#in the next line she casts a spell throwing him in the fire

[sp0o0kylights]

Knight Commander Stephan Harrington, Champion of Light, right hand to the newly crowned (and very young) Queen Elaine, was tied up on the floor. 

Unfortunately, so was Eddie.

Which wasn’t intentional--it certainly had not been the plan (not that kidnapping two royal knights had been the plan either)--but it was the outcome that had happened and so, Eddie had to deal. 

Now if only he could get the damn bespelled ropes from entangling him…

“You are incredibly bad at this.” The knight informed him in an amused tone. “Like, insanely bad. You should be ashamed levels of bad.” 

…which would be a lot easier if he wasn’t being heckled. 

“I am not!” Eddie defended, as he finally managed to free himself, throwing the offending, wiggling ropes across the room. Never again would he buy from the cheap spell stall in the market. 

“This is a clear and obvious ploy to get you to feel like I am in over my head and you--both of you!--are falling for it!” 

He leapt to his feet, spinning around and staring down at his captives with a look he hoped was threatening.

(It wasn’t.) 

“We've been kidnapped a handful of times, you know.” Knight First Class Robin Buckley spoke up from her position tied next to her commander. “People tend to put way more thought into it than this.” 

She’d adjusted her position sometime between her initial capture (a spell he'd purchased that Eddie had intended to hit the royal carriage and not the knights escorting it) to sit cross legged, hands bound behind her back.

“At least one thought, anyway. You gotta admit this feels pretty desperate.” Stephan piled on. He’d been more entertained than pissed ever since Eddie had taken himself down with his own tools, and the wisecracks were getting worse. 

“Thank you, Sir Stephan--”

“You can just call me Steve, man.” 

“—but some of us are on a tight deadline here. And for your information,” He brought himself to his full height, trying to loom over them menacingly, “nobody goes around kidnapping royalty unless they’re absolutely desperate.”

Not that he’d succeeded in the “royalty” department, but he’d gotten close enough. 

“Oh that reeks of a tragic backstory.” Robin said, like she was seated at a dinner party and not on the floor. “Did you get cursed?” 

“He looks like the type of guy to get cursed.” Steve agreed, head tilting like a faithful dogs as he examined his captor. 

Frustration overwhelmed him in a wave and Eddie went to angrily yank on his hair before catching himself in the act. As good as it would feel in the moment, it would not help him convince the idiots before him that this was serious, dammit! 

The result was that he flung his hands around wildly for a moment, before storming off across the room of the little abandoned cabin he’d found, face burning a brilliant, obvious red. 

“I didn’t get cursed, I got accused of--oh. Oh, no, I will not be caught monologuing, fuck you!”

He whirled on his heels, pointing a finger at their stupid faces. “Why I did it doesn’t even matter!” 

(Or rather, it did matter—a lot, actually—but not right now. Not to them.

Stupid fucking royal employees and their stupid fucking charmed lives.) 

He wasn’t shrieking, he wasn’t--except he was, and both knights traded a look behind his back as he paced wildly about. “I caught you, and I am going to use you to get what I want!” 

“Right, sure.” Steve said, nonplussed. “Say, did you maybe touch a weird looking, possibly magical item by chance? Or gave your name to a weirdly attractive looking lady who seems to love yapping about royal court band practices and who definitely wasn't one of the Fae?” 

He cast a sly look at his companion with that last line, and was rewarded when her mouth popped open in instant offense. 

“You swore you’d stop bringing that up!” Robin said, snapping a leg out in a kick, nailing her companion in the thigh with one thick boot. 

“I swore I’d stop bringing up the incident with Nancy.” Steve fired back, taking her kicks with ease. “And all those archery lessons you swore you needed, because you apparently hit your head in battle and forgot how a bow worked--”

“Shut up, Dingus!” Robin growled, in tandem with Eddie’s mounting panic. 

This was not, at all, going how this was supposed to. Not that anything had as it was supposed to, since shit went sideways, but the knights were at least could have the decency to be somewhat afraid of him! 

Or angry.

Eddie could work with angry!

This two bit comedy routine he was being subjected to instead of any rational reaction was just the icing on top of the weird cake of his life and he was this close to having a full blown mental breakdown about it. 

Which, of course, was exactly when they had to go and make things worse.

Robin stopped kicking her commander and turned back to Eddie, eyes narrowing with the sharpness of someone who had just put something big together. “Hey, hold on—aren’t you that bard half the kingdom won’t shut up about? Eddie the Balladeer?”

Because naturally, the first time anyone recognized him since his life went to hell, it had to be the people he’d just kidnapped.

(He should have listened to his uncle and become a woodworker.) 

“I was.” Eddie grumped. “More like fuckin’ Eddie the Banished now. But again,” He stressed the word with a harsh flick of both hands, “that doesn’t matter.” 

“Why not?” Steve pressed him. “Pretty sure Dustin is planning on you playing at his birthday party. He’s obsessed with that weird song you do. The one with the bed spring noises.” 

Eddie did not know who Dustin was, but after the chaos of the past two weeks, it was only a matter of time before word of his so-called crimes reached the capitol and shredded whatever remained of his reputation.

“Considering I’ve been accused of murder and my entire damn hometown thinks I’m leading satanic rituals, I seriously doubt that,” he sneered, aiming for something haughty and menacing—anything that would make them start taking this whole thing seriously. 

Steve and Robin exchanged another look, the kind only two people sharing a single brain cell could, the unspoken agreement loud and clear on their faces: ‘Do Not Laugh Right Now.

Which was, frankly, insulting, given the sheer level of trauma that came with being branded a murderer.

“Who accused you of satanic worship?” Steve managed to ask, clearly struggling to keep his words giggle free. “You look like one of those wobbly baby deer. You know, with the big, cute eyes.”

Eddie glowered at him. “Are you deaf? I just said it was the entire town!” 

(He determinedly ignored the fact that Steve had just compared him to a damn woodland creature—and called him cute, on top of it.)

“Is this one of those things wrong place wrong time things?” Robin tacked on, like this was a fun puzzle and not Eddie’s life spiraling wildly out of control. “Like, ‘there’s a dead body on the floor and I’m holding a knife but I swear I just walked in here right before the constable did’ type of situations?” 

“I bet the person he apparently murdered isn’t even dead.” Steve fake-whispered to Robin conspiratorially, eyes never leaving Eddie’s. They were crinkled at the edges in a smile, like this entire thing was getting better by the second. “Money says he helped a fair maiden get out of an awful marriage and the shitty fiancé accused him of killing her.” 

Which is exactly what happened, the fucking dick. 

Jaw swimming with his attempts to get out too many words at once, Eddie sputtered. “Of course she isn’t dea--I mean, I, no!” 

“Ha! Steve you totally nailed it.” Robin said, leaning back in triumph. “Which means Dongus here was trying to kidnap one of the Princes to get someone to listen to you. God that’s so cliche.” 

“It’s not like I asked for it to happen!” Eddie shrilled, tone hitting notes he hadn’t been aware his throat could make. 

“Man, I'm good.” Steve said, ignoring Eddie entirely. "I should've been a detective."

“Please, you’re much better at looking intimidating than actually being intimidating. Why do you think Hopper made you Champion, Mr. Model?” 

Eddie’s hands were in his hair again, and this time, he gave up all pretenses of looking cool and evil and let himself tear at it. 

“Why I’m doing this doesn’t matter because it’s not like you two can fucking help me!” 

That, at least, cut through the good cheer, succeeding in finally getting both knights to shut up. 

“I’m dead if I don’t fix this, but worse is if they go on and target Wayne, or Gareth or the rest of the band, or--” He wasn’t exactly hyperventilating, but he was breathing awfully fast. “I can’t let that fucknut Carver go on a whole rampage and hurt everyone who ever associated with me!” 

Wayne was fairly talented at talking the village down, but that had always been when Eddie had been accused of selling fake potions or replacing the town flag with Jason’s undergarments. 

He was not going to be able to fight off an angry mob, should they decide to make the trek to him. 

“Hey.” Steve said, his voice losing all the humor it had before. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay!”

“We can help make it okay.” Robin said gently and it become abruptly clear that his kidnapping victims were now trying to comfort him, because life just had to kick him while he was down. “We’re Knights of the Kingdom, after all.” 

“Oh and I suppose I’m just supposed to untie you and you’ll--what?” Eddie glared at them, hands pulling hard at his hair. “Just let the whole kidnapping thing go? Help me out of the goodness of your hearts instead of arresting me and throwing me in the stockades?” 

Steve shrugged. “I mean, yeah.” 

“I don’t believe you.” Eddie said flatly. 

“Does it help if we tell you this isn’t a contender for the top ten weirdest situations we’ve been in?” Robin asked. “Like, it’s not even close.” 

“No. No it does not.”

“Okay.” Steve said, in a ‘thinking aloud’ sort of voice. “How about this? We give you our words as knights that we’ll help clear your name, and you can stick with us so no one else tries anything until we do.” 

Like Eddie was dumb enough to fall for that bullshit. 

“And why would you do that? What's in it for you to help clear my name?” He challenged them. “We both know the second I untie either of you, you’re going to overwhelm me and take me in. I’m not taking that chance.”

Not with Wayne on the line. 

“Has anyone ever told you you have trust issues?” Steve asked, pushing Eddie right over the edge. 

“I was convicted!” He dropped his hands in a crazed movement, only to smack the back of one against the other's palm in time with his shrieking. “Of! Murder!” 

He must have hit another shrill note, because Steve and Robin both winced. 

“Easy.” Steve soothed. “You know who I am, right?”

Eddie snorted. Sir Stephan’s face was plastered across a shitload of banners all over the kingdom. You couldn’t go anywhere without knowing who the Queen’s Champion was, and Robin was nearly just as famous.

“Yes.” He grit out. 

“Then you know that while I myself don’t have any kind of magic or power, I am tied directly into the Kingdom’s power.” 

In an impressive display of athleticism, Steve maneuvered himself up into a proper kneel, hands still tied behind his back with softly glowing ropes. 

He looked up at Eddie through thick lashes, expression earnest. “If you want, I will tap into it to make you an unbreakable oath. That way I can’t betray you.” 

Stunned into stillness, Eddie stared at him, before his eyes swept to his companion, trying to check if this was some kind of trick or trap or--something else he was too stupid to catch.

Instead of an answer, Robin looked just as shocked as Eddie, her jaw dropping.

“Dingus, you can’t be serious,” She protested, while Eddie finally found his voice to choke out;

“Why would you do that?”

“Because we’re the good guys,” Steve replied, with a smile so bright it could probably power the sun. “and the good guys help people.” 

That was said a little oddly--like he was quoting someone who’d said it many, many times before. 

Eddie opened his mouth, struggling to form the words. 

“How,” he started, his voice cracking on the word. He paused, biting his lip before finally gathering the strength to ask, “How do you know I’m not just lying to you?”

“You?” Steve echoed, the word practically a challenge, but he was still looking up at Eddie through those damn eyelashes, his expression calm, like they'd known each other for a hundred years and would know each other for a hundred more. “No way.” 

They stared at each other for a long, drawn out moment. Eddie didn’t know what Robin was doing, didn’t have room in his brain to even recall her presence in the room. It felt like he and Steve were connected, his entire life was teetering and this moment would decide the outcome. 

Steve had been right. Eddie did have trust issues. Big ones, and this entire situation had only made them worse, but somehow, in that moment, he felt like he could do the impossible.

He could trust Steve.

“Okay.” He said quietly, all his bluster and wild hand movements gone. 

Steve beamed at him.

“Kneel down in front of me.” The knight instructed, and as if drawn by an invisible thread, Eddie did so, dropping down so his face was level with Steve’s. 

“Come closer.” Steve ordered, and waited as Eddie shuffled, closer and closer, until they were barely a breaths width apart, so close he could see the streaks of gold in Steve’s warm, brown eyes. 

“I,” Steve started, in a voice that was both powerful and intimate, “Sir Stephan, Knight Commander of the Kingdom of Light, Queen’s Champion and head of House Harrington, call upon the bonds that make me and that I have made in turn, to hereby swear to you,”

He paused, waiting, and it took Eddie a moment to realize he had never given the man his name.

“Edward Munson, of Town Hawkins.” He muttered, bespelled entirely by the warmth in Steve's eyes. 

“Edward Munson, Bard of Town Hawkins,” Steve said, and oh, what the addition of the word ‘bard.’ did to Eddie’s stomach. The flips it made when he realized just how well Steve was continuing to read him, better than anyone else in his life ever had.

(It made him feel insane.)

“that I will aid in clearing your name, restoring your reputation, and ensuring your safe return to the life you were meant to live.” 

Something built up between them, humming with the buzz of magic. The weight felt tangible, the threads growing thick tying Eddie and Steve together.

“By the powers that be.” Steve whispered, leaning ever so slightly forward, eyelashes lowering. 

Eddie repeated the last line back to Steve, guided by the nudging insistence of the magic that circled them. 

For a second the oath become visible, strings of bright yellow magic surging about, and Eddie was almost drawn to look at it, had he not been distracted by Steve closing the distance between them.

“Wha--” Eddie started to ask, only for Steve to draw the word into his own mouth, sealing their oath with a kiss. 

In the songs Eddie sung, the world exploded when one experienced true love's kiss. Birds sang, and people cheered, fireworks rose to explode in the air. 

This kiss was nothing like that.

This kiss felt like coming home. 

Steve ended it as chastly as he started it, pulling back to smile at him. “And there you have it. One sworn Knight Commander, duty bound to clear your good name.” 

“Uh huh.” Eddie said, blinking rapidly, trying to come back into himself, trying not to look as dazed as he felt. “Right. My uh, name.” 

Steve beamed at him. Tentatively, Eddie smiled back, and if a moment could be warm then this one was the warmest thing Eddie had ever experienced, like a gentle blanket being draped across them both.

It was ruined entirely by the forced coughing that started up next to them. 

“If you two are done now, my arms are going numb.” Robin announced, making Eddie jerk back and Steve roll his eyes. 

“Sorry.” Eddie said automatically, face going red for the third time that day. “I’ll uh. I’ll do that now.”

In his mad scramble to get to his feet and hide how aroused he was, Eddie missed the smug look Steve gave Robin.

In his attempts at removing the spelled ropes from her wrists, he equally missed the sarcastically mouthed ‘Slut.’ Robin aimed back at him. 

He did, however, somehow understand that Robin came with Steve, and that he had just damned himself to their bantering.

Weirdly, it made him feel better instead of worse.

xXx

 “So out of curiosity, what name did you give yourself?” Steve asked a handful of hours later, as the three of them began their trek to Castle Hoosier.

Eddie frowned at him. “Name?”

“You know.” Steve nudged his shoulder against Eddie’s playfully, like they were buddies. “Your evil wizard name, or whatever.”

“I never said I was a wizard, Steve.” 

“You cannot tell me someone as dramatic as yourself didn’t immediately decide to change your name to something ridiculous.” The knight challenged, and Eddie hated how easily the guy had clocked him. “I bet it has evil in the title. Or Mean. Or--” 

“It was Dread Lord Munson.”  Robin interrupted. 

With a grin so wide it overtook her entire face, she turned a little leatherbound notebook to face Steve. There, in Eddie’s spidery scrawl, was the offending name taking up half the page. 

“Where did you get that!?” Eddie squawked, lunging for the book. Robin, in a show of skill he wouldn’t have thought her capable of, tossed it right over his head, into the waiting hands of Steve. 

Eddie spun, cursing wildly as Steve took a look at his personal (!) writings. 

(He hadn't even seen her grab it, dammit!)

He ducked out of the way once, then twice, laughing the entire time, before closing the book with a snap and holding it out to Eddie. 

“Come on, Dork Lord, let’s go get your name cleared.” He said, a fond grin on his face. 

“I hate you. Both of you.” Eddie whined, a blush dusting his cheeks as he snatched his book back, but followed Steve anyway. 

He had the worst feeling he was going to be doing that for a while, now. Even if his name got cleared.

Fucking knights.

Bonus:

“We both know that binding ritual does not involve a kiss, Steve.” Robin said, some time later, quiet enough for only her friend to hear. 

“Ah, shut up Robs. Let me have my fun.” Steve said. “Besides, it sets the tone. Now that he knows what kissing me is like, it's all he’s gonna be thinking about.” 

“Pretty sure all he’s thinking about is clearing his name, Dingus.”

“Okay, yeah.” Steve stressed the word, “but after we clear it? That little scatterbrained bard is gonna be fully focused on me.” He flicked a finger at his own chest, and gave what he thought was his best winning smile. 

Robin made gagging noises.

In retaliation. Steve tried to push her off her horse. 

[selmasemlan]

The Strix’s Plan Unfolds

Summary: The enemy plans are in play, and our team, in alliance with the Originals, work against it.

Pairing: Marcel Gerard x Luna Salvatore (OFC)

Author note: this fight!!!!

Warning: violence

Word count: 1148

Series Masterlist

The Strix’s Plan Unfolds

The tension in the Mikaelson compound was thick as the group gathered in preparation for their next move. Klaus and Elijah had been captured by the Strix, the ancient vampire society led by Tristan, with the intent of severing the sireline that protected Klaus. If they succeeded, Klaus would be vulnerable, and anyone could kill him without destroying his vampire lineage.

Luna stood by the fireplace, her face lit with an ominous glow from the fire. Bonnie was next to her, flipping through the grimoires, searching for any incantation that might give them an edge. Damon leaned against the wall, arms crossed, while Marcel paced the room, the weight of his double-agent status gnawing at him.

Freya had positioned herself near the center of the room, channeling Lucien’s blood for the counter-spell. Her brow was furrowed with concentration, her hands moving in intricate patterns. Hayley sat near the window, ready to jump into action.

“They’re already starting the ritual,” Freya said, eyes darkening. “If we don’t stop them soon, their sireline will be broken, and then…” she trailed off.

Elijah’s and Klaus´s life was on the line, their bond had kept them safe for so long. Breaking the sireline would not only isolate them but render them vulnerable to death.

Davina entered, glancing at Luna and the rest. “This is bad. The spell Tristan’s using is ancient and very powerful. We might not be able to break it in time.”

Marcel clenched his jaw, glancing at Luna with a mix of concern and determination. “Then we need to move, now.”

Bonnie slammed her book shut and turned to Freya. “How long do you need to finish the counter-spell?”

Freya sighed, clearly strained. “I can do it, but I’ll need more time.”

Damon pushed off the wall. “Then we go in. Stefan, Hayley, and I will hold them off. You finish the spell.” He nodded toward Marcel and the others.

Luna caught Marcel’s arm. “Be careful.”

Marcel gave her a small smile, the weight of their impending mission reflected in his eyes. “You too.”

The attack on the Strix hideout was chaotic. Damon, Stefan, Hayley, and Marcel led the charge, with Luna, Bonnie and Davina providing magical backup from the outskirts. The Strix witches were prepared, throwing up defenses as soon as they sensed the intrusion. Lightning flashed across the sky as the battle intensified, the storm reflecting the turbulence below.

Freya, still back at the Mikaelson compound, worked relentlessly to finish the counter-spell to sever the magical bindings holding Elijah and Klaus. But time was running out. As the witches cast their spell to break the sireline, Elijah was freed, collapsing to the ground, wet from the water that had binded him.

Luna’s breath caught in her throat when she saw Elijah stumble free, but Klaus remained trapped. The magic was still too strong, and they hadn’t completed the counter-spell in time.

Davina muttered under her breath, trying desperately to help Freya with the counter-spell from her position. “It’s not working,” she growled, frustration lining her face. “The magic is too deep.”

Marcel, meanwhile, was fighting tooth and nail against Tristan’s forces. But as the power of the Strix’s spell rippled through the air, all vampires in Klaus’s sireline—including Marcel—were hit with an overwhelming wave of pain.

Marcel doubled over, his knees buckling beneath him as the sireline was severed. Luna watched in horror as Marcel gritted his teeth, trying to stay standing amidst the magical onslaught. Damon, too, struggled to keep his footing. Stefan was the first to collapse, gasping for air as the connection to Klaus snapped like a taut rope.

“No!” Luna screamed, rushing toward Marcel. She used her magic to form a protective barrier around him, but the pain had already hit. Marcel grunted, trying to remain standing, but the pain was too much.

Bonnie shouted from the other side of the battlefield, trying to help Damon. “We have to retreat!” she called out.

Elijah, still weak but freed from the magical hold, managed to get up and move toward Hayley. “We need to get Klaus out, now.”

“We failed,” Hayley murmured, the realization sinking in.

They returned to the Mikaelson loft, carrying Klaus’s unconscious body. The sireline was broken. Klaus, now free from his magical bonds, lay still, but the weight of their failure loomed over them.

Freya rushed to Klaus’s side, trying to wake him, while Marcel leaned against the wall, his face drawn and pale from the aftereffects of the magical severing. Luna hovered nearby, watching Marcel with a mix of worry and guilt in her eyes.

“Marcel?” Luna’s voice was soft as she approached him.

He tried to brush it off with a weak smile, but the pain was still visible on his face. “I’m fine, Luna. Just another day in the life of fighting ancient vampires, right?”

She didn’t buy it. “No, you’re not fine. You felt that. You were linked to Klaus. Now the sireline is broken… Marcel, this changes everything.”

He sighed and pushed himself off the wall, looking away for a moment. “Yeah, it does. But as long as you, Davina, and the rest of our family are alive, the Mikaelsons can go to hell for all I care.”

“Don’t say that,” Luna whispered, stepping closer. “Klaus is your father, whether you admit it or not.”

Marcel met her gaze, his eyes full of emotion. “If he’s my father, then he’ll understand why I need to prioritize differently. I’m done playing games, Luna. I’m done being caught between their mess and ours. I want you safe.”

Luna’s heart twisted at his words. She didn’t want to admit it, but this whole situation scared her. It was on a level of danger that was unlike anything they’d faced before. They had faced witches, vampires, and prophecies, but this? This was different.

Luna stepped closer to Marcel, placing a hand on his chest. “You don’t have to do this alone. We’ll get through this together.”

Marcel looked down at her, his eyes softening as he pulled her into an embrace. “I’m afraid of losing you, Luna.”

She kissed him softly, trying to convey every bit of reassurance she could through that kiss. “You won’t lose me,” she murmured.

Marcel held her tighter, his arms wrapping around her as if to protect her from the world. “I can’t lose you. Not after everything.”

“You won’t,” Luna whispered, resting her head against his chest, feeling his heartbeat against hers.

Marcel sighed deeply, as though letting go of all the tension, and for a moment, everything else faded away. The chaos, the pain, the prophecy, the Mikaelsons—it all disappeared. All that mattered was that they were still here, together.

“We’ll figure it out,” Luna said softly, her words a promise and a hope.

Marcel kissed the top of her head, his lips lingering there. “Yeah. We will.”

[saintes-rpg]

● TWENTY TWO ● WITCH ● CIS FEMALE ● TAXIDERMIST ●

"Don’t forget that she has magic in her fingers and devilry dancing in her blood.”

BIOGRAPHY: To tell the story of Violet Dinsmore one must first go back about 400 years in time, to a much different woman, Azalea Bodmer. Azalea was born the daughter of Huldrych and Agatha Bodmer, Huldrych, a blacksmith was a very conservative man who believed a woman’s role was to do as her husband said, and to make due with what her husband gave- even if all her husband gave was a pittance of his pay and the unfaithfulness of a Tom cat. But still Agatha made due. The woman had her own things she kept from her husband, and the fact that she was a witch was one of them. Her magic, which she passed down to Azalea, came from a line of powerful female witches, and she raised Azalea to know her power, and to use it in secret. Ultimately, the unfortunate Huldrych, while actually in the home for the first time in days, came upon the family book, one that described common plants around their home, and the uses, both medicinal, culinary, and magical. When he confronted his wife, she confronted him about his string of affairs, especially one with the wife of the town priest. Out of fear of her telling the priest, he ran to the priest and told him about his wife’s ungodly abilities.

Agatha and her mother were hunted down, but Azalea managed to escape the angry mob who caught her mother and grandmother. Hiding in the woods she could only watch and weep as her mother and grandmother were captured and bound in the town square. She managed to sneak back home when she was sure no one was the wiser and reclaimed her family book, and a few things before she retreated back to the woods, watching as her mother and grandmother were killed by the townspeople. As the fire claimed the lives of her mother and grandmother, Azalea stood in the woods and cast the worst spell she could think of, one that made the flames grow out of control, eventually killing every person in town. When the flames faded and the smoke cleared, Azalea made her way back into town where she was able to retrieve the last thing she cared about; a necklace her mother had promised her from the day she was a young girl. One with their mark of magic.

After getting the necklace, Azalea really took a look around, and shocked and horrified at what she and her magic had done, Azalea fled, she fled the area and vowed never to return. She made her way from village to village, offering her services as a housekeeper, or a cook, never staying long enough to get attached to anyone, nor letting them get attached to her; all changed when she found her way into the home of Albrecht IlI von Breiten-Landenberg. The young witch could immediately tell there was something different about the Duke, but even more so, there was something indescribable about being with him. The two danced and spoke all night, and thus began the great love story of Azalea and Albrecht. He was a vampire, and she a witch, though she refused the eternal life he offered her. Her mother and grandmother had died for their magic, and was not going to just throw hers away. Unfortunately without someone to guide her in her magic, and the book she had being just what her mother and grandmother knew, she didn’t realize that she had many other options for staying with Albrecht, and she devised a plan. She would allow herself to die; but she would come back to him. Entrusting him with the essence of herself, and her soul, she gave that fraction of herself to him in the form of a necklace; a necklace that would remind her future incarnations of herself of their life, of their eternal love.

After she died, Albrecht was alone to find the next iteration of his lost love, and for centuries he did so. Finding her and reuniting until ultimately she perished yet again. It drove the already sensitive Duke mad every time she was forced to leave him, until the birth of Violet Dinsmore some four hundred years later.

Violet Dinsmore was a witch born to a family of witches. While her family focused mostly on garden and earth magic, Violet was born with the gift of necromancy, and she used that necromancy in ways that made her family very unsettled. Growing up on a farm in the Midwest there was no shortage of carcasses, and Violet had a knack for finding and bringing the carcasses to life with a touch. It wasn’t uncommon for members of the family to look out back and see the little blonde child running around in the field with the reanimated corpse of a deer she had found, or playing with a recently dead raccoon. Unsettling, but not uncommon. It was only after her father sat her down and explained that while she came upon this gift honestly, it was unnatural, it toed the line between dark magic and light magic, and they would not support dark magic in their home. He forbade Violet from ever using her gift to reanimate again- and the worst stuck with Violet so much that when he was accidentally run over with a combine and lay dying in the field, Violet stood by and watched. Even as he begged her to reanimate him, she didn’t do it, and watched as the life left her father.

Violet never reanimated things again, and eventually her sisters grew up, got married and left the house, leaving Violet with their mother. Even without her sisters, she was still the dark sheep of the family, the girl rejected magic, and pulled herself inward, choosing to do things the human way. She insisted her mother get WiFi put in, bought a cheap laptop and began to teach herself taxidermy and about death. As a necromancer she had an uncanny ability to still find dead things, and she did that, bringing them home to the basement where she had built her own perfect studio and bedroom. She raised flesh eating beetles to help with her taxidermy, and rarely left the basement except when her sisters came over and for school.

One winter all of her sisters were coming home, and Violet’s mother insisted on hosting them and many friends for a big Christmas party and celebration. Violet was forced to give up her bedroom for a friend of the family’s and her new boyfriend, a music teacher named Scott. When the night of the party came around, Violet escaped the party by sneaking down to her room, where she met Scott. The two ended up talking, and Violet realized there was something different about him. Talking to him was easy, he didn’t judge the dark teen for her interests, and in fact shared some of his own interests with her. It wouldn’t be until a few years later that Violet realized how significant that meeting was.

Violet went away to college as soon as she could, getting in on scholarships, and a prayer. She signed up for a work study program, and was working one afternoon when she ran into Scott. He had long since broken up with the family friend, and he and Violet easily began to talk again. Over the next year the two grew closer until they couldn’t deny their attraction any longer and began a relationship. During a switch for Scott, when his alter, The Other, came out, she was presented with the necklace that contained the piece of Azalea’s soul- the piece of her soul- and everything came back to her. The memories that had been stored for the past four hundred years, the realization that their wonderful relationship and meetings meant more than either of them knew, and the memories of each life with Scott she’d had, it all came back to the young witch who made a promise to herself. She would not make him or herself go through this again.

Little does Scott know, Violet plans on waiting a few years and then allowing him to change her as he’d begged to do for the past four hundred years. She has decided enough time has passed and her mother and grandmother’s deaths will not be in vain. However, she does want to find the person responsible for her own death in a previous life, one that Scott didn’t realize was a murder, and has spent the last few decades believing was a tragic accident. After the Great Announcement the two were thrust into the spotlight as Scott is still technically the Duke of Zurich, and after three years, they have finally decided to settle for now in Saintes, giving the town a much needed good image by having a member of nobility as a member of the community.

Violet is played by D, 31, She/They, PST

[caranelguild]

Lord Shinonome faces our adventurers through the thin copper gate of the elevator. He is surprised, but far from caught flat-footed. He leaps back snarling and draws a katana from his waist; the blade bursts into green flame and his form shimmers for a moment.

But when Vola bursts through the copper gate from a standing start as if it were paper, he is not quick enough to dodge the swing of her improvised flail: the head of his most powerful demon strikes him upon the shoulder. She had seen through his illusion and had swung at the shadow behind “Lord Shinonome”, striking his true body; but to her companions, it looks as if she misses.

Soon enough, his axe swinging through an ephemeral body, Krieg also discovers the trick, but Lord Shinonome draws a shortsword and assumes a stance suited to fending off multiple attackers; he proves a difficult opponent.

Everyone is surprised by the sudden entrance into this wide greeting hall of a stocky, box-shaped demon with eight small legs and four arms. “I was not told to expect guests!” it says robotically before noticing the violence.

Vola drives her newly christened greatsword Orphanmaker into the monster’s large chest. Its skin bursts like a balloon and her sword shatters its obsidian ribcage and shards explode outward. Inside its body cavity jingles the promise of trinkets, but Vola turns away to continue battering Lord Shinonome, who is putting up a fearsome fight.

Slowly, the gang whittles him down - until, bleeding and baring his teeth, he is forced to cast a protective spell that forces his opponents out of reach. The magic crackles a dark green, and our adventurers are unable to penetrate its field. Shinonome retreats from the entrance hall, locking a door behind himself.

This door is kicked down by Vola, who finds herself in a golden-lit library being tended by an orangutan upon a sliding ladder, wearing a graduation hat upon its orange head. Somewhere in the back, Shinonome’s magic hums.

“Shall I initiate defensive protocol, Master?” says the boxy demon behind Vola.

“I suspect not, Boz!” instructs the orangutan. “You carry precious items! Turn around and go!”

Krieg steps through immaterial space to cross the distance to the back of the library, finding the demon-summoner still inaccessible behind his force field. Quagoon sneaks among the stacks and finds that his arrows can penetrate the magic. Vola follows the wood elf’s lead and drops her sword in favour of a javelin, which she wields like a spear, jabbing at Shinonome.

The noble snatches the figurine of a panther from a nearby shelf and tosses it upon the floor, hissing, “Come, Guenhwyvar!” and a black panther materializes from smoke rising out of the statuette. The beast is in poor shape, its skin hangs loose from washboard ribs; the marks of fire and whip mar its back. But it must follow the intent of its summoner, and leaps at Kreig.

But then Quagoon lines up and takes a perfect shot: his arrow lodges in the hollow of Shinonome’s throat. One moment, the panther was tearing at Kreig’s shield, the next, it retreats back into spirit.

The crackling green magic disappears and the drow falls to his knees, crumpling - only to become suddenly consumed in a burst of black fire, out of which steps a skeleton formed of gleaming obsidian. In its hands, both katana and wakizashi are formed entirely of green flame.

“You must cease fighting in the library!” cries the orangutan, swinging into the scene ineffectually hurling bladders full of sticky goo. “Fire is not permitted!”

But fire is what the orangutan gets: a lash across the back of its tongue, reaching out from the hilt in the skeleton’s hand. Further slashes and swipes are directed at our adventurers, and every cut sets instant fires upon the surfaces around the melee.

Kreig falls to the slashes. His thick draconic hide is resistant to fire, but he has been throwing himself in the way of the blows, never retreating.

As Quagoon and his own summoned, immaterial twin distract Shinonome’s fallen soul-form, Vola turns to her fallen partner and forces a potion down his throat.

Then the pale goliath stands and readjusts her grip upon Orphanmaker, still glowing with the blood of Tarkak. She wades through green flame and hacks once, twice, three times against the hardened glass of the demon’s spine at the neck.

The first chips the obsidian. The second shatters it. The third catches the mass of the skeleton and drives it into the floor, where it erupts in a final blast of emerald fire that erupts down the aisle and even singes Quagoon as he ducks away.

The blast overwhelms Vola and she falls to the burning ground, but Kreig has staggered to his feet thanks to her administrations. He channels the power of his resolve into his partner and returns the favour; she comes to, the paladin’s magic battling against the very infernos of the abyss.

The entire library is up in flames, but the books and trinkets on the shelves are on the way to the door, aren’t they? Our adventurers can’t help blindly snatching up treasures as they race towards the entry hall and its egress-by-elevator. Only, Vola has greater ambitions than the random snatching of unknown relics: she leaps deeper into the room in order to snatch up the panther statuette before barreling through the flames to roughly grab the panicking librarian on her way out the door!

“But a captain must go down with his ship!” protests the ape - but Vola has a death grip on the long hair of his chest, and does not listen.

The gang remembers Boz the butler demon, but it does not come when called for (our adventurers used the wrong name, to begin with), so before the entire penthouse is consumed, they activate the elevator and spill out the back of the building.

None of them feel compelled to assist with the evacuation, and screams and hollers harmonize with the roaring of hellfire as they slip away into the night - a quick-responding fire brigade passing by them on a parallel street.

Krieg had thought to grab the skull of the Shinonome-demon on his way from the library - the head of her tormentor being part of the oath they took with Lady Shinozaki  - and our adventurers figure their patron will be happy to see them, in their context, even this late at night (it being almost 2 o’clock in the morning as they leave the burning building behind them).

By half-past three they are admitted into the palace by Dorumondu, who leads them right to the door of Lady Shinozaki’s sleeping quarters, wherein a handmaiden is sent to rouse her lady.

Lady Shinozaki emerges with rumpled hair but a clear keenness to hear everything - though she has the propriety to first send Dorumondu for medical care. The group settles in a comfortable sitting room and the story is told.

Lady Shinozaki wonders if she could get the skull to a church before it crumbles to dust, to keep Lord Shinonome’s demon form from coming back, but decides that his becoming a demon, to become thrall to a summoner like himself or to burn in the abyss, is suitable punishment.

She holds up her end of the bargain, handing over the heirloom that had been in her family for generations and which contains a piece of that ancient relic being assembled by our globe-trotting adventurers. She says it enhances transmutation magic and was the reason she took on “造 (creation)” as her mark here in Kaigan Katai.

By dawn, the crew of the Celer Gontalus (grown now by one excited orangutan in a new tricorn hat) is aboard of her again, heading north with a full battery of charges, in pursuit of the piece of the relic likely in the capital of the Orcish Queendoms, of which the marsh god communicated:  “A humble shape in Royal chambers; It slumbers In a sitting stone”

On the way north, the Gontalus puts down in Miyopayowinihk on the fringes of the great rainforest, and then in Brifddinasoedd (familiarly known as Brithy), the largest city of the Orcish island of Myrad. In this giant metropolis, our adventurers learn of a royal tourney being held outside of the Myradin capital of Tirfrenhin - where, they learn, the coronation stone itself will be brought out to crown the victor!

[verdiprati]

This is so intense. I love it. Perfect fit for Sarah Connolly’s voice. 

How I saw him in the street, among his companions, How my heart went out to him, how I faltered there, How I lay there, fevered and lost, for ten long days, How I sent my slave-girl about the city to find him; ‘Bid him come, bid Delphis come, Bring him here. I am dying.’ How I heard his first footfall outside my door, And the fire turned to ice in my veins, And he entered, all golden and smiling, with garlands about him; And he sat by my side, and he took my hand in his hand. Ah.  And he said: ‘Simætha, Simætha.’ And he said: ‘I could keep from you no longer.’ And he said: ‘I was coming unsummoned, Simætha.’ And he said: ‘I have always loved you.’ And he said: ‘Oh love, you have called me, oh love, you have saved me, Have caught me from the fire of the longing that consumed me, Oh love, I am here!’ ‘You have saved me from the fire,’ he said, ‘from fire, from fire.’

[intheorangebedroom]

Pleased to meet you, chapter 16

Summary: Frankie's well-being your one and only concern, you've decided to go 'home' to Paris, taking your secret with you. Frankie doesn't quite agree...

Pairing: Frankie Morales x French fem!Reader (OFC)

Rating: Explicit 🔞🔞🔞🔞 (I blame the meds)

A/N: Please, be kind to my girl. She's had it tough all her life. I am so, so nervous about this one, it's hell. Thank you to every one who stuck with me (and them) this far, and for patiently waiting for my anxiety to lift and let me write again 🧡 Ily 🧡 Also, jfc they're filthy, I blame the meds. That shit is unbeta'd, you've been warned.

Word count: 6.5k (I blame the meds)

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Chapter 16: Plainsong

Once upon a time, there was an orange bedroom, its light kept burning through young lovers’ hearts, long after hurt and rain had turned it blue. 

Once upon a time, there was a fire escape, a bed with white linen, and a Brooklyn bathroom. There was a book, its title cast a spell; lips of red, purple bites, and golden hues. 

Once upon a time, there was him, and there was you. The outside world ceased to exist, only to better catch up with you.

—

“Stay,” Frankie says, his lips on your lips. His splayed fingers on the small of your back keeping you balanced, his gentle touch on your collarbone softly saying, “you are mine.” 

It would be so easy for you to exist solely between his two palms. It would make you happy and content. It could be home, to you. 

Exhaustion washes you over and drowns your mind. You raise on your tiptoes, wrapping your arms around his shoulders in a tight embrace, letting his scent take over your senses, your bodies sealed together. The soles of your sandals hit the tiles with a two-tone clapping sound when he circles your waist and lifts you.   

He’s twice as massive as he once was, and it’s twice the safety to you. His large, open hand carefully cradling the back of your head, he holds you like a newborn baby, as if you were frail and fragile, as if you could snap in two, and you find it so fitting, for he’s truly the only one who could ever break you. 

Others have tried and failed. You’ve been shunned, abandoned and let down, but you kept slipping between their fingers like running water seeping through cracks, flowing, imperturbable, in one direction and one direction only: to throw yourself into the ocean of him. 

“I’ve got you, baby, let me–” Frankie pauses at your whimper, the term of endearment only ever carrying meaning in his low, husky baritone, “I’m here.”

The loud, violent beating of his heart rattles inside your chest like it was your own. 

“You got me,” you acquiesce. 

The slight release of your embrace signals him to loosen his hold. Your chest slides down along his, and the tiles feel cool under your bare feet. 

You should go now, you think. 

“I should go now,” you say, and he doesn’t answer, his face closed and sullen because he knows you’re right, you should leave now, this much the two of you can agree on, so when you press your lips to his, you’re not sure whether he reached for you, or if you reached for him. 

It’s a chaste kiss, for a last goodbye. Frankie can almost feel the rising wind blowing litters around you on a Brooklyn sidewalk, and inside him, the tightly sealed lid is fractured, the damage irreversible.

At the light, hopeless pressure from his lips, his body tensing up, you open up, your tongue seeking his. And he’s inside you instantly. 

That taste he’s been chasing through dozens of other women, that taste is on his tongue, at last, and he swallows it all, tugging you flush to his body with enough strength to shatter your bones. Frankie is done pacing himself, he will have you now, and he will eat you whole. 

His hand slides up to your nape, his fingers grabbing your hair and tilting your head back, exposing the line of your throat to his hungry stare, while you span your hands over his sides, around the breadth of his back, up to his shoulders where they find purchase. 

“Tell me to stop, Gabrielle. Ask me to stop now. Because I will not go back.”

So close you can taste the cold beer on his breath. So quiet you can still hear the echo of his words when he asked you to follow him all those years ago.

He’s not asking you to bear the weight of this decision. He’s relieving you of it. He’ll carry it for you. 

“I want you,” you answer again, always. 

His mouth crashes down on yours in a messy kiss, teeth colliding, lips reclaiming. 

You can’t breathe and it is fine, you only need to breathe through him, for now, his tongue swirling avidly around yours inside your mouth makes everything easy and right.

A commanding tug from his hand angles your face to the side and he deepens the kiss, his left hand travelling down to the swell of your ass, giving it a hard, possessive squeeze, and you moan against his lips before he swallows that too. 

And he hasn’t had his fill, not remotely, not even close. The urge to taste you everywhere else is overwhelming, so he trails down your neck, under your ear, licking and kissing and biting your soft skin. The unfamiliar, tickling prickle of his moustache sends your mind in a lewd spiral, and curiosity makes you moan again.

You think you might be dreaming. You think you’ll wake up alone in your cold, empty bed, but around you, everything feels so real. Could he be the one dreaming you?

Your touch wanders underneath his shirt, seeking out the heat from his skin, where it is raw and unfiltered by the cottony fabric, and the contact sets your insides ablaze, your entire body wanting more. Your fingers dig into the firm muscles, their tremor a mirrored response to the slick pooling down your core.

Frankie senses your panic the very moment you reach the lumpy stretch of skin below the left side of his rib cage. Your surprise is audible, muffled by the imperious, desperate press of his mouth over yours. His hold on you tightens, but you’re pushing him away with both hands. When he yields and lets go of you, he hasn’t given up yet, but the alarm that widens your eyes tells him he’s already lost this battle.

“What is it?” you breathe out.

“It’s nothing,” he lies in that steady, even tone he has learned to master a long time ago.

“It’s not nothing, let me see,” you insist, your own voice having gone up an octave.

He doesn’t budge, nor does he answer, frowning in his resolve, so you reach for his shirt, which only prompts him to take a step back. He’s stalling for time, ignoring your pleading eyes, knowing full well he’s only delaying the inevitable. In a moment, he’ll have you naked underneath him, nothing will keep that from happening, nothing but you could stop him. 

And you just might, if he tells you the full story behind that fucking wound. 

His mind is racing as he tries to figure out what would kill him faster, if you left now or after. If he has it in him to take that choice away from you.

“Does it hurt?” you ask in a softer voice, approaching him carefully.

His jaw doesn’t move as he answers, “No. No it doesn’t.”

“Let me see?” The inflection in your phrasing marks the question, but you’re already lifting his T-shirt with infinite care, your eyes on his face, trampling his defiance. He lets you pull it over his head, following your movement. 

The sight of him, standing before you bare chest, has you swaying on your feet, and you forget to breathe for a moment. Broader, it seems, than he used to be, radiating warmth, solid and reassuring. The passage of time hasn't altered the recollection you have obsessively cultivated through the years. This part of his body you have mapped so meticulously is more familiar to you than your own. The pattern of his freckles on his golden skin, the small, brown circles of his nipples, the oval mark on the curve of his left shoulder are the landmarks of your desire. 

Drawing in a shaky breath, you lower your gaze to the raised scar, a shade darker than the surrounding skin. You brush the tips of your fingers to it, careful but thorough, and you ask again, “Does it hurt?”

Frankie struggles to keep his eyes open, moving imperceptibly closer to your touch. It eases a pain he thought had been long gone. He breathes slowly, lowering his face, and when he speaks again, his tone has softened to match yours. 

“It doesn’t anymore.” 

“But it did?” you ask in a quivering voice.

“Just a little,” he lies again. You look up at him, and he can tell you know. 

“Were you in a hospital? For long?” 

“A few weeks.”

“And your sister–” Talking around the large lump in your throat makes your voice sound eerily unnatural, “did your sister come to visit?”

“She did. I wasn’t alone.”

Frankie gently pulls on your wrist to draw you near, and the urge to wrap yourself around his body crawls up your spine again. You recall a medieval French poem about honeysuckle that grows intertwined with hazel, and how both wither and die if they are separated, and your eyelids flicker under the weight of your impending tears.

“Hey, baby, look at me,” he asks, cupping your face, “look at me. It doesn’t hurt anymore, you hear me? Nothing does.”

“Nothing?” 

“Nothing.” His certitude is vertiginous. It takes down all of your fears, and leaves you with nowhere to hide. 

You should leave now. But you’ve been so cold, for so long. And he should let you go, but your skin is still vibrant under his palm. 

In a few minutes, your naked bodies will touch thoroughly and fit into each other like a solved puzzle and none of this will matter, sixteen years sucked into an obliterating vacuum, minced into jagged pieces and scattered into complete oblivion. 

Frankie undoes the shoulder bows of your dress one by one, the fluid fabric flowing down your naked breasts and he hisses through clenched teeth, as if through pain.  

You bask into the untamed and unrestrained want darkening his eyes and brightening his face, you’ve never known a hunger like his and between your shaky legs, arousal leaks into your sensible underwear.  

With a mind of reclaiming what is rightfully his, he reaches for your breasts, kneading the soft flesh with deliberate strength, his thumbs rubbing the rapidly hardening peaks of your nipples, and your skin breaks out in goosebumps. You cover his hands with yours, his grasp over you never strong enough. 

You can’t hurt me, not like this.

“Lift up your skirt, baby.” His low, hoarse command is punctuated by a hard pinch to your nipple. 

Your mouth goes slack and you exhale slowly, a pointless attempt at slowing down your frantic heartbeat and keeping your balance. You can’t think straight for how violently you want him everywhere inside and around you, but your hands diligently move down to your hips, grabbing the fabric of your dress and bunching it up in your trembling fists. 

His tongue peeks out between his parted lips, his palm on your inner thigh, burning its way up towards your mound and he cups you there, roughly, an appreciating hum rumbling from the depth of his chest when his fingers find the dampened fabric of your panties, pushing it against your entrance. 

“Naked. Now.” His tongue hits the back of his teeth on the letter D, round and textured. So thick, you can almost touch it. It trickles inside your lower belly, shivers running down your sides from under your arms. 

You sigh in relief, numb fingers fumbling with the thin zipper on your hip, struggling to work it open. Unbuckling his belt, his deft hands still when your dress pools down at your feet. 

“Yes,” he growls, grabbing you by the waist to pull you flush to his chest, and you think your skin might combust at the contact of his. Your feet shuffle on the hallway carpet as he walks you backward to his bedroom, his cock pulsating against your belly, his hungry mouth nibbling the lean column of your neck. 

He has you disoriented, moving too fast for you to register anything outside of his hands and his lips. When he releases his hold, you fall sitting on the edge of a large bed. Instinctually, you scoot to the middle of the mattress while Frankie toes off his boots and undresses to his black briefs. 

“That too,” he says, nodding at your panties, standing tall and mighty over you, palming his erection. You comply immediately, smacking your lips in hunger. Time has blunted the sharp edges of his silhouette, and his broad shoulders and tapered waist are an impressive sight to behold, one that has you thinking you might love his body even more than you did before. 

It’s calling to you, and you're calling to it. You’ve got new paths to map and years to erase, the kisses, sweat and come of women who should have been you but weren’t. 

He watches your gaze linger on the dip at the base of his neck before he takes off his briefs. You look so fucking pretty, and he can’t wait to make a mess of you. If there’s one thing he knows, one thing he’s never forgotten, it is how to undo you. 

Climbing on the bed, the mattress dipping under his weight, he positions himself above you on all fours. You reach for his hair, threading your fingers through the longer curls on his nape, these are new to you, you need the feel of it. 

“I don’t know–” he grunts in frustration, the ridge of his nose a drag over your temple, “I don’t know where to start, I want to open you on my cock but I want to eat you out before you taste of me.”

“Fuck me Frankie please,” you beg, bucking your hips upwards, his hard length sliding between your thigh. 

“Oh I will, baby, I will. I’ll fuck you until you can’t take it and then I’ll fuck you some more.”

You ruffle his hair in your reluctance to let go when he backs down and hooks his hands in the back of your knees, and when he spreads your legs open, when they open with a telling squelching sound, his eyes are alight with a fierce possessiveness, something dark and primal, something you’d be shrinking away from if this was any other man. 

But it’s Frankie. 

How many nights have you longed for his return? Never not waiting, dragging his absence beside you like a weighed shadow, wrapping yourself in your longing like a suit of lead. Like an armour. 

Tipping your head back on the sheets, you stare emptily at the ceiling, laughing without a sound, and for the first time since you stepped into his house less than half an hour ago, you take notice of your surroundings, of the luminosity. The only fundamental difference. It’s dusk, already. The setting sun casts a waning light through the bedroom curtains, and the room around you… it is blue. 

You gasp out of your thoughts at the drag of Frankie’s fingers along your slick slit; he’s teasing your empty cunt with the tip of them, directing your arching body like a conductor. 

Beads of sweat pearl on his forehead, his heart beats too fast in his ears. He can’t imagine ever wanting you as intensely as he wants you now, but he’s believed that before, nearly lost his sanity over it, and the attraction has never abated.  

Frankie bends down into you, and swipes a broad stripe through your folds, from hole to clit, with the flat of his tongue. The salty tang of you quakes his entire frame. He plunges his tongue into you and you choke on your moan, hand clasped over your mouth. 

He licks in leisurely, once, twice, before pulling out to ask you, “Lemme hear you, baby, you’ve no fucking idea how much I’ve missed you,” his words spoken straight into your cunt, where they belong. 

Your hand flies to his hair, harshly tugging his face back to your core and you feel his lips curl into a smile between your folds. 

He has just enough sense left in him to hook your legs over his shoulders, before his control gives out, before he gets lost in your taste. It is all that matters to him for now, his fingers digging into the dip of your hips, in a hold that is sure to leave your flesh bruised and mottled. 

He’s diving into you, drinking you up. His wandering days are over and you roll your hips into his mouth with increasing speed as the ridge of his nose rubs against your clit. 

The sounds filling the room are obscene, avid laps, rumbling grunts and high-pitched moans, and when he moves up to suck on your clit, because that’s what you like best, you get so close to come in his mouth. You’d warn him, but you know he can feel it too, his hands gripping you harder, until he suddenly pulls out and rasps, “not like this, around me.” 

You whine in frustration, but he unclasps your hands from his hair, crouching back between your thighs, and tension breaks through you in a breathless laugh, remembering your last night and wondering if the repetition is wilful or involuntary. 

Frankie quietly chuckles with you, sliding your body down the mattress and onto his lap, your back dragging on the sheet, your hair spread around your head like a dark halo, but his face drops and darkens when he lines up at your entrance. A droplet of sweat slides down his sideburns, and he asks, “You ready?”

Your laugh dies in a smile and a panting “yeah” is all you can provide, before he drives into you brutally. To the hilt. In one thrust. Your body pinned down by his hands on your waist, and you trash your head back at the blinding stretch with a cry, fingers scrambling over the sheet, a barely articulated string of “Thank you thank you thank you” spilling from you. 

Words are too small to express what he does to you. He’s rearranging you, putting everything back into place, annihilating all that came before him. 

He doesn’t move right away, he can’t, he might just lose his mind and dissolve into you. 

His eyes tightly shut, the crease between his brow deeper than it’s ever been, his grip loosens, and the palm of his rough hand comes to span the soft skin of your lower belly, where he’s sheathed inside you.  

“I can feel it. I can feel it, baby. Do you remember?”

“Yes Frankie, I remember everything.”

He bends down with fervour to cover your body with his, hooking your legs around his waist, and grinds down on you, both his hands hooked on your shoulders. You’re drowning in his musky scent, heat burning up your chest and neck, hitching your knees higher up on his sides, linking your ankles on his back. 

And when he starts fucking into you, he drills in with all of his strength, deep, rapid thrusts, barely pulling out, your tight cunt catching around the heft of him, his damp forehead pressed to yours, your body slippery with sweat, his, yours, and his words spill out into the blue twilight of the room, “I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry baby, I’m sorry.” 

Sorry for letting time and distance separate you, sorry for his waning faith, for all the other bodies, for not flying to Paris and laying the entire city to waste to find you.

Your nails break the skin of his back and you ask, “Harder, Frankie, I want it harder.”

He leans back immediately, briskly clutching your hips, rocking into you with a rage, narrow hips slapping your ass, and you dig your fingers into the muscles of his forearms for leverage, meeting him thrust for thrust, leaking onto his length at the sound of his growls. 

His damp curls form a halo around his face. Across his chest, a sheen of sweat glistens in the blue hues of the late evening light. Blue, your never-ending, cold and lonely nights. Blue, the strangers’ bodies that never felt right. Blue, the glimmer that flickers in your hooded eyes. Irrelevant, the place, the time, or the colour. 

Too soon, always too soon, he feels you clenching down on him, your belly pulled taut and your whole body arching up under his hold, reaching out for the reassurance of his skin and that’s all he ever wants to do, give you that. 

“Oh god Frankie, I’m coming, I’m coming,” you whine, and he lays down on you once again, throbbing inside your clutching heat, focused on the sounds and sensations he draws out of you as they ripple through him. He’s learned the hard way there are no other drugs that can give him that high. 

“Come on, baby, come on, give it to me,” he grunts through gritted teeth, and his name tumbles down your tongue and stretches in your mouth. You slip out of consciousness, you grow bright and disintegrate into a million pieces of light between his arms.

His voice, hoarse and breathless, brings you back to the bed in the room, reassembling the fragments of you, his face buried in your hair, his lips brushing your ear, “…you’re perfect, Gabrielle, you’re so fucking– so perfect–” 

The movement of his hips resumes with a plea, spoken after sucking in the smooth skin below your jaw, leaving his mark there, “I want another one, I–, I need another one, baby please, you need to take it, I need–” words like a fever scorching you raw inside and out. 

Your nails dig trails of blood on the plane of his back before you answer, “Take everything you need.”

His cock drags along your walls at a debilitating speed, his mouth pouring filth into your ear, promises to make you feel good in every possible way for the rest of your days, to wreck you and kiss you better in an endless blissful loop, “I’m yours, baby, you’re mine.” 

He roughly cups your jaw open and spits into your mouth, and at this you come hard with a broken cry, and he follows, so forcefully, so completely, you can feel his spend fill up your cunt, but he doesn’t slow down yet, and it’s a feral grunt before he says, “gonna fuck it deeper this time, gonna fuck it so it stays inside you forever.”

—

The midnight June has brought a cool breeze, wafting in through the large window, and in the spartan bedroom, the feeble moon casts a shy ray of light through the blue curtains. 

You sucked your taste off his cock into another release, taking him down your throat without breaking eye contact, and he came faster than ever before, at the sound of your heavy breathing. His fingers threaded in your hair, pulling you close to his base, his thumb brushing the tear rolling down your cheek from the corner of your eye. 

He sat up and came on your chest and rubbed his spend into your skin without asking for permission. Lazy circles and light pressure applied with two fingers as you lied, weak and sprawled on your back, a question revolving in his mind, another one he could not push down. 

“Did you let him come on your skin?”

You covered your eyes with the heels of your hands, begging, “Please, don’t—” and when you moved your hands away from your face, you saw his soft eyes turning pitch-dark and his face twitching under the storm in his mind, his fingers pressing harder on your sternum. You watched the bobbing of his throat, the pebbled skin of his neck cast in the shadow of the waxing crescent moonlight. 

“I let him come on my skin, because I wouldn’t let him come in my mouth. Because I never let him fuck my ass, or fuck me bare. I kept waiting for you, even when I thought you would never come back. I never stopped waiting, Frankie. This you have to understand.”

His hand stilled, pinned down by remorse. Words failing him in his desire to atone. 

“Sit on my face.”

“I won’t be able to sit anywhere for a week, Frankie,” you said in a stern, albeit tired tone.

Bending down over you from where he lied at your side, he carefully parted your folds with his thick fingers, gathering his saliva on his tongue, letting it slide down and drip onto your swollen clit, shivers running up your spine that turned into prickling tears under your closed eyelids. 

He teased gently, delicately nudging and licking around your bundle of nerves with the curled up tip of his tongue, suckling on it until you came like a flower blooms, unfurling slowly at first, and then all at once, and he drew away from you, mindful not to take too much. 

He covered your entire body with revering kisses, from hips to shoulders and from head to toe, meticulous, repenting, thorough, a new smile on your grateful lips for each one of his “I love your skin.”

Now his spent cock is resting between your breasts as you’re lying on top of him, arms folded on his stomach, your chin propped on your hands because you can’t stop looking at him. 

A lock of your hair twirled around his fingers, his other arm folded under his head for support because he can’t stop looking at you. 

“And these curtains,” you say with a soft laughter, “these curtains were… I don’t know. They kept haunting me. Like they coloured my dreams, you know?” This ever present apology about your feelings, still, and his heart flinches in his ribcage. “Did you keep them?”

“Of course. They’re in a box in the garage.” His voice doesn’t give him away, steady and self-possessed.

“Oh, right! Your mother made them.” You tilt your head to the side so his fingers touch your cheek, and he lets you peck a kiss on his little tattoo. 

“Yea. Because of that, too.”

Your smile blooms in his chest. 

Lifting your head up to free your hand, you reach for the right side of his jaw and scrap your fingernails in his beard. 

“When did the grays appear, here?”

He takes a deep breath, and your body follows the rising movement of his belly. 

“I don’t know. I stopped shaving when I quit the Army two years ago, and it was there already. You don’t like it?” he asks. He can’t recall ever being self-conscious about the way he looked, not like he is now.

”I like it, I like it a little too much.”

You bob with the hearty laughter shaking his chest and tug on a streak of hair in reprimand. 

“Hey, don’t laugh, stop it!”

“Ok, ok I’m not laughing,” he replies, his shoulders still heaving. 

“There’s a bare patch here,” you press your finger to it, “and another one there.”

“Yea,” he’s not laughing anymore, and he lets go of your hair to scratch his beard, “it’s– I should probably shave.”

“No. No you shouldn’t, it’s perfect. It’s the exact same size as my lips. It’s like a target for kisses.” Your voice drops to a murmur. “And this one is… heart-shaped.”

You fall silent and he hopes you’ll come closer and kiss him there, like you said, but instead it’s sadness he sees playing across your face. 

“You’ll be turning 40 next year, right?” you ask.

“No baby, I am 40 already. This year. Back in March.”

You sigh heavily, blinking repeatedly. You let your hand slide to his side and lay your cheek on his warm skin. 

“Then I missed all of your thirties.”

His jaw ticks, guilt scrambling his mind. He feels useless again, helplessly contemplating your regrets. His voice is low and quiet when he says, “I know. I missed all of your twenties.”

“Not exactly,” you correct him, “I was twenty when we met.”

“Yea I know, that’s the point. What little I saw was really fascinating.”

You laugh unconvincingly. “No. No, it wasn’t very interesting. Lots of studying, lots of drinking.” You pause, hesitant. “Lots of bad decisions,” you finally add, very quiet.

Frankie frowns and closes his eyes. Unsure whether he wants to know what this entails. How much pain. How many other men. He’s registered the nearly invisible scars on the back of your arms. And remorse keeps burning through his chest.

A small dog barks in the distance. You span your hand over his side before lifting your head up again.

“But there’s more of you, now,” you tease with a cheeky smile, pinching his side. 

“Oh, alright,” he chuckles self-deprecatingly, and your face lights up at the sight of his dimple, more pronounced in his fuller cheeks.  

“I love that too,” you add in earnest.

Silence lingers for a beat, as he brushes his knuckles to your cheek. You look so young, when you look at him like that. 

“You— you haven’t changed,” he says, worship in his hushed voice. 

“Ha! Right!” you scoff, sitting up between his thighs.

“No, it’s true,” he insists, and you see it in his eyes, the way he perceives you, and it’s the most beautiful you will ever be. 

Your hand caresses its way down his belly, scraping the thin path of rougher black hair leading downwards. You circle his cock with feather-like softness, and you stroke him lightly in silence, watching his lips part, his response to your touch immediate. A bead of precome, leaking for you, and you press your thighs together in your kneeled position, resisting the urge to taste it.

“Why do they call you Catfish?”

His heavy breathing hitches. He doesn’t answer, shaking his head slowly to the left, to the right. 

You move up to straddle him, placing the round, blunt head of his half-erect length at your entrance, and sink smoothly onto him with an audible exhale you can’t control. 

You start rolling your hips languidly, both hands splayed over his chest for balance, for pleasure, feeling him grow thicker inside you with every swaying movement. 

“How many women have you fucked, Francisco Catfish Morales?”

He sits up surprisingly fast for a man his size, and the sudden change of angle makes you gasp. The flat of his hand finds the swell of your breast, and when he pinches your nipple between his index and middle fingers, your head drops limply on his shoulder. 

He takes over, roughly grabbing the meat of your ass, your flesh gushing through his fingers and the way he slides you onto his cock at a quickening pace, his hair rubbing at your clit, has you moaning into the crook of his neck, your legs twitching. When you’re flush against him and pliant in his arms, Frankie leaps for your forgiveness, and murmurs in your ear.  

“I was looking for you, baby. I was only looking for you.”

Your shoulders slump under the weight of his words. You pivot your head to the right, peeking your tongue out to taste the skin of his neck. And then you ask, “Will you come in my mouth, please?”

—

He left a new purple mark in the crook of your neck. Bit your hip with a mind to draw blood and you would have let him. Turned you around and laid you flat on your stomach to lick the sweat between your shoulder blades. 

And then he covered your body with his and breached your tight ring as deep as you could take him, snaking his arm around you to sink a finger into your cunt, then two, then three, the heel of his hand deftly applying pressure to your clit. Your lips catching on the white linen; you might have been drooling. 

He let himself go and came with you, mouthing his love against your nape in Spanish. 

Exhausted, engulfed, overwhelmed, you cried just after you came; silent tears soaking the sheet, your words barely coherent. 

“You feel so good,” you said, “I thought I made it up, what I remembered.”

He held you in his arms. 

—

He reluctantly left the room to go get some water, and you smiled to yourself at the long-lasting habit, giving you the opportunity to take a look around you. The bed, bigger than any other you’ve ever seen, let alone slept in, the chest of drawers on the opposite side, a few items you can’t make out scattered on the top, family pictures pinned to the wall above it. A large closet on the left that you had failed to notice. Two simple bedside tables with lamps, and books lying about that you have no strength to pick up and study. 

Quenched, sated, comfortably tucked up into his side, you’ve no desire to sleep but your eyelids have become lazy. The dark square of sky behind the blue curtains has turned into a lighter shade of night. You couldn’t care less about the time. 

Under the palms of your hands braced on his chest, his breathing is even, and his skin warm, the beating of his heart peaceful and steady. 

The pads of your fingers find his scar once again, and you feel him quiver. 

“How did it happen?” you ask quietly.

Frankie doesn’t answer. Not now, he thinks, please, please not now. 

But then, when?

“Frankie?” You tilt your head up to look at him. “When? When did it happen?”

He picks a strand of your hair from your face and tucks it behind your ear. The tips of his fingers rest on your pulse point until he finds the courage to answer. 

“2005,” he articulates, his tongue heavy. 

You stiffen against him. The year sounds familiar, but you can’t replace it. Your tired mind swivels around something Ironhead might have said.

“Isn’t that when you met— when you met the guys?” you ask tentatively. Your voice sounds like it’s coming from a distance. 

“I met Pope back in 2001, and Redfly a couple years later, but— yea. That’s when I met Will and Ben.”

Benny’s name rings out in the dark, altering the silence between you. You've grown rigid, trying to control your breathing as the implications and consequences of what you’ve initiated dawns on you like iced water.  

“Second tour, in Iraq. For Pope and I. We were supposed to back up a ground unit, but the whole thing went… it was fucked up from the start. We got ambushed. They were waiting for us. We took on some fire, a rocket hit the tail rotor, and I lost control of the helicopter.”

“Oh god. You crashed?” 

You sat up as he talked, and in your pale, weary face, your eyes are immense. He straightens up after you, facing you, without quite meeting them.

“Yea. Bad fucking landing. I crashed the fucking chopper.”

You had thought, a few days back, that you had it all figured out. But now everything falls into place, glaring ugly under the crude light of hard facts. Your voice fails you, and you clear your throat feebly before you ask a question you’ve already guessed the answer to.

“Did anyone else get hurt?”

He looks at you with dim, beaten eyes that reveal his true wound. 

“Pope made it with an injured knee. Got ejected before the crash. The two other snipers on board died when the helicopter exploded.”

You wait for the end, the key information of what took place between the crash and the explosion. He delivers it in a low, monochord tone, not a glimmer of light in his eyes. 

“A piece of the cockpit got torn up and stabbed me. Benny— Benny was in the ground unit. He rescued me. Pulled me out of there before the explosion. Didn’t have time to go back for the others.”

An overwhelming urge to hurt yourself twitches your hands. You move fast, climbing into his lap, enveloping his body with your legs wrapped around his waist and your arms around his shoulders. He doesn’t stop you, but he doesn’t return your embrace, and you fight off your tears. This is not about you. 

“Oh, baby,” you murmur, “baby, it wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t your fault.”

You repeat the words until you feel his clenched fists circling your back. You know you’re defeated. That he will never believe that. You hope he doesn’t hear you cry, and you grip him harder, until his shoulders sag under your hold. He feels so young, in your arms, like a boy, like a little child, hiding his face in your neck, and you wish for your skin to absorb all his tears.

Your next words feel like tearing your chest open to rip out your heart. 

“I can’t stay.”

“Don’t, please don’t.” You hear the ragged sobbing in his voice. 

“I can’t stay, I can’t stay Frankie, you know I can’t–”

“I don’t fucking care.”

You disentangle your body from his and he glares at you as you get down the bed and put on your panties.

“I can’t stay, I can’t ask you to choose—”

“You don’t have to ask me to choose, I already chose, I don’t care about anyone else,” he argues, getting off the bed as well. 

“What about in a year?” you straighten up abruptly to face him. “Or five? Or ten? What if it doesn’t work out and you’ve lost all your friends?”

He comes to stand in front of you, towering over you, crushing you with his impressive silhouette backlit by the blue light of the early morning. The contained wrath in his voice raises the thin hair on your nape.

“Look at me, and tell me you don’t believe it would work. There’s no version of this in which you and me doesn’t work,” he accompanies his angry words with a back and forth movement of his index finger between you and him. “We work. You know we work. It’s the only fucking thing that makes any fucking sense.”

You turn away from him and exit the bedroom, walking hastily down the hallway toward the living-room and open kitchen, where you stood hours before and have no recollection of. Your dress is heaped on the tiles next to his t-shirt, and you proceed to put it back on, your trembling fingers utterly useless. 

By the time you’ve managed to tie the shoulder bows, Frankie emerges from his bedroom fully dressed and booted. He picks up his cap from the floor where it had landed the evening before and adjusts it on his head after combing his hair with his fingers, and you stare at him, dumbfounded.  

“What are you doing?” you ask in near panic, as he walks past you on his way to the front door.

“What do you think? I’m not letting you go back to your place on the fucking bus,” he snaps with his back to you, grabbing the car keys from the console.

“You know if you drive me back we’ll only end up fucking in your truck,” you retort, slipping on your sandals. 

His hand stills on the keychain, his entire frame stiffening under his denim shirt. You straighten up slowly, horrified. 

“Frankie, I’m sorry,” you whisper. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that, I’m so sorry.” 

You run up to him, throwing yourself against his tall figure, pressing your forehead to his nape, to the scent of his hair. 

“I’m not letting you go back to your place on the bus,” he repeats, softer. 

“I’m sorry. Forgive me,” you plead, your hands grabbing at his chest. 

“I do. I forgive you. Let’s go.”

****

Taglist (thank you 🧡): @elegantduckturtle @mashomasho @lola766 @flowersandpotplantsandsunshine @nicolethered @littleone65 @bands-tv-movies-is-me @the-rambling-nerd @saintbedelia @pedrostories @trickstersp8 @all-the-way-down-here @deadmantis @hbc8 @princessdjarin @harriedandharassed @girlofchaos @gracie7209 @mrsparknuts

[oh-for-fic-sake]

Nanma?

Masterlist 

this fic is in my oneshots masterlist

summary: Jaskier's family tree is more complicated then either Geralt or Ciri realised, and with the way Geralt is eye fucking this newcomer its about to get a whole lot worse.

Warnings: 18+, No Smut, Suggestive themes, Swearing, Fluff, Humour, Almost a crack fic?

A/N: this has been in my drafts for a long loooonngg time and finally felt like finishing it. this is a oneshot and supposed to be corny/funny a little light hearted fun is all. I hope you all enjoy 🥰🥰

Taglist: in the reblogs.

You moved through the thick woods on the outskirts of town you were on edge. Nilfgardians were spotted in the area and that was bad. It meant it was open season on mages, the war was raging on and even though you were nowhere near the front lines you were in danger. All strong mages were. Your kind were being 'conscripted' for the Nilfgardians forces. Cannon fodder.

But you wasn’t running from them. No, you were hunting them. You'd have visions of death and destruction, Nilfgard was chaseing something. Hunting someone. And that someone had something to do with your family, had a connection to your precious boy!

He was here, passing though and was in danger, call it sixth sense or a maternal intuition. You just felt it, he was in real danger and you will not stand by. Nilfgard will rue the day they fucked with your loved ones.

Your legs moved faster, feet thundering on the ground as you hurried forward. Your skin prickling sensing the crackling in the air, there was strong magic around here. But it was nervous and unsure. Scared. Threatened. You growled following the tingling on your skin, the fizzling on your fingertips as you raced headfirst. You knew, you just knew that Jaskier was in trouble. The dreams were too frequent, both Nilfgard and your boy here at once was too much of a coincidence.  

When you’d encouraged him to be a bard and follow his dreams you never meant for him to become a bloody witchers pet! But after hearing the songs and tales of the powerful white wolf you relaxed. The man seemed like he was capable enough to contain your sweet bard.

You gasped as you heard them, you panicked shouts of Jaskier and a... girl? Before you could dwell on it you burst forth into an open trail skidding to a stop in between your sweet boy and two Nilfgardians. Mages they had already been casting, throwing some paralysis hex's- one had hit their target, you managed a second to glance at the girl. Blonde and frozen in place, terrified eyes flicking about as she seemed to realise, she was in trouble. You felt the pull of magic in front of you as the next spell was released and thrown at Jaskier whose entire face was both panicked and shocked.

"Oh no you fucking don’t!" You growled and managed to thwart the fairly weak hex. They were young and had nothing on you and your experience. The black clad mage panicked, obviously not prepared to be confronted. You didn’t give a second thought and set them ablaze, blue flames turning dark purple the centres becoming black. Chasing fire, forbidden magic but you didn't care. They tried to harm your boy. And now they’d pay. They were dead.

The other mages didn’t know what to do, one froze on the spot terrified and the other tried to run. Neither got away, the bright yet dark flames engulfed them managing to cremate them almost instantly, armour and all. You heaved and spun around seeing the hex ease on the girl but not release her. You approached her not paying any mind to Jaskier who had fell to the floor frightened and shocked. Blinking at you trying to confirm if it was really, you or not. And you don’t blame him. You hadn’t seen him for almost three years. Even before then your visits were short and scarce. His parents didn’t like you being around him- well his father didn’t, he had very radical ideas about mages he hated your kind.

Just as you were beside the blonde girl a fierce growl erupted from the bushes beside you and a huge angry Witcher ran at you, sword drawn and ready to kill if need be. You stopped moving and held your hands up in a surrendering gesture.

"Who are you?! Did you do that to her?! Speak!" He snarled pressing the blade to your throat slicing the skin in a shallow cut warning you he was not playing.

"Did you just try to cast axii on me?" You growled after feeling the pull. The weak spell causing your nose to twitch and skin to prickle. For a second Geralt faltered, had he? That wasn’t like him. Witchers very rarely accidentally cast, they were far too disciplined for that despite what people believed witchers didn’t like to cast on people, and even more so on mages it usually triggered an altercation... and as much as witchers hated it the mages usually whopped their asses.

"Tell me what the fuck you’re doing?! That’s forbidden magic! What did you do to Ciri!" He ignored you managing to brush off his surprize quickly choosing to snarl at you instead, showing the brutality that witchers were known for.

"Geralt, she didn’t cast on Ciri!" Jaskier said quickly coming to try and stand between you and stop the simmering tempers. But it was in vain as you managed to bat him to the side waving a hand at him

"What am I doing?! What are you doing! Leaving them alone to wander when Nilfgard is about! I saved them!" You growled locking onto the Witcher now having an outlet for your worry and rage. He should have been here protecting his group!

"Oh really?" The white wolf asked leaning forward towering over your slight frame, he was still on high alert his pupils eyes dilating and contracting making himself appear more menacing. you only stepped closer growling at him yourself growing more and more irritated.... and hot. Fuck he was hot, tall, and wide, a low raspy voice and stubble that added to his deep masculinity. Like a dusting of sugar on an already delectable looking cake. It was the kind of stubble you’d want to feel reddening your skin, the shadowed jawline that would be perfect for nuzzling... and riding.

"Yes really" you grunted at him with a smirk. His brow twitched and he inched backwards. This man thought you were a wee girl  fresh out of your schooling, he thought he could bully and frighten you. He was wrong, faltering humming blinking at you not quite sure what to do. You'd resisted his axii and hadn't caved to his posturing. It was actually a bit of a turn on for him, but then again, he always had a thing for powerful stubborn women. The ones who didn’t cower and hide but instead came at him head on with their own teeth bared ready to take a bite... His body flushed with need, bite? Fuck he’d definitely give you a mouthful if you asked~ his thoughts suddenly trailed down a different path, one that included only you and him... with much less clothing. It had been too long since he'd had a tumble with a fierce woman such as yourself.

It didn’t help that you were seething, growling back at him, crossing your arms under your bust pressing the mounds together and up without meaning to. You looked dangerous. And he loved it.

"From what? Because the only mage I see around here is you" he grunted out backtracking a little struggling to keep his mind on the situation and less on the way you were managing to make him back off as you craned your long slim neck up pushing against the biting steel without a care in the world. You were daring him, egging him on and calling his bluff.

"That’s because I fucking cremated the Nilfgardians that were attacking them! You know with the forbidden magic you saw?" You snapped stepping forward once more making him take a full step back furrowing his brow. You held your firm stance for a few seconds before retreating a few steps rolling your eyes at him.

"God, I thought you’d be a little smarter Witcher" you muttered and moved around him. Geralt stuttered and slowly dropped his sword. Just what the hell is going on? Had he lost his mojo? He watched you closely, for some reason Jaskier and Ciri didn’t feel threatened by you... Jaskier seemed more relaxed than he had ever been he'd never heard the bard heart rate so calm, it was as if he were asleep. Geralts eyes locked onto you once more trying to stop his mind wandering from the fact you were  beautiful and unfazed by him or his threats. It was strange but soothing, to have another person that isn’t frightened by him... but at the same time it was also incredibly frustrating. You rolled your eyes as you crouched next to the still paralysed girl on the floor raising your hands to put enough pressure on the binding magic.

"Oh fuck, no no no, please Geralt stop!" Jaskier lunged for the Witcher as he snapped out of his daze when you moved to touch Ciri.

"What are you doing to her?" Geralt cursed himself as his voice grew higher in panic. It wasn’t that he truly thought you’d hurt her but... That spell was powerful and you’d done it effortlessly. So, he wasn’t sure what to do, or what to think. He knew he couldn’t undo the spell on Ciri himself, it was hard for him to trust anyone! Least of all a new face- a powerful mage that was a realistic beauty she had imperfections! Actual imperfections which seemed to make her even more beautiful to him, beautiful enough to get her own way... the pretty ones were always more cunning, more trouble than they were worth.

"I’m trying to release the hex you idiot" you hissed trying to keep an eye on the mountain of a man but also concentrate on slowly pulling at the spell, it was like tugging the loose ends on a fraying piece of fabric, a slow plucking until the magic itself dissipated and the spell broke.

"Geralt please don’t pick this fight" Jaskier said coming between you both arms raised and waving as Geralt heaved the sword pointing it at your turned back.

"Fuck! Jaskier what are you doing?! Get back! Mages casting like that are dangerous! GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM CIRI!?" Geralt faltered panic rising as he tried to protect Ciri and pull Jaskier out of harm’s way. He didn’t want to swing and accidentally hit Jaskier.

"Shes not a threat- Geralt stop put your sword down she won’t hurt us" Jaskier shouted still shielding you, now fighting as Geralt grasped his jerkin and began pulling trying to get the bard out of the way so he could strike.

"How can you be so sure?" Geralt snapped worriedly as he watched you move over Ciri.

"Because your bard is my god damned grandson!" You finally hissed over your shoulder growing tired of his bitching. Thankfully the Witcher seemed to be reeling from your admission and blinked slowly going quiet before frowning. You huffed shaking your head and continued lifting the hex slowly so the girl didn’t get any cramps or pulls from being released so quickly.

"What?" Geralt finally breathed out still frozen on the spot growling flicking his eyes between you and Jaskier... Yes, there was definitely some resemblance

Whilst the Witcher managed to rattled his brain standing stiffly soaking up the information and flick his golden gaze from you to your grandson and back again you got to work and concentrated. Unpicking this spell was difficult, not that the spell was particularly strong or complicated,  but this girl had magic. Untamed and powerful. And for the life of her she didn’t know how to undo this spell but was trying, she was fighting it, lashing out at the spell trying to overcome it and force it to yield. You frowned and placed a hand to her crown before speaking to her.

"No no don’t fight it, you’ll cramp and be in all sorts of pain, just relax and let me unweave it..." you said to the girl who was beginning to wriggle as her body loosened and she regained feeling. She paused and whined quietly blinking at you in what you assumed was her small 'please don’t hurt me' this was a child who had been through too much, she has been hurt and betrayed.

"Shh it’s okay, I’m just moving slowly. I promise I’m not going to hurt you, a freind of my grandsons is a friend of mine. Spells like this need coaxing dear, you need to unthread it. Not claw at it. Now just relax I’ll have you back to normal before you know it" you encouraged quietly speaking in soft calm voice like you would a young child. She seemed to understand and finally gave in, it was like a curtain being lifted, her magic no longer trying to fight you. After that you managed to release it completely and with one mighty gasp the girl sat up panting and moved clutching her head clearly shaken from her ordeal.

"See I told you, I just released her from the hex; without letting her get cramps... no need to thank me" you said smugly as you turned to face the Witcher standing before offering the girl a hand helping her stand beside you. She was pale and looked uneasy-shocked but she was unharmed and that was the main thing

He turned looking more closely as Ciri was hissing moving around slowly trying to get feeling back into her limbs she sat up thanking you. You smiled and stood up holding a handout to the girl before turning to face the famed white wolf.

Jaskier inched closer and stood beside you face softening as Geralt finally seemed to calm down. Okay there was a lot of resemblance now that he saw you both standing side by side, you looked like a feminine copy of the bard slightly more refined nose and prominent cheek bones, your skin was dappled with more freckles and your eyes were more intense. The main differences were your gender and your eyes, Jaskier’s were... light kind and held a certain endearing stupidity, like a naive child? You on the other hand  had an old soul lurking in the bright blues, years of wisdom trap inside those only older mages had. Both you and Jaskier could see the witchers questioning gaze, head as the white wolf growled snapping at you both trying to call you liars pointing his sword at you again angrily. it would appear this particular Witcher was confused and he didn’t enjoy being confused you chuckled and shook your head rolling your eyes. Witcher’s, mages bards they were all the same in the end just a bunch of stupid growly prideful  Men.

"Its true Geralt- it’s complicated just? Put the sword down before she gets annoyed! You don’t want her to get angry- you think Yennefer is bad? She has nothing on Nanma!" Jaskier pleaded hand raised trying to placate the Witcher.

Geralts eyes flicked to you then Jaskier his head spinning. Geralt knew when Jaskier was lying to him. And right now, the bard was being honest. But how? How the fuck did a mage have a biological grandson? Or was this a child of surprise deal? Sometimes fate plays twisted tricks and children of surprize can actually look like their soul parents... maybe yours had been one of those rare instances.

"I? Thank you... I’m sorry I’m not used to... this?" Geralt finally uttered feeling like a complete ass looking away as he sheathed his sword. You smirked if you didn’t know any better, you’d say the white wolf looked a little sheepish. The thought made you giggle rolling your eyes.

"What you mean people helping? I’m not surprized with that stab first attitude be sure to sort it out before we get back" you quipped stepping towards him with a scoff.

"Back?" Jaskier muttered slowly dread seeping into his tone. It wasn’t that he didn’t love you because he did... but he wasn’t too thrilled about taking his friends back to grandma’s house for a while... you’d embarrass him no doubt!

You crossed your arms eyeing him coolly letting him know this wasn’t up for discussion. You’d made up your mind and he wouldn’t be changing it

"Of course, I’m not leaving you out here alone tonight this place will be swarming with Nilfgardians now that those two wont report back" you said plainly managing a small scoff and roll of your eyes before pining your grandson with your gaze. A gaze he knew all too well, daring him to argue with you.

"Come along follow me my house isn’t far you can stay with me and lay low" you said finally turning away from Jaskier who remained silent... until you turned away from him that is.

"Nanma we are fine- there’s a tavern in the town-" he whined only finding the nerve to argue when you were no longer staring him down. You paused and pivoted blinking at him incredulous keeping him on his toes before quirking an eyebrow. You could see Geralt tilting his head smirking folding his own arms across the wide leather clad chest. He was amused, watching Jaskier try to behave was always funny, the bard was just that! A bard always running his mouth, rarely silent. Jaskier was always making sarcastic quips, bitching, arguing, complaining, and genuinely talking himself into trouble, very rarely out of it.

"Full of harlots I presume? No. Jaskier your coming home with me and having a decent meal, bath and some actual sleep" you countered with a tilt of your head peaking at him from the top of your eyes giving him a mum look.

"B-but nanma?" He stuttered clearly trying to save face in front of his friends. But you were having none of it, it wasn’t safe out here for any of them and you’d not here another word about it!

"Do not 'but nanma' me child. You've got eye baggies, a little too skinny and smell like horse! Now get!" You scolded pointing in the direction of your home with a stern look. He sighed cheeks flushing as you waited makeing him pass you with an exaggerated huff resulting in you to quickly tap your grandsons ass with your boot prompting him to yelp and cover his hide peaking at you over his shoulder flushing brighter.

With that you were on your way the new group in toe following the path to your home. A quick high whistle rang out making you look to the Witcher who nodded to your right. Turning you were greeted with a large mare. Clearly geralts horse if the griffins head on her flank was anything to go by. You were impressed she was well trained to have found you so deep in the woods from just one whistle.

"Nanma?" The young girl spoke up curiously as she stepped up beside as you all made your way deeper into the woods just off the trail to a hidden one that drew you closer to towards your home. You nodded to her smiling kindly.

"I look like his older sister. grandma can raise eyebrows and then people suspect I’m a mage which leads to uncomfortable conversations... it’s getting more and more dangerous being a mage outside of eritusa.  but I don’t expect you to call me that call me y/n" you briefly explained, she hummed before gasping quickly and introducing herself.

"Y/n... I’m Ciri and that’s Geralt" she introduced politely you nodded and glanced at Geralt quickly. So, you were correct, this is the Witcher your grandson had attached himself to.

"Well, it’s nice to meet you Ciri, are you hurt?" You asked quickly glancing over her. You were worried, Nilfgard were cruel and you wouldn’t put anything past them, they could have tampered with the spell. Modified it to have other effects, you hadn’t felt anything but... Nilfgard was Nilfgard.

"No I... Was shocked I’m not normally caught unaware" the girl said looking down as if she were ashamed. You sighed and patted her shoulder lightly.

"Oh, don’t you worry it happens to the best of us" you reassured not wanting her to beat herself up over it. You could tell she needed more confidence, and hopefully she won’t let this little hiccup eat away at her.

"Holy- nanma that’s..." Jaskier began as he saw your fair-sized home. A three-story grey brick home with single turret. It had been fashioned to look like a gate house. Sturdy and fortified in its own right and cost a pretty penny. There was a secure stone stable attached to the side and a reasonable sized walled garden out the back. It had once been full of ingredients to brew potions and elixirs that you sold to the local traders. But now with Nilfgardians scouring the hills it wasn’t safe, so it was mostly vegetables and fruit. You didn’t like wandering to town in these uncertain times and tried to be self-sufficient.

"Ah yes... you've not been to this cottage before, have you?" You said wandering passed him to the small hidden homestead.

"That’s not a cottage! That’s a bloody? I don’t know what it is! But cottages aren’t that big nor do they have turrets!" Jaskier pointed out which made you roll your eyes. So, you had a turret, you were allowed to indulge every once in a while!

"It’s only four bedrooms Jaskier" you said leading them all into the garden to the home that would be nice and warm. The home had inscribed runes and spells on the walls to help preserve heat even when the fire had died.

"And the rest?" Jaskier asked still peaking up at the structure surprized... this wasn’t the typical 'grandmas cottage in the woods' as your last home had been. A little cute, thatched home with lots of sweet-smelling flowers surrounding it... this was a home built to withstand attacks, it worried him to an extent. Was his grandmother waiting to be attacked?  

"Separate kitchen and living space, small alchemy come library, a basement... and a stone bath washroom"

"A built-in washroom?" Ciri asked beaming at the idea of a proper luxurious bath maybe with some bath oils and salts! Decent ones hopefully. You grinned watching as she got excited, it must be horrible travelling with two men. You doubt bathing properly was a regular thing. Men just didn’t understand.

"Well yes... a floor bath I like being clean, and besides the hot bath helps heat the rest of the house... Geralt the stable is fully stocked help yourself to anything your horse may need you can come straight inside through the door on your left" you added nodding to the Witcher who tipped his head gratefully swerving off to the side leading roach to the warm stall that was already set up for her with feed. Afterall, you had known about this meeting for a while from visions it was obvious there would be a horse staying with you.

Ten minutes later you were all in the large kitchen, cloaks off and sitting down with tea as the stew you made yesterday was reheating over the huge hearth.

"So, if you don’t mind me asking... How are you a grandmother when... you know you’re a mage?" Ciri piped up quickly asking what was on the tip of geralts tongue aswell. You grinned at her sitting down cradling you own warm cup.

"Wow your very direct aren’t you, I like it no time for bullshit" you praised her making her blush and preen. You really did like the kid already; she was a headstrong little thing. She would go far if she held on to that grit.

"I thought it was impossible, you give it up for your... transformation" Geralt added thoughtfully waving a hand over the table motioning vaguely. He seemed far off looking through you, as if thinking of something else. Someone else.

"Yes, it is impossible after your transformation... I was married off young. And gave birth to Jaskier’s mother when I was sixteen... But my conduit moment was when I was twenty-one" you spoke plainly with a shrug. In all honestly it was a ridiculously simple situation. Many who did find out believed you'd achieved the impossible brewed a potion, used a djinn, or found a loophole.

Many mages came to you, sought you out hoping to find a way, a cure. But all were dissapointed in the end. You felt sorry for them, but at the same time envious. It’s all well and good having a child, the joy of birthing and raising one... but now your daughter was old and becoming frail, she would die and you would remain. You will outlive many generations of your own bloodline and have to watch them pass. It was not a fate you wished on anyone. Even Jaskier, your precious boy was ageing, soon it would begin to show.

"So, you had a child before you got to eritusa?" Ciri asked pulling you from the slightly morbid thoughts. You nodded quickly to her, thankful for the distraction.

"Yes. When my conduit moment happened, I left to begin my studies and that’s that" you said trying to bring the conversation to a close. You really wanted to avoid the who’s what’s and where’s if you could. It was annoying recounting the same story over and over. The past was the past, you lived into moment otherwise you’d go mad.

"So, you must be almost as old as me?" Geralt mused thoughtfully. You watched closely as he tried to add the years together and figure out just how old you were. You smirked into your cup; he was quite cute with that little look of concentration on his rugged face.

"Yes, she is ancient" Jaskier announced laughing through a mouthful of stew that he had been inhaling. For all the whining of being dragged here he didn’t seem to mind the food.

"Not ancient enough to be out run Jaskier, you couldn’t outrun me as a boy and you won’t be able to now” you threatened sternly snapping your gaze to him. He paused comically and shrunk into his seat slowly bringing the spoon to his open mouth watching you for any sign you were going to move towards him. He was ready to bolt, the last thing he wanted was to face the wrath of your slipper. The very same pair of slippers he'd encountered as a child were by the fireplace as always.

"You used to chase him?" Ciri asked between mouthfuls drawing your attention away from the bard who visibly relaxed once he was out of the hot seat. You smiled to the girl; it was nice knowing she had your grandsons back even against you.

"God yes all the time, he was a little rug rat. He used to run all over the place naked. I'd be in my room and suddenly see something run past my door, I’d go to check and low behold there he is running down the corridor bottom bared for all the world to see. He hated pants of any kind." You giggled recounting the many struggles of trying to help raise Jaskier, he was a stubborn smart ass even back then.

Geralt chuckled into his meal with a shake of his head. It was clear the Witcher had a few thoughts of his own about Jaskier’s antics. He didn’t seem surprized to hear about Jaskier’s troublesome aversion to pants.

"Nanma!? Don’t tell them that!" The bard sputtered cheeks tinting pink as the others smirked and laughed at the story.

"He isn’t much different now, prefers being in women’s skirts then his own pants" Geralt said with a shit eating grin trying to tattle tale on Jaskier. This may be the only time the white wolf can get a little payback and id up his dumbass crier, and he wasn’t about to waste it.

"Ge-Geralt shut up!" Jaskier’s outburst was ignored bar from a quirk of your brow instantly reminding the boy to mind his manners and stop yelling at the table. Jaskier sighed and dug his spoon into the stew in a huff pulling the now loaded utensil to his mouth and continued eating. You nodded once and turned back to Geralt.

"Trust me, I'm well aware of just what he gets up to" you said with a sharp edge both chiding and teasing Jaskier. For a second Jaskier completely forgot the others were there and pouted before snipping at you still looking at his food.

"I bet you don’t, I mean how long has it been nanma?" The words were grumpy, not meant to upset you but ruffle your feathers. I that moment Jaskier was little more then a pouting child embarrassed at being scolded in front of his friends.

"Jaskier dear. Geralt is older than me" you said deciding to deal with his little strop differently this time. Geralt frowned at you wondering what he had to do with this. But you grinned wickedly at him with a mischievous look that even Jaskier hadn’t managed before.

"Yes and?" Jaskier huffed looking at you unimpressed all but rolling his eyes.

"And I assume that he has sex?" You added Geralt huffed a laugh already seeing where this was going but for some reason Jaskier was still stupid enough to nod at you confused- completely oblivious to the little trap you’d just walked him into. Sometimes Geralt really did wonder about his bard.

"So, what makes you think I don’t?" You grinned and leant forward sipping your tea again, spying him from the top of your eyes. Ciri burst out laughing almost pitting her mouthful and Geralt hmm'd in approval smirking. But Jaskier? He yelled out squealing.

"What?- ew my god, no! That’s disgusting!" Your grandson snapped face glowing and stuttering hissing at you to stop being vulgar and 'act your age' you paused and tilted your head. Disgusting? That’s a bit harsh.

"Excuse me child?" You said quietly. All the noise stopped at your tone. Cool and firm, but calm. Jaskier faltered and both Geralt and Ciri watched closely waiting to see how this was going to go down.

"Oh come- it was a joke nanma you know your beautiful... please don’t look at me like that" Jaskier back tracked laughing nervously leaning his hands on the table ready to bolt once more. Jaskier loved you he really really did; you were always behind him encouraging him more than his actual parents. You'd never tell him it was partly because they feared he was also a mage as a child. This fear drove them to try and confine him, he spent lots of time with you until it was clear he was not a mage, it turns out he was just a clever intuitive little boy.

That had been when your daughter allowed her husband to be rid of you sending you away now your help wase no longer needed. In the early years Jackie had spent more time with you then his siblings and friends.

"Are you sucking up Jaskier?" Ciri asked wiping her mouth with a small giggle. She was enjoying seeing this childish side to him,  not that he was and 'adult' adult normally. But he lacked his smug pettiness and was dare she say behaving himself.

"He does this all the time trust me. But coming back to your question Geralt I’m not quite as old as you... I’m only seventy-one... or two. I’m not entirely sure I think in may have lost a year somewhere" you chuckled to Ciri whose eyes widened in shock. It was clear the girl hadn’t expected you to be that old... you'd be older than her grandmother if she was still alive.

"No that’s... it’s impossible. You not even ageing like a mage" Geralt purred crossing his arms over his chest. Your age shocked even him. Mages do age but don’t change much, minute details in their skin, hands and nails normally give them away. But with you there were no tell-tale signs even to his trained eye. It was enticing him even further you were entirely unique. Not vapid or docile it was clear you hadn’t left your schooling to be a little trinket for a kings court. You were an old school mage, content with having magic, honing your skill but not for glory or vanity like most did. He could respect that, he understood you were both a dieing breed

"Oh, you flatterer~ I had good genes to start with, look at Jaskier! Almost forty and still a baby face" you blushed giggling at the Witcher who was openly staring at you, drinking in your form with slow sweeping golden eyes. His pupils widening further then a humans should, giving away the fact he liked what he saw. Good, that made two of you.

"It’s not our genes you fed me a bloody witches brew" Jaskier scoffed rolling his eyes at you whilst throwing down the half-eaten bread roll.

"I did no such thing!" You snapped at him annoyed he had interrupted you undressing the wotcher with your eyes. You’d just began picturing the huge males firm torso and your grandson had to ruin it.

"I really didn’t. He stole a trial rejuvenation potion to prove to his little friends I was a mage" you continued looking to Geralt and Ciri with an exasperated sigh. You would explain the full story to them so hopefully they don’t think the worst of you.

"They dared him to drink it, the boy was stupid enough to do it!"

"Jaskier, you didn’t?" Geralt huffed tilting his head defeated knowing that the bard most definitely had.

"Oh yes he did! His father threw a fit" you nodded crossing your own arms, elevating your bust just enough to press the two mounds together teasing the Witcher whose eyes constantly drifted to them. You shuddered as Geralt’s low rumble echoed in your ears. God yes~ he was a mountain of a man, a true refined wild beast. And you couldn’t help but warm for him. Your body was already awakening, your slit dampening your smalls.

Geralt inhaled and snapped his head to you , catching the scent. You didn’t look at him, instead you faced Ciri but clenched once more at the growl the Witcher released making it clear he knew exactly waht was happening below your skirts.

"...So that’s why your all" Ciri trailed off waving as Jaskier trying to bite off a grin.

"Young? Handsome? A gift to women kind?" Jaskier boasted closing his eyes practically dripping with a cheerful pride. You and Ciri shared a look.

"Yes deary, whatever you say" you huffed agreeing with him. It was easier to let him have some of his delusions~ Jaskier just pouted, though this time he kept his mouth shut.

"... did you ever slip him anything else?... That might have lasting side effects?" Geralt asked more interested in having your eyes back on him then actually wanting an answer. You flicked your gaze back to him and gasped. He was man spreading, his chair had been pushed back and the beefy male was all but doing the split in his chair. Thick taught thighs clad in the tight leather front breeches either side of the chair, knees pointing east and west...your gaze travelled north~

Of fuck~ you bit your lip and looked up quickly needing to pull your eyes away from the massive bulge that sat between the meaty thighs. One of his hands scratched absentmindedly on his tummy before dropping to his thigh.

"P-potions? No... the only other thing that happened when he was with me was, he fell off my horse" you stuttered but quickly caught yourself and managed somehow to look at his face pretending to focus but the reality was you were miles away. Mind reeling from studying the witchers... southern peak. Geralt smirked wolfishly, a fanged grin and sparkle to his eyes. He had you already, you wasn’t even trying to fight him. You were drawn to him as he was you. Two unique moths drawn to the same tantalising flame.

"What? No, I didn’t?"

"Yes, you did love, you were about four at the time. There was a  butterfly attack it flew in his face and he freaked out and through himself off the horse. I couldn’t hold him and it happened so quick! He fell landing on his little noggin" you recounted enjoying sharing the stories of you and Jaskier, spending his childhood with him was the most precious time of your life. You hadn’t been able to raise his mother going to eritusa when she was only a few months old and not returning until she was in her early teenage years.

"Ah that explains a lot" Geralt teased sending Jaskier a smug look.

"Indeed. At the time I brushed it of he was fine, landed on grass but as he got older? Well, who can tell?" You uttered deciding to poke some more fun at your grandson.

"You let me fall of a horse?!" Was the screeching reply. He was well and truly offended.

"I didn’t let you do anything! I didn’t know you were terrified of butterflies! You just through yourself out of my arms... besides the horse want that big, more of a pony to be perfectly honest" you mused shrugging. Even if the fall had lasting effects, it was too late to do anything about it now.

"You’re scared of butterflies?" Geralt laughed wheezing slightly as he tried to stop his chuckles. Ciri however roared with laughter at the prospect of someone being frightened by butterflies.

"No-no I am not! I just didn’t like them flapping in my face!" Jaskier quickly defended himself flushing red. He couldn’t help it he was a child!

"He used to run off screaming, I had to cut down all the plants that attracted them to my garden. Apart from that incident the only thing slip him occasionally is a poultice to stop any unexpected great grandchildren popping up" you came clean with a shrug making Ciri lean to the side peeling with laughter. It was good you got the feeling she was so... serious it'd do the girl good to have a good laugh. You’d be lying if you hadn’t also explained to try and get another deep chuckle from the Witcher~ any rumbling sound from him was worth your grandsons ire.

"Y-you what!? How could you- when!?" Jaskier yelled throwing his hands out clapping hands with his bowl sending it across the table tipping over wildly and dumping the last dregs of the stew over Geralt.

The Witcher bolted up and cussed at Jaskier who offered a weak apology.  You huffed fixing your grandson with a look and nodded to the cloth on the kitchen bench behind him.

"Jaskier clean up your mess... and while I’m on the topic of cleaning I want you all to bring me your dirtied clothes after supper I will start some laundry tonight"  you announced only to turn hearing Geralt began shuffling. You gapsed and flustered  watching with bated breath as the witchers deft fingers loosened the buttons of his shirt and began shrugging out of it.

Fuck he has hair~ as if he couldn’t be any more attractive the man had a perfect dusting of chest hair trailing down his godly form. Your mouth ran dry and your smalls almost soaked through! It was a welcome sight, Geralt was a masterpiece it was an absolute travesty he couldn’t pass on his genes, a male this gorgeous would have made perfect sons. A bloodline of stunning males stolen from generations of women it really was a shame. But then again, their loss was your gain~.  Jaskier’s indignant squeal, ordering him to redress made you snap out of your ab induced daze.

"I no-Geralt I didn’t mean now; I okay just err just give it here I will start a pile..." you began to protest but give up as he folded the shirt in his hand and looked to you, asking what to do with it. You held out your hand with a tiny tremble in  your fingers. Geralt passed you his shirt with a wolfish grin, grazing your hand with his fingers leaving a blazing trail of fire just below, skin both heating and prickling at the feather light touch.

You bit your lip releasing a shaky breath locking eyes with the might beast slayer. A wolf indeed, fur and all~ you couldn’t help but peak to see just how far the hair reached on his torso. Seeing the abs almost free but for a few thin spars hairs somehow made him all the sweeter to look at.

You flushed as he cleared his throat drawing your eyes back to his smug angular face. The curve of his lip taught as it pulled back revealing a fang. Dear god, it was sharp enough to pierce skin somehow you knew this wolfs bite was going to just as erotic and sensual as his bark~ You spun on your heel shirt in hand to throw in the laundry tub, might aswell begin soaking the shirt now it was heavy with sweat and blood no doubt thankfully the horse odour masked any other foul smells.

"Geralt stop it!" Jaskier hissed across the table leaning over the wood pointing a threatening dainty finger at the Witcher after his grandmother left the room. Geralt tipped his head and smirked coyly.

"Hm Stop what?" He said innocently with a shrug only wincing slightly at the pull of a new scare on his shoulder.

"Stop making eyes at my fucking grandmother!?" The bards words were panicked and angry. His little larks feathers were ruffled, it was funny, cute watching how worried Jaskier was over you. But Geralt was hooked and on the hunt, he wanted you. So desperately that he was shook, it was similar to Yennefer but this time there was no djinn involved. Geralt smirked to himself wondering just how appalled Jaskier would be when found Geralt naked in bed with you tomorrow morning. Because Geralt was going to have you tonight and every night he stayed here. There was no doubt about it, who knows maybe you could tag along for a while, you had a positive effect on Jaskier.

"I wasn’t making eyes at her" Geralt smiled again slyly feigning a look of confusion then innocence it was glorious  not only was he going to woo you, but he could also frustrate Jaskier in the process.

"Yes, you were! I mean it stop! And put a shirt on!" Jaskier continued to have his rant, trying to intimidate the Witcher but failed miserably all the bard did was goad the man on. Geralt felt even more inclined to annoy the smaller male, rub it in a little bit before truly getting down to business. And by business he meant swaying a certain madge to bed down with him for the night.

"I don’t have another" was the response Jaskier got. A dismissive answer paired with a shit eating grin and half bitten off chuckle. The bard took a few seconds breathing deeper trying to think of another way to convince the stubborn ass across from him to stop his bullshit. But this was Geralt of rivia, there were no work arounds with him. The only thing Jaskier could do is try to wear him down by bitching and whinning until Geralt had enough and finally carved. Jaskier could do it, but normally it took a few days and this time he didn’t have a few days. He had about half and hour maybe? So he really had to get cracking.

"Yes. You. Do. Geralt!" Jaskier huffed puffing his chest out trying to square up to the monster hunter across from him. After all he had the safety of the table between them, Geralt would have to walk around and luckily the exit to the rest of the house was behind him. Meaning he could dart out of the kitchen to hide somewhere if Geralt did decided to give chase.

"No, I don’t it got... lost" geralts purred glancing over his shoulder at the door you’d exited through when he heard you muttering to yourself, a small pep talk to ‘snag yourself a Witcher’

"Lost?! More like stuffed down the bottom of your bag! Go get it!" Jaskier scoffed tipping his head trying to look stern. But he missed, it was hard to look stern when he was as dainty and… welp like. A cute runt trying to face off against a mighty wolf.

"Why?" Geralt asked shrugging, so he may have stuffed the shirt further down in his pack when out in the stables with roach… and it could possibly have something to do with wanting to lure you to his bed tonight, women just cant resist a battled hardened torso and scars~ it was in their DNA, the hunter gatherer type instinct.

"Because your half naked in my nanmas kitchen! And she doesn’t need to see your fucking nipples!" Jaskier growled looking to the door you’d left in hoping to have his freind dressed and presentable by the time you came back. Because the bard really really didn’t want to see you both eye fucking one another again. He had seen it before, geralts eye fucking only lasted a few minutes before he seduced his pray. And Jaskier was determined not to let his friend and grandmother bunk up!

"Do nipples offend her?" Geralt huffed his mischievous streak really kicking in. The Witcher was having the time of his life this was the most fun he'd had in years... and he might get his end off aswell, this was great!

"No, they don’t-" Jaskier began only to stop seeing the small smirk and playfull hmm making the bard pale. And draw in a deep breath.

"Oh god- no! Don’t you dare!" The pure panic in Jaskier’s voice was enough to make Ciri burst out laughing holding er sides in slight pain. The girl couldn’t help it, Geralt was clearly toying with him... wasn’t he? With that doubt her laughter tapered ff and she frowned slightly. Geralt wouldn’t really bed Jaskier’s grandmother... would he?

"Dare what? What are you talking about?" The Witcher smiled giving another little huff.

"I know that look Geralt! Your eyes are doing the thing!" Ciri looked to her soul fathers eyes at Jaskier’s outcry. They were playfull and twinkling  strangely. A dark playfulness she'd not yet seen on his face before, was this his smoulder? Ew.

"What thing?" Geralt huffed leaning his head back against the chairs back stretching his legs crossing his ankles making sure to display himself like hung meet, everything on show through his breeches. He was posing for your return.

"The glowy thing when you’re about to try and lure someone to bed!" Jaskier seethed quietly, Ciri covered her mouth ew, it was his smoulders Geralt really was going to? Sure, she knew that he was attractive but... no. Just not so far traveling with him had been such a frantic affair he had not stopped off at any of those taverns or been near enough to be intimate with anyone. He was completely preoccupied in keeping them all alive. It would appear now they had some safety the Witcher was not against satisfying his... urges. Not that she had a dislike for you but... old people having sex? No thank you.

"Boys is everything okay?" You asked as you re-entered the room. Jaskier looked flustered and pale. While Geralt was all smiles, stretched out completely at ease by the look of it, sprawled out as he was.

"Perfect, Jaskier was just... being Jaskier" the wolf preened nodding to the bard who was glaring at the Witcher who laughed to himself.

"Oh, Jaskier I'd prefer it if you didn’t get excited at the table" you chided softly closeing the door behind you stepping to the table again.

"But nanmaaa?"

"No buts Jaskier..." your voice was firm with the man child who was pouting, growing fussy and would soon start whingeing at you. It was only a raised brow and few seconds before he proved you right and began mewling like a child.

"But he is makeing eyes at you! And he's half naked!" Jaskier’s whine made both you and Geralt coo at him teasingly, like a child being told no for the first time. You shifted a little closer to the enticing Witcher and leant over resting your hands on the table, propping your ass out more then you needed to just to tease the male at your side.

"I am well aware of his state of dress Jaskier, I haven’t complained yet have I? And Your handsome friend can make eyes at me as much as he wants~" you spoke locking eyes with Jaskier watching as his face dropped from a childish pout to  look of morbid horror.

"No! No noo! He can’t!" Jaskier panicked slapping a palm on the table in frustration like a child only to jerk it back up hissing shaking the hand. It was amusing watching your grandson grow more and more irritated glancing at you both sourly.

"Geralt! Geralt stop it! I mean it!" Jaskier directing his attention to the Witcher as he chuckled in his chair, groaning stretching like a cat drawing attention to the hard muscles of his abdomen. Your mouth ran dry as you spied the glorious chest pleasantly dusted with the curls you wanted to graze your nipples, teasing them until raw. You’d find great satisfaction twiddling the downy curls between your fingers after a few bouts of wild sex.

"Oh? You think I’m handsome?" Geralt purred voice dropping into a sinful deep velvet tone that many women had definitely fallen prey to. God this man probably didn’t even need to use whores with that delicious siren song of his, it was much more dangerous then axii! You'd do just about anything to have that deep baritone voice being growled into your skin. And that was saying something.

"You say that like you don’t know~" you said back looking over your shoulder fluttering your lashes at him, partly to toy with your grandson but also to see of the man was serious. Because you'd ride this stunning Witcher off into the sunset if you had a chance.

"Ew no no lalalalalalalaaa I’m not hearing this! This isn’t happening!" Jaskier suddenly became all of twelve years old again covering his ears and singing loud and off key trying to drown out the 'icky' oldies trying to hit it off. Ciri found it strange tore between giggling behind her hand and gagging as you and Geralt made a show of flirting in front of Jaskier.

"I don’t hear it very often, well not from beautiful mages" Geralt added with a lopsided grin showing off a fanglike canine. You shuddered, fuck yes! The more you saw of that threatening fang the more you wanted to be bitten by this wolf, wanted to succumb to him and his wicked ways and be devoured in every way imaginable~ it would be the best fuck you'd ever get!

"Pity, you should come around more often, I’d tell you every morning" you purred upping your game trying to hint that you would welcome him to your bed anyday with open arms, legs, and mouth~

"Morning?" Geralt quipped in a sultry voice making sure to add a growly rasp that the ladies liked so much and wriggle his brow at you making a show of his less than pure intentions.

"Oh Yes even a big burly Witcher should start the day right. Compliments and kisses. And if that doesn’t sate you appetite, I have many alternative wake up calls~" you continued partly because you wanted to torture Jaskier, and partly because you were a horny mage who wants nothing more than to fuck this Witcher senseless and then snuggle and smother him with love and affection... you wondered if he liked back scratches? Maybe belly rubs. You swallowed eyeing his abs again. God, you hoped he liked belly rubs!

"Nanma no! That’s enough. H-he tried to hurt you. Remember? An hour ago, he was going to cut you down where you stood?" Jask tried his hardest to intervene but your kind was made up. You were going to ride the mighty golden eyed beast. Repeatedly. Jaskier frowned growing more frustrated with your blatant ignorance... and the fact you were sending Geralt a half lidded lusty look, biting your lip and grinning like the cat who got the cream! There will be no cream exchange on his watch!

"Y-you can’t honestly think about him like that. Hold a grudge or something don’t just? Flirt with him!" He cried again almost hysterical as it dawned on him you were probably serious. Jaskier didn’t think Geralt would hurt you, or vice versa. But it was weird, he best friend and grandmother? No!

"No no, flirt I like it~" Geralt purred moving faster than any of you could fathom managing to drag you back to sit in his lap. You gasped and then giggled as he wound his thick arms around you. His warmth encompassed you instantly, the hard thighs below you were like thick tree trunks of hard flesh. You squeaked as the Witcher held you tighter dragging your back to his torso, breath panting at the nape of your neck. You turned to him out of instinct to ask what he was doing but paused when  you met the half-lidded legendry amber eyes. Bedroom eyes if you ever saw them, and they held so much promise, the promise of a hidden pleasure that was to die for.

"Geralt! I swear to God! Stop it!" Jaskier screeched making to stand up only to huff and puff unsure what to do. Jaskier couldn’t exactly stop the two of you, you were adults and he really had no qualms... apart from it'd just be a bit weird and annoying... and possibly bring up more embarrassing stories of his childhood.

"Stop what? Your grandmothers flirting with me, remember" Geralt purred, you hummed trembling, hissing under your breath his lip and stubble grazed your sensitive skin.

"Indeed, Jaskier and besides that little spat back there was just a little foreplay~" You shifted once more drawing a sharp breath in, you could feel the bulge below you, the throbbing hardness that was nestled between his large spread thighs. You tensed your bottom giving the Witcher a subtle tease of what was to come later if he continued with this dangerous game, a game you were fully prepared to finish, several times~.

"F-foreplay? Oh my god no! No, it- he wasn’t playing about with you nanma, he meant it!" it was almost sad how hard he was trying to stop what ever was brewing between you and Geralt. Didn’t he realise him making such a fuss was going to spur you both on? He couldn’t be that stupid. Or was he being smart and trying to set you up? You’d probably never know with Jaskier there was a fine line between his genius and his idiocy and at times you doubt even he could tell which side of the line he was.

"I know~ I always did enjoy the rough and ready man" you hummed making a show of wriggling on geralts lap drawing an grunt from the male below you. You giggled girlishly as he leant forward rubbing his light stubble over your neck breathing in through his nose, nostrils flaring at the smell of your arousal.

"Lucky for you I’m definitely ready~" he boasted arching his hips making you gasp feeling the hefty bulge grind along your ass again with promise.

"Oh please don’t tease me Witcher~ It’s a rare treat that I actually catch the eye of an older man!" you purred back twisting slightly on geralts lap as Jaskier continued screeching in the background like a banshee and poor Ciri didn’t know what to do with herself, she’d never seen Geralt like this before.

"Oh, you like older men?" the rumbling voice echoed through your own chest when he tugged you back again. It was thrilling, the more you flirted the more you prayed Geralt wasn’t just playing around to annoy Jaskier. You didn’t think he was, he has needs and it must have been a while since he has seen to them.

"Yes, though they are fewer and fewer. Boys nowadays have no skill; they are selfish and lazy never seem to get there?" you rambled wistfully. And it was true, the men you’d lain with had all been rather dull. Even the newer mages were stingy getting all bent out of shape when you mentioned magic in the bed room or herbs the spice things up! You doubt Geralt will be dull even without tricks and herbs.

"Oh my god! No, we do not need to hear any of that!"

"Then you may want to sleep in the stables tonight Jaskier~" Geralt threatened half heartedly his voice somehow ominous and light. Full of promise, you couldn’t wait there was no doubt this man could play you like an instrument and by god you wont hold back.

"Shut up and go to bed Jaskier, give us adults some time to speak in peace!" you said having enough, it had been fun teasing your grandson but now? Now he needed to go to bed and let you and Geralt have your own fun.

"no! not until Geralt promises not to pounce you!" Jaskier huffed putting his nose in the air with a little victorious hmpf. You eyed him for a moment silently, peering at him making him twitch uncomfortably. But he didn’t move to look at you or Geralt, he was going to try and wait this out. Poor boy he must have forgot where all his sass and sarcasm really came from.

"What makes you certain he is going to jump my bones? I mean I could jump him just as easily. Its how I conceived your mother" you quipped and Jaskier made a strange sound dropping his hands by his side defeated. He looked wide eyed and shell shocked. You merely giggled again.

"Come on let’s just go to bed nephew~" Ciri chimed prodding Jaskier with a giggle. The comment made you and Geralt roar with laughter especially when Jaskier froze having to take a moment to think about it. Then he turned bright red and looked ready to explode.

"Yes, be a good boy and do as your aunt Ciri says" Geralt added rubbing salt in the wound as he laughed a really heard belly laugh

"I hate all of you." Jaskier huffed getting up from the table making his way out of the kitchen, by this point not caring if Geralt fucked you, he just needed to leave the room.

"We love you too Jaskier" you called out sweetly before wishing him a good night. Then turned back to the handsome witchers throne you'd acquired.

"Ciri? Time for bed" Geralt said slowly not looking at her, staring at you with intent. He was done beating around the bush, it was time to dive on in~

"Wait what?" Ciri grunted unsure how Jaskier skulking off had now earned her a bedtime.

"Go on bed, get some proper sleep" Geralt ordered calmly turning his face to her with a nod to the door willing her to go to bed... so he could creep into yours.

"Aren’t you going to get some rest?" Ciri asked with a tremor to her voice, she already knew her soul father was not going to be resting any time soon but she could to help herself as the question rolled off her tongue.

"Later perhaps" Geralt said resting his chin on your shoulder squeezing you tight making you giggle.

"Your serious about bedding- oh god?!" Ciri cried eyes widening in shock her face turning red. He really was going to have sex with you. Oh, good god!

"Oh god- Jaskier wait up their really gonna do it!" Ciri shouted out following Jaskier’s bitching about 'old people' that you could just about hear from the landing upstairs. You and Geralt chuckled and both relaxed into the seat.

"Now my little mage~ how about we have some fun while the kids get to bed?" He offered gliding a hand over the top if your hip dipping down curling his strong fingers around your thigh.

"And here I though witchers couldn’t read minds" you giggled lounging back on him dragging a finger up his wrist to elbow and back again tickling him into a full body shiver.

"We can’t, but I can smell you~ little fucking minx" he rasped at you a bite to his voice, one that was as feral as it was erotic. Your eyes almost rolled back when his hands smoothed over you, lips beginning to place chaste desperate kisses on the skin that was before his face, your neck and shoulder becoming littered with them. Breathy pants and small nips and licks quickly drawing moans from you, his sharp teeth leaving red marks in  its wake.

"I can also smell you... and that horse of yours, let’s take this into the washroom, shall we?" You moaned quickly  wanting to take this somewhere else. You didn’t exactly want to fuck in the kitchen... yet.

"Lead the way" Geralt growled standing up abruptly letting you lade on your feet, but never released you. He remained plastered to your back, grinding against your rump mouth reattached to your skin trying to suck his dark marks into your flesh as you slowly navigated your home to the bath house below.

[angelsndragons]

*sing* it's been ~a while~

and i have been watching vm vs the nein a lot so let's talk about it. as always with me, this is a very long word vomit.

i said over on my mechanics post that the vm playbook requires urgency while the nein's playbook requires setup. here's what i mean. if the nein can make it to round 3-4 intact, that is if all of them are up, they are going to win. period. the nein simply have too many ways to steal turns from their enemies or to maximize their own effectiveness for things to go any other way.

if you want to see this in action even with a reduced roster, go watch the fire elemental fight in episode 129 and count the rounds. between caduceus' mass cure wounds and spirit guardians, caleb's slow, veth's sneak attacks, and jester's guiding bolts, the nein were able to scrape out a win thanks more to their bag of tricks than the damage output. veth only got sneak attack because of guiding bolt's secondary effects, slow kept veth safe from an opportunity attack and jester from a multi-attack, mass cure wounds gave caleb that round to cast slow, and the spirit guardians passively whittled down the enemies into KO range. the accumulated secondary effects were too much for the enemies to withstand and they fell hard. notice how everything built on one another here. that's what cockroach parties learn to do well. it was sloppier than a normal nein fight but they did it with a reduced roster AND with nearly all of their high level spell slots spent before the fight. yeah, they're fucking scary.

vm, however, is a whole different kind of scary. this team can put you down before you even know what's happening. it's harder to target the group's biggest damage dealers because you have a hulking barbarian and often an elemental up front locking down combatants. the dagger rogue can teleport and fly. oh, and give himself an extra action each round. the ranger and the gunslinger can stand back and just go to town. the freaking bear can maul you. the bard can make your life a living joke in your final moments. the cleric is a wildcard because the group is built to fight without her; if she's around, good luck because that's another round of attacks you have to take and an extra round vm can take. their DCs are ridiculous, as are their overall ACs.

but the thing to know about vm is that they have to put you down fast. they don't have the hit points for longer fights and they definitely don't have the utility for longer fights. their druid is offensively oriented, their cleric is often absent, and their bard is mostly support. he's often the only one running that bag of tricks. he can and will fuck up an opposing team given the chance and bolster his own, the problem is that he has almost no backup here. it's a giant hole that is begging to be exploited. it's an even bigger hole when that bard can only cast one spell per round.

so, going into the battle royale, the vm side had to down one member of the nein as fast as possible preferably in two rounds or fewer. it almost doesn't matter who, because if you down beau or fjord, that forces jester or fjord to spend their action or spell getting the downed member back up. if jester goes down, fjord has to do something about it. well, i say it almost doesn't matter but beau's deflect missiles makes her the worst target of the trio and yes, i'm including fjord's half-orc bounce back in that calculation. that gives you one round where the person healing isn't fucking up your team. vm's secondary objective was to monitor and control beau. her movement is nothing to compared to a hasted vax but her stunning strike is the most lethal weapon the nein brought into this fight. vm overall is not a melee group to begin with and their con saves are all garbage. vm has to find a way to keep her off their tails if they want a chance. we also know that vm's plan was to try to take out jester first so throw that objective into the mix as well.

all the nein have to do is survive the first couple rounds, monitor scanlan and pike, and get into position. that's basically it. the nein can absolutely withstand vax and percy's damage output for the first two rounds. pike and scanlan's damage output can be scary but pike in particular has to decide whether she wants to hold high level slots for healing. and she would need those higher level slots to get close to percy and vax's damage output. the nein know from experience that the support caster is where the real trouble will begin.

but before we kick things off, remember that matt specifically designed this battlefield to take turns away from the teams. the chests are an action to search and are located far out of the way in the field. the gem requires an action to activate, which basically means sacrificing your action for someone else's, and shifts between six designated points on the field. matt, who has a deep understanding of how both teams operate, decided to play on the nein's insecurities that they were at a severe item disadvantage and see if he could get them to bite. high risk, high reward. granted, this is me speculating but it does look like matt saw the fight very differently from the players and readjusted the field accordingly.

so we kick off and immediately scanlan proves why he is the top priority on the nein's list. he gets the gem, gets fjord prone on the ground, and comes within a hair's breadth of turning the fight into a five on two potential slaughter. travis brilliantly responds to these circumstances in the best of ways. see, fjord isn't the nein's utility magician for this fight; fjord's the bait. travis makes a very big spectacle of himself and fjord's predicament. and vm buys it hook, line, and sinker. ashley tries to continue with the original plan of gunning for jester only to discover that jester is who knows where.

vax, percy and scanlan? immediately take their shots at fjord. but fjord's on the ground which puts percy's awful misfire mechanic into reasonable play. so fjord gets lucky and doesn't take anywhere near the amount of damage he could have from percy. scanlan, after percy is removed from the field, decides he's better off trying to finish fjord but only hits a 3rd level thunder wave instead of a higher level one, which sam was probably saving for some counterspells or such. i don't think a higher level would have made that much of a difference but it is important to note.

more importantly, vax gets greedy. he got two good hits on fjord with his two actions, he could have left and hidden for the next turn. yes, vm has to down fjord as fast as possible. however that haste is going to be more effective over the long term if vax can keep it. but fjord's easy prey and he thinks vm can down him before jester can get over there to do anything about it. so he goes for the bonus action attack. pike eventually joins this mad dash scramble and like scanlan, she absolutely needed to throw something huge at fjord to get past his half-orc racial trait to have a prayer at downing him. but she did not because ashley seems to have been saving all her high levels for healing so fjord survives the round in honestly a very good position. vax can't target him from range with the cloud up, scanlan now has bigger problems than fjord with molly right up on him, and pike ran, taking damage and healing fjord in the process.

meanwhile, the nein's ladies are free to run and play the field as they see fit. jester has a big opening round flame strike. beau decides she can hold off on her round 2 blitz run to vm in favor of bringing molly onto the field. remember kids, never let a monk with 55ft of movement have the run of the place, it's bad for business. jester then makes a great play with her dispel magic at vax's haste. hashtag thanks, fjord. remember, kids, cockroach parties excel at taking turns and actions away from their opponents. in round 2 alone, the nein successfully remove percy from the field and remove vax's extra attack. that's both big damage dealers hobbled in one round. they also gave themselves an extra turn, adding molly onto the field. and oh boy, molly.

here we see the utility martial fighter molly could have been. sam's confused by the low damage that molly's doing his first round but the damage isn't really the point of the attacks. that brand of tethering is far more important, as are taliesin keeping an eye on which reactions will support the nein and molly's second attack wasting scanlan's reaction. counterspell is off the table for the back half of round 2-beginning of round 3, which is important if fjord wants to get the heck out of dodge.

in case it wasn't obvious earlier in the match that the nein are absolutely gunning for scanlan, round 3 begins with beau's blitz against scanlan. fjord's luck against the dominate person balances out with scanlan's save against the stun and beau missing one attack. here, vm starts to get distracted. they chose their focus fire target, fjord, but now do not, arguably cannot, follow through on it. we'll never know what could have happened had vm said to hell with beau and molly in our faces, we have to finish fjord.

vax tries to retaliate against beau but here's where the cockroach starts to come into play. molly blood curses vax, which saves beau a full sneak attack+ worth of damage. it also utterly wastes vax's turn. fjord manages to escape (and damage pike while he's at it) and regroup where it's safe. scanlan tries to dimension door but fails due to the brand. literally any other move scanlan could try on the pair of them had a better chance of success. instead, another vm turn is lost. taliesin recognizes the importance of getting beau advantage and supports her at the cost of two of his attacks missing, but not before scanlan is forced to cutting words one of them. another potential counterspell and cutting words lost. neither jester or pike contribute significantly to this round; the nein have done so much damage to pike in three rounds that she is forced to heal herself while jester chooses to dimension door herself to the gem and only a low damage roll lets it evade her.

beau takes molly's setup and gets the critical scanlan stun. he loses his full round. fjord takes the opportunity molly provided him to polymorph into a t-rex, bringing him fully back into the fight. vm is really going to have a time and a half trying to finish him now unless they can put up a big single damage attack. jester builds on beau's setup by casting flame strike, whose dex save scanlan automatically fails. he goes down. if you're the nein, this is exactly where you want pike focused, on her team and not on yours. she has access to most of the same spells that jester has and the more you pressure her to focus on her team, the better. it's not wasting her turn, precisely, but it is controlling what she can reasonably do with it.

now we come to percy versus beau. i don't want to diminish the insane good luck beau had to take only 26 points of damage from six shots because what matters here is that percy absolutely could not down beau. period. her hit points were too high and after she took almost nothing from the first two shots, it should have been clear that she was going to get her turn and she would absolutely attempt to stun and down pike and scanlan. i'm not going to monday morning quarterback this fight but i will point out that the more rolls travis has to make to maintain concentration, the greater the chance he fails and you get to hit fjord's actual hit point pool and trade fjord for scanlan. and if you can get him before he can get back into the fray, even better.

beau stuns the gnomes and drops scanlan again. her inner cockroach rears its head once more as she negates more than half the damage on vax's critical hit sneak attack. fjord-rex downs scanlan and grapples pike. the stun on pike here really helps negate that high AC of hers. after scanlan's death, it's a long slow death spiral. vax abandons the fight in the next critical round in favor of keeping the gem instead of targeting fjord. percy attacks beau once more instead of fjord due to fjord dangling pike over lava. he starts to focus on fjord only to get distracted by jester. pike goes down but vax gets caught by beau before he can get her back up. and so it goes with vm losing turn after turn after turn until finally the nein poof percy out of existence and bring molly back. a fitting end for the team who started their final boss fight with eight and came out nine.

bottom line here, the vm team played like they had way more time than they actually did. they had to commit to a target and see it dead as fast as possible. they had to control the battlefield quickly and keep it. they didn't so they couldn't. aside from building on damage dealt, they couldn't create advantages or opportunities for each other nearly as effectively as nein did. all of these factors meant that the nein did what they always do: grind their enemies under heel.

[theowritesfiction]

Okay so I haven't been posting about the ATLA characters in D&D lately, but that's still on my mind and I've created the Fire Nation kids in D&D.

Let's start with Mai. Mai is obviously a rogue, I don't think this needs much explaining. Even if we mostly see her attack with throwing daggers from distance, I think she'd be just as happy stabbing people from stealth, up and personal. <3 Mai's alignment would be True Neutral, although I guess before Boiling Rock you could argue that Lawful Neutral also fits her.

Ty Lee. What's the closest D&D class to a circus performer. Obviously, a bard! Ty Lee gets to be the proverbial jack of all trades that fits her quite well. Ty Lee is the Chaotic Neutral member of the cast. :)

Azula and Zuko. I didn't want to go the obvious route and make them both wizards or sorcerers who specialize in fire spells. Also, both of them are skilled in hand to hand combat, especially Zuko, and I wanted their D&D builds to reflect that. So, I decided to do the following. Azula got to take the Court Mage build, which gives her some interesting defensive tools and basically allows her to be in the thick of the melee as she dishes out magic damage. As for Zuko, I recreated him as a Fighter, but he got to take the Spellblade subclass. I think this solves it quite nicely. Azula is better at bending/magic, and Zuko is better with swords.

As for their alignment, well, I'm sorry, but Azula is going to be Lawful Evil. As for Zuko, well I guess that depends on whether we're talking pre or post redemption. Still, it's hard for me to see even Book 1 antagonist Zuko as evil aligned, I mean he was kind of a soft villain most of the time. Post redemption I would put him as Chaotic Good because he's still kind of a mess and like he himself admits, he doesn't really know how to be good.

After I had created these characters, I decided to put them through some of the Solasta campaigns. My first group was dangerous ladies + Katara. It worked pretty well. Azula and Katara ended up holding the line, while Mai popped in and out of stealth to pick off the enemies one by one. Ty Lee just bounced around pitching in, but unlike her show counterpart, not being very effective lol.

For my next campaign, I decided to replace Ty Lee with Suki, just because I figured Suki would be both a little sturdier and also do a bit more damage than Ty Lee. It proved to be a good decision. Ty Lee could be occasionally useful, but as the characters level up and gain power, Katara can easily do all the healing by herself, and Azula is starting to dish out some insane damage, so a bard's supplementary damage/healing isn't necessary, sorry Ty Lee :( I wish the game would allow me to play with a group of five.

Lastly, I happened to find a spell scroll, but I'm still debating whether it's responsible to let Azula learn this spell. Let's make a poll:

[celeste-clearwater-06]

Hello! I was wondering if you could please write something about how the Fellowship (+ Thorin?) Would help a s/o who's Disabled and Chronically ill. Like she has a lot of symptoms like chronic pain, chronic fatigue, difficulty sleeping, difficulty breathing at times, difficulty walking at times, higher sensitivity to the cold, difficulty talking at times, and anxiety, depression and executive dysfunction?

I've been really struggling with my chronic illnesses lately, namely my Autism, Anxiety, Sleep Apnea, a really bad Overbite, Raynaud's Syndrome, Asthma, etc, so I'd really appreciate an Imagine like this. I have a really weird disorder where one of my legs is longer than the other, and it's been causing me a lot of pain and difficulty walking lately, and people have been bullying me for it a lot too, so I could really use a Comfort Imagine right now. Thanks so much hun!!

It's no problem! I'm glad I can provide some comfort!! For each character, I'll use a specific struggling area, to make it a bit easier!! I hope I got these accurate enough, and of there are any mistakes, feel free to point them out!! You are strong, beautiful and so, so amazing!! Keep being you!! ❤❤

Help (The Fellowship// Thorin x Fem!Reader)

Aragorn (Autism)

Aragorn has known you for a long time, so helping with your autism is not new for him

He's particularly experienced in reading your emotions and meeting your needs, whether it's helping you out of stressful situations or calming you down, he's there 🥺

If there are large and boisterous gatherings in Rivendell, its almost guaranteed that you can become over-stimulated quickly, and Aragorn immediately senses this (spidey senses õoõ)

He's fast to find your hand and give it a gentle squeeze of reassurance

If that doesn't seem to help, he'll instantly stop what he's doing and take you out of the room

If you're someone who prefers lots of space and little physical contact, he is 100% respectful of this and asks if you'll let him touch or hug you (very much gentleman 😌)

If ever you're confronted by someone of importance, Aragorn is right by your side to ease some of the tension

Sometimes there are things you find difficult to say or get out of your system

The king seems to know exactly what it is and will help you out by saying it or asking you simple questions that you can easily answer

And he always reminds you, no matter WHAT

YOU ARE NOT STUPID 😤😡

You may struggle with some parts of your life, but every day, he's constantly telling you that you're very intelligent and kind

His patience is unending and he'll never let you think down on yourself

Overall, Aragorn is always someone and reminding you that it's all going to be okay ❤❤

Legolas (Anxiety)

Most nights, Legolas keeps watch (since elves don't require much sleep) and notices that you jolt awake out of the random

Now, most of the Fellowship notices that you're usually awake and ready to go before anyone else

But Legolas is really the one to address you first

You were a bit nervous to explain, since you didn't want to worry him or the great of the fellowship, amount the other disadvantages you have

He gently encouraged you, and finally, you explained to him your sleep apnea

Yeah, he was very concerned

I mean, his blue eyes widened with terror when you told him that you could basically die in your sleep if you weren't attentive enough 🙃

Legolas, from now on, sleeps directly next to you, or keeps extra careful watch over you at night

Because he could NEVER see his precious mortal friend become injured... Or worse 🥺🥺❤

The other members had noticed a change in his behaviors towards you as well...

Gimli teased him whenever he caught Legolas giving you some extra lembas bread or offered to carry you 👉👈

You really tried to assure Legolas that it wasn't a big deal when you were awake, since you're aware of your breathing situation

But still 😤

Legolas will always bring you comfort and take great care of you, and that will NEVER CHANGE

Because he loves you very much ❤🦋

Frodo (Anxiety)

Frodo is familiar with the feeling of great anxiety, seeing he had a stress-free life while living in the Shire and suddenly was forced to carry a piece of jewelry all the way to giant ass volcano

It's easy for you two to comfort each other and seek refuge in thoughts and feelings ❤

He's not super comfortable with the thought of you having a panic attack though...

Only because he's never had one

It starts to give him a panic attack whenever you have one around him the first time 😳-

Any time you begin to breathe heavy or hyperventilate, halfling boy is hot at your heels, rubbing your back and reminding you to breathe gently

(So many hugs, if you're up for it)

After you calm down, he's constantly checking on you, asking if you need anything etc.

Really, he just wants to know if he can help 🥺

And even with the weight and stress of carrying the ring, Frodo manages to cheer you up somehow

Samwise (Asthma)

Sam has never had to deal with asthma once in his life

He's very nervous when the subject is brought, afraid it might trigger something inside of you 🥺👉👈

But you just chuckle, assure him that it's alright, and you have ways of keeping it under control

And now, he wants to know everything about it, just to have the awareness in case something happens

Sam just wants to protect you forever, and this was a great way for him to start

He constantly reminds Aragorn that you'll need breathing breaks and will convince Gandalf to let you ride on his horse

He'll scold Pip and Merry if they are trying to drag you around and be silly, because as he says

"You'll rouse him/her/them up! We can't have Y/N gettin injured!" 🤨😠

Sam is MOM

As always, he's very kind and always makes sure your needs are met ❤🥺

Pippin and Merry (Raynaud's Syndrome)

Very confused halfings 🤔

Also extremely concerned!

You were eating one of the lesser pleasurable nights

It was cold and rainy, and a fire couldn't be started, not to mention the quiet arguments of Aragorn and Gandalf in the nearby woods

And Pip's eyes widened when he saw the tips of your petite fingers begin to pale upon hearing Aragorn mention Orcs

"What's wrong with your hands?!" He squeaked, pointing towards your now white-colored fingertips

You hadn't even noticed, nor felt, considering they were numb anyways

Merry looked over his cousin's shoulder and his eyes also widened, not with fright, but wonder

They were both fascinated with your condition, convinced that you were casting some spell Gandalf showed you

Although you reassured them it was just an extremely frustrating inconvenience that you had, among other things

So from then on, the disastrobus duo did their best to keep you out of the cold (and stressful situations!!)

As a distraction, the pair will tell you great stories of the shire, doing little dances and skits that always cheer you up 🥴

Sometimes, they can be a little rambunctious though...

Merry will pick up on this fact quickly, and nudge Pippin to get him to calm down

Even though it may not feel the best

They find your syndrome absolutely fascinating!! 🤔🤔

All in all, these two are always up for keeping your beautiful smile on your face and your spirits high!! ❤🌺

Boromir (Depression)

Throughout the journey, Boromir has always found an easy way to make you smile

After all, he himself has a fascinating way of brightening anyone's spirits

Yours included ❤

Boromir may not have great stories from The Shire, like Pip and Merry, but he sure has a lot of positive things to say

He'll often suggest sparring with the two troublemaking halflings, just so you can see him goof up and get knocked over 🥺

If the nights become cold and weary, he'll give you a warm hug or a nudge on the shoulder

And a few words of helpful encouragement along the lines of;

"Don't fret Y/N. You have more strength than you'll ever know."

"Let our spirits never dampen! We've come this far!" 😊

He's also an incredible listener

Boromir wants to hear what you have to say if you ever need to rant or get something off of your chest

And don't think for a second that he would ever judge you 😤

Son of Gondor sees past all of your insecurities and knows you for your beautiful, amazing self ❤❤

Gimli (Walking disadvantages)

As you travel across great plains and mountains, your limp doesn't go unnoticed by Gimli

It may take him a while to open up about it, since he's afraid he might offend you in some way

And once he asks you, you inform him that it's a difficulty that unfortunately cannot be changed any time soon

And where you come from, lots of people tease and bully you about it

He did NOT handle it well 😳

"wHAT BLUBBERING DULL-MINDED PIGNUTS-" 🤬

Although this Dwarf is short and a bit slow at times

He's fascinatingly strong 😳

And so, he makes it his duty to be your designated carrier 🥺

At first, your a tad skeptical...

I mean, he's only around 4 feet tall...

BUT HAVE YOU SEEN HIM THROW THAT HUGE AX AROUND?!

Gimli will happily carry you great distances when you need a break, and even longer

(Sometimes it's just to show off around the others-)

"Gimli, are you sure you don't want a break?"

"Aye lass! The strength of Dwarves is unending!" 😌

*struggling to breathe*

11/10, fantastic dwarf, will never let you down!!

Thorin (Executive Dysfunction)

Another Dwarf??

Absolutely

Thorin himself has trouble keeping composure with his time management (and sense of direction 🙄)

This means that he'll have an undying amount of patience for you and you only

There's just something about you that he fond of, and it fills in that little sassy, brooding place in his heart

Can also relate to you whenever you grow frustrated at the setback of your journey or lack of sleep

Is 100% willing to help you find your lost belongings (and once again, ONLY YOU)

Thorin will literally make the whole traveling party stop so that you can put something in your bag and make sure that you put it somewhere you'll remember

Always happy to give you extra gentle reminders of keeping your pack closed

The company is utterly SHOCKED with how he treats you

I mean, this man has always been extremely stubborn and hard headed

But when you show up, it's another person he can easily relate and share frustrations with

Also a master at organization?!? 🤔

The one thing he could do successfully was organizing the damn journey and traveling company, so ofc he's gonna be good at that 😂

Yeah, Thorin definitely has a soft spot for you

King under the mountain will never run out of patience and kindness for you 😌💙

Sorry these took so long!! I hope you like them!! ❤❤

[just-horrible-things]

‘Verse: Resistance Story: Unlikely Salvation, co-author @whump-sprite Timeline: Arc 3, Ariadne is on probation with the Resistance

Taryn Loses A Fight [ First | Prev | Next ]

"What, so, you're gonna protect a fucking murderer now? A child-killer? A torturer?" Ariadne is all of those things – or could be all of those things. She’s never spoken about killing children and Taryn has never asked. The ex-fed is a shadow at her shoulder now, as close as it’s possible to be without getting in Taryn’s way. She says nothing to defend herself. “She’s already paid for her crimes,” Taryn tells the warlock levelly. “And she works for us now, helping us protect witches and warlocks.” “Bullshit!”

His magic lashes out, and Taryn’s hands come up too slow to block. It’s just a shove, but Ariadne stumbles enough to go down on her ass with a frightened yelp. Taryn steps forwards into the line of fire. “I said no,” she snaps. Power crackles around her hands, sparking off into the air. Behind her she hears Ariadne’s boots scrape across the asphalt as she scrambles backwards. 

The angry warlock’s friends are backing off now, distinctly wary, but he stands his ground. Taryn doesn’t recognise him. He could be new in town, or they could just never have crossed paths.

"If you want to hurt her, you have to go through me."

For a second his glare wavers and Taryn thinks he might be about to back down. Then his hands light up.

Taryn is faster. She throws lightning, forcing him to block.

A step back so she can clap eyes on Ariadne – wide-eyed on the floor – and Taryn’s hands are already moving. An incantation flashes through her mind to guide her magic. Ariadne vanishes.

But it’s a second when her focus isn’t on her opponent. She’s too slow again and his magic throws her backwards, sends her tumbling across the asphalt. Adrenaline masks the sting. Taryn comes up throwing lightning, and the other guy matches her.

Spells fly thick and fast then. Magic breaks against magic, lighting the street in staccato strobe flashes. The onlookers take flight, not loyal enough to get involved.

The stranger is good and Taryn regrets having to fight him. The Resistance could really use him on their side – but she's fighting for her life. He’s throwing everything he has at her and her hastily-woven shield buckles under the assault.

Expecting another throw, Taryn throws up her hands to redirect the force. Instead his magic slips needle-like through her defenses – aiming for her hands – and there is a sickening snapping sound, too many cracks at once to count.

A second later she is screaming.

She falls hard, defense forgotten, obeying the base animal instinct to curl up around her hands. Only when her lungs are empty does she even try to stop screaming. The air catches, sharp-edged, in her throat.

She is just having the thought that if she doesn’t do something she’ll be killed right here right now –

– when a gunshot shatters the air.

Taryn gasps in another ragged breath and drags her head up. The warlock is already down, a crumpled heap on the floor. Blood is sprayed across the street.

"Taryn, status?" Ariadne’s voice is somewhere on the other side of the blaze of agony. The ringing echo of the shot can’t quite drown the keening moan that escapes Taryn’s throat.

The invisibility Taryn cast is already unravelling fast. Ariadne flickers in and out as she holsters her gun – a thoughtlessly easy motion Taryn has seen feds do a thousand times. From the floor Taryn watches her heavy boots approach.

"Fuck," Ariadne declares. "Taryn, are you dying?" She deserves an answer, but it's hard to find a single word. "I… ahh – nnhhhh …” Taryn bites back pain and tries again. “I – can't use magic." "Okay." Ariadne is calm where Taryn is trying not to sob. "Where are you hurt?" Struck with the sickening thought of Ariadne touching, Taryn almost doesn't want to admit it. "H-hands," she gasps reluctantly. "Anywhere else?" No, she tries to say, but a finger twitches and all she gets is another garbled moan.

Nothing else needs to be hurt. This is enough to disable her. When she risks a glance at her fingers they are bent at nauseous angles. It’s only her hands. Not life-threatening. But she’s totally helpless on the floor.

She broke more than fingers when she broke Ariadne. 

The image is seared into Taryn’s memory. Not just hands twisted out of shape but an arm, a femur, and Taryn just kept on breaking things.

She can’t imagine surviving this pain in every part of her body.

And now the ex-interrogator is crouched over her, studying Taryn’s hands with cold calculation in her eyes. God, Taryn deserves her contempt but she can barely breathe.

"Okay," Ariadne says. "We're going to get to safety and then we'll call Alex. Can you walk?" "M'sorry," Taryn manages between breaths. "So sorry." "Taryn." She sounds like a fed, like the handlers who used to terrorise her and Alex, and it blurs together with the knowledge of what Taryn did to her. "-- please –" she squeaks pitifully. "Can you walk?"

Taryn tries to recoil, but Ariadne isn’t reaching for her shattered hands. She takes Taryn’s upper arms to pull her up – first to sitting, then, carefully, to standing. Taryn works with her, although every slightest motion sends waves of nausea through her.

How did Ariadne survive Alex taking her out of that cell? He’d have had to drag her.

Dizzy from the pain, Taryn leans heavily against Ariadne, and finds her solid and steady. “M’sorry,” she repeats, unable to find more useful words. “You’re doing great,” Ariadne tells her firmly, wrapping an arm round Taryn’s ribcage. “Hang in there.”

There’s nothing wrong with her legs but Taryn can’t manage more than a painfully slow shuffle. There’s nothing wrong with her lungs but she can’t seem to catch a breath. Slowly, slowly, they make progress back towards the car, and Ariadne is nothing but patient.

Taryn tries to pull herself together, because it is only her hands.

She practically falls into the car as soon as Ariadne opens the door for her. Only Ariadne’s firm grip on her stops her from knocking her head on the way in. Little lights are dancing in her vision. She wants Alex – and at the same time she’s scared to let him set hands on this many breaks.

“Thanks,” she manages to force out as Ariadne fastens her seatbelt for her, “for … not shooting – nn – me." “I –” Ariadne seems taken aback. “I’m not gonna do that.” It’s a relief to hear it, if a guilty relief.

She spends the short journey trying in vain to find a good way to brace her arms against the motion of the car -- and thinking about Ariadne in Alex’s car, unable to brace at all.

“I’m sorry,” she tries again when Ariadne opens the door to help her out. “It’s okay,” Ariadne tells her, still not understanding. “Just need to get inside and then you can stop moving.”

To get in through the safehouse door, Taryn has to touch her hand to the lock – not the mundane one but the magical one, invisible to normal senses. She’s trembling so badly that Ariadne takes her wrist to steady it. For a brief second, overwhelmed by the fear that she’s just going to slam her broken hand against the wall, Taryn tries to pull away. “Hey,” Ariadne chides without letting go, “easy. Let’s just take it very slow.”

It would be fair, really, if Ariadne took this opportunity to mash shattered fingers against rough brick. Taryn holds onto that thought – it would only be fair – to force herself not to resist.

But Ariadne only touches the side of her hand to the right spot, with more careful precision than Taryn would have managed on her own. 

The anticipation alone still makes her fingers twitch, and she sways on her feet. Ariadne exhales in relief as the door swings open. She helps Taryn to the couch, and settles her with her hands in her lap. “Stay there,” she says, “I’m going to get the first aid kit, I’ll be right back.”

---

Taryn is trying not to cry, and failing. "Alex is on his way," Ariadne assures her, pressing first pills to her lips, then a glass of water. The pills crunch as Taryn breaks them with her teeth, and for a queasy second Ari thinks the sound came from her hands. 

She hurries back to the kitchen and empties the ice tray from the freezer into a plastic mixing bowl that looks like it's literally never been used. Taryn flinches when presented with it, and Ari forces herself to slow down. 

She's careful as can be taking Taryn's wrists and lowering her hands slowly into the bowl. She can feel the tension as Taryn almost pulls against her grip. She looks so much like Alex, looking up at Ariadne with tears in her eyes.

Anyone would be afraid under the circumstances, and Ariadne’s sure she isn’t exactly the most comforting person to be stuck with.

She crouches by Taryn's feet and arranges ice cubes delicately around her broken fingers to make sure the numbing cold reaches all the breaks. It's strangely difficult to look directly at them. Ariadne has never been squeamish and god knows she's seen enough ruined hands in her time – but it's uncomfortable. She doesn’t think about it.

"I'm sorry," says Taryn yet again. "Hey,” Ari pauses to catch her gaze, “it's okay. You’re doing great, you've got nothing to be sorry for." Another hitching sob, half-stifled. Ariadne shows Taryn her palms once she's done fiddling with the ice, and backs up to give her space. "Thank you," Taryn says. "It's nothing." "I didn't know if… you would help me." Taryn lets her head tip back against the couch cushions. "... after what I did to you."

Recollection crashes through Ari like a physical force, like falling, knocking the bottom out of her lungs and leaving her hollow. The fear. The sleepless hours and days. The awful angles of her broken limbs. 

"Oh," she says lamely, and can think of nothing more to add.

She searches desperately for something, anything, real and present she can focus on that isn’t Taryn. Her eyes fix on a spot where the carpet is frayed near the corner of the couch. There’s a squiggle of loose thread, and a patch where the suggestion of dark floorboards just shows through the pale fuzz.

She understands the apologies now, and the fear. Taryn can't use her magic. This is the first time she’s been helpless in front of Ariadne. Ari would be terrified in her place.

Does she want revenge? She hasn't thought about it since she signed up with the Resistance. It's been beyond impossible, until now. She did hate Taryn, for a long time. 

But she didn't feel anything good looking at the tears on her face. It's just uncomfortable. 

She couldn't do that to Alex, she reasons. 

When she manages to lift her eyes from the snarl in the carpet, Taryn is still looking at her. Ariadne feels small under the scrutiny, even though she is finally the one holding the power.

"That was… it's in the past," she ventures awkwardly. "It doesn't matter anymore." "Thank you." It comes out almost a whimper, and that's uncomfortably weird, as incongruous as the pleading look in her eyes. Ari almost thought Taryn was invincible. She’s always so confident, so composed. 

She was crying when she broke Ariadne.

Shoving the memory back down, Ariadne turns away. Back to the kitchen she goes to get herself a glass of water. She downs it right there in front of the sink, focusing on the taste of it, the chill down her throat as she swallows. She's shaking now and she hates it. Her skin is crawling. She splashes water on her face, trying to wash the feeling away.

And then she returns to Taryn, because Taryn shouldn’t be left alone right now, even if Ari might look worse to her than no company at all. Taryn’s eyes crack open at the sound of her footfalls, then close again as Ari settles herself on the floor, well out of arm’s reach.

She checks her phone, but there’s no more word from Alex.

"I hate losing," Taryn declares bitterly. "We didn't," Ari points out, surprised. To her relief, Taryn cracks a weak smile. "Fuck, you're right." Ariadne picks at another loose thread of carpet, a different one. "Thank you," she says, "for protecting me."

There, that's another good reason not to want to take advantage, if she needed one. It'd be a shitty thing to do when Taryn only got hurt in the first place because of Ari.

"Did a shit job of it," Taryn grumbles. "I feel pretty protected," Ari fires back. She has a few fresh grazes making themselves known now the adrenaline has run out, but that's nothing. Taryn tries to laugh, but pain turns it into a juddering moan instead. 

Ariadne's skin crawls, and she accidentally pulls hard enough on the carpet thread to pull another loop free.

“Alex will be here soon,” she promises, as much for herself as for Taryn. She’ll feel better when Alex gets here. She always does.

[Next]

[drawlfoy]

detention retention finale p.1

masterlist (read parts 1-2 here!) request guidelines

pairing: draco x reader

request: no this series is from my original idea however i did take inspo from quite a few people (credited at the bottom of this)

summary: gryffindor y/n is put to the test when she tries to use her detentions with draco malfoy to get close enough for him to share his secret. unfortunately, things are never as simple as they seem. (set in 6th year)

warnings (plz pay attention to these this time): blood, violence, mild gore, mentions of wanting to throw up, you’re just kinda not having a great time during this chapter. also, kinda dark!harry trope here. it is a little ooc, i know, but it was what worked and so i ran with it. also, i play around with the timeline of events that occur in hbp so just expect that 

a/n: the long awaited p1 of the finale is here! the second half is almost entirely written save for a few scenes, and i expect to get that out in the next few days (so much less than a week). i really appreciate you all being patient--i wrote and rewrote the potion scene about 3-4 times because it just wasn’t the vibes that i wanted, but i’m semi happy with how it turned out and at this point i’m just gonna go crazy if i keep trying to restructure it so here we go. all the loose ends will b tied up in the last part and y/n is finally gonna catch a break ;) so as always lmk what you think!

word count: 8.7k

here’s a spotify playlist inspired by this fic!

tags: @gruffle1 @missmultifandommess @cleopatera @hahaboop @accio-rogers @geeksareunique @eltanin-malfoy @war-sword @cams-lynn @itsivyberry @ayo-cowbelly @nerd-domland @yesnerdsblog @shizarianathania @evanstanfanatic @strawberriesonsummer @hariosborn @night-ving @straightzoinked @imintoodeeptostop @naiomimoonshard @jejegu @ophelia-enthusiast @alwaysbeanunknownfan @nearly-memories @litty-dumb @callieclearwater @malfoy-wife15 @charlenasaxen @belladaises @fiantomartell @yiamalfoy @crystalox @dracoismybabey @dreamcxtcherr @decaffeinated-turtle @marrymetheonott @felicityofbakerstreet @daedreamss 

enjoy >:)

Snape’s stores were much more difficult to crack than she’d expected. She’d managed to steal one ingredient from there once, but back then all she had to do was disengage the multiple jinxes that guarded the door. Since, unfortunately, her slimy old Potions professor appeared to have felt a compulsion to fluff his nest and redecorate. A new painting was hung on the door--one of a large raven with beady, intelligent eyes that followed her as she walked past as inconspicuous as she could, no doubt preparing to fly off into the painting’s grey sky to alert his master. Her father had something similar to this in front of his Gringotts vault. She resolved to speak with him over the break to try and find a way in. 

Not like she’d had any chance to execute her plan, anyways. It had been two weeks since Y/N had so much as had a simple interaction with Draco. Every time she tried to talk to him, he turned his attention away from her, offering her a disinterested sniff in response or just outright pretending like he didn’t notice her. Pansy Parkinson seemed to take joy in this development, though she was hardly getting anything on her end save for a few dry looking conversations as Draco’s body angled away from her. 

Without the “distraction” of friendship and genuine human connection, Y/N had plenty of time to emotionally free-fall into an internal moral crisis. She supposed that Draco wasn’t expecting her to keep up her end of the deal now, just as her Gryffindor friends had given up on trying to make her useful. Physically, nothing was stopping her from walking right up to McGonagall during one of her detentions and telling her that Draco Malfoy was making an attempt on the headmaster’s life. But was it really worth it? Every time the thought crossed her mind, all she could think about was the way Draco looked when he talked about his mother, the way a shiny film glazed over his eyes and his eyebrows knit together. 

She’d made a promise. Too much was at stake. While she had failed her friends, she was at least not going to fail Draco...not when the rest of the world had betrayed him. 

Y/N was slowly sifting through thoughts like those when Katie Bell stepped foot into the Great Hall for the first time in a month. Her legs, slightly wobbly from being on bedrest for the better half of November, carried her down the aisle towards the trio of Y/N’s now ex-friends. Her soliloquy was interrupted by the familiar sound of Harry’s voice as he spoke, hushed and rather quickly, to Katie, his hands animated and his frame bent slightly lower so he could speak quietly. It didn’t take much imagination to discern what the topic of their discussion was as their eyes flickered over to the Slytherin table. She managed to hear a few snippets as the wind from the owls blew in and carried it towards her: 

“Malfoy--”

“Was it?”

“...remember?”

Katie, lips pressed into a thin line, shook her head. Harry bit his own lip and swung around to look at a blond figure further down the aisle. Draco. He was staring at the meeting, his body entirely frozen while he took it in. 

Oh, Draco.

Before either party could say anything, he was already turned around and speeding off outside of the hall. She swallowed; Harry and the rest of her Gryffindor peers were conversing and not casting a single look her way. Taking a deep breath, she got up from her seat, leaving her half eaten toast behind.

It didn’t take long to locate Draco--Myrtle’s bathroom was hardly a minute’s walk away from the Great Hall. He was in the same position she saw him there last, his head hanging over the sink basin while his body heaved.

“Draco,” she called out.

He snapped around, his eyes wild and his hair slightly wet at the tips. It occurred to her that he’d splashed his face with water. “Come around again for a formal Katie Bell confession?”

“No!” she exclaimed. No matter how much she tried, she couldn’t get herself past the doorway. Not when his wand was raised at her like that. “I wouldn’t do that. I would never do that.”

“That’s rich, coming from you,” he snarled. “Do you really expect me to believe anything you say?”

“Please,” said Y/N. “Please let me explain.” Despite the sting of his words, she couldn’t help but feel some degree of relief when she realized that he was finally speaking to her again, finally acknowledging her again. 

He let out a huff of disbelief. “This isn’t about you. Don’t you get it? It doesn’t matter whether or not you explain. You lied to me. You put my family in danger, me in danger. And for what? A date with Potter?”

“What?” All the air left her lungs as she stared at him. “It was never like that!” 

“Save it.” His tone, a bitter blend of vileness and defeat, echoed off the stone of the bathroom floor. Y/N was overwhelmed with the urge to run up to him and just beg him to forgive her, but the fire in his eyes and the angry twist of his mouth told her that that wasn’t an option. Instead, she slowly crept towards him. His eyes blazed as she neared him holding her hands up. “Please, Draco. I’m begging you.” 

His composure slipped, his wand shaking slightly in the air while he caught his bottom lip on his teeth and stared at her with a look she couldn’t quite place. She was just about to ask him about it when a pair of footsteps stopped right outside the bathroom.

“I know what you did, Malfoy!” Harry appeared, brandishing his wand and pointing it at him with conviction. “You hexed her, didn’t you? Katie?”

Draco sucked in a wheezy breath, struggling to stand up entirely straight as he held his wand at the ready. 

“You’re not even gonna deny it?”

“Let me guess, Y/L/N couldn’t get a confession out of me so you’re here to pick up the slack?” Draco finally snarled. “How cute.” 

“Shut up!” roared Harry. She’d never seen him look so furious before. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I think I do,” he said menacingly, the usual cool confidence she associated with him slowly reappearing in his demeanor as he twirled his wand around his fingers. Y/N finally let out the breath she was holding as Harry zeroed his focus on her. 

“And just what are you doing here?” he hissed. “Hermione was right, huh? You were with him the entire time. I can’t believe I expected anything different from you.”

Despite the fighting nature of the words coming from one of her best friends, she couldn’t help but glance at Draco as confusion briefly rippled through his features. 

He didn’t know. He didn’t know that she was being shunned by her friends for not telling them anything.

“I was just checking on him!” she wailed.

Visibly unsatisfied with the answer, Harry just scoffed and aimed his wand at Draco. “You’re going to confess what you did or I’m going to make you regret it.”

Harry wasted no time with firing off the first spell--a weakly cast Stupefy that hardly missed her head as Draco’s Protego ricocheted it in her direction. She yelped as she dodged it, smacking into the side of the stall door and falling on the ground unceremoniously hard. Frantically, she dug through the pockets of her cloak to locate her wand, but she was too late. A flash of light was headed her way.

Instead of it smacking into her chest with the force of a curse, the green light spread around her, creating a shield-like sphere. She met Draco’s eye’s briefly in shock. 

He’d cast a protection spell on her. In the middle of a duel that she was hardly formally a part of, he cast a protection spell on her.

“Diffindo!” The puddles from the eternal broken faucet glowed red as Harry parried Draco’s attack. It again went flying in her direction, breaking through the shell of the Fion Duris charm. In a stroke of luck, she rolled out of the way. A light blue flash followed from Draco--a nonverbal.

Finally. Y/N managed to close her hands around her wand, mind racing with thoughts of who she’d disarm first. Her wand had just begun to point towards Harry as the aftershocks of a Levicorpus charm slammed her to the ground once again, her wand bouncing on the cobbled stone once before rolling under the stall door. Y/N swore. “Harry, stop it!”

Harry was clearly losing composure. Despite his magical talent, the speed at which he was rattling off curses compromised his control...and his aim. Draco sent a few Fion Duris and Protego Maxima charms her way, but it still didn’t help when Harry had completely lost it. 

Things turned for the worst when his Tergeo actually sliced Y/N--just barely, but enough to draw a significant amount of blood in her wand arm. Even if she wanted to try and find her wand behind the toilets, she wasn’t even sure if she had the strength to fire off anything.

Her cry of pain prompted Draco to immediately turn his attention from Harry, angling his body towards her instead, an indistinguishable expression etched into his face as he took in the bloodstained white sleeve of her arm. 

Under normal circumstances, Y/N would’ve swooned at the fact that he willingly forfeited the duel just to check on her. But these weren’t normal circumstances, and Harry’s rage-filled expression and clenched jaw reminded her of this as he reeled his arm back and shouted out, “SECTUMSEMPRA!”

She didn’t think about it. To her credit, there really was no time to think. The cracking crimson light flashing towards Draco’s distracted figure was enough for her to launch herself at him with the intent of knocking them both to the ground--but she was too late, far too late. Glowing red light encased her entire body for a few tense milliseconds before she crumpled to the ground.

The Sectumsempra curse felt like every single nerve ending in her chest was being massaged with a sharp knife. Hot, sticky blood filled her mouth as she blinked, glassy-eyed and dazed, up at the ceiling. Distantly she could hear familiar voices over her body. There was a wet warmth that bloomed on her chest. She managed to glance down at her midsection to see an array of deep, short slashes scattered across her torso. 

“Am I okay?” Her voice sounded tinny and funny to her. A pair of light gray eyes came into her vision as she managed another breath. “Draco? Is that you?”

If he leaned closer, she couldn’t tell. His face was beginning to swim in her vision, blending in with the glass ceiling. Finally, a familiar voice, albeit strained and cracking: “You’re okay.”

She felt something shaky brush past her cheek and the coolness of metal rings dance over her skin.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. You’re going to be okay.” He sounded so far away for someone who was leaning right over her. She could see out of the corner of her eye a figure, cloaked in dark robes, raise its wand and recite an unfamiliar incantation. The metallic taste in her mouth began to subside as she felt the warm stickiness of her own blood seep back into her skin. 

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, not entirely sure what she was apologizing for but doing it anyway. She thought she could feel the warmth of someone’s fingers softly cupping her face, but it could’ve been the heat of the tears pooling at the corners of her eyes. In that moment, she was overwhelmed with the desire to just be held, to not be lonely. “Please don’t go,” she begged. 

The last thing she heard was a tense, “...Okay.” Then everything went black.

~

Y/N spent the majority of her break obsessing over the last memory she had of Draco--the startled way in which he gazed down at her as she bled out in Myrtle’s bathroom and felt his soft hands brush the hair away from her face. It was almost as if there had never been a problem between the two of them, like he’d forgiven her at that moment, but she knew that wasn’t true. Their last Potions class together had made that very clear. While he, thank Merlin, wasn’t letting Pansy hang off him like he did in 4th year, he still pointedly ignored her even though she had to nearly hobble into class. So why had he looked so worried if he didn’t care? And why, whilst surfing the high of a cocktail of pain potions, did she feel like she remembered someone with light blond hair at her side in the hospital wing?

“And you’re sure your bandages are comfortable?” Her mother interrupted her train of thought,, the plate of ethically-sourced willowbird lying completely untouched in front of her. 

“Yes, Mum,” groaned Y/N for what had to be the hundredth time of her Christmas break. “I told you. Professor Snape and Madame Pomfrey made me their top priority over the last week of school. They say that I won’t even need them come January.”

Mrs. Y/L/N hummed as she delicately picked through her salad. 

“I can’t believe that Potter boy’s nerve,” said Mr. Y/L/N from the foot of the table. “Hexing his own friend like that?”

“Dad, he didn’t even know what it did!”

“Exactly! What kind of person does that?”

“He’s just stressed,” Y/N mused, though she was personally a tad miffed at the fact that she’d been brutalized by someone she once considered her best friend. “And he was a little angry at me. He thinks I’m in cahoots with Death Eaters.”

“Ridiculous.” Mrs. Y/L/N vigorously shook her head. “Anyways, dear, no relation to the previous topic: I ran into Minerva at Wurgie’s the other day while I was shopping for gifts. She told me something very peculiar. Is it true you’ve become friends with the Malfoy boy?”

Y/N paled. Dealing with the backlash of Hermione, Harry, and Ron had been bad enough, but her own parents? Over the winter holidays? “Draco?” 

“Yes, unless the Malfoys have another son I’m not aware of.”

“Well…” Y/N searched her mother’s face for any sign of animosity but found nothing but genuine curiosity. “Yes. We both had det--I mean, we were partnered for a class project together in Potions. He seems to have grown up a little.”

Oblivious to the slip up, her mother nodded. “Interesting. I was actually quite close with Narcissa myself back in the day. The Malfoys certainly don’t have a great track record of picking the right side, but we were two quaffles in a case throughout our schooling.”

“You knew Mrs. Malfoy?” asked Y/N, her eyes wide. “I had no idea!”

“Of course, we disagreed on the pureblood values and traditions that should be followed with children,” continued Mrs. Y/L/N, “But despite that, she was always kind. I hope she’s faring well.”

Y/N gulped as an idea slowly began to form in her mind. “Er, Mum, actually...Draco told me some things about...well, his mother.”

Both of her parents perked up. 

“So you know how you guys always talk about how the Order owes you a favor for the time you went undercover in the first Wizarding War?” asked Y/N. They both nodded. “Do you think...we could cash that in right about now?”

~

A month later, Y/N stood in front of the painting that hung on Snape’s door, frowning at the raven that stared right back at her, daring her to try and open the door. In all the excitement of Christmas and explaining to her relatives that she’d nearly been murdered by her ex-best friend in a haunted bathroom, she had completely forgotten to ask her father how to distract a charmed guardian painting, and it’d hardly be beneficial to owl him during a busy work month. It was still completely up to her.

The dungeons sent a certain chill through her bones as she ran through possible plans, prompting her to tuck her hands into her pockets and shiver so hard that she didn’t even hear the footsteps approaching. 

“What are you doing down here?” came the snotty, posh voice that she knew belonged to Pansy Parkinson.

“Parkinson,” Y/N greeted, snapping her head up to see that she didn’t come alone. Draco strode next to her, though he wouldn’t look at her directly. “Come for a rematch?”

Parkinson pulled out her wand and scoffed. “Wasn’t planning on it, but if you’re offering…”

“Pansy!” Draco hissed, yanking her away and forward. “We have places to be. Don’t waste your time.”

“But--”

“She almost got killed by Potter, like, yesterday,” he continued in a hushed voice. “Do you really want to make that worse?”

Parkinson sent her one last sour look before she was dragged off by Draco (who still refused to make eye contact with her). Y/N slumped against the wall, wincing as one of her injured spots bumped against a protruding stone. Why was he ignoring her? He’d protected her during the duel. He was even the one who stood over her as she lay crumpled on the floor. 

A lump began growing in her throat again as she realized just how lonely she was. With her friends gone, all she had now was...her owl, Edison? Yes, that was it. Edison and Hannah Abbott, who clearly was just letting her sit next to her for meals out of pity. Y/N wished that she had the strength to sit alone and just say fuck it so she wouldn’t have to be the kickstart to a bleeding-heart Hufflepuff’s philanthropy career, but she was already beat down enough as she was. Sitting alone would just seal the deal in her new life as a social reject who dreaded classes where the professors let you choose partners. It was like she was a shy first year again, too nervous to talk to anyone and instead sitting alone at the breakfast table, praying that she’d make friends with someone, anyone, even though she was too afraid to figure out how.

And then came Ron, the sweet ginger boy who she’d met once when she went to a wizarding play with her dad. He’d plopped into the space next to her one day, eyeing the untouched plate of toast in front of her.

“You gonna eat that?” he’d asked. Y/N had just stared, mouth agape that someone was actually talking to her. “Hey, you’re the Y/L/N girl, right? My dad works with yours.”

Without waiting for her reply, he’d just popped the piece of toast in his mouth and continued talking at her as if they were old friends. Before she knew it, she was getting swept up into the social swirl of Harry Potter and his friends, helping them as they made their way through Hogwarts and took on the challenges brought upon them by Voldemort and his cronies. For once in her life, Y/N felt like she actually belonged. 

And she’d thrown all of that away. 

“Y/N?” 

An unfamiliar, dreamy voice sounded from a little further down the dark hall, snapping Y/N out of it. She hadn’t even noticed, but she’d slid down to the ground and tucked herself into a ball. When she touched her face, she felt wetness on her cheeks. The raven in the painting made some kind of weird cackling sound.

“Who’s there?”

A girl in Ravenclaw robes, strange eyeglasses, and shockingly white-blond hair that rivaled Draco’s stepped into sight. Luna Lovegood. She’d seen her a few times--mostly during the Dumbledore’s Army meetings they’d both attended last year--but had never had a private, one-on-one conversation with her beyond the time that Y/N threw a protection charm to protect her from Bellatrix’s Avada Kedavra at the Ministry and she’d thanked her. 

“I thought I heard you talking to someone,” said Luna as she settled in next to her, crossing her legs. “Isn’t Snape’s raven lovely?”

“I suppose so,” mused Y/N. 

“His name is Marvin,” continued Luna, “and he always listens.”

“Huh?” Y/N balked, giving Luna a funny look. No wonder they call her Loony Lovegood she thought. “It--he can...talk?”

“Oh, yes,” said Luna, apparently not noticing her confusion. “Marvin is quite the conversationalist, to be honest. Snape is a very fortunate wizard to have him in his possession.”

As if to accent her point, Marvin crowed a few times.

“I was actually coming here to have a chat with him about you,” said Luna. “I think it’s terribly unfair how your friends are treating you. I thought that Marvin might know what to do. He always seems to.”

“Luna,” Y/N murmured, not expecting the way that her eyes began to swim with tears. “You...you really think so? I’ve been feeling so awful about what I’ve done…”

If she seemed taken aback by Y/N’s emotional outburst, she didn’t show it in the slightest. “Y/N, you just care about other people. And you know what it’s like to be lonely, so I understand why you didn’t want to leave someone alone when they felt that way, even if it was Malfoy.”

Y/N bit her lip to keep the tears from spilling over.

“My mother had this saying about kindness,” said Luna softly. “She told me that it’s easy to be kind to people you already love. But you can really tell how caring someone is by how they treat those who are different.”

Marvin made a sound that was eerily similar to a jackhammer in the background.

“Thank you,” managed Y/N, letting the girl pull her into a hug. “I...I can’t say that enough. I really needed to hear that.”

“I know,” Luna replied wistfully. “I’m sure your friends will come around, too.”

“I sure hope so.” She swallowed, giving her a small smile as Luna squeezed her hand. 

“Marvin is such a funny bird.” Luna shifted onto her feet, creeping towards the painting. “He loves shiny things. Now that I know the spell that weakens the barrier between the natural and painted world, I like to give him things sometimes. If he likes it enough, he’ll fly off to his flock to gloat to his murder for the rest of the day. He’s so proud.”

Something clicked in Y/N’s head. Was this her answer as to how to distract Marvin?

“It’s Transcendere, if you were wondering,” continued Luna, making to walk away. “Just in case you wanted to know. I can’t imagine why you’d need to, though. Anyways, I’m off to meet with Snape over a few questions on the exam. I don’t imagine he’ll be around here for the next hour!”

Before she could even thank her, Luna was already gone and down the hall. Y/N felt her pockets frantically, trying to find one thing that might appeal to the raven. He looked at her expectantly.

Her only piece of jewelry was her family ring, and apart from her obvious personal ties to the object, something told her that giving Snape’s guard bird a concrete identifier as to who broke into his stores would not be wise. So that left….She reached into her pocket, taking out the glittery quill that Draco had gifted her last fall. Giving it one last look and closing her fist around the feather one last time, she thought about how much she wished to go back to the simpler time.

Marvin made a little chirp, snapping her out of her reverie. 

“Transcendere.”

The quill poked through the canvas and into the scene, slowly changing so it fit the art style that the painter used to bring the raven to life. He wasted no time snatching it out of her grip, giving an appreciative gargle before he took off, flying away into the grey sky.

She was in. A quick Alohomora charm opened the door, and Y/N made quick work of deactivating the jinxes that guarded the entrance and was happy to see that he hadn’t changed anything else with his security measures. Finding the potion was easy, and before she knew it, she had reset all the security charms, shut the door, and made her way all the way up to the Gryffindor tower with the vial tucked firmly in her pocket. 

~

Getting Draco alone was the hardest part of her plan. Every time she saw him, he was either surrounded by a gaggle of Slytherins or darting off down side corridors that she could never quite locate. Carrying around the vial of stolen potion was getting increasingly stressful, too, especially now that their DADA class with Snape was coming up. He had to have noticed that his stores were broken into at that point, but given that he hadn’t stopped a meal yet to berate the student body on the importance of integrity and “keeping one’s grabby hands to themselves”, Y/N assumed she was somewhat in the clear. On the bright side, Y/N was enjoying mealtime much more now that she was eating with Luna. Her new friend even convinced her to go to the library with her one night to study--something that Y/N was not too familiar with. 

They’d left right before the library closed, going their separate ways. Something crossed Y/N’s mind as she realized what day it was--Saturday. Draco always worked on the cabinet on Saturdays, and of course he wasn’t going to bring his friends along with him. 

Quietly, she sank down next to the stone wall at the entrance, waiting for Draco to exit. She waited, and waited, and waited. Y/N was just beginning to wonder if Draco had switched his schedule around when the telltale sound of stone bricks scraping against each other snapped her to attention.

Draco looked more frazzled than usual as he stepped out of the newly-constructed entrance, his hands shakily running through his hair and his tie out of place. Y/N felt a sudden pang of guilt at the thought that she was going to add even more stress to his night.

“Draco,” she said, standing up and teetering at the sudden motion.

He started at the sight of her before setting his jaw and turning to continue a walk down in the opposite direction. 

“Please,” breathed Y/N, jumping forward to latch onto his wrist. “I need to talk to you.”

He immediately snatched his hand away, his scowl deeping in his features. “I don’t have time for this,” he said, though sheer exhaustion seemed to replace the usual venom in his voice. “If you’re here to apologize, I don’t want to hear it.”

“But--”

“I don’t have time,” he repeated once again, desperation seeping into the edges of his tone. “I don’t have the time to figure out whether or not I can trust you again.”

“Then let me make it easier.” Y/N reached into her pocket, producing the potion vial that had miraculously not been shattered after she’d carried it for so long. Draco arched an eyebrow. “Run a diagnostic spell on it. I want you to know that I’m being completely honest.”

“Y/L/N, I told you, I don’t want--”

“Please, Draco,” she pleaded, holding it out to him. “Just do it for me. If you do it, we’ll be even for what happened in Myrtle’s bathroom. I’ll leave you alone if you tell me to.”

He sucked in a breath, begrudgingly casting the spell. The vial glowed and cast a bright emerald light on his surprised features. “How did you get that?”

“It doesn’t matter,” rushed Y/N. “Just ask me anything. I’ll take it if you want.”

He looked like he was about to leave her in the corridor alone, so she did the only thing she could think of--uncorking the vial and downing it all in one go. It went down like water, hardly feeling like anything. She was surprised. Wasn’t it supposed to feel more compelling?

“Y/N, you are such an idiot sometimes,” he growled, but he turned back to her anyway. “Okay. Fine. Did Granger put you up to talking to me?”

“No. Harry did,” answered Y/N, the words coming spilling out of her mouth without her even thinking. Draco’s briefly softened expression immediately hardened. 

“I suppose that answers it then,” he snapped. “I’m not sure what that was supposed to accomplish.”

“Ask me something else!” cried Y/N. “Something you don’t already know the answer to.”

His silence was evidence enough that she was maybe, potentially, possibly getting to him. Something twanged in the pits of her stomach, reminding her of the time that she’d eaten bad fish in Greece and was sick for days, but she cast the thought aside for just a moment as he finally responded.

“This is ridiculous,” he clipped. She waited, turning the empty vial over in her hands. Finally, after a few agonizing moments of silence, his voice sounded again. “Why are your friends mad at you?”

Just as she was about to tell him, the tell-tale sound of footsteps and a cat’s meow echoed down the corridor. Filch. Panic-stricked, Y/N launched herself in the direction of the Room before a hand closed over her forearm and pulled her back.

“That’ll take too long,” Draco whispered, so close to her that she could feel his breath on her neck and had to try not to shudder. Without waiting for her response, he yanked her into the broom closet across the corridor and softly shut the door. 

It became fairly apparent that the broom closet was perhaps not the best hiding space for two adults, a fact that Y/N quickly noticed as she realized that the only place she could comfortably place her hands was lightly on top of Draco’s chest. His own hands pressed into the wall on either side of her head as he used it to push himself as far away from her as possible. When her eyes flickered up, she could see in the dim light that he’d shut his eyes. She couldn’t blame him--when she ran the plan through in her head, it rarely ever included getting stuck in a tiny broom closet together, and it never crossed her mind that it could happen before he’d even forgiven her. 

“I heard something too, my pretty.” Filch’s voice floated down the corridor as he neared them. She sucked in her breath, intent to hold it. She wished that she could cast a Silencio on the broom closet, but there was no way to be able to do that in such close range. Plus, she was quite preoccupied with the churning in her stomach that was getting significantly worse. 

Filch’s steps were getting louder as he called out, “Anyone there?”

“Yes,” Y/N let as a tortured, strangled whine. Realization flickered across Draco’s face as his hand shot out to clamp over her lips. She tried not to focus on how warm and nice his skin felt touching her and instead on the fact that Filch was still walking.

The footsteps finally paused outside of the broom closet. Y/N could feel Draco’s heart racing under her palm. She vaguely registered that her hands had long since curled into fists, clinging onto his shirt. 

“Anyone in here?”

“Mmph,” responded Y/N, hardly able to enunciate anything over the death grip Draco had on her face. This only made the lurching in her middle worse, so bad that she felt like she had bile rising in her throat.

“My lovely? What’s that?” A cat’s meow rang out from across the corridor. “Over by the Charms classroom?” Another meow. The sound of quick shuffling would’ve come to Y/N as a relief if she didn’t feel like she was about to puke the entire contents of her stomach up on Draco Malfoy’s hand.

“Thank Merlin.” Draco exhaled. Y/N could feel his shoulders relax under the grip she had on his shirt and took note of the fact that he smelled very strongly of that stupid rich scent in her Amortentia, something that was somewhat difficult when the cramping in her stomach had gotten so bad that she could hardly stand up straight.

Then he let his hand drop.

“They’re mad at me because I didn’t tell them about you.” The words came spilling out so fast and without prompt that Y/N felt like she was out of body, watching someone else speak for her. “I couldn’t ever bring myself to hurt you like that because even though you’ve been mean to me and my friends and I technically have no reason to want to protect you, I still do and it’s just so complicated because I thought I was just being a good person or whatever but honestly now that I think about it f it came down to it I would choose you over anyone else here and that’s scary and ohmygodIcan’tstop--” Y/N managed to suck in a small breath as the magic in her system propelled her forward, barely catching the widened eyes of Draco, “--It’s been so hard being away from you and I understand why you’re angry at me and I’m such a hypocrite for being upset that you were a Death Eater when I didn’t tell you why I started talking to you in the first place but I couldn’t just confess to you when I finally had a reason to spend time with you and I didn’t want to fuck it all up but I did and Draco please help I can’t stop I want to so badly you were never supposed to know all of this I thought that it would just make me tell the truth not everything--”

“I know,” His hand came up one more time, covering her mouth and muffling her voice. Without being able to move her lips, the words died down once again while the waves of nausea and agony hit in their place. Draco’s face had once again adopted that unreadable, somewhat sad expression as he moved his free hand so he could thumb away the tears that were collecting on her cheeks. Her fingers twisted into the soft fabric of his button down as she choked back a sob against his hand. “I know. That was really fucking stupid, even for you. You do know you’re not supposed to take more than an ounce of Veritaserum, right? This is going to take forever to get through your system. You just have to let it run its course. I’m sorry.” The potion was closing in around her throat as she blinked up at him through tear-ridden lashes. “I hear Filch escorting a student to McGonagall. This is our chance to get out.”

Y/N nodded as best as she could without loosening his hold on her, and they were creeping out of the broom closet and slowly making their way down the hall as silently as possible. He was to her right, his left arm slung around her shoulder so he could keep her quiet without sacrificing too much of his balance. He pulled her away from the direction of the Gryffindor dorms.

“Not happening,” he whispered, his lips almost brushing past her ear. He was so close. She shivered. “Filch went that way. Plus, I need to keep an eye on you until you’re back to normal.”

She nodded again. By some miracle, they made it to the Slytherin dorms without much of a hiccup beyond the awkward shuffle down the stairs. “Purity,” muttered Draco, prompting the cobblestones to rearrange themselves into a door. “Oh, don’t roll your eyes at me.”

Y/N scoffed behind his hand. The Slytherin common room was, thankfully, entirely empty, but very eerie and cold. She tried to open her mouth to tell him that he’d obviously drawn the short straw when it came to lodging, but when she felt his palm tighten over her lips, she was reminded that that wasn’t an option. 

“Here we are,” murmured Draco, his voice still low and careful as he led her to the end of the hall of the boys’ dormitories. Something other than the effects of the Veritaserum she consumed set off the butterflies inside of her once again when she thought about the fact that she was really going to see Draco’s dorm room. His door, black and heavy, was completely unblemished apart from the silver numbers of his room. 

Before she could think any further, he turned the knob and spun her so he was looking right down at her. “The less you talk, the longer it’s going to take for you to be normal again. Try not to be too loud, though. I wanted to sleep tonight.” With that, he released her once again.

“You have really nice hands,” she blurted out, immediately clapping her own palm over her mouth again.

“Oh.” An uncharacteristic blush rose in his cheeks. 

Squeezing her eyes shut and steeling herself for whatever was about to come out of her mouth next, she let her hand fall. “I--I actually think I can control some of what I say now.” She took one more breath in to check. “Yeah. Thank god. It’s not just...coming out of me anymore.”

“I’m not too surprised,” he said. “You were on quite a roll back there in the broom closet.”

“So, um…” She shuffled her feet. “Are we good now, do you think?”

Draco sighed. “I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone willingly down two state terrorist interrogation sessions worth of Veritaserum just to apologize to me. So, yeah, I guess. I think you should probably try and get some sleep. Chances are it’ll wear off some by tomorrow morning.” With that, he rested his hands on her shoulders and steered her towards his bed.

“Why are you being so nice to me?” she asked, sinking down onto his black silk bedding and meeting his eyes.

He shrugged. “How are you feeling? Do you need anything before you sleep?”

“I’d really like it if you held me until I fell asleep,” Y/N said so quickly that she didn’t even have a chance to look away from him. He blanched, his eyebrows raising but his lip quirking up. 

“Wow. I wasn’t expecting that. I thought you were going to ask for water or something.”

“Draco, please don’t be mean,” she mumbled. “I didn’t mean to say it. It just came out. I would like some water, though.”

“Your wish is my command,” he drawled, disappearing into his bathroom before coming out with an empty glass that he cast a quick Aquamenti into. “Go slow. I really don’t want you coughing up water on my sheets.”

“Me neither,” she said between sips. “Merlin knows I’ve embarrassed myself enough already.”

When she finished, she handed it out to him. “Thank you. I really appreciate you doing this. I mean it.”

He snorted on his way to put the glass away. “Of course you do. That’s the beauty of Veritaserum.”

“You’re actually funny sometimes, you know,” she said. 

Draco smirked at her again. “Veritaserum. You’re doing wonders for my ego tonight.”

While he was doing whatever he was before getting into bed, Y/N went ahead and slipped under the sheets, rolling over onto her back so she was closest to the wall. She felt the bed slightly dip to her left and a throat clear.

“What is it now?” muttered Y/N. 

“You know, it’s really hard for me to do what you asked when you’re on your back like that,” he said.

“What?”

“Like, do you want me to be on top of you or something?”

“What are you even talking about?”

Draco huffed and reached his hands out to grab her shoulders once again, turning her to face him. Before she could register what was happening, she felt his own hands come around under her arms to rest on her back. Her head lay on the swath of skin between his shoulder and his collarbone, and she could feel the quickening of his pulse. “There. Honestly.”

“This is really nice,” Y/N blurted out, physically cringing when she realized that in her position she couldn’t easily cover her mouth. 

“Yeah?” She could feel the laugh rattle through his diaphragm.

“Yes.” Y/N huffed. “Stop asking me questions. This isn’t very kind of you.”

He let out another light laugh, his fingers moving to thread through her hair. “Is this okay?”

“Are you kidding? I’ve wanted--” Y/N buried her face into his shoulder, silencing the words that were about to come out of her mouth. “Oh, my god,” she said after she resurfaced. “I think I want to take a vow of silence after this is over.”

Y/N could hear his smile as he offered her a, “What a load of good that thought is doing you now.”

“Please, just knock me unconscious until it all goes away,” she groaned. 

“Stop demeaning my work,” he said, mock offense creeping into his tone as he continued to card his fingers through her hair in soothing motions. “What do you think I’m trying to do? If you want me to give you blunt force head trauma, then just say so. Sheesh.”

She sighed dramatically. “At this point, maybe.”

“Seriously, though, are you feeling okay? That was a lot of Veritaserum,” he murmured. 

“I’m just feeling mortified right now,” she answered. 

“You still need to tell me where you got it.”

“Oh. I stole it. From Snape.”

All at once, Draco dropped his hands and pulled slightly away so he could gape down at her. “You did what now?”

“Yeah,” she said, confusion creeping into her tone. “It really wasn’t that hard, you know. I’ve done it before.”

“When?”

She felt another lurching sensation. All of the questioning was starting to make her stomach turn again. “I was a second-year. Harry had to brew Polyjuice Potion and he needed an ingredient we couldn’t find anywhere else.”

Draco let out a low whistle. “At twelve?”

“Eleven. My birthday hadn’t come around yet.” 

“That’s…” He’d shifted so she wasn’t pressed up to him, catching his lip between his teeth as he thought. Y/N hadn’t made much notice of this development as the growing pain in her midsection grew. “That’s quite a lot for a kid.” The way his hair glowed in the soft moonlight made her heart twinge. It looked so soft. Y/N noticed that she’d been staring at him for far too long without saying something when he blinked, planning on opening her mouth to apologize or crack a joke when instead:

“I have the biggest crush on you.” The words left her lips without any prior consent, the consonants and vowels forming before she could even think.

He was completely frozen in place, his expression entirely unreadable.

 “Oh, god, and now I’ve ruined it all because I know you said that I didn’t have a chance that one time in detention and you don’t see me like that and I’m pretty sure you’re with Pansy and even if you weren’t I’m not enough for you and I wish I hadn’t taken this stupid potion but I know that I’d do it a hundred times over if it meant that you would trust me--”

Her words stopped abruptly as Draco silenced her--not with his hand, but by placing his lips on hers. The kiss was brief and shy, more of a question in nature than a statement. Her fingers curled around the collar of his shirt as he pulled away, a rather frazzled and deer-in-the-headlights look etched into his features. 

She was speechless. Absolutely, completely, irrevocably speechless. Despite the insistent gnawing of the Veritaserum at the lining of her stomach, she could only manage to blink owlishly up at him, mouth agape.

“Are you okay?” His voice was low. 

“Ehm…” Her lips refused to move. Draco frowned, dropping his hands from her sides and sitting up straighter. Something impartial washed over his features, turning his expression from hurt to uninterested, like he’d woken up from a pleasant nap and was snapped back to reality. His legs pulled away so no part of her body was touching him.

“I--er, didn’t mean it like that,” he said. “I just wanted to make you quiet again, y’know, before you said anything else you regretted. And I thought that...kissing you would shock your system enough to make you stop talking.”

Her cheeks turned a violent red as she realized the depth of his statement. “So you...don’t see me like that?” 

“No.” He ran his fingers through his hair once, took in a deep breath, and dropped his gaze to the comforter. “You should go to sleep. Hopefully you’ll feel better in the morning.”

At the very least the potion was beginning to settle in her stomach as Draco’s breathing turned slow over the next hour or so. She didn’t know all too much about the mechanics of Veritaserum, but at this point, she had almost nothing left to confess anyways. 

Y/N tore her eyes away from his sleeping form, turning around to face the wall. His bed was soft. And it smelled like him, like the perfect blend of black tea and sage and snobbery that was in her Amortentia. She squeezed her eyes shut and wished to be anywhere but there. When he kissed her, it felt like he wanted her. Yes, of course he was timid, but she’d thought he was just nervous. But what was there for him to be nervous about? She’d already confessed under literal truth serum. He knew how she felt, and he didn’t even say sorry for kissing her and telling her he didn’t mean it like that. He still didn’t want her. Of course he didn’t when Pansy Parkinson in all her obnoxious Slytherin perfection was right fucking there. 

She was just beginning to feel sleep tug on the strings of her consciousness as she felt her hair get tucked behind her ear by a warm hand coming around from behind. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I shouldn’t have done that. It’s better this way, you’ll see. It wouldn’t be fair if I...if it was different.” Despite his words, he let his fingers brush over his jaw as he moved closer, his shoulder lightly pressing into her back.

At that moment, there were so many things that Y/N wanted to say, ranging from “I am never going to live this moment down because I’m positively lovesick over you” to “I am going to beat you up for kissing me and then telling me it didn’t mean anything after I confessed.” Two schools of thought, neither of them perfectly encapsulating the true essence of her feelings. Her most traitorous thoughts told her to stay still and enjoy the final moments of affection she’d get from Draco, but she’d given into impulse a little too much that night. 

He must’ve noticed that her breathing had changed because he suddenly shifted his weight onto his free arm, keeping his hand poised by her neck. 

“Please stop touching me.” The words that came out of her mouth sounded much more pathetic than they did in her head, a voice crack finding its way into the final syllables. He jolted away.

“I thought you were asleep.”

“Well, I’m not.”

“I thought…” He swallowed. “I thought you liked it when I touched you.”

“Yeah, before you told me you didn’t feel the same way,” she mumbled. “I really would appreciate it if you didn’t make me rehash that again. Today has been humiliating enough. I’m not looking to set a record or something here.”

She’d thought that her quip was pretty good, but Draco remained completely humorless. “I’m sorry. That was wrong of me. It was stupid of me to act on impulse like that. I never meant to hurt you.”

“Never meant to--” She stopped in her tracks, instead letting out a sharp huff. “Nevermind. I don’t want a fight right now. I just want to sleep.”

Much to Y/N’s horror, her throat began to tighten up again with the tell-tale coming of tears. The next breath she exhaled was embarrassingly shaky and loud, and the movement that it sparked in Draco was even more mortifying. He made a small sound of sympathy. “C’mere, Y/N. I’m so sorry. I know that must’ve hurt you.”

Undecided between feeling pissed and just wanting to forgive him, she slowly sat up and faced him. His arms were out in a motion of invitation, an unreadable expression in his eyes. 

“You’re the prettiest person I’ve ever seen.” The Veritaserum in her system didn’t care much about her emotional turmoil, much to her horror. Y/N began to turn away, a watery scowl fixed firmly on her face, but Draco’s hand on her shoulder stopped her. 

“If I...wanted to be with you,” he began, his tone careful and clipped, “It would never work. Okay? Trust me when I say it has nothing to do with you. You did nothing wrong.”

“I kind of did.”

“Yeah, well, we both did. But I don’t want you to think that I, er, never thought about it.”

“Oh.” She wasn’t quite sure what the underlying meaning of that was. 

“So... “ He motioned again with open arms. “Do you...want to? I’ll play with your hair again until you fall asleep.”

Y/N stared at him, completely astonished. “Why? If you don’t see me like that, then why?”

“I’m not going to sleep tonight anyways,” he said softly. “And I want to help you feel better.”

She opened her mouth with the hopes of a biting retort coming out, but instead she was met with silence. Against her better judgement, she set her clenched her jaw and gave in. 

His arms were wrapped around her in an instant as she tentatively settled back into his chest, her hands lightly rested on his shoulders. Despite the humiliating previous events, it didn’t feel awkward, especially when Draco’s long fingers slowly threaded through her locks and brushed past her neck. A small, forbidden sigh of contentment left her lips when he let his touch linger over the back of her neck. His deep, slow breathing and the steady beat of his heart began to lull her to sleep. 

The next morning, she was able to lie convincingly enough to Draco, telling him her name wasn’t Y/N Y/L/N and that she was 80 years old. Confident that she wasn’t about to spill all of his secrets to the student body, he told her she was free to go. 

“Draco?” she asked poised by his door.

“Yeah?”

“Do you think I’ll see you much after this? You know, now that we aren’t Potions partners and don’t have detention together anymore?”

He sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe when this is all over, I’ll see you around at pureblood functions or whatever.”

“Yeah.” Y/N tried not to think about the implications of pureblood functions still existing in the future after this. What kind of world did Draco think this would turn into? “But this is probably it, right? The last time I’ll see you like this?”

She didn’t even need to see his nod. She knew. That’s why he offered to play with her hair despite not even liking her--it was his way of apologizing for roping her into this, for tricking her, for shutting her out, for the Sectumsempra curse...for everything. His way of apologizing before they parted ways. 

final a/n: ty for reading! first off, congrats to the anons that guessed veritaserum. that shit took me forever to write bc i had such high expectations but it turned out to be quite the challenging scene since i still had to juggle draco’s conflicting emotions/distrust and the fact that i really wanted him to make her feel better fjdkas; i thought i’d mention someone who helped me write this (even tho i don’t think they realized how much they helped lmao)L i’d like to thank my 🌟 anon for giving me some inspiration. i was struggling with the first half of this story in terms of pacing for quite some time but found some help in an ask they sent me mentioning how they related to y/n feeling lonely/would like to see luna and neville mentioned. unfortunately, i haven’t quite been able to fit neville in yet (and i’m not sure if i can without it seeming just like a random extra bit of story that isn’t helpful to the plot), but hearing some affirmation that y/n’s loneliness was something that actually resonated w them really helped. it made me realize that the isolation from her friends/draco didn’t have to just be a logical turn of events for the plot to proceed in a sensical way and instead could be used to explore y/n’s character. i hope you all enjoyed! i promise the stuff w her dad and the order will be cleared up next chapter

[dracowars]

could i request a slytherin x draco imagine where the reader and draco have been dating for a long time and she’s kind of a bitch like draco but she also doesn’t believe in blood supremacy so people are just scared of her they don’t not like her but anyways she and draco do share same feelings towards potter and stuff like that so what if draco crossed the line with potter or the trio and ron and harry get super upset but the reader feels bad and goes up to hermoine after class and apologizes because she know draco didn’t mean it to go that far but he’s stubborn and she feels better about the situation but the next morning ron confesses that he had the twins help of putting something in draco’s glass for breakfast but in actuality it was the readers cup and they see the reader drink it and they freak out because ron said that it was a smaller dose of draught of the living death where they could get sick and fall asleep for a long time and hermoine freaks out because she says that the reader apologizes and throughout the day the reader feels super ill and draco is tries taking care of her until that night where she goes to sleep and pansy her roommate and bff (we love pansy) can’t wake her up and she runs to the great hall and tells draco and the trio feels guilty until the twins get an antidote and it ends in fluff? i’m sorry it’s so long idk how else to explain it 😥

unforgivable | draco malfoy

pairing: draco x slytherin!reader

word count: 2,7k

summary: where y/n gets poisoned due to draco's behavior

a/n: finally, i'm back!!! my hand still hurts, but i managed to write this on my laptop so it did not hurt that much while writing. hope you enjoy <3

warnings: angst, use of unforgivable spell, cursing, mentions of death

universe: harry potter

„Only those who really want to inflict torture on their victim and have sadistic pleasure in seeing them suffer, can create the right magical energy for a successful torture curse”, Professor Snape, your teacher in Defense Against the Dark Arts this year, repeats to the entire class, strutting around in front of the blackboard that is only filled with three words. Slowly getting bored, you lean back in your chair and look at the ceiling, which seems far more interesting than the repetition of the three unforgivable curses right now.

Your gaze wanders over the numerous cracks in the ceiling above you until you completely block out Professor Snape’s voice. As soon as you direct your eyes a little further to the left, you stare at your beautiful boyfriend, whose side profile is illuminated by the shining sun. Smiling to yourself, you move closer to him to gently place your hand on top of his, hoping to draw his attention to you.

But without success.

Draco does not move an inch, his gaze intently focused on the front of the classroom while he is listening to the lesson, not even stopping when you finally lay your head on his shoulder and sigh softly.

Since your beloved boyfriend obviously does not want to give you the attention you deserve, you look for something else to do to cure your boredom. Annoying Harry Potter and Ron Weasley seems like a good decision for you. It does not take you long to toss small, rolled up balls of paper against the back of their heads, careful to only throw it across the room when Snape turns his back to the class. Rolling their eyes, they turn to you in annoyance, but you just give them a malicious smile before they try to focus again.

Just like Draco, you despise Harry Potter profoundly. There has never been a real reason for your hatred, but sometimes you meet people in your life that you just can’t get along with. This similarity of Draco and you only bonded you together even more.

You were never very popular at Hogwarts anyway, neither with your classmates nor with the teachers. But you do not care. In fact, you even enjoy it when you walk through the corridors and the first years move aside in fear immediately. If Draco is with you, they even turn around and take a different path. And because the few people you actually do get along with are always by your side, you do not mind having a certain reputation at this school.

“You will write a twenty-page essay about the unforgivable curses until next week”, Professor Snape finishes the lesson and you excitedly jump out of your seat right away, collecting your stuff. Since your hand was still connected to Draco’s, you pulled him along.

“Someone seems to have a strong interest in these curses”, you giggle when you see his almost annoyed expression due to the ending of the lesson.

“And what if it does?”, he rolls his eyes at you and you wait until he has stowed all his things in his bag before you go out into the hallway together. Almost like a reflex, you intertwine your hands as you walk down the corridors of Hogwarts.

On your way to the Great Hall to get something to eat, you walk across the courtyard when you suddenly notice the Golden Trio, as they are called, sitting on one of the benches out of the corner of your eye. Before you can react, they are already standing in front of you.

“Sorry, but you are covering the sun”, you mention snippily and raise an eyebrow, waiting for them to clear the way.

“What was that about earlier, Y/N?”, Ron angrily asks you and you just shrug your shoulders ignorantly.

“Do not make a scene now, Weaselbee”, Draco interferes, obviously annoyed.

“Oh, it is you, Malfoy! I did not recognize you anymore, now that you have suddenly become so meek since your father is in Azkaban”, Harry mocks and you feel the situation slowly escalating. “How does he like his new home?”

If looks could kill, you are sure all three of them would be dead on the spot.

“At least I still have parents, Scarhead”, Draco fires back through gritted teeth and his grip on your hand becomes tighter.

“Depulso!”

As soon as these words come out of Harry’s mouth, Draco is pushed back through the air, his back hitting the brick wall. In shock, you look after him, your legs unable to move. The arguments between you and them happened countless times, but no one has ever raised their wand.

“Harry!”, you hear Hermione scold him, but too late. The anger is clearly written upon Draco’s face as he slowly straightens his posture. Reaching for his wand in a flash, the next few seconds pass in slow motion.

“Cruci-“

“Expelliarmus!”, you quickly interrupt when you realize what Draco was about to say, and his wand flies through the air, landing right in front of your feet. An uncomfortable silence spreads and even Draco does not seem to understand what he was about to do.

“You have totally gone crazy!”, Ron is the first so speak up and angrily stomps towards your still stunned boyfriend, but you quickly stand between them, protecting Draco.

“Ron, stop it”, Hermione talks him out of doing anything stupid until he finally gives in and lets her pull him away. With an disparaging look, the three of them disappear into the next corridor.

“Are you actually crazy!?”, you turn to Draco, who immediately lowers his head, obviously understanding that his actions were wrong. “These curses are called unforgivable for a reason, Draco! I thought you listened to Snape today, damn it!”

“I-I am sorry”, he manages to say, lifting his head to look at you, trying to show you that he is serious. “But you hate them too!”

“And yet I would never harm them physically!”, you reply irritably and shove his wand back into his hand. You then turn away, shaking your head.

“I apologized! Wait, babe-“

“No, Draco. You went too far this time”, you interrupt him and pull your wrist out of his grip. With these words you leave him alone and make your way into the filled Great Hall. Once you arrive inside, you feel the burning and piercing looks of the whole Gryffindor table on you, but you choose to ignore them and walk straight up to their table. Contrary to what you expected, their conversations suddenly fall silent when you walk up to Hermione.

“Can we talk for a moment?”, you ask her with no emotion in your voice or face, but your eyes are almost begging her, and your heart is leaping. After exchanging a few glances with the Weasley twins and their little sister, Hermione nods in agreement and follows you out of the Great Hall into the silence of the corridors.

“What is it?”, she sighs and puts her hands on her hips.

“I wanted to apologize for Draco’s behavior. He really did not mean it, you have to believe me. Draco can be so incredibly stubborn sometimes, but he would never want to harm any of you”, you rant to her while she listens closely.

“First of all, I am not the one you should apologize to, and most importantly, you should not be the one to apologize”, Hermione replies, rubbing her fingers against her temple. “We both know what happens to wizards who cast one of these curse-“

“Shh!” you interrupt her and quickly cover her mouth, suppressing her words. “I know. But- Well I-“

“I accept your apology, Y/N. After all, Harry and Ron were not entirely innocent either”, she explains to you and for a brief moment you see a small smile cross her lips. Right now, you would love to hug her.

“Thank you”, you say from the bottom of your heart. Sometimes it can actually be helpful to approach things with a little kindness.

“I am also sorry about what happened. Let us just forget about it”, she suggests, and you agree without hesitation.

And Hermione really is just as sorry as you are. Especially when Ron tells her about his nasty plan at breakfast the next morning. Hermione did not get around to tell them about your apology yet, which is why Ron still wants revenge. With the help of Fred and George, he prepared a small potion of Draught of the Living Death and gave it into Draco’s glass. But when Hermione finds out about it, it is already too late.

She can only helplessly watch as you suddenly ingest the toxic mixture instead of Draco.

You, on the other hand, did not even notice that there is something strange about your drink and continue to talk with Pansy, while still giving Draco the cold shoulder. Of course, he has apologized a thousand times, but if you do not punish him in some way, he will never learn from it.

Nevertheless, you are quite glad that he does not leave your side for the whole day, because when you feel lightheaded all of a sudden and shortly afterwards pass out, he is by your side immediately, catching you.

“Babe, can you hear me?!”, Draco basically yells in your face before gently patting your cheek, causing you to open your eyes again. Confused and disoriented, you look around, not remembering what happened.

“What- What happened?”, you ask limp, almost not able to get your teeth apart to speak while your eyes keep feeling extremely heavy.

“You passed out”, he explains as he is already heaving you into his strong arms. “I will take you to your room, you have to rest.”

Carefully, he lays you down on the soft mattress of your bed and covers your body with the blanket, completely wrapping you up before he sits on the edge of the bed and closely watches you. You weakly reach for his hand and run your thumb over the back of his hand before a quiet ‘thank you’ leaves your lips, drifting into a deep sleep.

After Draco lingers by your side for several hours silently, inwardly dying of worry, Pansy finally compels him to go to the Great Hall for dinner and then catch up on some sleep himself while she takes care of you. Only when she promises, does he consent and leave your room.

It is already late in the evening when Pansy goes to bed after finishing her homework while keeping an eye on you the whole time. Just as she is about to make herself comfortable, she notices that your chest is no longer moving up and down regularly as it was a few minutes ago.

You do not breathe anymore.

“Y/N!”, Pansy yells and runs to your side, placing her hands on your shoulders to shake you awake. “Wake up, wake up! Damn it!”

No matter how long she shakes your body, you will not wake up even when she slaps you lightly. You do not move an inch and your face looks as pale as that of a corpse. As if you were already lingering among the dead. As if you were in a deathlike slumber. If you had not suddenly started breathing again, Pansy would really have believed that you were gone.

Thereupon, she loses no more time and sprints out of the room, almost falling down the stairs on the way to the Great Hall. Because it is already so late in the evening, there are only a few students sitting at the tables, looking at her in shock when she rushes inside.

“Draco! It is Y/N! You- She just won’t wake up”, Pansy calls out across the hall and hurries over to the Slytherin table. Harry, Ron, and Hermione watch what is happening with a sense of guilt from the other side.

Before Draco can follow Pansy to the common room, Hermione blocks his way, along with Harry and Ron, briefly stopping him, causing Draco to get angry right away.

“Get out of the way! I do not have time for-“

“Listen, Malfoy! She drank Draught of the Living Death, that is why she does not wake up”, Harry interrupts him and Draco’s eyes widen in an instant.

“What?!”

“Originally, it was meant for you! As revenge”, Ron admits, hiding himself behind Hermione, just in case.

“Are you stupid?!”, Draco hisses and takes a dangerous step towards Ron, but before the situation can escalate again, Hermione intervenes.

“Now is not the time! Fred and George created the potion so they will be able to make the antidote as well. We just need a little more time”, Hermione negotiates and Draco reluctantly agrees before they part ways again and he takes the quickest way back to you.

Staying by your side all night, the tension in his body does not fade and even though his eyes start to slowly feel heavy, he stays awake. He will not let you out of his sight and pays particular attention to your breathing, which initially remains regular. When Hermione joins them in your room, a vessel in her hand, he is finally relieved from his suffering.

“This is Wiggenweld Potion. It reverses the effects of Sleeping Draughts”, she explains and hands Draco the potion. "It is not exactly described how to give it to the victim though I once heard that a prince used it to heal a princess. With a kiss.”

Hermione did not even finish her sentence as you can already feel Draco’s soft lips on yours and within a few seconds, your eyes flutter open. Whatever is just flowing down your throat tastes bitter and you look around confused, looking into blurred faces that seem relieved.

“For Merlin’s sake, you are alive”, Draco breathes out, hugging you tightly, so tight that he almost chokes you. Inhaling his pleasant scent, your exhausted body relaxes, but you still can’t remember anything. After you passed out in the hallway, you felt like you were floating on clouds. You could not hear anymore, could not move and for a brief moment you saw a bright white light in front of you, coming closer and closer.

“What happened?”, your voice comes out muffled as you talk against Draco’s shoulder. He loosens his arms around you and takes both of your hands in his, running his fingers over your delicate palms.

“You were under the influence of the Draught of the Living Death. Ron apparently mixed it into your drink by accident. It was meant for me and- I am so terribly sorry. If I had not been so stupid, then-“

“Then I would still be sleeping now”, you finish his sentence and give him a gentle smile, the tension in his face and body disappearing. Slowly leaning forward, you connect your lips again, this time for a proper kiss. “I am not mad at neither you nor Ron.”

In the corner of your eye, you also see Hermione relax at your words, breathing out deeply.

“Did you at least learn from it?”, you lift an eyebrow and look at Draco expectantly.

“I swear that I will never ever in my life even think about uttering one of those curses again”, he explains honestly and raises his hands in defense. “I was stupid and I will apologize to them.”

“Already done”, Hermione smiles and opens the door, causing Harry and Ron to stumble into the room, Ron looking at you anxiously and with uncertainty.

“Do not worry, Ron. I am fine”, you reassure him, but his gaze still wanders between Draco and you, not sure how to judge the scene.

“How about we agree that we still do not like each other, but that we at least do no more physical harm?”, Draco suggests and after everyone agreed and said goodbye, he is the only one who stays by your side.

“You look tired, babe. You should get some sleep”, you mention and take his face between your hands, softly caressing his cheeks.

“You do not seriously think that I will let you sleep alone after all of this, do you?”, he states as he is already making himself comfortable on the bed next to you, pulling you closer to him, protecting you from all the evil in the world. In fact, he does, and keeps his word. After this incident there has never been another one.

[astridbecks]

@astrid-week may technically be over but we’re still doing this, oops. Part four of five, started as a fill for day 5 (years). Also on AO3.

CW: discussions of death, gaslighting; this deals heavily with the effects of memory modification, but the premise is that at some point, Astrid and Eadwulf must have also had their memory restored

— — — 

Remove Curse (3rd-level abjuration)

Range: Touch Components: V, S

At your touch, all curses affecting one creature or object end. If the object is a cursed magic item, its curse remains, but the spell breaks its owner's attunement to the object so it can be removed or discarded.

— — — 

Two years and three months after Bren is sent to Vergesson — Bren would be able to tell her the time elapsed, down to the hour, were he in his right mind — Astrid sits cross-legged on top of the desk at the front of a dark classroom. It’s near midnight; the moonlight through the high windows leaves faint rectangles of silver to fall across the empty rows of desks.

It’s one of the larger lecture halls, used for introductory courses. Behind her, the blackboard is still marked with the day’s lesson. She’d spent a few minutes staring at the arcane equations for the second fundamental law of evocation, then the next half hour staring through the pale, moon-limned chalk lines, recalling her own first year of lectures and papers and exams. The untrammeled ambition and hope.

A floorboard in the hallway creaks and she tenses. One hand rises, ready to cast; the other draws a knife from a sheath in her boot.

A familiar figure steps into the room, broad-shouldered and carrying a scent of wine undercut by iron.

“You always pick the strangest places to brood,” Eadwulf says, and then: “Please don’t stab me, I don’t need more blood on this shirt.” Fire crackles to life in his hand, throwing flickering light over his face. His expression is drawn, a shuttered look to his eyes, and there is indeed a telltale stain on one sleeve, red fading to brown.

Astrid narrows her eyes at him, but sheathes the knife with a jerk. “Don’t sneak up on me, then. And I’m not brooding.”

“Aren’t you?” He leans against the desk, making a familiar gesture, and a bottle drops from a pocket dimension into his hand. The fire leaps from his other hand, lighting the lamp on the desk. “Want some?”

She shakes her head, wordless. He shrugs, uncorking the bottle and taking a swig.

“So. If you’re not brooding, what’s on your mind?” He sets the bottle between them, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

“What went wrong with tonight’s mission?” she asks instead of answering. It’s technically a guess, but she knows she’s correct even before his eyes grow harder and more distant. (He wouldn’t have worn a shirt light enough to show bloodstains if he’d expected the night to end with stabbing.)

“Doesn’t matter.”

Astrid could press the matter, but it’s not worth it. She flicks her finger moodily against the bottle, nail ringing on the glass, until Eadwulf gives an irritated sigh and moves it out of her reach.

“And you didn’t answer my question, anyways,” he adds, lifting the bottle again and regarding her over the lip of it.

Astrid raises an eyebrow. “I was considering the factors that might turn a loyal citizen of the Empire down a path of treason.”

Eadwulf snorts and sets the bottle down harder than strictly necessary. “Your extracurricular activities are supposed to be different from your actual job, you know.” When she fails to respond with something barbed and clever — misses her step in their usual conversational dance — something in his gaze shifts. “And you could’ve thought about that without breaking into a classroom after hours to lurk in the darkness.”

“Where I choose to have my breakdowns is my own business,” she says, haughty.

“Is that what you were doing?”

“No.” Not yet, at least. “I was just… thinking.” He doesn’t press her to elaborate, but he also doesn’t look away from her as she turns the words over in her mind, considering her admission. “Our — graduation. It doesn’t make sense when you really consider it. The coincidence of it, the lack of prior indications, the lack of a motive. And the execution followed so quickly that we never had time to hesitate.”

It’s a cruel thing to throw at him without warning, especially when he’s half-drunk and recovering from a botched mission. She sees his hand shake before he grips the bottle tighter, knuckles going pale.

“Soldiers don’t get to hesitate.” His voice is strained. “Shit, Astrid. Why dig up the past like that?”

One of us has to remember. It’s an exceptionally unfair thought, and she knows it. “How did you find out? An overheard conversation?” She doesn’t need him to confirm it; they’d reported to Ikithon together like the good, loyal children they were. “One conversation. Short — a few minutes, no? Ten minutes or less?”

The traitorous discussion she’d overheard had been startling in its simplicity, a clear admission of intent and disloyalty. Later (much later) she’d thought back, tried to remember. She’s never had Bren’s knack for telling time, but it could have been ten minutes. It could have been less.

It’s almost insulting, the idea that Ikithon might have only deigned to use one spell on each of them, not bothering to expend the effort to make the modification more convincing. It would be insulting, except that it had worked.

Eadwulf lifts the bottle to his mouth again, but his hand shakes and wine splashes on his collar, leaving a pale plum stain. Astrid resists the urge to lean forward and pluck the bottle from his hands.

“We did what we had to,” he says hoarsely.

It would be simpler to remember it that way. It would be comforting to believe that.

“There are ways to undo enchantments,” she says, and Eadwulf shakes his head in mute refusal. “Simple ways, for arcanists of our ability level.”

“Stop it.” His eyes blaze with abrupt fury, a sudden immolation. “We don’t need to know. It doesn’t matter.”

“If we can find out, there’s no reason not to,” Astrid snaps.

Eadwulf’s hand jerks, flashing the somatic component for a shield spell before he catches himself. He dismisses the bottle without bothering to recork it — stupid, it’ll spill all over him the next time he summons it — and steps away from the desk.

“That’s what’s going to get you killed someday, you know. Not knowing when to let something go.”

“Oh, are we taking bets on it now?” Her voice comes out more venomous than she means it to, but there’s no way to take it back. “Because based on this, I’d say you’re most likely to get killed because you’d prefer to close your eyes and pretend everything’s fine, even with a knife pressed to your back.”

Eadwulf stalks out of the classroom, leaving Astrid alone in the silent moonlight.

:

There are things that can be burned down, over and over, until they’re rebuilt correctly.

Memory is one of those things. It doesn’t even take a spell to do it — not if you’re patient and careful and cruel. A calculated lie here, a seed of uncertainty there, and a master of the art can manipulate a target’s recollection of reality simply by making them doubt their own reliability.

Astrid knows so many ways to rewrite history. She’s learned by example. Embed crystals in a child’s skin until they sob, but tell them afterwards that they were so strong to endure it, that bearing this pain is a privilege. That they’re getting stronger, even as the nightmares get worse and every hint of compassion is stripped from them like marrow from a bone.

Be cruel, but call it kindness. Kill an innocent, but call it justice.

Eventually, if you repeat a falsehood enough, even the liar starts to believe it.

:

In the minutes that it took her parents to die, she prayed (pointlessly, irrationally) that they would not realize it was her hand that tipped the vial of poison; that they would die thinking that her crime was only — only — failing to act to save them as they choked before her.

Like everything else she’d known, the gods showed little mercy. Perhaps she had been beyond the reach of mercy for a long time.

She’d clutched Bren’s hand under the table, out of sight. His face had betrayed no pain even as she felt bones creak under her fingers. He wore the same impassive mask that settled over her own face as she watched her parents die. The mask of justice delivered, a sentence handed down with merciless hands.

The night Astrid killed her parents, she killed the child they’d raised, too. It just took her longer to realize that.

:

She opens her door the next morning to find Eadwulf standing outside it, hair mussed and eyes bleary, still wearing the same stained clothing from last night. She opens her mouth to comment on the fact that this time he seems to be the one lurking around in strange places, which makes his comments last night very hypocritical, but he cuts her off before she can.

“I’ll do it. We’ll find out together.”

Astrid casts a critical glance over his rumpled state. “Why the change of heart?”

Eadwulf glares at her. It’s a hollow echo of the fire in his eyes the night before. More resigned, somehow. “Because I know you’re going to do it by yourself if I don’t, and I’m not letting you do that alone.”

Unexpectedly — and embarrassingly — her throat tries to close, an uncomfortable tightness building in her chest. It takes her a moment to steady herself enough to nod and say, “Fine. Together, then.”

:

The worst part is this: Astrid already knows how to spin the justifications out, to walk the tightrope of truth and propaganda. She knows how to burn down a memory of guilt over and over until the ashes have no choice but to yield vindication.

It was necessary. Even if their parents were never traitors, weapons have to be forged somehow, and if they are destined for greatness, well — a few murdered innocents, a bit of blood on their hands, these are small prices to pay. The sacrifice their parents made — the sacrifice any loyal citizen of the Empire might be called upon to make — is one that Astrid and Eadwulf and everyone else like them must simply make worthwhile.

That is the fulcrum on which her life swings. If, years down the line, she takes her seat on the Cerberus Assembly, wears the scarlet robes of an archmage, shepherds the Empire into a new age of peace and prosperity, will it have been worth it? Will she finally be able to visit the humble graveyard in Blumenthal and find the grave she’s never searched for and honestly tell her parents that no, their deaths were not in vain; yes, Astrid has become everything they had hoped for and more?

Does it matter, when that will never change the past?

:

They would have understood, if they knew everything, she tells herself. If I could tell them, explain it all to them, they might have forgiven me.

She knows it’s a lie.

:

The spell to remove a curse is simple, in the grand scheme of things. No expensive material components; nothing terribly involved in its casting. Any sufficiently advanced wizard could learn it. By the end of the week, both Astrid and Eadwulf have acquired the necessary materials and copied it into their spellbooks. It is truly laughably easy.

The inevitable conclusion is that Ikithon wanted them to know. Not immediately; not until they could prove themselves ready. It has the shape of a lesson, even — identify a possibility, acquire the means to test that possibility, remain unbroken under the weight of that final truth.

This is still part of their schooling. The last stage of the final exam. A graduation of a different sort — to understand what has shaped them, that they might better understand how to shape others.

(Perhaps that is only what Ikithon wants her to think. Or perhaps he has never truly cared what lies she spins to justify her actions, only that she knows how to do so.)

Eadwulf stands in front of her, his spellbook open on the table next to them, his brow furrowed. “Are you ready?”

Astrid lifts her chin. “Yes.”

To Eadwulf’s credit, he doesn’t voice the hesitation evident on his face. He only places a hand on her shoulder and speaks the incantation, voice steady even as his fingers tighten with unspoken fear.

The spell rushes like a sudden wind under her skin, and the smoke in her mind tears away.

The memory of her parents’ treason turns faint and insubstantial. Present, but unreal. A fiction laid down by Ikithon’s voice, a cunning whisper she now hears clearly — you overheard your parents plotting terrible, treacherous things against the Empire. They wanted to undo all of your hard work, supplant your accomplishments, because they were afraid of what you could become.

Astrid supposes she should feel surprised, but maybe she lost that ability long ago. There’s only the hollow echo of wind, fading. Eadwulf releases her shoulder and she sways for a moment as she comes back to herself. He watches her warily, waiting for her to speak.

“You know,” she says, and can’t quite meet his gaze. “I agonized more over my choice of poison than the act itself. I thought it was weak that I didn’t want to see them suffer for too long, but I knew that if it was too swift, he would think I was being too merciful.” She takes a shuddering breath. “That was what worried me most — if he would approve of the way I murdered my parents.”

“Astrid.” His voice wavers. He’s afraid, and part of her hates him for it. Does he think she will break like Bren? Does he think he will, when the veil is torn from his eyes? “Was it—“

She slams her palm against his chest and casts.

The spell releases in a burst of warmth that she feels through her hand, up her wrist. Eadwulf staggers back half a step, breath rushing out of him as the realization breaks over his face, memory slotting cleanly back into place.

His face blurs, and it takes Astrid a moment to realize that she’s crying. A sob catches in her chest, sharp and humiliating, and then Eadwulf’s arms are around her and she buries her face in his shoulder, feeling him shake with her.

I’ll kill him for doing this to us, she thinks, and the thought settles in her chest, cold and sharp. It doesn’t sound like a lie, but she repeats it anyway — I’ll kill him with my own hands, watch the life leave his eyes, make sure he knows it was me.

There’s nothing to say, so neither of them speak.

[minor-solemnity]

hi i love your work and am excited for your series. i was wondering if you can do a one shot where the reader comforts tom and let’s him fall asleep on her while she plays with her hair 😩 soft tom 😈

Yesssss! Soft Tom - I cannot resist! This may have gotten away from me a bit so I hope you enjoy 2.6k of fluffy comfort!

Tag List: @jinxqsu @naps-and-lemons @riddles-wifey @mainlynonsense @cakesarecute @crumpets-are-better-with-jam

What Equates to Worship

The door to your bedroom is open and you roll your eyes when you peer inside and find the source of your broken wards slumped in the armchair next to your bed. Tom’s best robes are in a heap at the foot of the bed, his smartest brogues are kicked into the furthest corner of the room, his hair - usually so neat - is disarray. He looks like the world’s most harangued man. “Good evening, my love,” You murmur as you make your way over to his side, kneeling on the floor so that you can take hold of his hands which are resting loosely in his lap. “You broke my wards again.”

It’s late when you get home. There is a Very Important Case being tried in the Wizengamot and your boss, Gerald Montague, is running you ragged in an attempt to get the edge on the prosecution. It’s a nasty case, the defendant, Mr Vickers, is on trial for the kidnapping and murders of five women. His chances aren’t looking good - there is enough physical evidence to bury him and his alibi is flimsy at best. In private, both you and Montague are convinced of his guilt but that doesn’t matter when it’s your job to convince the Wizengamot and a jury of his innocence. Needless to say, it’s not been an easy couple of weeks.

Your shoes click against the uneven cobblestones as you make your way down the narrow road to your flat situated just off the main drag of Knockturn Alley. It’s not the best part of town, but the flat itself is double the size of what you would be able to afford if you lived somewhere more reputable. Besides, it’s not as though you’ve ever been scared by the less savoury parts of humanity and society - you’d be awful at your job if that were the case. You throw a couple of sickles to the hag that operates outside your building, and she promises you glory in the afterlife in thanks. “If you could promise me glory when I’m alive, I think I’d find that more useful,” You say as you fumble with your keys.

She laughs, “That will cost you more than a few sickles, love, try again tomorrow.” You chuckle and shrug a shoulder. It was worth try at least. The gas lamps that lead the way up the winding stairs to your attic flat are already lit, casting a dim, flicking light across the stairwell. You frown slightly as you make your way up the stairs; no one usually lights the lamps, leaving it up to you to light them when you return from the Ministry every day. Your curiosity is further piqued when you reach your front door and find it glowing a dim red, indicating that someone has broken through the wards. You have an idea of who it is, but you take your wand out just in case you’re mistaken. You have a few files from the Very Important Case hidden in the depths of your bedroom, which in the wrong hands, would be disastrous for you and Montague.

The inside of your flat is dark and cold and looks just as you’d left it this morning. With a sigh, you flick your wand at the fire and smile as flames begin to flicker and burn. Your flat is relatively spacious, but the fireplace is enchanted to spread the warmth further than a normal fire would and with any luck you’ll be toasty and warm within a few minutes. You shrug out of your travelling robes and kick off your heels, rubbing your aching feet with relish. Next on your list of things to do is figure out who has broken into your flat and if it's something you should be concerned about.

You pad through the flat, your stockinged feet making no noise against the polished wooden floorboards. The door to your bedroom is open and you roll your eyes when you peer inside and find the source of your broken wards slumped in the armchair next to your bed. Tom’s best robes are in a heap at the foot of the bed, his smartest brogues are kicked into the furthest corner of the room, his hair - usually so neat - is in disarray. He looks like the world’s most harangued man. “Good evening, my love,” You murmur as you make your way over to his side, kneeling on the floor so that you can take hold of his hands which are resting loosely in his lap. “You broke my wards again.”

He makes a small sound in the back of his throat which is honestly pitiful and you are struck by a burning desire to make whoever put him in such a state pay for their crimes. Tom should never look so downtrodden - it doesn’t suit him in the slightest. You rub soft circles against his palms, smoothing the tension out of his fingers with careful strokes as the quiet of your flat weaves a gentle spell of calm and soothing around the two of you. “Is it a good evening?” He mutters and when you look up at his face, you can see the hard lines of annoyance and defeat marring his forehead.

“Hmm, don’t frown, darling - you’ll ruin your pretty face.” This at least gets a small hum of amusement out of him which you count as a win. Heaven knows that when Tom gets in these moods it can take a lot more than gentle touches and murmured sweet-nothings to get him to smile. You rise from your position and move behind the armchair, resting your cheek on the crown on his head and your hands on his shoulders to kneed at his knotted muscles. “I assume that you didn’t get the job?”

You’ve been so busy with your own work that you’d forgotten that Tom’s interview with Dumbledore was today. If you had remembered you would have taken the day off because even the most optimistic person would have known there was a fool’s chance of Tom getting the Defence job. Despite everything though, Tom is an optimist. You would never have guessed it when you first got to know him, but underneath his taciturn facade is a terribly hopeful young man who still believes that things will turn out in his favour. His idealism is part of what you love about him if you’re being honest with yourself. It’s a good contrast to your cynical realism.

It’s ridiculous, of course. Tom, despite his young age, is the most qualified person you can think of for the position. He knows more about Defensive magic than anyone save for maybe Dumbledore himself, and beyond that, he has the right temperament for it. It comes as a surprise to most people who meet him that Tom would be a good teacher, but he really is. His love of Hogwarts, defensive magic, and his desire to impart that knowledge all adds up to someone who sees struggling students and wants them to succeed. If it had been anyone other than Dumbledore, he would have been a shoo-in for the role.

“You assume correctly.” His voice is still tight and muted with resigned anger, but he begins to loosen under your hands, his head lolling to the side and coming to rest against your forearm.

“Did he give you a reason why?”

Tom sighs and the sound is world-weary and destitute. At that moment, your hatred for Dumbledore intensifies. “He never intended on giving me a chance. He invited me in and lectured me about dark magic. He essentially said that as long as he was Headmaster I would not be welcome in the castle.” The worst thing is that Tom sounds so forlorn. Unlike you, who had decided after a year at Hogwarts that the only thing you wanted to do was leave, Tom’s fondness for the school is unparalleled. “Knowing him, that won’t be for another hundred years or so.”

“I’m so sorry, Tom,” You say, dropping a kiss into the dark curls of his hair. “He’s an old coot. Still so struck by the mythology of his own genius that he can’t see past his own prejudices.” He hums lowly in response and eventually, you feel him start to relax. It’s gratifying to know that it’s you over anyone else, that he comes to when he needs support. You know his friends and followers would do anything to gain his favour, but at the end of the day, he doesn’t seek them out. No, he doesn’t trust them to see him like this, to see him in his more human moments of vulnerability. He trusts you to understand him and comfort him. That in itself is a gift.

“Now, come on. We can worry about Dumbledore later, but right now, let me find us something to eat.” Food, in your opinion, can go a long way to right a lot of wrongs and you have a sneaking suspicion that Tom probably hasn’t eaten all day. He’s annoying like that, too wrapped up in his own thoughts to care about silly little things like eating and taking care of oneself. You can’t help but chuckle softly as he mumbles something under his breath and reaches for your hands to hold you in place. “Later, my love. I promise,” You say and disentangles yourself from his grasp.

Tom follows you out of the bedroom and watches you with a look of exasperated amusement as you search your kitchen. Your cupboards are sinfully bare when you go to inspect them, the rush of the last two weeks has meant that you’ve neglected a lot of your more basic chores. “And you accuse me of neglecting my needs. You hardly set a good example, my dear.” He murmurs from where he’s lounging against the stove. You roll your eyes as you shove your feet back into your heels and head for the door.

“Veeraswamy?” You ask and have to hide your smile when Tom’s eyes light up. It’s not often that the two of you treat yourselves to restaurant-quality food as neither of your jobs’ salaries really allow the indulgence, however, tonight, you think an exception is called for. “Feel free to look over the files I brought home - maybe you’ll notice something I missed.” You don’t even finish your sentence before Tom is digging through your work bag and pulling out the offending files. Typical, you think fondly. Tom is as curious as a cat and one of the easiest ways of making him feel better about anything is to introduce him to a puzzle.

Fifteen minutes later you apparate home with a brown paper bag of Veeraswamy’s finest selection of curries and sweet treats. As a rule, they’re dine-in only, as many of the restaurants in muggle London are, however, you’re not above a confundus charm to get what you want and you always make sure to tip splendidly to offset any guilt you feel for taking advantage. When you get in, Tom has the case files splayed out on the small kitchen table and you spare yourself a moment to admire the elegant curve of his neck and the way his curls fall in graceful arcs across his brow. Without looking up, he makes a space for you to drop the bag of goodies on the table and you collect plates and the bottle of wine that is the only thing you already had in your flat.

You discuss the Very Important Case over dinner and he indulges in your complaints about Montague’s refusal to even consider your line of defence. “Vickers says that he went to a Seer and was told that these women would die by his hand. I want to make the case that he can’t be fully held accountable for the murders if it’s already foretold.” Never mind that that isn’t how prophecies or fortune work, no one in the Wizengamot understands the intricacies of Divination well enough to know that just because something is said, doesn’t mean it will come to pass. “Montague is convinced that we can prove his innocence without resorting to asking for lesser charges.”

“And he’ll lose the case because of it.” He hums, sets his fork down and reaches for your hand, his long fingers looping around your wrist. “Have you considered the fact that Vickers may have been compromised? The file says that when he was found, Vickers was abnormally placid and made no attempts to hide the evidence that would have been easily disposed of? Maybe hire a mind-healer and see if he’s been the victim of an imperius curse,” He says nonchalantly as though he hasn’t just dropped the biggest break in the case in your lap.

“Tom. Tom, you are a genius. How did you even begin to come to that conclusion?” He must hear the wonder in your voice because a small, self-satisfied smile curves his upper lip and he leans over the table to press a chaste kiss to the corner of your lips.

“These things are obvious if you know what you’re looking for.” The knowing in his voice hints at something darker and your eyes narrow slightly. Tom’s proclivity for the dark arts is no secret, neither is his cunning and ruthlessness. You don’t ask and he doesn’t tell, but you suppose it’s probably a good thing that you’re training to become a defence lawyer. Maybe one day he’ll need one.

Tonight is not the night for those kinds of thoughts though. You doubt any night will be - if ever there comes a day when you have to reckon with Tom’s less savoury pursuits, you already know where your allegiances lie. With a soft hum of acknowledgement, you stand and lead him to the bedroom. “Enough maudlin talk for tonight, I think,” You say as you settle against the headboard and motion for him to join you. “You must be tired after today.”

Even though he tries to hide it, you can see that the day has worn on him. Shadows form like ink stains underneath his eyes, and he holds himself with a kind of forlorn regret that fills you with a feeling of sympathetic sorrow. He crawls up the bed and raises an eyebrow when you don’t move to make room for him. Instead, you simply lift an arm and smile, sleepiness and tenderness mingling into something soft in your eyes. After a few second of internal debate where Tom looks from you to the spot you’ve made for him, he gingerly lowers himself against you, his head resting in the hollow where your shoulder meets your neck. He lies unnaturally still and tense in the way a feral kitten might react to the kindness of a stranger.

Honestly, it’s more than a little heartbreaking. Slowly - carefully - you rest one hand over his heart and begin to card your other through his hair. You’re not entirely sure how he manages it - you’ve never seen a haircare potion in his vicinity - but Tom has the softest hair of anyone you’ve met. It’s dreadfully unfair, really. You rub gentle circles against his scalp and smile softly in the dim light as you feel him relax against you, the long hard lines of his body soften as you continue your gentle ministrations. Gradually, you sense him ease into a contented state as he seeks clemency from the day in your touch.

That you can do this for him, that you can be this for him is not something you would have ever thought possible. You remember vividly the uptight rigidity with which he had held himself throughout your time at school. The fervent dedication he had channelled to reach the top of the pecking order, never allowing himself a moment of softness or reprieve. You’re certain that if he’s not careful he will burn himself out before he’s had a chance to truly shine, and you know just how brightly he could if given the chance.

You brush his hair from his eyes and lazily draw abstract patterns against his chest, feeling the way his breathing deepens as sleep overtakes him. In this moment of calm, sleepy repose, you feel your heart expand with all love and care you think you might ever feel, and you brush a soft kiss to the crown of his head, revelling in the almost breathy sigh that escapes him. “You’re far too good to me,” He mumbles, half asleep and entirely too sincere.

“Agree to disagree, my love. I am exactly as good to you as you deserve.” He chuckles at this, nestling deeper into your side and flinging an arm across your waist. “Now, sleep - we have so much time for everything else.”

AN: Also before anyone accuses me of anachronisms, Veeraswamy is London’s oldest Indian restaurant. It was opened in 1926 and I’ve been there once before - the food was so so so good and it was disgustingly expensive. I’m assuming that it wasn’t that pricey in the 40’s

[hxlyhead-harpies]

You’re Being Mean (J.P.)

Requested: No

Summary: (Y/n) has always been second to her cousin Lily and James watches (Y/n) get ready to go to the yule ball with someone else

Pairing: James Potter x Evans!Reader

Word Count: 1.5k

Warnings: Angst

Inspired by this scene from little women

a/n: i don’t know if the marauder had a yule ball but let’s pretend!!

At Hogwarts, the last name Evans meant something. It meant good grades and a strongwilled personality. It meant a shining prefect badge and a mastery of charms. It meant beauty and a rugged air of sophistication. Lily Evans walked through the castle each day with her head held high and her beautiful flowing locks tied back in a messy plait. She was surrounded by friends who genuinely loved her and was followed by an endless degree of suitors. And despite sharing her last name, none of this applied to you, but the weight of everything that you weren’t still crashed upon your shoulders.

Lily Evans was your older cousin, her father being your father’s brother. It was incredibly rare that two people from the same muggle bloodline would be witches, but it wasn’t impossible. You arrived at Hogwarts the year after Lily, clinging to her hand as you approached the Gryffindor common room. While you, a gangly eleven year old, were shaking in your boots, Lily suavely led you into the common room and introduced you to her friends.

You tried your best to make a smooth transition into school, but it proved difficult when professors would learn your last name. Lily had raised their expectations impossibly high, so as you struggled to cast spells and mix potions, your professors felt incredibly let down by you. You just couldn’t live up to her.

As the years wore on your school performance remained average while she excelled, earning you snide remarks from your teachers and classmates. You were never viewed as your own person, only as an extension of Lily. You were always second to her in everything.

And while all of this bothered you, there was only one person whose opinion truly stung. You could brush off Slughorn’s comments about your performance in his class and you could ignore your housemate’s comparisons, but you couldn’t stomach the way that James Potter looked at your cousin.

He looked at Lily as if she had molded the moon and placed it in the sky and as if she had lit the fire that ignited the sun. He followed her around like a lost puppy while you sat on the sidelines and watched as she rejected him over and over again. You ached for him to look at you like but he never did. He only ever looked at you as a friend.

You and James had been friends for years. He had originally befriended you in an attempt to get closer to Lily but he quickly found himself taking a liking to your personality. The friendship stuck and while he continued to fall deeper in love with your cousin, you fell deeper in love with him.

Everything about him enamored you; his deep brown eyes and his wicked but kind smile. The way he would throw an arm over your shoulder as you walked to the Great Hall and how he looked in his quidditch robes. Everything about him made it easy to fall in love. But unlike your cousin, you seemed to be unlovable.

You were clumsy and awkward, never quite feeling comfortable in your own skin. You never knew the proper thing to say and never quite learned the correct way to act in any given social situation. You were funny, but it was often unintentional with people laughing at you and not with you. James could never love someone like that. You thought that no one could. That was why you were so surprised when Frank Longbottom asked you to the Yule Ball.

Frank was a year above you and tall and gangly. He wasn’t the type of boy that you’d usually notice, not that you noticed any boys beside James, but he was nice. He had asked you nervously in the common room, his hands wringing together. It was endearing and no one else had asked you, so you accepted. You had wanted James to ask you of course, but he didn’t. You assumed that had asked Lily and that she had rejected him since the ball was looming so near and the boy remained dateless.

You stood in front of your mirror, applying a light amount of soft pink blush to your cheeks. Your hair was pinned back in waves and your makeup was subtle and glowy. You felt more beautiful than you had ever before. James laid on your bed, his head hanging off of the side. He was already dressed in his dress robes and his hair was slightly neater than usual. He had gotten bored waiting for the ball to start so he had barged into your room to annoy you while you got ready. The room was empty, your roommates opting to get ready with other friends in other rooms.

James was humming to himself as he watched you get ready. Something odd stirred in his chest as he watched you examine yourself in the mirror. He had felt this stirring a few times over the past months but he had chosen to ignore it.

“I’m going to go change into my dress, I’ll be right back,” you announced, grabbing the hanger that your dress was on and marching towards the bathroom.

“Can I watch?” James called from the bed with a smirk on his face. You grabbed one of your silver heels from the floor and chucked it at him.

“Only in your dreams, Potter,” you retorted, a light blush dancing across your cheeks.

You stole into the bathroom and took off your pajamas; a pair of your father’s plaid pants and one of James’s jumpers. You slipped on the dress. It was a beautiful sky blue with iridescent sparkles lining the tulle fabric. It had a shapely and well-constructed bodice with a sweetheart neckline. There were two thin straps that ended in delicate bows at your shoulders and it flared out at your waist. The skirt ended just above your ankles. It was breathtaking. You reached to the back, attempting to zip it up yourself. You realized quickly that you needed help.

You held up the bodice as you walked back into your room.

“James I need help,” you whined. James laughed as he pushed himself off of the bed and made his way towards you. His breath caught in his throat when he caught sight of your bare back. You swept your hair out of the way and suppressed a shiver when his finger ghosted your skin as he grasped the zipper. You could feel his breath on your neck and you were afraid he could hear how loud your heart was beating. His finger paused when the zipper reached the top. He leaned closer towards you, his face practically in your hair.

“Don’t go with him,” he breathed. You tensed.

“What?” you whispered. Half of you wished for him to say the words that you had always wanted to hear and half of you dreaded whatever would come out of his mouth next.

“You heard me, don’t go with him,” he said softly. You spun around to face him, your noses almost touching. You scanned his face hoping to find some sort of explanation in his eyes. He was just looking at you with an odd expression, his lips parted and his eyes blown behind his glasses. Your eyebrows furrowed.

“Why?” You held your breath as you awaited his answer. He shook his head slightly.

“You know why,” he said, his eyes darting down to your lips. You took a step back, your legs bumping into the bed behind you.

“No,” you said, your head beginning to shake back and forth. “No, no.” James Reached his hand towards your cheek.

“Yes,” he murmured. You swatted his hand away.

“No James, you’re being mean,” you said. You felt tears stinging behind your eyes and you felt as if bile was rising in your throat.

“What, no-”

“Stop it!” you said forcefully, forcing James to freeze.

“I have been second to Lily my entire life, in everything. In school, in friendships, in my family. Everything,” you said, a frown deepening on your face. “I will not be who you settle for just because you cannot have her,” you spoke. James reached for you again, his brow furrowing.

“(Y/n)...” he whispered. You pulled away.

“No. I won’t do it, I can’t,” you said, pushing past him. You scrambled to grab your shoes, praying that your tears would stay at bay.

“(Y/n) just wait a second,” James cried.

“No James! I can’t do this. Not when I’ve spent my entire life loving you!” you exclaimed. The statement hung in the air as you both stood staring at each other, your chests heaving. James rubbed a hand down his face but didn’t make a move to say anything. You looked away, blinking away tears, and took a deep breath. You sighed before turning and storming out of the room. James didn’t follow you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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