didn’t have a car, and she was not using yours, so you wanted to see who the hell was picking her up. Your eyes squint to see a streak of light blue hair in the driver’s seat and Vi walking up to your front door.

Vi passes your sister and gives her a slight nod and wave, telling her something that you couldn’t quite hear due to the fact that she was outside still. It took you way too long to realize that the head in the driver's seat was Jinx. Mila and Jinx were friends? And she just forgot to tell you?

Absolutely shocked by this news, you tug open your front to reveal Vi with her hand raising to knock but eyes widening at your confused expression as you look behind her at the car reversing and leaving the dirt driveway.

“Hey, uh,” Vi shoved her hands into the pockets of her zip-up, tilting her head at you, “is everything okay?”

You blink as your attention switches to Vi’s awaiting expression. You shake your head, an embarrassed chuckle leaving your lips.

“I’m sorry. Hi, Vi,” you grin at her before opening the door wider for her to step in.

“You’re okay. It’s Jinx and Mila, right?” Vi questions, an amused smile forms on her lips.

You nod slowly as you allow her to step further in, asking her to take off her shoes before nodding with a shocked expression as you shut the door and lock it.

“Yeah. They’re… friends?” You press, wanting to know your sister's business.

Vi pries off her shoes near the door and places them next to the small line-up of you, your sisters and your grandmother’s shoes.

“Yeah, I guess Jinx went to the bakery on her own and your sister was there and they started talking after that,” she breathed out a laugh.

“That’s crazy. I love my sister but she is cranky as hell at work,” you chuckle.

Vi shrugs her shoulders, her laughter fading to a small grin. Vi’s bright eyes dart around the interior of your grandmother's home, curiously examining every inch of the house you grew up in. You linger behind her as you try to compose yourself over the fact that she was here. You fiddle with your rings in an attempt to ease your bouncing mind.

“It’s so… cozy here,” she voices her thoughts as she smiles at a photo of you, your sister and your grandma when you were younger that was sitting on a shelf underneath the living room TV.

Her light gray zip up was slightly falling off her shoulders to reveal the inch strap of her black wife pleaser underneath. The sight distracts you for a moment before you cringe at your younger portrait but Vi merely admires how much you’ve grown yet somehow look the same.

Beautiful, nonetheless.

“Everyone says that when they come over. My grandpa actually helped build this place with his friends when they were younger. He really loved my grandma.” You explain softly, looking at the back of Vi’s head.

Vi turned her head to look at you, nodding as she glanced around the room wondering how long it must’ve taken to do this.

“It’s really beautiful.”

“Thank you,” you accept the compliment on your grandmother and grandfather's behalf. “Oh, and I did make the dough last night because it needs to rise overnight so it can be all light and fluffy.”

Vi slowly nods at your words, furrowing her brows as she motioned towards the kitchen area that was adjacent to the living room.

“So what more do we have to do other than, you know, assembling them?” Vi questions as she waits for your response.

You hold your hands behind your back as you tilt your head towards the fridge, an eager smile spreading onto your face.

“Do you want to listen to music while we bake?” You question.

Vi’s eyes flicker to your elated gaze and she can’t help but smile at your question. When you look at her like that, she thinks she would do anything for you. She watches your movements as you scurry over to a side table that was next to the living room couch to undo the clasp of a vinyl player that was disguised as a leather brown suitcase.

You kneel down to tug out a crate that held around 50 records, humming to yourself as you pick up a record that satisfied you. Vi couldn’t see from where she was standing but was hesitant to move forward. You carefully remove the vinyl from its paper shell to place on the spindle, moving the tonearm to rest it on the song of your desire.

“This is just a bunch of different blues and R&B songs,” you inform Vi, your back still turned to her. “I thought it was fitting.”

Vi nods in understanding even though you weren’t able to see her. You stand back up to your feet once adjusting the volume, walking back over to Vi’s awaiting figure. You take her hand in yours and motion for her to follow you into the kitchen.

“Is this going to be messy?” Vi asks, distracting herself from how much she loved feeling your hand in hers.

“Mmm, I would be lying if I said no so you either roll up your sleeves or take off your jacket so you don’t get it covered in anything,” you suggest as you release her hand to tug open the fridge to retrieve what you needed for the filling.

Vi, to your wonderful surprise, zips down her jacket and lets the cotton roll over her toned shoulders. You stand frozen near the fridge for a moment at the sight of her back nearly covered in ink. You had to thank whatever or whoever sent her to your grandma’s shop because how the hell is she real?

Standing here in your kitchen looking like that?

Vi sets her jacket aside on one of the chairs that was pulled up to the island, her hands finding their place on her hips as she awaits further instruction.

“Okay so, what you’re going to do is sprinkle a bit of flour onto the island. Just all over it,” you motion to the bag of flour and use one of your to make a spreading motion to the lengthy surface.

Vi nods in understanding at your instruction, clearing her throat as she reaches carefully into the paper bag to grab a good handful as does exactly as instructed. You hold back your glee as you watch her lean over a bit to even out the flour. She glances at you through her peripheral to make sure you seemed satisfied with how that looks.

“How’s it look?” She hums, dusting off her hands over the spread.

“Perfect. Now, take the dough and just give it a few kneads to press out the air bubbles.” You point to the metal bowl full of dough, stepping to the side to move out of her way.

Following your words once again, Vi takes the malleable tan dough into her palms to plop it down onto the surface. You turn your head to cough at the gust of powdery air that blew upwards. She, too, waves a hand in front of her face to brush the puff away from her nostrils.

When Vi had said you only wanted her there so she could do all the kneading, you didn’t expect to actually be gawking over her doing it. She digs her palms and fingers into the dough, leaning her chest forward to press it into the flour. Her triceps tightened at the motion, readjusting the blob to spread the flour evenly throughout. You swore you heard a grunt of struggle leave her lips as the dough was a bit thicker than she was expecting.

You raise a hand to your mouth to push back the infatuated smile that was tickling your lips, just watching her knead the dough.

“Is this good?” Vi asks through another press into the surface, another light grunt leaving her mouth.

“Yeah,” you say without thinking, lost in your lust-driven daze.

Vi looks up at you from her kneading as she stops with her hands still buried into the dough, no longer sticking to it as it was covered in flour. You dart your gaze away from her as you shake your head, chuckling and muttering ‘right’ to yourself.

“I’ll get the, uh, rolling pin so you can flatten it out.”

You suck in a deep breath as you turn your back to her, shutting your eyes as you internally scold yourself to pull it together. Had she noticed your lingering almost creepy stare at her arms?

If she did, she hid it very well.

“Do I need to wash my hands?” Vi questions from behind your back as you kneel down to retrieve the rolling pin from the cabinet.

“No, not yet. After rolling them, you can. I’ll put the filling and roll them if you want,” you offer from over your shoulder as you grab the wooden object.

“Okay. You’re the boss,” Vi chuckles.

You stand back up on your feet, blinking harshly from the sudden rush to your head. Change the subject, you begged internally as you handed her the rolling pin. As you flicker on the stove and try to think of something else to talk about, you can hear Vi humming along to the song currently playing as she rolled the dough as instructed.

You smile to yourself as you begin to make the filling as quickly as possible.

“You know this song?” You question the red-haired woman, turning to her slightly as you watch the filling simmer in the small pot.

Vi seems to be caught off guard at the fact that you could hear her humming to herself along with the song's lyrics, pausing her movements for a second.

“Uh, yeah,” she clears her throat as she takes one glance at you before looking away flustered. “My… mom would sing it all the time. She was obsessed with it.”

“You know, you’ve never talked about your mom,” you state carefully. “Not that you have to. It just hit me.”

Vi shook her head, muttering a ‘no, it’s okay.’

“I guess I never really had a reason to but I don’t mind,” she reassures you to glance at you once again with a small smile.

You send her one back as you stir the filling slowly, watching the ingredients dissolve over the heat.

“What was she like?” You question.

“She was… loving. She, uh, passed when I was 11 and Jinx was 6. She gave us home hair cuts that were just so terrible,” Vi shook her head with a chuckle as she recollected on her childhood. “I mean, seriously. I mean, it looked like we had cut them ourselves but my dad claimed that we loved the look. I think it was because it was the fact that it was her cutting our hair instead of some stranger.”

You can’t help but smile at her words. Her voice had softened the second she had brought up her mom, signaling to you that her mom was a gentle soul. You could feel how much that transpired within Vi.

“Were her and your dad together for a while before they had you and Jinx?” You hum.

“They were never together. They were actually friends but my mom got knocked up by some random guy twice that they never knew about and my dad kind of took that position of being, well, a dad.”

Vi explains as she sucks in a deep breath, seeming as though she was composing herself. You furrow your brows as you are afraid that you’ve pushed it too far with the questions.

“Well, when did Isha come in?” You ask in hopes to distract her.

This Vi freezes at, releasing the rolling pin to turn to you with a soft sigh.

“She came out of nowhere. My dad told us one day coming home from school that someone had left a baby on our doorstep. We thought that kind of stuff only happened in the movies so we thought it was a joke,” she leaned her back up against the counter top, folding her muscular arms across her chest. “But then we came into the living room and there she was wrapped up in a little blanket in a bassinet. Jinx was more excited than I was because she got her own little sister.”

“You have a very loving family. It’s obvious, honestly. I can tell you have a good heart, Vi,” you tilt your head to make eye contact with her to show the sincerity behind your words.

Vi’s eyes hold contact with your own, pupils dilating to the point where the blue of her eyes was a mere ring. She exhales a soft breath as she just stares at you.

“What about your parents? Are they…?” Vi blinks and reroutes the attention to you now.

“Uh, no. My mom and dad died when I was 6 or 7 and Mila was just 1. They weren’t the best parents from what my grandma has told me. They tried but they were… angry and overworked,” you shook your head as you turn down the heat on the stove lower before looking at Vi with a shrug to your shoulders. “I guess they thought having kids would bring them closer but it only seemed to push them further apart. They had dropped Mila and I here one day and just never came back. My grandparents found out a week later that they had gotten into a car accident and died on the way to the hospital.”

You wince to yourself at the silence that had fallen over the two of you. The soft crackle of the record switching songs and the soft bubbling of the blueberry filling in the pot were the only sounds in the house.

“But I’m okay. My grandparents raised me and my sister and I can guarantee it was the better choice,” you attempt to make a joke but Vi simply looks at you with a genuine expression.

“I’m sorry,” she says softly.

“I’m sorry too.”

You clear your throat, a strained chuckle leaving your lips as you clasp your hands together.

“Sorry, the filling’s ready. I didn’t mean to get all– Well, to bring that subject up.”

Vi shakes her head to reassure your frantic mind, reaching for your hand. You allow her to do so, heart leaping into your throat when her thumb wipes over the back of your hand.

“I said it was okay. I meant that,” she persists.

You look at her with a hesitant expression, opening your mouth about to apologize but she gives you a pointed look as if she was testing you to try it.

“Okay, okay, let’s roll these.”

Vi seems content with that and releases your hand to let you bring over the pot to the counter of rolled out dough. You ignore the bothersome want to grab her hand right back as carry it over and rest it on a crocheted pot holder so it wouldn’t burn the surface. You two stay in a comfortable silence as you take a wooden baking spoon to scoop it and carefully spread the blueberry-cinnamon filling across the flat dough. Once everything was properly rolled up and placed onto the baking sheet, you popped it in the oven for its designated time period.

About 20 minutes passed of sharing soft words to one another in the kitchen, the timer on your phone went off. With the rolls fresh out of the oven, you started to make the cream cheese frosting to wrap it all together. You could see Vi lingering over the delectable smelling pastries out of the corner of your eye, seeming to be examining them.

“You really do have a knack for this, cupcake. These look incredible,” Vi praises you as you plop the ingredients into the bowl.

You tuck a flyway piece of hair behind your ear as you bashfully smile in her direction.

“Well, you did all the kneading. They wouldn’t been made without your help,” you switch it around to the pink-haired girl.

“I knew you were staring,” she teased as she took a few steps forward so her shoulders were a few inches apart from your own.

The close proximity made your stomach flip but you simply continued to whisk in the bowl. You gradually add the milk, careful not to add too much or else it wouldn’t be thick enough.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you lie through your teeth. “I was making sure your technique was good. I’m the baker here.”

“If you say so,” Vi held her palms up in defense, that annoyingly attractive grin on her face.

You shake your head before vigorously whisking the frosting, watching it turn into the perfect texture. You sigh as you dip your finger into soft white glaze and hold it up to Vi’s mouth, wiping it on her bottom lip without thinking.

Your eyes widen as you realize what you’ve done, watching Vi’s eyes match yours. She licks her lips to taste the frosting regardless, raising her fingers to her lips when yours just was.

“I’m so sorry. I—When I bake at home with my grandma or my sister, we usually just do, well, that because we’re the only ones eating it,” you cover your mouth with both of your palms, shaking your head. “I’m sor-I’m so sorry.”

“No, no,” Vi raises her hand to wave you off, a weird chuckle leaving her lips. “I just wasn’t expecting it.”

You sigh, the embarrassment still clinging to your skin as you replayed in your mind how easily you did that.

“It’s good, though,” Vi adds through the silence.

You can’t help but let out an amused laugh at the way she immediately tries to assure you that what you did was in fact very normal. You knew it wasn’t… by any means but she attempts to make you feel better regardless.

“What?” Vi asks through her own soft laughter.

You shake your head as you motion to the fresh cinnamon rolls.

“Can we frost these, please? I’m trying to save myself from embarrassment.”

Vi simply grins at you as she reaches two fingers into the glaze to gather a bit on her pointer and middle before sticking it in her mouth. You stare at her, unable to utter a word. What the hell is wrong with her?

“See? It’s good.”

Instead of humiliating yourself further, you shove her back with one arm as you scold: “Did you even wash your hands?”

“I did, actually.”

“Then get to it,” you point to the cinnamon rolls and hand her a spatula.

Vi glances down at the bowl of frosting and the wooden spatula with a soft blue rubber before taking it from her hands to do as you had asked. You watch her step around you to take a good scoop of the glaze to spread it over the warm treats. You spoke quietly to one another, asking her random questions to pick at her mind a bit more; to get to know her better.

“You think you could teach me how to kick box?” You question as you are now sitting in your living room.

Two small ceramic plates that were in the style of pool balls on the coffee table in front of you; Vi’s being the 6 green ball and yours being the 8. Cinnamon rolls sat on either one; yours being less eaten than Vi’s. She had mere crumbs left as she nodded into her last bite.

“Oh yeah. You can let me know and I’ll clear out some space for you.” Vi grins as she licks her lips to be rid of the cinnamon from her lips.

“I will definitely,” you chuckle as you take another bite.

“Hey, uh, speaking of that, I have this kickboxing tournament coming up in a few days. I… want you to be there,” Vi looks at you with an awaiting expression; hope glimmering over her eyes.

Your eyes meet hers as you chew your food, a hand hovering over your mouth so you don’t drop crumbs. I want you to be there, her voice rang through your mind.

“You’ll be competing?” You wonder.

“Yeah and a few of my older students,” she confirms.

You’d be an idiot to say no. A stupidly giddy smile spreads onto your face as you set the last quarter of your cinnamon roll back on the plate.

“I’d love to be there. I’ll cheer you on from a distance.”

Vi tilts her head from next to you, bumping her shoulder with yours.

“Yeah?”

“Oh yeah. I’ll embarrass you with a huge sign that says ‘Go Vi’ in rainbow glitter,” you lean closer to her face as you tease her.

Vi eyes flicker down to your lips for a split-second as you lean in. You notice the action but brush it off as the closer proximity.

“You’ll be my cheerleader?” She questions, a smirk forming.

“Always,” you whisper, sucking in a deep breath as you shift yourself so that your body is facing hers.

Your answer sends a shiver down Vi’s spine, her heart leaping into her throat. She lifts her hand to take one of yours before she opens her mouth to say something. A loud knock fills the house causing the both of you to jump.

You mutter a curse to yourself as you excuse yourself to Vi to walk over to the door to unlock it to see your sister and Jinx standing on the welcome mat. They both held cheeky, suspicious grins.

“Hey guys,” you furrow your brows at the two. “Back so early?”

“Early? It’s been three hours,” Mila states with raised brows, stepping into the house.

Vi must’ve heard Mila’s voice and appeared behind you at the door, cursing to herself as she did not realize how much time had passed. She checked her own phone before looking at her sister.

“Shit, I gotta go. I promised I would take Isha to the park before it gets too dark,” Vi runs to grab her zip-up, sadly shielding her toned arms once again. When she walks back over to you, Mila and Jinx, she wraps her arms around you to give you a warm hug. “I’ll text you all the details, I promise. Thank you for letting me come over. I had a good time.”

You hold onto her tightly, discreetly inhaling the cinnamon-blueberry scent that was clinging to her skin.

“Yeah, me too. Let me know everything, Vi,” you pull away to see your sister and Jinx giving each other weird looks.

Okay, their friendship was going to drive you up the wall.

“See you, cupcake. Bye, Mila,” Vi grins at you and waves at your sister.

“Bye, Vi. Bye Jinx. Text me!” Mila calls after Jinx as they both walk away to the running car.

Jinx turns her head to send your sister a knowing smile, calling back: “I will, Mils!”

You and your sister watch the two open their designated sides of the car, leaning against the door with a long sigh.

“God, could you act like you’re not in love with her?” Mila teases before walking over to the kitchen to probably devour the pastries you had baked.

You shake your head to yourself as you think that no, you really can’t.

previous part -> next part

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[starlightxsvt]

Guilty | sibilance. 3

synopsis ➳ ❝ after months you see Wonwoo at the annual party. lines are crossed, accusations are made and just after, your colleague voices out a crazy proposition.❞

pairing ➳ lawyer fem!reader x rich badboy!wonwoo (ft. Jeonghan)

genre ➳ angst, smut, drama

word count ➳ 4.5k + 900(patreon bonus)

warnings ➳ cursing, toxic ex vibes, slight love triangle, rough sex, unprotected intercourse, dom!wonwoo, big dic!wonwoo, messy makeouts, dirty talk, degradation, cream pie, no aftercare, so much drama.

previous chapter

The weather is misty today. Winter has passed quickly over the past three months, and now spring is starting to ease the chill from the air. Yet, you still feel just as tired, if not more so than before.

A break is an imminent necessity, but you will not be getting any until you wrap up your current case. It is a huge one, viral on social media due to its scandalized nature, but most importantly, your client and his opponent are extremely exhausting. It is like managing toddlers, and you are ever so grateful that Jeonghan is also handling this case with you.

It is a particularly sensitive case because your client is the owner of the biggest textile company in the country and also, Chairman Jeon’s good friend, Mr Kim. Last month, he married his daughter off to another huge chaebol family in the country and the issue began with the catering service for the wedding, owned by Mr Kim’s ex business partner and current rival. The guests all got food poisoning right in the middle of the ceremony and the bride had an allergic reaction, throwing Mr Kim into a fit as he claimed it to be an attempted murder to get revenge on him.

Things have been chaotic since then, keeping you on your toes.

Despite being snowed under your work, a particular rumour floating around the Jeon Corporation caught your attention and has been a constant form of distraction ever since you heard it.

Word on the street says that Chairman Jeon is set to announce a new CEO at the annual party of the company taking place this weekend and apparently, one candidate is his own son and the other is a completely new hire. Six months ago you would have laughed at the rumour of the Chairman’s son, Wonwoo— who you know personally, taking over the company but now, you can say nothing for sure.

It has been nearly three months since you last saw him, partly due to your hectic schedule and also due to the lack of work at Jeon Corporation. Since you have not visited the headquarters recently, you have not been tortured by the sight of that infuriating man but you have to admit that thoughts of Wonwoo have been plaguing your mind. They pop up randomly in your head and you hate your mind for betraying you like that.

You are supposed to move on. And it was not even an actual relationship so why are you still thinking about that stupid, spoiled brat?

“Your drink.” Jeonghan places your coffee on your desk, snapping you out of your reverie. You turn from the window in front of which you were standing and walk back to your desk, taking a sip of your latte with a grateful smile. “I still cannot believe you got my order exactly right on the first try. Thank you.”

It is truly insane. A month ago one day, as your work started piling up, you stopped taking your usual coffee breaks and instead asked Jeonghan to grab you something, forgetting to mention how you like your coffee. Unbelievably, when you tried what he brought for you, you were astounded to the point of silence.

Turns out you and his sister have very similar tastes so he got lucky with that.

“You are most welcome.” Jeonghan smiles, throwing a cheeky wink at you. “Just knock on my door if you need anything.”

“Will do.” You pause for a moment. Just as he is about to close the door behind him, you call, “Jeonghan, you’re attending the party this weekend, right?”

The man steps back into your office. “Yes. Actually, I am glad that you brought it up.”

You wait, looking at him expectantly.

“Would you be my date for the evening?” 

You smile. “Gladly.” Everyone you know already has a plus one so you were dreading showing up alone. As always, Jeonghan has come to the rescue.

“I am honoured.” Jeonghan smiles, his eyes crinkling beautifully. “I was worried Mr. Pi would ask me to be his plus one. I mean it was either going to be you or me.”

You snort a burst of laughter. “I know, right? But he will not get off our backs when he figures out we’re coming together. You know he has that weird obsession of pairing us together like a couple.”

Suddenly, Jeonghan’s face grows serious.“That isn’t a bad idea, you know.”

A soft sigh falls from your lips.

“You should move on from him. It has been long enough, don’t you think?”

“I am over him,” you reply, almost defensively. “Listen, if there is one thing I have learned, it is, not to date where you work.”

Jeonghan chuckles softly. “Office romance is quite fun you know.”

You arch a teasing brow. “Someone seems experienced.’’ The man smiles secretively before stepping closer to the door, pulling it open with one hand. “Just giving you a heads up, you haven’t seen me in a suit yet.”

“I see you in a suit every day, Jeonghan.” You sass.

The man rolls his eyes. “You know what I mean. A proper three piece suit. A tuxedo. Prepare to have your mind blown.” He shakes his palms for dramatic effect.

You sip your coffee. “Mhm, stop pestering me now. I have so much work to do.”

The man flashes a smile before pulling the door closed.

You still have a grin lingering on your lips as you open your files and start skimming through them.

—

On Saturday night, Jeonghan is in front of your house sharply at 7.

You rush to the door as you receive his text, putting on your heels and scrambling to get your purse and phone. 

You are going to be late but hey, at least you will be fashionably late. 

Buying this emerald green dress impulsively six months ago was not a bad idea, you now realize, because you love how the dress fits you. With your hair and makeup done, it is almost a completely new you and you may have taken too long admiring yourself in the mirror.

Jeonghan’s jaw goes slack as he watches you step out of your apartment building. His expression makes you laugh and you cannot help but shake your head at his overexaggeration. 

“Wow,” his eyes move up and down as he steps closer to you. “Fucking hell. You look absolutely stunning.”

Shyly you avoid his gaze. “Thank you. You’re not too bad yourself.” You gesture towards him, waving your hand up and down his height. The coffee-coloured three piece suit is truly a fabulous compliment to his brushed back blond hair.

The man shakes his head. “You were the one who should have given me a heads up. I have the prettiest woman in the party as my date.”

This man sure has a way with his words.

“I can see why you are such a successful lawyer, Mr. Yoon.” You saunter past him. “Let’s get going now. We’re already late.”

“Yes madam,” he rushes past you to hold open the car door, making you smile.

—

The venue is crowded when you arrive.

It takes no more than five minutes for your colleagues to spot the two of you and five more minutes later, you are graced by Mr. Pi’s holy presence. He gushes over the two of you and when Jeonghan escapes the conversation by saying he’ll get drinks for you, Mr. Pi corners you.

“Are you sure you are not dating our dear Mr. Yoon?”

You resist the urge to roll your eyes. “No, Mr. Pi. Come on now, let it be.”

He hums and then nods thoughtfully, pushing his sunglasses up his nose bridge.

Who knows why he is wearing that indoors and at night.

“I understand,” the man rubs his chin slowly and seriously as if he is pondering the most critical issue of life. “Our chairman’s handsome son left a lasting impression on you.”

Even before you realise it, a soft, almost wistful sigh escapes your lips. “Can we not talk about him? At least not here?”

Mr. Pi looks at you from above his sunglasses, “This is the place to talk about him. Tonight people will talk about him.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ll see.”

Wait, what?

“Mr. Pi—” You reach out for him but he spots an old colleague and walks over to him, ignoring you with a dismissive wave of his hand.

Right then, Jeonghan is back with two flutes of champagne in his hands. You snatch one from him and immediately gulp it down. Then, you narrow your eyes at him. “Nice job, jerk. Leaving me alone with him.”

The man cheekily shrugs his shoulder, unable to fight off the knowing smile blooming on his lips. Grinning at you, he sips his champagne. 

With a shake of your head, you go around the room accompanied by Jeonghan, mingling with old and new faces. The stage is being set up for the upcoming speeches by the top executives of the company. The closing speech will, of course, be Chairman Jeon’s. The grand hall room increasingly grows crowded as you finish two more glasses of champagne while socialising, everyone eager to hear the big announcement.

“I think you have drunk enough for now.” Jeonghan blocks your hand when you reach for the fourth glass as a waiter passes by. You pout, “Oh come on. Socialising takes a lot of energy. I cannot talk to these boring people about boring things on a Saturday night while being sober.”

A scoff of amusement comes from him and he opens his mouth to say something but his vision shifts, focusing on something behind you. His expression changes and you turn your head back to see what he is looking at.

Not what. Who.

Wonwoo stands a few feet behind you, looking unfairly stunning. The contrast of his black blazer against his crisp white shirt is stunning and with sharp features and his hair brushed back, he is a scene stealer.

He, however, seems not to attract attention as he remains on the edge of the hall room, near where the lights are dimmer. As your eyes meet his and the raging beat of your heart loudens, he holds your gaze before taking quick steps towards you.

Within a couple of seconds, he is right in front of you. 

“We need to talk. Privately.” He says, his posture slightly rigid, and he looks around the room as if making sure no one sees him.

You don’t have much time to process his words as he ushers you away by tugging your wrist. You look back at Jeonghan almost helplessly and the man gives you an understanding nod. “I’ll be here, don’t worry.”

You are quickly rushed out of the grand room and pulled down a hallway at the end of which there are a few private rooms. Wonwoo pulls you inside and shuts the door behind you.

The room is messy and if you are not wrong, it seems to be his dressing room.

In your mind, an equation starts to form as you take everything in.

Finally, your eyes land on Wonwoo after scouring the room and you find him looking at you attentively.

There is a hard lump in your throat that you have to swallow.

“Hi.” The man says quietly, almost shyly.

“It has been a while,” you murmur as a greeting, trying to keep your voice as flat as possible. 

“Way too long,” he replies, his voice much quieter as he enunciates each word slowly and carefully. You wonder if it is your mind playing tricks on you or if the depth of his eyes just increased tenfold.

Whatever, you cannot let yourself get caught up in this again. The tension in the air is thickening by the second.

“Why did you bring me here?” You avoid his eyes, your gaze settling on the skin peeking from underneath his shirt as the two buttons are undone.

“Right.” Wonwoo blinks as if breaking out of a trance. “I wanted to tell you something. I mean…it will be announced later but I thought you out of all people should hear it from me first.”

The way he speaks, his eyes skirting around, his hands fidgety tells you what the news is. You voice it out for him. “You are taking over the company?”

You see his pupils widen. After a moment's pause, he says. “Yes.”

Hm. He is dressed too fancy to attend as a mere employee anyway.

You are proud of him for sure. He has grown as a person since you last saw him. But at the same time, there is dread in the pit of your stomach. With him now taking over the company, there is no escaping him. You will be seeing him, whether you like it or not. 

“Congratulations.” You hum. “I appreciate you informing me separately but it wasn’t necessary. We don’t have any personal contact. I am just another employee, Jeon…Chairman Wonwoo.”

Wonwoo looks at you with surprise and you wonder if it is your icy demeanour that makes him frown.

“Still…I have to thank you. You had a huge part to play in getting me here.”

Oh really?

For a brief moment, your mind flashes back to earlier this year when you were seeing each other. The late night talks about his future with the company. You find yourself wondering how he managed to earn his father’s trust so quickly because you remember him telling you his father would never let him take over. Due to his unrefined behaviors, of course. But it seems that he has grown out of them which is good for him.

“I better get going. Jeonghan is probably waiting for me.” You step towards the door but Wonwoo grabs your upper arm, pulling you back with a gentle tug.

“Do you not miss me? Not one bit?” His voice is so thick with emotion that it feels foreign to you. Like his, your throat closes up, and you hate how a few words from him make tears burn in the back of your eyes.

“It doesn’t matter. Just let—”

“It does! There is something else I have to tell you.”

“I don’t care!” You yell, jerking yourself free from his hold. “You can not act all familiar after so long. We are not like that anymore! Why can’t you understand?”

In the semi darkness of the room, you see his eyes glimmer. 

The very next moment he is kissing you.

And you are kissing him back. 

Just for tonight, you tell yourself as your resolve slips. You are going to give in just tonight. Just one last time. You truly don’t have it in you to turn away from him now, from his warmth, touch, and embrace when this is what you have been longing for the past few months.

Maneuvering your body with his, he pins you against the wall, trapping you with ease. And tonight, there is nowhere you want to escape to.

"I missed you." He whispers like a mantra, devouring your mouth like a starved man. He trails kisses down your jaw as his hands remove your straps from your shoulders, revealing the entire expanse of your shoulder and neck for him to play with. In between heated kisses, his hands explore your breasts, playing with your soft mounds over the fabric of your dress. 

No words are exchanged between the two of you. 

Your hands move over his chest, feeling the firm muscles under your fingertips before pushing his blazer off his shoulders. The lines are hazy just like your mind as you cannot decipher who pulls whom closer. In the dense cloud of lust, you can only fathom the opening of the buttons of his shirt and his warm body pressing next to yours. 

“I need you,” Wonwoo murmurs against your lips. One of his hands moves expertly down your thigh before he grips the back of your knee and places it around his waist. You pull him even closer, smashing your lips against his, hot and heavy as your tongue meets his.

Briefly, you hear the groan of his zipper being undone. You lift your dress, standing at an angle that helps him comfortably slide between your legs, his unrelenting grip on the back of your thigh.

"Put your hands over my shoulders and hold tight. " His whisper is a command as he positions himself at your entrance, pushing your panties to a side.

And before you can blink, he's inside you. The stretch of the intrusion makes you jolt and let out a loud, breathy groan of pleasure that makes you squeeze his shoulders and bite your lip. 

This. This is exactly what you wanted. Exactly what you needed.

You feel every delicious inch of him, moving in and out of you, familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. making your body shake from the onslaught of pleasure. Your hold on his shoulders tightens as little squeaks escape from your lips and your legs wrap themselves around his body tighter when you start to taste your release.

"Gosh, you're so tight. I missed you.” He grunts with each thrust. “Letting me fuck you against a wall, in my dressing room. Tell me, did you miss this? Did you miss me like I missed you?" Wonwoo demands, a hand reaching up to squeeze your cheeks, forcing you to look into his eyes.

“Look at me and tell me you did not miss me,” he pants, a snarl etched in his tone as he removes his hand from your face and grips the back of your throat, pulling your face closer to his.

"W-Wonwoo," you try to moan. Wonwoo keeps watching you with a darkened gaze, his pace matching the fierceness in his gaze as he continues to drill into you. He shakes after giving you a particular hard thrust, that makes your toes curl and your eyes roll back. “You are still that dirty girl. You're still my filthy slut."

You hate how much you missed his filthy mouth. 

"P-please," you pant, breathless trying to grind your clit against his pelvis. One touch on your clit and you're gonna come. "Please, let me come, Wonwoo."

The man smiles, and it almost appears cruel and cocky as he grabs your wrists in one hand and pins them hard on the wall. He increases his pace, thrusting in and out of you so hard that your back starts aching. However, you are way beyond complaining because the next moment his release is filling you up, triggering yours. Your cry is loud and unceremonious as you cling to him and ride out your high, feeling your release in the deepest fibres of your being

A short moment later, Wonwoo’s grip on you loosens. With a slightly hazy mind, you watch you grab some tissues, cleaning up you and him. With the haze of lust disappearing gradually, you find your head clearing up. The silence in the air now feels suffocating and you find yourself playing a guessing game.

Why is he so quiet? What is he thinking?

As Wonwoo buttons up his shirt and fixes his jacket, his gaze meets yours and you see his eyes fall on your lips. Pressing your fingertips around your lips, you realise your lipstick is smudged. Quietly, he hands you a tissue paper and you walk to the mirror, using it to dab the lipstick stain around your lips.

In the mirror, you watch Wonwoo watching you. All throughout, another strange, suffocating silence persists. As you toss the tissue in the bin, the silence is finally broken by his quiet, somber voice, “My father arranged a marriage for me.”

Your body grows ice cold.

For one long, horrible moment, you stop breathing, thinking, praying that you heard wrong.

“What are you…what— what do you mean?”

“He wants me to marry a chaebol heiress— Yuna Lee, sometime next year.”

Suddenly, you are scrambling to get your thoughts in order. It is always like this with him. One moment it is quiet and the next you are hit by a full speed freight train. 

“You should not have done that. We should not have done that. Why didn’t you tell me that before?” 

“Well, I tried—”

Suddenly, your blood is boiling and you are seeing red.

“What was this, a goodbye fuck?” You hiss, fixing the straps of your dress.

“What?” Wonwoo scoffs. “No! I have been thinking about you for months! Trying to figure out how to approach you—

“With all that thinking you sure did one good job!” You find yourself turning towards the door. 

“Oh come on! I…I missed you. You drive me crazy. You know damn well my brain stops working when you are near me.”

“No, Wonwoo. I don’t.” You grit. 

The passion, the emotion that you have been holding back all these months comes out in tidal waves. “In case you don’t remember, during our relationship, you were always so nonchalant, so detached. You did not give a shit about me. Not really because I was a fuck buddy to you. A girl getting paid to get your ass out of trouble every time and also someone available for a quick bang!”

Wonwoo’s demeanour shifts. You visibly see him get defensive. “Well, it's not like you professed your love to me! You did not ever hint that you were in love with me.”

Your mouth falls open at the absurdity of his words.

“You… you did not treat me with the minimum respect. You would disappear for weeks, Wonwoo, completely out of the radar only to show up when you needed my help.” You pause. “Never mind, it is pointless to argue with you.” You turn, reaching for the handle of the door.

Wonwoo stops you by roughly tugging on your arm. His grip is iron solid. “You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to leave without hearing my piece!”

You place a hand on his and use it to remove his fingers from your skin. “The time for speaking was months ago. Not now in a dressing room, minutes before you are about to be announced the new CEO.”

“I finally have my life together!”

“Do you?” You take a step closer to him with a challenge. “Do you really?”

Wonwoo remains silent, his eyes sparkling with thundering storms and clouds of emotions.

You continue. “I was your comfort zone. You used me when you needed me and then forgot about me when you were not in the mood. It would not have mattered if I professed undying love for you. You did not love me, not in the right way. You did not and you don’t right now. This is you trying to find comfort in something familiar…me.”

A twisted, unironical smile appears on his lips. “Oh, so you are what now, a therapist?”

You remain silent, watching him without blinking.

The man shakes his head, scoffing. “If you only knew how I truly felt…” His fingers card through his hair as he takes a step back. “You have no idea how I feel. In fact, right now, I don’t think you even know how you feel!”

Your lips part, ready to interject, but he goes on. “You are right. This was a mistake. I should not have told you about my dad’s plans of getting me married. No, because you would have liked to just straight up receive my wedding invite, huh? I should have just married her and showed up with her one day and introduced you as a special friend, no? Would you have liked that? Would that be the right thing to do?”

Each syllable coming out of his mouth burns like acid. Tears blur your vision but you force yourself not to cry in front of him.

“I fucking hate you.” You breathe, uttering each world slowly. “I hope you have a miserable life with her, you asshole. Never show me your face again.” Gathering your dress with one hand, you march towards the door, not stopping when he calls out your name or tries to hold onto you.

He can go to hell.

Your steps are quick as you pick up pace, running down the long hallway of the private rooms and then down a common corridor before you come to the large foyer in front of the elevator. With your skirt fisted in your hands, you dash for it but a voice makes you pause.

You turn back to find Jeonghan calling your name and jogging after you. As he comes to a stop in front of you, his eyes go up and down the length of your body, taking notice of your dishevelled appearance. 

“Are you okay?” His fingers gently touch your arm but you don’t let him pull you closer.

You need to leave.

“I need to go home.” You whisper, voice wobbly.

“Why are you running?” He steps closer to you, a desperation in his voice that matches the look in your eyes. “That bastard keeps hurting you and you keep running from him. Go and fucking… I don’t know— cause a scene! Drag him on stage and smack him once or twice.”

You are not in the mood for this.

“Stop it, Jeonghan,” you grunt turning away but the man steps in front of you.

“No! I won’t stop when I see you repeatedly suffering because of him.”

If you were not so overcome with emotions, you would roll your eyes.

“Just let me go.” You hiss, stepping past the man blocking your way. As you cross him, however, a harsh grip on your wrist forces you to stop. 

“Go out with me,” Jeonghan says in the calmest manner, the hold of his fingers on your wrist steadfast like his voice.

You almost make a move to yank yourself free but the diction of those words stops you in your tracks as if a thunderbolt has just struck you. You slowly turn your head back to meet Jeonghan’s eyes, wondering if he really said that. The strength you had moments ago to break your hand free suddenly dissipates as you meet his piercing gaze.

Along with your heartbeat, time stops.

You forget to blink, feeling the subtle tightening of his grip on you. As the silence hangs longer in the air and the depth of his words settles into the empty grand hall and every crevice of your tattered heart, you find yourself motionless, thoughtless, speechless.

“Date me. You know I’ll treat you better.” He states, again.

You feel like you are hyperventilating. A shaky breath comes from your lips and after that, each breath is a struggle. 

Suddenly, everything is too much.

Too much light in this hall. Too much noise in the background.

Too much sincerity in his words.

For a moment, you genuinely find yourself considering.

And as your gaze strays from your colleague for the smallest moment, you notice Wonwoo standing a few meters behind him. 

The look in his eyes is inexplicable but you feel every emotion radiating off him and you immediately know he heard everything. He doesn’t move, however. As the silence persists, his gaze darkens, watching you like a hawk, almost as if he is waiting to hear your verdict.

At the same time, the longer you look, his gaze appears vulnerable, betrayed.

And you feel…guilty.

Want to know how Jeonghan actually got the reader's order right? Read the special scene here!

series masterliest

[contentloadingandstuff]

Equals: Chapter III - Kitsune!Male!Reader x Yae Miko

A/N: Finally, eh? I didn't expect this idea to get so popular. This one got quite chonky, 4.5k words, so I decided to post it early and just split things up. This way, you get content early and I get something to look forward to. As for making Reader an actual character, I decided that I will give him the name Fractal when I post it to AO3. Anyway, do enjoy! CW: Light violence, mentions of body modification, mentions of suicide. It's just the aperitif.

Respected Yumemizuki Mizuki,

It has been a while since our last outing, and I cannot help but wonder if you hold a grudge for that jovial bit of teasing regarding the recent customer crisis of your bathhouse. I can only assure you I meant no harm, and pray most piously to the Sacred Sakura for your forgiveness. It was my intention all along to motivate you out of your, do not take offence, rather pathetic state of defeatism. Judging by how the issue was resolved, it seems that my ploy found significant success. Wouldn’t you agree?

Regardless, there is a matter of great importance that happens to require our attention. I am sure the situation regarding a certain destructive white fox has reached your adorable, pointy ears - it is indeed the topic of this letter. You may remember that he was rescued quite recently from the open ocean, but until yesterday, he was rather docile in terms of behavior. His sudden outburst worries me greatly; dark bags under his eyes, seemingly relentless night terrors and his words all lead me to the conclusion that his unprecedented episode of mania is related to his dreams. I will share more details at my home - feel free to visit me at your earliest convenience. Haste would be appreciated as the sedatives will wear off in about a day or so; I believe the opportunity to examine him without resistance will significantly speed up our work. 

If you indeed hold a grudge towards me, I ask you to do it for him, not for me.

Awaiting your visit, 

The Beloved, Beautiful and Powerful Kitsune Guuji of the Narukami Shrine

Yae Miko

That morning, with the warm sun shining down on her, Mizuki was greeted with the sight of soldiers as she approached the Yae estate. The walls around Miko's home towered high but, clearly, proved inefficient at stopping one of her kind. Even if in her heart Mizuki doubted that humans, further slowed by armour, could stop a fox, she acknowledged the reasoning. 

The standing officer nodded as she went past him and further into the courtyard towards the Tengu General, exchanging words with her subordinates. Mizuki stepped up, attracting Sara's attention. 

“Greetings, Yumemizuki Mizuki.” She bows formally, a gesture returned by the newcomer. 

“Good afternoon, general-sama.” 

The soldier bows deeply and walks away, leaving the two women alone. Sara glances towards the building and sighs. 

“I assume you are here for Y/N? He made a lot of hassle, I'm sure you've heard.” The Tengu crosses her arms. “He sneaked between the house staff and left shamelessly through the front gate in his fox form.”

Mizuki nods. “I see. I wonder, if I may… Isn't it too trivial of an incident for you to get personally involved?”

“Not at all. After all, the fox escaped because of the incompetence of Tenryu guards. It's no insignificant matter as the escapee was a kitsune. As you know, they are highly dangerous.”

The doctor frowns. Wasn't Y/N supposed to be docile? From Miko's previous descriptions he sounded more like a traumatised child than a violent one. 

“Was anybody hurt, general?” She asks, looking around for any bandaged or limping soldiers. 

“Hm. Well… Sort of.” Sara clears her throat. “During his extraction from a cave by the beach, two officers tried to take him in by force. Y/N resisted, scratching and biting.”

Sara turns and waves a duo of soldiers closer. “See, despite what Yae Miko told me, not only did they escape with their lives, but also with little to no harm done to them. Show her.”

One of the soldiers passes his spear to the other and, saluting his superior, wraps up his sleeve to reveal… Nothing on his left forearm. Mizuki takes his arm and moves her face closer. There are no obvious marks - no blood, no scars, not even redness of the skin. Eventually, her sharp eyes spot two barely noticeable dents. She runs her fingers over them. It's almost as if this wasn't a bite, but a simple poke with two fingers. 

“That's… Strange.” She mumbles to herself, seeking out more of these bite marks. There are very few, as if the kitsune was playing, not seriously intending to defend himself. “Did he attack you anywhere else?”

“Mhm. Here, on my face.”

Indeed - Mizuki’s eyes quickly found multiple bruises and red lines across the man's right cheek. Again, however, these didn't seem like an honest attempt at doing harm, even superficial. The markings clearly signaled the fox's hands to be the weapon, but he must have had his nails trimmed so significantly that they lost any hardness in them. Was that even possible? 

Mizuki nods. “Thank you, soldiers, general. Is Lady Miko home?”

“She is, waiting for you and keeping an eye on the Yokai. Go in, we shan't keep you here any longer.”

After a brief exchange or parting pleasantries, the women part ways. Mizuki skips up the stairs and places a few polite knocks on the door. Almost instantly it opens, revealing Miko's exhausted, but smiling face. Without a word she moves to the side and motions towards the house’s depths, inviting her guest in. Mizuki enters. 

“What's the situation? How does he feel?” She asks, looking around to guess where Miko is leading her. 

“Asleep”, comes the answer. “The Naku Weed brew will keep him like this for the next three, maybe four hours. We can work in peace.”

Mizuki lifts her perfectly groomed brow. “Isn't that poisonous?”

“Heh. Not at all, for us kitsune at least. This kind of dose would do irreparable damage to the nervous system of most yokai and humans, but our race is more protected against it.” Miko explains, pressing the knob and pushing open the door to your room. “No need to be quiet, he's out.”

Her eyes land on your unconscious body, your back turned on her. The long, grizzly scars carved into your body assault her eyes. Some are new, staring back at her with recently scabbed crimson, but some seem old - so old that their only remnant is a colourless, white line left on uneven skin. Snow-white bandages snake around your torso, some stained with dark, red blood. There are many scratches and sickly-purple bruises across your arms and torso, likely there from your mad dash of an escape. In places untouched by harm, your skin is clean, pristine, so soft that just looking at it feels like caressing velvet. The hair in your head, as white as the bandages, seems to grow messily around two pointy, fox ears, only barely relaxed due to your state. 

“He went through much trouble, I can tell.” Mizuki sits down on one of the chairs facing the bed. “Who is he? A warrior?”

Miko looks down on her hands, tone nonchalant. “Hardly. I'd say that the term… Slave… Would be more descriptive of his life.”

“S-slave…? Yours?” There is surprise, but also worry in the baku’s voice. After all, the wretched act of taking away another's freedom was prohibited for centuries, ever since Makoto came to power. The thought of Miko enslaving one of her kin…

“Not at all. I should feel insulted by the mere notion that I would stoop so low as to chain another, but I'm willing to forgive your ignorance.” Miko's gaze hardens as she looks at her friend. “You don't seem to know the basics of our history.”

“Then, please, enlighten me.”

Miko crosses her arms. “Inazuma was always welcoming towards Yokai, was it not? No matter the age, all of us could find shelter here. Baku, kappa, oni, tengu… Even malicious spirits like umibozu or ningen were left to their devices, provided they did no harm. But to this rule there was an exception. Us, kitsune.”

A sigh escapes her lips. “Before humans settled here, Inazuma was primarily a mess of city-states belonging to Yokai species, constantly warring for influence and territory. Kitsune were, of course, major players. Even a single fox could strike down tens of oni or swat even the most nimble of tengu from the sky. Our power was grand, but so was our thirst for conquest. My kind would have long conquered this land if it weren't for a major burden nature left us with. Kitsune mature slowly, so slowly that replenishing losses took centuries, millennia even. Every war was a blow to our population. Vixen like me bring litters into the world, counting up to seven kits true, but we can't reproduce at will - starvation would quickly set upon us. We knew we were a dwindling race, but we didn't bother changing our disposition.”

The Guuji stands up, starting to walk up and down the room at an even pace as she recounts. “We accumulated hate, curses, hexes. We drowned in evil, but we made light of various nithings and omens. Most of those bad charms were able to be nullified, but the more we turned against our kind, the more powerful our next opponents became. Until one fateful curse befell us.”

Mizuki stays silent, a part of her surprised at Miko's voice growing ever more silent. The next words are spoken with great care, as if to avoid insulting whatever being cast that spell. 

“May your daughters forever weep, for your unborn sons and brothers shall repent for your crimes and writhe in agony within the world below. Plague shall befall your fathers and husbands and brothers and sons until only the ninth remains standing, able to raise his arm in the name of evil.” Miko says, staring out the window. “These words, clear of any hatred towards its foxian killers, were spoken by a dying kirin.” She turns, a somber expression on her face. “Indeed, it is as you think. We, kitsune, murdered a kirin. And we were punished for it.”

You stirr in your drug-induced sleep. Miko quickly comes to your side as you turn on your back. She places a hand on your pale, scarred breast. 

“That day every male was brought to his knees by an illness unlike we saw before. It acted fast, so fast that most weren't able to even go home, let alone get help. Choking to death on their own blood, clutching their throats with veiny, purple hands, they fell and died on the street, corpses soon littering every corner. They died in agony and panic, no matter who they were - a soldier, a hunter, a doctor, a farmer… All paid for something our entire race was responsible for. Not even children were spared… They… Died the quickest. Newborns died in their cribs while infants spasmed in their mother's wombs. As it said - the majority of our dogs died, leaving the nation’s vixens in maddening grief. Only one in nine males survived, and each was only decades old… Far too young to hold a spear.”

She continues, stroking your hair. “In a matter of years our society plummeted into disarray. From the lack of engineers to keep our cities whole to a dreadful absence of warriors to fend off other, vengeful races. A male birth was an event so grand that entire towns came to greet the kit. We crumbled into dust, gradually pushed back to the brink of extinction, saved only by the coming of Makoto who chose to enforce peace between the Yokai.”

Her hands roam around to yours, her index finger stroking the bruises and scratches around your wrists. “Dogs became previous. They had to be protected, at all costs. We kept them inside, we monitored their every step, rushed to their side with medicine at the smallest cough. Their extinction meant our end - we couldn't allow that. Us vixen took it to heart so much that, over the centuries, males went from priceless treasure to slaves. To goods, like gold or the purest jewels. They were trained from birth to obey, forced into a rigorous training regiment to remain healthy and appealing to their owners, and sold when the time came - for Mora or political favours. Some vixens treated their dogs well, while some enjoyed torturing them for their sick entertainment; but no matter the personal preference, we sent them a clear message - they weren't people.”

Both women remain silent; Mizuki takes in her friend's words while Miko grips your wrists gently, clenching her teeth. For what they did to you, they deserved to be treated likewise. They deserved to be fed from a bowl, to be fed raw meat, to be assaulted whenever their captors wished. To have their clothes, their children, their dignity, their foxhood stripped away. 

“They deserve to be treated like animals. For what they did.” She hisses through her teeth, feeling the sting of tears behind her eyes. Helplessness. 

“Hm?” Mizuki shakes her head out of deep thought and asks. 

“Nevermind.” Milo sighs. “There is a reason, Mizuki, that even the benevolent and kind Makoto could not bare to see what we were doing to them. She ordered our race to cease our barbarity or be gone from this land. The answer to what happened next should be obvious - most of us, noblewomen and mistresses with their entourages, families, entire clans even, left. Some of us stayed. I was, for example, abandoned at just three years of age during the exodus. Those that remained took me in, raised me to be who I am today. Our matron Hakushin was one of the fair few who did not choose to participate in this cruelty and tried to fight back when we were exiled, to wrench at least one male from the claws of her kin. Kitsune Guuji chose to live a childless life of chastity in the name of those crushes in our claws. And she failed.”

“I see. I'm… I can't even imagine what he went through. How old is he?” The baku asks. 

“Six hundred years old. Can you picture that? Six centuries of slavery, torture, rape. Six centuries of being fed like a canine, kicked away or being forced upon. Six centuries… Tens of litters, either pried from your hands or never allowed to be there in the first place. A living nightmare. A hell that, for him, was reality.” She raises up and turns back towards Mizuki. “As for what he'd been through, we shall see.”

The woman freezes. What? Surely, Miko wouldn't be willing to metaphorically crowbar his mind open and see inside…

“Oh my, I can tell what's going on inside your head, Mizuki. Are you perhaps thinking I would violate his privacy without proper cause?” Miko turns, her gloomy expression now replaced with a light smirk. “Whoever do you take me for?”

Mizuki stands up and crosses her arms. “Sure, sure. I know you have a reason, but we'll see if it's convincing enough. I never force myself into any mind, and I wouldn't make an exception for you.”

“I understand. Let me tell you, then, why this course of action is not only the best, but also the necessary one. I doubt you understand the true scale of his mind's corruption. If things were, indeed, less severe, I would have just waited for him to rest and taken him to the bath house.”

Miko leans over you and places a hand over your forehead, checking the temperature. It's normal, making her breathe a sigh of relief. 

“When I caught up to him and had the rickety old house he hid in surrounded, I went in on my own. I didn't want to scare him, you see. Y/N pounced on me from the ceiling wielding a rusty knife. I shielded myself, making him fly across the room like a rag, collapsing into some shelves. He didn't surrender though - he rose up, coughing, and attacked me with his bare hands. I had to push back yet again, but this time he fell and did not strike again. Instead, I saw tears in his eyes. The words he spoke are why you are here.”

—

“Ugh…” You clutch your chest, trying in vain to stop the blunt ache from spreading across your body. The dust and sand raised by the commotion gets into your lungs - you cough. Her pink hair pierces through the colourless cloud of dust, slowly coming closer. 

Your hand desperately pats your closest surroundings in search of a weapon. Nothing. 

“Calm down, please.” She speaks, raising both her hands in an attempt to look less threatening. But you know these tricks like the back of your hand. Even the softest of tones can carry the most hateful of words. “I don't want to hurt you.”

“Liar! Do you think I'm… Ah… Stupid enough to believe you?!” You crawl back but soon feel the woodworm-chewed wood of the hut against your skin. There is no way out, but you won't go quietly. “What is this new torture? Did you find my screams and pleads boring enough for you to invade my dreams too? Do you think that you infesting my waking life is not enough?!”

She stops, her hands lowering. You can't see her face through the dust-caused tears, but she looks… disoriented. A soft “what” reaches your ears. 

“So that's how it is, Matsui. If you think you can fool me with a simple change of face and name, you're wrong. And if you think you can rape my mind too, you're mistaken! This is my dream, I have the power here! And I can do whatever I want. I can kill you. Or I can kill myself.” You look around, spotting a dusty razor blade, half-buried under the debris. You make sure not to look at it directly. “You may hurt me in the physical world, but you won't hurt me in the only safe haven I have left. Fuck you!”

Leaping forward towards the weapon, you quickly feel your body freeze in mid air. Thin, purple lightning wraps around your wrists, arms, ankles… You're stuck. You wiggle your fingers, desperately trying to reach your way out. Your proof of agency. Your display that you can influence what happens to you, that you’re not a mindless object. This simple tool that will break her toy once and for all. 

But regardless of your desires, Miko snares you with her elemental powers, just short of the razor. An ancient painting of helplessness and dread. 

“I hate you! I hate you!” You scream, ears folding in rage. “I hate you and everything you stand for!”

Miko doesn’t respond. She simply does not know if any word could convey the feelings brewing in her mind; neither the confusion about the reason for your outburst, nor the astonishment at just what came out of your mouth, are expressible. She observes you as your malnourished body trembles with rage, with hate. Vitriol rolls freely off your tongue. You call her every single insult you know in a hopeless attempt to… Scare her, make her back off, make her react somehow. The silence confuses you… Does she not want to kick you into shutting up? Your futile resistance against the bindings falters, wrath turning into hopeless sadness. Yet again you feel tears rolling down your face. 

“H-hate you… W-why…”

Your body is lowered back onto the floor and you immediately fall limp. The world, your past, your future and your present overwhelm your senses. You don’t want this, you never did. You didn’t plead in the face of Gods to let you come into this world, experience neither the pleasures, nor the pains of what surrounds you. You cannot deal with this yourself. You cannot be a hero. You cannot be an example that it’s possible, that you can endure anything and live on. You’re weak. 

So weak and witless that you can’t even kill yourself. 

You hear her shuffle closer to you. Normally you would move away from her, dodge her touch as best as you could. But this time your hands wrap around her loose sleeves and pull them closer. Before long your face nuzzles into her chest, attempting to hide from the world, even behind the one that hurt you so much. She strokes your hair, softly speaking to you in an attempt to ease your nerves, fruitlessly. Because, sobbing, you realise why you cling onto her so much. Even after she broke your tails, even after she broke your ribs, branded you, starved and humiliated and assaulted and belittled and objectified you. 

It’s because you have nobody else. 

Only her. Only Matsui. 

—

Mizuki listens intently to Miko’s report, her mind already picking apart your words and analysing it for potential basis. Her conclusions come swiftly and decidedly. 

“Derealisation”, she says. “Clear signs of post traumatic stress disorders, suicidal ideation and rock-bottom self esteem. Nod-Krai syndrome.”

“I’m unfamiliar with that. What does it mean?” Miko sits by your side, eyes boring into your unconscious face with a vague, hateful expression. She wants to hug you, shelter you from the world like she did just hours ago. But she would much more tear out the throat of Matsui, whoever she was - sky kitsune or a lowly fox, it did not matter. 

“Nod-Krai was conquered by the Cryo Archon, who quickly began decisive repressions against the local culture and ethnic identity.” Mizuki explains. “However, thanks to circumstances, local power play and propaganda, the native people of the land became thankful and loyal to their oppressor, the destroyer of altars and the murderer of entire villages. In the same exact way, Y/N seems to cling to Matsui - in this case, believing you’re her in disguise, despite everything she did to him in the past.”

Miko clenches her other hand, keeping the one on your shoulder soft and open. She nods. “I understand.”

There’s a moment of silence before the baku picks up the conversation. 

“Would you let me examine him?” She stands up. “I might not be a trained medic, but I think I can pick up some things you might have missed.”

The other woman, having shaken off the gloom of her memory, sends her friend a playfully indignant expression. 

“With respect to your own skill, Lady Guuji.” 

Miko smiles. “Ah, such compliments. In that case, you may have a look.”

Mizuki nods in thanks and takes the spot just freed by her host. Your defences seemed rather timid - the reason could be simple restraint or mercy, but judging by Miko’s accounts of your mistrust and paranoia, something else was at play. She guides her finger closer to your lips and carefully lifts up your lip, revealing perfectly tended, pristine teeth. Upon a closer look, she notices what exactly stands out among them. 

“His canines. They are filed down, see?” She opens your jaw a little, revealing just how even your teeth are, deprived of the four points in the corners. “The ends are imperfectly flat and there are small chips on the inside of each tooth. It could have been done with a simple nail file… I barely see red, meaning they must have been fairly long before.”

Ignoring the chills running down her spine from the mental image for curiosity’s sake, Miko leans in to get a better look. “Isn’t the pulp inside the entire tooth?”

“It is.” Mizuki nods. “But here it has a large circumference, meaning this is the base of the tooth.” Her own teeth hurt as if in solidarity with yours. “By the Shogun, I pray he wasn’t awake for this…”

Miko refrains from speaking to avoid words unbefitting of the Guuji slipping from her lips. The psychologist’s eyes wander down to your hands. The sight of perfectly clipped nails, so much so that they end with not the thinnest of white lines, seems odd to her. Surely after an extensive journey to Narukami Island by sea, and presumably no manicure from Miko, they would have grown even a little bit. She takes your left index finger into her hand and pauses right away. The nail… It’s not tough. To verify her suspicion, she scratches at it with her own fingernails, only to find that they meet no resistance. What’s more, something brown flakes off. Mizuki does this some more and proceeds to gather up the shavings onto her palm, turning around and presenting it to Miko. 

“Can you please tell me what they smell like?” She asks. “I touched his fingernails and they flaked off.”

Without question, Miko lifts Mizuki’s hand up to her nose and takes a careful whiff.

“Hm…” She muses. “His scent, sweat and… Leather? Yes. Tanned leather, the sort used for shoes.”

“Then it is just as I had feared. Miko, I think he’s been… Declawed, in a manner of speaking.” She presses your fingers into her arms, as hard as she can, but she feels no toughness digging into her skin. 

Miko’s heart begins to beat faster. “Declawed? Like a cat, you say? How is that even possible if he is in human form? Human nails grow all the time…”

“That’s a good question. I’d guess that the techniques they used to subdue dogs became advanced enough to do that. Even if it’s impossibly cruel… It’s impressive.” She shows your hand to Miko. “These painted strips of leather do look like normal fingernails.”

Your caretaker glances at your hand, then back at your peaceful face. It seems like your owners didn’t like their toy having any capability to fight back, or just show displeasure. Like a cat that paws anybody in defence or a dog, biting its cruel owner, you were stripped of your natural defences. She can already imagine it wasn’t enough - judging by how you acted, they tried to remove your very instinct to oppose and protect yourself. If not for this episode of confusion between dreams and the waking world, would she never see you fight back? Never see you refuse, stand your ground, all because whatever you could use was taken away and your mind was washed with cruelty and abuse to be unable to comprehend consent, self-preservation?

Most importantly…

Was this done to you right away, or as punishment…?

“I want to know. I want to see what he experienced.” Miko says, her brow furrowing. “He might not be able to tell me, but I must know. I must understand.”

Mizuki nods. “Give me a moment. We’ll see soon enough.”

In Miko’s gaze, resting on your limp, nailless, tortured hand, there is a promise. 

She’s coming for you. 

She’ll pick up the pieces and put you back together, however shattered you might be. 

Thanks for reading!

[utterlyazriel]

whom the shadows sing for — (and the thief's echoing hymn)

a/n: can u believe we've actually made it to chapter eleven... 😲 i cannot! alas thank u so much again for being patient with me <3 i think i'm much better locked in now so MAYBEEE we'll see something other than longing glances soon ehehe <3 ok mwah thank u for reading, enjoy <3

word count: 4.5k

synopsis: Trouble sleeping leads you to wander the halls of the House of Wind, finding a friendly face. Azriel stews in his misery—but not for long.

CHAPTER ELEVEN :: FRIENDS (AGAIN)

You have a problem.

Despite the training and the fresh, rich and plentiful food—despite the bed that’s softer than anything you’ve touched in decades—it becomes rapidly apparent in the next week that rest does not find you easily in Velaris.

The first week it’s easy to chalk up the discomfort to your still healing body.

You weren’t high Fae by any means. The bruises that matted your skin were bone-deep and injuries of that kind took time to recover from.

Yet, as time rolled forward and the stiffness retreated, even as wounds turned to scabs, sleep did not claim you. In fact, it rather stubbornly avoided you.

You find you can only sleep after exhaustion kicks in, certainly no earlier than a couple hours of tossing and turning. It only takes a couple days of restless sleep to figure out the suspect.

The pillowy bed.

All your life, sleep has meant a hard surface, only differing from the ground in its protection against the chill of the mountains. But still, you’ve slept better nights on the ground than you have in this bed.

It’s so soft. It pulls you in and makes you feel as though you’re sinking into a cloud. Your pillows are plush and feathery, your sheets delicate and silky to touch.

It’s too soft.

So, when the aches of your injuries recede and the sleep still doesn’t come, you say to hell with it, even if a small part of you fears what the Highlord might say.

You keep the comforter but leave everything else behind — tugging it off the bed and curling up on the stone floors, bundled in the fleecy, warm blanket.

The sleep is better.

Still, as your days training with Cassian continue, it’s not a proven cure.

Some nights, like tonight, it evades you so severely that after a hour or two blinking at the floor, counting the spots on the ceiling, something stirs in you to move. You begin to wander.

Even with Rhysand’s assurance, it’s hard not to feel like an imposter as you creep through the halls of the house.

You’re silent on your feet. There’s only a whisper of your presence as you pass door after door, each of them ornately designed and firmly closed.

You’ve only done this wandering once or twice. The first time you got the itch to explore, you barely made it down the hallway you started in. Something dark had fluttered in the distance, taking you by surprise.

Heart pounding in a hair-raising chill, instinct forced you back into your room in a mad dash. Pressed up against your locked door, it had felt eerily similar to your old cabin.

But even so, you’ve haven't run into anyone else.

This time, your fourth time wandering, you take a different route, rubbing tiredly at your eyes with a hint of irritation. Even if sleep evades you, you’re tired, there’s no doubt of that.

Warm sandstone keeps you company. As you take a left where you’ve always taken a right, a pair of gilded glass doors you’ve never seen tucks itself behind an unsuspecting corner.

You have a rule not to open any closed doors.

This one, however, tempts you with a pool of pale moonlight cast through its windows. Besides, a quick glance through the glass tells you you’re alone.

It’s another balcony. Like all of them, you suspect as you open one door silently and step out, it overlooks Velaris. The city sprawls out from the foot of the mountain, glorious and alive.

The title of City of Starlight certainly seems fitting tonight. It glows, a thousand specks of light dancing across the air to you.

Beyond it, the blackness of the ocean calls out to you, a salty spring in the air. Seeing the edge of the continent, something stutters in your chest.

How big the world really is... How small it seemed to you not too long ago. You’re learning there’s much more than just frost and mountains.

Your gaze drops back to the city, its lights winking at you almost enticingly. Even from afar, you swear you can hear laughter carried on the warm wind.

How it is this lively when, based on the high and bright moon, it must be nearing morning baffles you. Tentatively, you approach the ornate railing and place your hands on it, leaning forward. How would it look from the skies, you wonder...

Someone clears their throat behind you.

Despite the gentle attempt to get your attention, it doesn’t stop you from startling violently, whipping around in a half second. Your heartbeat races, climbing up to too fast in a manner of moments.

It's Rhysand. That fact doesn’t help your panic but the sight of him reminds you to throw up the brick wall in your mind, just as he's been teaching you. The focus on the task ebbs away some of your panic.

“Can’t sleep?” Rhys’ asks, kindly ignoring your frenzied panic for your sake.

Taking a controlled inhale to calm yourself, your shoulders drop an inch. You nod slowly.

“Let me guess,” He says, taking a slow step in your direction.

He’s got his hands in the pockets of his sleek pyjama pants — a motion you now recognise not as arrogance, but instead to show that he means no harm. He tilts his head to the side, violet eyes narrowing as he hmmms.

“Bed too soft?”

It’s so spot on that you mentally check your walls, finding them still in tact.

“I thought you said you wouldn’t read my thoughts.”

Rhys smiles, giving a soft chuckle. He shakes his head. “I haven’t. You just…” He pauses, choosing his words carefully.

He glances up at the moon and then says, “Azriel was the same.”

The name makes your heart twist painfully. It's like pressing on an old bruise.

“Cassian too,” Rhys continues, giving a little shrug. “But Az more than anyone else. Spend enough time sleeping on the floor and anything else feels too wrong.”

Gingerly, you nod. Somehow, hearing about Azriel feeling the same as you— imagining him dragging the covers off his bed and burrowing on the floor— makes you ache a little bit.

Maybe you hadn’t realised how alike the two of you were.

“How did he…?” You wave an awkward hand and fumble for the right words. “Or Cassian—I mean, how did they get over it?”

Rhys gives another subtle shrug, his smile turning a little wry. “Not sure if Az ever did. I mean, he’s not big on sleeping for sleepings sake. Cassian on the other hand…”

He trails off and it makes you laugh softly, covering the noise behind your hand. Cassian has certainly let you know his distaste for early rising, even if he is always punctual. Though, you wonder if that’s more to with leaving his mate behind…

“I think,” Rhys starts, then stops. He clicks his tongue, mouth twisting to the side. “I think Azriel had trouble thinking he deserved it. As though he hadn’t earned it.”

The words pierce through you, panging painfully with the familiarity which they resound within you.

“I hope you know that nothing as essential as rest or food or safety—” Rhys stresses each word carefully. “—needs to be earned. Not here.”

Not here—because he’s vividly aware of where you’ve come from.

Because he’d come from it too. Because even though he’s an Illyrian male, at some point so were you, and that means he knows.

He knows. He chooses to be better.

You open your mouth, no clue what response is on your tongue, when the door opening behind him stops you.

Rhys turns and your eyes take in a Fae more beautiful than you could imagine, standing on the doorstep.

You hadn’t known females could… radiate as she does. Females in Exordor are more brutish, more hardened, as it's the only way they truly survive. This Fae is beautiful. She'd be torn apart in Exordor.

If Rhys is the night, she is a star within it. Glowing and warm, the spectacular sight to awe at.

Everything you’ve been leaning into since your arrival, the new identity, the idea of being a she for the first time properly, shrivels up suddenly.

You swallow thickly. You know without a doubt that you are not comparable to this Fae.

“Rhys?”

Cauldron, even her voice is sweet. She’s smiling softly, directed at the Highlord before you who has—what you can only describe as—melted at her presence. She steps down onto the balcony, draped in a soft, ashy nightgown.

“What are you—oh!” Her grey eyes lift as she notices that Rhys is not alone on the balcony.

The smile on her face shifts towards more friendly and welcoming. “Sorry, I thought I was just hunting down a runaway mate, not that he was actually busy.”

She reaches out and ribs Rhysand, as though he should’ve told her not to come looking for him somehow.

As they share a look long, you realise maybe she did mean that literally. She did say mate, after all.

“Who I am to deny myself the pleasure of being hunted down by my lovely wife?” Rhys drawls smugly, grinning as he catches her hand when she tries to rib him again.

He twists it and plants a devoted kiss on the back, evidently pleased when she brightens instantly.

“I’m coming back to bed now, anyways,” He says, murmuring into her skin before he restrains himself, straightening up.

You see his mate cast a quick, concerned glance your way but Rhys shakes his head. “She doesn’t need to hear any more of my blathering, I’m sure.”

He turns to you with a grin and a wink. You blink, perturbed, and completely unsure how to react.

“I hope at least some of what I said you'll find useful,” Rhys says, beginning to wander backward towards the door.

His arm finds the curve of his mate's waist like a magnet and a new emotion surfaces within you, tinged green. She steps back through the gilded doors first, waiting just inside for him.

“But more than that,” Rhys says, hovering on the doorstep. “I hope you’ll get some good sleep.”

He turns and disappears down the hallway, following his star into the darkness of the house. You watch them both go.

Somehow, you think he really means it.

—

Azriel's shadows appear to lose their penchant for mischief overnight.

Which naturally means there’s a healthy dose of suspicion that brews in his mind. As Azriel walks towards the training ring, he eyes the unusually calm blackened spirits. Gone is their frantic energy and instead, they laze about, content to curl up around his shoulders today.

Suspicious indeed. Azriel makes a mental note as he casts a glance out of the windows carved out of the mountain rock.

It's dusk. Night lingers, waiting to drape itself across Velaris in a glossy, inky blanket. Twinkles of light begins to burst forward in the darkness. For all the sour reasons he's making himself train at night, Azriel has to admit it has some perks too.

Like they do most days, his thoughts drift to you.

There's a slight hitch on the thread between you and Azriel and he feels his wings give a little involuntary shudder in response. Thanks to his pestering shadows, he's still being fed little updates about your whereabouts and wellbeing — still a perfect torture.

But you've graduated to training with Cassian.

No longer just cautious friends, no, you're standing up and fighting against him, as you had done with Azriel all those months ago. It had been another morsel of information dropped in his ear by his shadows that made him stumble in his motions.

He had hardly given you a choice, back in Exordor. Azriel remembers it now with a wince, wishing in hindsight that he had been kinder. He had exposed your secret of helping the girls in the camp, infiltrated your home, and all but enforced it on you.

It came from good intentions but if he knew what he knew now, he'd do it differently.

There's... lots of things he'd do differently.

But, with the past set in stone, it didn't matter. Cassian was about choice. Rhys was about choice — and Azriel knew there was no way either of them would've gone near you without your permission, let alone engage in combat.

Besides, he's fairly certain that his brothers were aware of how Azriel would tear them limb from limb if they threatened his mate in any shape or form.

Mate.

The word is still fresh on his tongue and Azriel has to swallow thickly around it, feeling clunky and wrong in his mouth. It doesn't feel as though he's truly earned it yet.

Funny how he spent so many years waiting for one, yearning for his mate, aching for the other half of his heart.

To now be here — travelling through the House of Wind during the evening, to keep his distance from you.

There's another hitch on the tie that binds you and Azriel raises a scarred hand to brush his knuckles along the tender ache in his chest.

He wasn't sure what the little tugs and pulls throughout the day meant. He wasn't sure if it was him or you that was responsible for them.

Even if it feels like a daydream more than anything, he lets himself pretend it means you're thinking of him.

"Give it time," He murmurs to himself, his voice a raspy whisper.

It was Rhys' advice, given to him after that last meeting on the balcony. Give it time. It's what you deserve, what he owes to you.

It doesn't mean it doesn't still sting.

His eyes track the tiles on the floor as he rolls his shoulders back, already preparing for the next couple hours spent training. He can hear the sounds of Cassian out in the ring already, the scuff of his boots against the hard ground.

"Give it time," Azriel urges himself again, under his breath, willing the words to give him some more of his desperately lacking patience. He steps down onto the balcony.

Then, he promptly freezes, because it becomes rapidly apparent that Cassian is not alone.

You... You're there.

In the ring, your wings stretched out in the lowlight of the rising moon, your face relaxed in a way he'd nearly forgotten.

Mother, he’d already thought you were the most beautiful Fae he’d ever laid his eyes on, even back in Exordor, but one short month in Velaris has transformed you.

You had always been strong—your muscles wiry and slender, but hardened. Not having to guess when your next meal is, sleeping with both eyes closed… the effects of being cared for is magnanimous on you. You look better.

To Azriel, you glow.

Then your head towards him and the easy expression of your face shifts to something he desperately wants to be able to read. Cassian has noticed his entrance too, hovering just behind you, but there’s nothing Azriel can look at other than you.

Your eyes meet his.

Stretched out between you, invisible and humming like a live-wire, the mating bond gives a pang.

Azriel feels it burrow beneath his skin, feels it through every nerve and even though he doesn’t deserve it, his heart still croaks forlornly tell me, tell me you feel it too.

The corner of your mouth tugs up and it takes Azriel a whole moment to realise it's almost a smile. Directed at him. Is he still sleeping? Is this some wondrous dream he wishes to never wake from?

He murmurs your name, his voice as rough as a thunderstorm.

"Az," Cassian responds instead and Azriel's hazel eyes snap up to his brother.

He's still frozen in place, paused on the edge of the balcony, even his wings stilled. The only movement is his rapid shadows, bursting forward and reeling themselves back in, like they want to cross the space but know they're not allowed to.

When Azriel doesn't say anything for a long moment, his name is spoken again, this time from you.

Gods, even your voice has changed ever-so-slightly. No longer are you straining it, leaning into the lower tones to sell your façade. There's a softness to it that hadn't been there before.

Azriel thinks he could drink the way you say his name, get drunk on it, and be merry forever.

He still can't move. Did you know he was training here during the evenings? Is that why you're here? Is this some forced intervention for the two of you, set up by his scheming brother?

His body sways forward, wanting, but he can't bring himself to move.

You step forward first instead, treading lightly til you stand before him. In the background, he can see Cassian turn and busy himself, evidently giving the two of you some time.

"Azriel," You say his name again — and it goes down like a shot of moonshine, burning fiercely, warming him from the inside.

He's still taller than you, forcing you to tilt your head back to face him properly and at this angle, he can see the sheen of moonlight reflected in your eyes. You’re utterly beautiful to him, furrowed brow and all.

His beautiful mate— and he left you.

Left you to be taken, to have your wings pinned down, to have their hatred carved into the scars on your spine.

And he left you to think he was right to do so.

Agony, like nothing he’s felt before, rips through him, a fierce hurricane, violent and betrayed. He will never forgive himself.

"I'm sorry." He says earnestly, his voice low but not quiet. The words burst out and he can’t contain them - not when it’s all he’s wanted to say to you these past weeks.

"Leaving you behind—”

There’s an audible shudder in his breath, his eyes fluttering as if admitting his mistake aloud causes him physical pain.

“It will never stop being the regret that haunts my every waking moment and every moment asleep.”

“Azriel—” You murmur, seeing just how deeply he cuts himself with his words. You can tell now that Cassian is right; the soldier before you would punish himself far longer than you ever deigned to.

“Please,” He cuts you off gently, swaying forward again and forcing himself to have restraint. His shadows barely obey, mere inches from you.

“Let me-” His voice is almost a whisper, his hands curling into loose fists before he releases them with a soft sigh. “I will spend every day of my life making it up to you, if you allow me to.”

For a long moment, you stare up at him, searching his eyes for something he doesn’t know. The bond between you thrums quietly behind his ribs.

“I know you will.” you simply say.

Not assuming but… understanding. As if your picture of him is suddenly clearer.

“But either way, I forgive you.”

The air in his lungs disappears, like a punch to his gut. Even as his face barely shifts, well-trained after centuries, his shadows betray him, exploding into a frenzy.

They dart forward, bating into your arms and neck with enough speed to surprise you, but your response is only a puff of air, almost a laugh. The edges of your mouth turn up. Azriel scowls at them, a flustered hue rising to his cheeks.

“…Why?”

You don’t seem surprised by his question, even though the moment it leaves him mouth, Azriel wants to stuff it back in. Who is he to question your forgiveness?

You take a weary breath in and for the first time, break eye contact, casting your to the ground.

“You… You made a mistake. You know that now.” Your eyes flash up to meet his. “You also came back. I think that’s maybe just as important.”

Azriel blinks, more surprise rearing up within him.

How are you so calm, so levelheaded? Where is the angry warrior forged in icy heart of the Illyrian Mountains? The ones who fight first and ask questions never?

Forgiveness, Azriel knows, is not a concept among Illyrian warriors.

His eyes glance up to the other occupant of the balcony. You surely can’t have got it from hanging around with Cassian, of all people. Hot-headed, easy to anger, grudge holder for all eternity Cassian?

Perhaps, Azriel thinks, he doesn’t give his brother enough credit.

“Besides, I also can only hope I’m treated with the same kindness when I make my next mistake.”

Your words soften him. As Azriel swallows the lump in his throat, he finds it in himself to take the forgiveness as easily as you’ve offered it to him.

He nods, then draws his hand from his side and holds it out, “I would hope then, that you wouldn’t mind starting over. As friends?”

Not allies, companions, or teachers.

You put your hand in his, setting the bond twanging between you, and nod. This time, when your lips curl up, it’s in a real, genuine smile. It’s small, but there — and it’s for him.

Azriel could probably fight the moon at this point.

“Friends.”

“You guys done over there? Friends yet?” Cassian calls out callously, having heard almost every word and trampling over the moment without regret. You drop Azriel's hand quickly, turning back with a somewhat flustered expression.

Azriel narrows his eyes at him and Cassian grins deviously in response.

“Great. Does this mean we can all go back to training together in the morning?” Cassian tilts his head to you, gesturing. “She’s been putting through the wringer. I think it’s your turn.”

The words make you grin fiercely and suddenly, Azriel finds he has no trouble with that idea in the slightest.

—

The trio of you train into the twilight, even with the agreement of tomorrow’s early training.

Like an old habit, you fall back into sync with Azriel so easily it’s nearly scary. While your training with Cassian has been about teaching you a variety of new techniques, with you and Azriel it’s always been one on one.

Tonight is no different. Squaring against him in the ring, your new strength and arsenal of moves makes you an equal match. No longer are you trailing behind by one second, stuck on the defence.

Steel of swords clash and you bare your teeth in delight. Just months ago, you were still like an apprentice to him.

Now, you hold your own, new scars and all. You’ve adapted to change in your wings and when you fight with Azriel, it’s fluid. It's a dance.

It also exhausts you like nothing else. When Cassian finally calls it, the fight unwon by either of you after nearly ten constant minutes, you feel tired in a way you haven’t in an age.

It feels good. You’d almost feel bad at Cassian’s exclusion if he wasn’t grinning as widely as you. The sight doesn't jar you but the realisation that it’s happiness for you does. You're still not used to having people in your corner.

As you pant and step out of the ring, Azriel speaks your name.

“May I walk you to your room?” He asks, still panting lightly. The nod in reply comes easily.

Azriel smiles, one of his real ones, teeth and all. His canines are sharper, giving him an almost fanged grin. You’ve never seen that smile before, as eased and relaxed as it is.

You wonder for a moment how much the Azriel you met in the mountains, the colder and harsher version, is the real one.

Here, in his home, you can see that every corner of him is softened.

And then whatever you’re thinking is wiped in an instant as he pulls his black training shirt to wipe the sweat from his face—revealing his glistening, tanned and toned stomach that ripples with every breath.

Cauldron. A heat you’ve never felt quite before burns through you, like a paper going up in flames.

Something strung between your ribs stings in the most perfect way. You feel your lips part instinctively, your heartbeat suddenly louder than it was a moment ago.

Smothering the feeling, you make sure to school your features into something neutral, your open mouth snapping shut.

You have no idea what expression you’d made but you don’t doubt it’ll be something Cassian can laugh at. A quick glance at the male shows you’ve gotten away with it this time.

Turning, you pad across to the weapons rack and lay your broadsword to rest, waiting for Azriel to do the same. He sheathes the sword with ease and then tilts his head towards the doors.

Together, you bid your friend adieu. Something glimmers in Cassian’s responding smile, his dark eyes watching you with a look that tells you he knows more than he says. You don’t give any reaction, not wanting to encourage him.

Besides, you’ve learnt that Cassian has that expression most of the time. You've just grown use to putting him on his ass afterwards though.

Instead, you turn and face the other warrior on the rooftop. He's watching you closely, his shadows, which had been banished during your fight, back and lingering around him in a relaxed way.

You lead the way. He follows. Neither of you speak.

It's something timid and new, trying out your friendship again. Despite how easy it was to fall back into fighting with him, you have to admit that your fragile friendship back in Exordor was founded on your lie.

He didn't know who you were, even if you did share many quiet evenings in your cabin. The ground you're starting on is new.

The quiet walk seems just the way to begin.

Something stirs in your chest, almost akin to a purr, warm and welcoming as you walk. Your arm brushes against Azriel several times on the walk, each time setting off a flare beneath your skin. You're too busy watching your feet to notice the fervent glances Azriel can't resist stealing.

You arrive at your room what feels like far too soon.

As you raise your hand to the knob, the silence continues, broken only when you begin to turn it.

"I wanted to say thank you," Azriel says, the words rushing out of his mouth. It makes you pause in your motions. You look back at him.

He seems hesitant but sincere, as though he feared bringing up your forgiveness in case you decided to revoke it.

His hazel eyes dart away, breaking contact briefly, before he clears his throat and meets your eyes. "For allowing me a second chance."

"You know Azriel," You say, your voice warm in a way he's never heard before. So, so different from the warrior in the mountains, in all the best ways, he thinks.

"I think you've been giving me a second chance from the first day we met."

Then, you bid him goodnight and slip into your room quietly.

Exhaustion drags you down to your pile of blankets and sleep is swift to claim you, not even giving you a moment to fixate on the tenderness of Azriel's last smile.

That night, for the first time since you've arrived in Velaris, you sleep the whole night through.

[NEXT PART: SHRIKE (TO YOUR SHY AND GLORIOUS THORN)]

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[fantasyescapes17]

Spinsters do not Need Chaperones (Part 2, Seungcheol Route)

Chaperones are for beautiful young girls. A plain older woman like you, with neither fortune nor youth to recommend her, is hardly in danger of losing her virtue. You've long resigned yourself to always being the supporting role in someone else’s romance. 

But could it be that love and marriage have not disappeared entirely beyond your reach? This spinster may capture the heart of an eligible bachelor yet, if only she makes the right choices…

Genre: Seungcheol x female! reader, regency!AU (Sort of Bridgerton-esque but we keep it PG)

Word Count: 4.5k+

Series Masterlist here

You discovered, much to your dismay, that none of your wants or desires could withstand Lady Beaumont’s wild  force of personality and will.

It is unnecessary to repeat the exact conversations that took place in the Beaumont manor that afternoon. It is only relevant to note that by the next morning, your belongings had been packed and you found yourself in a carriage with Lady Beaumont and Julia, headed directly for Portsmouth. 

“We must see if we cannot find you a husband in Portsmouth as well,” your aunt commented as the carriage rattled farther and farther away from London. “Surely the place has some naval officers milling about. Once Julia’s engagement is secured, there may be someone the Chois can introduce you to- perhaps some widower that will have you.”

You bit your lip to prevent yourself from responding rudely. It was never worth the effort of an argument with your aunt. You simply nodded. 

“You're not sulking because I would not permit you to stay in London, are you?” Lady Beaumont snapped irritably. 

You sighed and shook your head. “I am not sulking, aunt.”

“You would do well to put the Kims behind you. It was kind of them to allow you to debut and attend the social season with their daughter, but you are a Beaumont, not a Kim. You don't have a dowry worth mentioning, and the advantages of age and beauty are long past you. You need to be practical and think about who will support you for the rest of your life.”

“Believe me, aunt, I think of little else.”

Your aunt turned away with a huff. Julia had been quiet for most of the ride and seemed to be deep in thoughts of her own. You gave your young cousin a reassuring smile and she smiled back at you, but said nothing. 

The journey was long enough that dusk had begun to fall by the time the carriage arrived at the streets of Portsmouth. The Choi estate loomed ahead in the distance, and you peeked curiously out of the carriage window at the large manor. It wasn’t quite as magnificent as the Beaumont estate, but it was certainly a fitting home for a noble family. The sea was very close by. Surely the view of the vast blue waters from the upper stories of the manor would be marvelous. 

“It’s not as grand as London but this town really is quite beautiful,” you said to Julia as you both descended the carriage. “Perhaps we shall have a nice time in Portsmouth.”

Julia bit her lip. “I hope so, cousin.”

The servants arrived to carry your luggage inside and a few moments later you were greeted by the arrival of Mr. Choi Seungcheol and his mother, Mrs. Choi. 

“How delightful to see you again, Lady Beaumont, girls,” Mrs. Choi greeted you all warmly. You were surprised when the older woman embraced you and Julia. “I do hope you had a safe journey. Please come in, out of the cold! Summer is past and the evenings are quite chilly these days.”

“Yes-yes, our journey was quite pleasant, thank you,” Lady Beaumont replied quickly as she wrapped her shawl more tightly around her shoulders. “Portsmouth seems very lovely.”

“We hope that you will like it.”

Seungcheol stood a few steps behind his mother. He nodded at you politely when you made eye contact with him, but there was not much of a smile on his face. You returned a polite nod. For Julia’s sake, you sincerely hoped that Mr. Choi was a good man. It was hard to tell what he was thinking behind those dark, charismatic eyes and that unsmiling face. 

“This is my housekeeper, Mrs. Williams- she has prepared rooms for you all upstairs and I hope you will find them comfortable,” Mrs. Choi explained. “Mrs. Williams, will you please show our guests to their rooms?”

You followed the housekeeper upstairs, admiring the large and tastefully decorated manor. Lady Beaumont had been provided with her own  room, while you and Julia had been given a slightly larger room to share. As soon as Mrs. Williams deposited your belongings and left, you went to the large french window in your room and threw it open. 

“We have a lovely view of the garden,” you observed. “But it appears this side of the manor does not face the sea.”

“A very good thing too,” Lady Beaumont muttered. She still had her shawl wrapped tightly around her shoulders and looked quite pale. “I cannot imagine how cold the sea winds would be at night. Close that window immediately, there is a terrible draught.”

You sighed and shut the window. “Shall we dress for dinner?”

You all dressed and went downstairs for dinner with the Choi family. Seungcheol sat at the head of the large table, and his dark eyes were watchful as Lady Beaumont and Mrs. Choi had an animated conversation about the china, and the difficulties of finding a good cook. You noticed that Seungcheol kept looking between you and Julia repeatedly. Once the first course was completed, he finally addressed your cousin directly. 

“How do you like to spend your free time, Miss Julia?” Seungcheol asked your young cousin. His tone was gentle enough but his dark eyes were unsmiling and Julia still looked somewhat afraid of him.

“I-I like music,” Julia whispered. 

“I must apologise, Miss Julia, I could not quite hear your response,” Seungcheol admitted. 

“I like music,” your cousin repeated a little more loudly. “T-the pianoforte.” 

Seungcheol nodded. “Of course. Yes, of course, I had the pleasure of listening to you play back in London. Allow me to compliment you once again on your skills. You played wonderfully.”

Julia blushed and stared at her plate. “Thank you.”

Their conversation was painfully awkward and almost difficult for you to watch. You did not want to interfere but Julia was being incredibly shy and you could see that even Seungcheol was not quite sure how to engage her in conversation. It was your duty as a chaperone to fill in this awkwardness. You cleared your throat and turned to him with a smile.

“Mr. Choi- perhaps you can recommend things for us to do, or places to see while we are in Portsmouth?” you asked lightly. 

Mr. Choi seemed almost relieved at your interruption and he turned in his seat to face you. “Of course, Miss Beaumont. I would be delighted to take you all down to the beach tomorrow morning. Portsmouth has many wonderful beaches. I am pleased to say it is one of the few advantages we have over London and the rest of the general countryside.”

You turned to Julia. “Julia! Doesn't the beach sound lovely?”

Julia nodded quickly. “Yes-yes, it does.”

You turned back to Seungcheol. “And the harbour; shall we be able to visit the harbour as well?”

Seungcheol blinked at you in surprise. “Well, certainly, if you like… although the harbour is full of ships and goods and commercial offices. I did not think it would be of particular interest to young ladies.”

Your eyes widened eagerly. “We should love to visit the harbour. Julia and I have just finished reading Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas. We have oceans and submarines and sea monsters on our mind, don’t we, Julia? We would love to see the naval ports and even your ships, Mr. Choi, if it is not too much trouble to you.”

Seungcheol nodded. “No trouble at all. I shall be delighted to show them to you.”

Mr. Vernon, who had been almost entirely silent until then (you had a strange suspicion that he was hiding a book underneath the table and was reading instead of paying attention to the conversation) looked up and smiled at you. “My brother spends too much time at the harbour already, Miss Beaumont. I am afraid the trouble lies more in bringing him back home.”

Seungcheol looked at his brother with a raised eyebrow- he did not smile but there was a surprising light-heartedness to his tone. “Then perhaps you had better join us, Vernon, so that you may undertake this incredibly difficult task of bringing me back home and not leave it to the ladies.”

“I wish I could, brother, but my exams are coming soon and I must devote myself to studying,” Vernon replied apologetically. 

“Is that why you have hidden a book under the table?” you asked him with a playful smile. 

Vernon’s ears turned red. “There is no book-”

Seungcheol sighed, although he did not look too angry. “Vernon, surely you can put your studies  away for some time while we have guests?”

“Sorry,” Vernon mumbled as he turned his attention back to his dinner. You smiled- and were surprised when Seungcheol caught your eye and gave you a small, almost imperceptible smile of his own. The smile brought a sudden light to Seungcheol’s already handsome face and you were surprised by how  charming he looked. But before you could react, Seungcheol had turned to Julia and asked her a question about whether she enjoyed French literature. 

The dinner ended pleasantly and Mrs. Choi entreated Julia to play a little music for them in the drawing room before the family retired to bed. You sat down on the comfortable sofa to listen to her performance and were surprised when Seungcheol sat beside you. 

“Miss Beaumont,” Seungcheol said to you in a quiet tone that could not be picked up by his mother or your aunt seated near the fireplace. “I must thank you for your thoughtfulness during the conversation at dinner. I hope that Miss Julia’s quietness is simply her nature, and not caused by any behaviour on my part…”

Your eyes widened. “Oh! No, you must forgive Julia’s quietness. She is only a little shy since she has not spent much time in society or among gentlemen. I assure you, she will open up soon and has a very lovely personality.”

Seungcheol nodded and cleared his throat. “I am… glad to hear it. I suffer from a similar handicap. I have lived in Portsmouth too long and failed to cultivate the art of polite conversation that I would have developed if I had spent more time among young ladies in London society.”

You smiled at him warmly. “There is nothing lacking in your conversation, Mr. Choi. You must only forgive Julia for being too young and inexperienced.”

“Youth is hardly a fault,” he replied thoughtfully. “And inexperience- well, that can surely be remedied with time and effort.”

“I agree.”

“Then I shall only thank you,” he replied gently, “and wish you a good night, Miss Beaumont.”

“Good night, Mr. Choi.”

—-------------------------------------------------------

Lady Beaumont declared that she had developed the chills and that nothing should distress her more than being exposed to the harsh autumn weather on a cold morning. She had therefore resolved to stay indoors all day. You were at liberty to depart for the Portsmouth harbour after breakfast, entirely unburdened by your aunt’s company. 

“I hope Lady Beaumont is not unwell,” Seungcheol enquired politely as he helped you and Julia board the carriage. “She does seem rather troubled by the cold.”

You chuckled. “You may rest assured that my aunt is in perfect health, Mr. Choi. Her chills have everything to do with her hatred of long walks, and nothing to do with the weather or her health.”

Seungcheol smiled. “I am relieved to hear it.”

The harbour was a short distance away. You were pleasantly surprised by how dazzlingly beautiful the blue sea was, even among the hustle and bustle of the busy harbour. Mr. Choi had been telling the truth. The harbour was a place of business, not exactly a tourist destination, but you still found yourself excited by the sight of the enormous ships anchored in the distance. 

“It smells of fish,” Julia mumbled to you. 

Seungcheol had overheard her. He merely nodded as he helped Julia down from the carriage. “Yes, I’m afraid it is rather early and the fishermen will be loading the boats with their catches to transport to nearby towns. Here; please use my handkerchief to cover your nose if it is too unpleasant.”

Julia blushed but accepted his handkerchief gratefully. 

“Are any of these ships yours, Mr. Choi?” you asked, interested. 

Mr. Choi nodded. “Some of the ships undergoing repairs are at the docks, and I will be glad to show them to you. I am afraid that my best ones are all away at sea, bringing goods back from the colonies.”

“What sort of goods?” you wondered. 

Mr. Choi smiled. His eyes lit up and you could tell that he enjoyed talking about his ships and business. There was a tinge of pride in his voice as he explained it to you. “Everything the merchants in the colonies hire us to transport. Cotton, tea, silks, even precious metals and antiques. Well, almost everything.”

You raised an eyebrow at him. “Almost everything? May I ask why you qualify it so”

Seungcheol coughed and lowered his gaze slightly. “I’m afraid the merchants sometimes wish to transport people instead of goods, and naturally I do not offer my ships for that sort of trade.”

Your eyes widened in understanding. The slave trade. Julia noticed the expression on your face and looked between you and Seungcheol, confused. 

“I do not understand. Why should you refuse to transport people?” Julia asked innocently.

“Because people are not goods, Julia,” you replied quietly. “Let us leave it at that for now.”

“On a more pleasant note,” Seungcheol said brightly, “the Royal Navy also uses this harbour for their ships and there are many senior naval officers here. I see Commodore James approaching us now, if you will allow me to introduce you to him.”

“Of course, we shall be delighted.”

A small group of naval officers in uniform approached you from the harbour. Julia’s grip on your arm tightened, and you saw that she had her eyes on the officers and was deeply blushing. You smiled to yourself- you remembered the days when you had fawned over gentlemen in uniform. 

“Mr. Choi!” the senior naval officer at the front of the group greeted. He was an older man with slightly greying hair and a bright smile. “How wonderful to see you here- and in the company of two beautiful young women, no less!”

Seungcheol nodded politely. “Commodore James, allow me to introduce you to Miss Beaumont and her cousin, Miss Julia Beaumont. They are my mother’s guests and are staying with us at Portsmouth for the fall.”

You were surprised when Commodore James reached out to kiss first your hand, and then Julia’s. He then introduced you to the rest of the men standing behind him. You tried to concentrate and remember their names and ranks, as Commodore James rattled them off, but you were sure you would forget them soon. 

“I hope you have an excellent stay in Portsmouth,” Commodore James said, addressing you and Julia. “May I ask if you ladies are fond of dancing?”

You nodded. “Indeed, we are.”

“Then we shall hope to see you at the assembly rooms one of these evenings, and you must each  reserve some of your dances for me and my officers,” Commodore James insisted. 

“We would be glad to,” you replied politely. 

“Excellent. I am afraid you must excuse us for today- we have an appointment to make. Good day, Miss Beaumont and Miss Julia.”

You and Julia curtsied politely to the officers as they walked away. You could tell that Julia’s attention was almost entirely diverted and she kept glancing back at the retreating officers. You couldn't blame her, really. Some of them were rather handsome. But it wouldn't do for Mr. Choi to notice her distractions, so you hurried to engage him in another conversation. 

“Perhaps we might see your offices, Mr. Choi?” you asked quickly. 

Seungcheol blinked. “Oh-yes, of course. This way.”

You kept a grip on Julia’s hand and followed Mr. Choi as he led you towards his offices. Mr. Choi ran his shipping business from a large building  further down from the harbour and you were unsurprised to find the office full of clerks and accountants, writing letters and poring over ledgers. Some of the clerks bowed their heads towards you politely, clearly surprised to see ladies at the office. 

“Well, here we are,” Seungcheol said. “I am afraid the office is a rather uninteresting place.”

“It is fascinating,” you replied honestly. “I am quite curious to know what exactly happens here in this office, Mr. Choi.”

“Correspondence, mostly,” Seungcheol replied with a smile. Despite declaring himself that the office was uninteresting, he clearly did not really think so. “Taking orders, recording consignments, planning routes and schedules, hiring seamen, drafting bills of lading, insurance policies and invoices…”

Julia frowned. “It sounds dreadfully complex just to bring some cargo over on a ship,” she remarked. 

Seungcheol nodded. “I'm afraid it can be.”

“It must be a lot for you to manage,” you said. 

“Not at all. I enjoy it very much,” Seungcheol replied honestly. “I built this business myself. I do occasionally wish I had help- I asked Vernon to join me in running the business, but he has his own passions to follow and wants to become a barrister. I cannot blame him. The shipping business is not for everyone.”

“It is very admirable,” you told him honestly. 

“Thank you, Miss Beaumont.”

Julia glanced around the office, clearly bored. “Might we go to the beach now?”

“Of course… allow me to call for the carriage.”

—-----------------------------------------------

The Portsmouth beach was incredibly beautiful. You felt a sort of resounding peace among the crashing waves and the vast blueness of the ocean and sky. You closed your eyes as a gentle spray of water from the crashing waves fell across your face. 

“I see that the beach is to your liking,” Seungcheol commented. 

You opened your eyes and reallzed that his dark gaze was fixed on you. You flushed involuntarily- there was something very charismatic about the soft smiles that Seungcheol bestowed rarely and briefly. He was indeed a handsome man and you were, after all, just a woman. 

“Yes, I like it very much,” you replied. “The ocean is beautiful. I saw it from the carriage as soon as we arrived yesterday. I had been hoping that we would have a view of it from your manor.”

Seungcheol's eyebrows furrowed. “Do you not have a view of it from your room?”

“Oh- no, our rooms face your lovely garden instead,” you replied lightly. You turned back to look for Julia, who had fallen behind and stopped to fiddle with her shoes. “Julia! Are you all right?” you called out. The crashing waves almost drowned out your voice. 

“I am all right, there is just some sand in my shoes!” Julia yelled back. 

“Do you need help?”

“No- only wait for me a few moments while I turn them inside out!” Julia called. 

You nodded and turned back towards Seungcheol, who was still looking at you. His hands were clasped behind his back and his broad shoulders seemed a little tense. His dark eyes faltered for a moment and then he spoke. 

“Miss Beaumont,” he said softly. 

You looked up at him. “Yes?”

“I know that our acquaintance is too short for me to speak to you so openly. But my experience of you has been that you are a very thoughtful and mature woman who is capable of understanding the complex nature of life and relationships.”

You stared up at him in surprise, trying not to feel too embarrassed. “Oh- well- I cannot say that this is a compliment I have ever received before, Mr. Choi, but I thank you for it all the same.”

“If I speak to you with a level of honesty that is unusual for our short acquaintance, I hope you will not resent me for it.”

“I should never resent someone for being honest,” you assured him. 

“Then I will take this opportunity to speak plainly about the elephant in the room, and most certainly the reason that you and your family find yourselves in Portsmouth. The entailment of the Beaumont estate due to the lack of male heirs in your family.”

You stared at him. You were embarrassed, but gratified that Seungcheol had taken the first step to actually broach the subject that was on everyone’s mind. It was painful to think about the possibility of months of  continued tip-toeing around the subject out of a sense of propriety. 

“Yes,” you said quietly. “I beg you not to let the entailment trouble you, Mr. Choi. We understand, the law being what it is-”

“But it does trouble me, exceedingly so,” Seungcheol replied firmly. There was a sudden fire in his eyes. “Miss Beaumont, I am a very proud man. Perhaps you have heard of this through rumours but my late father was a gambler. He gambled away my family’s estate until there was almost nothing left by the time he died and I turned of age. I have spent the better part of a decade building my shipping business and restoring my family’s finances and reputation in society.” 

You looked up at Seungcheol with wide eyes and nodded. “Indeed, I have heard as much about you, Mr. Choi. You are known for being a self-made man and I have seen here today what you have built. You are well within your rights to be proud of your success.” 

Seungcheol took a deep breath. “Thank you. But I want your family to understand that it gave me no pleasure to learn of the entailment. It is not in my nature to rejoice at a handout, especially not when it is being stolen from the family it rightfully belongs to.”

You sighed. “There isn't really any question of rightfulness, here, the law is what it is-”

“Yes,” Seungcheol replied. “If it was within my power to refuse the estate, or to transfer it back to you and your cousin, then I would do so in a heartbeat. But it is not in my power to do so. The terms of the entailment will not permit me to transfer the Beaumont estate to anyone other than my own male heirs.”

“We understand, Mr. Choi,” you assured him quietly. 

Seungcheol inhaled sharply. “I have discussed this with my mother, and we have agreed that the only conscionable manner to deal with the Beaumont estate is to offer a union of our families, to ensure that any son I pass the estate to will be of Beaumont lineage.”

You took a deep breath and looked up at him. Seungcheol’s dark eyes were worried; you could see the honesty behind them. This was not a performance or empty words. Seungcheol was genuinely conflicted and distressed by the knowledge that he would be inheriting your family’s fortune and estate. He clearly considered it his duty to do whatever was in his power to ensure it stayed in your family. 

“Then I must return the favour and be equally open with you as well, Mr. Choi,” you said honestly. “A union of the families is exactly what my aunt is hoping for. We have come to Portsmouth in the expectation that you will be persuaded to marry Julia, and that the Beaumont estate can remain within our family.”

Seungcheol was silent for a long moment. He looked at you, and then back at Julia. Your young cousin was still balancing carefully on one foot as she struggled to empty beach sand out of her shoes. 

“Of course,” Seungcheol said finally. He ran his fingers through his dark hair and left it slightly ruffled. “But Julia is… young.”

“She is of marriageable age,” you replied. 

“No doubt,” Seungcheol replied quickly. “Since Lord Beaumont is still in good health, I assume there is no need to act with any haste. I would like to spend more time with Julia and your family. But I hope it will bring Lady Beaumont some relief to learn that I have every intention of uniting our families when the time is right. I trust you will convey this to her in the appropriate manner?”

You bowed your head. “Of course, Mr. Choi.”

“Thank you.”

You opened your mouth to respond but Julia had already come running over to you; her hair was a little dishevelled and she looked annoyed. 

“There is no end of sand in my shoes,” she mumbled. “May we return to the manor?”

“Yes, indeed, let us return.”

—------------------------------------------------

You went to your aunt’s bedroom after dinner, to tell her about the events of the day. It would bring her some relief to know for certain that Seungcheol intended to marry Julia, and you did not want to deny her that peace of mind. 

“I am not sure what I think of him saying all this to you,” your aunt admitted with a frown, “but I suppose he was sensible enough to know not to say it to Julia.”

“She is too young, and still dreams of love,” you muttered to your aunt. “She would not have enjoyed speaking of her own marriage in such… economical terms.”

Lady Beaumont sighed. “All the same, it is indeed a relief to know that Mr. Choi intends to do the right thing. Our time here is not wasted after all. We shall rest easy after your uncle passes.”

You nodded. “We are lucky, aunt. Mr. Choi is… well, he seems to be a very good man. I find his behaviour quite admirable.”

“Well it's not much use to you,” your aunt snapped. “You must still try to find yourself a husband, although we cannot hope for anyone too rich. Mrs. Choi talks highly of a certain widower called Commodore James. Perhaps you should visit the assembly rooms and try to dance with this man.”

You winced. “Aunt, he must be twenty years my senior.’

“If you wanted a young man then you should have found one while you were young,” Lady Beaumont said dismissively. “Don't come to me now in your late twenties and complain to me about the age of your suitors. It will be a relief if we can find one at all. Now good night.”

“Good night, aunt,” you muttered. 

You walked back to the room you shared with Julia, only to find that there were a few maids carrying your luggage out of the room. You stopped in your tracks and called out to one of them.

“Are those my dresses? Where are you taking those?” you asked. 

The maid placed your trunk down and bowed. “Apologies, Miss Beaumont, Mr. Choi asked us to have you moved to a different room on the other end of the corridor. He said to put you in one with a better view of the ocean.”

Your heart skipped a beat.

“Oh-yes, thank you. That would be lovely,” you muttered. 

“I will show you your new room, please follow me.”

---------------------------------------------------

[da-rulah]

Confessional - Cardinal Copia x F!Reader [Part 2]

Summary: Cardinal Copia is driven out of his mind when you disappear from the Ministry. He cannot find you anywhere, hasn't seen or heard a peep of you, and it's beginning to take its toll. But he's not the only one who's noticed your absence…

Rating: Explicit, 18+

Word Count: 4.5k

Warnings: Pathetic Copia, panty-sniffing kink (except it’s not panties...), masturbation (male), endless pining, a very scheming Terzo

A/N: I cannot believe the response I got to Part 1 of this fic... it was my first ever Ghost fic, and yet y'all blew it up! Thank you SO MUCH. 🥹 You wanted a part 2, so here's your part 2. And soon, part 3...

PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3

ALSO AVAILABLE ON AO3

How much torture can one man endure before he breaks? How long does it take for a man to go insane?  

The Cardinal supposed it was six days worth. Six days of torture, and he was dangerously dangling over the edge of sanity... And if he was being honest with himself, the majority of it was self-inflicted. 

He didn’t mean to torture himself. He never meant to debase himself so, and somehow managed a full six days before he gave in the first time. And if you hadn’t disappeared off the face of the earth, perhaps the guilt that had made a permanent home in the pit of his stomach would have been enough to stop him – but just those first six days of not seeing nor hearing anything of you around the ministry were enough to drive him utterly demented. 

But the longer he went without seeing your pretty face in the halls, or hearing your sweet voice when you sang at Mass with your siblings, or being in any kind of proximity to you, the more confident he became that he would never be found out. You would never catch him in his filthy little secret... 

The first time had been a mistake – or so he told himself. Something he did in the heat of the moment, one he couldn’t control and felt utterly miserable over after.  

Those six days he had been on high alert, hoping to see you in the halls or in his seminars but nothing. He wanted so badly to apologise to you, his shame of what he felt was him corrupting your sweet nature in that damned booth but he’d not been given the chance. You’d simply evaporated...  

And so, after he had done a lap of the ministry in search of you one last time on the evening of the sixth day, he sulked back to his quarters trying with all his strength not to pull his greying hairs from his temples in frustration. He slammed the door behind him, frisbeeing his biretta from his head and to some distant corner of the room before he threw himself down on his bed with a huff. 

After a few deep breaths to calm his irritation, he stood and shook the coat of his cassock off, tossing that somewhere else in the room – frankly, he could care less where it landed, as well as the shoes he kicked off. He sat back down against the headboard of his bed, head laying back against the wall as he stared at the ceiling, closing his eyes for a moment of peace. 

But since confessional, he hadn’t been granted a moment of peace at all. No, his mind was occupied.  

Whether it was the guilt, the shame, the unprofessionalism... or on better days, the images you had planted in his mind of your sinful dream... even the sounds of your mewls and whines from beside him and the smacks to the wood as you’d met your end, kicking out involuntarily as you’d climaxed... His mind was always occupied. 

That evening had been no exception, his mind wandering over those pretty little noises you had made, the way you’d said his name almost breathlessly, the sounds of your fingers sliding through your slick as you practically cried for him.  

The Cardinal found himself once again struggling to control himself – he'd managed to for the last six days but by this point he was just exhausted by it all. How could he hold off anymore? How could he sit here and torture himself with vivid memories of you fucking yourself beside him without allowing himself to indulge in the privacy of his own quarters? 

His thick cock had already swelled in the confines of his pants, as it had many times since your encounter but this was the first time he would allow himself the depravity of actually touching himself to the thoughts of you. It had felt too filthy, too impolite to you to do such a thing and yet after six fucking days of no interaction at all, he was too frustrated to deny himself a moment longer. 

His gloved hands slid to his belt, skilfully unbuckling with one hand as the other palms himself through the material. Before long, he had freed himself, and the black leather of his glove was swallowing his cock over and over as his hand stroked languidly, a low hum emanating from deep within his chest. 

How he wished it was your far softer and more delicate hand, perhaps your mouth if he was lucky enough. But this was the best he could do, pathetically stroking himself behind closed doors to the mere memory of you. What he’d give to worship you, to feel you and to taste you, to smell you again.  

His eyes shot open, his mind cruelly reminding him of the unwitting gift you had left behind... He looked guiltily to the side of his bed, to his bedside cabinet where if he was not mistaken, the drawer knob was glowing at him. But hey, that could just be his descent into madness...  

And it was that madness that had made him do the unthinkable, right from the beginning. He had kept that glove of yours – the glove you had left in such haste, the glove you had baptised with your juices. It sat in his bedside cabinet, under a stack of old Beano comic books he hid from plain sight in case a member of the clergy came to his chambers and judged him for the one thing he kept with him from his childhood. 

He’d be lying if he said that it had sat there and been forgotten about; it certainly hadn’t. But tonight was the first time he had considered retrieving it at all... He couldn’t, could he? He certainly shouldn’t... But his mind had been swimming with could haves, should haves and would haves for six fucking days and frankly, he was done with it.  

To hell with it.  

He reached over to the drawer and yanked it open, shoving the old Beano comics to one side and rifling until he found that discarded piece of lace he’d stolen. He rolled it in his hand for a moment, the other resuming the slow strokes to his cock. He shut his eyes again, head lolling back as he stroked, over and over, moans rolling from his half-painted lips between gentle curses and whispers of your name. 

As if the Cardinal couldn’t become anymore unhinged in his blissful state, he brought your glove to his face, catching the lasting aroma, a delicate bouquet of sin. He growled to himself like an animal, fist pumping himself to the point of no return, his cock angry and red, profusely leaking over his own gloved hand. His abdomen tightened, a garbled groan muffled by his fist pushing the lace against his face, cock jumping in his hand. 

It was quite pathetic really, how quickly Copia came as soon as he pulled that glove from its’ hiding spot. He’d made a mess over his shirt, whimpering into the glove as spurts of his seed landed as far up as his chest. And yet, he continued to fuck his fist into overstimulation, cock pitifully attempting another orgasm as more cum simply dribbled over his glove this time around. Even then, he only stopped himself because the stimulation was becoming painful... Although he was sure he probably deserved that.  

As he sat limp on his bed, the haze of his release fading quickly as realisation of what he’d just done hit him. With tired limbs, he balled the glove back up and threw it back into the open drawer beside him, smacking the drawer shut in anger at himself. How could he be so debauched? So disrespectful? 

So perverted.  

It was bad enough he was thinking of you. It was bad enough that he was masturbating over the thought of you. But that... he wasn’t sure he could forgive himself for acting this way. It didn’t matter how he felt about you, didn’t matter that he was transfixed on you or infatuated with you. This should never have happened... 

And yet, there was a next time. And another time after that.  

In fact, as the days passed and turned into weeks – still without so much as a glimpse or a whisper of you around the ministry – he found himself going back to that drawer more and more. The last time was never the last time, no matter how much he promised to stop, to behave himself. 

There was always a next time...  

You’ve been hiding for almost four weeks. How you were getting away with it, you weren’t sure... Perhaps you had memorised your Cardinal’s movements a little too well in the time your fantasies had begun to take hold, and so now you were able to avoid every possible encounter that may have been.   

After all, how on earth could you face him? You were absolutely mortified at yourself and the thought of being anywhere near the Cardinal made your skin crawl... Not because you despised him, or held any animosity towards him at all – how could you, possibly? - but because you felt like a fool; an idiot who got too caught up in the moment, confessed something that overstepped every conceivable boundary a person can set, and had managed to make the poor Cardinal stoop to your pathetic level.  

You had utterly humiliated yourself. 

In your efforts to avoid Cardinal Copia, you had in turn ended up avoiding most of your duties as a Sister of Sin. No seminars, no services... You had skipped on your work duty more often than not for fear of bumping into him in the hallways, faking some terrible stomach flu for longer than could be believed.   

You had even skipped out on Black Mass – a big no-no in the Ministry. Unless you were on the reaper’s death bed, you were to be at Black Mass.  

As the service was held, Papa Emeritus III took to his pulpit and noticed immediately that one of his siblings was missing. How disappointed he had been to come to realise it was you who hadn’t showed. You were one of his favourites, so sweet and virtuous. Whilst he did enjoy corrupting his Sisters of Sin, somehow he always felt you had been off limits... Still, a harmless flirt to keep you on your toes had never hurt. His soft spot for you was nothing if not platonic and playful. 

The Cardinal had noticed your absence at Black Mass also, and frankly it concerned him. Had he driven you out? Had you left the Ministry altogether? He’d not seen you for three fucking weeks, and he couldn’t help but feel a panic rise in his chest, that ever-nagging guilt growing into a nauseating feeling of utter self-hatred. He’d never forgive himself if you had left...  

After Mass had ended, Terzo grabbed the Cardinal for a quiet chat in his office. He knew damn well that you never missed a Latin seminar, that Copia likely saw you more often than most.  

“Cardinale, forgive the intrusion on your plans for the day. I’m sure you have places to be,” he began as he sat behind his desk. Copia stood in front of him, wringing his hands nervously. Part of him wondered if he were to be chastised for his behaviours, as if somehow Terzo had known... Had you told him what had happened at confessional? Did you tell him you were leaving... because of him?  

“Non è un problema, fratello. (It’s no problem, brother.) My only plan was to prepare for the week’s seminars.” His voice wavered slightly, and yet Terzo never noticed as it wasn’t unusual. Copia tended to be a little nervous around Terzo. He looked up to him so much, always had... But to Terzo, Copia was the annoying little kid he would make eat the bugs as a ‘joke’ while he and his older brothers looked on and laughed. And all Copia had ever wanted was to be just like Terzo.  

“I merely wondered if you had seen Sister _____ in your seminars lately? I noticed she wasn’t at Black Mass and... well, that’s not like her, is it?” Terzo asked, leaning on the desk on his elbows, waiting for an answer.   

The Cardinal could feel a drop of sweat forming on his brow. This felt like a trick question, like Terzo was expecting something of him. 

“Uhhh, I... I haven’t. It’s not like her, hai ragione (you’re right) .” 

“Hmm,” he hummed, leaning back in his chair. “I wonder what the matter is? I’ll be sure to look out for her, make sure our piccolo topo (little mouse) is alright. Please let me know if you see her in the next few day, sì?”  

Copia let out a quiet breath of relief, the conversation seeming to end without suspicion. “Sì, fratello. I will update you. Would you...” he stopped himself, wondering if this might be overstepping, implicating himself somehow, but deciding to continue, “would you mind letting me know too? If you see her, I mean...” 

Terzo looked up at Copia with eyes narrowed and a smirk playing on his painted face.  

“Why would you like to hear, Cardinal? Hai una cotta, eh? (You have a crush?)” he teased. Copia’s eyes widened, panic clear on his face.     "N-no! No, I just... This is unlike her,” he panicked. 

 “I wouldn’t judge, Cardinal. She is a pretty young thing...” he mused, winding Copia up further just as he had since childhood. 

“No, fratello... I mean, well, sì, she is but... I don’t...” Copia stumbled, making himself to be more obvious.  

“He doth protest too much,” Terzo laughed, “I will tell you if I see our pretty little Sorella around. You can go back to planning your seminars, Cardinal.” Terzo waved his subordinate out of his office and gladly, Copia took the chance to leave with his head hanging low. 

Outside the halls had quietened after the end of Mass. Copia leaned against the wall, taking a deep breath and wiping the sweat from under his biretta on his sleeve. He felt so burdened, so absolutely horrified at the thought that now even Terzo had noticed your absence in the ministry. God, he hated that he called you pretty... He hated that Terzo called you ‘piccolo topo’. His reputation proceeded him, and Copia would be damned if he got to corrupt you... 

In the days after Black Mass, Copia tried desperately to find you around the Ministry – with no success. He would end up defeatedly walking back to his chambers late each night, having hoped that maybe he would find you in the kitchens or the library. If you had been trying to avoid him, perhaps you would be eating later, studying in the middle of the night... But nothing. 

But at least he could go back to his room, to his bed, to your glove.  

The knock at your dorm door remained ignored by you, forcing Sister Katia, your bunkie, to get the door with a roll of her eyes. She’s just about had enough of your shit, having to pull twice her weight lately to accommodate whatever this episode was. The only reason she hadn’t lost her cool at you was because she knew this wasn’t like you, and whatever was causing this – it had to be bad. 

“______, it’s for you. A ghoul,” she sounds exasperated... Perhaps you should make the effort to at least see what the Ghoul wanted, praying to Sathanas that it had not been Copia who sent him your way.  

You pulled yourself from your bunk, your depression-outfit of three-day old sweats and a faded old graphic t-shirt making even the Ghoul at the door look at you in vague disgust. He said nothing to you though, his eyes following an arm he stretched out, holding a note with a very telling red wax seal over the fold – a ‘III’ in roman numerals that screamed Terzo...  

“Oh, shit,” Katia was not one for subtlety, clearly seeing the same wax stamp and realising that it was, in fact, a summons to visit Papa in his office the next morning. Dread filled you, the colour draining from your features... Papa only summoned Sisters of Sin for two things, and in your current predicament, both options felt like an option you would rather avoid.  

He was either about to make a move on you, to have his way with you if you were to let him, or he was to chastise you and dish out punishment as he saw fit for your little disappearing act.  

“Thank you, Ghoul. I uh, apologise... for my state,” you smiled weakly. He bowed his head slightly with a flutter of his eyelashes, as if to say ‘no problem, Sister’ - a ghoul of few words, this one... - and he turned to leave, walking down the hallways as Katia closed the door.  

“Well, open it... You know Papa doesn’t mince his words. Are you in trouble, or about to get laid?” Katia smirked as she tried poorly to lighten the mood. You rolled your eyes and popped the wax off the paper, unfolding to read your summons. 

“Sorella _______,  

It has come to my attention that you have been missing from the ministry for quite some time now, your duties going abandoned.  

Should this note find you well, I expect you in my office at 8am sharp with a very good explanation as to why.  

I look forward to your company,  

Papa Emeritus III”  

Had you not thought of yourself as such a tiny little insignificant cog in the Ministry, maybe Terzo’s note wouldn’t have come as such a surprise to you – but knowing your Papa had noticed your absence and was, shall we say, less than impressed unnerved you.  

“Suppose you’ll have to shower now,” Katia bumped your shoulder with hers. “Oh and wear that short habit with the red stitching you’ve got! You’ll need to butter him up a bit, by the sounds of it...” she winked, climbing into her bunk and picking up her discarded magazine.  

Perhaps she was right... If nothing else, perhaps it may distract him just a little, to give you enough time to weasel your way into an excuse for your absence. Terzo could easily be swayed if you indulge him just a little, without having to compromise your own integrity. 

Your hands shook as you lifted a fist to lightly knock on the large double doors of Papa Emeritus III’s office, fear setting in that you were about to have to fight for your place at the Ministry. Terzo was known to be ever so slightly more diplomatic than his brother’s, but a blatant disregard for duties always riled him up the wrong way – and in your depressed and embarrassed stupor, that was exactly what you had done for four weeks. 

“Entra,” you heard from within, the deep timbre of his thick Italian accent sending a shiver down your spine. 

You did as asked, barely opening to door to slink in as if hiding – like any sudden movement would alert him and have him pounce. You waited at the door, practically backed up against the wood and waited for instruction. He was furiously typing at his typewriter, the keys echoing around the stone walls until a loud ping sounded, and he pushed down the carriage release that had it loudly creaking back to its place. He looked up at you then, papal paint freshly adorned over his masculine features. 

When he saw the fear on your face, the shame you already harboured, his features relaxed slightly – not that it gave you any relief to your anxiety.  

“Sorella ______, how I’ve missed that pretty face in the halls, eh?” he smiled at you, monochrome gaze sweeter than you had expected. Sister Katia’s words circled your mind... 

“You know Papa doesn’t mince his words. Are you in trouble, or about to get laid?”  

While you prayed for neither, at least one was inevitable. 

“Come, stand here for me, hm? Let me see you,” he beckoned you to stand before his desk, leaning on the wooden frame by his elbows. 

Cautiously, you stepped forward, standing on the ornate rug between the two chairs he had facing him. He hadn’t invited you to sit, and you knew better than to do something you had not been asked of right now.     “There, bellissima (beautiful)!” he leaned forward, outstretching a hand to pinch at the hem of your skirt, shorter than usual. He ran the material between his fingers, tracing along the red stitching, the hair of his knuckles tickling your upper thighs. It was only now you realised he wasn’t wearing his usual white gloves. You cursed Katia for this idea, hoping not to give the wrong impression. “I like this one, Sorella. The red stitching is....” he took a deep breath in, “quite something.”  

“Th-thank you, Papa...” you stuttered. Terzo looked you in the eye, and sat back in his chair again.  

“Do you know why I called for you, Sorella?” he asked, his fingertips meeting as he leaned back.   

“I-I... I think I’m in some trouble, Papa,” you admitted, looking down at your feet, twiddling your fingers for something to focus on.    “Sì, I’m afraid so. You see, I noticed that you were not at Black Mass on Sunday. It worried me, and so I spent a few days attempting to run into you, to perhaps see you in a seminar or the library but... poof, nowhere in sight,” he made a gesture with his hand, like a puff of smoke had left his palm. 

You remained silent, biting your lip.  

“Even Cardinale Copia has not seen you, so he tells me - his top student!” Your cheeks reddened at the mere mention of his name. “He seemed quite dismayed, actually...” 

You swallowed nothing, gulping down the guilt that threatened to rise. You had caused that, upset your precious Cardinal with your desperate lewd actions. Probably made him reconsider what little authority he had in the Ministry, what with the overshadowing of the Papas.  

“Do you wish to tell me what has forced you to become a mere figment of your poor Papas imagination, tesoro?” he pouted dramatically, a flirtatious glint in his pale white eye. His approach was somewhat light-hearted, and that unnerved you more than if he had been yelling at you. Was he not angry at you?  

“I... I’m sorry, Papa. I haven’t quite been... feeling myself,” you all but whispered, head hung low in shame.  

“Oh, tesoro...” he stood from his chair and rounded the desk quickly, a look of pity and worry etching deeper lines into his paint than usual, “are you sick?”  

He stood close to you – so close you could feel his warm breath grazing over your facial features – and placed the back of his bare hand to your forehead, testing your temperature. You stilled, not a single breath falling from past your lips as you couldn’t help but watch him closely. You could understand why many a sister before you had fallen for his wiles before you, but whilst he made you nervous, you simply could not fathom the idea of intimacy with Papa Terzo.     Not when Cardinal Copia still occupied your mind... 

“Hmm, you’re warm enough, sorella. Not a thing wrong with you physically, eh?” he winked and curled his finger under your chin, stepping back and sitting against the edge of his desk. 

“N-no, I’m quite alright physically.”   

“Then what is troubling you, mia cara?” 

Your palms felt clammy, the weight of the truth on your shoulders almost unbearable. There was no way you would ever tell Papa the truth, you’d burst into flames on the spot out of sheer humiliation. No, you were to keep that to yourself. 

But words failed you, and before you knew what you were doing, your eyes had filled to the brim with tears, silently spilling down your reddened cheeks.   

Terzo panicked... The only tears he was used to were that of the sister on her knees or in his bed for him, and entirely pleasure induced. But this was you, and you were neither of those things to him. He rushed to you, his hands hovering somewhere around your head as he contemplated what to do, how to help you. Hugging you felt unprofessional, awkward almost. He settled for wiping your tears from your cheeks with his thumbs as you began to sob. 

“Mi dispiace (I'm sorry), Papa...” your thoughtful use of Italian swelled his heart, “I... I’ve been in a dark place. I will do better, I promise. A-and I'll take whatever punishment is fitting.”  

Terzo contemplated for a moment. Sister Imperator had been quite insistent on some kind of penalty, especially for missing Black Mass. They had only a brief conversation on the matter when having their weekly meeting, in which Imperator suggested he decide on a fitting punishment himself, but that one should be given. 

But you looked so broken. Your behaviour was so unlike you, so out of character and whilst he didn’t know the cause of this low period, he was no stranger to the idea of depression taking hold for no reason whatsoever. He put it down to that – merely a chemical imbalance in your pretty little head. In good conscience, he could not punish you for the hole you had been in recently. At least, not without giving you a chance to bounce back. 

“Sorella, there is no punishment for you today. But I must ask you to return to your ministerial duties, sì?” You were stunned to silence – that you had not been expecting.  

“I’ll have to keep an eye on you, be sure you attend seminars and Black Mass again this coming Sunday. But you must find an outlet, sì? Something good for the soul. And if I find you have not been attending...” he drew in a deep breath, puffing his chest out, “...Sister Imperator will have my balls in a jar, no?” he laughed. “Don’t make me look like un debole idiota (a soft idiot), tesoro.” 

You nodded quickly, promising you would do your duties.  

“Brava ragazza (good girl),” he smirked, the flirtatious look back in his eyes. “You can start with today’s Latin seminar. The Cardinale will be pleased to see you!” His eyebrows pumped upwards twice suggestively, and rounded his desk once again, sitting back down and typing on his typewriter once more.  

“You are dismissed, Sister. Ready yourself for your Cardinale,” he smirked, eyes focussed on his paper. 

Your blood ran cold at his words, the only heat between your thighs as you were forced to picture yourself literally readying for him... You wondered if the innuendo had been intentional or not; for your own sanity’s sake, you had to choose not.  

You couldn’t bare to imagine the repercussions of Terzo, your Papa, knowing of your little... predicament. 

But you left as he dismissed you, dread filling in the pit of your stomach at the notion you had to not only face the ministry again, but you had to face him.  

Your Cardinale...  

A/N: Again, thank you guys SO MUCH for reading and loving part 1. I hope you love part 2 just as much, and look forward to part 3... (coming real soon, i promise!) In the meantime, you can submit drabble requests HERE

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[deadboyfriendd]

I Hope This Letter Finds You Well.

Summary: It is already so hot that it burns. The sheriff had faced many things. He had killed men with his bare hands, he had been covered in so much blood that he couldn't decipher theirs from his own. He had known starvation, heatstroke, and tragedy. Though, he had never known this.

A culmination of letters shared between family and new friends turns into a stand-off at the tarmac of Tucson, Arizona.

Warnings: Fem!Reader, Sheriff/Wyatt Earp!Steve Harrington x Reader, wild west/Tombstone AU!, Sherrif!Steve (he has a mustache), guns and gun violence, death of minor original characters, death of a spouse, period-appropriate death, drug use, angst, fluff, save a horse, ride a cowboy, feminine rage embodied (I couldn't give her a gun this time because, if I did, everyone would be dead), eventual discussion of The Civil War and the politics that came from it.

My content is 18+ Minors DNI

Word Count: 4.5k

Author's Note: This is it. Bisbee is here and it feels like I'm breathing life back into my cowboys through my sheriff. This is so, so special to me and @dr-aculaaa, and I cannot wait to tell you all their stories.

Find the series masterlist here!

“When the lambs is lost in the mountain, he said. They is cry. Sometime come the mother. Sometime the wolf.” Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian

Nellie, 

I believe that the face of death is a woman, and that she is beautiful. 

I believe that she may have loved my betrothed, at least as long as there was breath in his lungs and a thrum in his chest. I believe that William looked into her dark eyes and followed her into that unknown place, and I know, there, he might finally find something to still his mind. 

I believe that she kissed him good and hard, Nellie, in a way that I could not have done– that she danced her spindly dance clear across the desert, through the plains of the midlands, and splashed in the bayou of Louisiana until she found him. 

I believe that death is a friend to our family, that her sinewy arms loom over our men in an embrace that we can not provide, and I believe that she is warm. Much warmer than you or I have been created to be. I believe she walks alongside us, whispers into the ear of our husbands, and laughs as they dance their troublesome dances. 

I believe she is kind, much kinder than us, for why else would our men leave the safety of us for her? I cannot fathom it, Nellie. 

I no longer believe that death is cold and harsh, for I know that no man could be as cruel as she. 

We were always cut from the same cloth, in life, and now in death. 

Signed, your cousin. 

+

He could have said that he never wanted any trouble, and he could have said he didn’t go around picking fights, yet both seemed to find him with speed and vigor. He sought them out, begged for the metallic heat to seep from behind his teeth and drip down his lips like ambrosia. The boy could not read nor write, yet also harbored a taste for mindless violence– his gangly teenage frame a harbinger of death. 

The monsoon was fast approaching, dark clouds filling the sky in an apocalyptic haze, though the Lord knew this land needed it. The rain came down in heavy sheets, droplets weighing deep against the flesh and warm in strides. The powder dust beneath it stirred and settled in waves, and he prayed for no wind, for the wall of dust that would overtake them in the future just might suffocate him. He cried out in thirst, having mistaken this anguish for freedom. All he could do was turn his mouth towards the sky and hope it would wash away the rawness in his throat.

This heaviness did not go away with time nor age. The boy-now-man sifted through the powder silt of the remnants of his life the same way he sifted through these crises as a child, though with more sure steps and a heavier hand for subtlety. He no longer craved ambrose violence gilded in the candied sheen of shed blood, though it did not stop searching for him. 

He was out with lanterns, in search of himself. 

There used to be nothing here but a broad expanse of mirage, the heat rising from the sand and warping the distance into a false lake like a sick joke. He remembered the settlement. The miners came first, then the saloons, and dance halls. The cattle drovers and thieves would follow suit to reap their fortunes, but the plume of the mines came first. 

Still there is hope, an old miner had said to him, for I know of two Bibles in town. 

Though men of God and men of war both have strange affinities, it would seem. 

War, much like God, was here long before man. It crouched its ugly pose and waited for his arrival. The ultimate trade awaits the ultimate practitioner. 

Today, the oak planks, rotted from years in the sun, groan in the same anguish beneath his boots and he ignores it as much as the God he prayed to ignored his own cries. The bright orange of globe mallow presses its way between the planks, soft resilience even in this heat. When he reaches down to touch it, it crumbles between hardened finger pads. 

This township felt like a tunnel, a vignette blurring the Gaussian edges of its structures that settled like graves. His boots sunk a lowly sulk through the banks of the roads where wagon wheels had pushed them from their packing. He still felt the nothingness here, vast openness in which he awaited a tomahawk crowning, sinking into the same sand on his knees, candy-coated in that gilded red gloss. 

Through the nothingness there was a stirring, his eyes fixated on the microburst brewing along the mountain's edge in the distance. 

Thunder fades to wheels along tracks.

You’d watched the land turn from green to brown and back again. You’d watch the sun wick the water from the soil and feel it warm your skin. There’s a certain disdain that fills your chest like liquid when you picture Nellie on this trail. There was no train west to take. There was no railway. 

Did Nellie still look like her mother? Had her mouth begun to crease with a perpetual smile? Was her hair still long and did she still let it fall in ringlets down her back? Surely, she had not sounded the same in her letters, though, this sullen stranger had still signed the letters with the same swooping motions. 

As the trees became sparse and turned into gangly, reaching boojums, you realized just how far from home you had been. You had never left the great state of Louisiana but, had run those riverbeds and marshes ragged with bare feet, had run heels hard against the hollow tomb of that old paddle boat. Could you be as wild as the West? Would it love you in the same way the marshes had? Wrap you in its mossy embrace and let you sink beneath stagnant water in wait?

But for what? 

The sharecropping had been a logical by-product of everything your father had fought for in the war, rock salt and nails and hand over first for years under the lead of General Benjamin F. Butler, though no one could foresee the way the plantation had hemorrhaged money after he took on nearly ten hired men, or the way the land had would have dwindled to nothing had you not taken that ghastly, ugly burden against your back, one heavy enough to spur you west. One heavy enough that even the sting of the sunburn did nothing to quell the ache that you still felt in your chest against it. 

You watched the life drain from this land, music and the lush green of the coming summer turning to sweltering, daguerreotype daydreams. You pressed your palm against the glass and sighed. 

It was already warm enough to burn. 

When you pressed your face against the glass, you could feel the rumble of the hardened earth beneath the sodden tracks. The dried parchment of letters scraped against themselves where they pooled in the makeshift reservoir of your dresses ruched into your lap– just high enough so that your ankles could feel any movement within the waning stagnation of air in the train car. 

You tore the one on top open with your thumb– the last one to remain unopened. Its straight edge was too sharp and angled perfectly as you pulled at it, the edge of your thumb already pooling cherry beads of blood where it rippled. 

“Shit.” you cursed.

Gilded eyes peered towards you, slicing through the silence of this welling heat like ice. Had it been dark, they would have glowed. Ladies in Parisian hats tailing the woeful gazes of their well-tailored merchant husbands turning towards the spectacle that was you. Young. Unmarried. Unaccompanied and profane in your lack of grace aboard the train to the lawless lands. Maybe, by God’s hand, you had been cut from the same cloth as this lawless place– the rumble of the tracks a song to the listlessness that stirred in your chest like silt in distant waters. 

You dismissed the judgment, the venom of it all sliding off of you like that same water against a duck’s back, turning your attention back towards the product of your own disdain: Nellie’s letter, signed, sealed, and delivered to your last known location. 

Cousin, 

Your father has sent word about your arrival in Tucson, and I will meet you at the train depot in due time. I do hope that, in time, the heat of this land may dry your tears in the same way it has mine. 

I fear that you may not recognize me upon your arrival to Tucson, my face has grown harder and my body less soft. You will become this way, too. I am tough. I am afraid this place has weathered me like old leather. 

I have asked the sheriff to accompany me to the train depot in Tucson, and he has happily obliged. I didn’t think you would mind much, either. 

The sheriff is a nice man, as I am sure you have come to find, however, this land has hardened him in the same way it has hardened Edward and I. In the same way, it took Wilhelm as payment for some grander, more horrendous scheme.  I do not ask you to excuse his shortcomings– or mine– but I do ask that you try to understand us. 

Though it is better now than it has ever been, this place is still not like Louisiana. This land is lawless. This land is tough. This land does not make promises or send prayers. It exists as it is, rough and unbinding– blistering for all it is worth. 

We are the law, here. 

If we lose our morality, we lose everything. 

I will see you soon. I love you. 

Nellie. 

It was an unspoken truth that there was something broken much deeper within them that they had shared some form of solidarity within. Somehow, in some way, Nellie and Steve had shared something they never wanted you to see, but, even now, something was different about her in more recent letters that you couldn’t quite differentiate. 

Perhaps it was the way she told you she loved you. She hadn’t written those three words since writing of Wilhelm’s death. Maybe she said it then in search of the love she had lost, had looked for shreds of it to mend herself back together. Maybe Edward had done that for her, and maybe now she had some left to give. You hoped that much for her.

Edward was an entity unknown to you– a phantom in his own respects. He reaped his own form of morosity in the way he loved Nellie. He did so in a way that was devouring, in a way that encompassed her in every respect. You had been well past the persuasion of beautiful faces, for a face much like his was the face that launched a thousand ships. Another puppet wielded by The Devil, he was. That holy shape becomes a devil, best. 

It was an unholy thing, to resurrect the dead. And, you supposed, Edward had done just that. Nellie’s letters came to an abrupt halt after the announcement of the Death of Wilhelm. Your family, the only remaining kinship to her lineage, had not received a letter from her in over a year. 

You’d thought of all of the ways she could have died, but the most plausible cause was a broken heart. Even now, as rolling hills turned to planes and back again, as you watched the horrors that this land reaped, you could not see any of them taking your cousin. No, she was a force to be reckoned with. Not even this land could break her will. No, if she were to die here, now, it would have been by her hand. 

And then, by some unforsaken force beyond even your father’s control, Nellie breathed once more. Her letters were flowery, her writing curling into crashing waves of stories told. You watched as this solemn stranger breathed life back into Nellie, something as cruel and unusual as beauty in this place unseen and unheard of for years, beauty unseen to Nellie since Wilhem was killed. 

You knew of only unholy things that fed upon the dead– that breathed an ugly, hot breath back into their lungs and pulled them from the sodden earth in which they lay. Edward was not entirely truthful, that much you could tell. 

You supposed you and Edward had shared that sentiment, in some way. 

+

The Whispering Sands was still not the ritzy bar. That was still located in the lobby of The Grand Hotel, just footsteps from where The Sheriff stood now, planks still singing their groaning songs of protest beneath his legs, still stiff with sleep or nerves or years of failed prayer. 

His footfall fell heavy against the hollow floors, the weight of him reverberating against the early hum of the bar. The dealer was still as straight as a Christmastime wreath, though, now, he knew that this one could at least shoot in the right direction. You no longer needed to carry when you walked through, your spare now confined to below the counter out of sheer caution and the guiding hands of ghosts alone. The doors didn’t hang crooked anymore, the dealer making fast work of fixing all of the things Nellie had pushed to the back burner in relentless disembowelment of her own self-preservation that she so readily gave to him in the form of softened twine and spoken promises tightened around ring fingers. 

The Sheriff would not be so easy. His self-preservation ran deeper than that. 

Nellie knew it, knew that his roots were wrapped around something vital within him, something deeper than hers– something from a time before her, before this town, and before the West was wild.  

The echo of him reverberated off of the walls of the bar, bounced off of the piano, and rattled the windows. It demanded her attention long before the brass bell of the front door rang and the heavy oak clattered against the frame. 

8:50. Like clockwork. 

In the times before, just after Wilhelm, he would stop in and buy a cigar, though, to this day, she had never seen him smoke. She never inquired it, and he never inquired her. 

There was a solidarity in their grief, and it never quite, even now that she felt happy more times than not. She had a sneaking suspicion he was there for something other than a cigar every morning, but she pulled one from the humidor and took his money anyway. There had been a time where she insisted it was on the house. It wasn’t worth the fight, now. 

He looked different today. Still sullen is his strange, tortured way, but there was almost something beautiful about it, about the way he ruminated in this state of torture. Even in the way his stagnation had turned into just that with time, something seemed to still sit there in wait, leaden in the pit of his chest. 

He looked like the face of a handbill like this, enveloped in all black. Square-toed boots with black trousers that made him look ganglier than he was, made him loom over Nellie more than he already did. His black frock coat dusted his calves at a three-quarter length, and a black bolo tie covered as much of the stark white high-collar as possible. On the hat rack by the door sat his usual wide-brimmed Stetson, and, from just behind the plain silver of his belt buckle, the Colt Burtline Special shone in the light. 

He looked fit for a funeral.

He walked like he beckoned the apocalypse in clouds of rolling thunder behind him. When his heels pressed into the softened sand, the earth quaked beneath it. The weight of him made the stagecoach groan on its hinges– leaden and heavy with the weight of something bigger than settled silt within his chest, kicked up like the sand behind horse hooves and stagecoach wheels. 

Parchment sat like lead in his lap, curdling there and souring something that had sat too long. Cracking fingers curled around your words like poison, sweetened with sasparilla whiskey, golden ambergris letters seeping into him and warming his throat like bile and molten gold. He opened the first one with a nimbleness unlike one he had ever known, and read it once more:

25 April, 1894

To the Sheriff that this letter finds, 

I am afraid your letter has found me in a state of disrepair. I have never been one for niceties and I am afraid I do not have it in me to start now. 

My betrothed had never known peace in life, and I am afraid that he may not ever know it in death, wherever that plane Hell may be. 

Maybe it is I that has died, and maybe it is I that walks across this Hell. Maybe it is my own doing that brought me to this. Maybe I am the creature of my own undoing. I am not a nice girl, Steve. Not the nice girl you think I might be. 

We were raised like leather, stretched and scraped to be tough in the way that our mothers were, unbending and unbreaking as they had been. They were not forgiving, nor were they kind. Nellie was once that way, too. Though, I fear that your desert sun has softened her. That it changed something deeper within her in a way that she may be someone I no longer recognize. 

I plan to arrive in Tucson by train on the first of October. Maybe this sun will soften me in the same way it has softened my cousin. Maybe I don’t want it to. 

Though I hope for my tomorrow to be kind, I have an inkling that it never will be, for this life had never had a kindness to offer. 

I’ll be the one in white. 

I will see you then, Sheriff. 

He pictures the way you will step off the train, white linens spilling over the threshold of it by some sickened grace of the hand of an unkind God. He both relished in it and could not bear the thought. He thought of linens hiked over knees and rucked up under the fabric of itself, a  depiction of the implosion of his world. 

He had already lived this, soft hair against soft legs and white linens shed in a dustbowl around shared space and soft, breathlessness passed between lips. He had felt this kind of softness before– had known this tender touch of a woman outside of the mother he never had. 

It was the first time he had ever been touched gently. 

Even Nellie’s hand seemed gruff as it gripped his shoulders in a grounding movement, his eyes slowing with the movement of reading and dissipating into blankness an indicator that he had gone somewhere that even she would never be allowed to see. It was a look she had known all too well.

“I’m afraid she might not like me much.” He whispered, low enough for Eddie to not be able to hear– or, at least, low enough so he could pretend not to. She knew what he meant by this, another feeling chased after her own reanimated heart. 

Nevertheless, she avoided the philosophical nature of it all, answering him with the only thought she had: “I’m afraid she might not like anyone much, Steve.” She starts, and the questioning gaze he gives her urges her to continue. 

“It wasn’t easy for her, either, Steve.” She starts with another sigh, now more like the weight was being pressed out of her lungs from the weight that she felt, “Most of the time, it was out right hard.” 

“We’ve all had it hard, Nellie. Nothing about this life has been particularly easy.” Steve says back. He didn’t mean it to be as harsh as it was. She knew that, though it didn’t stop that initial sting of his dismissiveness.  

“William wasn’t a nice man, no matter how much she loved him.” She tells him, louder this time and too fast. Eddie couldn’t help the the way his eyes are drawn to her from where they are fixed to the periscope of landscape before them, “Forgive her if she isn’t welcoming.” 

+ 

To the Lady that may find this letter, I hope it finds her well

Tucson still radiates heat at this time of year, the mirage at the end of town makes the expanse of land between here and the mountains feel both endless and right in front of you at the same time. It warps like the heat is melting space and time itself. Nevertheless, the first blooms of orange mallow have begun to open in a patch where the stagecoach stopped. 

He doesn’t know what comes over him, but he was inclined to plock them from the ground and brush the dirt from their roots. 

It seems the desert knew you would board the train in New Orleans and set west for us, and wanted to welcome you with its kindest hello. The desert is not kind, but she would make an exception for someone like you, I would suppose. 

The wheels screech along the wrought iron of the track as they slow to a halt– and he swears, just for a single, fleeting moment, his heart stops with them. There is a stream of people that step down. Ladies with large hats and square-shouldered men in frock coats not unlike his. He wonders if you will know your face before Nellie does– wonders if he knows who you are just from the curls of your letters. 

And then, you were there. 

You were unremarkable in every way possible, though, at a closer glance, you had chosen to forego a bustle and corset. Instead, the pliant lines of your body undefined against a white buttoned shirt and a long dark skirt. A plain, flat-brimmed stetson sat against the crown of your head, just enough to obscure your face from his view. 

Your cousin is very kind. I like to think that you are kind like her, though, I also hope that you are tough in the same way that she is.

He steps forward, his hands sticky with sweat or the sap of the stems of the orange mallow crushed beneath a pressing grip, he isn’t sure. As he steps on to the tarmac, he remembers his manners– remembers that he isn’t an animal and you are not inherently dangerous, and pulls off his hat, pressing it to his chest as he holds an arm out stiffly towards you without any further introduction. 

You see the star against his chest, pressed silver pinned there like a placard on the spectacle of the man before you, and know that this is him– that this is the entity whom has spilled his heart to you over parchment and ink and blood, “Well, now, those are awfully pretty, sheriff.” You say to him, looking down at the crushed orange matter in his hands. They have already begun to wilt. 

“I have an affinity for pretty things.” 

He flirts shamelessly with you, and something deep within you stirrs. It is not the schoolgirl crush you harbored with William. It isn’t even akin to love, but something worse and something ugly. His letters and flowery words and then his backtracking and condolences meddle into one ugly mass of insult. No, this thing that rose in you was not love, nor was it even a cousin. It was hate. Blinding, furious hate.

“And I have an affinity for men who can make up their minds.” You nod towards him, reaching towards the tarmac for the cracking handle of your green steamer trunk, especially now that the gangly, lean man you presume is Edward reaches for it. 

There is a moment in time where everyone freezes. Both Nellie and her husband, as well as the sheriff before you. They are walking a thin line, one akin to the silver thread between life and death. The tension is palpable, and Nellie shatters the thing you cling to for resolve like glass:

“Now you’re being outright childish–”

She sucks in a breath when you snap, the wild dogs that live within your chest writhing and pulling against chains as you release whatever hurt and pain you held in your heart towards her. Everything you had wanted to say, everything you wanted to scream back at her once she had resurrected. You weilded them now as weapons against her. 

“You sure are one to talk about childish, Nellie. You ran in the other direction when things got hard, and then you up and died on us.” 

“I’m not dead. I was never dead.”

“Well, I have a hard time believing that.”

The Sheriff and the tall man take a step back behind Nellie, shrink away from your thunderous roar as if you might actually bite. The leather of your handle and the steamer dropping from your hand with had resonant patriarchal basso against the tarmac. Time has frozen in place, but people continue to swirl around you in a flurry of haste and posthaste annoyance. Silver tears well against the pink line of her eyes, and you are acutely aware that yours are a mirror image.

Steve had faced many things. He had killed men with his bare hands, he had been covered in so much blood that he couldn’t decipher theirs from his own. He had known starvation, heartstroke, and tragedy. Though, he had never known this– his wife was only ever tender. 

He can see the rage drip from your mouth like hot, molten tar, can see the tears well in your eyes like casted silver against the mold of your face– the way a single one cools and leaves a residual streak against the ashen skin of your cheek. You want to love Nellie, in the same way she wanted to love Edward, and in the way he loved his wife. He can see it, that burning want so bad that it becomes hatred. That kind of love whose flame burns blue. 

He knows Nellie loves you, too, but also knows how dangerous it is to speak it aloud– lest that vile maiden Death may hear it. 

Your eyes stare holes into him, burn against his abdomen from where you fix them. He had heard of women becoming alight with lust born from rage before, but had not though of you to be insane enough to eye him in a familiar way right here on the tarmac. That blue flame affixed to him and warming him from the inside, as well. 

“That’s an awfully ugly belt buckle, sheriff.” You speak, finally, breaking the silence and restoring some semblance of order to this congregation. 

This place is not forgiving, nor is it kind. I hope that your heart is not faint, and I hope that this place is kinder to you than it has been to us. 

With warmest regards, 

Steven Harrington

[desiresiwant]

Warm-Blooded Chapter Three

word count: 4.5k~

short overall summary: what if the child was a teenager/YA throughout the show duration and not at season 5? (Full summary in WB Chapter Masterlist)

chapter summary: Now confronted with the possibility of procreating despite his hybrid nature, Klaus Mikaelson has trouble accepting the role of being a father to a teenager. A role not meant for a vicious man like him. Perhaps he needs time to adjust or a good conversation with his big brother to put him straight and set his fears at ease.

a/n: this is the 3rd chapter of my au longfic based off the The Originals. All warnings are listed in the Masterlist, read at your own discretion. But if there’s a warning I missed lmk!

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𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗽𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗧𝗵𝗿𝗲𝗲 | 𝗡𝗮𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲’𝘀 𝗟𝗼𝗼𝗽𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗲

       𝐊𝐋𝐀𝐔𝐒 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐐𝐔𝐈𝐄𝐓 𝐀𝐒 𝐇𝐄 𝐈𝐍𝐒𝐏𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐆𝐈𝐑𝐋 𝐂𝐋𝐀𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐃 𝐓𝐎 𝐁𝐄 𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐋𝐃. From her thick curly roots, to the smeared blood currently being wiped clean from her delicate features, to the soft beatings of her heart indicating she was calmly resting. In his hand, he held an old photo of him sitting next to Vanessa. Who was clearly the girl's mother given the identical features they shared, alongside a letter explaining the situation of his existence with clear instructions to NOT come to New Orleans.

        Yet the girl—Deena, as stated in the letter—came anyway. Hard-headed.

        Klaus remembered Vanessa almost as if it was yesterday. He met the young aspiring witch at a local art exhibit held in The French Quarter where she first struck his interest, besides being the only who wore silly socks with a tight-fitting dress. She was not only well-spoken in art, but she had a way with words in which Klaus wouldn't notice the smile he wore until she told him, and she was her own person with a peculiar taste in fashion. And he liked it. In fact, he loved it. They hit it off quickly and spent every chance they had with each other, until one day she disappeared without a word. Klaus assumed it was because of him and didn't blame her since she was too good for his world and she deserved more than what he could provide for her.

        "Impossible," Were the first words Klaus said. He tossed the photo to the floor and faced his back to Deena to slip her from his memory, to Elijah who spoke not one word until Klaus spoke first.

        Elijah picked the photo from the floor and placed it on the table beside the written letter before Klaus seized a chance to rip it. "Whether it's true or not, the child needed our help and we gave that to her. Nik—"

       "You expect me to believe this child is mine from a silly photo with a woman I dallied with years ago and some loveless letter of lies?" Growled Klaus. His mouth suddenly felt dry and though he did his best to put up a front, the fear in his eyes was evident and by the end of his words, panic had entered. "I am a vampire. I cannot procreate!"

        Rebekah rinsed the cloth of blood in the warm water of dark red ready to be refilled and continued to clean the child's face and arms the best she could. The scent of her blood was alluring, preying them to feed into their cravings with just a taste, a single drop of her blood until there was no restraint to stop. But they have lived long enough to control their thirst, and the blood lust wasn't as appealing when the victim's a child and presumed to be a Mikaelson.

        "Magic made you a vampire as us all, Nik." Rebekah pointed out. "But you were born a werewolf; it courses in your blood given by your father, so it is possible. Ludicrous but possible. And we can confirm it with your blood and hers. And a witch."

        That shut Klaus up.

        "The child has already been through enough, and we can't be sure of which witch we can trust until we figure out the origin of this madness. Let's not bother her anymore and hope she wakes soon." As Elijah spoke, he watched Deena intensively under his black lashes and compared her physical similarities to his little brother. Her lips. Her ears. Even her nose with a slight readjustment, accurately portrayed Klaus but there was no way to be sure without that spell Rebekah mentioned.

        Rebekah rolled her eyes. "She will be fine. With my blood in her system, she's healing a lot faster than before. And I know a witch we can use; she was just here not too long ago banging on our doors to hear her out. And by the looks of it, she cares enough to do anything for her," Rinsing the last of Deena's blood into the bowl, Rebekah placed the rag on the dresser and carried the bowl into her arms to be refilled. She caught sight of Klaus's quietness, his eyes never leaving the child and added, "And if we hold this off any longer, we might as well shave our heads bald and pay ourselves a visit to the loony bin, and I don't rock a bald look. I would rather stab myself with the white oak before I plug in a bloody razor."

        Rebekah left for the bathroom.

        They knew exactly who Rebekah spoke of—Davina Claire, the teenage witch who wanted but nothing to do with the Mikaelsons. More specifically Klaus. After Elijah thought about the decision, he began to view Rebekah's point and agreed. However, the decision wasn't up to him.

         Klaus could feel his brother's heated stare as he looked to him for answers he didn't have nor wished to answer. He stood quietly acquainted with fear more than anyone has witnessed since Mikael's invasion back in 1919. He does want the answer, but he's too prideful to ask for help and he was too afraid of the outcome.

        Elijah then understood he would have to make the decision for them both and found Rebekah's gaze as she exited the bathroom with a clean bowl of warm water. "Let's do the spell."

━━━━━━ ━━━━━━

        𝐃𝐀𝐕𝐈𝐍𝐀 𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐒𝐄 𝐅𝐔𝐋𝐋 𝐎𝐅 𝐕𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐈𝐑𝐄𝐒. Her eyes never left Klaus as she made her way down the hallway and into the spacious room, waiting for a reason to use her magic against him, until she found Deena lying unconscious on the freshly made bed in the room she had once lived in back when Marcel was around and things were a bit hectic because of her. Or at least similar. She rushed to Deena's side with a gasp.

        "She will be alright," Elijah answered her panicked thoughts as she pulled back at the blood staining her hands when she reached out for her. She sent him a soft glare and carefully took Deena's hand into hers. "Will you be able to perform the spell?"

        Klaus, remain quiet. The quietest he's ever been.

        Davina noticed her friend appeared a lot brighter in her complexion despite her blood-stained clothes. Even noticing her cuts vividly healing before her eyes which meant she was given vampire blood, and she felt guilty. Like it was her fault for not protecting her or keeping her away from Klaus as she intended to do. And by keeping the supernatural world a secret to protect her, she felt she had done more harm than good.

        "I can try but since her blood is tainted, I'll have to—"

        "The blood on her clothes is pure. Can you use that instead?" Asked Rebekah.

        Davina narrowed her gaze from Deena's stained clothes. It was easy magic she's done before and responded, "I'm only doing this for Deena and no one else, so don't call me here again. I don't wanna be mixed up in your family drama." Her gaze found Deena's. "And she shouldn't have to either."

        "You have my word," Elijah promised.

        If Klaus was in his right mind, he would've had something to say about this but for the first time in a while, he had no energy to feed into petty drama.

        Because Davina knew she could trust Elijah out of all the original siblings, she began the spell. She emptied the bowl of marbles she found on the dresser and began to remove Deena's blood into the bowl leaving her shirt spotless as if it had been recently washed. She then faced Klaus. "I need your blood." She demanded.

        One by one, they looked to Klaus who was currently in his own world. He didn't hear Davina but he soon felt their stares and allowed Elijah's voice to be heard as he called his name softly. Of course, he was worried for his brother. He's never failed to hide his worrisome in times like this. Klaus followed his gesture towards Davina waiting for something he had. What was it she asked for? My blood? Without wasting another second, he bit into his wrist and held it over the bowl as his blood began to mix in with Deena's. He pulled back his arm as he began to heal and waited in the far corner.

        Rebekah practically hovered over Davina as she continued on with the spell and Elijah stood in the center of everyone, his eyes never leaving Klaus. About five minutes later, Davina stood from her seat indicating she was finished with the spell.

        Rebekah peeled herself from the wall. "Well, is it true? Has my brother officially knocked some poor woman up against her will?"

        Klaus saw the way Davina looked at Deena, the look was enough to give him the answers they longed for, but he needed to hear it from her lips. He was desperate as they all were for the answer. She sighed finally meeting Klaus's anxious gaze. "She's a hundred percent Klaus's child." Davina announced.

        Klaus was shocked into silence.

        Not one word has been spoken as they struggled to process nature's loophole. A child, a true Mikaelson, here in flesh by the blood and DNA of Klaus, the Original Hybrid unable to create any lifeform of the living. It was difficult to create a logical answer in their heads how any of this was possible. Klaus has slept with countless women throughout the centuries, so why is it now that it's possible for his seed to create a mortal being? What made Vanessa so special out of all?

        Rebekah felt bitterness towards the situation. Though she was happy her brother has a child he could watch grow old and she has become an aunty, she knew that kind of possibility wasn't possible for her. And she desired what Klaus had—a family. From her own DNA, conceived naturally from her body, children of her own. But she was a vampire. Unlike Klaus, she could not procreate. There was no loophole for her.

        However, Elijah failed to hide his glee. After years of cleaning up after his brother's retaliation, years of watching his demons mold his anger to fear that has built a wall between his misery and his own happiness; wanting nothing but the best for him and for him to let go of his grudges against the world and start letting people in, he believed this could be a chance for Klaus to start over fresh. For not only Klaus, but for himself and for Rebekah. Maybe with the child's presence, could diminish their negative ways and bring back empathy. Something they haven't felt in a while.

        Klaus shuffled into the desk behind him, his tear-filled eyes never left the unconscious girl. He didn't look at her with hate or displeasure; it was a softer look that couldn't be explained in words. There was too much roaming around in his head and in his heart and in his actions, it was too much for him to process.

        Davina suddenly lifted the blood-filled bowl from off the bed and placed it on the smaller dresser near the bed in case Deena moved in her slumber. She clapped her hands together, gathering their destruct attention. The awkward silence was too much for her to stand in. "If that's all, I'm leaving." She sent Deena an apologetic stare before she was already out the door.

        In a flash, Davina's backside was pressed against the opened door with a hard thud. Klaus held her by the neck, seizing to scare her by his threatening presence. "What kind of trick are you playing, Davina? Do you think I can be easily fooled? Do you not fear your worthless life?" He tightened his hand as she fought out his hold. She even sank her fingers between so that she could breathe.

       "I did the spell like you asked!" Davina cried out.

        Elijah sped towards the abrupt commotion while Rebekah took a hesitant step forward, in an attempt to pull Klaus from off Davina before he did anything he'd regret, but his grip loosened from her neck as an enormous amount of pain surged his brain. He fell to his knees while gripping his head like a maniac. His groans of pain and her lifted hand allowed them to put together the pieces.

        Davina stumbled back as she caught her breath, rubbing her now red neck, eyes frantic on the other siblings in case they were going to try her. They held their ground. "Look, Deena's my friend. And as much as I wish I had sabotaged the spell and made your lives miserable, it wouldn't be fair to her and I wouldn't be able to live with the guilt. She is your daughter whether you like it or not. And if you don't believe me, fine! Find another witch who's willing to do the spell. Not that you have many to call. I'm outta here."

        The pain stopped as soon as Davina left the room. Klaus fell to the floor relieved of his torment. He will have his chance to murder that witch with his own bare hands someday. For now, he was focused on regaining his consciousness.

         Elijah was already at his side to help him up. "Niklaus—"

        "I don't need your help!" He pushed away his brother's helping hand and stood on his own. Everyone stood in silence. Klaus took one last look at Deena and fled the room within seconds.

        Elijah sighed.

        "How is this possible, Elijah?" Rebekah asked, staring at the child trying to find the similarities. There were a few, the same Elijah pointed out earlier, but it was hard to believe the child was real. "Despite him being a hybrid...is—is this natural? Is she truly his offspring? And If so, can he produce more?"

        "This is all new to me as it is for you, but spells cannot lie. And I trust Davina. She is a hundred percent Klaus's offspring. Now for the lather, I will have to look into that."

        She stopped at his side. "But—"

        "I said I will look into it," Rebekah recognized that tone and held off from asking any more questions that couldn't be easily answered. "Why don't you find the child something she can wear when she awakens? I will go find our brother and talk some sense into him."

        Without a word, Rebekah sped over to where Deena's luggage sat to look for come clean clothes.

        "And Rebekah?"

        She glanced up with a hum.

        He motioned his finger around the room. "Make sure the house is empty before she awakens. We don't need an incident to occur or a hungry vampire's blood on our hands."

        She rolled her eyes. "I'm always stuck with babysitting when I can do more than that," She whined. "The child I can do, but a house of pre-war vampires? They are already a pain in the ass."

        "Just get it done."

        She rolled her eyes and continued to search through Deena's clothes.

━━━━━━ ━━━━━━

       𝐊𝐋𝐀𝐔𝐒 𝐖𝐀𝐒𝐍’𝐓 𝐒𝐔𝐑𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐄𝐃 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍 𝐇𝐄 𝐅𝐄𝐋𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐎𝐎𝐋 𝐖𝐈𝐍𝐃 𝐎𝐅 𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐁𝐑𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 entering the bar he sat at to drain his sorrows in. It was only a matter of time before Elijah tracked him down. He never ventured out of his usual locations and his secretive spots were a work in process. Bringing up his empire took up the majority of his time having to fight through an army of vampires loyal to his dear Marcel. Of course, he couldn't bring himself to kill the boy he raised to make an example out of him, so he let him flee.

        But none of that seemed to matter now that he found out he's a father.

        Father.

        A strange title he couldn't force himself to withhold. And instead of believing his forced reality, he decided to drink forth to a past he lived before the child was a thing. His glorious days he might call it.

        "You learn of the existence of your child and yet you sit here to drink it away?" Elijah swiftly made his way toward Klaus.

        Klaus placed down his 5th empty glass of whiskey and released a stressful sigh upon Elijah's disturbing question. "I do not wish to hear your nagging, brother unless you have come to join me?" With his head dangled over the glass-stained counters, he signal the waiter to pour him another glass.

        Elijah then unbuttoned his jacket and ordered the waiter to serve him another round of whiskey as he took his seat next to him. They sat in silence. But knowing Elijah, he couldn't hold off the conversation any longer.

        "What are you thinking, Niklaus?"

        "I think of nothing. But I do think I need a stronger drink, don't you agree?" Klaus was clearly bothered by the question and ordered stronger liquor he could drown in, which meant there was something on his mind. Elijah knew what it was, but understood his tough-hearted brother needed a little push.

        "Your expression tells me otherwise." He thanked the waiter who placed down his drink, and took a small sip before he continued. "Are you afraid you will become a bad father?"

        "And so she has gotten to you with her puny lies? Oh, the Noble Elijah." Klaus mocked his title with a scoff. "The Elijah I knew would not be easily swayed by an amenable spell performed by the very witch who has tried to kill me more than twice and more to come in the future. A spell so that she can forge a weakness to catch me off guard when I have no weaknesses to be used!"

        "And the brother I know would never be troubled with such matter if you truly believe her spell was purged." Klaus's heart thudded faster than its usual speedy pace, which Elijah heard or else he wouldn't have continued his boring speech. "No matter how you feel or what Davina's true intentions are, I do trust her and I trust she would not lie about something as great as this. Think about it, Niklaus, the girl's mother disappeared without a trace and when you asked of her to be located, the witch could not find her on any map which meant she was either cloaked or dead. A cloaking spell is only used when you want to hide from someone or you have something to hide."

        "Yes, thank you, Elijah, for explaining to me the usage of a cloaking spell. Care to explain how to have a quiet drink without your brother pestering him with bogus ideas next?"

        Elijah sighed. "I wish you would not joke for once."

        Elijah wasn't phased when Klaus slammed his glass against the counter and faced his brother with an irritated look on his face. "Well, how else should I process this kind of information, brother? Shall we light a candle in a dark room, stare each other in the eyes, drink from goats' blood, then share our darkest fears and insecurities with one another?" He offered, humor on his tongue.

        Elijah wore no smile on his face at his brother's silly offer. "I wish you would be honest with me for once and not hold up such a wall as if I am here to shame you of the very thing I want you to have—a family."

        He faced the counter with the glass already at his lips. It was beginning to taste like water. "I already have a family." He boasted.

        "And now you have a daughter, who is family."

        The glass pressed heavily on his bottom lip when he suddenly froze. His eyes grew big hearing the D-word and family placed into the same sentence, no longer able to hold up his glass or Elijah would see his hand was shaking. Turning his head to control himself or Elijah would catch the glossy glint filling his vision. Forcing his heartbeat to slow or Elijah would detect his anxiety. A new weakness. One he kept struggling to deny.

        Elijah made a good point about Vanessa because anyone who knew her knew she would never run from anything not even Klaus himself, but of course because of his nature, the thought never crossed his mind. He only assumed it was because of him, not the result of an action they both consented to.

        Klaus could still feel his brother's stare. He knew that if he didn't say something now—the absolute truth behind the wall he kept gluing up—Elijah would get it out of him one way or another. And frankly, he just needed an ear to hear him out. And since Cami was not in viewpoint, he had no choice but to open up to his brother.

        "Fine, you win. You want to know how I feel about becoming a father? I am petrified."

       He finally faced Elijah who had been waiting all day for this exact moment to unfold, only to feel guilty for pressing the matter. But it was what he wanted, and Klaus would give him just that.

        "Given the lack of fatherliness I received, I don't believe the subject is far-fetched. I mean, the girl is practically a young adult, what do I have in common with her? I have lived a self-ruled life of volition and a deep crave for violence as I rain hell upon my enemies, to suddenly become a father of a teenager in less than an hour?" He scoffed. His eyes suddenly black with anger while gulping down his drink in one sip and slammed the glass (almost breaking it) against the counter which caught a little attention. "Her mother knew of this knowledge yet she decided to keep it from me. Just wait until I track her down, she will never hear the last of me."

        Elijah was finally able to understand a piece of Klaus's mind. There is potential and he was already showing it despite his crave for harming the child's mother. "You have missed her childhood; her first word, her first steps, her early years of growth and you feel guilty for that. But now you have a chance to miss no more of her development. This can be a new beginning for us all, for you, Niklaus. Maybe this isn't a bad thing."

        "What if..." He swallowed hard. "What if I'm not ready? What if I'm not...good at this? Good enough? I have no experience of this sort and I don't always have the best interest of whomever I come across."

        Elijah is taken back at his vulnerability and placed his hand on his shoulder as a form of comfort. "No one is ever ready for fatherhood, it just happens. But you are not alone in this, you have me and Rebekah at your side. Together we shall find a way. Always and forever." He smiled warmly.

         For a moment, both brothers shared the weight of Klaus's fears. Hope sparked in his eyes and with comfort he knew his brother would always be at his side no matter the gravity of the situation and it made him feel a little less lonely. Almost happy even, until he remembered Zoeè and the silly prophecy she spoke of conjured out of ignorance, and the witches who seek to fulfill it by sacrificing Deena.

        He stood to his feet with a mission written on his face. "Enough milking my sorrows, brother, I have Camille for that. Because we," While placing down his bill, "have a long list of witches to kill."

𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐊 𝐘𝐎𝐔

𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐆

If you like what you read and wish to read more of this fic, you can read more at :

-> WB Masterlist (everything you need to know about this fic and what it contains, especially important A/N)

-> WB Chapter Masterlist (easy access to all chapters posted here)

-> Ao3 or Wattpad (if you prefer to read this fic there. It’s cross-posted)

[blakeswritingimagines]

Small Bump

Summary: Just when things were going great for you and your loves, what seems like another amazing life-changing moment takes place only for it to all fall apart right from under you.

Word count: 4.5k

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the House of The Dragon/Fire & Blood characters nor do I claim to own them. I do not own any of the images used nor do I claim to own them.

All three of you laid in bed panting softly as you each worked your way down in a sweet afterglow of lovemaking, feeling the gentle touch across your skin from Rhaenyra as Daemon watched on which just made you look over at him with a raised brow as he seemed to be taking in something about you which caused you to smile but lightly tilted your head "Is there something wrong darling?". A smile crept onto his face as he wrapped his arms around you. He turned his head to kiss your cheek. "Nothing at all, my love. Just appreciating the sight." Daemon's hand trailed down your body, coming close to the curve of your hip enjoying how your different skin tone glowed before sliding down toward your inner thigh. "Just appreciating every sight I get of you," he whispered, his voice husky. He smirked while lightly brushing the hair from your face, his fingers trailing slowly down the soft skin of your arm. "I'm happy. I'm happier than I've been in a very, very long time. And I'm not just referring to the sex we've just had. I've never had this much fun, this much comfort with someone in my life. You make me feel more human than I have in decades. That is why I've been looking at you for a while." He continued his tender touch moving across your body before stopping at your stomach and looking down before glancing up at you as he whispered, "I believe you should be expecting change love and have been for some time now."

Rhaenyra looks at Daemon for a moment and then at your stomach with curiosity, and then a smile spreads itself on her features as soon as it is clear to her what he meant. She hugged you tightly, burying her head in your neck and her eyes welled up with tears. "Oh, love…" Rhaenyra whispered and kissed you passionately. "I am so happy." She sniffed happy that there would be another sweet little babe joining the family, wiping away a tear and smiling. She placed her hand on your soft belly as you only shook your head with a chuckle that Daemon was assuming you were pregnant. "I think I'd know if I was expecting." As you and Daemon continued to kiss, Daemon brushed back your hair. A hand lightly caressed your stomach and he let out a soft, satisfied moan into the kiss. "Just a feeling I had we all know I'm never wrong," he whispered against your mouth and then leaned his head back with his eyes closed. "Now that we have the throne, we should start our family. We cannot allow the Targaryen line to grow weak. We must continue our royal legacy."

You nodded in agreement and smiled as you nuzzled yourself a little closer until you were resting against his chest. "Yes, my love but I'm sure I'm not carrying But if it'll give you and Nyra some peace of mind I'll go see a maester tomorrow" The thought of you carrying a child of Daemon's made you feel butterflies in your stomach. "We can't let the Targaryen bloodline die out." You pressed your soft lips to Daemon's neck and smiled before leaning back against Rhaenyra who simply cuddled closer seeming happy if you were with a child. He leaned forward to bite your ear playfully. "And, what if I just wanted another child? Do I not have the right to demand children from you?" He leaned his head to the side, his words laced with a playful tone. A brow rose slightly at your words, his eyes closing as he smirked. "I am glad to see you agree with that, my love." Daemon leaned forward to kiss you again, one hand still trailing down your skin until it fell around pulling you closer. You could feel his chest rise with each breath he took, and in truth Daemon found the sensation to be quite comforting. "We shall see," he said with a smile of his own. "But for now, let's just enjoy this moment, shall we?" he whispered, his voice hushed. Rhaenyra leaned forward, pressing your foreheads together, and smiled. She placed a gentle hand on your stomach. "I hope you are, my love," she whispered.

The next day you had gotten ready with both Daemon and Rhaenyra enjoying the soft touches and playful teasing between all three of you, going about your day even getting used to your new duties since you and Daemon had more important roles now within the realm even if you weren't used to it. Finally getting some free time you made your way to the maesters and explained you wanted to be looked over for which had caused you to lay back waiting until it was over just to hear that Daemon was right that you were, in fact, pregnant and about nearly two months alone as you sat there in shock before walking through the halls seeing Rhaenyra as you gently pulled her away still taking in the news "He was right…Last night when Daemon said I should be expecting change and that I was pregnant…he was right I am." She stood just nearly as shocked as you "You mean… You're pregnant?" She looked at you in surprise. Even with your words, she couldn't believe this news. She walked closer to you and smiled down, then embraced you tightly. "This is wonderful, my love." She kissed your lips softly and smiled again. "We'll have a new life soon, my sweet. Our own son or daughter. It is a blessing." Rhaenyra caressed your cheek and smiled.

She looked at you with a small frown on her face. "Daemon had to go to Dragonstone. He has business to attend to. But he will come back soon." She kissed your forehead and smiled. "Don't worry, my love. We have our time together now." As she looked at you with a worried face, her expression suddenly changed as she gave you a soft hug. "Are you happy? You have given us a beautiful surprise." She smiled "But I am sure he'll be happy to know that." She caressed your cheek lovingly, looking right into your eyes. Your pregnancy was something to celebrate. You sighed but nodded in understanding before smiling softly as you looked up at her sad that you couldn't tell Daemon the news yet but figured that would make it all the more special when you finally could. Kissing Rhaenyra softly on the lips again before shrugging your shoulders "I guess we'll just have to wait then." Going about your day beside the blonde woman until it was late at night and you both got ready for bed together. After dinner, you both head to your bedroom. You were both in your nightgowns. Rhaenyra was still thinking about the good news. She walked closer to you and smiled. "What would you name our son?" She said in a dreamy voice. "I want a name that would befit House Targaryen, but still… beautiful and unique." She leaned closer to you, her lips on your neck, nuzzling it. "What do you think of the name 'Baelor?' I hope Daemon would agree to it as well." She smiled down at you with a hint of worry on her face.

You chuckled as you looked up at her with a smile on your face. "Baelor… that would be a good name for our son. And Daemon would surely love it." You leaned up and placed a gentle touch on your wife's lips. "You know I adore you," you whispered, as you brushed a lock of hair away from her face. "Let us get ready for sleep. Tomorrow, we shall have the whole night." You said with a wink. "What name shall we give our daughter?" You whispered, with the thought on your mind. "Let's see… I think "Alysanne" would be a nice name if we had a daughter." She smiled down at you and looked at your belly, thinking about the baby is growing bigger inside. "My sweet, I think Daemon would be overjoyed and excited to know that we're expecting a child. Our child." She pressed a kiss on your forehead. "Now, let's go to bed. I can't wait to see Daemon and tell him that we will have a child." She chuckled and leaned to kiss you again. "Good night, my love." "We will tell him together." You said with a smile. You placed your lips gently on the nape of her neck and gave it a kiss. "Goodnight, my sweet." You whispered. You rolled onto your side and placed an arm around Rhaenyra, nuzzling up against her chest. As your eyes grew dim, your lips parted. "I love you," you whispered.

"I love you too." She whispered as she gave you one last kiss before cuddling into you. "I can't wait to see Daemon when he gets back, he will be delighted to know the good news." She snuggled into you, and her head rested comfortably on your chest as you both slowly drifted asleep for the night. At some point during the night, you slowly woke up to discomfort and blinked while looking around as you tried turning around and onto your other side only to groan at more pain becoming prominent which led you to sit up as you grabbed at your stomach whining and closing your eyes tightly trying to figure out what was happening as more broken whimpers left past your lips "Please no." After few moments, Rhaenyra finally opened her eyes and rubbed her eyes, trying to get the sleepiness away. Her eyes widen with a look of concern and worry when she heard you, and her eyes scanned the room, trying to see what's wrong. "What is it, my love?" Rhaenyra looked at you and her features softened. "Are you okay? What happened?" She sat up.

You took deep breaths as tears welled up in your eyes before looking over at Rhaenyra, shaking your head as you took hold of her hand "Something hurts Nyra." Grabbing at your stomach more as you bit down on your lower lip then let her start to help you up from the bed only to look up at her when you heard the gasp fall past her lips "What? What's wrong?" You looked down only to let your jaw drop as more tears welled up in your eyes upon seeing the dark red substance before letting your shaky hands grab at your nightgown "What's happening?" You spoke knowing you'd have to go see the maesters right away. Rhaenyra's eyes widened in shock as she gently helped you up, her face turned from worry to horror. She looked at the bed sheet and immediately knew something terrible had happened. In a quick and worried tone, she took your hand and led you out of the room. "Oh, gods," She said worriedly and quickened the pace, walking with you to see the maester. When you both arrived, she knocked on the door and it quickly opened. "A maester, please, at once." She yelled needing them to act in a rushed hurry.

Your eyes still wet with tears and your head hurts with each movement. The maester answered the order that came from the servant who was sent to get him and opened the door. "What happened?" The maester asked, a worried look in his eyes. You looked down at her hands as she felt a sudden rush of weakness with another whine leaving her throat. "The babe?" The maester exclaimed, rushing towards you and Rhaenyra. "My lady, how are you feeling? What happened?" Rhaenyra looked down, still in shock, then looked up at the maester. Her eyes were filled with tears as she held you in her arms protectively. "Please… Save her. She's bleeding inside. There's something wrong with our baby." Her voice was filled with fear, worry, and sadness. "It's… It's been so hard for us. I… I have never felt happier in my life as I did when I knew I was carrying… our baby. And… and now… This…" Rhaenyra looked at you as if remembering when this happened to her, her face etched with tears and sadness as she took your arm and supported your weight as you stumbled and nearly fell down. "I lost our baby." You sobbed, your eyes filled with tears. "I lost our child." "Is she?…" Rhaenyra whispered to the maester and her voice broke on a whimper she couldn't hide the tears as her eyes widened in pain. Her expression became even sad, as she looked at you with worry. "Please, do something."

Looking at Rhaenyra with sorrow, not just for the baby but for her and Dameon. They had been nothing but kind and loving, how cruel must the gods be to rob all three of this baby? Your tears welled up and fell onto your cheeks more than before. "Rhaenyra, my love, I am so sorry," you muttered, as you embraced Rhaeneyra and pressed your head against pillows as you laid down letting the maester look everything over. "I am so sorry." You tried to bury your grief and replaced that emotion with determination even as you kept crying. "We will have another baby." You vowed.

Rhaenyra sniffed and wiped away a tear, still with a look of heartbreak on her face as she looked at you, her eyes slowly welled up with tears again. "You're right. We will." She placed her hand on your cheek. The maester examined you once again, before telling you that you must recuperate and rest. Laying back numbly after learning what happened this not being a first but did nothing to lessen the pain or break in your heart was feeling. You stared up at the ceiling wondering how this came to be but sighed softly as tears welled up in your eyes once more before letting out a broken whisper toward Rhaenyra "Don't tell Daemon…please I can't handle having failed you both or that he's lost another babe." Rhaenyra gently pushed your head back onto the pillow, not liking that you wanted to keep this from Daemon, but knew that she couldn't force you. She brushed some hair away from your face and pressed a soft kiss on your forehead. "And, you never failed us, my love… We all failed when we lost our little angel." She said as tears ran down her cheeks. "You know we should…" Her voice trailed off, and she shook her head. She leaned forward to kiss you then gently wiped away your tears."No… I will not tell Daemon. I won't make him suffer with this news." She smiled comfortingly. "Let us just get you in bed for now."

They gave a mixture of herbs to ensure your health and to help you sleep. "Don't worry, my love. We shall soon try again." She smiled gently down then sat beside you and took your hand. She watched how after a few minutes your eyes slowly fell shut before closing her eyes as she took a deep breath collecting herself before making it known to the maester and any servants in the room that this news was not to leave the room and make its way around the realm for all to know. The herbs had worked, as you felt yourself drift off to sleep. It had been a difficult evening, and the mixture of grief, sorrow, and anger had taken its toll. You held Rhaenyra's hand as you drifted off and whispered into your ear. There would be more children to come and the gods would not deny a family as blessed as this love again. Even as the next few days passed by and Daemon was coming back you hadn't moved much from your spot on the bed even making it clear not to say anything to him about what happened as you didn't want to upset him.

As the days passed, Rhaenyra was always by your side, holding your hand as she looked upon you with worry. Daemon's return got nearer. She was nervous and anxious for a chance to tell Daemon about what happened. But she worried that her feelings would make him sad, or worse, angry. And she would hate to see him suffering. Finally, it was the day Daemon returned. Rhaenyra looked at you and smiled while she still gripped your hand tightly. "You should get ready." She said, with a worried look on her face when she looked towards the door. Daemon stood in the yard noticing something was wrong especially due to everyone giving him looks as he passed by but shrugged it off as he was happy to be back to you and Rhaenyra. As he entered the keep, the first thing he saw was Rhaenyra standing with you. Rhaenyra looked worried, which she always did when something was wrong, but this seemed worse. "What is it? Has something happened?" He asked. He approached more into the room looking at both of you only for neither of you to say anything about what happened. Rhaenyra gulped, looking at Daemon. She didn't want to be the one to tell him especially since you had asked her not to say anything. She hoped he would forget about it and everything would return just as normal. But She knew he wouldn't forget. And, she knew there was no chance for this not to affect the family. She took a deep breath and shook her head trying to smile like nothing was wrong. "No darling. There's nothing new, dear." She said gravely, as she squeezed your hand and squeezed it tightly, giving you comfort. Daemon looked at Rhaenyra in confusion and concern as you gave a small smile but started to leave as servants had to help since she was still weak.

She's hiding something, or was trying to hide it, he thought. Rhaenyra always did that when she did not want to tell you or him something. He turned to face Rhaenyra directly after watching you leave the room with help. She has to tell me now was his first thought "Whatever it is that happened, Rhaenyra, you know you can talk to me about it. You can trust me." He smiled at her. He hoped that would be enough to make her tell him what was wrong. Daemon had always been able to read through Rhaenyra's lies and excuses. Even with this sensitive issue, she couldn't help to hide behind a white lie. "I know." She sighed and looked down, trying to gather up the courage to confess the truth to Daemon. She took a deep breath and looked up. "Y/N…" She gulped and tried to look for the right words. "Just isn't feeling well." She winced as it all became real again. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, not wanting Daemon to see her tearing up. Rhaenyra sighed and looked at Daemon. "I'm not sure whether this is my place to tell you, Daemon." Rhaenyra didn't really want to tell Daemon what happened since she didn't want to break his heart. Especially since they just got reunited from Daemon's long trip. "I'll leave it to Y/N to talk to you if that's okay with you?" She hoped Daemon would believe her lie, if not, she would have to tell him. She smiled at Daemon gently.

He raised an eyebrow when Rhaenyra tried to tell him that you simply 'weren't feeling well', he doubted that was the case. But he had to trust Rhaenyra for now, even if he sensed something was wrong. His wives knew when he would not be okay with something and always told him the truth, even if he had to wait a while. He looked at her and smiled. "Aha….Okay, if you insist. I will have a talk with Y/N then." He kissed Rhaenyra's forehead and turned to leave the room. The next few days of trying to ask and understand what happened during his time away, only to keep getting shut out hearing you weren't ready to speak on it yet which caused him to grow annoyed but nod along giving in each time. However, once a full week passed Daemon felt as if he couldn't wait any longer and entered the room quietly as he gently sat down next to you before placing his hand on your shoulder giving you a tender smile before sighing heavily as he softly asked "Something's happened and nobody is telling me anything….Please tell me there is no use in sparing the details because even just seeing how heartbroken over what's happened in you and Nyra I need to know so just please, tell me."

You let Daemon sit beside you. You didn't look at him but you knew he was there. You tried to muster the courage to tell him but felt like you still couldn't do it. The shame felt was too strong and powerful and it took a lot out of you to try to keep from crying. But as you saw how hurt and worried Daemon was, you knew you couldn't delay it any longer. Sighing as you turned to look at Daemon and swallowing hard as you tried to tell him what happened. "… I… I lost the baby." That was all that could be said before you cried. His whole body froze. "What?" He asked, his mind racing with questions to confirm that he'd heard it right, but as soon he saw the tears on your cheeks he knew what you had said. Oh Gods, he thought. No. He felt as though he might faint. How could this have happened? How could this have happened while I was away? Why didn't Rhaenyra say something? He pulled you against himself and held you tightly, not knowing what to say, not even knowing how to feel. He just felt lost. Waiting patiently for you to tell him what exactly had happened in detail if you could. It was obviously something sad, and by the time you finally spoke, you were already crying. After a moment of just sitting there with you, he kissed her forehead gently. "My love, I'm so sorry," he whispered.

You couldn't look at him, as the shame and guilt overwhelmed you. You couldn't bear it if your words hurt Daemon. You felt it was all your fault. You kept staring at the floor, tears in your eyes, breathing steadily so it wouldn't seem that you were crying so hard. Knowing Daemon was also hurting, and you didn't want to be the reason why he would feel grief and pain. "I… I lost the baby… I am so sorry, it's all my fault." You whispered quietly, your voice cracking on the last sentence, sniffing and crying your eyes out, but were comforted by Daemon's strong embrace. You then looked down at your lap, trying to gather yourself, only to bury your head onto Daemon's chest, as you sniffled. "It was in the middle of the night." Finally managing to muster the words. "I woke up and felt that something had happened, There was so much pain. By the time we got to the maester, they told us that my baby had passed away." He listened carefully to everything you were telling him and felt his heart crack every time you got close to tears again. I don't know if I can bear this, I thought. "Y/N, sweetheart, it is not your fault. You can't control things like that." He squeezed you more tightly against him. "I know it is hard to think right now, what you've said is true. But don't blame yourself for this." He tried his best to comfort you as you buried your head against his chest. At that moment, he felt your pain the most and wondered if Laena and Rhaenyra felt just like this when it happened to them.

At Daemon's comforting words, you looked up at him with a weak smile. "Thank you… It is hard to not feel any shame. It was our baby." You sniffled as you continued to lean onto Daemon as he held you close. You looked up at Daemon and wiped away your tears with your sleeves. You hugged Daemon tightly, your smaller frame pressed against his chest. "I'm sorry…" You whispered. "I don't know why.." You sighed heavily. "How will you be able to look at me the same way again?" You suddenly spoke with your voice filled with worry. "Will you not love me anymore..?" Your eyes looked into Daemon's eyes, awaiting in fear of his answer and reaction. He held you tightly, his eyes looking into yours and making sure you understood him perfectly. "And why should I not look at you the same way again? You're still my wife, who I love with all my heart and soul and more. Nothing about you has changed. You're still the same person." He kissed your lips softly, to show his affection. "No, nothing has changed. I will love you the same way." He said to you confidently, hoping to reassure you and make you feel better. He looked into your eyes as he tried to smile, trying his best to comfort you and make you feel loved. He wanted you to know that no matter what happened, you would get through it together. "You are still the same, and the most beautiful person I know," he whispered. "I will love you the same, no matter what, and I'm so sorry for not being here for you when it happened." He caressed your face and slowly leaned in to kiss your lips softly. He felt your body tense up, but it was the best way he could assure you what he was saying was true.

Daemon's kisses made you feel a bit more loved and reassured not just by Rhaenyra, and for that, you were ever thankful. You nodded your head with each word he spoke, wanting him to know that you were listening. You even smiled a tad bit, even though your tears still came streaming down. It was clear you were still very heartbroken, but Daemon's presence made you feel at least a little bit better. As Daemon leaned in to kiss you gingerly again, you hugged him tightly, not even aware if you tightened your hug on him. You were just too happy to see him. After the shared sweet kisses, you looked at Daemon, your tear-filled face showing your love. Your eyes then met his and gave him a faint smile. "Thank you, my love." You looked down at your lap. "And what if I tried again?" You looked back up quickly at Daemon. "Will it… Will it be fine if I tried again to have our children?". He slowly pulled back from the kiss and held you in his arms while sitting next to you. You looked so sad, he couldn't imagine what you were going through. His mind raced with thoughts, Why would the gods torment you so? Your words did catch him off guard but he was glad you said them. "I would love us to try again," he said softly. He caressed your face once more delicately. "We will try again, as many times as you would like, dear," he said while he held your chin. "And we will succeed in having children one day."

[sunflowersandsapphires]

See if it fits

Wake Up, Chapter 10 (THE FINALE)

Series Masterlist

pairing: Matt Murdock x fem!reader 

summary: In an attempt to stop the advances of an unwanted suitor, Matt Murdock accidentally condemns you to being his fake girlfriend.

warnings: swearing, smut adjacent times, reader blames herself for SA (this is entirely an insecurity, survivors are NEVER at fault.), discussion of pressing charges (this piece is not meant to shame anyone who chooses not to seek legal reparations for harassment or assault, this is just setting up a future plot.)

a/n: WE MADE IT! Wow, I can’t believe it’s been 3 months since I first posted this fic, that’s crazy. I really hope this feels somewhat satisfying, I left it open ended because I may or may not be planning a follow up in this verse :)! I cannot thank y’all enough for bearing with me and following along. There will be more fun multi-chapter fics to come!!!

w/c: 4.5k

Your chin tilted up appreciatively as Matt pressed a kiss to your temple, the arm he had around you nestling you more firmly against his side. Your three mutual friends, situated around the large booth at Josie’s, exchanged knowing glances at the display of affection. 

“So…” Marci swished her drink around, looking between you and Matt with an arrogant smirk. “What changed?” 

“Nothing, we just…” Matt’s free hand gestured limply, giving no further explanation. 

“Stopped beating around the bush and admitted to having feelings for one another?” Karen asked with an air of fake politeness. 

“Realized that you were both miserable when you were avoiding each other?” Foggy snorted. 

“Finally looked at your relationship and had a ‘come to Jesus’ moment because you two have actually been dating for months now under an incorrect label?” Marci smiled, clearly amused by Matt’s blush and your avoidant eyes. 

“Yah, yah, all of that.” Matt groused, taking a swig of his beer as he rolled his eyes. 

“And after one night, some asshole was able to get you to confess your love. Truly doing what none of us could.” Foggy let out an incredulous laugh as Marci and Karen giggled at the joke but Matt had gone rigid beside you, not seeing the humor in such a traumatic event. 

“That’s not funny, Foggy.” He muttered, his rumbling tone heavily inked with a darker quality that you knew lurked beneath his surface. 

“What even happened to you two that night?” Cruising right past Matt’s angry comment, Marci gazed at you intently. Your friends had been given small details, but only Matt knew the identity of the man that had captured you, and, as far as you knew, all of them were oblivious to your previous issues with him. 

“Um, well, that’s kind of a long story?” You answered, lamely, stirring your drink and focusing intently on the way it twirled around the glass. 

“She doesn’t have to relive a near death experience to satisfy your curiosity.” Matt snapped, muscles flexing as he pushed in front of you protectively. 

Marci raised her hands in surrender as Foggy and Karen exchanged nervous glances. “Woah there, big shot, I wasn’t—“ 

“Did you not just ask her for the story of how she was attacked because she hadn’t told you yet? I’m pretty sure—“ 

“Matt,” Hooking an arm around the one he had securely thrown across your belly, your palm came up to grasp his shoulder and pull him back. “Hey, she was asking a valid question. They deserve to know.”

His face turned to yours, you could just make out the flurry of rage and concern in his stunning brown eyes behind their red lenses. “You don’t have to tell anyone anything. No one is owed an explanation.” There was an edge to his words that gave you the impression that he might know more than just the small amount you’d told him. 

“I know.” You smiled wanly. “But I haven’t been truly honest with any of you about that night. You all at least deserve that.” 

Clenching his jaw, Matt held you close as you took a deep breath. The rough pads of his fingers drew soft patterns under the hem of your blouse as you began recounting the worst days of your life. 

“The man that took me…was James Lannister.” Assuming it was better to rip the bandaid off, you started with the worst of the omitted details. Understandably, Marci, Foggy, and Karen all gaped at you from across the table until Karen broke the silence. 

“The attorney that was fired from PBA months ago? What on earth did he want with you?”

Biting your lip, you avoided their inquisitive eyes as you admitted your sin. “He wanted revenge. Because I got him fired.” 

The three of them took in the new development silently. You let your mind linger on the pleasant warmth of Matt’s palm around your waist before continuing. 

“James Lannister found me when I was working as a waitress in a shitty diner in Queens. After befriending me during my shifts, he offered me a position in his office. I was Lannister’s assistant for almost two years. No one knows this about me except a handful of people at PBA because I have since scrubbed it from my personal records and asked to keep my position and supervisor during that time confidential.” As your voice began to crack, you downed the rest of your drink. 

“You don’t have to—“ Foggy looked at you worriedly, but you waved him off. 

“It’s fine. I'm fine.” Matt gave a nearly silent growl beside you, clearly not convinced by the lie. “Like I said, I covered up that part of my life, but I worked for him for a significant period of time. During those two years, Lannister groomed me. He used me as a tool to end his relationship with his wife and then took his anger out on me when the settlement didn’t go his way. He abused and assaulted me and I was powerless to stop him for months. When the spot opened up in the midtown office, I jumped at the chance to escape. A coworker who had witnessed the abuse helped me report it and they transferred me.” 

Matt nudged his beer towards you as your vocal chords tightened around the words spilling out of your mouth. Somehow, he didn’t seem as surprised as the others by your tale of woe. “Thanks, love. After I was transferred, there was a very very lengthy investigation and, at the tail end of it, I was promoted. He was also up for the promotion, but when the investigation proved that he’d been a less than stellar employee, he was fired instead. Obviously, he holds me responsible for that.” 

Around the table, no one spoke. Foggy’s hand clenched tightly around his bottle, Marci looked furious, and Karen had gone white as a sheet. Clearing your throat, you pressed on. 

“I won’t traumatize you with any of the details but most people think that someone made up the allegations, even if they don’t know that it was me, personally, who spoke up about it. Moving on to the first night of the conference, you all know I was leaving the hotel after Matt and I had a…stupid conversation,” Matt winced beside you and you squeezed his thigh gently. “And I was planning on going home. But I was stopped by Lannister…and Beatrice Snyder.” 

A strangled noise sounded from your boyfriend at the inclusion of a familiar character. “Please tell me she didn’t…” 

You laughed, mirthlessly. “I wish I could, love. She was one of the people who thought I made everything up, except she knew it was me who reported him. I have no idea who told her, but all that time ago, when I freaked out at the Liberty Gala, that’s what she accused me of. She thought I was wrongfully punishing a man who had refused my advances and stealing his promotion. Handing me over to him was sort of a two birds, one stone thing, I guess. She wanted Lannister to be vindicated and she wanted Matt to think I was a cheating piece of shit. So she could finally have him.” 

Tears were pooling in your eyes now, but it wasn’t just from sadness or embarrassment. You were angry. Livid, in fact. Apparently, with all the “almost dying” and whatnot, you’d never processed how horrible you felt about Snyder trying to lie about you and swipe Matt from under your fake-girlfriend-soon-to-be-real-girlfriend nose. 

“That fucking bitch.” Karen snarled and Foggy nodded emphatically. 

Marci pointed a finger at Foggy. “The next time I see her, I swear—“ 

“Please don’t!” You squeaked, a few tears breaking the surface tension barrier and making their way down your cheeks. “I know that this is a lot of information and you are obviously going to draw new conclusions about the people involved, me included, but…I just want things to stay the way they were. Please.” 

“Sweetheart, I’m not sure we can do that.” Matt used a thumb to swipe the moisture from your face. “You matter so much to us, of course we care about what happened to you.” You fell against his solid chest with a sniffle and he kissed the crown of your head. 

“Matt’s right.” Foggy added gently. “What they did to you was not ok. We won’t do anything you don’t want us to do, but you should at least consider pressing charges.” 

“I‘ve tried that before.” You murmured tiredly, burying your face against Matt’s neck. “Lannister is still respected by most of the cops, attorneys, and judges in this city. I didn’t stand a chance then and I don’t now.” 

“You didn’t have us before.” Karen says, her gaze ferocious but kind. 

“Karen’s right. You have 4 attorneys backing you now.” Marci nodded, clearly already working through the details of the case in her head. 

“If we could get the coworker to testify—“ Foggy jumped in, making notes in his phone. 

“Guys, wait…” You pleaded, but your quiet tone was ignored. 

“Foggy is right, a coworker testimony would be crucial. And we’d just want to thoroughly vet the judge before filing, to be sure he wouldn’t have the upper hand. But we could file in both criminal and civil courts and give us a better chance of success.” Matt’s attention was fully on the other 3 attorneys, his arm no longer shielding you from the world or your bubbling panic. 

“No, I don’t want—“ They still weren’t listening. Your breathing turned shallow, why did the walls suddenly feel like they were closing in on you? The voices around you blurred as your skin turned clammy. You clenched and unclenched your fists repeatedly in an attempt to bring yourself out of an impending anxiety attack. 

Behind you, a glass shattered—scattering the few remnants of your calm demeanor across the bar with the shards. You jumped, whirling around to find the source of the noise. A hand clamped around your wrist and you flinched, turning to see Matt’s worried face flash with hurt. 

“I-I can’t—“ You panted, “I gotta go.” And with that final display of bravery, you fled the dive bar and retreated to your apartment.  

Inhaling deeply, you tried to ground yourself by focusing on the heat of the mug in your hands. Whisps of steam spiraled upwards toward your eager face, dancing across your cheeks in a tender caress. You got all of 5 minutes to wallow in self pity before he caught up to you. 

The window in your bedroom slid open, which would have alarmed you if you weren't confident that it was your concerned ninja boyfriend. His stern voice did catch you off guard, however.

“What were you thinking?” Arms crossed, you could almost smell his rage, the devil gnashing its teeth behind his glowering eyes. 

“I'm sorry, Matty,” His nostrils flared at the nickname, clearly rejecting your attempt to soothe his spurt of protective anger. “You were right, it was too much, I--”

Matt was practically alight with indignation. “You cannot just run off like that. Not after your track record.” 

“My track record?” That comment stung, plucking a string that ran straight to the core of your insecurities.

No doubt sensing the shift in your tone,  Matt changed tactics with a sigh.  “Lovely, you of all people know how dangerous it is out there—“

“You think it was my fault.” Your voice wavered, not daring to look at him and see resigned agreement. 

“Of course not.” Matt denied firmly, but you held onto your suspicion nontheless. Hands held out in a placating gesture, he moved towards you. “Never. I just…I worry about you.” 

“I’m fine.” Your boyfriend flinched at the lie. 

“Both of us know that’s not true.” His blank eyes darted around your face, searching for any path past the walls you were putting up. Clearly something he'd said had been misconstrued, he would never blame you for the actions of monsters, but it had forced your guard up anyway. Wetting his lips with his tongue, he sat beside you on the couch, trying not to let his face betray how devastated he was by your physical and emotional distance.  “Sweetheart, why don’t you want to press charges?” 

“What?” You looked to him in surprise, not expecting him to get right to the root of your distress.

“That’s what set your anxiety off, isn’t it?” It was less of a question and more of a statement.

“Matt I don’t—“ You started, but he held up a finger to stop you as a scream echoed in the distance. Holding your shoulders high as your heart clenched, you set your jaw and allowed your consciousness to sink back into emotional numbness. “Go.”

“Angel, I don't--” Conflict was etched into his features, softening your resolve.

”It's ok, Matt.“ You ran a hand over his arm as you reassured him honestly. ”Go, let the devil out. We can have a more productive conversation when you've given your alter ego the space he needs and I've sorted through my own emotional turmoil.”

“I don't want to leave you like this.” Matt's voice was soft with hesitation and strife. He reached a hand towards you in silent offering.

Squeezing his outstretched fingers, your stomach ached with sympathy. “And I'm asking you to. As much as I adore your company, I know myself pretty well. I need time to process my own thoughts and emotions. I love you, and we both know you need to attend to whatever is going on out there.“

Kissing your forehead, Matt nodded in understanding.”I love you too.“ 

”I know. I'll be here when you get back.“ You promised as he walked into your bedroom and leapt out the window.

Recentering your mug in your shaky palms,  you sighed as you realized the heat had dissipated in the time you'd neglected the drink. Standing on wobbling legs, you shuffled to the stove to boil it once more.

Ripping his mask off, Matt ran a hand through his sweat-damp hair as he debated his next move. The city hadn't asked much from him tonight, simply guiding him through a web of petty crimes before he landed in his apartment at a semi-decent hour. 

Each hit thrown had steadily chipped away at the swirling mass of anger that had been building in his chest for hours, leaving a trail of regret and guilt in its wake. His heart hammered at the thought of facing you again, after the way he'd acted. After scolding you for taking care of yourself and accusing you of putting yourself in danger, of course you assumed he blamed you for the violence you'd experienced. God, he was such an idiot. He didn't deserve you.

Swallowing the lump of insecurity that rose in his throat, he stripped off the suit and stalked into the shower, already brainstorming his much needed apology.

Across Hell's Kitchen, you turned fitfully on your mattress, failing to let sleep drag you under despite your exhaustion. Threads of apprehension knit together a string of self deprecating thoughts, weaving an intricate trap that you'd barely avoided since Matt left. Voices rang through your brain, making you wince with each word. Your fault. You’re so pathetic. Slut. Not with your track record. Whore. Shrew. Your fault. Your fault. Your fault.

You whined, curling into a ball and throwing your hands over your ears. But the voices didn't quiet down. 

You did this to yourself. You were asking for it. You think you’re a victim? You are so stupid. 

Shivers wracked your body as you wrapped a pillow around your head, the soft feathers unable to silence the imaginary accusations. Heaving quivery breaths, you tightened your fingers around the fabric in your fingers until your knuckles ached. With the subtle pain to hold your attention, you willed your lungs to hold the air for longer than a millisecond. 

Sniffling through stifled cries, your throat felt tighten as your heart pounded, stabbing a dull ache into your temples with each pulse. You were so engrossed in the storm of emotional instability that you didn't hear the window sliding open. Yelping as a hand touched your shoulder, you flew out of the bed, landing haphazardly on the wood floor in a pile of frantic limbs. 

“Woah, easy there, angel, it's me.” Keeping an admirable distance, Matt crouched in your line of sight, giving you time to adjust to his presence. Dressed in a worn shirt and sweatpants, his cheeks were tinged pink with exertion and his damp hair was ruffled—he must have hurried back to you. Although the thought of your boyfriend rushing to your side after tending to the city made your heart swell with adoration, your frayed nerves triggered a defensiveness within you.

“You couldn't have used the door?” You snapped, baring your hurt to him rather than letting your guard down and revealing the terror beneath. Grimacing at Matt's shocked expression, you recoiled at your own standoffishness. “I'm sorry, you just startled me.”

Frowning at the defeated tone you held, Matt scooted over to your collapsed form. “I thought you'd be asleep, angel. When I got close enough to hear your heart rate, I panicked. What happened?” Offering you a hand up that you timidly accepted, he sat you on the bed, kneeling before you and gazing up inquisitively. 

“Dunno. I was doing ok and then...I just wasn't.” Your breath hitched with the confession, pulling stale tears from your waterline. Traitors.

“You should've called me.” Matt's thumb ran lines over the back of your hand. 

Biting your lip, you closed your eyes. “I–I never want to make you choose between me and the city, that's not fair.” 

Nodding, Matt frowned. “I appreciate that, sweetness, but I will always always come help you.” Putting a mental pin in that conversation, he sat against your headboard and, risking rejection, lifted you tenderly into his lap. Breathing out a sigh of relief, you inadvertently leaned into the kisses he placed against your aching head. 

“I'm so sorry, beautiful girl. I didn't mean to snap at you earlier, that wasn't smart of me. It made you feel bad, huh?” Matt placed a gentle kiss on the bridge of your nose as you nodded miserably, glistening tears pouring down your cheeks. ”I apologize, but I need you to know I wasn't angry with you. It seemed like I was, I get that, but I promise I was just worried and I let my emotions get the better of me.“

”I'm sorry too.“ You murmured, gratefully falling into the hands that came to cradle your face. ”I should have been more careful.“

”Oh no, sweet thing, I didn't mean that. Nothing that those men did is your fault, ok? Nothing. I will tell you that a hundred times a day if I need to. I have never blamed you for their actions, ok? Hand to God.“

”Pinky promise?“ You sniffled quietly, pressing a lone pinky against the back of one of his. 

With an airy chuckle, Matt linked your fingers together. ”Pinky promise.“ 

”Thank you.“ 

”No need to thank me, sweetness. I just hope you'll forgive me.“

”You're already forgiven.“ You murmured, pressing your lips to Matt's. 

Tangled in each other’s arms, you happily let Matt trace patterns along your spine, beginning to nod off in his secure hold. Cupping your chin, Matt nudged his nose against yours. “I know you’re tired, lovely, but you should drink some water. Maybe take an Advil too, for that headache of yours.” 

Yawning, you nuzzled further into Matt’s neck. “How d’you know about that?” 

“I have special Devil senses. They help me tell when my darling girl isn’t feeling good.” He jested, pinching your cheek lightly. 

You smiled, accepting the glass he offered you and drinking greedily. Setting the now empty glass back on your nightstand, Matt settled into the mattress and pulled you with him. 

Sleep lapped at the brink of your consciousness, spurred on by the warmth of your personal space heater of a boyfriend. “I was thinking…” Matt’s rumbling whisper began, “We’ve never gone on a proper date, since we got together. Would you like to have dinner with me this week?” 

Humming contentedly, your lips broke into a small smile. “Yes please.” 

Kissing your forehead, Matt smiled back at you. “Ok, my sweet girl. I’ll plan something for us while you sleep.”

“I love you, Matty.” 

“I love you too, angel.” 

Waking up with you in his arms continued to be a small slice of heaven that Matt was sure neither he nor his Devil deserved. Pressing a kiss to your head, he inhaled deeply–centering himself with your delicate scent–before making his way to the kitchen to start coffee. Slipping out of your slumbering grasp, he padded blearily out of the bedroom, shuddering slightly at the abrupt lack of warmth around him. 

Once the coffee machine was whirring, Matt sank onto his worn couch, opening his laptop to listen to some emails he’d received the night before. After responding to one, a smile grew on his face when he heard an uptick in your pulse as you shifted on the bed. 

Patiently waiting for his coffee to brew, he refrained from returning to the covers to shush you and help you back to sleep. Unfortunately, this meant you had fully left the bed before he could encourage you to stay there.  

Soft footsteps rung throughout the loft as you walked towards him, yawning the whole time. 

“Good morning, sweet thing. You didn’t need to get out of bed yet,” Though he was still smiling (his grin was nearly constant in your presence), he almost pouted in sympathy as he heard your groggy voice respond. 

“Didn’t want to be in bed anymore,” You explained with a shrug, settling into his lap with a content little sigh. “Wanted to be with you.”

Fuck, that tugged on his heart strings. Gasping slightly at the outpouring of affection from you, he wrapped an arm around your shoulders and hooked his chin over your head. “Then I guess we’ll both have to relax today, huh.” 

Nodding vigorously, one of your hands came up to cradle his face, gently rubbing over his stubble. “Mmm I like that plan. And any other plan that involves Matthew Murdock resting. He’s pretty averse to that, you know.” 

Huffing out a laugh, Matt poked your stomach. “I am not ‘averse’ to resting!” 

“Oh yah? So you wouldn’t be listening to emails on this bright, early Sunday morning? Rather than, I don’t know, staying in bed with your sleeping girlfriend?” 

Chuckling, Matt shrugged, “I wanted coffee!” 

“You’re deflecting, counselor.” You hummed, pressing an inviting kiss to his lips and pulling back all too quickly for Matt’s liking. His hands caught your neck, trying to tug your lips back to his as he whined involuntarily, but you just smiled. “I’m getting you that coffee you wanted so badly.” Matt hadn’t even realized the machine had sounded, far too focused on your body and the delicious sounds it was making as it teased him. 

You tried to get up from the couch, but Matt’s arms caught you in a vice grip. He growled lightly, burying his face in your neck and nipping at the junction where it collided with your shoulder. 

“Matty, darling,” You laughed brightly, leaning into his nuzzles and bites as you tried to reason with him. “As much as I do want you to rest today, I’m going to need coffee so that I don’t pass out immediately.”

“You can pass out,” Matt murmured against your sweet skin. “I don’t mind.” 

Tracing a hand up his back and into his hair, you smiled. “Well, I mind. I have something I want to do today that I need to be awake for.” 

“Wh-What’s that?” Matt rumbled, struggling to stay coherent as you massaged his scalp. 

“I, uh,” You suddenly hesitated, Matt tilted his head as your guard slid up ever so slightly. “I was thinking of going to the 10th precinct and, um, filing charges.” 

Your pulse stuttered, your body giving away your discomfort—with either the idea of filing or his reaction, he wasn’t sure. Maybe both. 

“That’s, that’s great, sweetness, but I don’t want you to do anything just because people you care about suggested it—“

“No, I want to. Well, want might not be the right word, but I…I think it’d be smart. To file at least a protective order and to get something on paper for the whole hostage situation.”

“I agree, love. Always a good idea to make a paper trail, right?” Matt asked lightly, as he rubbed a hand over your arm—trying to silently remind you that you were safe, that you could be vulnerable with him. 

Hiding your face in his shoulder, you bit your lip, weighing the consequences of the question you wanted to ask. Apprently reading your thoughts, Matt pressed a kiss to your forehead. 

“You can ask me anything, love.” 

Shoving his shoulder, you glared at him. “You know it’s really creepy when you do that.” Matt laughed in response. 

“You don’t think it’s creepy, you feel more comfortable when I read you like that. Your heart rate always slows down.” 

Rolling your eyes, you stifled a smile. “Fucking show off.” 

“For you my dear? Always.” Resting his brow against yours, Matt’s blank eyes formed an almost stern expression. “What did you want to ask me, lovely?”

“Will you, er, I mean—“ You sighed, drawing in a deep breath before spitting out the query. “Will you actually help me if I file? Like, legally?”

“Oh, angel, of course!” Pulling back from you, Matt’s words held so much affection and genuine care that you felt a lump growing in your throat. “I will do everything in my power to see that man locked away for good.” 

You giggled as his voice deepened to a snarl, the Devil showing his face for a moment as the memories of your kidnapping resurfaced. “As Matt Murdock or the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen?” 

“Both.” He growled, hands instinctively clenching around you. 

Cradling his face between your palms, you drew your protective boyfriend into a heated kiss.

Shifting from foot to foot, you glanced at the brick facade apprehensively. As you ran through the possible ways this could blow up in your face, Matt’s steady hand clasped around your trembling one. 

“We can go home right now, sweet girl.” He reminded you gently, squeezing your hand comfortingly. For a moment, another night flashed before your eyes, as if the precinct was the venue for the Liberty Gala you’d attended all those weeks ago. 

“No. He deserves to be put away. I’m going to make that happen.” You said defiantly. 

Matt dropped your hand and slid an arm around your waist. “I’ll be here every step of the way, sweetness.”

Nodding to yourself, you blew out a breath. “Right. Let’s do this.” Taking your boyfriend’s arm, you led him up the steps and into the bustling precinct. 

It wasn’t clear what the future would hold, but the pair of you would get through it together. That, you were sure of.

Taglist: @maladaptivedaydreamingbum @scoliobean @harperdoodle @mattkinsella @leikelle @sweetbee0108 @dark-night-sky-99 @fallen-angels2213 @will-delete-this-later-probably @cheshirecat484 @thornbushrose @vernon-dursley

[emwritesstuff]

as the world caves in | ch. 10 | bucky barnes x reader

synopsis: You are a ghost story. A former Air Force pilot who had her plane shot down by Germany in 1945, but here you were in 2023, alive and frozen in your 25-year-old body.

You haven’t seen Bucky since the 1940’s, before his fall, before you went on a suicide mission only to come back alive. You aren’t sure reliving those memories – and being a living memory of everything the man has lost – is the best for him.

But you and Bucky won’t be apart for long.

This will loosely follow the plot of TFATWS - so spoilers ahead, specially regarding episode six (finale). Thread carefully!

masterlist | AO3

notes: wheewoo. it's been a while, and I hope you guys - whoever still reads this - enjoy this. I'm so so sorry for taking so long. We're nearing the end. iykyk. (warnings: fluff, angst, mentions of the apocalypse and atomic bombs, mentions of death, wwii) (word count: 4.5K)

ten: coffee

The aroma of coffee filled your nostrils as you stirred awake. You stretched your limbs on your bed as the soft sunrays of the early morning entered through the window.

Your feet made little noise as you padded towards the smell, though you knew Bucky’s super-soldier ears would pick it up anyway.

“Mornin’.” The husk of his voice, of his first word of the day, made your heart skip a beat. It was like a record you could keep forever on repeat.

You were almost glad he kept his back turned so he didn’t see you bite your lip and subsequently roll your eyes at your own reaction.

“Good morning.” You say it back once you get to the kitchen, smiling at him as you watched him move around. “Coffee?”

“Yeah. Here.” He slid a mug to you and took one for himself, seemingly satisfied with his job as you see him give a little nod after a sip.

You whispered your thanks and brought the drink to your lips, feeling the warmth of it through the ceramic. The reaction was immediate – as soon as you tasted it, your nose crinkled.

It’s sweet, the gesture itself surely was sweet. It’s too damn sweet.

Bucky had put sugar into the coffee pot.

“I cannot believe you.”

Your guilty, deer-in-headlights eyes looked up at him, who’s staring at you with a bewildered frown.

“It’s fine—”

“No!”

“I barely— I’ll still drink it!” You took another sip, licking your lips in sequence.

So. Much. Sugar.

“You can’t even pretend you don’t hate it.” He said, shaking his head. “And you call yourself a spy? With that face?”

“I was one,” You clicked your tongue. “All this time and you didn’t learn how to make coffee properly.”

“This is— it’s practical.” He rolled his eyes, sipping his sugary coffee. You followed. “Stop it.”

“I’m drinking it! You made it for me.” It wasn’t how your old-habits-self preferred it, but you have had it worse. Although somehow, that was making Bucky more annoyed instead of appeasing him.

He glared at you indignantly when you tell him you’re doing it to show your appreciation, then setting the mug down when he huffed. “What now?”

“Nothing.” Bucky stared at your ceiling and you at his profile. You tilted your head when he sighed. “…stupid thing to be arguing about.”

“We argue about stupid things all the time.” You took the coffee in your hands, but didn’t drink. “Argue-d?”

“Still do. Like when I tied your arm sling too tight.”

You grumbled that it was indeed too god-damned tight, and Bucky chuckled.

In truth, you had missed this. Even the bickering, yes, how the two of you were too stubborn to give in their very specific ways of doing everyday things. It made you feel alive, like you too had been frozen on ice with your two best friends.

One sip from you and Bucky was licking his teeth. He was faking the outrage, you could tell as you grinned at him.

 “If Steve was here—” You started, making him turn to you with a resigned smile.

“He’d just fix everything. Mediate, the Stevie thing he used to do. He hated us arguing.”

Disturbed his peace.

“I suppose now someone’s gotta...?”

The phone chimed before you could finish your sentence. It was Sam.

You coming, Top Gun?

You chewed at your nail as you read the words, transmitting them on to Bucky next to you. He nodded, cursing under his breath that he’d agreed to this cookout in the first place.

Bring Robocop with you.

You assured Sam – and Bucky too – he’d be there.

“I’ll complain the whole time.”

“That’s okay. He knows how you are already,” You joked, leaving the kitchen with your coffee in hand. He wouldn’t complain, at least not the entire time. You could see him having a fairly good time with Sam’s family and friends, even if he’d insist he wasn’t a people person anymore.

Before you disappeared into your room to pack, you turned to look at Bucky again. He was watching you from the kitchen counter, a small smile dancing on the corner of his lips.

Then it hit the realization that he’d stayed over. Actually stayed, and still made no signs of wanting to leave. You wondered if he had noticed that and didn’t care or if it was an inertia driven thing. One thing you knew: Bucky looked right where he belonged between your yellow kitchen tiles and mid-century cabinets. With his overly sweet coffee and darkened eyebags and sagging, tired, relaxed shoulders.

“What are you wearing?”

“A sundress. And a hat.” You smoothed the fabric, checking yourself one last time before you two left the hangar.

“I know it’s a dress, but—”

“Then why are you asking?” This made Bucky huff, his metal fingers tightening over the cake packaging.

Who brings birthday cake to a cookout? He grumbled about how it’s so much skin. You ignored it, because he didn’t have the right to complain about your attire, considering his own. “Listen, you might like getting a heatstroke with all that leather, but it’s warm today so I’m going to wear my dress.”

“Yeah, yeah, diss the jacket. But don’t come runnin’ after me when you get cold later.”

“Deal.”

“Deal.”

It was a short walk to the docks and the small crowd that were Sam’s friends and family. The welcome that was given by the new Captain America’s closest warmed your heart – soon enough, you and him were mingling, eating, giggling on a corner with Sarah about how all the kids and some adults were completely smitten with Bucky. She teased about how you were, too.

Even the cake was somewhat of a success. Bucky made sure to throw that on your face.

The day breezed by, and you only noticed the passing of time when fireflies started twinkling as the sun disappeared behind the river.

 “This doesn’t look like your jacket.” Sam hummed, joining you at a picnic table, a smirk on his face. You threw a lemon slice at him.

Bucky’s jacket felt heavy over your body. The warmth you got from it probably showed on your cheeks, but you had no intention of facing the chill of the night with bare shoulders now that it was offered to you.

“Shut it.”

“Just sayin’, just sayin’.” He laughed. You shook your head, casually sipping your cranberry limeade. “And all you had to do was look mildly cold. He left me talking to myself to put that over you.”

You smiled. There was no denying how that made you feel; especially to Sam Wilson who was now giving you an eyebrow wiggle.

Your smile dropped a little.

“Sam…I can’t.” You sighed. “Not now. Things are finally good as they are, and—”

“Are they?”

Sam was looking at you, in that Sam way that looked right into your soul.  You felt small, like you were maybe, ten, and not a-hundred-and-six years old.

“Yes. I just got him back. I already made the wrong call once, and I won’t do it again. Heartache be damned. I lived 70 years of it, hopeless and this… this is more than what I could ask for. Things are good.” You let out a breathless sigh. “Golly, say something before I start rattling on again.”

“Wow, that makes you sound so...” Sam started laughing when you kicked his shin, and amidst your own laughter you confirmed that yes, you were in fact old. “I was gonna say vintage!”

“And speaking of vintage,” He continued, and that’s when you finally realized the song that was playing.

Time after time

I tell myself that I'm so lucky to be loving you

People around you were saying oohs and aahs, couples new and old gathering to dance below the string lights while you glared at Sam. “You planned this?”

“Hey, don’t look at me. Look behind you.”

A hand was extended in your direction when you turned.

So lucky to be

Bucky was grinning down at you while you stared at him, dumbfounded. “C’mon, sugar. Don’t leave me hangin’, yeah?”

You took his hand quickly, shrugged his jacket off your shoulders and then you two stepped into to the spontaneous dance floor that had formed.

The one you run to see

“I haven’t done this in a long time.” He said and you looked at him, so beautiful under the dim lights. “Sorry if I step on your feet.”

All you could do was gaze at him, still a bit in awe as he swayed you to Margaret Whiting’s voice. He raised an eyebrow at you. “What?”

“Nothin’. You’re going back to your old ways, then?” You grinned, averting his eyes. “Know who you’re dancing with next?”

He tightened his grip on your waist and you pretended it didn’t make your chest tight.

“No one. I just figured we should… for old times,”

“Right.” You bit your lip. He was staring, and that feeling of being a teenager in love hit again.

“And it’s a good change from all that R&B.”

You laughed.

You've kept my love so young, so new

He made the pair of you spin around, and your eyes met Sarah’s from across the room. She was standing next to the speaker, giving you a thumbs up.

The little shit.

You turn your head, your cheeks reddening as you attempt to hide away in Bucky’s shoulder.

The Wilsons and their meddling. A family of wingmen.

Your new position didn’t help things, because the smell of Bucky’s cologne and the way he pulled you flush against him had your heart beating wildly inside your ribcage.

His was too. You could feel it, almost hear it this close.

You told yourself it was from the audience you only now were noticing. The other pairs were gone, leaving just the two of you dancing. You looked up at him, finally.

“Buck.”

He hummed, meeting your gaze. His eyes had a sparkle to them. Something different in the blue. Something secret.

And time after time

You'll hear me say that I'm

Your lips parted, words at the tip of your tongue.

So lucky to be loving you

“You guys want another song?” Sam’s voice cut through the crowd, and pulled you from whatever daze you had been caught in.

Bucky grumbled and you stepped back, the wind chilly on your back now that you were out of his embrace.

You felt cemented to the floor, caught and exposed. The arms you had been safely tucked in gone from around you. Only turned when Bucky stomped past you, nearly knocking shoulders with Sam in the process.

Some wingman he was.

People returned to the dance floor as soon as a dancey 80’s ballad blasted through the speaker. Your dance partner from a minute ago nowhere to be seen. “I’m here to rescue you,” Sarah took your hand, leading you away from the eye of the hurricane.

They managed to squeeze three songs in before the rain started. Bucky’s sudden sour mood seemed to have summoned the clouds, now pouring themselves noisily over the tent you had sheltered under.

“I guess I ruined the mood, huh?”

“Goodness grief, Sam.” You chided, wrapping your arms around yourself. The chill now biting harder with the rain. “There was no mood. Everyone was watching. He’s—”

Embarrassed. “Self-conscious. You know.”

Sam nodded, and you went back to scanning your surroundings for any signs of Bucky.

“There was a little mood though.”

“Shut up.”

“Sorry, sorry!”

You were ready to berate him some more when you were enveloped in something warm, your eyes seeing leather and metal before you could turn and see Bucky, right at your back.

Soaked. To the bone, water dripping from him as he helped tighten the jacket around your shoulders. “James—!”

“’M sorry about earlier. I—” He then looked behind you, seemingly noticing the other people also huddled under the tent.

Sam was looking everywhere but at the two of you. He murmured something like Not here. Not even here.

“You wanna go?” You offered quietly, and Bucky’s eyes softened in gratitude.

“You guys can’t fly in this weather!” Sam poked his head at your side, and as if to hammer his point down thunder rumbled above all of you.

Suddenly even you felt too crammed and claustrophobic in the middle of everyone else. You were sure Bucky did too, his fingers tightening on your shoulders as the rain picked up.

“It’s fine. I’m used to—”

“He’s right. We can go back tomorrow.” Bucky rolled his eyes when Sam looked at him in shock, and you chuckled.

“Wait wait wait. Can you repeat that? On record—”

“No.”

“Sam…”

“Fine.” He tutted, and you sighed. ”You guys want to stay at the house?”

“No.” Bucky repeated, and you surprised yourself with the relief that hit you. “We’ll get a hotel or somethin’.”

“Carlos can drive y’all to the Monte Carlo? He’s going too.”

You couldn’t be more thankful for Sarah right now.

You used Bucky’s jacket to cover your head as the two of you ran from Carlos’ truck to the Monte Carlo Motel. A quick wave at him and you were inside, making your clumsy ways to the reception.

The girl behind the desk looked warily at Bucky and his soaked self, although it could also be because of the exposed metal arm.

“Hi, uh—one double room?”

You and Bucky blurted out a panicked no at the same time, locking eyes as the receptionist scrambled for another key. Then you also handed her a credit card at the same time.

“I got it.”

“Buck, it’s fine, I can—”

He scowled. “No. Said I got it.” He placed his metal hand on top of yours with your card and slid his own across the desk. You stared at him, schooling your facial expression to not show the surprise on your face. Nothing you could do about the color on your cheeks, though.

He sensed your eyes on him and looked at you, making you bite your lip. It’s like you’d forgotten how dominating he could be, and how it made you feel some type of way.

You blinked it away.  “You gonna ask for a vet discount? Senior?”

Bucky clicked his tongue, shaking his head. “Are you?”

“No one would believe me.”

“But would believe me?”

“You have that old man grouchiness to ya.” You said, shrugging. He shot you one of his glares.

“Iraq?” The receptionist pulled you two away from the bickering, giving Bucky’s card back and two room keys.

“Normandy,” Answered simultaneously, earning a chuckle out of you. She shot you a disbelieving smile.

“Told you she wouldn’t believe me.” You quipped as you went up the stairs.

“Oh, come on.”

You laughed, elbowing him playfully once you reached him at the top of the stairs. “She would’ve if she knew your music taste.”

“My music taste?” You squinted.

“I wasn’t listening to Vera Lynn on a random Thursday night.”

“That’s ‘cus you can’t operate a Bluetooth speaker.”

He rolled his eyes, huffing in annoyance. It came easy to you, the provocations, a much palatable feeling than the awkwardness from before. Bucky then turned to assess which way your rooms were in, leaving you to follow him as he trudged through the corridor.

He stopped in front of the 304, handing you one of the keys. “Mine is at the other side of the building I’m guessing.” The numbers 323 shown on his own keychain proved that to you.

It was both comforting and disappointing that you wouldn’t be sharing a wall.

“Alright,” You said, opening the door.

“Y/N, I—Sorry about earlier. About leaving like that.” He let out a heavy breath when you turned to look at him, hand on the doorknob.

“It’s okay. I’ve never been the greatest dancer.” You shot him a crooked grin, and he shook his head, expression still solemn.

“It wasn’t you— I panicked. The starin’…” He cast his eyes down, at his feet, and you gave his bicep a squeeze.

“I know. Nerve wracking,” You said softly, still a bit restless from earlier. “I loved dancing with you though.”

Bucky raised his gaze, meeting your own. Lips parted. Eyes darting down to lips. Nodded once. “Me too, sugar.”

You smiled. The words almost falling from the tip of your tongue again.

“I—”

“I should— get to my room,”

“Yeah. Okay.”

“G’night, then.”

You hummed. “Night, Buck.”

You had to fight the urge to slide down the door once you closed it, after watching his frame disappear around the corner.

The confession had almost come out of you, almost ruining everything. It was enough how you felt, how your pulse raced. How your fingers burned, wanting to touch. Those words were the one thing you managed to keep together.

90 years and counting.

You hoped, prayed – at whichever entity that lived above the ceiling – for sleep to take you before you could lose control of everything.

It was supposed to be a secret mission, with slim possibility of return. You and two other WASP pilots were to fly over Belgium and drop supplies to the men resisting at the Ardennes, knowing there was no chance the Luftwaffe wouldn’t bomb you as you crossed over their skies. The hundreds of men running out of food and medical supplies, struggling to resist Germany’s attacks, left you no option.

The three of you knew this would to be the outcome. You were ready to die trying.

“Goddamnit, Webster!” You shouted to yourself, Maggie’s intercoms no longer functioning as her cockpit was blown to smithereens from a German plane’s bomb.

There was only you and them in the air now, Dana Miller lost on the fly in. You could only hope her aircraft was the only casualty.

Thunder boomed right beside you. Except it was an array of shots that had destroyed your right turbine, causing your plane to lean comically to one side. Comically, yes, because laughs bubbled desperately out of your chest at the sight.

A few more miles and you’d be out of German occupied territory.

You only had to keep it together a little longer.

When gaining altitude became a lost battle to simply trying to keep your plane in the air, the Germans were nowhere to be seen. The RAF zooming by seconds later made you breathe a sign of relief.

You knew from the start returning home was unlikely. It mattered very little. One of your dog tags had lost its pair to the Alps. Steve had told you through radio before the rumors could reach you.

Bucky wasn’t coming home. What on Earth would be left for you if you did?

You grasped the chain around your neck as your plane plummeted towards the Belgian grass fields. The world at its end.

One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three—

You woke with a start, gasping for air as if you’ve been held underwater for too long. The covers had been kicked off you during the night, but even without them you still felt hot and choked up.

It’s been a long time since those kinds of dreams disturbed your sleep, you managing to keep them at bay enough that it was rare when they came now. Never unfamiliar though.

With a long sigh, you tried to pull it together. Washed your face in the sink. Drank some water and eyed the mini liquor bottles in the fridge. None worked. The sense of urgency overpowered you.

The feeling that everything was collapsing; that your plane was crashing over Belgium, half of it on fire, your sisters in arms gone, your two best friends gone.

You left your room with Bucky’s jacket held tightly against your chest, barely feeling the chill of the humid night air as you made your way down to the reception or wherever you could find something to distract you.

You found him on the landing after the first flight of stairs, leaning against the railing.

“Hey,” You called out softly, and Bucky turns to you in surprise. It goes away as soon as it comes, the moment he understands.

“Can’t sleep?”

You shake your head. “Bad dream.” You explained, and he nodded. Extended a paper cup in your direction, not saying anything. You took it gratefully, pausing before the first sip. “Did you—?”

Bucky gave you a tired smirk. “Two sugars, sugar. Still shit though.”

The pet name made you bite your lip. “Can’t be worse than Army coffee,” You shrugged. He was right though. It was shit. Tasted terribly, even worse than Bucky’s brew in the morning.

He chuckled bitterly at the face you made; his tone still light despite it. “And you still complain about mine.”

“Both taught me to appreciate the good coffees in life.”

Bucky clicked his tongue, and you both laughed. You shift, alternating the balance from one foot to the other. Wonder if you should say it.

Best friends don’t keep those things from each other. Best friends talk about their nightmares.

“It was a memory.”

Bucky blinked. Turned to watch your profile. “A memory?”

You hummed. It’s strange, talking about it— it’s not something you’re used to sharing anymore, not even with Steve. Some intimacies were so reserved to Bucky that you forgot you could do them with someone else.

“From when my plane crashed in Belgium. When I became ‘MIA’. Well, at least that’s the story S.H.I.E.L.D. made up while I was recovering from the serum.” Bucky’s eyes were soft when you looked at him finally. “Haven’t had one of those in a long time.”   

Best friends don’t look at each other like that.

“They’re worse than nightmares.” Bucky stepped closer. “To me, at least. It feels… real. Like we’re back there, reliving it again.”

You nodded. Shifted closer, so close you and him were shoulder to shoulder. “It felt like the world was ending.” Shaky breath escaped bitten lips. “Still does.”

“It’s not.” He shook his head as if he’d said the wrong thing. “If it was, we’d know. Two suns in the horizon. See?”

Bucky flexed his fingers, brushing with yours gently. Your eyes followed the horizon he was pointing at with his metal arm, where a single sun began to peek through in orange and purple.

“It did end though, didn’t it? When my plane crashed. When you fell off the train. It ended with the Blip and it ended with Steve,”

He shook his head. “We wouldn’t be here if it had. We’re still here.”

“Not as we were.”

“No. Not as we were.” He sighed, leaning against the railing. His fingers at a distance. Suddenly you felt the need for the jacket. “D’ja think we missed our window, Y/N?”

His question took you by surprise. You blinked, tightening his jacket around you. “I’ve always wanted you with me at the end.”

Bucky frowned, looking at you like you’d grown an extra head. “Not Steve, not anyone else. You. But you weren’t there.”

“What—I wanted you too, but—”

“But I wasn’t there. We missed each other’s ends of the world.”

He shook his head, his eyes scanning your face. Confusion and incredulity stamped so very clearly in his features. You shifted and continued.

“So maybe that’s why it didn’t end. That’s why we’re still here. Maybe… maybe this is our window.”

Realization dawned on him while you bit your tongue. Confession at the tip of it.

A smile softened the lines on his forehead and brightened his eyes. “What if they nuke us right now?”

“Then I’m glad I left my room tonight.”

Bucky offered his hand, splayed open next to you. Your fingers interlaced with his and warmth spread through your body.

“No regrets, sugar?”

“None.” Just the one. You hid your face on his shoulder, hoping he wouldn’t notice the heat on your cheeks or the way your heartbeat picked up.

But that had been a long time ago. Maybe that window was truly lost. But you had this. And if the fiery hues in the sky were from an Armageddon and not the sun, there’s nowhere else you wanted to be.

Bucky kissed the top of your head. Wordlessly telling me too.

You raised your eyes at him, almost saying it. Almost loving him out loud.

“Sugar, I—”

Breath caught, hope spiking. “Yeah?”

A long exhale. “…we should try and sleep. Brooklyn’s a long way from here.”

Disappointment squeezed your heart. Foolish. What else could you be expecting?

“Alright.” You reluctantly got up, handing his jacket back. Not even that could protect you from the icyness at the pit of your stomach.

“No, keep it.” He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. Red creeping up his neck from under the henley. “You can give it back tomorrow…”

You nodded. Your shoes looked very interesting as you wrapped the jacket around your shoulders again. “Okay. Good night, Buck.”

“Night, sugar.”

You walked away with weighted feet, as if fighting some kind of gravity that pulled you back to that spot next to him on the stairs. Not turning to see if there was an atomic sun lighting up the slow sunrise. Dissolving the world, only for it to reform again and throw you two back where you had always been.

The war. The train. The Blip. Steve.

This night.

Frustration made you hands shake as they hovered over the doorknob. How long could you stand to orbit him, and never make it to the destination? Nothing is made to fly forever.

One regret.

You have always been bold and brazen, except for this. Facing every challenge, fighting every fight, except battling this one fear.

Not this night.

Pretending the light in the horizon signaled the end and your time was running out, you ran back to where you had left Bucky. Relived that afternoon in England when you’d be separated in the morning and you should’ve run back to him. Summoning every ounce of courage the serum had left in your body.

Your resolve was set when Bucky himself rounded the corner. Blue eyes wild and dark brows knitted together in unruly urgency.

“Bucky! I—”

You managed a couple extra steps in his direction when he closed the distance between you, grabbing your face with flesh and metal.

A huff of surprise as you braced for collision.

It came in the form of a kiss, lips crashing into each other, the taste of yearning and coffee on your tongue.

You’d already taken the damn fall.

[cal-a-bungaa]

The Realm

The Realm Part 7 - Prince!Jake Kiszka

Synopsis: In the heat of danger, love will always conquer

Word count: 4.5k

Warnings: Mentions of death and war, sexual acts and language, descriptions of child birth, swearing and violence. Fluff.

Enjoy (please don't throw things at me) and thank you to the amazing @capturethechaos for reading it over and to @writingcold for your wonderful commentary and help planning this series!!

__________

Jake POV

Jake had stepped foot in this room only once before, the night he agreed to become a married man. It was different from Josh’s- his war room. The walls here were decorated in different weapons that had been favored by the late king, no intricately stitched curtains hanging from the windows. It was bleak, cold and the sense of dread flooded his senses for what’s to come. He could tell how uncomfortable she was being in here; the way she stiffened after seeing the collected layer of dust across the table, dragging the tips of her fingers through it. Whether she liked it or not, she’d best get used to it- they’ll both be in here quite a lot until the enemy is defeated. 

The sunsets rose hues beamed through the arched windows, dusting over her soft skin. Even as Jake stares at her in awe, he cannot help but think of the knife that dangles above her head in the shape of a crown. He even thinks of his brother- how Josh loved the color pink, always opting to sniff the coral tinted roses in his private garden. He’d always sneak them into Jake’s chambers though he was adamant of his distaste towards the sweet scented flowers. Now Jake looks back and wishes that he could rewind and have those damn flowers on his nightstand to fall asleep next to. Or even some to give to the woman before him. The rose bushes his brother hid from the groundskeeper have probably all wilted away by now, no longer having the proper care that they need. 

She was silent by the window, taking in the rolling hills and tall mountains in the distance. The sky's color enhanced the lighter streaks in her hair and the color of her lips. He needed to keep her safe like he wished to with Josh, but now he is sure he will even if it costs him his own life. He would rather a sword pierce his heart than have it shatter all over again. Jake would rather cough up his own blood than to have his hands covered in others that he loves. He leans his hip into the hardwood, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“You’re scared.” Jake says, taking in her figure. Her stiff shoulders, and the way her teeth chew into her bottom lip are dead giveaways of her fear. 

He sees the way she immediately tries to fix her posture. “I am not.” Jake rolls his eyes. 

Jake doesn’t say anything else, opting to approach her from behind. He sees her reflection in the glass, eyes so unsure of what’s to come and what will happen to either of them. It’s clear to him that she doesn’t want him to die, but she’s not ready to die herself. His fingertips run down the expanse of her arm, sending shivers down her spine at the contact. 

“I am a feather disguised as steel…” Jake furrows his brows, confused on why she switched so suddenly. The queen before him has curled back in on herself to be the quiet princess she once was. 

Jake takes hold of her wrist, spinning her towards him. She refuses to meet his eyes, succumbing to the thought that she is weak. He reaches out to slowly lift her chin. “You are steel, not even I can break through,” She shakes her head in disagreement, “Don’t do that. Do not doubt yourself. You are strong if you will yourself to be.”

She shakes his grip off, fuming at his words. “I am sick to death of hearing how strong I am.” The queen before him was fuming and he did not know how to calm her. He believed her to be strong regardless of what he had said in their heated moments. She was nothing close to being a feather. 

If she wished to be a feather then so be it- Jake would take it upon himself to be the steel, but she can be her own if she only believed it so. He couldn’t do anything besides nod and remain silent, not wanting to push the topic. She turns back towards the window, promptly ignoring his remaining presence. The rose sky had darked to a purple, letting the stars shine through and the only light to illuminate the room being the flickering flames of melting candles. He wanted to assure her that she had that strength and bravery hidden within herself, she showed that side to him hours ago. Circling him with his own sword was strength in itself, it was a wonder to him how she could believe such a thing. Jake had placed both palms on the smooth wooden surface of the war table, letting his eyes fall over the map laid out. In the east corner of the map, a strange marking presented itself. Looking closer at it, the name of the landmark had been scratched out with ink. Possibly a fallen kingdom, abandoned fort or village, Jake is not sure. The map that Josh had laid out for the attack on Weria showed no such thing. 

A knock rang through the ever so silent room, her council seconds later piling into the dreary room. It felt as if he was reliving the past. Except for the fact that his brother was not beside him and won’t be again. She’d stepped forward, taking her spot next to Jake. All eyes rested upon her with questions, doubt, and impatience. It angered the king by just their stares, if anyone dared speak a belittling word towards her, they’d be dead on the cold floor instantly. 

She took another step forward, placing her palms on the table as well. “As you all have heard, there is a threat out there that wishes death upon the king and I,” She speaks unwavering. Her pinky stretches out, ever so lightly brushing against his own. “We must put an end to this newfound enemy before more damage to the realm can be done.” 

Jake takes it upon himself to shift his hand closer to hers, pinkies now linked together for everyone to see. He coughs before speaking up, “I will be on the frontlines as that is what I know, I will fight to keep us safe.” he glances over to his queen, seeing a twitch in the corner of her mouth. 

“Your majesties, if I may,” the councilman pauses, “how are we to know where this enemy lies? If we do not know, we cannot plan.”

Jake can tell a condescending tone as if he could see it, he’d grown up around it being a spare but for them to talk to her as such was not something he’d tolerate. “Send units out to scour the woods, search every abandoned building. We could even send parties to this area.” Jake points to the scribbled out lettering. 

All eyes slightly widen at his suggestion. Panic and tension in the room quickly rises when she peels her hand from his. Jake quirks an eyebrow at her, confused on everything that is currently happening. 

“Sir Jake, with all respect, we do not enter that area. It is a place of death and ruin.”

Her touch reappears on the small of his back. He can finally feel her touch through the thin linen drawstring shirt he changed to. Jake wants to return subtle touches, but is too far invested in why that particular area makes everyone spiral into a panic. 

“And with all respect, that is our best option. There must be a reason as to why and how the enemy travels so silently to Weria.” Jake snaps back with a condescending tone of his own. If the councilman could without having his head removed or being thrown in the dungeons, he'd probably laugh at a spare and a queen directing them through a war. 

For a moment Jake thinks he has defeated the council in their fight to reject that idea. “You do not know the land like we do, do not speak as if you do.”

Jake feels her nails sink into the skin of his back, a sign of her irritation. He has to swallow a groan at the pain, but also the shooting ropes of pleasure that travel to his cock. 

“Councilman, you will not speak to your king as such. Mind your mouth.” your king. That has Jake acting out of reflex, reaching around her to place his hand on the small of back, dipping his hand a little too low in a room full of people. 

Looking over at her, he finds her already searching for his eyes. There’s a daring look swirling within them, hypnotizing Jake into pushing it further. At her silent command, his hand slides down the curve of her ass, gripping it tightly- surely enough to leave little bruises. She was his queen even if in this lifetime they were not to be wed. He wanted to feel more of her- more of her touch, for her to feel more of his and to hear the angelic sounds she’d let out beneath him. 

The councilmen all continued on about how that area was off limits and no one should dare enter unless they had a death wish. Jake could see the annoyance on her face, matching his own. “We will send men there and that is final. You best trust your king's word, next time will not be excused.” She threatens. 

With a wave of her hand, they bow their heads and leave. Not a single one of them agreed, but didn’t argue after their queen spoke against them. Jake squeezes the flesh of her ass once more before removing his hand from her all together. He takes steps away from her, examining her as she stands agitated before him because of this war and because he neglects her of what she wants. 

She stares him down, no longer wanting to be the first to make such a daring move. She wanted him to show her how he needed her to want him. But Jake wasn’t going to give it to her so easily.

“Let me show you to your chambers, my queen.” he shoots her a sly grin, lending out his hand for her to take. 

The queen squints her eyes, huffing out a breath. “I think I’ll stay here awhile, thank you.” Jake’s grin grows hearing how disheartened she is at what she takes is his rejection of her.

“Would you rather me ravish you here?” He cocks his head at her. 

A blush spread across her cheeks. Even after clearing her throat, her voice still cracks, “Perhaps I would.”

Jake steps towards her, not yet wanting to be too close to her as he’d give in to his desires. He wanted to make it last- wanted to look at her- to see all of those gorgeous expressions she’ll make when he does touch her. 

“Then tell me what you’d like for me to do.”

She wets her lips, “Love me.”

Jake couldn’t stop himself if he wanted to. In quick strides he wrapped himself around her, letting his heart lead him to the one thing it now called home. His hands encased her cheeks, pushing his lips to hers. Her hands tangle themselves in the fabric of his loose shirt that hides little to the imagination. Jake’s tongue swipes against her bottom lip, wanting to taste more of her. She quickly responds, taking a taste for herself too. Both of them devour each other, taking in everything the other has to give- an outpour of their love. 

“Jake… please.” she whispers against his lips, slick with her saliva. 

He parts from her, seeing the desperation and need in her eyes. He travels on hand from her face to rest on her waist. “You are a queen, do not beg, my love.”

She takes that in, letting it sink in her mind that she has the power over him body and soul. She fully parts from him, lifting herself onto the surface of the table. Jake watches her in awe, seeing how disheveled she is by just sharing a kiss. She no longer simply wants him, she needs him.  His queen teases him, spreading her legs and ever so slowly lifting the hem of her dress to reveal her perfect legs. A few bruises paint her skin, he is sure from the night she spoke about when the cut on her neck was made. 

Jake wishes she would hurry and reveal herself to him, but he appreciates getting to view every little part there is to her. Once she pulls the dress to her thighs, the king sinks to his knees- a forbidden act upon royals. No man or woman that dons a crown may sink to their knees before anyone- not even another royal. Jake would break that absurd law as many times as she would let him. 

His palms smooth over the expanse of her legs, from her calves to her plush thighs. Their final destination are her knees, slightly pushing them apart for him to fit between them. Jake stares into her lustful eyes, giving the inside of her knee a kiss, letting his tongue peak out to wet her skin. He can see the rise and fall of her chest- the way she is trying to not fall apart at the simplest of things. 

Jake rests his head on her thigh, letting himself appreciate the woman that towered over him. “If only you could see what I see- you are so beautiful.”

“I’m quite happy with my view.” She flashes him that smile that he hasn’t seen in far too long. A genuine smile, one that radiates light like his brothers. 

The king lets himself smile back at her, rising back to his feet. Jake feels his desires running wild, needing to calm them down by backing away from what’s tempting him most. Meeting at eye level again, he leans his forehead into hers. His breathing is uneven as is hers. Jake’s eyes close and lifts his head to press a feathery light kiss to the crown of her head. 

“I will not take what is yours from you just yet.”

With that, Jake separates himself from her completely. He watches the way she becomes aware of what he’s said and the shyness he knew hadn’t left her return. She awkwardly shuffles around, fixing herself to look presentable. Dare he say it was quite adorable watching her frantically fix her dress and hair to make it look like treasonous acts hadn’t just taken place in here. New wrinkles had formed in the fabric of her gown and strands of her hair poked out in odd directions. 

“In time, love. I simply wish to give you all of my love before my cock.” The queen's eyes widened in horror at his vulgarity. Her face turned beet red in embarrassment. Jake chuckled.

“Jacob! You mustn't speak like that!” She whisper-yells at him as if anyone was truly listening in on their conversation. 

He releases a belly laugh at her reaction, she truly was so pure. It was as if she wasn’t just hiking up her skirts to reveal herself to him, begging for him to ravish her right on that table. There was still so much to learn about her and he was excited to take this ride with her. 

Jake coughs, letting himself calm down from his fit of laughter. “Let me take you to your chambers.”

She doesn’t respond, still embarrassed. The beautiful girl turns her back and makes her way to the doors that lead to the darkened hallway lined with guards.

_____

You wanted him to take what was yours. The real battle was coming soon and if Jake was to be on the front lines, who knew if he’d make it back to you. You’re scared that you will live the rest of your life without knowing him. You’re more than aware that there is much to make up for before that point, but the way you were testing each other in the war room had you worked up in a way you’d never felt before meeting Jake.

His footsteps echoed your own, but you were far too sheepish to look back at him. You wanted his hand in yours, but without having to ask him brought on a new problem. Jake was watching you, you could feel his eyes burning holes through your dress as you walked. His stare reignited that fire within your core without having to turn back. Just his presence alone was a safety net, one you could fall into and be swallowed whole. You were sure Jake could see the way you clench your fists, bunching up the ruined fabric of your dress. His sole being is enough to have your knees shaking and heart drumming against your chest- he doesn’t have to say a word or lay a single finger upon your skin. 

Guards follow five steps behind Jake, ensuring your safety and his. The amount of guards with you at all times has now been upped by the demand of the king himself, putting his men to work at protecting you. It is not long before the door of your chambers comes into your line of sight. What lurked behind the doors still had you petrified- unable to step one foot in without wanting to search every crevice of the room. Rats lay low, they stay hidden away from the naked eye. You did not want them to reappear and this time have a fatal victory. 

You hesitate to grab the handle to open the doors, not wanting to see what waits for you inside. Slowly you turn your head back to look at Jake who seems more or less unbothered, unaware of your uneasiness. But his actions tell you otherwise, his simple nod for you to open the doors is reassuring. You knew with him around, nothing would harm you. 

The dark room was coated with a sweet scent of roses, the one you found so comforting once upon a time. The moon's light shines ever so brightly through the windows. Your box of memories remains open on the floor, its contents scattered around it. If Jake were to see you’ve kept such ridiculous items, he’d laugh and taunt you for ages. But in the moment you could care less, you needed him with you more than ever. 

You shook your head back at him, speaking to him in silence that you could not enter. “Please stay for the night.” you whisper. 

The corners of his lips turn upwards. “And what would the councilmen think of you inviting me into your chambers?” Jake jests. You knew it was him poking fun, trying to lighten your heavy heart but you simply needed him to watch over you in the night. 

“Jake, I’m not strong- I’m afraid.”

His warmth washes over you, allowing some of your unease to dissipate. “I will not let you be harmed,” His tone has softened greatly. Jake’s hand finds its place on the small of your back, gently ushering you into the room. “I will stay.”

You knew of the rumors that would spread from this, but that is beyond you. As long as you could safely sleep beside the one you wanted most, you’d deal with anything thrown at the two of you. Jake guides you into the darkened room, making haste to shut the door behind him and lighting the candles on your bedside table. 

There’s be many times in the past that you have shared a bed with Jake, but tonight felt different. The two of you have been through so much that it almost felt wrong at this time to even consider reliving these moments. You watched him pace around the room, finding the different sources of light so the dark could not cause any more damage to your mind. It felt so domestic to have him this way. It felt too real- too soon and too calm. 

As Jake goes to light the last candle on its stand, he looks back over his shoulder at you. “You’ll be uncomfortable sleeping in that.” He looks you up and down. 

For the umpteenth time that night a blush rises to your cheeks. He was right of course, but to change before him when he has never seen your body was another challenge that you thought you were ready to face. Bravery was not something you held within you, it was a mere act for people to not look down upon your ruling. Jake didn’t bother turning back to the melted candle, keeping his focus on you. 

“Look away then.” and he does as you wish. 

You reach behind you to untie the corset that secured the dress to your body. Unable to reach the ribbon that lies between your shoulder blades. You huff in annoyance, succumbing to the fact that you will need help to be released from the imprisonment you forced yourself into. 

“Help, please…” you say in a hushed tone. 

It’s as if he were waiting for you to ask for his assistance, whipping around to grab the ribbon and pull it from its knot slowly. His fingertips brush against the skin of your back with each loosening of each crossover. What felt like forever was just a few seconds, he quickly but smoothly made work of the corset. When it was fully undone, the sleeves of your dress dropped, revealing your bare shoulders to him and the crisp night air. 

Before leaving you to strip bare and change, Jake plants a wet kiss on each of your shoulders. Your heart felt like it was going to burst through your chest at his affections. Though he was in your room with you was familiar, there was a shift in the air- something more heartfelt and heavy. Once you feel his gaze leave you, you drop your dress to pool at your feet on the bear skin rug. You step out of the melted fabric and out of the painful heels you donned all day. Your nightgown rested on the back of your desk chair. You slipped it over quickly, afraid of what would happen if Jake were to see you in such a scandalous state- not that he hadn’t earlier, but now would be the time something more was going to happen if it were. 

The small mirror on your desk showed your reflection in it, the way you wore such a remarkable staple on your head while being in a place that you could not hold onto it too tightly without cutting through your palms. You watch it be removed from your body to rest on the grainy old wood, not the best place for it to go but it wasn’t very precious to you. You see the way your styled locks roll down to their rightful place. Being like this made you feel normaal, like a kingdom didn’t lay its lives upon you. You’d wondered if Jake felt the same being in the same position or if it had truly sunk in for him yet. 

“Quit judging yourself, you’re beautiful,” Jake’s voice startles you, having forgotten he was even in the same room. “Come to bed.”

What you would give to hear those words for the remainder of your days was above you. He made it sound like heaven to lay beside him every night and fall asleep to the sound of his steady breathing. On a normal night you’d let the handmaids brush through your hair and scrub you down, but tonight you couldn’t be bothered to look perfect. You wanted him to see you and only you. The real you. 

The way he laid so contently in your bed gave you hope in how this could be your view for eternity. His arms were crossed behind his head, one leg propped up on the other. He looked gorgeous. It’s one of the few times you’ve seen him fully relaxed. His gaze follows you as you approach the opposite side of the bed. You go to lift the layers of blankets only to be beaten to it, Jake peels them back for you. Slithering into bed, he shifts to his side, hand holding his head up and the other reaching to smooth your wild hair. 

No other words are said that night, you can see his lips moving but cannot make out what he’s saying. Your eyes grow heavy and eventually everything around you fades to black. 

_____

You stand in the long hallway of your home, the one that leads to your mother and fathers chambers. Loud painful cries erupt from behind the closed doors. You can see the uneasiness in the guards standing watch and in the castle staff that are gathered outside the room. In the distance, you can recognise the voices from inside the room- you mother and your father, speaking to one another. One was panicked and the other calming and reassuring. Groans of pain come from one of them. 

In a state of panic you race towards the room, shoving those who block your path out of your way. You go to push the doors open only to find you fall right through them. On your hands and knees, you look up to see a terrifying scene. Your mother laid on the grand bed, face as a white as a ghost in a pool of blood with sweat shining on her forehead. Your father held one of her hands in both of his to his mouth, his eyes told you that he was scared. 

Doctors and nurses stood at the foot of the bed between your mothers legs, giving her signs of when she should start again. To your horror, your mothers screams come again but louder now that you have a  front row seat to this gruesome scene. Her body lifts from the pile of pillows that held her weight, squeezing the life from your fathers hand. 

Eventually it all went silent for a moment. A moment of fear washed over all of their faces. The doctor held something you could not see. Your mother had started to cry, tears rolling down her cheeks as she buried her face in your fathers chest. Even his eyes turned red, fearing the worst. But then a shrill cry filled the silent room. 

“It’s a boy your majesties!”

A commotion happens and you see that eventually your mother takes hold of the babe, cradling him in her arms. She looked at him with such adoration. She used to look at you that same way. 

“Well, hello there Prince Daniel.” The first born son of Weria and the first of his name.

__________

Taglist: @allieisacrybaby @writingcold @gardensgatedaisy @hayley1623 @gretasmokerising @josh-iamyour-mama @ageofsinners @capturethechaos @takenbythemadness @jakekiszkasbuttsweat @mysticaldonutglitter @lvnterninthenight

[esther-lu-writes]

Forms & Shadows, Ch. 6

Yes friends, there are some sweet sleepy tickles for someone completely new to the experience in this chapter. That's towards the end of 4.5k words. 🥰

I will also say there's a fair amount of angst in this one, with references to grief and loss. Just a heads up if you're sensitive to that. 💜

Chapter 6: Rest

The elders in the village realized immediately who it was, recalling old legends from ancient times. The strange fisherman had to be a very powerful spirit to invoke the Goddess form. The village healer removed the large round hat to reveal the face of a young woman with black, silky hair. A trail of dark freckles went across her eyes like a mask made from tiny stars. She was filthy, emaciated and out cold. 

It was well into the night when the fastest messenger ravens arrived at the Royal City. Long Fei was the first who was alerted to the news. He was quick to find his grandson enjoying the cool evening in the courtyard with his guests.

Wenshu was regaling his friends with one his favorite battle stories when he saw the elderly man cut his way down the marble path. “Grandfather! Have you come to hear the tale of how I defeated three captains at once?”

“Maybe he’s coming to our rescue. This story is endless!” Hai Jun grumbled.

“Am Lin adores hearing about my brave exploits, don’t you?” Wenshu winked rakishly at the healer.

Am Lin looked hopeful at the approaching grandfather, “Actually, I wouldn’t mind a break. Your stories are great, they just get a little long-winded.”

“Seriously! Ever thought of breaking things up more?” Hai Jun rose respectfully to greet Long Fei.

Wenshu frowned at the unwanted criticism but directed his attention to his grandfather, “Is something wrong?”

Long Fei held up the tiny scroll, “The Golden Sage has fallen in battle! They are wounded and need help.”

Guilt instantly gripped Wenshu, “I knew I should have gone with them! Where are they?!”

Long Fei shook his head, “It is not so simple. Who Ji thought was a demon is actually a great spirit, one who can invoke the Goddess form!”

Am Lin’s eyes grew big, “I thought that was just a myth!”

Hai Jun marveled, “I’ve only ever heard of that form in fairy tales.”

Long Fei nodded, “They are not fairy tales. They are legends, which seem to be true. This spirit took on a mortal form to come into our realm. She is also injured.”

Am Lin’s mind raced, “I’ll gather my supplies at once! How can we get to them quickly??”

Wenshu felt his chest tighten, his wound burning at the thought of transforming. “I can take dragon form and get you there in hours!”

Long Fei placed a hand on his grandson’s shoulder, “No! You are still healing. You must stay here at the palace.”

Wenshu felt his proud facade fade and frustration crept into his voice, “I should have been there with Ji! I'm supposed to protect my friends!”

Am Lin turned the prince’s face to meet hers. “No, you’re supposed to heal.”

The prince looked helpless, “But… how will you get to them?”

Long Fei stretched out his dragon wings. They were dark red and looked like worn leather in the moonlight. “You should remember, you are not the only one who is connected to their natural form.”

Hai Jun was impressed, “You can cast forms too?”

Long Fei nodded, “Who do you think taught Wenshu? Our side of the family has always had a strong connection to the spirits. I always believed that’s why the dragon form comes easy to us.”

Wenshu wanted to argue. He couldn’t bear the idea of Am Lin or his grandfather getting hurt, “No, this isn’t right. I should go with you!”

Am Lin shook her head, “That is not an option. I can already sense your wound starting to tense up. If you don’t heal, you will eventually succumb to your injury. How does that help anyone?”

Hai Jun agreed, “We can handle this. I promise no harm will come to them.”

Long Fei shook his head, “You need to stay behind too. I cannot summon a form large enough to carry both of you.”

Hai Jun’s jaw dropped, “What?!! I can’t stay behind! I’m honor-bound to guard Am Lin!”

Long Fei sighed, “We don’t have time for this. If we leave now, we might get there at dawn.”

“I’ll gather my supplies… meet me outside my window!” Am Lin ran off quickly towards the palace.

“Hey! We’re not done talking about this!” Hai Jun ran after her, leaving the two royals standing in the courtyard.

Wenshu tried to summon his courage. Every instinct in his body told him he needed to go with his friends. What was he worth to anyone if he couldn’t protect them? “Please, grandfather. I can summon a form large enough for all of us to go!”

Long Fei saw the pain etched on his grandson’s face. “No, Prince Wenshu. You are worth more to people than what you can give to them. Stay here and get better.”

Wenshu could barely stand to hear the loving words and felt his chest grow heavier. He reached into his tunic and pulled a medallion from his neck. “Then you will at least travel with the seal of the Emperor. This will show everyone I stand with you, even in my absence.”

Long Fei took the medallion and pulled the prince in for a tight hug. “You have my word, grandson. I will bring everyone back to the palace safely.”

The elderly man stood tall. He was nearly the same height as his handsome grandson. Despite his portly size, Long Fei was still strong and a famed warrior. Spreading his stout wings, he closed his eyes. The form of a moderately sized dragon surrounded him. It winked a reassuring eye at the price before flying up to a palace window to retrieve the healer. 

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ji awoke to the smell of fresh herbs. Bundles of white sage had been placed under their pillow. They reached up and felt a fresh bandage wrapped around their head. A dark figure was moving around at the foot of their bed. They wanted to get up to see who it was but was overcome with dizziness. 

“Who are you?” His voice sounded weak and dry.

“An old acquaintance,” answered a familiar voice.

The monk inhaled the scent of the healing herbs. It didn’t take long for them to realize who was present. “An old acquaintance? Not an old friend?”

Ji could see her smile faintly in the dim light, “I suppose we are still friends.”

The monk took in their surroundings. They were in a small hut, somewhere in the village. The morning sun was just beginning to shine through the trees. His head throbbed. “What happened to me?”

Am Lin came over to check his bandage, “I’m not sure. The villagers said you battled the spirit heroically, until she dealt you the final blow.”

Ji gripped Am Lin’s hands, “Not just a spirit! She took Goddess form… I was bitten by the Gaia Leopard herself!”

Am Lin carefully unwound her fingers from the monk’s grip. “I heard. Long Fei is meeting with her now. We still don’t know anything about her.”

Ji clutched their heart, “Something is different inside me. I feel… empty.”

Am Lin considered his energy. They were right. She was very familiar with the sage’s flow and their chi was off balance. “I think the spirit may have taken something from you. Something very important.”

The sage closed his eyes, trying to ignore the pain in his head. “She was mad at me. I could feel her distrust instantly. I called her a demon…! Am Lin, I used forms against a spirit. I committed sacrilege!”

Am Lin could feel their angst and tried to soothe them. “You didn’t know. You wanted to protect the village.”

“I’m supposed to be the Golden Sage! I’m a spiritual leader and I attacked a spirit!” Ji gripped their head. The pain was becoming unbearable.

Am Lin grabbed some of her oils from her medicine pouch and began rubbing their temples. “Please, calm down. Your energy has taken enough punishment. You need to relax. I will help you get through this.”

Ji gazed up at the lovely healer. The monk was a sizable person but she still sat taller. Her dark skin glowed softly in the morning light. They felt the weight of their past creep into their heart. “Am Lin, I am sorry for what happened between us.”

She wouldn’t meet their eyes. “Yes, I can sense that too.”

“It wasn’t you. I wasn’t ready for marriage. If I am to wed, I want it to be my decision. Not arranged through our clan leaders.”

“That’s understandable.” Am Lin refused to let her voice betray any of her pain.

Ji felt the pain melt away at her touch. “I’m so sorry I hurt you.”

Am Lin wanted to find comfort in his words, but the past weighed too heavy on her heart. “I forgive you, Ji. Get your rest. I will check on you later.”

The monk watched as the healer walked silently out of his room.

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Long Fei entered the inn and surveyed the damage. The walls were splattered with day-old food, chairs were strewn about, and all of the tables were smashed, except for one. That’s where she sat, looking unwell and dressed in filthy clothes much too big for her. The villagers tried to bathe her and tend to her wounds. She hissed at all of them, insisting she stay in the ruined dining room. She refused all food except for dumplings. 

The Grand Duke grabbed a chair from the mess and joined the spirit at her table. She refused to look his way. He considered what he should say to such a powerful spirit. “You don’t look very good.”

Xiàn huffed weakly at his words.

The elderly man looked at the terrible state of the dining room. “This inn has many rooms that are not torn apart. Why do you insist on sitting at this table?”

“Eventually, the waiter will come back to his job. And I will force him to help me hunt down the Destroyer.”

The duke nodded, “Who is this destroyer?”

Xiàn finally met the duke’s eyes. Despite her weakened state, her gaze was ferocious. “Argol, the Frog demon.”

Long Fei considered this. He had never heard of this demon. “How long have you been hunting him?”

“Ever since his curse was lifted, and I was no longer frozen in stone.”

“And how long were you cursed?”

“Eleven centuries.”

“And what has this demon destroyed?”

“The entire court of the Spirit King.”

Long Fei had heard of the Spirit King in tales told by the eldest members of his family, long ago. “Do you hunt this demon alone?”

Xiàn closed her eyes and seemed to sway from fatigue, “I am the only one left from our kingdom. The other spirits do not want to be involved.” 

The duke wanted to reach out and help her, but he knew better. It was disrespectful to touch a spirit without their consent. “What is your name?”

Xiàn snarled. She did not like conversing with mortals. “You will address me as the High General, leader of the Spirit King’s guard!”

“It is an honor to meet you, High General. My name is Long Fei. I am the Grand Duke of the Red Dragon kingdom.”

The spirit seemed to brighten slightly, “You are descended from the Dragon spirit?”

Long Fei nodded. He unfurled his dark red wings which were hidden behind his back. “Our family line can be traced back all the way to the Dragon spirit. They say our palace was built near the nest where he hatched.”

Xiàn allowed herself to feel the tiniest bit of relief. “The Dragon spirit was my sister’s father. Have you ever heard of her? Her name was Shouyun.”

The duke shook his head. “I’m sorry. I do not know that name.”

Xiàn sank back down into her chair. “It doesn’t matter. Argol killed her too.”

The duke could see that the spirit needed help. “High General, I would like to offer you the assistance of our talented healer. I think you will find she is also very much in tune with the energy of the spirits.”

Xiàn frowned, “I will not accept help from mortals.”

Long Fei reached into his shirt and handed the spirit the medallion. “This is the seal of the Dragon Emperor. He wanted me to give it to you, to show you that our kingdom pledges to help you with your quest.”

The spirit gingerly took the medallion. She was ready to fling it across the room when she saw something catch her eye. The design was an ancient symbol of the Dragon spirit, carved into lustrous red jade. The medallion reflected a sunbeam streaming in through a window. It almost looked like her sister running through the jungle, her stunning red coat blazing through the trees. Xiàn felt another wave of dizziness wash over her. “I… don’t know if I can trust you.”

Long Fei motioned for the healer to enter the room. “I promise you, our healer will do everything she can to help you. Isn’t that right?”

Am Lin nodded, “I’m honor-bound to assist you. You can trust us.”

Xiàn wanted to snarl at them. She wanted to mock the idea that mortals had a shred of honor, but her form was too weak. If she was to succeed in finding Argol, she would need to play by the rules of this realm. She needed help. “I accept your offer… Grandfather Dragon.”

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Am Lin ushered the exhausted spirit into a small room with a tub. It was clear that she hadn’t slept for days and had only eaten sparingly. The fisherman outfit she wore was atrocious. “You will need to get out of those filthy clothes.”

Xiàn glared at the healer, “This is a warrior’s garb!”

Am Lin realized she would have to go slow, “Alright, my mistake. But it’s not healthy for you to wear them right now. You will get an infection.”

Xiàn stuck her chin out stubbornly, “A spirit would never succumb to anything so minor.”

There was something familiar about the pride in the spirit’s voice. Am Lin couldn’t decide what it was. However, she certainly had experience dealing with overly proud personalities. “I will make sure it is cleaned properly so it is fit for you to wear again.”

The spirit teetered slightly, almost too tired to argue. “Very well… what are you doing now?”

Am Lin poured two large buckets of steaming water into the tub and began mixing in a variety of oils. “I’m drawing your bath. I’ll need to clean all of your cuts. It will also help you relax.”

The spirit removed her clothes and crept over to the tub suspiciously. “Why is the water steaming?”

“The heat will soothe your muscles. It’s therapeutic.”

“Why does it smell weird?”

“It’s the oils. They are for your benefit.”

Xiàn crossed her arms. “I only bathe in the waters of my own realm.”

Am Lin gritted her teeth in an attempt to hide her growing frustration. “You need to do as I ask so you can get better. You won’t be able to hunt down anyone if you die of fatigue.”

Xiàn looked down at her nude form in disdain. “This body is ridiculous. I don’t understand how you mortals can stand such forms.”

The healer had enough. She didn’t care if she was dealing with Goddess herself. Am Lin did not suffer fools when she went about her work. “Yes, well, you wouldn’t believe what we mortals put up with sometimes.” 

Am Lin was nearly twice the size of the exhausted spirit. It took no trouble to lift her off the ground and plunk her into the steaming water. Xiàn hissed and began to flail, “Treachery! I knew you couldn’t be trusted!”

The healer held her firmly in place, “Stop that! I promised you I would help you heal… and I will do exactly that, even if you decide to fight me here and now!”

Xiàn was surprised at the bold words and stopped resisting. The water did feel very good on her skin. “We will see if you keep your word.”

Am Lin rolled her eyes, “You are on track to becoming my most troublesome patient. And believe me, you have some competition! Now, will you give me your permission to read your energy?”

“Why?”

“It will help me understand how I can help you. All I need is your permission and your name.”

Xiàn was impressed. She didn’t realize mortals were able to read the energy flow of others. “Very well, you can proceed.”

“I need your name, please.”

“You can address me as the High General.”

Am Lin sighed, “That is your title. Even high generals have names.”

The spirit looked almost like she wanted to pout. “I do not want mortals to know my name.”

The healer realized there was pain in that answer. She could see the spirit was really quite vulnerable. Am Lin rolled up her sleeves and started spooning water down the spirit’s back, “It’s okay. You are safe now. My name is Am Lin. What’s yours?”

The water felt amazing on her tired skin. The spirit felt comfort for the first time in ages. “Xiàn.”

Am Lin smiled and focused her thoughts. She could see exhaustion and hunger permeating almost every inch of Xiàn's being. Her skin was covered in dozens of angry looking cuts. Instead of a fearsome spirit, she saw a young woman who seemed very much alone in the world. “Where did you get all these scratches?”

Xiàn grumbled, “This skin has no protection! It makes it very hard to run through the brush.”

Am Lin retrieved a small cloth and smeared it with balm from her medicine pouch. “It looks like you ran through a nasty patch of blackthorn bushes. I’ll need to apply medicine so you don’t break out in welts.”

Xiàn offered her arm to Am Lin, who began softly dabbing it on her skin, applying it in soft circles. The balm smelled pleasant and the warm water was very inviting. Xiàn felt herself starting to drift into a pleasant state of relaxation. 

It wasn’t until Am Lin reached her collarbone when Xiàn opened her eyes. This was a new sensation. There was a flutter in her stomach and the mild urge to squirm. The spirit saw that the healer noticed her reaction. “It feels different when you touch me there.”

Am Lin paused, “Does it hurt?”

“No… it’s just a different feeling.”

Am Lin continued with a lighter touch, gently swirling the cloth towards the base of Xiàn’s neck. The feeling was suddenly much stronger! It was a twitch, the fluttering in her stomach accelerated, the spirit felt the sudden need to cover neck but was too weak to move quickly. Out of nowhere, giggles burst from her lips. Xiàn was at a loss, she had never felt this before! “Ahhhahaha, what’s happening?”

The healer raised an eyebrow, “Don’t tell me you’ve never been tickled before?”

Xiàn swallowed, trying to silence the unwanted laughter. “I don’t know what that is! Is it a mortal trick?”

Am Lin tried to hide her smile. “No, it’s just part of our life. It would seem like your new body is ticklish. Most mortals are.”

“What does that mean?!”

“It just means if you’re touched a certain way, in certain spots, you’ll laugh. It’s a bit different for everyone.”

The spirit could still feel her stomach fluttering. “I’m not sure what to do.”

Am Lin patted her head reassuringly, “It’s okay. I can read your energy and will stop the moment you feel distress.”

Xiàn felt pride creep into her chest. “I am a High General! Your light touch will not cause me any form of distress.”

The healer decided it was best to humor her patient. “If you say so. You can also tell me if you start to feel overwhelmed.”

Xiàn sniffed haughtily, “There is no mortal who can overwhelm me.”

All Am Lin could do was chuckle knowingly, “Of course, my mistake. Allow me to resume, High General.”

The healer continued stroking in small circles, working her way up and around Xiàn’s neck. The spirit had no defense for such a sensitive spot and was instantly racked with giggles. She was so tired, there was barely any energy to resist. Xiàn weakly gripped the healer’s hand, feeling consumed by the gentlest touches on her neck. Soon, her melodic laughter was bouncing off the walls of the small room. 

Am Lin was proud of the small spirit. She could sense how hard it was for Xiàn to trust her well-being to a mortal. Although she was extremely prideful, the spirit was trying. The healer stroked the spirit’s hair and gently pushed her head to the side. “You are doing such a great job! I know, it isn’t easy to be so sensitive. You have cuts everywhere, even under your chin. Oh dear, you’re so ticklish there! Listen to your sweet voice. Don’t try to turn your head yet, I need to get the other side. You are just darling. It’s okay, just let it all out. Oh no, your neck is just too, too ticklish. Do you need a break?”

Xiàn was so tired, she could barely form words. She wanted to grit her teeth and demand that the healer continue her work in silence. That was not an option. Her eyes closed involuntarily as she laughed at every touch, swish and circle from the cloth on her neck. 

There was a slight reprieve as the healer worked her way down the spirit’s shoulders, until she arrived at the softer skin at the small of her back. Am Lin leaned Xiàn over into one of her arms so she could work the medicine into the cuts at the base of her spine. The spirit howled with laughter, weakly trying to push Am Lin away. The healer stopped to study Xiàn’s energy. It sparkled at the touch, energized by the new sensations. Still, she felt the need to check in. “Do you need a break?”

Xiàn couldn’t stop giggling, despite the pause. “I, hahahaa, can withstand, aaahhhaaa-anything!”

Am Lin could see that was true and worked small circles down the trembling back and around the quivering sides. “You are a very brave warrior indeed, General. Aww, listen to how you laugh when I stroke you here! Don’t try to push me away. I need to help these poor little sides. Look at how they quake! So very ticklish right there, yes you are. That’s it… keep still. You can laugh all you want. Let me know if you need a little break.”

The healer leaned the spirit back in her other arm, who was bordering on delirium from exhaustion. Xiàn could barely open her eyes as titters still escaped her lips. “I didnt’, eeheeehee, say for you to, ahaaaha, stop.”

Am Lin couldn’t help but admire the spirit’s resolve, even in the face of total defeat. “No, but you are completely worn out. I can finish this after you fall asleep.”

Xiàn shook her head weakly, “No… I can withstand anything.”

“I don’t think so. You have several scratches on your belly and ribs. You are going to fall to pieces the moment I start there.”

The belly! Xiàn felt her stomach flutter wildly at the thought. She glanced down at her scratched torso. The spirit was laying back in Am Lin’s arm now, with her upper body completely above the bath water. Her arms felt like weights and laid uselessly over the edge of the tub. Inwardly, she was tempted by the healer’s merciful suggestion but pride would not let her concede. “You must complete your job. I am not ready to rest.”

Am Lin could see the stubborn spirit needed rest more than anything. She realized she would have to give Xiàn a little push for her own good. “I cannot heal you further in this state. It seems to me like you just want to be tickled to prove a point.”

For the first time in her life, Xiàn felt intimidated by a mortal. She made sure her voice held strong, summoning her authority. “You will finish your work now.”

“I will finish once you have made the decision to trust me and get some rest. Until then, I’m happy to tickle you into oblivion.” Am Lin set down her cloth and flexed her fingers at the spirit.

Xiàn felt the immediate need to shield her body but her arms wouldn’t obey her. Her strength was gone completely. All she needed to do was let Am Lin take care of her. It sounded so simple, but it was too hard to accept. The spirit audibly gulped, “I… can withstand anything.”

Am Lin clucked her tongue, “As you wish. I’ve had a lot of practice tickling stubborn patients.” Ten expert fingers descended on the helpless belly. They danced merrily over and under the soft circle of flesh. The healer could tell by how the energy wavered, it wouldn't be long before a concession was made. She walked her hands up the narrow ribcage, marvelling at how petite her patient was. “Look at you, General. My hands are so big compared to your body. I can tickle your ribs and belly without barely moving at all! Oh yes, listen to you! This is much, much worse than a little piece of cloth isn’t it? Such soft skin. It’s like silk! Tickle, tickle… look at your belly shake. You love it there, don’t you? And under your arms? And each little rib? Yes, laugh as long as you want! I could do this all day long… can you?”

Xiàn could not. Her laughter had almost gone silent and her resolve was gone. “Okay, ahhhaaahaa, I’ll reeeeest!!” 

Am Lin smiled and scooped up her weary patient. “You are a mighty warrior indeed, High General. Let me help you into bed.”

The healer wrapped the spirit in a warm blanket and carried her into a cozy room at the end of the hall. Xiàn still fought the urge to sleep. “I… do not wish to rest here.”

Am Lin set her on the soft bed and closed the blinds, “Why not?”

Xiàn seemed to shrink into her blanket, “I do not like this realm. It makes me uneasy.”

The healer sat on the side of the bed and stroked Xiàn’s hair, “How did you sleep in your realm when you felt uneasy?”

A single tear slid down the High General’s cheek. “I slept with my sister.”

Am Lin could feel the heaviness from the spirit’s loss and fought back her own tears. She curled up beside Xiàn, pulling her small form into her arms. “I am here, sweet spirit. You can rest now. You are not alone.”

[benihana-circumcision]

I literally still cannot believe that a solid 4.5k words of sickly-craving-induced lesbian yaoi written in a fit of something resembling divine madness (i.e., i had no choice in the matter re: its creation , it simply had to get onto paper or i would promptly Pass a Way) did actually end up resulting in god dropping a butch otter in my lap from the heavens . idk man. #PMA

on the one hand ao3 is hitlerite on the other hand if i want to share my erotica i dont necessarily want it to be on the sideblog with my tits etc on it..... whats a girl to do!!!!!