#steel frame garden room

[harryspet]

well kept [3] r. cameron

[warnings] dark!ceo!rafe x reader, size difference, billionaire!older!rafe, shy!reader with low self-esteem, reader is a person who stutters, boss x personal assistant, heavy abuse of power, emotional/mental manipulation, DUBCON, little editing, READ AT YOUR OWN RISK 18+

A/N: Pls reblog and let me know what you think! Thank you so much for all the feedback so far :)

word count: 4.5k

In which it's your first day working from home with Rafe and you have a new lesson to learn.

well kept masterlist

The Cameron residence was fifteen minutes outside of downtown Charlotte and situated in a large neighborhood where hills and huge oak trees hid all the houses. You didn’t really see his house, only what you could tell was large pond, until the driver was at the end of the mile-long driveway.  When you did, you felt woefully underdressed. Assuming that being inside all day meant you could opt for something casual, you’d chosen a cream knit dress. 

Following Rafe’s instructions, you sent him photos of each outfit you tried on, but he hadn’t told you which ones you could return. It was another blow to your confidence. You began to doubt whether he’d even been serious, but the fear that he might mention it the next day kept you from taking any chances.

Stepping out of the black Escalade, your eyes widened as you took in the architectural masterpiece before you. The house was a striking blend of traditional and modern styles, with a light-colored exterior contrasted by dark shutters framing the windows. A stone chimney rose from the roof, and the three-car garage with wooden doors added a rustic touch.

After your car drove away, a tall and impeccably dressed staff member named Anthony guided you up the stone-paved driveway. From your cheat sheet, you recalled that he was the House Manager. Rafe required a full team: Anthony, two housekeepers, a private chef, a driver, a gardener, and now you—his personal assistant. The inside of the house was as intimidating as the exterior. The expansive foyer featured high ceilings and a grand staircase that curved up to the second floor. To the left, you caught a glimpse of the formal dining room. Each room you passed was more impressive than the last. Anthony informed you that there were six bedrooms and eight bathrooms.

“I don’t usually work on Fridays but Mr. Cameron wanted me to give you a tour of the house and show you the ropes of house management. It’ll be important for you to be able to oversee the staff when I’m absent and understand the scheduling.”

Once again, it was all too much to take in. Today was your fifth day working for Rafe, and you’d barely survived until now. 

“I want to clarify that what happened yesterday stays between us. That includes Eleanor. Okay?”

That was all he said about his outburst. There was no apology for groping you, for pinning you down on his office couch, or for taking your virginity. If you were to tell the story, you’d have to mention how your body had betrayed you—not once, but twice. But you had said no. You didn’t want to use the word that described what happened to you. You didn’t want to think about it at all.

And it didn’t happen again—not over the next three days. He continued to be harsh, forcing you to apologize for every small mistake, even those you weren’t aware of.

As you followed Anthony through the expansive kitchen, you couldn't help but marvel at its sheer size and sophistication. The kitchen was a chef's dream, with gleaming marble countertops that seemed to stretch endlessly, state-of-the-art stainless steel appliances, and custom cabinetry in a rich, dark wood finish. An oversized island dominated the center of the room.

At the far end of the kitchen, massive glass-paneled doors stood, offering a glimpse of the world beyond. The porch was furnished with elegant wicker seating with plush cushions. The space was perfect for elegant parties, with enough room to accommodate at least a dozen guests.

Beyond the porch was a stunning infinity pool stretched out towards the horizon. As you walked closer, to the right, you took notice of a garden. You spotted the gardener, Tyler, who Anthony had mentioned earlier. In simple clothes, the young man blended easily into the scenery. 

“This is where Mr. Cameron will typically entertain his guests,” Anthony said, 

The beauty of the outdoor space was undeniable, but so was the control that permeated every aspect of it. You wondered what hand Rafe played in how spotless it looked. You could almost picture him, his jaw clenched and eyes blazing with a harsh intensity, if even the smallest detail were out of place. It was easy to imagine him demanding that every leaf, every petal, every stone be exactly where it belonged. 

Did his staff ever make mistakes? Did he make them beg him forgiveness like he did with you? 

“Shall I show you the study? It’s approaching seven-thirty.”

You nodded, a small smile on your lips. He was kind but part of you didn’t want him to hear your voice shake or your face contort into an uncomfortable position as you struggled to get your words out. 

There would be enough struggling today, you knew that. 

Surprisingly, Rafe’s home office was more quaint than you expected. Dark wood panneling decorated the walls as well as floor-to-celing bookshelves. As you made your way around the room, you took note of the picture frames containing images of what you believed to be his family. Here, it seemed he had a heart. The four of them stood on a dock, sun shining down, and his arms were wrapped a young girl with dark brown hair. His smile was genuine and there was darkness lingering in the blues of his eyes. 

Other than the bookshelves, the room only contained his desk, a set of leather couches and a coffee table. The smaller room still managed to exude sophistication but it was far less imposing than you expected. 

The room almost felt intimate as sunlight trickled in through light colored curtains. You were standing behind his desk, glancing out his office window which faced towards the nearby pond. Beside it, sat a gazebo, although you couldn’t imagine Rafe enjoying it. You wondered if he lived here alone as you saw no traces of the other three people in his family photo. 

“Boo,” You yelped as you heard Rafe’s deep voice. 

You placed a hand over your beating heart as you looked toward where he stood in the doorway. Having been deep in thought, you hadn’t heard the door opened. He knew that much which explained the amused look in his eye.  

Everything flooded back at the sight of him. The air had already left your lungs. You felt his body pressing down on yours, warm breath against your ears, and that pain between your legs. 

The door clicked shut, making you flinch.

“Good morning,” he said, his gaze fixed on you.

It hit you then, you hadn’t greeted him like you were supposed to.

You were taken aback by his appearance. He was wearing gray sweatpants and a plain navy t-shirt, a stark contrast to your heels and carefully applied makeup. You weren’t sure why you were expected to dress up, especially when he looked so casual.

“G-Good morning, Sir,” You crossed the room, his eyes locked on yours. You remembered where he liked you, near the door, ready to greet him and present yourself to him. You hated how your voice always betrayed you, how weak it made you sound. Your only saving grace was that you’d already memorized his schedule for the day, having spent the entire commute looking at your laptop. You recited it to him, including the midday Zoom call he had with Kelce and Topper.

Topper, you had learned, was Eleanor’s husband. Rafe hadn’t ever touched her but the way Eleanor always answered your questions with vague responses made you suspect that her relationship with Topper mirrored your own with Rafe. She hadn’t warned you but now you were suspecting that was because Rafe seemed to always get what he wanted, no matter who got hurt in the process.

You froze the moment his hand reached out to touch you. His fingers curled around your side, hovering just above your stomach but dangerously close to your breasts. His grip was surprisingly gentle as his thumb grazed over the fabric of your dress. You stiffened as his other hand mirrored the first, sliding across to the opposite side of your body. “Eleanor picked this,” he murmured, his brows knitting together as his gaze slowly traveled down your figure. A jolt shot through you as his thumb brushed over your nipple, sending a wave of panic coursing through you.

“Y-You don’t like it?” you stammered, your voice barely above a whisper. 

He clicked his tongue, “Turn around for me.”

You did as he said, “Doesn’t do enough for your figure,” Your heart panged in your chest, suddenly feeling self-conscious of your own shape, “Are you wearing the panties I sent you?”

All you could do was nod. Rafe never commanded you to wear the panties everyday to work but you didn’t risk it. Luckily, they were all comfortable despite the lace and cheekiness. 

“Pull up your dress,” He said next. 

You’d spent the last three days in a fog, trying to make sense of the situation, trying to understand why your body betrayed you. When you were younger, you always asked the universe why you couldn’t speak like the way all your friends at school did. Now you asked the universe why Rafe’s voice made you want to clench your thighs together. Why you had felt empty ever since he’d finished inside of you. Why you wanted to try again, to experience that intimacy again without so much fear. Your life was so simple before but now it felt like it was too late to turn back. 

Your thoughts were too jumbled. Rafe cleared his throat and you realized you were just staring back, “I’m not gonna fuck you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Please-”

He rolled his eyes, “Don’t make me ask again.”

You squared your shoulders. “I’m nnn-nn-not comfortable—”

“Just do it.”

You reached down to the edges of your dress, slowly pulling the fabric to your waist. It was nothing he hadn’t already seen and yet you were shaking, “Turn around. Face the other way.” Like a robot, you obeyed. You’d chosen a light pink color today. 

“Good,” You felt him against you. He pulled your hair back over your shoulder and leaned down against your ear, “Maybe I should make you walk around naked while you’re here, hmm?”

You bit down on your lip, wanting to contain the protest that was about to leave your mouth. You wanted to lean into his touch, to embrace the comfort that would accompany the torture. He brushed past you just as you tilted your head back, “Go make me a coffee,” He commanded. 

He made his way behind his desk and you reached down to move your dress, “Did I say to pull your dress down?”

“N-No, Sir,” You moved your hands quickly to your sides.

“I could make you walk around like that, couldn’t I?” He asked, leaning back in his chair.

He tilted his head and you realized you needed to answer. You gave him a painful look. You could say no but what would it cost you, “I . . . I don’t know,” He wasn’t satisfied by your answer, clearly. It was torture to force the words out, “Y-Yes.”

“Right answer,” He said, “Pull down your dress, sweetheart.”

You couldn’t help but see the irony in the fact that despite that you upgraded to a salaried job, you were still making coffee for the rich and spoiled. The opulent kitchen had an even fancier coffee machine than his office. Your movements as you prepared his steaming mug of coffee were precise despite the turmoil in your mind. 

Searching for solutions, your mind landed on the idea of trying to assert your competence. Sure, you could make a great cup of coffee but the whole point of getting a real job was so that you could have real skills to market yourself. You could be perfect at this job, anticipate his every need, and you could more than an object to look at. 

You re-entered his office quietly after realizing he’d begun his first meeting of the day. Carefully, you set his coffee down on the edge of his desk. He was always so intense, so completely absorbed in his work, and that unwavering focus made you even more anxious. Maybe that’s how you should be, more composed, projecting an air of confidence.

Unsure of where you should settle, you made yourself comfortable on one of the leather couches. You checked your email on your laptop, finding several reminders from Eleanor. You found yourself frustrated by how she picked and chose what information to share with you but you balanced those feelings with the fact that she was often your saving grace. 

She gave you a list of tasks including arranging for a delivery of documents that needed to be signed by Rafe, confirming his dinner reservations for the night, and proofreading the notes you took from yesterday’s meetings. You told yourself by the end of the next week, you’d be able to handle things by yourself, and you wouldn’t have to lean on her so much. You’d have a day, eventually, where Rafe didn’t point out anything you did wrong. 

“I was thinking-” Rafe’s voice cut through the silence. You were so focused that you hand’t realized his meeting had ended. He folded his hands over each other, his eyes on you, “From now on, I want you to wear what I pick for you each day.”

“How …y-you’re not happy with what I’ve been choosing?”

“It’s not about not being happy. Now I have more of an idea of what I like on you,” His voice was smooth and authoritative, “You want to reflect my taste, my standards, yeah?”

You mustered the courage to ask your next question, “Can I-I dress a l-little less … formally when I work at home with you?”

“Less formally?” He tasted the words on his tongue, “You mean, like more casual?”

“Yes, Sss-sir. Like more comfortable.”

“We could experiment with that,” His tone was deceptively light, “On my terms though. Yeah?”

You nodded and were grateful that he hadn’t reacted lightly. He seemed to enjoy that you were asking him for permission.

“You’ll have to wear something different tonight though, for dinner. Eleanor is coming by towards the end of the day to bring you your outfit and take you to get your nails done.” 

“Oh,” Your eyes opened wide, “I-I thh-thhought it was more of a personal-”

“I won’t keep you out forever,” He said, “You got plans or something?”

You shook your head quickly, “No, Sir.”

Rafe worked through lunchtime, so you brought him the meal prepared by his chef, Stevie—an elegant older woman with blonde hair. She had made a pesto pasta salad that looked like it belonged in a gourmet magazine, despite your protests and insistence on eating your own packed lunch. Only after delivering the meal did Rafe grant you permission to take your break elsewhere.

You settled on the outdoor patio by the pool, enjoying the peacefulness of the space despite the distant, steady hum of a lawnmower. For a moment, you didn’t feel out of place. Your dress, though apparently unflattering to your figure, was worth a small fortune, and the gourmet lunch you were now enjoying was a far cry from the PB&J you’d packed.

Thirty minutes later, after finishing your lunch and enjoying a lengthy chat with Stevie, you reluctantly headed back upstairs. Hearing Rafe still on the phone, you decided to explore a bit more. His office was situated in the private wing of his house, and as you meandered through opulent corridors, you couldn’t resist sneaking a glance into the master bedroom. It was cozier than you had anticipated, with tall gray walls that gave it a masculine feel and a plush bed draped in navy linen blanket that created a snug, cocoon-like atmosphere.

Rafe ended his call a minute later and the afternoon wore on. You settled into a rhythm, completing the various tasks that you’d added to your own to do lists and ones he’d assigned to you. You spent some time organizing files in his office. His gaze burned into you, even more when you were turned around, and surprisingly, you were starting to get used to that unnerving feeling. 

He waited for you to make a mistake but you used a hundred-percent of your effort to make sure that didn’t happen. 

The clock inched towards the evening, and the day grew even more quieter, more intimate. “I was looking over your notes from yesterday’s meeting with the board members. I highlighted some sections for you to read back to me,” He waved you over, his voice gruff after a long day of talking. You joined him behind his desk and you moved to lean over and get closer look, but he placed a hand on your hip. The gesture was firm, possessive, leaving no room for hesitation. With effortless strength, like a wolf guiding its prey, he maneuvered you onto his lap, settling you on his thigh. You felt the power in his grip, the unspoken control, and all you could do was comply.

“Rafe–” You started, an desperate attempt at a protest. 

“Start with the first section,” He commanded, his grip tightening. 

“I’ve been working on proofreading them–”

“Sweetheart,” He warned, not needing to add that you were making him angry. You could feel it, the heat coming off of him. 

You took a deep breath and slowly tried to read each sentence. Even if you didn’t have a sentence with a small typo, you still stammered over several of your words. He slid the chair closer to the desk and you yelped. 

“See right here,” He pointed to the screen but that only pressed him into you. You breathed slowly, trying not to hyperventilate, “This whole section needs more detail. I don’t want to have to ask more information.”

You were taken aback when Rafe actually began to instruct you on what you were meant to do. He spent at least ten minutes walking you through each sentence, explaining how to word your report, and deleted all the unnecessary details you added. He was surprisingly patient. 

“Now, your turn,” he said finally, leaning back in the chair. For a moment, you thought he was letting you up, but the pressure of his hand on your waist told you otherwise. “Fix it.”

You swallowed, hesitating as your fingers hovered over the keys. Ever keystroke was amplified in the quiet room. Doing your best to actually use your brain, you carefully made the changes he suggested. He watched you closely, his hands first placed on your hips but soon one wandered between your thighs. 

“Good,” He said. You could do it again, you thought, and not be so scared. His touch was teasing, a reminder of what he could do to you, all the pressure that built inside of you a spilled over. You could impress him, you could be beautiful, and not turn into a crying mess when he was inside of you. You could be more than a fragile thing to be broken.

Each word was a small victory. It was a battle you thought you could win until his fingers slipped inside your panties and his other hand grabbed a handful of one of your breasts. It was unbearable, and as he made small circles, you found your fingers slipping clumsily over the keys. 

You pressed your palms into his desk, your body tilting forward. A frustrated sigh left your lips, you couldn’t contain it, and Rafe’s chuckle rumbled from behind you, “Do you ever touch yourself like this? Be honest with me this time.”

“Y-Yes,” You whispered. 

“How do you do it?” He pulled you away from the desk, pulling your torso against his, “You use a toy?”

“J-Just my fff-fingers,” You admitted. 

“Like this? How do you like it?” Carefully, he switched between different approaches. He rubbed circles over your clit, smaller ones and then slower, bigger ones. Then he stroked you up and down, fingers slipping easily into your warm hole as he wandered lower, “You put those little fingers inside of you?”

“Rafe, please.”

“Tell me,” He kissed the side of your neck, “Or I’ll stop.”

"I-I don't usually put them inside… ," you confessed, your voice barely more than a whisper. "I always use my pillow…”

He hummed against your ear. "See how much better this is when you cooperate? You can be such a good little assistant when you try."

You nodded, unable to speak, and let the feeling consume you. He brought you right to the edge, you were seconds away coming undone, but his movements slowed. Before you could register the feeling as disappointment, Rafe was hoisting you off of his lap. 

Moving with sudden determination, your feet were suddenly off the ground and Rafe was carrying you out of the room in his strong arms, “Rafe!” You clutched his shoulders as he carried you down the hall.

You turned your head as he nudged the bedroom door open with his foot, the heavy thud of the door slamming shut reverberating through the room. With a swift motion, he laid you gently on the bed. The softness beneath you was just as you had imagined, but the thought barely registered. You shot him an incredulous look, your face flushed with a mix of pleasure and frustration.

He leaned over you, grabbing a pillow from behind you and placing it in front of you, “Show me.”

You shook your head instantly and moved to crawl away. Somehow, you could let all of his other sleazy behavior slide by but this was an insane boundary for him to try to cross. He’d already been inside you and yet this was a thousand times more intimate. 

He grabbed ahold of your thigh, “You’re so close, sweetheart. I know you want it,” He challenged you, “Probably feels like you need it.”

“Please,” You tried, your voice threatening to crack. His hands found your hips again, slowly positionin you over the pillow. The soft fabric brushed against your most sensitive spot, the familiar sensation making you bite down on your bottom lip, “Rafe.”

“You saying my name like that just makes me want it more,” Balancing on his knees, he grabbed ahold of your face and leaned in to kiss you. You felt the intensity of his desire, how much he wanted this, and it left you dizzy. 

When he pulled back, he looked over you. Your hips started moving in a familiar motion despite your embarrassment. You trembled from the vulnerability, the pounding in your chest, but you chased that high he gave you. It ignited your fire again, and since you didn’t have the full force of his touch anymore, you focused your eyes on him, “Good girl,” He said again and you whimpered, “Look at me just like that.”

You rolled your hips harder, faster, imagining his kiss, his touch, as the tension coiled tighter inside you. His gaze never left yours, his words a constant stream of encouragement and control.

“Doesn’t that feel good?” 

His words all jumbled together. 

“Just let it happen.”

“I want to see your face when you cum, sweetheart.”

“You look so desperate.”

“So needy.”

“You’re gonna make yourself cum, huh?”

“Just because I told you too.”

“Such a good girl.”

“Look at you.” 

The words pushed you over the edge, finally, and you were able to let go. He watched as you rode out that wave of pleasure and his hands found your body again, his grip grounding you. “Fuck,” You heard him say but you couldn’t respond. 

You were too overwhelmed to respond, your mind unable to fully process what had just happened. All you knew was that you felt good, embarrassed, and strangely satisfied that you'd pleased him, all at once. 

When you manage to look at him again, the doorbell rang. 

Eleanor navigated through the upscale nail salon, a palace of white and silvers, with ease, like she was a regular, and this was just an extension of her universe. You imagined this place as an escape for her, from both Rafe and Topper. She secured side-by-side seats near the back of the salon and you followed her lead as she set down her purse and removed her sandals. Her movements were fluid and assured. 

“Have you thought about what color you want?”

“Oh, um, n-no,” You tried to make yourself comfortable in the pedicure chair, “What d-do you think Rafe would like?”

“Maybe something pastel. You can’t go wrong with a soft pink.”

“Is that what you’re getting?” You asked, unassured, as you glanced around the luxurious setting. It wasns’t like other nail salons you’d been to where the technicians and customers talked at whatever volume they liked. It was quiet and each technician wore matching black uniforms. 

“I’ll tell them you want ballet slipper on your nails and white on your toes.”

You nodded, grateful for her guidance, “Thank you.”

As your pedicures began, the warm lavender-scented water soaking your feet, two technicians took their places by your sides, working silently as they filed your nails. 

“How are you holding up?” Eleanor asked.

“Fff-fine,” You said, “I’m trying to . . . t-to understand him, I guess.”

“You’ll go crazy doing that,” She laughed lightly, flashing a look that said “poor you”. 

“How d-did you meet Topper?” Her face tightened at your question, “I mean, y-you didn’t say.”

“I’m from the same town as them, Rafe and Topper. Not really the same town, my parents didn’t have money growing up. But I worked at the country club they all went to. That’s how I met Topper.”

“And you started dating?”

“Something like that,” She made a small shrug, “I owe everything I have to them.”

You nodded, sensing the weight of her words despite the lack of detail. Another piece to the puzzle you were trying to put together. Maybe the two of them had an attraction to girls struggling to get by.

“It’s not so bad, is it?” She asked and it made you pause.

Your instinct was to mirror her shrug, but you hesitated, wondering if you could trust her with your thoughts. If anyone could understand what you were going through, it had to be Eleanor.  “I-I just ffff-ffeel like I’m doing everything wrong.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I’ve only heard good things.”

“A-About me?” She nodded and your lips parted in shock. 

“Yes. I know you feel uncertain right now, but I think you'll be glad if you can stick it out. Topper… he’s a bastard, but he takes care of me. Rafe likes you too. Maybe he doesn’t know how to show it, but…” She paused, her eyes flickering with something you couldn’t quite place. “He’s filthy rich. That would be enough for me.”

In that moment, her brutal honesty felt almost like reassurance. You weren’t sure if Eleanor truly grasped the extent of Rafe’s inability to show affection, that his pleasure came from humiliating you, from making you cry. Just as you couldn’t fully know what she endured with Topper. Her words weren't necessarily comforting but at least they felt real.

Please reblog WITH your thoughts on the chapter to be added to the taglist for the story :)

[hometoursandotherstuff]

This really pisses me off- an 1892 Victorian mansion in Denver, CO was converted to an office building and now they want to sell it as a home. 12 bds., 8ba, 21,285 sq ft, asking $8,407,575.

Forget about having a home with a yard and a garden, they made it a parking lot.

In the reception area, which is also the grand hall, it looks like the wood is still intact, but the fireplace behind the desk has been blocked off.

The stairs look good.

It's hard to tell what most of the rooms were. This one looks pretty good. It still has lots of original millwork, the fireplace, and stained glass.

There's a staff kitchenette back here. The cabinets are nice, but the counter is laminate and I wonder what it was before.

This must be a sitting room. It has a beautiful fireplace.

It looks like the pocket doors are intact. I'm not sure if the cabinets are original, but they were nicely done.

This has to have been the dining room. I know that some of it is new, but how did they get the original wood so light? The original ceiling was plaster. There is no longer a kitchen.

This must be an area for staff sing-alongs.

In this room, only the frame of the fireplace is left.

The woodwork in this room was painted white. I don't know if these are separate offices or the same business in the whole house.

Don't know what this room is, but even though it has beautiful brick and wood, they put up modern office lighting and ductwork.

Not bad tile work on this little fireplace, but I don't like the shelves above it.

This room was modernized. I wonder what's under all the commercial carpeting. The door with a transom indicates that this could have been a bedroom. Notice that they advertise 8 baths, but don't show any. They're probably like public restrooms, now.

This would be a landing. Glad to see the railing and columns. Hate the lighting.

If they left the wood in most other areas, why did they paint some of it?

In this area, they put in modern commercial doors and windows, plus the modern ceiling and lights. I'm not sure that the brick is original, but there's a fireplace.

More ductwork and new walls, plus cement flooring. Look at the clear glass door. That's different.

I wonder if the barn doors are original.

I'm thinking that these are different offices, not just a single business. I don't know if the steel columns could've been there. I don't even know where we are.

All modernized except for the fireplace. Nice chandelier.

Here's some sort of a loft or stair landing.

This looks like an attic office and it also has a kitchenette.

In the basement there's a staff room with a kitchenette.

Plus a staff gym. So much money, and I don't even know how much it would take to make it right- like what do you do with the ductwork and all the flush mount ceiling lights. The plaster ceilings, medallions, and light fixtures are all gone.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1115-1121-Grant-St-N-Denver-CO-80203/439736633_zpid/?

[mixed-imagination]

A Grisha's Affair - Nikolai x Grisha!Reader x Kirigan (part 1)

PAIRING: Nikolai Lantsov x Fem!Grisha!reader x General Kirigan ♡

NOTE: This is the first part of a short two parter.

*** Requested by @seronsalk

*** Beautiful golden divider created by @saradika ♡♡♡

As you neared the rear entrance of the Little Palace, your heart raced within your chest, drumming a quick and frantic beat. You had pushed yourself to the limit, sprinting down the forest path until your lungs burned and your breath came in ragged gasps. You cursed yourself and wondered why you had driven yourself to that point anyway.

A sudden memory flooded your mind, creating a rush of emotions.

You pounded on Nikolai's door. You weren't sure why you were so eager to see him, but you chalked it up to wanting only to say goodbye.

The door swung open to reveal Nikolai standing in his untied robe. His face seemed surprised to see you, but with one look at you, he greeted you with a big smile "Y/N, isn’t it past your curfew, little miss Durast?

You mirrored his smile but furrowed your brows, "I'm no longer a child, Nikolai."

"No, you certainly are not." His gaze descended your figure which made your cheeks hot. You were suddenly aware of how exposed and vulnerable you were. There you stood, before this handsome prince, in a thin, lace night dress and silk robe.

You wrapped your robe tighter around your frame, praying Nikolai did not catch a glimpse of the cold night air exposing your natural body, "Let me in."

"Won't you get in trouble with your Darkling?”

"I haven't seen him in weeks," you pushed past him and headed straight to the opposite side of his room. You settled in front of his desk, leaning your hands back against the chair.

Nikolai shut the door and his smile widened. He waited for you to continue speaking but it didn't come, so he responded, "Am I his replacement then?"

“General Kirigan?”

“The one and only Darkling.”

"What, no, of course not. First off, he’s my superior, and you’re no way near—" You huffed, "Stop. I'm not here to be questioned by you."

Nikolai laughed, "Right. Go on then."

The halls were dimly lit, and you realized you had never ventured through the palace this late before. You prayed that no one had noticed you sneaking back in after your late-night rendezvous. You didn't want to risk General Kirigan finding out about your secret meetings.

The unfamiliarity of your surroundings and the thought of what might be waiting for you made you quicken your pace as fast as you could without running. As you rounded the next corner, your hand instinctively went to your chest, trying to calm the erratic beating of your heart.

You crossed your arms, "So tomorrow you leave again."

"As soon as the sun rises, I'm off," Nikolai did not come closer to you. Instead, he copied your position and leaned his back against the door frame.

You found your gaze inevitably drawn to the way his torso muscles rippled underneath his robe with each subtle movement, causing you to bite your lip in frustration at the unyielding distance between you.

"And where are you going to this time?"

"Novyi Zem." Your chest ached, knowing well how long the journey would be. "There's a talented Fabrikator there that's willing to create a strong steel for my newest creation."

Your jaw dropped slightly. You were slightly offended but your playful tone remained, "What? Fabrikator? Have you forgotten I'm a durast? You could've asked me to—"

Nikolai finally stepped forward and raised his hands, "Y/N no, you're one of my closest friends, I couldn't—"

Friend.

A memory of his mouth on yours suddenly flashed in your mind.

Friends don't kiss.

You ignored it.

Breathless and with a light sheen of sweat on your forehead, you finally reached the entrance to your wing of the palace. You could see the guards standing, their eyes watching your every move.

You tried to act casual, as if you had simply been out for a stroll in the gardens, but your heart was racing with fear. What if they could somehow sense your guilt and apprehend you on the spot?

You approached them with a smile and a greeting, hoping to deflect their attention. They nodded politely, but you could tell they were eyeing you suspiciously.

As you made your way down your long corridor, you felt relieved to see the door to your bedroom. You couldn't believe you had gotten away with it.

You giggled to yourself, remembering once again.

"Saints, Nikolai, that's exactly why you should've asked me!" your head tilted and you tutted, "I bet I could do your fabrikator better."

"Better than 80,000 tensile strength?"

"100,000 tensile strength and more!"

He threw his head back, "Oh no, you're joking. Really?"

Your face broke into a big grin. "Yes, yes, yes, you bet your royal arse I can,” you laughed.

Like always, you fell into an ongoing easy conversation with Nikolai. Talking with him was breath of fresh air as you had a natural understanding of each other. Your conversations always felt like a plunge into an infinite pool that contained both his thoughts and yours.

As you listened to him speak about his latest invention, you couldn't help but get lost in not only his words but also in his boyishly handsome features. His dark blonde hair was perfectly messy and his blue eyes sparkled with mischief. You stared at the way his lips moved and how the sharpness of his jawline accentuated with every sentence.

You tried to focus, but your mind kept wandering to other things, like how it would feel to run your hands through his hair and kiss him again. A heat suddenly began to rise in your cheeks, your attraction to him growing more obvious.

Nikolai stood only a few feet away from you now. He started to notice how your eyes seemed to linger on him a little longer than usual. "Are you alright, Y/N?"

You blinked and nodded, "Oh yes, I am."

"Good," he beamed and stepped closer. "So tell me. Why have you come? I've never seen you out this late."

You shrugged, avoiding his eyes, "What? I can't come and spend quality time with my closest friend?"

"Not at this hour, little miss goodie two shoes," he smirked.

You turned with your back facing him now and looked down at his desk, feigning interest in the papers placed on it. "Maybe I wanted to say goodbye. As a friend should."

He scoffed, "Don't say you're actually going to miss me when I'm gone."

"A good, best, closest friend would."

Nikolai was right behind you now. The third time you exaggerated the word, a knowing shit-eating grin grew across his face. "You sound like you have an issue with being my friend."

You finally entered your room and firmly pressed both palms against the door, shutting it behind you. Leaning your forehead against the cool wood, you lingered in that stance, still lost in your reverie.

"I am but your friend Nikolai, I have no issue."

Unexpectedly, the weight of his hand resting on your shoulder sent a shiver down your spine, your silk robe providing little barrier between his warm palm and your skin. It felt as though his touch had set your nerves alight, leaving you with goosebumps despite the delicate fabric that separated you.

His thumb began tracing circles on your shoulder, and you couldn't help but lean into his touch. You felt his fingers slowly making their way down your arm, gently squeezing your skin. He was leaving a trail of fire along your shoulder as they traveled back up to your neck, only to slowly descend down again. With a deft movement, he pulled your silk robe down your shoulder. The unexpected touch sent a jolt of desire through your body.

"You stubborn thing. You don't want to be my friend, Y/N?"

He then swept your hair away, revealing a tantalizing sliver of skin to his gaze. As he leaned down, you felt his warm breath tickling your ear. "Nikolai," you whispered breathlessly.

"Why are you really here, love?" his voice was low and seductive.

You suddenly felt wet, tender kisses trail down your neck, causing your core to ignite. The sound of your mingled breaths and the soft smack of his lips sucking against your skin filled the air. Each touch of his lips made you feel like you were melting, completely powerless to resist him.

His strong hands wrapped around your waist, pulling you closer into him. You could feel his lower abdomen pressing hard against your backside, making you feel weak in the knees. Without warning, he spun you around to face him, his intense gaze locking onto yours. He leaned in for a kiss with his arms still wrapped tightly around you, as if never wanting to let go.

In that moment, all your doubts and fears faded away. It was just you and him, lost in each other.

You replayed the memory over and over again in your mind. The softness of his lips, the way his hands cupped your face, and the way you felt as though time stood still in that moment. You sighed, sinking further into the memory when a voice interrupted your thoughts.

"Penny for your thoughts, Y/N?"

Your heart skipped a beat, startled out of your reverie. As you turned around, your eyes landed on a tall, dark figure.

"Aleksander!"

The corners of his mouth curved upward, "You seemed to be lost in thought, milaya."

♡ part two coming soon....

soooo my brain was formulating the idea for this concept, and originally it was just supposed to be a one part one shot, but idk i just went off LOL. like holy, i went down a rabbit hole and came back up with enough plot for a series.

should i write a series? let me know what you think!!!

if i do, im imagining there'll be some mutual pining, angst, fluff, and spiiiice - wink wink wink -

if you enjoyed, please support me and my writing by giving me a like, reblog, or follow! thanks ♡♡♡

♡ gage

[gamerwoman3d]

Please Be Bi-Han 🙏

🔞 An MK1 x Reader 🔞

You aren't supposed to be in this timeline.

And to you, this timeline shouldn't exist. But it does. And this timeline is particularly exploitable, given the things you know which no one else in this timeline does. You slip into the timeline and abuse your knowledge to unethically gain just enough wealth to live very, very comfortably. And you laugh because this timeline is literally just a game to you. Admittedly, you came here to try to seduce the hotties. But when you figured out just how easy it would be to game the financial system here, you did that.

Imagine not being shocked at all to see Liu Kang at your doorstep with his Lin Kuei goons. You could laugh. You know him. You know all three, no, all four of them; your attraction to them is what initially drew you to this timeline. The fourth you knew by smell alone; the campfire scent in the air proved that Smoke was with them, somewhere ready for action yet invisible to your eyes.

Imagine closing the door to your beautiful private mansion in their face before any of them even speak. Imagine bolting it, locking it, chaining it, only to tell them through the speaker, "Whoever breaks this door down and finds me first gets laid."

🔞 Spicy/Explicit after the cut 🔞

Now you, you have installed several small panic rooms throughout your mansion with which to play hide and seek. So you go do that, smirking to yourself as you watch the group through the security cam app on your phone. But back up a moment to just before these guys arrived.

Liu Kang smirked as he collected his warriors at the edge of a portal that would lead conveniently into a hidden driveway outside the privacy walls near your garden.

"I have a fun little mission for us today. Geras discovered someone manipulating the financial trajectory of our timeline that isn't supposed to be here. We need to go get them, and convince them to stop, without violence."

"Respectfully, Lord Liu Kang - If you don't need violence, why did you call us? If we can't stab it, it's most likely someone else's problem," Smoke said out of turn.

"There are other methods of coercion, Smoke. And if Geras' revelations for this mission are proven true, then methods of seduction are on the table," Liu Kang responded flatly.

Liu Kang wanted to laugh. The synchronized single-eyebrow raise of the three masked ninjas before him was too cartoonish to seem real.

Fast forward.

You get a good run, scrambling to your hiding place.

"I thought this might be the case," you hear Liu Kang say in your earbud, from audio played through the phone collected from the front door security recorder.

"Seduction really is the game this evening," Scorpion said, "even with you saying as much, I am still surprised."

"Are we making a competition of it? Or am I the only one that will be chasing after that cutie?" said Smoke from seemingly nowhere.

"Don't blow your cover, brother. We're not sure if we're being recorded. It could give us an advantage if you'd keep quiet," Sub-Zero said.

"It's a competition," Scorpion interjected before slamming his boot into the door, rattling it in it's frame.

A few kicks, body slams did nothing. Sub-Zero guided the others out of the way, froze the door handle in it's place, then pulled the mechanism - deadbolts and all - through the crystallized steel. He tossed it to the side and booted open the door, which swung freely and hit the interior wall with such force that one might have expected the crash to come from a vehicle accident.

You bounce in your place, trying not to giggle as you watch the men through your tablet. You had hoped Bi-Han would breech the door first, but now the men crept inside and began to hunt for you. You saw all except Smoke, just before the power went down, taking your security feed with it.

You were in the dark, now, lit only by the glow of a tablet that showed the wifi disconnected. You swiftly realized that Smoke must have gone to cut the power - and had the foresight to cut the backup power first.

Smart of him, you thought. But now, in the dark, there was nothing left to do but wait for one of them to discover your hiding spot. Every little noise you heard made your heart jump in anticipation of being caught.

"Please be Bi-Han, please be Bi-Han," you chanted in a whisper under your breath.

FOR PART TWO - LINKS BELOW POLL

...

And now I'll be a bit evil.

ADVENTURE TIME. C'MON GRAB -

Part 2a(i): Sub-Zero discovers F! Reader

Part 3a(i): Sub-Zero toys with F! Reader (to be read after part 2a(i)

Part 2b(i): Smoke discovers F! Reader

Part 2b(ii): Smoke discovers M! Reader

Part 3b(i): Smoke fucks F! Reader (to be read after part 2b(i)

[pursuitseternal]

“A Night with the Ascendant:” truths revealed and a delicious punishment is served

Ascended Astarion x F!OC (Lumina) |E| 5K

Summary: While the Master’s away, Lumina decides to take matters into her own urchin hands. Hooded and cloaked, she finds the book she seeks on the Lower City streets… but Lord Astarion finds her, too. She is willful and reckless and disobedient, and a fitting punishment is required.

CW: Grieving AA, Half-truths, manipulation, orgasm denial, Lumina fails her charisma and stealth rolls, “borrowing her bf’s clothing” for nefarious purposes, AA having too much fun for the first time in centuries.

Previous Ch | ao3 link | Masterlist

Chapter 4…

⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️

Lumina was everything he ever dreamed someone could be—beautiful, willing, submissive. It was so easy to give her that final ingredient to remake her in his image, to dominate her so thoroughly. It shouldn’t have even felt like manipulation or deception to that matter, she drank the chalice of his blood so eagerly. He remembered the deep scarlet stain on those satisfied lips, the aftertaste of his power in the richness of his blood that lingered on her tongue.

But if she was so entirely his… why did it bother him to no end? He missed that edge of control, to compel her and weave his way into her brain like the beautiful marionette she had been. Where control and order once dictated his life, now all was replaced with… whims and desire.

With her smiles and her guile and her intelligence and her willfulness.

He hadn’t counted on such willfulness. Even if it was to insist on calling him hero. Hells. Heroes didn’t live forever with unrivaled power, needing to spend eternity numbing the pain of life. Heroes laid peacefully in their graves when all was said and done.

Graves like the five cut headstones that spread before him. They had never been this quiet, not when they were alive. The silence of the graveyard grinded at his resolve, eroding that perfect veneer of power and control crafted over two glorious centuries. He was weak right now, remembering the way his eyes would hurt as they rolled back every time Gale rambled… or the edge of sassiness in Shadowheart’s voice when she was peeved… or even Karlach’s hyena call of a laugh.

Instead there was only silence, the growth of moss on their stone tombs, and the rot of time on their remains, the same uncheck grinding of time that had swept them away and left him. Alone. Unaltered and untouched.

For the first time in ages, he stood in the wash of their memories, the ghosts of their voices and laughter and criticism and ferocity. In a moment, he would steel himself over once more, return to that visage of power and dominance and untouchability. But for now, he stood in silent remembrance, his damnable beating heart feeling the sting of emotions he had worked so hard to banish. Loss… grief… affection… desire…

A flash of bright blonde hair and crimson eyes passed through his mind. A tug at their bond that she was somewhere in the city, somewhere up to mischief and no good… if she was this petulant and unruly, why did he love her…

Love.

Hells dammit. He had remade her into something new, something even he had yet to experience in his centuries of vampirism—his Bride. But what was it she was remaking him into now?

Hungry for him, she paced between her suites and his sumptuous chambers. But there was one thing for which she hungered more—knowledge. What in the hells was she?

Every few turns around the room, Lumina paused at the window of his bedchamber, its arching frame overlooking the gardens, and the Lower City beyond. Creeping ivy trellised its way up the ancient stone walls. Every one of her urchin instincts screamed to escape—to reclaim the sun and discover all she could about her new abilities, to try to uncover more about her hero, her tyrant, and her love. She needed information, research.

She needed books. Or at least one. One to unlock what strange transformation had taken place to grant her safety from the sun like him.

How many times had she touched that green leather-covered tome, The Curse of the Vampyr? If only she could run to any book seller, Upper City, Lower City, surely she would find that book or… better yet… one that detailed the tether of a Master and Spawn. Fingers itched, mind whirred. She needed to taste her freedom, to learn what he wouldn’t divulge. Perhaps he would be impressed by her ambition, perhaps he would punish her for defiance.

But he wouldn’t begrudge her that freedom in the sun, not after all that she had just read about his past. Not when it was the same sweet prize he had sought and won to become the magnificent lord he was now.

He could be gone for hours, for all day, she decided. Sharp crimson eyes darted to his wardrobes packed with clothing. Practical clothing. Pants and tunics and cloaks. Maybe just… a quick rummage. Her light, little fingers danced over the rows of his garments, hoping to find something not too ostentatious or decadent. Black velvet trousers tied snug above her hips, a black silken chemise that wouldn’t reveal too much of her breasts with that low-dipped v cut—she was ready to climb and find her quarry.

Shoes slipped off, she knew it would be an easier climb barefooted, besides it’s how she had spent most of her time on the streets anyway. One leg out the window, and Lumina held her breath, that sunlight on her skin invigorated her. It bathed her, warmed her pale skin for the first time in weeks… it made every vein beneath her alabaster skin glow blue, it heated her bones and made her feel alive again.

Free again.

Emboldened by her freedom, she gracefully scampered down the vines. It was so easy to do, so glorious. She smiled to feel her feet in the dirt of the garden and vault over the stone walls back into the bustling streets of the Lower City.

Drawing the hood of his black cloak up over her head, she slunk in the shadows, surely a sight to behold. A small little girl, dressed in a man’s rich robes, stalking around like the urchin she was at heart. Bodies brushed against her on all sides, the pulse of the City, the bustling pace and breakneck ignorance of its populace for urchins like her… it would be so easy now to steal what she wanted.

Giddy, gleeful even, Lumina let her fingers dance into some fat vendor’s pocket to take their purse. It was just so easy, instinctive. Just a bump and an apology, and sure as Balduran’s balls, she was now one purse richer. Maybe a little weapon too… she smirked, mischievous and greedy. Just another helpless victim, another bump into her side and a mumbled apology… and now Lumina’s cool fingers closed around an elegant filigree hilt. She tucked its scabbard into her makeshift belt before continuing on to the closest book cart.

Her deft eyes skimmed the titles from beneath the canopy of her hood. Gold letters glint in the sun, her sharp eyes darting over every spine.

There… she gave a sigh of relief, the title she sought gleamed at her, brighter than a prized jewel. Stepping back, she eyed the cart vendor, a plump, stinking man who looked more interested in drinking than reading. She could practically smell the stale ale on his breath and scent the alcohol that tainted his blood, even from her distance.

Shaking her head, she tried to rid herself of these hypersensitivities, drawing back a pace until she couldn’t smell him anymore. Gagging, she tucked the purse of gold in her pocket; a man like that would be much more fun to rob than to waste her newly acquired money on.

All she had to do was wait…

After a few moments, he got up, lumbering around the corner, and Lumina smiled. Her undead heart would be racing with the thrill of the hunt, that rush of risk and reward, of being victorious or being caught.

Slinking to the far side of the cart, she pulled out the small green book, her quarry. Her steady hand began to slip it under her cloak until….

“What do you think you’re doing?” that stinking, sour breath was hot in her face as the cart keeper snatched her wrist and spun her around.

“Fuck,” Lumina cursed as fear gripped her soul and raced down her spine.

Out of practice, Little Light… she swore she could hear his mocking laughter in her head. Fuck, what would the Master say, she worried as she was dragged into the street.

“You wretched, dirty rat,” the keeper yelled in her face, spittle flying in her face and he yanked back her hood. Arresting the book from her hand, he flung her against the alley wall. “No one steals from me!”

“I have no need to steal,” Lumina lied, even as she caught herself against the brick wall. “My master is Lord Astarion Ancunín, and he will not like having his things manhandled thus.” She snapped, wrenching her hand from the man’s grubby fingers

More spit flew in her face as the man laughed, big and loud and rude. “Yeah sure, some hoity Council Member let his servant run in the streets barefoot to fetch books for them….”

“I fear the lady is right,” a silken purr rumbled from behind them both. Astarion stood, perfect in posture and confident in stance. “My Mistress is prone to such wild fantasies, wandering the street unshod, fetching books on drivel from half-brined booksellers…” Astarion turned up his nose and grimaced as he too took in the foul odor of the rotund man. “Beautiful women have their indulgences, and we must allow them their indulgences. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Astarion smirked, his silver brow quirked high on his forehead as he dangled a fat coin purse at the seller.

“Of course, my Lord,” came the reply as his fat fingers snatched it midair. “Lord Ancunín, I didn’t mean to…”

A withering, crimson stare was all it took to send the fat man fleeing back into the shadows.

“Come, Lumina,” Astarion grabbed her upper arm, firm but with a sickeningly sweet smile, “it’s time we got you home.”

With one last ditch effort, she snagged the copy of her desired book from the seller’s cart, a victorious grin on her pale face as she followed her master into the City’s fray.

Her little arm threaded through his, he walked her towards the Park, his head held high as if the woman on his arm didn’t look like some barefoot vagrant. Finally, he drew them to a stop beside the fountain. His crimson eyes leveled at her, Astarion’s brows furrowed. “Was it worth it, Little Light?” he asked, cold and yet casual in tone.

Lumina fought the urge to tremble. “My little shopping spree?”

“Thieving spree, you mean…” his brow quirked as he pulled out the purloined objects of her own efforts from his own pockets.. He pulled out her purse, her book, and her new little dagger carefully with a wicked, conceited grin, watching in amusement as she patted the places on her lithe, little body from where he had stolen them. “A rogue’s dexterity is not to be outmatched, no matter how desperate or eager you are…”

“Please give those…” she wanted to say more, but his other hand flew towards her face, planting a single finger over her lips.

And Lord Astarion smiled. “Ah ah,” he chided, “explain yourself first, and your punishments may be lessened.” His voice rippled with promise, a teasing and yet desirous tone lacing into his words. “Why does my newborn mistress, a spawn of several weeks now, need to conduct some… research of her own kind?” He set the purse and dagger in his pockets, flipping the pages of the little green book. Pausing, he locked eyes with her, licking his finger first, slow and deliberate, before turning to the next one. “What are you so eager to learn that you could not dare to ask your beloved Master?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” she braced her hands on her hips, head tilting up at him in a show of confidence. “I walk in the sun, I can smell things… hear things… I couldn’t before.”

“Such as?” came his nonchalant reply.

“That oaf for one, I could almost taste the effects of his tenday long bender,” Lumina tried not to wretch at the memory. “And then there was the moment where I heard your voice inside my head…”

Something in his gaze shifted, something veiled now lifted, as if he was also surprised. “Indeed,” he purred, thumbing another page of the text. “And you decided to be disobedient and break my rules to seek out this uninformed drivel?” He scoffed, “Not to mention violating a few laws for good measure?”

“If you just gave me answers, Master; if you just gave me my own coin and a dagger, I wouldn’t need to steal them.”

“Oh, pet, I can deny you nothing,” he purred, “unless you might end up harmed in the process. You’re fortunate I stumbled upon you when I did, Lumina, or else you would be rotting in some Flaming Fist cell by now….”

“Pugh,” she folded her arms, that stare growing more defiant. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

Astarion couldn’t hide it anymore; his chuckle rumbling in the air between them. It was undeniable, her petulant spark, it made him grin just slightly, that youthfulness that he would have once been drawn to, instead of seeking a way to snuff it as he had done for centuries as Ascendant.

Perhaps he would indulge this spark, just a little more.

A wry look on his face, he extended the book towards her. “If you want it, it’s yours, but in exchange, you’ll be punished, my dear.”

Lumina narrowed her crimson eyes, weighing the cost. She smirked to flash her own fangs, “Alright, I’ll bite.”

Astarion rolled his eyes at her cheap humor. “Puns are beneath us, Lumina,” he scoffed, irascible in tone. “Perhaps I shall extend your punishment for such plebeian humor.”

“And just what will be my punishment?” she goaded, thumbing her way through her hard-won prize. “Once I finish my research, that is…”

“You’ll have your answers, but they aren’t found in that layman’s examination of vampiric bonds. You are a near-secret of our kind, and just as there has never been a Vampire Ascendant before me, there has never been a creation quite like you before.” His eyes darkened with lust and glimmered with impatience. “And there will never be another like you after, I promise.”

Then, his fangs glinted as he grinned wider. “But those answers will only come once I’m through with you. You wish to know your punishment?” He leaned in until his lips brushed the shell of her ear. “I'm going to make you scream my name until your voice gives out, Little Light.”

His form seemed to ripple, and with a snap of his fingers, they both burst into mist and flew from the Park.

A strange tingle on her skin, or what would have been her skin, coursed through her. Pure magic unmade her, shifted her until all that remained was essence. Wind rushed around her, the sounds of voices and the smells of the Park rushed past her consciousness. It was as if her very being was cradled in his arms. Astarion pushed into her, threading into the very fabric of her existence—everywhere, all at once. Inside her, on her, through her… nothing more tangible than the sensation of his power taking root at her core as he raced them both up his palace walls and into the window of his own chambers.

Gasping like one near-drowned, Lumina once again stood on her own two legs, on her own bare feet, facing his crimson stare of ire.

She winced, surely, he would be brutal, beat her and punish her for her insolence. He would make her scream, he promised, the thought of it making her back sting in anticipation of a lash.

As her old master would, she thought with a pulse of fear and disgust.

Astarion’s presence before snapped her out of that pit of self-loathing. For now, he just tilted his head and gave her that lazy, mischievous smirk. Long, skilled digits grasped her hand, pulling her against him to bring her finger into his mouth. With precision, his fang sliced into its pad, his tongue sucking the blood as it seeped. “Such sticky fingers need cleaning,” she heard him say, right into her mind, his mouth preoccupied and his eyes flashing a dangerous amusement at her shocked expression.

“What in the hells…” she gasped, the thought somehow making him smile around her bleeding digit.

“Oh, darling mistress, seems you have more and more to uncover by the second,” he purred, his voice now a caress in her mind, a tender brush up her spine to tingle her ear. He pulled his finger from her lips with a pop. His true voice was almost sticky with that ripple of danger and the lingering dregs of her blood. “But first, we must see to your punishment, my Light, as delicious as it might be.”

His grip on her waist was firm, guiding her towards his bed again. His teeth glinted as he grinned, that dark mischief shining in the crimson of his eyes. “By rights, you should be cuffed in a cell for thievery. I should know, I once, long ago, gave such sentences for urchins like you.”

Lumina caught it, just a glimpse, a far off look in his eyes, a dower frown, his mind recalling pieces of him so deeply buried by time and pain. Somewhere in her own chest, she could sense that grief, that ancient, nearly-forgotten longing. Then he turned away, and the feeling vanished.

“As your Master, I shall have to take matters into my own hands, I suppose,” he commented, reaching into his drawer, the one where he kept all sorts of things for play and punishment, Lumina knew. She heard his choice before seeing it, the heavy clanking of chains filling her with excitement and dread. “A nice pair of shackles will do, nothing elegant for my little thriving urchin of a mistress.” He rounded on her, the irons in his skilled fingers. “You know what to do, darling,” he just stared at Lumina, a challenge of a smirk on his full lips, eyes darting towards the bed.

Pausing, she waited for the tendrils of his compelling to take root, sought that shadowed presence to command her body, but they never did…

“Well, darling?” he just repeated, firmer and more agitated.

Lumina drew in a breath and moved to sit at the edge of the bed, her wrists in front of her, a smile growing on her face. He shed his decadent coat, his own silken shirt following to lie in a mess on the floor. His boots followed the same fate. “Now, Lumina, you seem rather youthful, bent on willful defiance, this need to discover who I once was and who you are now. Stuff of fools and children.” A chilling smirk on his lips, his eyes still sparked with a sense of mischief, the same she had found with increasing frequency in their fucking. “Since you insist on acting like a child, let’s play a game,” he smirked. “I will ask you a question, a simple one… and if you are correct, I’ll let you find your release…”

The implication as to her failure hung in the air, his hand firmly guiding her to lay in the center of his bed. Her shackles clanked as he drew her arms overhead and bound them to his headboard. His chuckle reverberated in her bones as he leaned to press a kiss on her pressed lips. “Now, here is your question… what are you?”

“If you had let me read my book…” she started to argue, but Astarion just shoved two fingers in her insidious mouth. His gag as effective and sudden, her tongue pressing against him, fighting for breath as he pumped his fingers slightly between her lips.

“Hush,” he smirked at her, condescending and delighted. “You are allowed one answer each time,” his smirk twisted all the darker, “and you just used your first one…” His hands splayed wide on her hips, pulling her taut against her restraints. Fingers dug into her ass, lifting her to rip off his own loosely fit trousers. Her pale legs writhed, rubbing together to already seek the friction she craved. “Ah ah,” he corrected with a low growl, “I’ll be the one to dole out your delicious punishment. Now hold still and take what’s coming to you.”

With that, he lifted her hips up, his mouth ready to lick her and devour that already dripping essence. Tongue parting through her folds, he lapped through her seam, teasing her, toying as he licked and sucked everywhere between her thighs but her hard little bud and her clenching channel.

“Master…” she whined.

He lifted his head slowly, eyes blown wide and dilated as he chuckled. “For what you are, my Light, you get the privilege of screaming my name as you beg and plead.” His tongue danced along the edge of her folds, sucking and nipping the flesh of her thighs until she bucked hard against him.

“Astarion…” she whined, nervous at first, as if unsure she truly had his permission for it.

“Louder,” he crooned his order, letting his breath alone tickle her clit.

“Astarion,” she whined full-throated this time, making him chuckle.

“That’s it, darling, you’ll grow sick of my name on your lips, soon enough, but for now, let’s drive you right to the edge….”

“Fuck!” she cursed, unable to hide her urchin-tongue as his finally swiped over her clit. Relentless, he swirled around it at last, making every nerve ending between her thighs burst into flame. She could feel her wetness leaking, summoned more by every pass of his mouth over her entrance.

But never in it.

“Please,” she yanked on her restraints, “your fingers too, please…”

He merely laughed into her folds, letting his tongue swirl and vibrate against her clit until she was gasping above him.

Then he sat back up, wiping the arousal off his chin with the back of his hand.

Lumina groaned and writhed, that wave of climax once so close, vanished just as quickly. Her little noises of frustration from her pale throat made him chuckle. He rose to his knees, a sinister and delighted smirk on his face. “So close, weren’t you, my darling?” he chuckled again, fangs peeking from his parted lips. “Care for another guess in our little game?” He tilted his head, a hand running through his shoulder-length waves of hair. “What are you?”

“Your obedient, loyal, loving spawn, master,” she answered dutifully. She smiled as he crawled closer, pressing his clothed hips against hers as he lowered into her.

“Tch,” he sucked his teeth, “closer, but still shy of the mark.” He ground his hips against that sopping apex of her thighs. The thick velvet of his pants was soon soaked by her, but he just gave that low, rumbling laugh. “Another round of punishment then, my sweet.” He yanked her by the hair, pulling her head back, his lips brushing her neck where it curved just right for him. “And you forgot to use my name, dear. Not master. Not when it’s just you and me…”

That grinding between her legs made her eyes water, just enough friction to drive her wild, but still not enough. It made her ache. Made her burn. Made her stare up into his face with utter desperation in her own crimson eyes as a few tears dripped down. “Astarion,” she whimpered, more pathetic sounding than she wished.

“Well, when you sound that remorseful, what kind of Sire would I be to deny you some of what you seek…” he crooned, an edge of victory in his voice, a shine of amusement in his gaze. Deft and quick, he unbuttoned his trousers, a low chuckle as he watched her strain against her shackles to watch. She practically drooled for him, her seam leaking in equal amounts of wet to finally feel that pressure inside her.

Gods, she was beautiful, wanting him.

“You’re so perfect, Lumina,” he growled, “and you’re so totally and utterly mine…”

Her shriek pierced the quiet of his palace, a heady mix in her tone of ecstasy and relief as he filled her to the hilt in one thrust. His breath was hot against her neck, his hands skating his nails down her sides, “But remember, my Light, you don’t get to come until I say you may…” His tone was venomous and playful, a promise and a dare all wrapped in the velvet notes of his voice. A slow, grinding pace he set, taking his time to savor every flutter of her walls. It would be quick, he grinned, letting his hips slowly roll into her, he didn’t have long to push her right to the edge once more….

“Think hard… my dear… just what are you?” his question rumbled in her ear, gravel in his voice making her shudder hard beneath him. He groaned, quickening his pace, his own need for release taking root. Easy, he warned himself, his eyes locked on her face, observing every clench of her jaw in bliss, every gasp she made as she grew closer and closer…

Just as her body began to buck and clench, his cock slipped out, his hand wrapped hard around it. His fist beating his length was good, but her cry of anguish was all the more exquisite, sending that burst of pleasure from his core to race through him as he came. Cum spewed out on her belly, her hips bucking and grinding before him as she bemoaned her fate.

“Fuck…” she cursed through clenched fangs, sweat dripping down her angelic face. “Balduran’s… balls…” she tried to clench her thighs together, but his hands pried them apart so easily.

That made him laugh, breathless and a bit exhausted through his open mouth. “Having met the legend myself, I doubt he would appreciate you speaking thus of his balls. And I certainly don’t approve of you speaking of anyone else’s either, pet…” his fingers stroked through her hair gently before giving her head a corrective yank. “My balls will just have to be enough for you for eternity.”

She stared at him, a mix of frustration and longing that set his heart racing again.

“Now, let’s try this question one more time for now, before I leave you to contemplate your choices, my love.” His gaze skimmed the sight of her half-naked in his bed, his own black silk shirt stained now from his seed and her sweat. “Think hard, my cunning Little Light, what… are… you?”

Lumina chewed her lip, her gaze flickering around his room, lost in thought as she considered her response wisely. “You said I was your… mistress… not your spawn, not your concubine…”

“That’s what I said,” he purred, sliding his fingers through his cum, gathering it on his fingers before he teased it into her folds. “My question, love, is what do you think you are now?” He let the slick sounds of his fingers inside her distract that train of thought she was clearly attempting to recover. “Well?” he insisted, catching her clit with his thumb and making her gasp another curse.

She seemed to relax, a serenity in her gaze, a softness around her mouth as she tilted her head most alluringly. “Yours… I’m yours,” she whispered, toneful and beautiful in its submission.

“Mmmm, a beautiful proclamation,” he crooned but withdrew his touch and stood from the bed, regardless. Flashing her a wicked smirk, he savored the look of devastation on her pale countenance. “While I thoroughly enjoy such a confession, it’s just… not quite the response I seek.” Fastening his trousers, he shrugged his shoulders, smiling twistedly like that arrogant bastard he truly was.

“Astarion, please!” she panted, wretched and devastated as she could only watch him depart.

He paused at his wardrobe, choosing a new shirt, sliding that crisp cream silk over his immaculate body as he turned one more time. “Don’t fret too long, my love. I’ll return soon. In the meantime, you can use your time wisely. Weigh your answers… Oh, and you can use this, if you can manage to open it, that is.” He tossed her that green-covered book, the title accusing her as it landed just within reach of her bound hands. The Curse of the Vampyre, indeed. He laughed merrily, low and rumbling in his chest. “I’ll see you later, I’m sure, darling.”

The thud of the door shutting behind him only spurred Lumina into action all the quicker. She would give him his answer and earn her release. Physically and carnally.

Hours it seemed creeped by, that little book her only distraction from the arch of her arms and the wet, lingering burn between her thighs. She awkwardly flipped pages, dropping it on her face from time to time when the shackles got in her way. Page after page revealed nothing new, and she cursed Astarion for being right, dreading how he would preen and gloat when she admitted defeat.

Food sources… seduction… vulnerabilities… that section no longer applied to her, she furrowed her brow. The creation of a spawn… the nourishment of her kind…

That made her hungry belly growl, and as if she wished it into existence, she smelled blood. The door creaked open, and Lumina fixed her gaze on the silver cup brimming with blood.

Only once that chilling laugh sounded from its bearer did Lumina glance at who held the cup.

“Morana,” she hissed fangs bared as she tried to hide her half dressed state.

“I just couldn’t resist the opportunity to replace a poor, freighted servant from entering the Master’s chambers to bring you your meal at his orders,” the tiefling’s dark eyes glimmered with hatred, her voice like vitriol as she sarcastically pouted and preened, “Is the Master’s Bride starving?”

“The… Master’s what?” Lumina went deathly still. There had been one line that book… the unknown characteristics of a Sire’s Bride or Groom. She had thought nothing of it an hour ago. “What did you just call me?”

[spindrifters]

I've been doing battle with my internet all day to get this up for Lynxmas. I would not be bested!! I refused and I persevered!! So a very happy birthday from me and the rowdy 11 year olds to our favorite barwench humble forest cat @lynxindisguise!!

There’s a peculiar shuffle to sharing one’s room, a frenzy of activity when it comes to four boys squashed into a rather small circular dorm that puts Remus—not only used to the solitude of his own little cottage bedroom, but raised without so much as a single other child his own age for at least ten miles in each direction—decidedly on edge.

It’s a continuation of the chaos from the welcoming feast, where the newly-sorted Gryffindor boys had quickly found their stride and accompanying role in the ecosystem. James and Sirius, no longer competing over who could eat more chicken thighs but still loudly trying to one-up each other’s boasts about feats of accidental magic. Peter, scrabbling to get a word in while his eyes gleamed with excitement each time one of them noticed. And Remus, the impulse to join in the fun warring with Dad’s gentle word of warning before he climbed on the train earlier in the day—can’t be too careful, lad.

He pushes that to the side, focusing instead on finding his plush grindylow Raccoon at the bottom of his trunk. It’s a poor replacement for Jeff, the very real grindylow who lives at the bottom of his garden pond and who he already misses something fierce—and he is not going to let the other boys see that he brought a stuffed animal with him to school, thank you very much—but still. It helps to know that Raccoon’s there. It helps to know he'll have at least one friend at school.

Because Peter’s nice, but he and James are already friends from growing up, and Sirius and James… Well, he supposes they mean well, but with their shining black shoes and posh accents and the way they barrel loud and bright through a conversation like nothing in the world could touch them, Remus can’t help but be intimidated. For Merlin’s sake, Sirius has silver monogrammed cufflinks on the sleeves of his school uniform. Even if Remus does manage the courage to ever string more than two words together in front of his new dormmates, he can’t imagine they’d ever want to be friends with someone like him.

There’s a flash then, followed by a bang, and Remus becomes briefly distracted by a whirling firework escaping from James’s trunk. There’s laughter at that, a slight salve to his fluttering, nervous gut when the other boy winks at him from behind square-frame glasses, but then James turns back to say something to Sirius instead and stops. He gapes.

“Why are you wearing a dress?”

“It’s not a dress,” Sirius sniffs, looking affronted at the very idea. “It’s a nightshirt.”

Well, whatever it is Sirius has changed into while the rest of them weren’t paying attention, it certainly looks like a dress. It’s white, and ankle-length, and buttoned all the way up to just beneath his chin. Also, it’s frilly. Very frilly. If anything, it looks like something out of Ma’s old and battered copy of A Christmas Carol, like he should really have a long nightcap and candleholder to go with it.

Remus can’t help it. He snorts.

Sirius snaps his gaze over, steel grey eyes boring holes into him, and Remus wants to melt into the floor beneath his feet. “Well, what do you wear to sleep, then, if it’s so funny?” he snaps.

“Not my gran’s nightie,” Remus replies, feeling he ought to be congratulated, actually, on such a witty remark. Only Sirius’s eyes flash at that, and immediately his jaw clamps jaw shut.

But then James is cackling, and Sirius seems to take in his new dormmates for the first time since they all began changing for bed. James, in a vest and Quidditch shorts. Peter, in a matching set of broomstick-patterned pyjamas. Remus, in a pair of joggers and the oversized green jumper that still smells like Dad. A red flush creeps up Sirius’s pale cheeks. “Oh.”

It occurs to Remus then, that this wasn’t at all what he wanted, either. He didn’t want to make Sirius feel bad about it. He hadn’t wanted to embarrass him.

So it’s a poor offering, maybe, but he finds himself digging out another jumper—orange, this time, but a nice soft one, and not too oversized or nubby—and says, “D’you want to borrow it?”

A moment passes, then two, and then Sirius is smiling wide. “Cheers, Lupin,” he says, a shine in his eyes of something Remus doesn’t quite know how to place.

In future days he’ll come to understand that that look is the surefire sign of Sirius about to do something that’s not the done thing—not by pureblood standards, anyway, whatever the hell those are. All he knows right now is that Sirius isn’t yelling at him—or worse, ignoring him—and then James is throwing an extra pair of Quidditch shorts at Sirius’s face and saying no one wants to see his skivvies, and then Peter is breaking out a massive bag of Bertie Bott’s to share, and maybe it turns out that Remus can have friends, actually, after all.

[more-cardigan-than-woman]

They were Roommates! 3/?

Summary: We get some perspective. Jason's had a long day and all he needs is his princess to help him relax.

Pairs: Roommate!Reader x Jason Todd

Words: 3.9k

Warnings: SMUT, FEELINGS, POV SWITCH, chocking, cock warming, praise, pining, dark humor, fluff. reader gets a job, I have no excuses but this kind of hurt to write.

AN: This Chapter is from Jason's POV. I just feel like we needed some insight. Also just wanted to repost this because apparently it didn't upload properly yesterday. Hopefully this time it works.

Part 2

What a long fuckin day, Jason thinks to himself as he trudges up the stairs to your shared apartment. He's been out all night and day chasing down leads for Batman and hasn't felt this bone tired since he crawled out of the pit.

His duffle bag like a sack of bricks on his shoulder and his feet doused in concrete. But his goal is ahead of him. He knows your home right now, you told him this morning when he called to ask about your upcoming Art Show that you had pieces to get ready and you’d be locked inside all day.

The idea of you waiting for him pushes him further, faster. Just a few more steps and he'll be home. Not that he thought of you as home.  No, that'd be too much. You're friends, just friends, who haven't been able to keep your hands to yourself for longer than 2 days for the last few weeks. So maybe you’re just very good friends.

He pushes through the door, only a little grateful that Bruce made him leave his guns at the manor for Alfred to clean. Apparently, he wasn’t doing it properly. Though he’s about 90% certain he’s never going to see his favourite firearms again.

He makes a beeline for your room upon noticing you left the door open. Are you waiting for him? You wouldn’t be, right? His ears perk up at the sound of your soft humming, making his heart pound and his hands sweat. Fuck, he just needs to get his hands on you.

“Hey Jay,” you say in that velvety tone, when you see him approaching down the hall. Pulling your headphones off and smiling your cute little face at him. He can hear Taylor Swift's newest song echoing from them, but he barely even registers it. He’s so focused on you.

Fuck, you’re a wonderful sight. Your tablet resting on your crossed legs, your stylus slotted delicately between those delicate fingers, hair up in messy bun, tiny fly away's framing your beautiful face, knee high socks that nearly give him a heart attack and his fucking red flannel. Fuck, if he had your skills he’d sit down and capture how perfect you are.

His eyes take all of this in as his heart tries his best to tell him something. But he can't stop moving. His body goes limp as he flop’s down onto you, resting his head on your silky thigh. All he wants is to sink his teeth into your flesh, mark you, cover your pretty skin in signs that you're his. 

Instead, his hands dig into the shirt that’s fanned out over your legs. His shirt, if only the woman in it were his too. He thinks, grateful he’s managing to keep these confusing thoughts inside, “Princess,” he mumbles into your leg. 

“Long day at the office?” Your hands start to brush through his hair, combing the knots out that had formed throughout his search. Your nails graze along his scalp, he shivers as goosebumps spread down his neck and onto his arms. He may not remember hell, but this sure feels like heaven.

“Mmm,” he kicks off his boots, the steel caps thumping when they hit the ground. His bones start to feel gooey as he presses his face deeper into your thigh. He doesn’t mean to kiss you, but he just can’t seem to help himself.

“Bruce have you digging holes in the garden again?” your voice like wind chimes on a still day. Fuck, he could listen to you talk forever about whatever you wanted.

“He does love his family bonding exercises,” his hands drift up, wrapping around your hips, hugging you tight and hiding his face, unable to look at you. He hates the lies, hates that he can't tell you. But Dicks right, it's too dangerous for a civilian. He couldn't forgive himself if anything happened to you and if he was the one who put you in danger….

“Want me to get you anything?” 

“Just this for now.” He snuggles up into your tummy.

You lean down, placing soft kisses into his hair. He’s thankful you can’t see his face, sure that it would give away just how right you feel..

“You rest Jay, I got you.” you lay back, your hand still in his hair as you begin humming the song you had been listening to before.

“Hmm.. thanks Princess.”

You only get to the chorus before Jason’s phone starts to ring, “back pocket,” he grumbles, rubbing his cheek into you, “can you get it for me?”

“Ah huh,” your hand reaches into his pocket, “it says mother dearest?” you sound so confused but he can’t help the laugh that escapes him, “Jay I thought-”

“Jesus, can't I rest? answer and tell him to fuck off please.” you let out a tiny sound that sounds like you agree and then the bloody hollering starts.

“Little Wing, I need-”

“Umm hello?” you interrupt.

“- oh you're not Jason. Hey girlie,”

“Jason, why is Dick in your phone as mother dearest?” you whisper, scrunching your brows up at him when he looks up at you.

His eyes start to grow heavy, rubbing his cheek into your tummy. Fuck, Jason does not want to talk to his brother right now. He inhales your perfume mixed with the lingering scent of his cologne. It makes his pants grow tighter and his brain feel foggy, “tell him I'm busy and to annoy someone else,”

“Jason can't come to the phone right now, he's dead.” you joke and he can hear the fucking panic starting to form in Dick’s head.

“He's what?!” He hears Dick shout through the phone. His brother starts to ramble and Jason can imagine the man pacing through his house, his arms flailing around him like he’s going to kill someone. Jason can't help the laugh that escapes him.

“Dick doesn't get the joke Princess. Put it on loudspeaker.” he whispers to you, turning his head so his brother will hear him, “I'm not dead, calm down.”

“Don't you tell me to calm down! She shouldn't make jokes like that, because- wait, am I a loud speaker?”

“Yes,” you both say at the same time.

“I just wanted to make sure you got home ok, and now I'm having a heart attack. Fuck you both very much.” He hangs up and you both burst into laughter.

“Your brother's a bit of a drama queen.” his head jostles on your giggling stomach, “Like did he think I’d be so casual if you were actually dead?”

"You don't know the half of it," Jason says, taking the phone from you and throwing it away.

"We just doing this all night or?" 

"What you have in mind?"

"Haven't had a girls night in ages and you look like you could use some pampering." You suggest as your fingers work their way back through his hair.

XxX

He must've fallen asleep. His first clue is that you're gone and he's wrapped up in your cotton blanket, the second is he can smell the snicker doodles in the kitchen. The rich cinnamon sugar scent, almost as sweet as you.

Ducking into his room he takes off his dirty clothes and throws on a pair of clean sweats before floating towards the kitchen like a cartoon. "Princess?" He calls when he can't see you.

"I'm over here," you call back. He spots you bending over the coffee table, arranging your pamper station for him. Fuck I love you. He thinks, in a friend way. Yeah. She's my friend. But the way his shirt rises up over your ass makes him want to do some very unfriendly things to you. "Can you grab the cookies from the oven?"

"Yep," he says, with a pop of his lips, spinning on his feet towards the kitchen. 

"Thanks ba- I mean thanks Jay," you turn trying to hide your embarrassment, but he can see it. You wanted to call him babe. Maybe this isn't as one sided as he thought?

"What are we doing first?" He tries to say casually, sitting down on the couch and taking in the vast array of items you've got set out.

"Facials," you smile, picking up the little bowl of cream, "want me to put it on you?"

"Yes please," he sits back, almost moaning at how soft your fingers feel on his face, "what's in this it smells yummy,"

"Honey, lavender, oats, all the good stuff," 

"It smells great and it feels so good," he presses his face into your hands. "Princess, i-"

"Finished, you look so cute!" You say excitedly, "ok, now you do me,"

"Do you?" He raises his brow at you.

"Jay," you playfully hit him, "I want a facial too." He can't help the face he makes and you slap him again, "come on, get ya mind out the gutter."

"I'm just teasing," he swipes a handful of the cream, rubbing it into your soft features. His fingers press into the crease into your brow, your cheeks. You grin up at him and his heart feels like it might burst. Holding your chin he presses a soft kiss into your lips, "tastes good too," he beams, when you open your eyes you peer back at him so sweetly his heart thumps even faster. "What now Princess?"

"We just need to wait ten minutes then we can wash it off," you say getting up and grabbing the cookies, from the table "we can eat these while we wait."

"Princess these are delicious," he moans as the spongey cookie melts in his mouth, "tastes almost as good as you."

"Jay." You level your deadpan stare at him.

"Princess." He stares back.

"Can I do your makeup after?" You perk up, sitting on your knees.

"Can we watch Heathers in bed?"

"Deal."

"How many of these am I aloud to eat?" He asks, stuffing another one in his mouth. Fuck if he only had to eat two things for the rest of his life. He knows exactly what he would pick.

"All of them? I can just make more if you want." 

"Just for me?" He's surprised, he's not sure why. In the year you've lived here he's always surprised by just how much the little things you do for him chip away at his walls.

"Who else?" Your words circle his heart, the tips of the letters just grazing the outside.

"Princess, can I wash this off? It's starting to itch,"  he says, the honey sticking to his fingers and the lavender that smells exactly like you wafting up his nose. He's having trouble keeping his thoughts pure and not just bending you over the couch and making you beg for him.

"Yeh, I'll get the movie ready and move the snacks," 

"Fuck, what the fuck am I doing?" He says to himself in the bathroom mirror, his face still smelling like you, "just ask her out to dinner," he washes the rest off, but the scent still lingers. "What would Bruce do? Deny his feelings for ten years and wait for her to make the move. I can't fuckin do that." He wipes his hand down his face in frustration. 

Shit, he feels like he's stuck between a crowbar and an explosion. But if he fucks up this time, you could be the one to get hurt and that's the last thing he wants.

"You're taking a while in there, are you alive?" You knock on the closed door, "you talking to Batman in the mirror again?"

"I do not do that," he says as he brushes past you and into your room where you've got the cookies resting on the edge of your bed.

"You kinda do," you call out.

Fuck me, she's going to kill me. Again. He thinks, holding his face in his hands as he reaches for another cookie and savors the taste.

"Alright, Jay," you say, swishing into the room, his shirt sitting just low enough to cover your panties. Your hands drift up his bare arms, stopping at his shoulders as you step toward him, your legs spreading over his and your ass lands on his thighs. "Ready for your makeover?"

"Is this how I get it?" His arms encircle you, "Can I get one every morning?" He squeezes your ass and you jump, making his cock throb underneath you. His fingers dig into your sides making you squirm and the cutest little sounds escape your mouth. Is this your version of torture? It’s definitely preferable to other methods he’s endured, he thinks, he could get used to this kind of treatment. 

"Jay, stop," you laugh, "you're tickling me, Jay, please," squirming even more on his lap, his cock growing harder and harder by the second, "Jason, babe, stop, let me do your makeup."  

His eyes meet with yours and he stops tickling you. Did you just? No. It must’ve been a slip of the tongue. 

"Make up time," you try to smile, your eyes looking everywhere but at him, what is that about? Is he reading too much into this? "Maybe a smokey eye? What colors would you like?" 

"Red and black, please Princess." You reach back for your eye shadow pallet and he tries to think of something else. Anything else, Dick farting on Tim, Damien getting eaten by his dog. But with that lavender still on his skin and you on his lap, all he can think about is kissing you again.

You press your fingers into his face, your dominant hand holding the brush like it was made there as you lean over him. Brushing the color onto his closed eyes, your cinnamon breath fans over his face warms his heart. Your tits pressing into his hard chest have a similar effect further south.

"Jay, stop squirming," you say as you continue to wiggle on top of him. "I'm going to poke your eye out," Like he can help it. Like he can help just how much to affect him.

"I'm trying, are you nearly done?"

"True art takes time,"

"I don't know how much I got left,"

"Why's that?"

"Princess if you don't hurry up I might break your pretty brush," his hands grip your hips, hoping to keep you still. Instead it gives him more leverage to rub up into you, grinding his very hard and seeping cock into your delicate panties. 

"I'm nearly done, just one more thing." He feels you reach back, his eyes still closed. Then the softness of your kiss overwhelms him and he can't hold it back any longer. 

He flips you underneath him. You let out an adorable squeal of excitement as his cock grinds on the wet patch in your panties. "Fuck" it feels like someone finally cracked a hole in the horny pond. he tries to stop but can't, “I need to be inside you,” 

"Like right now?" You say, grinding up into him and shoving your panties down your legs as fast as you can. "But I haven't finished your makeup" Fuck, you're always so ready for him. Maybe you can finish his make up? He thinks slyly, hmm this could be fun.

“Right now Princess,” his hand fumbles as his blood thrums. He dips his fingers into your heavenly pussy and you’re already clenching down on him, "fuckin hell. You're already so wet. I got an idea," he moves back, laughing when you let out a huff as his fingers leave you. He rests his back on the wall behind your bed, "come here,"

'Ok?" You ask, seemingly confused about what he's doing. But when you see him shake his pants off and throw them on the floor, your mouth falls open and you start staring at him again. Fuck, it makes him feel like a God. 

You fall onto your tummy crawling towards him, like sin personified, like you need him as much as he needs you. He glimpses those pretty tits through the large gap in the front of his shirt, "What are we doing?"

"Since you insist on doing my makeup,” he tuts, “you're going to sit on my cock while you finish it. Don't look at me like that. Come on now,"

"I'm definitely going to poke your eye out," you side eye him as you raise to your knees.

"You won't. I trust you," he says, taking your hips in his hands, sighing when your warm fingers wrap around his cock. 

"Good girl, now sit," he takes deep breaths as your tight little pussy envelops him, your creaminess sliding down the hard ridges of his cock, fingers digging into the flesh of your hips. 

"Ok," you pant, squirming around him with your eyes closed, "I've just gotta-" you pick up your pallet, swiping some black over your finger and pressing it into his eyelid. 

“Please don't make that face,” he squints, knowing what you look like when you get focused, “I'm having a hard enough time,”

“This was your idea,” you sass, wiggling your ass and he feels like he might just let you poke his eyes out. 

He thrusts up, moaning when you bite down on your lip to try and keep your concentration. His hand moves, slipping over your hip to fall right at your clit. His thumb lazily swiping up and down making you spasm and pull your hand away.

“Jay,” you shudder, falling forward and into his chest, your hands holding his cheeks as you reach up to kiss him. Pride swells in his chest, knowing that he can have you like this whenever he wants. That you’re so open and trusting of him, ready to fall apart in his arms at any given moment.

“Makeup done?” He mumbles between kisses. His cock with a mind of its own as it starts to slowly thrust into you.

“It's,” you lean back, taking in your handy work, your delicate fingers brushing over his cheeks. You’re cheeks are flushed and your beautiful eyes take him in, “kinda smudey now, but it looks good.”

“Good,” he lifts his knees bringing you even closer to him, “now about this shirt,” his hands slip in between the buttons, ripping it in half. 

“Jay,” you gasp, and the shock on your face was worth it. Until you pout at him, “that was my favourite shirt,”

“I got heaps of flannels, you can have all of them Princess,” he peels the shirt from your arms, bowing his head so he can take your tit in his mouth, his strong tongue flicking over your nipple. Moving his other hand so his thumb can do the same to your clit, “still upset about the shirt?” He pant’s when you start to bounce on his cock.

“No, Jay I-” he knows what you're going to say, he can feel how tight you're getting around him. You just need a little push, his mouth sucks into your neck, tasting the last remnants of your face mask mixing with your sweat. You keep making those noises as bites into you, the fucking sweetest sounds on the earth, he wants to have his head clogged full of them.

“Cum,” his voice muffled as his teeth move to your nipple. You arch back, your hands grip tight to his legs, nails digging into his thick thighs,  Yes, mark me, he thinks, I'm yours Princess make me look like it, but his mouth says, “cum, cum on me, then you're going to do it again and again, cum Princess,”

His cock feels like it's in a vice as you shake and shiver over him, his name like a chant on your lips and your eyes tight with his. Your face is so beautiful as you fall apart on top of him, those tiny breathy moans echoing in his ears.

His hands slide around your waist, pulling you even closer, his lips connect with yours, “you did so well, wrap your legs around me," Your eyes lidded as you gaze back at him, "I got the next one,” he lifts you, sliding his legs underneath him to get more leverage. 

“Ready?”

“Yes Jay,” your voice is so lust filled, he wants to record it for when he's had a bad day. He thrusts up, your fingers winding through his hair, turning his head towards you. 

He'll never get used to how stunning you are, your eyes groggy and your lips swollen from his kiss, "fuck your beautiful," he kisses you deeply one hand on the back of your neck, the other gripping into your ass. "Keep those pretty eyes open for me," 

He's losing himself, losing any remaining semblance of sanity inside of you as he moves faster, harder "fuck I want to cum. Your little pussy feels so good Princess"

Your hands are drifting, seeming to want to touch every part of him before settling on his biceps. Your teeth bite down into his shoulder as he finds your g spot and it feels like fireworks shooting down his neck. "Fuck me back Princess," he slaps your ass making your pussy pulse around him.

“Again,” your voice getting breathier by the second, starting to grind down into him as he fucks you. He can feel your clit grazing his stomach, your tits brushing against the sensitive y shaped scar at the center of his torso. He's alive, alive for this. So he could make you cum on him everyday for forever . He slaps your ass over and over, feeling your pussy clutch and clench around him.

“Want to fill you, Princess,” His cock throbs inside you, your moans surrounding him like a symphony, “want to see that pretty pussy drip with my cum,”

“Jason,”

“Yes, cum. Cum, cum,” he moans in your ear, trying to hold back his own release, he wants to share it, to share everything. With you.

“JASON!” you scream, his name on your lips the richest sound in the world and as your pussy begins to convulse around him, he lets go. His cum filling you up, surrounding his cock and pumping into your pussy. He keeps going, fucking into you, letting you have as much of him as you need. He wants you spent, blissed out on his cock so that you never go searching for the feeling elsewhere.

His lips caress your neck as your shaking begins to slow, “did so well Princess, so perfect for me,” he praises you, lifting you up and laying you both on the bed.

Your head rest's on his chest as your little fingers trace the line of his scar. It feels strange, nice strange. Your fingers drift down the tail end of the why and he thinks maybe you're putting the butterflies inside him.

“You're fucking perfect,” your voice so fucking soft.

He smooths out the strands of your hair, not believing that you could ever truly think that of him. Not if you knew what he had done and all the lies he told you.

“How did my makeup hold up?” He asks, noticing the black smudges all over by your pretty face when you look up at him and wanting to change the subject, “I got it all over you,” he tries to wipe it clean.

“I think it looks better this way,” your soft hands brush his hair up, so gently. You're always so gentle with him. It makes his knees weak, “Hmm. You just need a jacket and a bit more black and you'll look just like how I imagine the Red Hood looks under that shiny helmet.”

“Oh really?” He knows you don't know, he's gone to very extreme lengths to ensure it. And asking you to dinner? What was he thinking, that's only going to make things more complicated. But he's not going to deny how it makes the pride swell in his chest, “Is that a look you like Princess?”

“Don't be jealous Jay. He's just mysterious and dark,” you shrug.

“I'm not jealous, beautiful, only a little intrigued.”

“Dressing up as him wouldn't hurt,” his smart girl, too smart. How is he going to keep this up? The closer, the deeper he falls the more likely you are to be in danger. He needs to tread very carefully. The last thing he wants is for you to get hurt.

Part 4

Taglist: (let me know if you want in bestie)

@princessbl0ss0m @letmebebatmanpls

[aneurinallday]

Green Eyes

Chapter 7: A New Life

By the time doubt began to creep in at the edges, it was too late - the promise had already been made, and Thomas Shelby had no intention of breaking his word.

As they departed Birmingham City on a cloudy afternoon in early April, Alec cradled the baby in his lap and stared out of the car window. He watched as the factories and terraces turned into semi-detached houses with little gardens, then into farmhouses and crops - urban rot giving way to suburban tedium and finally into open country.

“Look, Clara,” he said, lifting her up, “There are cows.”

“Ever been out of the city before?” Thomas asked.

“No. At least, I don’t think so. Maybe my parents took me when I was a child and I don’t remember.”

“Who were your parents?”

“Nobody worth remembering.”

“Dead, then?”

“Maybe. I don’t even know.”

Onwards they drove. Alec rested his head against the glass, and looked on as the only life he’d ever known disappeared out of sight, a new life beginning to creep in at the edges. Thomas was silent at the wheel. Nothing needed to be said.

At some point Alec dozed off, Clara fast asleep in his arms, until a bump in the road jolted him awake and he found himself surrounded by the wide fields and rolling hills of Warwickshire. He glanced in the rear-view mirror as if expecting to see the city in the distance, but saw only more sky. They were in the true countryside now.

“Are we almost there?” he asked.

“Need to piss?”

“No, but she will soon.”

“Just as well. Look to your left.”

Alec obeyed. The wild hedgerows turned into well-kept hedges, and the asphalt into gravel, and soon they turned a corner to see their destination awaiting them: a red-brick manor-house with a symmetrical facade of stone accents and mullioned bay windows, its roofs punctuated by neat rows of chimneys.

“This is your home?” Alec exclaimed. “It’s beautiful.”

“Were you expecting something else?”

“Maybe. I’m not sure what, though.”

Thomas parked somewhat carelessly - he knew a manservant would come and take the car to the garages - and they stepped out into the breeze. Alec breathed deep of the country air.

“It smells different,” he said, “It smells clean.”

“There’s not a steel foundry for miles,” said Thomas. “Just some rich people’s summer homes.” Relieved to be out of the car, he lit a cigarette and began to puff.

Holding the baby with one arm, Alec reached for his meagre belongings in the back seat.

“Leave it. The servants will bring everything up to your room.”

“My room? Not yours?”

Thomas wasn’t sure if Alec was teasing or not.

“Let’s go inside,” he said, and led the way towards the porch, gravel crunching under their shoes.

Alec turned to look back the way they’d come, admiring the colourful flowerbeds and carefully curated topiary. He wasn’t sure where the property ended and the surrounding farmland began.

“All this land - it belongs to you?”

“That’s right.”

“And those fields too?”

“Two-thousand acres,” Thomas confirmed.

Realising Alec was no longer behind him, he glanced back. Alec was lingering at the flowerbeds, trying to get Clara to pluck a blossom.

“Come on,” Thomas summoned him, “Let’s get inside.”

They passed through the stone-columned porch and into the main hall, over which loomed the grand staircase.

“Welcome to Arrow House,” Thomas sighed, “I’ll show you around, but I don’t have all day. Come on.”

He guided Alec around the downstairs in a business-like manner, unable to hide his disinterest in the trappings of his own wealth.

Alec followed him in awe, craning his neck to marvel at the high ceilings and glittering chandeliers. By the standards of the rich, it was a home like any other. But to him, it was a palace to rival Versailles. He soaked in every detail: the wood-panelled walls and gold-framed paintings, the fur rugs and patterned carpets, the figurine lamps on pedestals and little ornaments on mantelpieces. Despite its lavishness, it wasn’t gaudy like the Arcadia - these things had been chosen for their elegance, not for their shine.

“Look at that, Clara,” he cooed, “This is our home now. Mister Shelby is going to let us live here. Isn’t he kind to us?”

The baby was less concerned with their new residence and more with her father’s shirt. Oblivious to the opulence surrounding her, she grasped at his lapels with tiny hands, and attempted to put the buttons in her mouth.

“The building is from the 1830s,” said Thomas as they entered the parlour, “Or the 1840s, I can’t remember. You’d be better off asking the housekeeper, she knows more than - ”

“A piano!” Alec interrupted.

With the giddy eagerness of a child on Christmas morning, he hurried past Thomas to admire the grand piano that stood in the middle of the parlour. He reached for the black-and-white keys with one hand, but stopped himself before touching them.

“Do you play, Mister Shelby?”

“Not for the life of me. I bought it for my son.”

“I can play. Not very well, but I know how. The pianist at the club was giving me lessons, but Mister Cobb made him stop. He said my singing was hard enough to listen to without me subjecting people to an instrument too.”

“Sounds like an excuse. He probably didn’t want you learning another skill. Too many skills and you’d be able to find another job.”

“Maybe. He also said I looked better standing up, not sitting down.”

“Well, that’s Cobb’s business. You can play as much as you like.”

“Thank you.”

“Now come on, let’s go. I’ve got work to do.”

They continued onwards. Thomas pushed open the door of the library which served as his study. Alec gaped at the carven bookshelves which towered all the way up to the ceiling, stacked with antique classics.

“Here’s the library, and that’s where I do my work. You can read all of the books you want, but don’t go near my desk.”

“I promise I won’t.”

“Good.”

They’d circled back around to the main hall, reaching the foot of the grand staircase.

“It’s so big in here,” said Alec, “I feel like I can finally breathe. We could go days without seeing each other, if we wanted.”

“Already avoiding me?”

“No, but you might get tired of having me around.”

Ascending the stairs, they passed a large family portrait: Thomas, Grace, and a baby boy.

“Is that your wife?”

“Yes.”

“She’s very beautiful.”

“She was,” Thomas agreed curtly.

“How did you meet - ”

“Don’t talk about her.”

Alec was silent the rest of the way up the staircase. They passed the master bedroom - the door of which was firmly shut - and several guest rooms before reaching a south-facing suite.

“This is you,” he said, and watched as Alec stepped into what must’ve felt like a dream.

Like the rest of the house, it was richly furnished in dark rosewood and mahogany, with elegant lamps and floor-length embroidered curtains. There was a chaise longue where he could sit and read, and a soft rug to greet his feet in the morning, and a bed wide enough for two.

“All of this is mine and Clara’s?”

“All of it.”

“It’s twice the size of my flat in Saltley.” Alec ducked into the bathroom, and let out a wordless exclamation as he discovered the large porcelain tub, complete with hot and cold taps. “And there’s proper plumbing! Look, Clara! I won’t have to put water on the stove any more.”

Thomas snorted with amusement.

“Next door is the nursery,” he said.

“Nursery?” Alec re-emerged from the bathroom with a confused expression.

“She’ll need her own space, and so will you.”

“Oh.” Alec hadn’t even considered the prospect. With Clara in his arms, he sat down on the edge of the bed. As he looked around the room, the glow of excitement seemed to fade, and the overwhelming reality of the situation - that he was going to be living here for the foreseeable future - seemed to set in. He looked lost.

“Are you hungry?” Thomas asked.

“Yes. But tired too.”

“Get some rest. I’ll send food up for you, and fruit for the baby.”

“Thank you. Will the servants care about…you know…us?”

“No. They’re used to it by now. And I pay them too well for them to care.”

Glad to be done with the awkward business of the tour, Thomas retreated to his study. He attempted to lose himself in his work, but was unable to shake Alec’s presence from his mind. He tried not to consider the gravity of his decision, opening his doors to a near-stranger. The grand promises of a better future he’d made because he was rich enough to indulge himself in fleeting fantasies.

If things turned sour and he was compelled to eject Alec from his home, there was no question that Clara would have to go too - separating the pair was unthinkable. But why should a baby be punished, simply because its father had failed to stay in Thomas Shelby’s good graces? Even if Thomas let them go with a generous sum of money, the emotional toll it would take on Alec - having a good, safe home within his grasp and then losing it - would be cruel.

The potential for this arrangement to turn into a mess made Thomas wonder if it was even worth the risk. But then he remembered the chandelier-light falling on Alec’s upturned face, and the happiness overflowing from the young man in that moment, and his doubts subsided. Joy like that, even if it proved temporary, was worth any risk.

Thomas was so absorbed in his business that he didn’t realise the room had grown dark until a maid tapped on the door.

“Shall I turn the main light on, Mister Shelby? You’ll strain your eyes.”

“Hm?” Thomas glanced up at the grandfather clock, disorientated to find that he needed his glasses to tell the time. “No, no. I’m about to turn in. Thanks, Mary.”

He retired for the night, but along the way, stopped by Alec’s guest room. He found it empty. Alec’s belongings had been unpacked and were strewn haphazardly about, as if he hadn’t decided where to store them yet. Shirts with mended elbows, combs with missing teeth, a flapper dress whose tassels were fraying at the ends. Thomas took stock of how inadequate the inventory was, already half-planning to replace these tatty things with tailored suits and expensive perfumes, before remembering that he’d done plenty already.

On the spacious bed was a cold, half-eaten tray of food: fruit salad, Duchess potatoes, blanched and seasoned vegetables, and a game pie containing venison, hare, partridge, pigeon, and pheasant in a rich gravy, the pastry decorated with a braided design of leaves and flowers. The unfamiliar luxury of it must’ve sickened an already anxious stomach. Alec had probably never eaten deer in his life.

“I’m in here, Mister Shelby,” a soft voice came through the wall. Alec must’ve heard his footsteps.

Thomas found him in the nursery, standing over the curtained crib where he’d placed Clara, gazing down at her while she chewed toothlessly on her old teddy bear’s paw. Toys were everywhere: on the shelves and on the dresser and on the floor. Painted dolls with real hair, and carved soldiers with red coats. Wooden dogs and horses on wheels, with strings for pulling them around. More toys than Alec could’ve ever imagined buying for his daughter. By the window was a rocking chair, where he could sit with her on picturesque afternoons and look out across the gardens.

Without raising his head at the sound of Thomas’s entrance, he said:

“It’s lovely in here. Was this your son’s room?”

“Yes.” Thomas’s gaze fell on a folded blanket on the shelf - a crocheted baby blanket with Charles’s initials worked into the pattern, probably a gift from one of Grace’s friends. He quickly looked away. “Most of these things were his. Some are new.”

“I always…” Alec began, but then hesitated. “I always dreamed, but I never thought…Thank you for everything, Mister Shelby.”

He swayed on his feet, and gripped the side of Clara’s crib to steady himself.

“I don’t deserve her,” he said, “I don’t any of this. I’ve done nothing but bad things in my life. How could so many good things happen to me?”

“You’re tired,” said Thomas. “Go to bed.”

“I’m not sure if I should.” Alec didn’t take his eyes off the sleeping baby.  “I don’t like her sleeping alone. What if something happens?”

“Nothing will happen. She’ll be fine.”

“I know. I know, it’s just…We’ve always shared a room. Always.”

“You’ll only be a door away. You’ll hear her if she cries.”

“What if you hear it too? I don’t want her to disturb you. You might get…irritated.”

“I’ve lived with crying babies before. I’ll survive. Go to bed.”

“I will,” Alec promised, “I’ll wait ‘til she’s settled.”

“Suit yourself.”

Thomas left him standing there with his thoughts, and went to bed with his own. As he undressed in the lamplight, he felt - if only for a moment - a strange discomfort that he couldn’t define. Perhaps a sense of shame, but he wasn’t sure why. What did he have to be embarrassed about? His age? His wealth? His line of work?

He brushed off the feeling, dimmed the lamps, and climbed between the covers. As he usually did, he turned his back to Grace’s side of the bed. The darkness settled over him like a blanket.

Through half-asleep ears, he heard the door-knob turn and the floorboards creak softly. Grace, he thought. Then a voice whispered:

“Mister Shelby?”

Thomas jolted awake, reaching instinctively for the pistol in his bedside drawer, but stopped himself before he touched it.

Alec was standing over the bed in a white night-shirt, his curls tousled from a failed attempt to sleep.

“Did I wake you?” he asked.

“Yes.” Thomas was scanning the young man’s hands, searching for a weapon. Alec was unarmed. Of course. Thomas sighed at his own reaction. “What do you want?”

“Can I sleep with you?”

“You don’t need to.”

“But I want to.”

“Alright. If you insist.”

Alec eased under the duvet, and drew himself close until their bodies were pressed together. His feet were cold from crossing the floorboards that separated their rooms.

“You’re warm,” he murmured. “I’ve missed this. Have you?”

Thomas said nothing. ‘No’ would’ve been a lie, but ‘yes’ would’ve been an admittance of weakness he wasn’t ready to make.

“You can come to my room whenever you want,” Alec whispered, “Or I can come to yours - ”

“Just go to sleep,” Thomas interjected.

Alec dutifully fell silent. The gentle puffs of his breath against Thomas’s shoulder became slower and steadier, until he was fast asleep.

Thomas stared into the dark. The sensation of another body in his marriage bed was so familiar, yet so different it was almost disconcerting. The empty space where Grace had once lain had been filled, but by someone who didn’t belong there. It felt wrong, and yet…

The darkness grew heavier, or perhaps it was just his eyelids. Sleep came without warning and almost against his will.

[florencemtrash]

The Wisp Between Worlds

CHAPTER THREE: OVER THE WALL

Acotar fanfic/rewrite. Inner Circle x OC. Eventual Azriel x OC.

Summary: Have you ever wondered what you would do (and do differently) if you found yourself trapped in the fantasy world of your dreams? For Nora, this fantasy of hers is about to play out when she finds herself portaled away to the Moral Lands south of Prythian. But all is not as it seems. Feyre Archeron is missing and the deadline to break Amarantha’s curse draws near. Who will save Prythian now?

Warnings: None for this chapter 

Masterlist

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________________

Dinah made good money that day, haggling at the market to sell the deer meat for a higher price than it was worth. They’d even cooked a few cuts for dinner in the fire, filling the house with the heady scent of meat that lasted long after they’d finished tearing into the food with reckless abandon. After nearly a week of surviving on stale bread, tea, and water it felt like they were doing something wrong. But after leaning back in her chair, stomach full and comfortably stretching the waistband of her pants, Nora wondered if it was the guilt eating away at her instead. If she was right about this, about everything, then she’d just killed a faerie today and the High Lord of the Spring Court would be coming for her.

Nora crawled into bed, bones weary and begging for rest. But her mind would not let her forget the glint of the steel tipped ashwood arrow sticking out of the beautiful wolf’s skull. Dinah and Jaskiel whispered to one another from their shared bed across the room. During the winter months they needed to crowd into the living room by the fire to escape the cold that seeped in through the floor and walls. Sleeping on opposite ends of the room was as much privacy as any of them would get. The beds themselves were little more than sheets stuffed with hay and scraps of wool from Dinah’s mending projects and just barely kept you from freezing on the ground. 

Before Nora had met them, and before Jaskiel had fallen ill, him and Dinah had lived comfortable lives in this little cottage. Jaskiel was once a small-time merchant and craftsperson, making frequent travels to the Continent to trade his wooden trinkets for spices and silks to sell to nearby villages. Dinah stayed home, tending to the house and the now dead garden of roses in the backyard. Whatever comforts Jaskiel had brought back for Dinah had long since been sold to the highest bidder. The only pieces left from that previous life were the books tucked away in the corner shelf of the living room, swollen and yellowed from the many times they’d all run their fingers through the pages, and Dinah’s wedding ring.

“It was the first thing I bought on the Continent.” Jaskiel told her, smiling at the strange girl who sat on the floor by his feet, bright eyes staring at him with curiosity. After a bath and a dinner of boiled katniss she was looking better, less like a frightened bird with its wings clipped.

“My first successful trip, and certainly not my last! And I knew the first thing I needed to do when I came home was marry Dinah.” She smiled from her seat next to him, abandoning her sewing project for a moment to rub his knee. She was thinner now than when they’d gotten married, gray hair sprouting from her temples and framing the crows feet that grew from her eyes whenever she was happy. Her hands were stronger too, more calloused and accustomed to hard work after Jaskiel had gotten sick. By pure force of will she’d carried the two of them through life since then and she vowed to continue doing so. 

Perhaps it was because they’d known a kinder life that they took Nora in, patiently allowing her to learn the skill of survival. 

I don’t want to leave. Nora thought tearfully, praying to whatever gods existed in this world that she wouldn’t be swept away in the night. She’d dreamed of Prythian every day, dreamed of being able to go home. Part of her still wanted that, the other part simply wanted to make peace with the life she knew now. No more change, no more being taken to new places and forced to learn everything all over again. 

Her prayer was not answered.

Dinah and Jaskiel had been asleep for hours now, unaware of the doom that had slipped through the wall and was now lurking outside their home. Nora lay awake, holding a knife close to her chest and continuing to murmur her pleas and prayers.

The front door blew open, shattering into a million pieces and raining down over their heads with sharp stabs. Nora immediately jumped to her feet, throwing her blanket around her to protect from the wood that continued to strike her as the creature clawed at the ruined door frame. 

Dinah was screaming. Jaskiel shouted Nora’s name as he threw his body over his wife, grabbing his cane. His lame legs cried out in protest when he tried to stand, brandishing the glorified stick as a weapon.

Nora sprained across the room, heart pounding and vision a blur as she barely dodged the next spray of wood that came crashing down. 

The beast had ripped the walls and part of the ceiling into ribbons with one angry swipe of his claws.

Well that was fucking rude. Nora thought, trying to quell the shaking of her hands as she stepped in front of Jaskiel and Dinah, holding her knife out towards the beast as he finally made his way into the room.

Every step shook the ground more powerfully than an earthquake. The little moonlight spilling through the cracks in the ceiling were snuffed out by his enormous frame. Standing taller than a fully grown man was a creature with the body of a bear, head of a wolf, and horns extending so far out from his skull it was a miracle they didn’t catch on the wooden beams. Pure muscle rippled underneath fur that glowed with a golden light, illuminating the mouth of jet black teeth that were bared as he roared, “MURDERERS!” 

Nora cringed, clapping a hand over her ear. Don’t drop the knife. Don’t you dare drop the knife.

“MURDERERS!” he screamed again. The foundations of the house shook with his power. Dinah’s screams died into quiet whimpers. Jaskiel crumpled to the ground, legs folding like paper beneath his rickety frame.

“WHO KILLED HIM?!”

The house remained silent. Only Dinah’s choked sobs punctured the stillness of the night. Nora tried not to faint, her mind fracturing into a million pieces as she tried to think of what to do next.

Do I tell him I killed the faerie? Do I tell him I killed Andras? Was that even the faerie’s name? But he hasn’t told me who I killed. I know who I killed. Am I supposed to know who I killed? Am I supposed to know I killed a faerie at all? What will happen to Dinah and Jaskiel?

Infuriated by the silence he lifted one arm, slamming his paw into the ground so hard that it broke through the wooden floors. Nora could feel the heat of his breath as he drew near, shoving his face right up against hers. “WHO KILLED HIM?!” 

Nora refused to falter, irritation slowly beginning to overtake her fear.

His breath smells like roses. How ridiculous. 

“We didn’t kill anyone!” Dinah sobbed, clutching her husband's shaking arm. The beast took one step backward and Nora let out a breath of relief. They were still alive. Dinah must have caught onto that string of hope because she began to regain her composure. Her blubbering might do nothing more than enrage the beast enough to slaughter them all.

“Please we didn’t-” Jaskiel’s feeble words were cut off by a growl. The beast’s eyes were still fixated on Nora, filled with even more fury for the fact that she remained standing - standing with a weapon brandished in her hand. The gall of the girl. He ripped it out of her hand as easily as one swatted a fly. Nora was too shocked to register the pain in her forearm as she stumbled backward, blood dripping down her hand and landing with a rhythmic thump thump thump onto the floor. 

If he regretted hurting her he didn’t show it. As if to make a further point that he could kill them all in an instant, he whirled around towards the dining table. It exploded without so much as a whisper from him, taking out a chunk of the wall in the process.

His horns threw shadows against what remained, twisting and turning like a pair of skeletal hands. Jade green eyes glared out, filled with fury and some small seed of grief. “Who killed him?”

“We didn’t kill anyone.” Nora said. Her pain made her angry. 

“LIAR! THE WOLF! Who killed the wolf?” 

Jaskiel and Dinah shared a look. Nora hadn’t said anything about a wolf.

“I did.” The young girl didn’t flinch, although her throat tightened from the admission like someone had a hand around her neck. “I killed a wolf. This morning in the woods.”

“Hush, child.” Dinah hissed. She tore a strip of fabric from her dress and tried to stem the flow of blood from Nora’s arm.

“And did you know?” The High Lord growled out, barely concealing the threat of death in his voice, “Did you know he was faerie?”

The color drained from Nora’s face. 

This is it. Two choices: lie and say you didn’t know and maybe he’ll let you live. Or… tell the truth. Tell him you knew the wolf was a faerie. Tell him you killed him out of hatred. Go to Prythian… try and get home.

The beast caught the flicker of recognition in Nora’s eyes, caught the narrowing of her inky black eyes in a look of hatred. 

“You did know.” he seethed. He pulled away from her, disgust in his eyes at the feeble human girl before him. This was the girl who’d killed Andras. Some pathetic little human had slaughtered his trusted friend. “Did you enjoy it? Did you enjoy it when you slaughtered my friend.” He prowled about the room, never taking his eyes off the three of them still huddled in the corner by the cinders.

“Better him than me.” Nora held her head up, glaring at him.

“No.” Jaskiel breathed out, grabbing at her uninjured hand. “Please,” he begged the beast, “She’s my daughter. She’s young. She didn’t know any better. She was afraid.” 

“Is that true?” the beast hissed, baring his fangs, “Did he attack you?”

She squared her shoulders. “No.” 

“So you slaughtered him. Unprovoked. You murdered him.”

Nora barked out a laugh, “And how many humans have you murdered? How many will you continue to murder? How many homes will you break into? How many lives will you threaten?” her voice was filled with venom as she spit out the words, “I hope your friend is suffering right now in the afterlife. I wasn’t certain at the time, but now that I know he’s faerie I don’t regret it at all. I would do it again in a heartbeat.”

She ignored his deep growl and dealt a final blow, “It was a quicker death than he deserved.” 

With a roar he brought his claw down on the bookshelf next to him, shattering it completely. The beloved tomes tumbled onto the floor, half shredded and dusty from their fall.

If you were really going to kill me, you would’ve done it by now. 

The fear of a painful death with Tamlin sinking his teeth into her throat and thrashing her around had made Nora forget one key fact: she knew this story. She knew about the curse that hung over his head - that hung over Prythian - and like it or not, he needed her.

The realization gave her power. She stood up again, ignoring Dinah’s desperate hands as she tried to force her daughter to kneel again, “What do you want?”

“What do I want? I want justice for what you did. I want you to pay.”

“We’ll pay the cost.” Dinah said frantically, “Name your price.” 

Nora’s heart broke. Please don’t. 

They had no money to spare. Dinah worked hard enough as it was, coming home every night with bleeding and cracked hands, and Jaskiel could do little more than beg for scraps of work. The wealthy in the village would offer them no respite, no mercy. They were too comfortable behind their iron gates and towering walls. Nora didn’t want to see Dinah beg too.

“And what is the price you’d lay on your daughter’s head?” the beast asked, stepping off the ruined shelf. Dinah stilled. “Whatever pathetic sum you offer won’t be enough. Andras was worth more than one-hundred of you.”

“Then what would be enough?” Tell us and be done with it already. “What do you want?” 

“A life for a life. That’s what I want.”

“I’ll pay it.” Jaskiel said, voice even and strong. Dinah swore at him as he struggled to his feet, leaning heavily on his cane. 

“What the hell are you doing, Jaskiel?” Nora hissed, turning around and stepping directly between him and Tamlin. 

His kind face, weathered and leathery after decades of sea travel, softened when Nora’s face blocked the terrifying beast. She knew he liked her. He’d treated her with the love and kindness he would have shown his own daughter if he and Dinah had ever been blessed in that way. But the fact remained that Nora wasn’t theirs. She owed them a debt that could never be repaid and she wouldn’t forgive herself if anything happened to them.

“I’ll pay the price.” He said again, stepping to the side. Nora stepped with him, refusing to let Tamlin get close to Jaskiel.

“No he won’t.” Nora commanded, swinging back to Tamlin. The beast’s eyes flickered for a brief moment with something like surprise.

“As touching as the offer is,” he drawled, “I want the actual murderer.”

“Take me outside then. Don’t do it here.” 

Again, that flicker of surprise, “You dare ask for such a thing?” He scoffed, eyes narrowing.

“I wasn’t asking. You already ruined half the house and left a hole in the floor, you don’t need to fill it with blood either.” Nora spit out. 

He snarled, “For having the gall to ask me for such a thing, I’ll clarify something: I want your life. Prythian wants a life for the one you stole. So either you come with me across the wall to live out the rest of your days, or I take you outside and tear you to pieces as you so kindly told me to do.” His lips pulled back in a threatening smile. 

“So either you kill me here and now, or some other beast over the wall kills me in a few days time. Tell me, Beast, which would be quicker?”

He cocked his head to the side, eyes narrowed. There was something in the way he moved, cat-like and predatory. Doubt flickered within her. What if I’m wrong? What if he kills me?

“I have lands,” Tamlin said carefully after some consideration, “So long as you don’t leave those lands you will be safe.”

“And what about Dinah and Jaskiel?” His eyes flickered over to the pair. Dinah’s eyes were trained on him, fear and fury simmering under the surface of her now composed face. 

“What about them?” 

“They’ll die without me. You only asked for one life. What fairness in ‘a life for a life’ is there if my absence leads to their deaths.” 

Dinah and Jaskiel both tugged harshly at the back of her sleep shirt, begging her to control her boldness. 

If a wolf could frown, it would look like the annoyance that crossed Tamlin’s face. “They’ll be taken care of.” 

Nora’s breath caught in her throat. Did he mean it? He must mean it. I’ll give him hell if he doesn’t help them.

“You swear it?” 

Tamlin’s eyes passed through each of them in turn. Nora, the girl’s name was. He tested the name out in his mind finding it agreeable enough. And he had to admit, some small piece of him was impressed - if not annoyed - by her boldness. The couple would surely die without her, already their frames were too thin and delicate to support their aging souls. 

“I swear it.” He said, and found it a very easy promise to make, “But, you must promise to never leave Prythian. The moment you step foot back in the Human Lands, the deal is off, and I can’t promise what will become of your precious little family.”

“Take the offer.” Dinah said, turning Nora around and grasping her too-thin face. Tears welled up in her amber eyes and Nora did all she could to stop the rising emotions in her chest. “Take the offer. You’re a survivor, child. You’ll make it. You’ll make something of yourself.”

Jaskiel said nothing, face falling and aging twenty years in a few mere seconds.

“When does she leave?” Dinah said with a sniffle, wiping her tears away and taking a deep, shuddering breath.

“Now.” 

“Now?!” Nora wanted more time with them. She wanted one more night.

“Now.” The decision was not up for discussion.

Dinah grabbed Nora’s shoulders, pulling her into a bone-crushing hug. “Don’t worry about us,” she whispered, burying her face into Nora’s dark hair, “Just worry about taking care of yourself, alright? You know how.” She kissed Nora’s cheeks, wiping her hands on her nightdress as Jaskiel took his turn. 

Nora braced her legs, feeling the weight of Jaskiel in her arms as he held her close. His legs may have been weak and broken, but his arms were strong. He brushed the hair back from her face with a calloused hand, stormy gray eyes expressing all he could not say. Goodbye. You will always be a daughter to me. Until we meet again.

Dinah grabbed her thickest cloak from the back of Jaskiel’s chair and threw it over Nora’s shoulders. Somehow the most important piece of furniture had managed to survive Tamlin’s rage. Final whispers of encouragement escaped Dinah’s lips before the beast snapped at them to leave, maneuvering through the wreckage he’d created with grace and power. 

Nora could do nothing but allow her hand to slip through Dinah’s and quietly trail after the beast.

He led her to a beautiful mare that had been waiting obediently for them by the treeline. Her coat was as silky and pristine as a polished pearl. Nora hesitated. She’d never ridden a horse before, but Tamlin was in no mood to wait any longer. He grabbed her roughly by the waist with one paw and dumped her unceremoniously onto the mare’s back.

Asshole. She glared at the back of his horns as he led them into the night.

When Nora looked behind her she found Dinah and Jaskiel standing together in the gaping hole of their now ruined house. She didn’t stop looking until the woods closed around her and her home disappeared from sight.

>>>

They traveled for hours through the woods, the sun slowly sliding into place over the horizon and transforming the frost-bitten forest into the world’s largest chandelier. The constant rocking of the pearl-coated horse beneath her made Nora’s stomach turn and her thighs ached from the effort of staying upright. Tamlin’s utter silence didn’t make matters any better as he traced some secret path through the woods. Over time the rhythmic crunch of snow breaking beneath the mare’s hooves began to drive Nora to insanity.

You’re supposed to be getting me to fall in love with you, you know? Fucking idiot. 

The more and more Nora thought about the events from last night, the more irate she grew. He���d crashed into her house in the middle of the night in his beast form, scared them nearly to death, demanded Nora leave her home, and now wasn’t even putting in the effort to speak to her. It was deathly silent in these woods, as if even the squirrels and birds knew that royalty walked among them.

Nora huffed. Tamlin continued to walk unbothered. 

“You didn’t need to break into my house like that.” She said pointedly, breaking the silence. 

Tamlin’s left ear twitched. “What did you say?”

Nora rolled her eyes. With his fae senses there was no way he hadn’t heard her.

“I said you didn’t need to break into my house like that.”

He ignored her, which only fueled her desire to speak her mind out loud.

“You could have stolen me away in the night without bothering them. You could have waited until daylight when we weren’t sleeping.”

“You’re upset because my timing wasn’t convenient enough for you?”

Nora frowned. When he put it that way her words sounded quite childish. “What I’m saying is that you barged into my home with more pomp and circumstance and-and drama than you needed to.”

“You killed my friend.”

Nora stilled. She wanted to apologize for it. As much as she didn’t like Tamlin she regretted what she did. Part of the reason she hadn’t been able to fall asleep the night before was because she kept seeing the light leave Andras’s eyes. She couldn’t stop herself from hearing the pitiful whine that had escaped his throat as he finally stilled. She’d dared to touch his body to close his eyes. But as quickly as she’d laid her hands on him she’d reeled back. In the time it had taken her to gut the deer and bind it to the sled, his body had turned cold and rigid.

“You threatened to kill my family.” She said lamely.

“And yet they’re still alive, aren’t they?” “How can I trust you? How do I know you won’t just send someone else to kill them after we’re beyond the wall?” “I promised you they would be taken care of. I keep my promises. The question is whether you’ll keep yours.” His voice was gentler, more tired the further and further they got from Nora’s village. She thought his power would be tied to Prythian in some way - that he would gain strength as they neared the wall. Instead he was dragging his feet, limbs landing on the ground with heavier steps as they went along. She made note of every change in his body, storing the information away to mull over later.

“If it means they’re safe you can be sure I’ll keep true to my side of things.” She replied.

He’d been walking ahead of her the entire time, forcing the mare into a brisk pace that had Nora jolting in her seat, but after a few moments of cautious thinking he slowed down to walk beside her. Even while atop a horse, Tamlin stood taller than Nora, his horns dangling over her head like the swaying branches of a tree. She looked at them for a long while, tracing the grooves in the bone all the way down to where they connected to Tamlin’s skull. He stared at her the whole time.

“You don’t look like your parents.” Tamlin said carefully, catching her eye.

Nora snorted. With her dark hair and darker eyes and… well the rest of her, she was well aware that no piece of her looked like it came from Dinah or Jaskiel. 

“They’re not my parents.”

She flung her arm out, grasping at Tamlin’s horn for support when the mare took a quick jump over a fallen log. Her thighs were burning now, holding onto the lean body beneath her like a lifeline.

“Sorry.” Nora muttered, jerking her hand back to her body and cradling it beneath the folds of her cloak. She flexed it uncomfortably. 

She’d just touched the High Lord of the Spring Court. 

Suppressing a shiver she instead focused her attention on the strip of fabric still wrapped expertly around her forearm, running her fingers over the material and ignoring where it dried stiff with blood. It reminded her painfully of Dinah. She would have to mend the rest of her nightgown now. Nora hoped she hadn’t stained it too badly with any blood.

“What happened to your real parents?” Again he asked the question carefully, like she was a flight risk he couldn’t afford to scare off… which she very much was.

“They’re alive… or dead… I don’t know.” A truth. “I was stolen from them too and brought here from the Continent to be sold by slavers.” A lie.

“But you escaped.” He almost sounded impressed.

“Obviously.” 

And one day I’ll escape from you too. 

The words hung unspoken between the two of them like a spider’s web between two branches, delicate and complex. They descended into silence once more. 

“I’ll need to bind your eyes when we cross the wall.”

“What? Why?” Nora snapped her eyes to Tamlin and she forgot about the raven in the sky she’d been examining for the last twenty minutes.

“I cannot risk you seeing my lands.” His back tightened and he held his head up high.

“You said I would be safe in your lands.” 

“You will be. That doesn’t mean I want you to see all of them.”

Because you don’t want me to know how to run away. 

“Fine.”

A black silk sash appeared in Nora’s hands, cool as water and weightless as she obediently tied it tightly around her eyes. He must have enchanted the fabric because when she tugged at the knot she made it would not budge. She tested the blindfold but as much as she tried to pull it off it would not give. She huffed as she gave up, turning her head towards where she imagined Tamlin still was. He may be taller than a man and ten times heavier but his footsteps were imperceptible.

Blindness forced her to see with her ears, straining to identify every flutter of wings and rustle of snow falling onto the ground from a disturbed branch. She was just about to ask when they’d reach the wall when the world went still. 

All the sounds of the forest she’d been analyzing died out. Magic rippled through the air, humid and all consuming as it reached out for her. 

Her face paled. Suddenly she was back in the sea, screaming underwater as salt water filled her lungs and magic dragged her from her world to this one. Her reigns on the horse tightened, knuckles losing all their color. 

“Take off your cloak.” Tamlin said tightly. “You won’t need it anymore.” 

Nora only gripped the cloak tighter as though it would keep out the magic that threatened to consume her.

Tamlin said nothing, but he must have continued forward because despite Nora’s protests, the mare passed through the break in the wall. 

They passed through like they were passing through a waterfall. Magic rushed over Nora’s body, slick and alien, but it was quickly replaced by the comfortable heat of spring. The heady scent of flowers filled her nose, clouding her mind with their fragrance. While the oppressing winter in the Mortal Lands had driven all but the scavenger birds into their homes, here they fluttered about seeking companions with whom to live out the eternal spring. The subtle morning sun blanketed Nora’s shoulders, heating her up beneath her clothes. Still she refused to give up the last piece of her home. 

Tamlin let out a sigh of relief or despair - Nora couldn’t tell - as he felt his bond to Prythian grow once more. His magic would always run through his veins as intrinsically as blood - being in the Human Lands had done nothing to diminish that power - but he could not deny his connection to the magic that ran through Prythian, a magic that was beyond himself and to which he was only a borrower. These were the lands to which he would be tied until the end of his days. 

“Welcome to the Spring Court, Nora.” 

________________

Author’s Note: Hope you all enjoyed! Apologies it ended up a lot longer than I was expecting... whoops 😅. I have a masterlist up and am also starting a taglist so if you want to be added just let me know! 

Taglist: @myheartfollower​ @impossibelle

[jate-kara]

Unrepentant | On AO3

"I'm told you've already heard."

Shiro didn't look up from the pieces of Trespasser he'd spread out across the workshop table. It had been too long since he'd taken it all the way apart and put it back together again - not since he'd shown the Young Wolf how to build their own. But he still knew every component by heart. They were solid weight in his hands. Familiar. Immutable.

He heard more than saw Saladin move from the doorway. His cloak rustled softly as he eased himself onto the bench at Shiro's side. "Bad news travels fast," Shiro bit out, to appease him. The half-assembled weapon trembled in his grip, and he hissed a curse under his breath. If he wasn't careful, he'd have to recalibrate the whole damn thing again.

Saladin's hand landed on his wrist and held tightly. "What are you going to do?"

An acrid retort burned in Shiro's throat. "Nothing," he muttered, and that tasted just as bitter as the scathing return he didn't say. "The Young Wolf has already made a vow of vengeance. I won't interfere. Wouldn't be right."

It turned in his chest: a truth he'd known and hadn't spoken aloud. The Young Wolf had been there, at the Prison of Elders, where the Barons had shot Sundance, and Uldren had executed Cayde. The Young Wolf had watched Cayde die. Of course they'd torn off to set the Shore ablaze. It was what any good Guardian - what any good friend - would do. Wouldn't be honorable to disrespect that Vow, but it felt like betrayal anyway.

Saladin was quiet for a long beat. "I don't believe you," he said at last. "He was too important to you for that."

"Cayde was important to everyone."

"Not like he was to you."

Shiro yanked his arm free and turned his attention back to Trespasser. Saladin didn't stop him, though he didn't leave either. They sat in tense silence while Shiro slowly assembled, tested, calibrated, and recalibrated the weapon. Once it was done, he cradled it gently in both of his hands. Same steady hum. Always reliable. His one irrevocable constant.

"Why are you here?" Shiro asked, more roughly than he'd meant to.

Saladin gave a heavy sigh. "You really have to ask?"

"I don't want to talk."

"Neither did I, after Rasputin raised the bodies of the Iron Lords. And I seem to remember telling you the same thing. Maybe you can remind me how well that went."

Shiro avoided his gaze. "I don't want to talk," he said again, as if it would be any more convincing the second time when it hadn't even dented the steel of Saladin's resolve the first.

Saladin's hand fell on his shoulder and squeezed. "I know what it's like to be the last survivor. That grief. That pain. It will destroy you if you let it. You have borne the loss of your entire pack, and now I find you here, alone, with your sidearm in hand. You tell me that you aren't going to pursue Uldren. I'll accept that. Now tell me that whatever it is that you are planning to do won't end with your final death."

The ache sitting heavy in his chest surged and swelled until it exploded in a blinding burst of agony. Shiro snapped to face him, but for all of the fire burning in the heart of his frame, he couldn't break the strangled silence between them. Andal had suffered and died, and Shiro had stayed back and let Cayde swear vengeance against Taniks, because Andal had been the other half of Cayde’s soul, and Taniks was supposed to be dead already. Then Tevis had gone off to the Black Garden on his own without a damn word to Shiro about it - not a warning, and not a goodbye. And he hadn't come back, and Shiro had listened when Cayde had begged him to leave it alone, because they were the last of their fireteam, and because Cayde hadn't sounded so broken since they'd lost Andal. Now Cayde was dead, too, and the Young Wolf was on the trail of his killer while Shiro sat safely in the Iron Temple, drowning in the same useless grief.

He shrugged out of Saladin's grasp and pushed himself to stand. "I've assigned my patrols to a few reliable fireteams. Give my room to whoever wants it. Maybe Marcus Ren. He's sent in more than one request to test Sparrows on the mountain. You should consider it. He's a good Hunter, and he might liven things up around here."

"No," Saladin returned immediately. "The room is yours, and so it will remain vacant until you return."

"I don't know if I'll ever be back."

Saladin's stare was unwavering. "Then it will stay vacant forever."

"Is this about me leaving, or about not wanting Ren in here?"

A ghost of a grimace twisted Saladin's mouth. "Where Marcus Ren goes, Enoch Bast always follows. If I let them in, Felwinter Peak will never know peace again."

A suffocating silence fell over them like a veil. The Iron Temple had been his sanctuary for a long time; it was the first place that had brought him any measure of peace since his fireteam had fractured. Now Shiro breathed and felt the truth settle in his chest: Cayde was dead, he was the last one left, and this wasn't home anymore. It was just another end.

Saladin made the first move to break the deathly quiet. He stood, too, and clapped a hand on Shiro's shoulder. "You'll be back," he said, with a certainty that didn't reach his eyes. "A long time ago, you swore to compete in the Iron Banner. I intend to hold you to that promise."

"I said once things had settled down. They haven't."

"Then you'll have to stay alive until they do."

Shiro waited too long to answer. Every line of Saladin's body was strung through with sudden tension. His jaw twitched. A storm raged in his eyes, first defiant fury, then fear, then grief, and finally, quiet resignation. He stayed there for a beat more, like he was burning the moment into the back of his mind, and then he was gone. The heavy iron door slammed shut behind him.

Suzume shimmered to life. She bobbed once, like she was studying him, then floated gently to eye level. "Shiro," she started, "you promised."

Trespasser fit perfectly in his grasp. The core pulsed a steady beat. "The person I made that promise to is dead."

"Cayde still wouldn't want you to take this kind of risk."

What Cayde had wanted didn't matter anymore. "You don't have to come with me. Stay here, where it's safe."

Suzume gave an exasperated huff. "I go where you go," she said. "Always."

"This once, I wish you wouldn't."

"Always," she repeated, as if he hadn't said anything. "To the very end."

Trespasser slipped smoothly into its holster. Shiro took one last look at the workshop, then hoisted his survival pack and turned away. He knew the route to the hangar so well he could walk it in his sleep. He felt every step. He felt nothing at all. He'd done this a thousand times. He might only ever do it once more.

"Suzume, do me a favor and scan the ship for trackers."

"You don't think Lord Saladin would do that."

"You and I both know he would."

Suzume muttered something so quietly Shiro couldn't make it out, and not for the first time, he felt a pang of distant regret, somewhere beyond the numb haze. "All trackers neutralized," she reported softly, hovering over his shoulder as he started the ship's ignition sequence. Right about now is when she'd usually call Cayde for him, and they'd talk until the screaming void in Shiro's head was finally quiet. But there was no more Cayde. There was no more fireteam. There had only ever been a few other people in the entire universe who knew how to pull him back from the gaping maw, and Suzume was the only one left. He should listen to Suzume more. He should care about that strained note in her voice. The broken desperation bleeding from every word. It should be killing him. Why wasn't it killing him?

The jumpship roared to life, carrying them out of the Temple and high into the atmosphere. They'd barely reached its edge when the holo blared to life. Saladin's expression was somewhere between disbelief and agony.

"You can't pursue Uldren," he said, volume rising with every word, "and Taniks is finally dead. But the Black Garden isn't an answer. It's suicide. Whatever you destroy, the Vex will just rebuild. On your corpse."

Shiro heard the words as if Saladin had shouted them from across a chasm. "I'm not going to try to destroy it. I just need to see it for myself."

"You're lying. To me, and to yourself. You don't want to see where Tevis Larsen died. You want to set the world on fire because he's gone. Because they're all gone, and this is the only vengeance you can reach."

Shiro didn't answer. Couldn't answer. Saladin stopped long enough to take a measured inhale. "Come back to the Temple, Shiro. Don't waste your life. Don't waste Suzume's life. She'll never abandon you. If you die in there, so will she."

"Suzume makes her own choices."

Saladin's face twisted painfully. "Was Cayde really all that was holding you back from this?"

There had been too many late nights, putting in coordinates and clearing them out and putting them back in. Too many times he'd curled up in his jumpship while Cayde chattered in his ear: You were always making up stories for us, Shiro. Lemme give it a try. I call this one Tevis Finally Learns How To Smile. Shiro had watched the sun rise from the pilot's seat. Had met the dawn with cool engines and a quiet heart. Had always murmured Thank you and every time, without fail, Cayde had returned Any time, Shiro. You call me any time you need me, you got that? I'm not goin' anywhere. That's a promise.

"Doesn't matter," Shiro forced, past the swelling grief. "Goodbye, Lord Saladin."

"Shiro-"

The comm cut out with a sickening buzz of static. Shiro slumped in his seat, barely conscious of Suzume's disapproving hum. "So," he muttered, "'all trackers neutralized', huh?"

Suzume dipped one half of her shell in her best imitation of a shrug. "I thought he should know where we were, at least."

"You don't think he'll try to stop me?"

"I think he knows you'd never forgive him if he did. But if we disappear, they'll know where to look."

Shiro tugged his hood up. It made sense. He should've thought of that. He should be thinking of a plan now. He'd told himself he'd come up with one, for Suzume's sake, if nothing else. Still, every time he tried, all he could manage was a vague sense of sickness, and a hand on the holster at his hip. There was a wall between him and the urgency he knew he should feel: infinite and insurmountable. He didn't have the strength to strike it. Didn't have the will, either.

They didn't talk the rest of the way to the Moon, or when they touched down, or when the nightmare shrieks split the silence between them. The Lunar Battlegrounds were too close to the Scarlet Keep for him to have landed there comfortably, so he left his ship on the outskirts of Sorrow's Harbor, and slowly made his way to the bridge, and then the Battlegrounds. The Vex gate was tucked into a cavern there, if the latest report was to be believed, and if the Hive hadn't launched some major offensive that had destroyed it in the last few weeks. Should be as simple as sneaking in and waiting for an activation. Could always provoke a Hive attack if it took too long.

Could always throw himself through and hope he survived.

Shiro called on the Light and bent it around him in a cloak, then slipped into the passage. There were no Vex on the route there, and only a few sentries in the cave itself. He took up a position behind one of the pillars closest to the Gate, Trespasser in hand, and settled in for a long wait. Kept a constant count of the hobgoblins. Kept an eye on the time. Kept himself here, with his back pressed to cold stone, and with his focus on the electric pulse of Trespasser's core beneath his palm. Constant. Immutable. Always.

"Shiro," Suzume called, through their internal comm, "are you okay?"

Of course he was okay. As far as waiting went, this was far from the longest he'd had to stay in one spot. One time he and Andal had spent three weeks on the same cliff. And thank the Traveler it had been Andal and not Tevis. Andal would at least talk to you on long stakeouts. Tevis would go dead silent.

"Shiro, you're shaking."

He wasn't. Couldn't be. Trespasser trembled in his hands. When had he started shaking? Shiro managed a shallow breath, and then another. Suzume was tucked away in her pocket dimension, safe from any enemy's sight, but he could still feel the jagged edge of her worry cutting into the back of his mind.

"I'm okay," he sent back. "Keep an eye on the Gate."

Suzume didn't respond. The jagged edge sharpened. He brushed it away. He shouldn't be able to brush it away. Shiro shook his head. He just had to hold out until the gate opened. The Garden was massive, by all accounts. If they made it in, there should be plenty of ways to skirt the Vex sentries, at least long enough to make it to the site.

At least long enough to see where Tev had died.

"What are you going to do after?" Suzume asked.

Shiro gave her the mental equivalent of a shrug. Suzume hesitated. "Are you sure it won't be…too much?"

"I'll be fine. Tev has been gone for years. This is just - closure."

"There was a funeral," Suzume reminded, though there was no weight to her words. They both knew Hunters took no comfort in formalities. The funeral had been held by some of Tevis's other old - comrades? Friends, maybe. Not close enough to him to know he wouldn't have wanted it. Shiro had helped Cayde lay Tevis to rest, but he hadn't gone to whatever ceremony had been held later. He hadn't cleaned his City apartment after, either - not of Tevis's various trinkets, or Cayde's extra cloaks, or Andal's books. It was still sitting untouched, like a monument to his loss: precious fragments of the people he never thought he'd have to live without.

"Yeah," Shiro said at last. "Tevis would have hated it."

That got him a strained chuckle. He couldn't return it. He didn't even want to. There was a void in his chest where that faint warmth was supposed to be. Trespasser's hum was steady. He focused on it until the tremors in his hands stopped completely. Until it didn't hurt to breathe.

The gate stayed quiet for a few hours. When it finally burst to life, Shiro wasted no time in darting through it. He registered a whirlwind rush and an ear-splitting buzz,  and then he found himself on the other side. There was a lot of green for a Vex outpost; besides some bronze plates and glowing confluxes, the rest was worn stone and open sky. It was enough to stop him dead two steps from the portal.

"Shiro, there are Vex incoming. We need to move," Suzume bit out, and he jolted, casting a glance over his shoulder to make sure she was still there, hovering in the cover of his cloaking field, and not trapped on the other side of the gate. The Vanguard report said Tev's Ghost had gotten separated from him, and that was how they'd both ended up needing burials. Shiro had wondered for a long time after that if it had been bad luck, or if the Vex had done it deliberately: if they'd found a way to sever the lifeline so they could seize some connection to the Light. If they'd known somehow that Tevis had been deeply connected to the Void - that even when the Darkness was so thick you could barely breathe, he could still feel the Call. Shiro still wondered now, as he slipped by the few Vex that were mulling around the gate, and as he climbed until he had a decent vantage, well away from their eyes, where he could pause to orient himself and punch in the coordinates he'd pulled out of the Vanguard's report archives.

"You know, there could have been an army waiting for us on this side," Suzume grumbled. There was no bite to her words, just barely restrained fear. Odd for her. She usually had such total faith in their teamwork.

Shiro spared her a glance. "There wasn't."

"But there could have been. What happened to making a plan? We always make a plan."

Shiro didn't have an answer for that. "We should get moving. No telling how long it'll be before more Vex come through this quadrant."

The Garden was towering and ethereal. It seemed older than even the Vex's eternity, like the stone had been hewn and worn by a force beyond concept and calculation. Shiro felt it in every step: the reverberation of some ancient power, so potent that even now, eons after its genesis, it still suffused the mesas and the ruins. The closer they came to Tevis's final stand, the stronger it was. By the time Shiro caught sight of the first of the old Void tether scarring, it was so thick that it weighed on him with every breath. He followed the trail of the fight through that heavy fog until it led him to the end: a Hunter's helmet painted with the vermillion stripe, surrounded by scoring, and set gently against the stone.

Suzume said something, but Shiro couldn't hear her over the ringing in his head. The arc cloak slipped away in a snap of electric blue. Tevis had stood here, against a horde, with nothing but his bow and the final burst of the Light with which it had been infused. He'd fought, and he'd faltered, and he'd fallen, and the last damn thing he'd seen before he died was the cold glow of a Vex as it buried its rifle in his chest and burned out his heart. Cayde's account had been sparse with the details, but the Young Wolf's report had filled them in. Tevis hadn't been on the comm in his final moments. Interference, they'd said, and maybe it was true.

Or maybe Tevis had wanted to spare Cayde from hearing him scream.

The Light surged around Shiro in a storm. Trespasser was a solid weight in his hand. The core pulsed as it charged to full capacity, faster than the pounding in his chest. The numb haze between him and the rest of the world split wide with a thunderous crack, so sharp and searing that it hit him like an inferno blast. He couldn't breathe for the shattered grief; he couldn't see for the strangled rage. Tevis had died here - cornered, afraid, and alone. He had been beyond Shiro's reach. Just like Andal. Just like Cayde. Too far. Always too late. Shiro's hands shook. A violent tremor wracked his spine. He could release the storm and burn to ashes in his own Light and it wouldn't bring them back. There was nothing and no one left to save. There was only death. There was only another end.

"Breathe, Shiro."

Hands fell on his shoulders, holding tight. The storm surged higher. Shiro opened his mouth to say something - say anything - and all that came out was a broken sob. He tried to raise Trespasser, but it fell from his useless fingers instead. He couldn't fight this. He didn't want to. Real or not - it still looked and moved exactly like Tevis Larsen, down to the strained set of his spine, and the raw fear in his eyes. The only difference was the shimmer around his outline, and the Garden's ethereal glow on his skin.

"Breathe," Tevis said again, and shook him when he didn't respond. "Damn it, Shiro, if you don't get a grip you're gonna bring a whole Garden worth of Vex down on your head."

"Tev," he said, like a prayer, or a plea.

The grip shifted, so it was more gentle strength than sheer desperation. "Yeah," he said. "I'm here. I gotcha."

"You died."

"I am dead. Or whatever passes for dead here."

"But you-"

"Look, I'll explain once you don't look like you're gonna explode." Tevis's tone softened. "Just breathe for me, all right?"

Shiro stared at him for a long beat, then took a shuddering inhale. Another. The storm receded like the tide, and Shiro staggered, steadied only by the ghostly grip on his shoulders. "Easy," Tevis murmured, and guided him carefully to the ground, so he was sitting propped up against the stone wall. Once he seemed satisfied that Shiro wasn't going to spontaneously erupt into a shower of sparks, he crouched in front of him.

"You look like shit," Tevis announced, though there was resignation there rather than his usual dry teasing.

Shiro flinched at it. He'd spent so many nights staring up at the stars and wondering what he'd say, if he could see Andal or Tevis again. Now, the words stopped in his throat. His chest was on fire. He wanted to scream, but when he opened his mouth, the best he could manage was a wounded keen.

"Shiro," Tevis called, from somewhere beyond the hurricane in his head. He sounded worried. He shouldn't sound like anything at all. He was dead and gone and this was a trick of the Garden or of Shiro's desperate mind. Tevis had left him behind a long time ago, without even a simple goodbye.

"You're dead," Shiro croaked. "You're not really here."

A cool palm pressed to his cheek. "Yeah," Tevis said, voice strained. "I died. Garden turned me into this, all right? But I'm still me."

"You're not," Shiro forced, through the fresh wave of grief. "If you were, you would've come back."

Tevis seized one of Shiro's hands and held on fiercely. For a moment, he was silent, trembling. "I can't," he said at last, like the words had been punched out of him. "I'm bound to the Garden. From what I can make out, the Vex think I'm some kinda paracausal entity. Anomaly. I tried, Shiro - I swear I tried, more times than I can remember. Goin' near the Gate is like getting torn apart."

Shiro didn't answer. Couldn't. Dimly, he heard Suzume reminding him that Tevis had still been a Guardian when he'd died, and that the Vex had never been able to simulate the Light or its Risen, and that the Black Heart had been born here, before the Young Wolf had destroyed it. That the place was humming with paracausality. That there could be a trapped soul.

That Tevis might not be beyond his reach.

Tevis was still silent, and still holding on. Slowly, Shiro reached out and pressed his palm flat against his chest. Felt it rise and fall with every breath. Felt the rapid pulse pounding beneath. Tevis's thumb stroked a gentle line along the sharp curve of his cheek. "I'm here," he said softly. "Just breathe."

Shiro stayed there, motionless in the quiet, until the hurricane subsided, then let himself slump forward to rest his forehead against Tevis's sternum. "You're cold."

"Side-effect of being a paracausal manifestation," Tevis returned, with a wry smile in his voice. "Can't hold it forever, either. Sometimes I'm just a whisper."

Shiro's next inhale shuddered. When Cayde had sat Shiro down and explained what had happened, he'd taken all of the blame on himself. He'd said he'd asked Tevis to scout a network of Vex gates, and that he had as good as sent him to Mars, and then his death in the Garden. Shiro had known better. Tevis was cautious and paranoid, but he'd also been more of a loner than any of them. He went where he wanted and did what he wanted, with or without support. Andal had, by virtue of being Andal, been better at clocking and then talking Tevis out of the more dangerous exploits, or, failing that, convincing him not to go alone. He'd had a kind, genuine way with his words, and whether he meant to or not, he was always bleeding open concern when he was really worried. It had done Tevis in the same as the rest of them. But while Cayde had been no less important to Tevis, he hadn't had the benefit of that sway. He'd done everything he could to keep Tevis safe; Shiro knew that without having to ask. It had just been a doomed effort from the start.

The pressure building in his chest swelled until it burst. "You just left," Shiro said, and the words exploded out of him in a harsh whisper. "Why in the hell didn't you say something?"

Tevis stiffened, but he didn't push away. He didn't respond, either. His hand slipped around to cradle the back of Shiro's head, then resumed that soothing touch.

"I would have come with you."

"I know. Didn't want you to. Seemed like you'd finally found a place you liked when you moved into the Iron Temple. Wasn't gonna drag you out into the Wilds again when you were happy scouting for Cayde."

"That's a decision you should have left to me."

Tevis blew out a breath. "Then we both might've been trapped here for the rest of eternity."

"You could've at least said goodbye."

Tevis's hold on him tightened. "Didn't think it was gonna be goodbye."

"Well, it was." Shiro moved to lift his head, and while Tevis didn't resist, the tremor in his hands was enough to give Shiro pause.

"I know you're pissed, Shiro. But I'm glad it was just me," Tevis said roughly. "Couldn't live with myself if this happened to you too."

The fire in Shiro's chest flickered and died. "Damn you," he muttered, though there was no bite to it.

It earned him a ragged imitation of a laugh. Tevis eased him to sit up, but he didn't let go of his hand. "I deserve that," he said. "And for whatever it's worth, I'm sorry. Tell Cayde for me too, huh? I know he took this on himself."

Shiro flinched so violently that for a half a beat, Tevis looked panicked. At first, he registered it as a reaction to the apology - but even after years away, he still knew Shiro better than anyone else alive. The pieces fell into place, and Tevis's grip on his hand tightened. His shoulders set into a stiff line. He locked his jaw and released it just as quickly, like he couldn't decide if he wanted to say what he was thinking. The intent focus in his eyes shifted to sharp desperation. "Where's Cayde?" he asked, and his voice cracked. "There's no way he would've let you come here alone. Not after I…"

He trailed off. Shiro tried to answer, and the words stuck in his throat. Tevis didn't seem to need him to, though. He bowed his head to his chest and took a slow and measured breath. "How?" he forced, through a mouthful of glass.

"Breakout at the Prison of Elders went bad. The Barons got Sundance. Then Uldren Sov executed Cayde."

Tevis's expression turned murderous. "Tell me you killed that bastard."

"The Young Wolf is going to. They were there for his last words. They swore the Vow before I even heard about it."

Tevis pressed his eyes shut. His grip on Shiro's hand would have been bruising if he was anyone else. His breathing was shallow. He tried to say something else, and all he managed was a ragged exhale. "One shot, straight to the chest," Shiro said quietly, in answer to the question he couldn't ask. "He didn't suffer the way Andal did, Tev."

Tevis's shoulders shook and seized back into that tense line. Shiro waited for him to pull away, to fade into nothing, and to take his grief somewhere no one could ever reach, but while Tevis's arms were trembling, his hold on Shiro didn't waver. "Damn it," he choked, and curled in on himself like he was protecting a wound.

Shiro risked a slight tug on their joined hands. Tevis didn't meet his eyes, but he offered no resistance when Shiro pulled him forward, except to refuse to let go. Once they were settled, Tevis rested his forehead against Shiro's shoulder. The pain cascaded through him in waves. He didn't ask for silence, or for Shiro to wrap an arm around him and cradle him close, but Shiro remembered losing Andal, and the agony after, and all the ways they'd broken apart, and in those moments, he'd always known Tevis better than Tevis knew himself.

"Why'd you come here?" Tevis whispered, once his breathing had evened. "The hell were you doing, trying to get yourself killed?"

"I wasn't-"

"Like hell you weren't. You're still complete shit at lying to me."

Shiro dropped his head back against the wall. It hit with a dull, metallic thud. "Don't."

Tevis was quiet for a long beat. "What was your plan?" he asked. "After you saw where I died."

It wasn't a question - not really. Tevis knew the answer already. Shiro said it anyway. "I didn't have one."

"That's not like you."

"Haven't felt like me in a while, anyway."

Tevis considered him a moment, blew out a breath, then carefully leaned backwards to meet Shiro's gaze. "There was something Andal told me, a long time ago," he said. "I was in a bad headspace. You were on a solo run, wasn't anything you knew about. Cayde did his best to help me out of it. Didn't stick. Lush was still too scared of me to try. Andal, though - he followed me up a damn mountain without a word even after I told him to fuck off seventeen different ways, and we sat there for hours. Wasn't until the stars were out that he said anything. He told me I couldn't earn the right to be alive. That I was here, and that was enough. 'You went through hell and survived,' he said, 'and we're glad you did, so stop trying to repent for it.' Never figured out how he knew. But I've never forgotten what he said."

Shiro's chest ached. "Andal was always good at that kind of thing."

Tevis's smile was sad. "Wish he was here for you now. Instead you get me."

"You're more than enough, Tev."

"I'd settle for just enough." Tevis set his jaw. "I want you to get the hell out of here. Go see the stars. Find the Deep Stone Crypt you're always seeing in your dreams. Write your stories. You remember Cayde, and Andal, and me. But you live. You hear me, Shiro? You stay alive."

Tevis searched his eyes for a reaction. Shiro wasn't sure what he found. Wasn't sure what he wanted him to find. Fire rose in his chest, and died all at once. He wanted to run until he collapsed. He didn't think he could bear to move a single step away. "I can't leave you here," he said hoarsely, and every word felt like a knife.

Tevis sighed. Shiro half braced for a scathing retort before he realized there wouldn't be one. "The Garden will kill you if you stay in it long enough," he said. "And I don't mean the Vex. I mean whatever they did to it. It'll pull your mind apart and put it back together wrong. Can't touch me. But I'm not gonna watch it happen to you. You have to go."

He squeezed Shiro's hand. Maybe to comfort. Maybe to ground himself. Years alone in the Garden, surrounded by Vex and cut off from the rest of the universe and from the Light: Tevis had always tolerated most other people with some degree of begrudging acceptance, but that sounded desperately lonely, even for him.

Shiro took a steadying breath. For the first time since he'd heard about Cayde, there was something beyond the wall. Something on the other side of the numb haze. Something he could reach. "I'm going to find a way to bring you home, Tev. I promise."

"Is talking you out of your death wish really that much of a lost cause?"

"Not a death wish. A recovery mission."

Tevis bowed his head for a second. "Make sure they're not the same damn thing," he muttered. "You better not get killed over me."

"I won't. I promise."

Tevis grimaced. "You better not," he repeated, but this time, underneath the exhaustion and the lingering grief, there was a soft note of relief. He dragged Shiro into a tight hug. The tense line of his shoulders relaxed completely.

"How long do you have?" Shiro asked, muffled against his shoulder. "Before you're gone for a while."

Tevis made a tired, considering noise. "Couple hours, maybe. Long enough to get you back to the Gate. Make sure you don't hit trouble."

"Shouldn't we have run into some by now?"

"Usually, sure. But the Vex have me logged as an anomaly. Pretty sure if they see something weird happening where I am, they just assume I caused it. Doesn't mean I'm eager to test the limits on it, though. You razing a few miles of the place probably would have been more than we could play off."

Shiro let him pull away, even if every fiber of his frame ached to hold on. Through it all, Tevis had kept their hands clasped. He used that connection to pull Shiro to his feet. "C'mon," he said. "Patrols are light near the gate right about now. We should get moving."

Shiro picked up Trespasser and followed him back across the Garden. They moved in comfortable silence until they reached the archway that led to the Gate. There, Tevis stopped so suddenly that Shiro stumbled for the force of the arm pulling him back.

"This is as far as I go," Tevis said. "Be careful coming out the other side."

Shiro held up their joined hands. "Forgetting something here?"

Tevis's jaw trembled. He unwound his grip slowly, like Shiro would disappear if he let go too quickly, then flexed his fingers and waved toward the gate like he was shooing Shiro through. "Get out of here," he muttered. The tension was back in his shoulders. He folded his arms across his chest, maybe to brace, or maybe in an effort to seem more like his old self. He just ended up looking miserable.

Shiro closed the small distance between them and dragged him in close. "Hey," Shiro murmured. "I'll come see you when I can, even if I don't have a way to get you out yet."

Tevis's forehead hit his chestplate with a dull thud. "No," he said. "Too risky."

"I wasn't asking, Tev."

Tevis grumbled something unintelligible under his breath and pushed away. Shiro clasped one of his hands between both of his own and squeezed, once. "You'll be okay here on your own until then?"

"Been fine for years," Tevis returned, but his flinch betrayed him. "Just - say goodbye to Cayde for me."

"I will."

Tevis nodded a voiceless thanks. "Remember what I told you, all right?" he said, and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "About being alive. Don't get so damn caught up in losing us that you forget we're glad you survived. And don't look back when you leave. Makes it harder."

Beyond them, the gate hummed to life. Shiro squeezed Tevis's hand one more time, then let go, and called on the Light. The arc energy bent around him in a rush. He turned and sprinted for the gate before he could think twice about it.

And if he looked back, just once before he stepped through, it wasn't like Tevis would know.

"I owe you an apology."

Suzume didn't answer him. It wasn't clear if she was just absorbed in parsing all of the scrolling data, or if she was ignoring him. The Iron Temple's workshop rung with her silence. "Suzume," Shiro said gently. "Talk to me?"

Suzume whirled around so suddenly he startled; then she hovered there, unmoving, for a long moment. "Never tell me to stay behind," she said. "And never put yourself at risk like that again. We're a team. Always."

Shiro patted her shell carefully. "I can do that," he said. "And I'm sorry."

"Also, I sent a message to Lord Saladin telling him everything."

"You what? "

"If you're going to do this, someone needs to know in case we get in over our heads. Cayde can't any more, so I asked Saladin." Suzume sounded remarkably matter-of-fact. Shiro almost wanted to be annoyed by it. "He should have received the message as soon as we landed, which means-"

The heavy door of the workshop swung open so quickly and with so much force that it slammed into the wall with a thunderous crash; a spiderweb crack formed in the stone behind it. Saladin strode through like a man surveying a battlefield. As soon as he caught sight of Shiro, his posture relaxed - from Commander to friend.

"I saw your ship in the hangar," Saladin said, coming to a stop at Shiro's side. He glanced over the table strewn with various weapon components, traditional books, stacks of datapads, and star chart projections. "You've been busy."

"You got Suzume's message," Shiro corrected, without looking up.

"That too." Saladin gingerly shifted a pile off the bench next to Shiro, then eased himself down. "I thought I'd find you here. Another reconstruction?"

Trespasser hummed steadily in his hands. "I just did a full rebuild. It doesn't need another one for a while. This was for a modification."

Saladin was quiet for a beat. "Did you find the vengeance you were looking for in the Black Garden?"

Shiro set his weapon aside. "No," he said. "But I'm glad I didn't."

"So am I."

Saladin didn't elaborate. Shiro spared him a glance. "Say what you came here to say."

"I came here to say that I'm glad you're still alive."

Saladin's tone was carefully neutral. Shiro turned to face him fully. "That's all? Even after Suzume's message?"

"You're going to pursue this regardless. I don't see the point in wasting my breath. However, there is a condition to my assistance."

Shiro cast him a wary look. "When I left the workshop before," Saladin started, "I thought that I was giving you the space you needed. That you would go to the City, or to an old hideout, to clear your head. It was only because Suzume transmitted your intended coordinates that I had any idea what you were planning to do, and by then, it was too late. Do not put me in that position again. Having to explain to the Vanguard why I required extraction from the Moon is not an experience I want to repeat."

Shiro started. "You followed me?"

"Not to stop you. Just to make sure that you came back in one piece. I had the unfortunate luck to run into some newly arrived Hive reinforcements - several Tomb ships' worth. They destroyed my ship, and I was never able to make it to the Battlegrounds."

Guilt curled in Shiro's chest like a vice. "I'm sorry," he said. "Are you all right?"

Saladin's hand fell on his shoulder and held tight. "There's no need for an apology. I'm no worse for wear."

Not this time. Next time, he could end up like Eris's fireteam, or one of the countless other Guardians haunting the Moon as a Nightmare. Shiro curled a hand into a fist. "Thank you for coming after me. It - means a lot."

"There's no need for thanks, either."

Shiro huffed a disbelieving laugh. "Can you be less of a pain in the ass for a minute? I'm trying to make amends."

Saladin's mouth curved into a small smile. "There's no need for amends," he said, and shifted his shoulders so his pauldron was toward Shiro to catch the half-hearted shove. "You will always have a home here in the Iron Temple, Shiro. And you will always have friends here, as well. You need only ask."

Warmth bloomed in Shiro's chest. "That's a relief. I thought I might have to kit my ship out to be a living space again."

Saladin arched an eyebrow. "Again?"

"Back when I was running with the pack, Cayde decided he hated the snow. He wouldn't go out in it unless he had full gear, and he wouldn't make camp with the rest of us if it was cold. All he said was it was bringing up memories he didn't understand and wanted to forget. I was the only one with a ship big enough to modify for it, so I did. We all wound up in there on every cold weather assignment afterwards."

"Do the cold and snow bother you as well?"

Shiro shrugged. "Can't really let it bother me when I live on a mountain."

Saladin tilted his head at him. "That wasn't an answer."

"It wasn't meant to be." Shiro paused. "I don't get whole pictures the way Cayde said he did. Just flashes. It's cold. I wake up. Something's wrong but I never know what. I feel like I have to get out, but there's nothing to run from. Maybe it's got something to do with the Crypt. Maybe it's something some other version of me went through. Maybe deep down, I just hate the way snow feels."

That earned him a soft chuckle. "Come with me," Saladin said, pushing himself to stand. "We'll light a torch in Cayde's honor. And you can tell me more about your pack."

Shiro stood to follow him. Trespasser was a steady weight in his palm. The modified core pulsed its new rhythm. Saladin glanced down at it, then back up at Shiro. "You never told me what you changed."

"I gave it a new charge distribution. It'll make the bursts more powerful."

"Are you going to give it a name?"

Shiro remembered the steady weight of Tevis's hand in own, of Andal's arm slung around his shoulders, of Cayde hanging off his back. He remembered the warmth of their smiles and the sound of their laughter and the simple peace of their presence. "I already did," he said, and the ache in his chest hurt a little less. "Unrepentant."

[brandwhorestarscream]

imperial harem au

so which concubine does starscream meet first and how does that play out?

Well unfortunately, it's not Thundercracker just yet 🤭 he'll get his time to shine, but where's the fun in immediately jumping straight into their romance? No, the Gilded Consort will have to wait. The first one the random generator gives him is the Peaceful Consort, daughter of the House of Diplomacy. Seems he's off to the Morganite Pavillion.

Star's a bundle of nerves all day, and is silently dreading it. What is he even supposed to do? Surely they won't immediately jump in bed together, right? Should he... ask her to have tea with him? Play chess? Go to the sculpture garden? This is so much worse than even the most unbearable of academic presentations: being stared down by 500+ students and faculty at the science academy was awful, but even that hadn't brought him this level of sickening anxiety.

He drags his feet all day, conveniently finding distraction after distraction, burying himself in work and study: there's always more he can be doing as the only prince of the country, after all. Before he knows it the day has slogged by, and he realizes night time is upon them.

WHICH IS SO MUCH WORSE BECAUSE GOING TO A CONCUBINE'S PAVILLION AT NIGHT CAN ONLY MEAN ONE THING-

Panicked, Starscream very nearly cancels. But he's been putting this off too long, and now there's only 5 days left in the decacycle. He has to stay on schedule, he has to go to the inner palace: the Winglord's word is law, and though his sire is a rather tender and merciful mech, inciting his ire isn't something Starscream wants to do. So... he has no choice but to head to his appointment.

When he finally arrives at the Morganite Pavillion, his servos are shaking. He lets himself in and it's already dark: the lights are off, and the only visibility is offered by dimly glowing candles. The air is heavily perfumed... seems the concubine is expecting more than just a casual first meeting. There's no sign of her staff or ladies in waiting. They're alone. He picks up on a faint spark signature on the far side of the room, right where the lavish berth is laid out. Waiting for him.

He tries to steel himself. He'll just tell her he's not interested in touching her and then he'll leave and never talk to her again. Yes, that's what he'll do. Is it cowardly? Maybe. Does he care? No! He just can't do it! Surely she'll be reasonable and understand, this definitely won't spark an outrage with the House of Diplomacy. They're diplomats. They'll understand. Probably. Hopefully.

He approaches the berth and he can see the outline of her body, already stretched out languidly and cradled in the silken finery each of them were afforded. He resets his vocalizer, feeling so awkward it's hard to speak. The words feel corked up in his throat. Why is he doing this?!

"Concubine Mi-"

And that's when he notices what a horrific state she's in.

Her optics are unlit but half open, visibly rolled into her helm, mouth open with a puddle of vomit pooled beneath her cheek, frame surrounded in a cloud of heat like an inferno, covered in a sheen of condensation.

"Ohmystars-!" Starscream nearly trips over himself in his hurry to get to her: she's laying on her side so he flips her on her back, grabbing her chin in one servo when her neck lolls helplessly. She doesn't respond when he smacks at her cheek, and for a horrible second he thinks she's dead. He checks for a pulse, pressing his helm against her chassis and, miraculously, her spark is still going. But it sounds slow, sluggish. Her vents are ragged and shallow, sawing in and out frantically as they struggle to cool her overheating frame. They're barely there, she's barely there.

Seems the Peaceful Consort has been poisoned >:)

[ikeromantic]

Hiiii, sorry to bug you but can you do a Mozart x f reader angst where MC has pretty low self esteem, but has SUPER bad coping mechanisms and Mozart tries to get MC help but she's very stubborn about not getting it, kinda like Tracy and Mel in thirteen. (if you've seen it ofc) Have a great rest of your day/night😁

I have not seen Thirteen (Reasons Why)! But it is on my watch list ^_^ I have to carefully measure out how much drama and angst I take in or it will eat up my writing! Approx. 1100 words of hurt, self harm, and comfort.

Mozart saw the changes in her as if he were reading notes on a page. The self-deprecating twist to her lips, the way she began avoiding everyone when she wasn’t working. Avoiding him. At first, he tried to pretend not to care. When she brought him his meals in the music room, he gave her exactly what she gave him.

Disinterest. 

They sparred with cruel words and cold looks, and every encounter left Mozart’s heart bruised. He did not understand what he’d done wrong. They’d been growing close - close enough that he held her hand. Shared a glass of wine. Told each other secrets never shared with another. And then after one recital at a noble estate, she’d gone dark on him. Dark and distant as a new moon. 

He remembered the night, if only because he’d found her in the gardens, crying. And she wouldn’t say why. He’d been surprised at her reticence then. Now, he felt it was the first shiver of this shift into a woman he felt he barely knew. There were only sparse moments, unguarded, when he could see his darling looking out her hooded eyes. 

Mozart wanted more than anything to bridge the gap between them. To understand why she was so angry, and what pain lay under that rage. He made a plan, as carefully as he drafted his compositions. The chorus was simple - ask and learn what lurked in her shadowed heart. But the melody . . . what note to begin? What key? What tempo?

He waited until she was in her room one evening, and fetched a few of her favorite things. Tea with a dollop of honey. Ginger cookies. A strawberry candy. Then he made his way there, tray in hand. Mozart considered knocking, but she might tell him to go away. That would ruin the whole plan. So he quietly opened the door, thankful it was unlocked. 

The sight within froze him midstep. She sat crosslegged on the floor in front of a candle. Her forearm was held above the hungry flame, blistering her flesh in a scarlet welt. Worse was her expression. Pained, of course, because the fire burned. But satisfied. As if she deserved what she gave herself. And disgust, a hatred for her own weakness.

Mozart recognized it, because he felt something akin to it as well. In his endless disappointments, his pathetic fears, his failures. He dropped the tray and lurched toward her, unsure what he would do but feeling he must do something. The door swung shut behind him, the tea spilled across the carpet, and the treats scattered over the floor.

She looked up, her face going slack with surprise. “What-” Her words cut short as he extinguished the candle and kicked it out of the way. Despite his smallish frame, Mozart had the strength of a vampire. And he used it now to haul her to her feet and into his arms. 

He did not realize he was crying. Nor did he see her face crumple at this sudden, unexpected embrace. “What are you doing, meine liebe? Your arm!” He gently touched the length of it, running his fingertips over half-healed burns and the scabs of old cuts. 

His words seemed to remind her that she should be angry at his invasion. She struggled to push him away, slapping at his chest and hands. “Let me go! What the fuck, Wolf?”

“No,” he replied, his voice soft but full of an inner steel. 

She slapped him. Hard. For a moment, Mozart saw white, nothing but an explosion of pain as his jaw slipped out of true, straining the tendons and ligaments in his neck and face. If he were a normal man, it would have broken. He’d have a bruise. But his flesh set to repairing itself almost as soon as the injury took place. 

He did not let go. “Meine engel, stop fighting me. Tell me what this is? What have you done? Why . . .” He jerked her arm straight, displaying the injuries for them both. 

“Why do you care,” she spat. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes, hot and angry. She pushed against him again. “Just - just let go, damn it! Get out!” The last word was more a howl than language, the sound of a soul in agony. 

Mozart could no more let go than he could cut off his own arm. He pulled her close instead, enduring the scrape of her sharp little nails, the hardness of her elbows and knees. She fought him with everything she had, until she exhausted herself and there were only tears left. 

When she collapsed against him in defeat, he held her. Silent but for her crying. What could he say? He did not know what words could set this right. Could not understand what drove her to this - this mutilation of her precious flesh. The harm to her body and soul, both of which he had come to love so much. 

“Just leave.” Her voice shook, tired and full to the brim with emotion. 

“I won’t. I can’t.” He pressed his forehead to her cheek, frustrated.

“Why not? Wh-why?” 

Mozart swallowed his own pride, his fear of rejection, and replied. “I love you. You are so - so very precious to me.” He kissed her cheek. The line of her jaw. The crook of her neck. “I love you so much I am mad with it. I’ve missed you so, these last weeks.”

“You don’t.” She turned her face from him. “You - you love music. I’m just . . . stupid. Useless. Pathetic.” Her hands clenched, white-knuckled, driving her nails into her palms. 

He lifted the fist to his lips and kissed each finger, slowly prying them loose until he could see her palm. Scored with little angry red crescents. He kissed those too. “You are none of those things. You are so strong, to come here and make a life for yourself. Far from everything you know. So smart, to learn so many new skills . . . my sweet. Meine liebling. Meine perle.”  

She gave a snort of disgust, pain still bright in her eyes. “I distract you. You’re b-better off -”

Mozart put a finger to her lips. “No. Never. I did not realize I was missing something, until you.”

Her eyes searched his face, hope and uncertainty wedded in that gaze. After a long silent moment, she laid her head on his shoulder and clung to him. 

There was nothing for him to do but hold her, and so he did. He sat with her on his lap, stroking her back in careful circles. He spoke too, words of love, endearments from his heart. Things he had never been able to speak until this night, until he realized how close he’d come to losing her to herself.

[hometoursandotherstuff]

This is the most expensive  A-Frame I’ve ever seen. It’s in Los Altos, California, has 4bd., 2.5ba and was built in 1957. $4.5M.

Surrounded by a privacy wall, you enter the property thru a private door, not a gate.

Inside, the MCM home has been remodeled, and look at the magnificent black beams, plus open and airy glass walls. Gorgeous stone fireplace goes straight up to the vaulted ceiling.

Behind the living room is a glass bump-out dining room.

Next is the kitchen that faces the glass wall looking out to the patio.

The MCM style kitchen has a new burgundy subway tile backsplash, placed vertically for added interest. 

There is also a family room with an attractive modern teal tiled fireplace and spiral stairs.

The main bd. isn’t exceptionally large, but it has a modern shiplap ceiling with beams, a door to the deck and an en-suite.

The en-suite has been renovated and has lovely MCM elements including marble counters and a vintage tub.

Nice walk-in closet.

The secondary bds. are a decent size. This one features a skylight.

The 2nd bath has a beautiful big shower.

A home office with lots of storage and a window seat.

In the peak of the uppermost floor of the house, is a great studio with access to a terrace.

There’s a half bath up here, also.

Would you believe that this is the garage?

I have never seen such a clean tool closet.

Notice that the beams of this home are steel and set in cement. Usually A-Frames of economical construction have wood beams.

It has a beautiful deck.

The grounds are lovely, like Japanese gardens.

The terrace for the studio.

Beautiful view from the terrace.

Look at the size of this thing- that’s a big long A-Frame.

https://www.25285lalomadr.com/?fbclid=IwAR1zkI7b6Mi4HJarNvUqV_gFdW8KJ-nOjdGjGnAEiEsK83TwtnCZqRFwOV8

[financieur]

V.04 ━━ Appartement 04A. Shared verse with @medicbled. After a year of a somewhat loose relationship, and a few months actually going out as a couple, the idea to move in somewhere together came to mind and prompted a search for the ideal place [ in France, a suggestion he hadn't thought Gloria would accept ]. They found the 04A, a 250m² last floor apartment with partial view of the Eiffel Tower, after two weeks of visits, a never-restored-before property that won Gloria's heart with broken plaster detailing and wooden bookshelves, and through her, it won Marcel.

Considering the Haussmannian characteristics of the apartment, restoration began right away, with her request to keep most of the property's original charm. Materials and colors were carefully picked by her from a selection of period appropriate made by the restoring team. Furniture and decor were partially bought from antique stores, and partially customized from designer furniture stores, kitchen and laundry appliances, cabinets and hydraulics were mostly custom. The entire apartment has plaster detailing, with only the living room and library having gilded finishes added to them. The only significant change made to the structure was the replacement of all original windows for steel-framed windows and BR-4NS glass carefully customized to retain the original antique appearance.

The first decision made towards the restoration were the materials for the flooring of the entire apartment: Marble and Oak. Marble was laid in a traditional cabochon pattern in the bathrooms and hallways, and in herringbone pattern in the laundry, while the hardwood flooring was done on the rest of the apartment to the chevron pattern that was the original design. After came the palette: White, blue, pink and golden, with the exception of Gloria's library, that kept a museum-like quality to it with deep green and cream accents. With everything set, furniture and appliances were tailored to fit her taste as well as the color palette.

While the common areas are all somewhat intertwined in their design, the private areas of the apartment allow more eclectic choices, specially in her library and his office [ which were a form of gift to the other, despite being both designed by Gloria ], with their opposite color palettes, choosing browns and greens over the gentle pale colors of the rest of the apartment, everything to feel as a piece of a museum or university within their bubble. Sleeping rooms bring back the original palette, and were initially both white and blue, entirely classic in their design, but in 2018 the guest room was converted in a pink chinoiserie style fairytale garden nursery to house their first child, Sophia. The main bedroom remains pale blue and white, with golden accents with a white marble bathroom.

The renovations took three months, and by October 2015 they had moved in. They only moved out of the 04A in late 2021.

[rinwellisathing]

Papa Bhaal's House of Horrors: Part 2

The basement of the homestead was split into two rooms, one glowing ominously red beneath the door, the smell of incense and blood and muffled chanting audible from the inside, but the door Orin approached was a more modern door, sterile and metal. The scent of chemicals was heavy in the air. Orin gripped the door handle and pulled it open with some effort, her small body finding it quite a chore, skinny little arms built for speed, not strength. Inside the room, the tile floor had a reddened drain in the center and several metal gurneys and tables were placed throughout the room.

Orin watched as a tall, beautiful woman examined a test subject laid out on one of the gurneys. Her short black hair was sleek and straightened, styled close to her head. Her dark brown, nearly black eyes peered intently down at her project from behind a pair of safety goggles and obsidian scales framed them against her dark brown skin. She wore a long, white labcoat over scrubs and at her hip was a belt pouch with scalpels and syringes strapped into it.

Orin grinned wickedly as her eyes scanned the room, staring at the various cages lining the wall. A plethora of different creatures and people filled them, most with their eyes bandaged, though some sprouting scales. Bloody bandages wrapped several of them and each cage had a chart attached to it. “Slaughterkin, Jackal is bringing guests! We must return to the dining room!” Orin called out to her.

The woman looked up and frowned. “Orin, dear, you need to wear PPE when you're in my lab. This is exactly why Sentry isn't allowed in here anymore.” “But the sweet blood sings to me, sister. It calls in a slaughter-sick melody like a lullaby.” Orin grinned, leaning back against the door of the lab, her white eyes wide and flashing. “Well, these chemicals are dangerous and we wouldn't want you dead before father's grand plan is recognized, yes?” She replied, expertly pulling a syringe from her pouch and injecting her current subject with it before discarding it in a closed bin and neatly striding across the room to join Orin.

As the two stepped out of the lab and the elegant woman closed and locked the door, A much taller, more imposing figure stepped out from the opposite room to meet them. He was a towering being dressed in simply a pair of black pants and steel toed work boots. He was slowly pulling a simple red flannel back on and beginning to button it up, covering bleeding wounds across his body. “Orin, Desdemona...” He inclined his head to them, his voice a haunting growl as he walked past them towards the stairs. ---- As the drow led Jaina and Wyll up the winding, rocky path towards the large house, they could see a beautiful elven woman tending a huge garden plot. The ground and even up onto the house proper was carpeted with mushrooms. A few feet from that were rows of beautiful flowers in purple, pink, and white. Trees grew around the property, which Wyll recognized as Oleander from his time traveling around the Sword Coast. The woman noticed the attention to her garden and turned her pretty head with a wide smile. Her blue-black eyes seeming to light up at the sight of company, long black hair flowing behind her as she stood and approached. “Why, Jackal! I didn't know you had friends.” She cooed teasingly. Her denim overalls were stained with soil and grass, but somehow her light white blouse was immaculate and looked to be silk. She wore a wide brimmed white hat with a red ribbon around it and a pair of red gardening gloves, which she began to remove as she genially held out a thin, delicate hand that didn't seem suited for the heavy work of gardening. “Tomi Kisaragi.” She introduced herself, extending her hand. “I'm sort of the lady of the house, being the eldest sister and all. Make yourselves at home!” “Thank you, Miss Kisaragi.” Jaina smiled as she and Wyll took turns shaking the elf's hand. “We really appreciate this.”

“Your brother was kind enough to offer us a place to stay and a ride into town in the morning. Your family seem like good people.” Wyll added. “Oh no, they're all just awful!” The elf giggled as Jaina and Wyll exchanged uncomfortable looks before each managing an awkward laugh. Surely she was joking? As they made their way towards the house, Jaina leaned towards Wyll. “This is just that country humor people talk about, right?” Wyll nodded uneasily. “Of course it is, it must be.” Once they had gone inside, Tomi turned to Jackal and placed her hands on her hips. “Well I certainly hope you had a sending to Orin so she could warn the others, because she certainly didn't make her way to me.” She gave him a withering look. “Every day I wonder why I don't just slip a little treat from my garden into your food, my dear brother.” “Cause you need me. The family needs me. I'm the only one that hunts anymore since Sentry's busy with his little plaything and Gary is going off the deep end. Who the fuck knows what Gabraela is up to, barely leaving her room.” Jackal replied under his breath, looking up to a darkened bedroom window on the attic floor of the house where an imposing silhouette nearly filled the frame.

--- “Time to get dressed boys, there's company.” Des rapped loudly on Gary's bedroom door. “And the only reason I don't throw this door open is because I've got Orin with me. So hurry up and get downstairs.”

Gary turned his head towards the door, pausing mid-thrust, his grip on Enver's throat tightening. Sentry's eyes flicked towards the door, but he didn't raise his head from the human's throbbing cock, currently deep in his throat. His gaze flicked to Gary as if asking him if they had time to finish up, even as he felt Enver's fingers tangling in his hair, urging him onward.

Gary shrugged and kept pumping his hips, forcing Enver to bend lower over Sentry as he did. “We'll come down when I'm finished!” He growled by way of response. His nails dug in enough to just begin to draw thin rivulets of blood. Sentry tucked a strand of silver hair behind his ear and fully lowered his head, his pointed tongue running all the way along the underside of Enver's shaft as the head of the human's cock buried itself in the back of his throat. His tail wagged eagerly as the walls of his throat contracted pleasantly around the member. Watching with rapt attention were a dozen corpses chained to the wall and torn apart in various ways. Most of them were carefully and methodically flensed and flayed, various organs removed, missing eyes or tongues, exhibiting the scar patterns of a lightning strike in places from Gary's storm magic. But then there were a few newer ones, four at least, who looked as though they'd fallen into a crocodile's lair, chunks of flesh torn out, limbs ripped away leaving bloody shreds in their place, bones gnawed and snapped. Both Sentry and Enver knew that Gary's mind was starting to slip occasionally, but neither chose to acknowledge it. He was still brilliant, terrifyingly so, but there was something so unsettlingly feral beginning to appear in his behavior.

---- “Hey, Wyll, does that logo look familiar?” Jaina asked, pointing out a faded stamp across a wooden crate stacked in the corner of the home's large, old fashioned kitchen. Her pale eyes narrowed as she squinted to try and read it. “Iron Throne Mining Company.” Wyll read, hands on his hips. “That was the company who all those mines collapsed on and killed a ton of workers a couple decades ago. They said it was a business rival from Amn trying to sabotage them and my dad said they got a ton of government kickbacks as a result...Turned out they were covering up some seriously unsafe operations with that little story.”

“Ah yes, I still remember hearing their screams down there in the dark.” A deep voice echoed behind them and the two whirled around to find a hulking man in a simple red flannel, well made khakis, and a pair of massive steel toed work boots. His head was shaved and he had stern, intimidating features, eyes burning with something they would almost call evil. “Um....what an ominous thing to say...” Wyll managed, taking a step back. He looked to Jaina as if to ask if she really still thought staying here was a good idea. She returned his glance, her wide eyes and fearful expression telling him she was regretting it every second. “Oh, don't mind father, he was down there, you know.” The pretty elf from before walked in behind the older man, pressing a hand gently to his arm. “Shell-shock is quite a thing, you know! It can change a person, warp their mind.” She gave an exaggerated look of sympathy up at the man and then gestured towards the long wooden table, covered with an antique red tablecloth and already set for dinner. “Please, please come sit. The food will be ready shortly.” She encouraged. As Wyll and Jaina approached the table, they were joined by a little girl of about twelve years old dressed in a homemade red dress, stained with dark splotches. Jaina found herself hoping it was just soda...or maybe some kind of sauce. The tablecloth had a few similar stains on it, so maybe it could be. Their concerns were interrupted as heavy footfalls announced the arrival of another member of the family, a very tall older tiefling woman in shabby work clothes, her long white hair pulled back in braids. She gave them a cold, empty stare as she stalked wordlessly to the table and sat down in one of the empty chairs across from the couple, her scowling face a network of scars and lines. Her eyes were a vivid, haunting shade of purple.

“Ah! Gabraela! I'm glad you've decided to join us tonight! This is Wyll and his companion Jaina! They're going to rest up a bit here until Jackal can drive them to town in the morning.” Tomi beamed as she crossed the room and began to gather food to set on the table. The tiefling snorted. “Why not just have Kar'niss take them?” Jaina just barely caught Tomi's perfect smile twitch and nearly falter. “Because, my dearest sister, that would require us bothering Ketheric and we don't want to pester him when the poor man is trying to relax after work.” Her voice was so sweet it was strained. Something was off. --- The door to the dingy little pawn shop rang as Alfira stepped slowly through the door, her comfortable canvas sneakers kicking up dust as she went, peering at the various shelves of junk that surrounded her. Old toys, out of style clothing, dusty old books. “Oh thank the gods it's you, Alfira. Please tell me you're here for cassette tapes. Sentry just keeps bringing them here every week. I told him I'd physically throw him out of the store if he brought me anymore.” Rolan fussed as he walked up to the counter to greet her. “Oooh the weird tall guy? I don't think you could lift him, Rolan.” Lakrissa grinned as she stepped up beside Alfira. She turned to look over a small selection of bedraggled amateur taxidermy animals before absently adding. “Hey isn't he also part of that weird family in the big house out in the woods? Do you know anything about that?” “Sentry is about as fond of answering questions as I am of prying in his business, so no.” Rolan replied bluntly. “We went to school together and we got on well while we were there and once in a while he'll cover drinks at The Waning Moon. That's about the extent of friendship I can tolerate from just about anyone. It's not as if we're having sleepovers in his family's ancient, probably crumbling house. Hells, it's like something out of a dime store horror novel.”

Lakrissa pouted. “Oh, but those are the best kind!”

Rolan gave her a withering look as he directed Alfira to a case containing an eclectic collection of cassette tapes, everything from the latest dance hits to timeless classical instrumentals. She smiled as she ran her fingers over the tapes. “You know, my teacher's collection was as varied as this one back at school.” She murmured wistfully, selecting one and pulling it out for a closer look. “She taught me how to record songs from the radio to make my own too. Hells, I made so many mixtapes in college...” “Why'd you end up back here anyway, Alfira? You were doing really well there it seemed like.” Lakrissa asked absently as she toyed with the sleeve of a battered old jacket. Was that a blood stain? Alfira shifted uncomfortably. “Well...I suppose I didn't really like being somewhere so isolated.” She fiddled with the tape in her hands for a moment. “Anyway...I'll take the lot, Rolan.” She smiled and reached for her wallet.

Rolan rang up the sale quickly and accepted Alfira's gold, passing her the box of tapes with no small look of relief to be rid of them. --- In another life, Zevlor had made a difference in his community, really done something for the people. He liked to think of himself as having been 'one of the good ones' when it came to police work. Sure there were egotistical brutes who liked to shoot first and ask questions later, there were the ones who should never have been given a badge at all. But they had to be the exception, not the rule, right? He had liked to think so at least. And he'd gone right along believing that until the day he approached his superior to inform him the new partner he'd been given had had to be pulled off a teen (who he had beaten quite badly) during a routine traffic stop. The chief had given Zevlor a look of sheer disappointment and asked why he would simply throw one of his brothers in arms under the bus like that? The local force was nicknamed 'The Hellriders' for a reason, after all, one must be willing to ride to hell and back for their brothers, mustn't they? And if not? Well, the door was right there.

Zevlor had barely processed what he was doing before he'd removed his badge and tossed it on the table, the whole afternoon was a blur as he'd walked dumbfoundedly from the station and back to his cramped little apartment. It only took a few days of nasty notes and bricks thrown through his window for the man he'd been seeing at the time to tell him he'd had enough and pack his things. Zevlor left the city not long after, guessing maybe he'd try his luck in Baldur's Gate. One bad bought of car trouble, though, and the repair bills had had him accepting a much less lucrative position in high way patrol between Reithwin County and Waukeen's Rest back in Grove County. It was an abysmal job and one he felt himself continually failing at as more and more missing posters cropped up at the rest stops from the pleasant little suburb of Emerald Grove to Baldur's Gate itself, or just outside in the town of Rivington. He had approached Sheriff Z'rell in Reithwin Town about it, after all, that was where people seemed to lose track of their loved ones most of the time, but she'd simply waved him off and told him to stick to dealing with the roads. Sheriff Z'rell was not a woman most people felt comfortable arguing with and truthfully, after his fall from grace in the good city of Elturel, Zevlor knew when to keep his mouth shut and play his cards close to the chest. What Zevlor knew right now is three of Moonrise County's local color had his attention regarding those disappearances. A pretty young tiefling man with a poisonous personality and an irritating penchant for mocking flirtation, his crude, bully of a brother that drow trapper who was always skulking about the roads, and the intimidating dragonborn who dressed just a bit too nicely for some Moonrise County hick and always seemed ready with money and influence to bail the other two out of trouble, usually with that sleazy, jewel-bedecked human at his side holding a briefcase and a law book like he were justice itself. He stood up from the ruined car by the side of the road he'd been examining. It was a sensible car, most likely belonged to some nice young couple, middle class, out of their element. A few tell tale scrapes along the material of the roof of the car told him at least one of them was a tiefling as well. He supposed he should take down the license plate number, when he could get to a phone he could run it through a few registries for nearby towns and try and find out who it belonged to. For all the good that would do, chances were if they ran afoul of who or whatever was responsible for the plethora of cases already cold in the area, they were out of luck. He cursed under his breath, wondering why nobody ever just stayed by their vehicle and waited for help.

As he moved to get a good look at the license plate, he caught sight of the familiar manor house up on the hill, old and rickety with the out of place balcony high at the top. He knew the other patrolmen warned folks to avoid that place, he knew Z'rell would flip if he invaded her jurisdiction, but if there was a chance he could do this, that he could find these people, be a hero again...it was worth a shot. And with that, Zevlor placed his pen and notebook back in his pack and got back on his motorbike, he'd get as close as he could on the road before entering the woods proper on foot.

[whump-in-the-closet]

The Scarred Among the Mundane.

hey look new series just dropped. featuring an arsonist elf and the fire he starts and can’t put out. this is going to be the start of another fantasy whump series— but I actually have a plot planned for this one so here’s to hoping I stick with it.

cw: elf whump, failed arson, failed escape, magic whump

masterlist. next

— —

The late afternoon sunlight turns everything to gold.

In the town square, loud voices merely add to the shimmering heat.

And the heat is shimmering. It weighs down on everyone, dragging out even the smallest of moments with languid intensity.

Bright colours are worn by nearly every member of the crowd, and the effect is blinding.

Crimson.

Vibrant snake-like green.

Yellow sharper than a drawn blade.

The occasional flash of steel armour adds a veiled threat.

A shadow peels away from the side of a bakery, cloak wrapped around a skeletal frame. A hood hides the shadow’s wide grin.

It’s a good day to set something on fire.

He dives into the mass of humanity, towering over them all. Even with hunched shoulders and lowered head, he can’t hide his unnatural height. A second glance would reveal pointed teeth and pointed ears.

But no one spares him a second glance. He weaves his way through the crowd and smiles when people unconsciously give him room to pass.

As he walks, he talks. Not to anyone in the crowd, but to himself. Because he is the cleverest person he knows. Why, he’s practically brilliant. Who else could plan such a feat? Such audacity?

Himself alone. The brilliancy of his plan fills him with a humming satisfaction. He goes over the contents of his satchel.

Wouldn’t want to forget anything. Not today.

“Kindling? Yes, yes, the moss will work....Excuse me–” he nearly runs into a baker’s assistant, holding a tray of fresh-baked bread aloft.

The elf acts on instinct, extending a leg. The baker’s assistant, without hesitation, trips. Elvish laughter and man-made loaves are thrown into the air.

The elf snatches one from mid-air and runs.

“Thief! Stop!”

The elf does not stop. He shoves the whole loaf into his mouth, working his teeth around the crust. It’s still warm. Delicious. He swallows it appreciatively. “Not bad,” he tells no one in particular. “For a human delicacy.”

He skids into an alleyway, shadows sinking into his skin. A welcome change from the lethargic sunlight. “Should have grabbed another one.”

But thoughts of bread fade away as his destination comes into view– the high stone wall of the Monarch’s castle.

The elf’s grin sharpens. His pace picks up, heart racing with his footsteps. There’s no turning back. Not now.

He comes to a stop at the wall itself. It’s easily three times his height. And yet the elf can hardly suppress a laugh. After all his work, all his preparation, is it really going to be this easy? As easy as burning down a farmer’s barn?

Guards peer down at him and he gives them a mocking salute, two fingers raised to his temple. It doesn’t matter if they see him. They won’t be able to stop him. No human can stop him.

If they could, he would be dead.

It’s as simple as that.

Oh, what a day. Danger. Thrill. Horror in the guards’ eyes.

What a beautiful day.

He walks backwards, tightening his satchel and taking a deep breath, the air burning his lungs. And then–

Running.

A leap. Cloak dragging behind him.

Stonework beneath his feet as he runs up the side of the wall. He laughs now. No hesitation.

His hood falls off and his pointed teeth catch in the light.

Identity revealed for all to see.

Elf. A creature of the night. A shadow. Feared. Inhuman.

He soars over the open-mouthed guards. One reaches for her spear, but it's already too late.

He’s over the wall, tumbling to a stop into the garden bushes. On his feet in an instant, he brushes leaves out of his braids and checks his satchel.

Everything is as it should be.

“Excellent work, Finn,” he tells himself. “As always.” He plucks a leaf from his cloak and lets it drift to the ground. “Excellent work, really.” He changes his voice slightly, making it deeper. “Oh, no, you’re too kind. Too kind.”

The guards are pouring out of the castle walls now. Calls of “Attack!” and “Intruder!” echo in the green-lit garden.

Finn bolts. He reaches into his bag as he runs, pulling out a flint stone and a carved piece of iron. Ducking through the overhanging fruit trees, he grabs what looks like a pear. With the fruit in his mouth, he skids to a stop at the base of the castle.

He doesn’t marvel at the intricate stonework or the towering turrets or the bright windows. He gets to work setting it on fire.

Eating the pear, he works quickly, setting the dry moss around a tall tree– another fruit one perhaps. But this one is the closest to the castle, which means it will serve his purpose splendidly.

Sparks fly into the air, bright red against the simmering blue.

The guards draw closer.

Finn sees the flashes of steel before he hears them, and he spits the pear out, fingers flying as he strikes the flint again and again.

The moss starts to smoke and Finn starts to grin.

The itch, the infernal, never ending, always begging itch turns to something like pleasure. Satisfaction.

“Stop!” The spears slice towards him and he twists out of the way, dropping the flint.

The moss goes up into blazes. The itch inside him begins to fade, satisfied with the fire he’s begun.

It's a beautiful fire.

Finn laughs. Everything is going so—

The laugh twists into a scream.

Something is wrong. Something is terribly, terribly wrong. His blood turns to ice inside him. It’s only a second of burning, crawling pain exploding every nerve in his body– but the second is never ending.

Golden triumph burns to ash in his throat.

He slumps to the ground, vision crumpling to dust around him. Vaguely, he’s aware of the guards stepping aside for a red-headed human. Her hands are raised, fingers twisted in rune-shapes.

Oh.

Finn’s sight collapses, taking him with it.

tagging: @doonthestair (lmk if you want to be added/ removed!)