#no shots fired

[clickerflight]

The Lion and the Mouse - Part 3

Master list

Part 2

This is where the lion comes in >:3

Content: Villain whumpee, vigilante whumpee, hero whumper, tiny whumpee, bruised, blood, split lip, broken ribs, cramps, hogtied, gun, no shots fired

...................................

Vigil returned to the base after a very nerve wracking day of pacing around his safehouse and not doing much else. He had thoroughly checked his shoes and there was no Kai to be found. He felt sick to his stomach, imagining that an ant had gotten him and started the endless death cycle, or that he was small enough that he was well and truly dead now. He should have gone with the first plan. Sure, there was more of a chance of getting caught, but at least he could have been certain that Kai was in his sleeve. 

He glanced at the corner where Kai was supposed to wait for him and unsurprisingly found nothing. So, he trudged on into the base, trying desperately to think of where Kai would have gone. If you were a tiny man, where would you hide?

The vents would make sense, but they were probably too cold and Kai didn’t have any clothes. What if he had froze to death? Or starved to death? Or-

“Morning, Vigil,” a dark voice said from behind him. 

Vigil turned and found Leshy staring at him with a death glare. “Oh, morning. Sorry, I was thinking about what we were doing today. I wasn’t really told-”

“You’ll be sparring with me today,” Leshy informed him. “In the 5th training room. Be there in an hour.”

Leshy stormed off as Vigil said, “Oh, okay, then.”

Vigil knew what was coming. He wasn’t an idiot. He was going to take a beating for taking away Leshy’s toy because the hero was as childish as Vigil’s youngest niece. Thankfully it would be just a beating since everyone seemed to believe his story of ‘I stepped on it by accident.’ They even watched the footage and Technical agreed that it was an accident. 

Still, Vigil couldn’t keep back the creeping fear that he was going to be discovered. 

He was slow to get ready, changing into his sparring uniform with loose pants and a sleeveless top, but he was still there on time as he wrapped his knuckles. 

Leshy was waiting for him, shoes already off and hands wrapped. Vigil finished quickly, slipping off his own shoes and socks before standing at the other side of the training room. 

Without a word, the two took up positions and got started. Leshy was powerful, attacking in huge overpowering bursts, obviously used to having teammates step in when he needed a break. Vigil, who often worked alone, was smoother, drawing out the fight to exhaust the hero. Leshy got his second and third wind, but after that, Vigil was quick to snake an arm around his neck and push him to the floor, holding him in a pin as Leshy struggled to get out. 

After a moment, Leshy relaxed and Vigil let him go, standing up and shaking out his arms. 

“How many rounds?” Vigil asked as Leshy got up, rubbing his neck.

“Two more,” Leshy replied, digging in his bag for something. Once Leshy was ready, the two faced up again. Leshy attacked with less vigor, drawing it out a little more and matching Vigil’s pace. Vigil kept up well enough, but Leshy, now that he was applying his energy correctly, was much harder to deal with. Leshy jabbed with steady punches and grabbed for Vigil a couple of times, so close that Vigil nearly went down. 

Then it happened. Leshy moved in, forcing Vigil to step back and with the speed of a striking snake, Leshy hooked his legs out from under him and was on top of him, trying to get him in a pin. Vigil moved to get out, more flexible than Leshy, but Leshy was much stronger than him. Vigil tapped out when Leshy pressed his arm to Vigil’s throat hard enough to cause spots. But Leshy didn’t move. Vigil tried tapping out again, the sound of blood pounding in his head rising in volume alongside his panic, but Leshy didn’t move, instead reaching back and grabbing something from under his shirt. Vigil caught sight of glittering metal, and then a gun was at his head, a couple of clicks sounding as the safety was turned off and the gun was cocked. 

Leshy let up on Vigil’s throat a little and he gasped for air, the spots clearing away, but he didn’t move to get out of the pin as the warm metal stayed pressed to his forehead. Leshy seemed to be waiting for Vigil to speak so, once the pounding faded and the silence had stretched on tensely for a few minutes, Vigil relented. 

“Leshy,” he said in a warning tone. 

Leshy’s grin was something that belonged in nightmares, wide, toothy, and feral. “Did you let my pet go on accident, really?”

“You saw the tapes, and how I reacted when you killed him,” Vigil replied with a fair amount of disgust. “You’re stupid if you think I did.”

His pre-planned excuse had apparently hit just the spot of believability as Leshy relaxed slightly. “Thank you for the honesty, then, but I’m afraid we don’t have any villains to take my frustration out on, and Technical said that if I hurt one of the sidekick’s again I’d be off the team forever. Course, I didn’t get his permission for this, but I don’t mind asking forgiveness once I feel better.”

Leshy got off of Vigil, still pointing the gun at his head. “Roll over.”

Vigil did so carefully and put his hands on the back of his head like he knew the next order would be. 

Leshy chuckled. “Good dog. You’re all trained and everything.”

Vigil growled, ready to turn again and prove Leshy wrong, but a knee came down in the middle of his back and sticky, calloused hands wrenched his arms behind his back. 

“None of that, now. I promise I won’t kill you. This beating won’t be anything like what I hand out to the villains, even. Just enough to relax, you know? And if you breathe a word of this to your pretty little union, I’ll leave this team and find you again. I know how you fight, now. I don’t care what toys you have. I will take you and I will beat you until I break you. Plus, I won’t have any obligation to keep you alive afterwards.”

Vigil forced himself to take deep, slow breaths. Just withstand a beating or two. He could do that. He’d done it plenty of times before. 

“Get up,” Leshy said, standing back and presumably pointing the gun at his back. 

Vigil rolled to his side and did so slowly, watching the gun move with him to stay pointed at his face. 

“Move your arms to the front,” Leshy said, grinning with each command he gave. 

Vigil took another slow breath before stepping through the cuffs one leg at a time till his hands were at his front. 

“Good. Now, arms up and close your eyes.”

Vigil did, and the gun was placed on his chest. If he was shot at this range he knew he’d be dead. The gun pushed him back a few steps before he was backed against a wall. There was a clinking sound and Leshy’s hot breath on his face. Vigil turned his head, trying not to breathe in Leshy’s air as the man locked something into his cuffs, keeping his arms above his head. 

After a moment, Leshy’s presence was gone and Vigil opened his eyes, watching the man go and toss the gun back into his bag, cracking his knuckles as he returned. 

“I’ll betcha I can bust your lip in the first try,” Leshy said with a sadistic smile. 

Vigil’s flesh crawled with each word, but he did not respond as Leshy said, “Guess there’s only one way to find out.”

…………………………………..

When the lights went out, Kai was ready to venture again. He stepped out of the vents and went back to the kitchen. He was taller now. Not big enough to need his new cloak yet, but getting there. He was back to the size he’d been before Vigil crushed him and glad for it. He still wouldn’t be able to reach the rungs of the drawers, but it was better being bigger. 

He scavenged up crumbs again, delighted to even find bits of turkey that had fallen to the floor. He was feeling much better now after having eaten and the chance to get water and sleep. He’d even found a leaky water fountain when he’d been traveling through the vents and had his fill there. 

He ate on the way back to the vents, planning where he was going to go from here. He might start traveling into rooms, seeing if he can find tools. He’d need another cloth to be his bag and blanket when he switched to wearing the one he had now, and he’d need something sharp and some string. 

After thinking about it, he decided a bathroom would work best for finding what he needed. He quietly ate the rest of his food in the vent, deciding who would be the best for this. He could still get in and out through vent gaps so that wouldn’t be a problem, though it was getting to be a squeeze, so he’d need to decide quickly. 

Nautilus was a very sound sleeper and more prepared than the rest. Plus, he might have a razor blade hiding around. Kai remembered him talking about how he groomed his facial hair the ‘proper’ way. 

So, Kai navigated the vents, looking out through the grating to be sure he knew where he was. Soon, he was at Nautilus’s vents. He squeezed through and, after climbing the slats, he reached the knob that would open them a bit farther. He tried for a minute, but he was still too small to really do so. Still, he managed to crack them a bit more by hanging his weight on one side before falling to the floor. With that done and crossed the bedroom. It didn’t take forever, but it was still a good trek. In the bathroom he looked up at the counter. There was a stack of washcloths that he could already see, solving one of his problems. The issue would be getting up there. 

The shower curtains were slid to one side nearer to the counter, and thankfully the outer layer hung outside the tub. His hope that Nautilus’s ‘proper way’ of doing things would mean he would have a second curtain like this. 

So, Kai grabbed hold of the curtain leaving his bag on the rug in front of the sink, and climbed. He was tired by the time he got to the counter, and his hands and legs trembled, but he had the strength to fling himself onto the counter, wincing when the movement caused one of the curtain hooks to move and squeak slightly. 

There was no sound from the bathroom so Kai grabbed a washcloth and dragged it over to the edge. It was heavy and annoying. He contemplated leaving it here for another night, but he got it over the edge and that was that. He’d have to deal with it now. Some poking around revealed a small container of dental floss and a pack of razor blades. He soon pushed them over the edge of the counter, letting them land softly on the rug below. He looked around one more time to make sure there was nothing he’d want to grab on the way out and leapt for the curtain, sliding down it much easier than climbing up. 

He had to make three trips across the floor to get each of the items to the vent, and the floss pack nearly didn’t go until he figured out how to pop it open and get the roll of floss out of it. He shoved the container behind a box under the bed so it wouldn’t be found and disappeared back into the vents, happy with his night of foraging. 

Once he made it back to his patch of vent, a quiet place with a small blockage of what had been a mouse nest at some point that kept it a bit warmer. Kai admired his new tools, excited about each of them. He was still too small to wield the razor blade, but he was already thinking about tying it to a stick and having a little weapon, or at least something he could kind of use to grapple things with. 

He spent the rest of the evening napping and braiding the floss into rope that would hold him as he got bigger. 

…………………………………..

Vigil still hung in the training room. He didn’t sleep, merely staring at his aching feet as blood dripped from his open mouth. His mouth and lips were badly cut. Leshy had indeed been able to break his lip on the first punch. And the second. And the third. 

Vigil couldn’t really breath through his nose. It hurt too much at the moment, so he let his mouth hang open and drip onto the floor. He blinked slowly, his face aching. His ribs hurt too, but he was good at ignoring them. They felt bruised, not broken. His shoulders had burned for hours as he hung there, but now his arms just felt numb and cold as the blood had a harder and harder time pumping all the way up to his fingers. 

The lights turned back on, but when he lifted his head to see the doorway, no one was there. He lowered it again. The lights must be on timers, then. He wondered how long he’d have to wait before he saw Leshy’s smug face again. 

The answer was not too long. Leshy came in with a smile. He had a glass of water in hand and Vigil watched him approach, glaring through the sweaty hair that had fallen into his eyes. 

“Morning,” Leshy said with a huge grin. 

He held the cup to Vigil’s lips and Vigil got in two swallows before he had to snort to keep water out of his nose and the rest was dumped on his head, ice cubes and all. 

He gasped at the shock of it, shaking his head to get the water out of his eyes as Leshy laughed. 

“Come on, big guy. You’ve got this,” he said, backing up to set the cup down. “Just a couple more days. I have to go out on a mission later, so I’ll be nice and let you down…. What do you say?”

Vigil’s lip curled at the patronizing tone, but Leshy’s stance grew firmer and his eyes set in a cruel expression, waiting for Vigil to speak. 

“Thanks,” Vigil spat. 

“Not so hard now, is it?” Leshy said with that same nightmarish smile. “I need to get my warm up in before I let you down. Be ready.”

And with that, the beating started. Leshy had a weapon this time, a metal pole he twirled around in pretty showy circles before slamming it into Vigil’s legs or ribs. By the time he was done, Vigil definitely had a broken rib or two, and his knee ached, not broken, but something was definitely damaged there. 

Leshy turned away, as though to leave when he whirled around, slamming the pole into Vigil’s stomach. The Vigilante coughed, nearly losing the water he’d swallowed earlier. Leshy watched, smiling as Vigil coughed and bent over as far as he could with the way he was hanging. 

He reached up and undid the lock, letting Vigil fall to the ground, curling around his stomach and ribs. 

Leshy undid the cuffs around Vigil’s wrists, pulling them to Vigil’s back and relocking them. He locked the chain around the metal pole before cuffing Vigil’s bare ankles to the pole as well, hog tying him effectively. 

“There, that should keep you here,” Leshy said, ignoring Vigil’s sharp gasp as something immediately started cramping in the left leg. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”

And with that, Leshy left again. 

Vigil writhed in agony as the cramp turned into a charlie horse, and he grunted and pressed his face into the floor, letting the pain of those bruises act as a distraction. It was hours before it faded away, and Vigil was left sweating and shaking on the floor, his not so numb shoulders complaining about the position and his injured knee joining in. 

After a few hours he heard the door open and there was a soft squeak. 

Vigil twisted his head to see one of the sidekicks, the younger one, he was pretty sure, standing there. They stared at each other for a moment before Vigil opened his mouth. 

“Please, help,” he whispered. “I won’t tell him it was you. I’ll say I got out on my own.”

The sidekick stared at him, frozen and silent.

“Please,” Vigil said again, putting some urgency into his voice. 

The sidekick dashed in, giving Vigil some hope before it failed as the sidekick grabbed whatever he had been sent in for and left just as quickly, shutting the door behind him. 

Vigil slowly set his face back down on the floor with a low sigh. “Fair enough,” he murmured, and he closed his eyes against the fluorescent lights, ignoring the mirrors that lined the one wall, repeating back his misery to him.

Part 4

@whumpsday

[nap0fastar]

march was found dead shortly after

[yumethefrostypanda]

Lt. Riley

[manny-jacinto]

THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE 2013 | dir. Francis Lawrence

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

In the shape of you, something new.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[tampire]

Mother of Drogon

[ruubesz-draws]

And that's how Godzilla got trapped in the ice and lost weight👍 :)

Also, Rodan is in the movie. I know this because I saw it in my dreams.

Inspired by Mickey Mouse Shorts

[snekky-arts]

"one does not simply shoot down a dragon-" "well that was a lie"

also this is a reminder that these illustrations are now available as prints in my Inprnt shop!

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6

[dynamicsimp]

SPICYNOODLES SHOT AUS???

This art was inspired by @swirly_straw on Twitter! Go check them out!

DeflectShot AU

FireShot AU

Both of them are in the same timeline except they have different outcomes.

[motherofagony]

FIRE WALK - one shot

joel miller x f!reader

pairing: au, no outbreak!joel x f!reader rating: explicit, 18+, minors dni word count: 6.5k summary: a chance encounter at a motel has you crossing paths with a stranger in a blue t-shirt. content warnings + tags: age gap (we'll say 15-20 years), very brief references to past non-con encounters (not with joel, no details just shitty men in general), soft!joel, alcohol, mentions of family trauma and ab*se, unprotected piv, fingering, oral (f + m receiving), A Scene With a Belt™, slight mentions of reader's clothing but no physical descriptions otherwise, love as consumption and women as fruit a/n: this was a brain-worm of a one shot, so i had to press pause on AHFE and get it out. consider it a dirty love letter to strangers with stories in shitty motels. and i have to give the biggest thank-you to @iamskyereads for stepping in and offering to be my beta reader in the final hour. she was so unbelievably thorough and thoughtful and kind. i owe you big.

New-age boogeymen hang two-way mirrors and jiggle motel door handles with broken hangers.

That’s what the news says.

August licks an unforgiving line of heat up your back, and cutoff denim and halter tops do nothing but give the sun more skin to burn. 

It’s sweltering, brutal as an Arizona summer is, and The Palms Motel promises a pool and a mini bar on their dirty marquee. You’ll take what you can get, can’t really afford to be picky with fifty dollars in your pocket, but at least maybe you’ll live like royalty tonight.

Some guy you met — Tom, Tim, Jim, whoever — pulls his convertible up to the front office. Your knees knock together over the speed bump, cartilage kissing bone.

It’s the closest you’ve ever come close to a chauffeur, but the chauffeur you see in movies doesn’t usually take liberties with trying to work his grease-speckled mechanic hand up the passenger’s shirt.

You met him at a gas station in Tucson, thumbing your way from northern Texas to put as much distance between you and your whiskey-breathed dad as you could. He’d torn your clothes apart at the seams with his eyes when he spotted you in the parking lot, swimming in blood-infested waters with sharp, sharp teeth.

There was no plan, no directions penned and cities circled on a folded map, just glass in your hair and a final straw.

He asked if you could buy him some booze — revoked license, baby, y’know how that goes — and you shouldn’t have, but when he flashed a leather wallet thick with cash, you knew you’d be stupid not to.

You hid behind a shelf inside the gas station while he idled in the parking lot and plucked a fifty from the wad, stuffing it deep in your bag. You grabbed some shitty malt-something from a fridge along with a 6-pack, flashing the slack-jawed cashier a wink. 

He didn’t try to hide the eye contact with your tits, but neither do most men. Sometimes you milk it in your favor, sometimes it just makes your lunch rise to the back of your throat.

And when you’re by yourself, it’s hot iron, ready to strike. A doe in their headlights, a buck with a nice rack. Skipping through the center of their bullseye.

You bought a little palm-sized bottle for yourself and tucked it safely next to the stolen cash in the abyss of your purse. These tiny cons got you by, made power surge deep in your belly. It made loneliness feel worth it, knowing you had an upper hand to lean on if you were ever in a bind.

He bitched about inflation when you came out with less than was reasonable for the amount you spent, and you just shrugged. Not your cash, not your problem. 

You bartered for a ride to the nearest motel, and now Tom-Tim-Jim is asking you over the purr of the engine if you need company for the night.

If you were feeling a little more you, you might’ve taken him up on it. Maybe he would’ve even paid for the room, maybe he wouldn’t get angry like your dad does. Maybe he’d be able to fuck you without hitting you.

You’re good at diffusing the temper in most men, can touch them in ways that make them grit their teeth, can be a good girl and go fetch.

But you’re not in the mood to bend, to give someone’s son — someone’s husband with a tan line around their ring finger — a place to wipe their shoes on. You don’t feel like wiping their dirt, your mascara from your eyes and saying thank you while they zip up their pants.

And you sure as fuck don’t fancy being on a milk carton.

“I’m alright, sugar. Thanks for the ride,” you say, dipping your chin to peer over your sunglasses. “I know where to find you, don’t worry.”

Yeah fuckin’ right.

He doesn’t try to conceal his disappointment, just sucks his teeth and squeezes at the exposed skin of your thigh. His way of saying goodbye to something he could’ve dripped sweat on, came in too early. You think your flesh might rot off in chunks. 

You open the door and swing your legs out in a way that’s a little too eager.

Tom-Tim-Jim waves solemnly with two fingers up and two bent, and then he’s gone in an aggressive rev.

The motel might’ve been a kitschy dream in its heyday. It’s not a total dump; more of a vintage skeleton of washed-out pink and umbrellas that’ve been ripped by weather and overuse. There are a million faded emblems of cartoonish palm trees. It’s almost endearing how tragic it is.

You can tell that it was popular and swarming with tourists at one time — there are dusty, water-stained pamphlets lining the wall next to the front desk that brag Named one of Arizona’s top destinations in 1996!

A mounted fan whirs and oscillates, but it might as well be someone blowing hot breath down your neck. 

There’s a tired woman holding down the fort at the desk with a name tag that claims Brenda, and she looks surprised to see you. You figure most customers are stopping in for a night’s rest on the way to somewhere more important, their final destination. But you don’t look like you have anywhere better to be.

“Hey, honey,” Brenda trickles, laced with an accent that’s more New Orleans than Arizona. “Need a room?”

“Yeah, just for the night,” you say, fishing out your wallet with confidence that doesn’t meet your eyes. “How much?”

“Forty-five a night, ‘less you wanna upgrade to the honeymoon suite.” She looks somewhere over your shoulder.

That’s nearly everything you have, but it sounds a lot like tomorrow’s problem. At least you’ll be safe tonight from the prowling stares of nighttime predators, and the leftover change will give you a decent vending machine dinner.

“Just a normal room’s fine,” you smile, sliding over the crumpled, stolen fifty.

Brenda types busily on the keyboard, asking for your name but nothing else. And when she hands you a plastic keycard, you finally relax your shoulders. Untangle the nerves in your lower back that are choking one another.

Room 17, it reads. Your oasis awaits!

You thank her, spin on your heel, and immediately bump chest to chest with something hard.

You’re eye level with a worn, cornflower blue t-shirt, ringed with a light stain of sweat at the collar. They’re grasping both of your arms to steady you, and you’re snagging the gaze of a tousled man with a bag slung over his shoulder.

“Watch where you’re goin’,” he murmurs, but it isn’t reprimanding or mean like you’re used to, just sickly sweet and Texan. Syrupy in a way that drips right down between your legs.

You don’t remember seeing anyone else in the lot when you’d pulled up. And the stealth of him entering soundlessly behind you sends a jolt of electricity up your spine, the clench of something that would be fear if it were any other stranger.

But he doesn’t look at you with intent to devour or to claim. Just eyes you like you’re anyone else. An equal. The bare minimum, but rare and shiny nonetheless.

“Sorry,” you breathe, and he’s releasing you a little too quickly for your liking. Leaving brands on the creases of where your forearms meet upper and elbow.

“Don’t worry ‘bout it.”

So you don’t.

You brush past him on the way out, a polite nod. And that’s that. 

The heat is the kind that feels hotter, unbearable when paired with the shrill sing of cicadas. An endless buzzing that you think might be the sun sizzling on the concrete. If you stood in one place for too long, your flip flops might very well melt you in place.

Your room key clicks to unlock Room 17, and you push the door open to a heavy, humid space that smells vaguely of mold. You’re so grateful for the privacy that you can’t even bring yourself to wrinkle your nose.

Flip flops discarded, your toes sink into shag carpet — a dirty luxury that makes you moan. It’s only been two days since you left home, fled home, but it beats sleeping with one eye open on a bus stop bench.

You up-end your leather bag, dumping all of its contents onto the bed. Cigarettes, some loose film canisters, your toothbrush, a lighter. There wasn’t much time to pack, nothing worth bringing, and the less, the better. Nothing to weigh you down if you had to dip at a moment’s notice.

It takes you only a couple minutes and a light sheen of sweat to realize that the A/C is busted. Smothered, you try to crack open a window in the bathroom, but it’s no cooler than the hell you’re standing in.

When you let Brenda know, she just shrugs with an apologetic kind of half-smile.

“Most of ‘em are out these days, honey,” she says, and you decide then that it’s a small price to pay. “We got someone comin’ to look at it next week.”

You shoot her a smile, figure that she’s had enough rotten backtalk in her day. You scoop a set of flamingo-themed matches from the bowl on the counter and turn around, only to see a familiar blue shirt waiting his turn.

His eyes try not to roam, but he’s giving you a nod and stepping up without hesitation, asking Brenda for extra towels.

The way that she titters and blushes, you’d think he’d asked if he could spit in her mouth.

It irritates you, and you can’t say why.

The door chimes behind you as it closes, and you linger, striking a match and lighting a cigarette. When he emerges, a stack of towels so high it’s hitting his chin, you step in stride on the walk back. Tracing his footsteps, catching up with his shadow.

“You followin’ me?” you quip, a cigarette dangling from your mouth. The cherry ignites on every breath, smoke erupting in tendrils that hug each word.

He answers with a laugh, turns and squints back at you with one eye. Almost as if he was expecting you to ask.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you, sweetheart? Could say the same to you.”

You stop in front of 17, hand over your brow to shield from the sun that’s winding its way down, getting ready to tuck itself in for the night. There’s nothing that touches your tongue that doesn’t sound exactly like a fuck yes. So you don’t say anything.

“Enjoy your sauna,” he chuckles over his shoulder, passing you with his towels on the way to Room 20.

—

Led Zeppelin filters out through the radio, half-static, half-electric. Your legs are crossed in the air behind you, and you’re posted up face down on the bed, kicking along to the beat while you flip through whatever Cosmopolitan someone left behind in a drawer.

Someone raps a few times on the door, and if it’s a repairman, they’re getting their fucking dick sucked.

You army-roll off the flowery duvet, abandoning a how-to on finding your g-spot, and you peer through the peephole.

Your breath hitches on a soft swear.

When you open the door, you see Blue T-Shirt standing there, skin creasing around his eyes slyly. An unopened beer hangs and swings from his restless fingers. He offers it up wordlessly, the butt of it pointed at you.

It’s ice-cold and slippery to the touch, erupting goosebumps on your forearm. Saliva coats your tongue, and you don’t think it’s the thirst for alcohol, but maybe the tall drink of water. 

“Um… thanks?”

“Figured you’d either be dead by now or parched,” he says smugly, and it’s velvet to your ears.

“Oh. Yeah, thanks. I got the fan to work at least,” you mutter, jerking your thumb vaguely behind you.

“Listen, uh —”

He’s rubbing the nape of his neck, and you catch the way the network of muscles flex from his elbow to the seam of his armpit. He looks like he’s in pain, struggling with the fit of a puzzle piece into something rough and jagged.

Something he shouldn’t be trying but has to see it through, exhaust it until it’s definite one way or the other.

You just squint, sucking in the corner of your lip between your teeth. You nearly grin, but it’s much more fun to watch than to connect the dots for him.

“A/C works in my room, so ‘f you wanted to… y’know,” he trails off, not even sure in his own offer. “No pressure. It’s hot as hell outside, don’t want you t’get heat stroke ‘f I can help it.”

This kind of approval you like. This kind that sizzles girl-honey between your legs, winning it from a man that’s playing to earn, not to cheat.

“I try not to make a habit out of going into motel rooms of guys I don’t know the names of,” you harp sweetly. But it might as well be a done-deal.

“D’you make a habit outta accepting beers from ‘em?”

You smile. Typically, yes.

“Joel.”

His hand shoots out, strong and suggestive. Fingers like alligator teeth that’ll grip you, hold you under until you thrash. 

And you pluck your cigarettes and gifted liquor bottle from the bed, arms full when you carry them down to Joel’s room.

—

You’re sprawled on the full-size bed next to his, head propped up on hand propped up on elbow.

You’ve been trading your little fist of bourbon back and forth, swapping stories in the same way. Somehow, you fall into it easy like old friends, and it’s nice to follow someone’s lead instead of keeping one step, three, seven steps ahead. Arm outstretched to the door knob, feet ready to break into a run at the change in tone, blackening of pupils.

Without meaning to, you’ve wordlessly agreed that the person in possession of the bottle has the proverbial mic, and they swig to help with details and theatrics. It’s counter-productive in flow, but it makes you laugh when Joel exaggerates the story he’s telling on purpose, reaching out to pass it back and suddenly yanking it back, remembering a shade of gray or a funny expression.

Your knuckles keep zapping each other, brushing a little longer than the time before. There’s no numbness to consensual touch.

Joel’s mid-40s. From Texas, like you. He came to visit his daughter Sarah at college, says she’s growin’ up too fast, doesn’t need her old man anymore. It’s a thrill to see someone talk about their own flesh with love, admiration for who she is and who she’s becoming. You find yourself leaning in, enraptured that there are no IOUs or fine-print that you know to come with a parent’s love.

Mentions of his stubborn brother Tommy who he works with and who just can’t stop getting into trouble. The unspoken guilt that maybe he could be the one to keep him out of jail if he tried harder. It doesn’t work that way, and you tell him so.

You tell him about your dad when he asks about your life, your story, and you don’t know why you do but maybe you know exactly why. No one ever gets close enough to ask, so it comes leaking out of the corners of your mouth.  

You’ve never told anyone, not even your diary, not even the guidance counselor who slipped a note to your fifth grade teacher and pulled you out of class. Shaky fingers, shaky limbs when they asked if they could roll up your sleeves just to see and you said no. 

Crying because you knew your dad wouldn’t let you go back. Not to school, not to your friends.

You omit the nitty-gritty details, but Joel gets the gist. Swigs his share of the liquor a little too angrily with tight lips. Not like your dad does, but you don’t miss the irony of it all.

He holds anger for you, on behalf of you. It simmers as he listens to you in patient silence, coming to a boil at the bad parts when he gets up and starts walking lines in the shitty carpet. Pretending to look outside in interest at his truck parked at the end of the lot, but gripping the curtains until you can see every expanse of bone in his hand.

You don’t need this from him. It’s a hurt you’ve wedged between the pages of a book and doused in flames of acceptance long ago. But it spreads from your toes to your ears, the burn of someone feeling like this. For someone like you.

He finally settles down in an armchair by the window, a funny corduroy thing that would probably light up under a blacklight on one of those crime shows. Legs parted, a warm stare on the way you take up space on the bed. Facing him comfortably, your vision buzzing around the edges. A loose smile shared as if this room was meant for the two of you all along.

“So, what’s your plan?” Joel’s humming, his words getting lost in an echo of the bottle neck.

You don’t have one. Can’t have one when you have nowhere to go but gone.

It stretches on and on between you — a mouth opened and closed too many times on possibilities. If you admit to it, you end up with pity or an upper hand dealt to a stranger. You can’t afford to owe anyone a favor, nor can you front the cost of needing one.

But you’re so tired.

“Dunno. I’ll figure it out.”

“You got enough time for that?”

And you know what he means. Enough time in the motel, enough time before you’re a thief at wit’s end, doing anything for survival. He doesn’t need to ask to know you don’t have a destination, some relative waiting for you in a California dream.

You’ve excused yourself to the bathroom, soft radio bleeding in under the door, arms braced on the sink, all glossy eyes.

You want him, bad. But he won’t make the first move, won’t take advantage of what isn’t his and what others before him took without asking. You’re a pawn, entitled to the first move. The rejection would kill you, but not knowing would be worse.

He could hold you soft, give you something to think about when tomorrow rips you both in opposite directions.

When you pull open the door, Joel’s frozen in mid-stride towards you, like he’s just made up his mind about something.

He straightens but he’s still. Afraid of moving too fast, saying too much, scaring you into flight. Out of the unlocked cage of his room — something he did on purpose, because he doesn’t expect anything from you and wants you to know he doesn’t.

You meet him in his dusty shag quicksand. You take his wrist in your hand, kiss the thrum of life in the dip where veins meet palm. An offering.

Joel looks like he’s in pain, like what you’re doing is excruciating and thorny. The front of his jeans strains. He’s searching you for any hesitation, any obligation because he did something kind. He knows what currency you feel the need to pay in, and this isn’t that.

“Please,” you whisper simply. And he nods, accepting, succumbing.

There’s a careful meeting of lips, wanting to do it the right way, in the right order. When you push your tongue in, used to the pace of animals, he just holds your face and slows you down. It’s languid, his mouth showing you what sweet and gentle can taste like. Your tongues take their time, and your hands slip beneath the hem of his shirt, all ribbed muscle with a sprinkling of hair.

He shudders against the lightness of your feather-fingers.

Joel’s hands are peeling your shirt off, his thumbs resting to press against pillowy hips. He’s not letting your lips go, something like impatience stirring in you. 

Doesn’t he want to fuck you hard? Fuck you fast and selfish?

Isn’t there a catch?

He’s taking his shirt off now, up and over. Carved by Michaelangelo, thrown up on a ceiling in a library book you read once. You’re touching him in reverence, but not letting yourself learn too much of him.

His eyes are molten. Joel walks you back to the edge of the bed, scratchy quilt tickling your thighs when you fall back on it. You start to pose yourself, angles that make you look more desirable, pliable. But he’s not paying attention to that, just unbuttoning your shorts, kissing the jut of every curve and permeating down to the bone, punching out a soft groan when he slides the denim off and sees the shining ambrosia that’s waiting.

He’s kneeling, tugging you down to meet his waiting mouth. And you’re just breathless, flinching when he pulls you apart, guiding your legs over his shoulders and wasting no time devouring you. Your legs, his bib.

Joel’s tongue flicks through the shell of you, teasing you in alternates of quick and slow, starving and full. It feels like a slice of heaven. 

You pitch out a tangled gasp, hands instinctively moving to knot in his hair. Anything to hold onto, a different kind of grounding.

“So wet f’me,” he vibrates lowly into you, all husk. “Taste so fuckin’ sweet.”

He sinks a middle finger into you, and you’re keening, hips canting and unable to stay glued to the mattress. You feel him smile against your cunt, just pressing his forearm across your lower half to keep you still.

Joel’s twisting and working into you, onto you, and you’re so fucking close from just this — a tiptoeing to the edge that grows longer, more erratic in stride. He sucks your clit — pulsing sensitive, so swollen — into his mouth and grazes it with the tip of his tongue just so. Baring his incisors and closing around you in a delicious scrape like a Venus flytrap taking its meal.

You think you see God behind the flutter of your eyes.

You’re close enough to warn him, to rasp it out in the symphony of moans. His free hand reaches up to roll your peaked nipple between his forefinger and thumb, and he stretches you with an added ring finger. You’re writhing. Possessed.

He’s watching you through thick lashes. Letting your heels dig into his shoulders as the drenched sounds of you fill the room.

“Joel, please — I’m gonna —”

“C’mon, pretty girl,” he just murmurs.

You feel that little pull at your navel.

And you’re tipping in a freefall, seeing stars. You clench down around his fingers, fingers that are still pumping against that spongy spot deep inside you. Your arousal gushes, wet and sticky against the scrape of his beard. He laps you up, the sight making heat creep up your chest and wrap around your neck.

When he lifts his head, he’s high on it. Pupils dilated like tiny, round moons. Your orgasm glistens on him, smeared over lips and chin. The fur of a peach peeled back far enough to sink teeth into.

It’s fucking filthy.

Joel places open-mouthed kisses from your hip up to the center of your breasts, a trail of your orgasm shiny on your skin in perfect, sloppy Os. His breath meets your throat where he nips at you, and you don’t have time to drag in a breath before you’re tasting the saltiness of yourself on his tongue.

Your fingers fumble on his belt, practiced with years of releasing the tension on the metal prongs, the slithering sound whooshing from the loops of pants. You’re good at it, like you used to be good at gymnastics until your mom stopped getting out of bed to drive you. 

There was always a little gold for contorting your body.

He detaches from you unwillingly, putting all of his weight on his knees and shins as he straddles the space of your thighs.

You’re pulling yourself up in a sitting position, pushing denim and boxers down past his hips. Letting his cock spring free, the head a dark pink and beaded with precum. You swipe the flat of your tongue against it, peeking up at him while you soak up the taste of it. 

When you push the length of him into your mouth, ridged hard with veins, Joel tips his head back, chin to the ceiling. He groans something brutish yet helpless, cradling the back of your head. You’re seated in the driver’s seat, all control. 

It’s new, different.

But then he’s moving his hips back, pulling himself from your mouth, wiping the saliva from your chin with a steady thumb.

“Don’t need t’do that,” Joel whispers hoarsely. “Not ‘f you don’t want to.”

Confused, you knit your brows. He laughs darkly, shaking his head.

“Didn’t mean it like that, it’s — it feels fuckin’ good,” he says, awestruck. “Would just rather make you feel good instead.”

Oh.

He doesn’t wait for an answer or a negotiation. The rest of his clothes pool on the floor in a pile, and he’s climbing back over you, an anchor or a buoy in a storm.

He lines himself up at the seam of you, puffy and so wet from before, nudging the tip of his cock at your warm center. A thumb coaxing the bud at the apex of you in lazy circles.

Joel’s sliding in slowly by each inch, filling you full until there’s nothing left and his patch of hair prickles the pearl of your clit. All you can do is whine and tense around him.

He’s resting tentative hands on either side of your face, indenting the weak mattress with handprints. He groans, but he doesn’t move. Doesn’t give in when you try to rock against him.

“This alright?”

You’ve forgotten how to do anything, hoping that digging your fingertips into his forearms is communication enough.

“I’m gonna need a yes, baby.”

You feel around in the dark for the tether back to your body, and it jerks you like a marionette, giving him a nod.

“Yes. Fuck.”

That’s enough. He’s rewarding you with a roll of his hips, and you feel like you’re on fire. It’s a stuttering, painfully slow pace at first, his mouth so close to your ear that every grunt is amplified. But it evolves into something eager, unsatiated, snapping up into you with a relentless sort of fucking.

He’s hitting that place so deep within you, letting you unravel and grow hoarse from the moans tearing their way up your throat. That pressure is roiling, the kind that you get only when you touch yourself but intensified by a million.

It just feels so right, because there’s nothing to prove. 

You’re ships passing in the night, strangers making a pit-stop on the way to nowhere. There’s no backstory, no history to make mention of. No shame in the morning when he inevitably rolls over and pretends to be asleep, and you scrub off the smell of him with your provided travel-size shampoo.

It’s not love, but it might be the closest you ever get.

The glow of him above you, a deity with his face screwed in agony. Chasing after you when he feels the tightening of your cunt, the easy glide of every thrust that tells him you’re close.

Then, you’re snapping like a rubber band. Gushing in a dripping mess that trickles to where your ass meets thigh. Crying without tears, overstimulated but blissful. Joel is quick to follow, like he’s been waiting his turn.

He’s trembling, emptying inside you in a warm flood. Groaning low and beautiful, gripping your hips to keep you flush to him.

When pulls out, tearing himself away, he’s slinging an arm over his eyes on the pillow beside yours. One hand on your leg to make sure you don’t go anywhere.

“So fuckin’ perfect,” you hear him mutter.

At some point you drift off, his arm draped over you. You open a bleary eye to a neon 2:49AM that casts a halo over the nightstand. Joel’s tucked you in, the thin duvet snug up to your shoulder. He’s not snoring but not not snoring, just breath getting caught in his throat in a satisfied, well-spent way.

It’s all too much, too pure to be real.

Before you let yourself change your mind, you slink out from under the warmth of your generous stranger. You step in your shorts one foot at a time, tugging them up gelatin legs too springy from coiling and uncoiling.

You promise yourself that you’ll take just one mental picture as a keepsake, and it’s this. A sleepy Joel who will be well on his way to a second cup of coffee on the way out of Arizona, maybe even nursing a little headache behind his right eye. And he’ll remember an apparition of some girl he fucked in a motel. The touristy thing to do, a sight to see. 

He might even tell Tommy, say you were a crazy little thing with too much baggage, but it was fun to stay up past his bedtime.

You don’t mean to do it, really you don’t, but you flip through his wallet that lays innocently on top of the TV.

If you take a little something, that’ll turn this into another one of your stories that you tell your kids born from a loveless marriage somewhere in the crevices of a future from now. It won’t pull on the tendons of your heart.

And it won’t mean anything. You won’t let it.

—

The next morning, there’s a soft knock at the door, and it’s probably housekeeping kicking you out for overstaying your welcome. Time to turn down the bed for the next lost soul. You imagine Joel’s long gone, hopped in his truck and back to a reality you’ll never meet him in.

Your fingers are slow to gather up your purse, and you’re shoving your toothbrush in from its place on the sink.

“I’ll be out in a second!” you yell in a voice that reeks of years of diner-flavored customer service.

More persistent knocking that borders on pounding. It shakes the chain in the deadbolt.

You’re yanking open the door, and there’s Joel, white shirt and jeans. And it isn’t that cushion of admiration from last night, no greeting with a chaste kiss on the cheek.

Just a wolf coming to claim his continental breakfast.

Fuck.

You try to shut the door, suddenly too ashamed of what you’ve done, and to someone undeserving. Someone that showed you kindness, empathy.

But his boot catches the door before it can close, and he’s inside, slicing through the space between you. It’s not quite anger, but it’s shadowy. Sardonic.

Your shoulder blades kiss the cheap wallpaper.

“You’re real funny, y’know that?” he starts, and he’s smiling but not really.

Shrinking small, so small that maybe you’ll disappear.

There’s a tick of silence. His thumb skates to your collarbone and then to the hollow at the base of your throat. He wants to squeeze but he doesn’t, his fingers wrapping loosely around the column to fix you there. Heat creeps up the back of your neck into your hairline.

The instinct to flinch bubbles up against your joints, but you can’t bring yourself to.

“Y’think you can fuck me,” he muses, disgustingly deadpan, “‘n steal from me.”

Dread weighs heavy like lead in your stomach. You can’t stop yourself from shaking your head, still playing dumb.

He bristles at that, thunderous. You both know it’s a lie; you’re a hundred dollars richer than you were last night. His fingers briefly flex around you in a way that you’ve seen before, and horror hits a fever pitch in you.

Tears prick your eyes, and you’re putting your palms on his chest and shoving, but he doesn’t give. Unstoppable force meets immovable object, and all that.

It’s not so much the blaring punctuation in a sentence, the ticking of dynamite ready to blow. He’s confronting you with proximity, with your own dishonesty. Wanting to shake you and tell you that it doesn’t have to be this way.

Joel just leans in closer, almost grazing noses. You try to breathe around the lump of panic.

“The hell’s the matter with you?”

It’s disbelief, it’s hurt. In the same way, it’s understanding, incredulous. It’s him stepping back and loosening the hold around your neck like no one’s ever done; it’s softening and imploring.

He’s shoving his hands in his pockets, guilty and recoiling. Sorry he could even make himself look like one of them — a forced penance in the flesh.

There’s no answer that can justify what you did. Nothing simple about nothing personal. But truly… that’s all it was. A pie wafting steam on an open windowsill. Something to make you feel better about the void he’d leave.

“‘F you needed money, you coulda just asked.” 

He’s disappointed, desperate. In a tone that really says, I would’ve done anything you wanted.

A dam inside you gives, crumbling deep at the foundation and knocking the walls down around you. Words don’t come, but you shove your hand in blind into your bag, pulling out the loose bill and extending it.

Joel sees the regretful offering and your heart with x-ray vision. That you think of yourself as a doll, less valuable without her box. Used without tags. Free to a good home.

He shakes his head, the softness of a keep it barely peeking out of his mouth.

You’re skinning yourself raw, wanting another way out but having none. With half a mind to say that the next night could come with fangs.

You feel the stab of relief, and shame. So much shame.

Like a soothsayer, he foresees the coldness of a bench, the shrinking of you into the safety of an alley.

You drop to your knees in exaltation, thinking you know what’ll fix this. You can’t see through the watercolor blur of your tears, but you touch his belt with fingers that are cold to the tips.

But Joel knows what you’re doing, shaking his head no no no.

He won’t let you do it like this. He drags you up gently by the elbows. Pulls you into his chest, says stop stop stop. Kisses your hair, then your lips. You cry until he can taste the tears, until the front of his shirt is damp.

“I’m sorry,” you rasp out roughly. “I’m so sorry.”

He tells you to never say sorry to him again.

—

Joel pays for a room for two more nights, but only one — his with the working A/C.

You move your toothbrush and your bag over to Room 20.

You go to the pool, swimming laps around him in a tank top and your cherry-embroidered underwear, squealing and splashing in a flail when he swims underneath your legs and stands up to hold you on his tan shoulders.

Sunscreen streaks greasy on your stomach when you lay out together on the loungers after. Joel likes a cat-nap with his face under a towel, grumpy and tired from the sun. But he never snaps at you, never gets impatient when you ask too many questions while he’s dozing off.

You learn the pinched expression he makes just before he comes. That his right palm has hundreds of lines you can see best by lamplight. He misses the noise of Sarah in his house, of sharing the coffee pot with someone. He doesn’t like the small piling of toast crumbs left only by him on the kitchen table.

He learns that you apologize for wet, clean hair on his pillowcase, for laughing too loud. Things that don’t need a sorry. A collection of oversaturated manners that might take time to unlearn, but he promises to teach you.

He learns that you approach an orgasm with tentative toes in cold water, almost unbelieving that sex can give, give, give instead of take, take, take. He learns that you like the meeting of eyes when he’s buried between your legs, pushing your thighs apart to keep from suffocating. That when he does let you get on your knees for him, you know just the spot to caress with your tongue on the underside of his cock.

Joel’s belt is snaked under your stomach, across your hips, fists intertwined in the leather as he pulls you back, slams himself forward. It bites and creates indents in your flesh, and you don’t care. He gives you marks to love, to admire in your reflection, never ones that are ugly. Never ones out of hate over spilled milk.

There’s a dirty slap of skin, growing louder, competing with your moans. Your nails are tearing into the cheap sheets, and Joel’s so close but won’t come until he coaxes another out of you. A grand total of at least four by now, but you’ve lost count.

At long last, you splinter around him. Pitching off the cliff in a cry. Joel’s leaning — his chest, your back — and spilling deep, holding onto you for dear life. You hear him whimper in a strangle. Big, tough game that’s been taken down with an arrow in his chest.

Hot tears are flowing out of you, stuttering sobs close to follow, and Joel pulls out slowly. Seems to know why. And he rolls you over, into him, hand careful in slow strokes against your hair.  

You’ve never been good at goodbyes. Maybe that’s what this is.

Men like to say that women like you are insane, too analytical, too tear-streaked, too conscious of the way they look when they sleep. Because waking up with your mouth open, a drying corner of drool threatening your cheek is too human, not pretty.

Sometimes women like you are dead, rotting pomegranate flesh. Long forgotten in decay on the ground when the weight became too heavy to hold yourself up. And those men pick up your seeds and shove them squelching back into places where they don’t fit. 

The winters come bitter and harsh, but you’re always reborn in the spring. And without fail, you grow back fiercely into a tree reminiscent of Eden, low-hanging apples plucked and bruised and bitten into once and spit out in tart disgust. 

Women like you choke men like this with your pits, strangle them with vines, poison them with berries. They can consume, but so can you.

But then, in the ripe, cool shade of summer, you’ll have a visitor like Joel that will come with a basket and a blanket and they’ll stay and read books beneath you. They’ll enjoy your fruit, you’ll drip from their mouth and dry tacky like flypaper, and they won’t be able to imagine a day before you. 

They’ll collect all the pieces of you on a Tuesday morning and give you change to get a Coke after checkout. They’ll tuck you into the front seat of their truck, let you put your feet up on the dash, hand protective and calm on your thigh while the other steers you both back to Texas. A new home without shouting and bottles thrown.

And they’ll stay through every season.

[aring-king-king]

[facethesuns-moved]

HIP HOP UNIT 🔥 LALALI, 2024

[dedicatednotobsessed]

Comforts of the Night [Aemond Targaryen x Wife!Reader]

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Other HOTD stories [requests open]

Summary: After a long day of trying to hunt down your elder brother, Aegon, you and your husband, Aemond unwind, trying not to think of what the morrow will bring...

TW: Mentions SA on a minor.

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Your long silver hair was down and flowing, and you were already dressed for the night while you put your twins to bed. Your fingers ran over the gold trim of the book in your lap, furrowing your brows. You wanted this moment to last forever, knowing that your peaceful life would plunge into chaos on the morrow.

“Mama?”

The small, sweet voice pulled you from your thoughts, smiling at your daughter, who watched you with big doe eyes, the same shade of soft purple as yours.

“Yes, little one?” You replied, standing up to put the book back on the shelf. 

“Why didn’t papa come?”

You sighed softly at the question. “Your papa had a long day.”

Vhaenys pouted. “Will he still come? He always comes.”

You turned to your daughter, giving her a soft smile. Vhaenys leaned more onto your brother-husband, Aemond, whereas her elder twin brother, Vanar, was more attached to you. Vanar was more timid than his sister, but sometimes you caught Vhaenys chipping away at his shy shell.

You stroked back her hair, frowning. “Perhaps he will still come in to bid you goodnight.” You leaned down, kissing the top of her head. “But because the sun is asleep, I need you to close your eyes, sweet one.”

“But, mama-”

“I will make sure Papa comes in and bids the both of you goodnight before we rest.”

The little girl pouted but nodded, hugging her stuffed green dragon close to her body. It was a toy given to her at birth. Hers was made to resemble your husband’s dragon, Vhagar, and your son had a white stuffed dragon to match yours—a shimmery iridescent dragon known as Revnass.

You pulled the blanket around her before giving her another small kiss on the forehead. You walked over to Vanar, who was already fast asleep, kissing his head. “Goodnight, my byka zaldrīzoti*.”

You took a deep breath, wrapping your dark blue robe tight around you as you made your way to your marital chambers. You walked in to see Aemond in the same spot he was in when you went to read the children to sleep, still dressed in his doublet. You stayed silent, making your way over to the wine to pour yourself a glass.

“Did the twins go down easy?” Aemond asked, breaking the silence.

You nodded, taking a small sip of your wine. “Vhaenys falls asleep easier if you read to her, though.”

“I will make it up to her and Vanar as well.”

You glanced at Aemond, watching his mannerisms, your eyes wandering down to his hands. The way he was fidgeting his fingers gave him away in his calm composure. He tried to hold his head high, but you could tell his mask was slowly crumbling.

You licked your lips lightly, looking down at your cup, tracing the lip of it with your ring finger. “Why did you never tell me what happened on our thirteenth name day?”

“I don’t understand what you mean,” Aemond replied, playing simple.

“Aemond,” You whispered, the hurt evident in your voice. “I know you better than you know yourself. Do not toy with me.”

His hand fidgeting stopped his gaze still on the fire before him. “What would I have said to you, Y/N?” Aemond questioned, his voice thick with emotion.

“You would have told me where Aegon took you, what the Madame–”

“We were children then!” Aemond raised his voice, his mask washing away as his voice cracked. “No one would have believed me in the end.”

You frowned, his words breaking your heart. “Oh, my love.” you set your wine down before making your way over to the fireplace. You bent beside his chair, taking his hand in both of yours. “Aemond, look at me.”

He clenched his jaw, shaking his head. He only turned his head when you reached up, cupping his cheek. The tears rolling down his cheeks glistened from the firelight, the sight utterly shattering you. It was rare to see him cry, your husband not even shedding a tear when he lost his eye from your nephew many years ago.

You sighed softly, blinking back the tears stinging your eyes. Slowly, you stood, taking his other hand to help him up. You reached up to remove his eyepatch, your thumb gingerly tracing his scar, his sapphire sparkling back at you. You moved your hands to remove his doublet, your eyes flickering to your husband. He seemed to be in such a vulnerable state.

“Come on,” You whispered, taking his hands once more.

You led him over to your bed, getting on first before you took Aemond’s hand after helping him take his boots off. You relaxed against the pillows, tugging Aemond to you. He sniffled, laid his head in your lap, and hugged you around the middle. You laid back slightly, removing the tie from his hair and running your fingers through his silver locks.

“I can kill her for you if you’d like,” You said softly after a moment. “The Madame,” You clarified. You did not enjoy how she was eyeing him earlier, as though he was prey and she was waiting for the right moment to strike. 

Aemond sniffled and shook his head, his tense body loosening under your touch. “I do not want to think about her,” He whispered, his voice hoarse.

You nodded, although your mind was already hatching ideas on ways to kill the Madame or torment her the same way she tormented your husband. Aemond squeezed you tight as though if he let go, you would disappear. You sighed while closing your eyes, your fingers still running carefully through each strand of his soft hair as you began to sing a lullaby. It was called Twin Green Dragons, one your wet nurse would sing to you and Aemond, and now you sing it to your twins;

“In a realm where moonbeams dance,

Two green dragons, twins of chance.

Their wings unfold, a gentle sight,

Guarding dreams throughout the night.

Twin green dragons, side by side, 

In their realm, they’ll be your guide.

Close your eyes, let worries fade,

In their care, your dreams are made.

Sleep now, dear one, without fear,

The dragons’ song is drawing near.

Twins of green, they softly sing,

To you, their lullaby they bring.”

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*byka zaldrīzoti: It means little dragons in High Valyrian.

Thank you to @mrsdaemontargaryen for writing the lullaby, Twin Green Dragons for me to include at the end of this Aemond drabble. ❤️

[hyunpic]

HYUNJIN for CARTIER & ESQUIRE KOREA

[youreastargirl]

Okay okay hold on.

You’re telling me that Derek Hale is living in Beacon Hills owning an auto shop and consulting for the sheriff and having a rebellious teenage son who loves the jeep and in the first twenty seconds of being on screen Derek says to the sheriff “Maybe you should call your son?” Like I literally paused it.

Seriously considering keeping it paused and just writing a fanfic to finish it out because this is a beautiful premise that right now is canon. I accept the first 20 minutes of this movie. The rest we can toss.

[your-royal-momoness]

Sokka: you can’t just set all your problems on fire

Zuko: you’d be surprised how many things are flammable